“I sometimes wonder why I like the people of this miserable planet so much! The Silurians and Sea Devils are noble races, they have skills and talents, you pathetic humans can only dream about!” The Fifth Doctor
‘Silurians’ or ‘Eocenes’?
For all of the widely exotic alien species, which the Doctor encountered. None were closer to Earth, than the Silurians and their distant relatives; the Sea Devils. These were, the indigenous inhabitants of Earth, before humans. They had gone into hibernation, for a millennia; whilst humans first evolved.
The Silurians were reptilian in appearance, bipedal with three eyes. They had a superior intellect and something of a technologically advanced society, adapting to life underground; using technology to keep their race in statis.
They were prematurely woken, by humans drilling into the Earth’s core; in the Third doctor adventure – Doctor Who and The Silurians – 1970. As a result, a conflict between specied, was on the cards.
The Silurians had no love for humans and once awake, they were going to claim (as they saw it), their rightful place back on the Earth’s surface, sans there humanoid cousins.
They devised a plan to infect all humans with a killer virus but this was stopped by a pragmatic senior Silurian Scientist who furnish the Third Doctor with an antidote.
The Silurian base was then destroyed by UNIT on orders of the British government, before the Third Doctor could attempt to broker peace talks.
The Third Doctor then encountered an aquatic cousin – the ‘Sea Devils’ in The Sea Devils – 1972. The Sea Devils, as they were nicknamed by frightened sailors, were bipedal lizards with a featherless bird-like appearance.
Egged on by the Master to start a war with the humans, The Sea Devils begin destroying naval frigates before talking over a naval base in a ground assault.
The Third Doctor, remembering his attempts to broker peace with the Silurians, attempted again, to negotiate with the Sea Devils.
Captured by the Sea Devils, the Third Doctor was forced to work on a machine to revive Sea Devil colonies from all around the world. He sabotaged the machine, and the resulting explosion destroyed the Sea devil colony.
Due to an accepted scientific view of the lack of complex life in the Silurian period, the Third Doctor reclassifies them as “Eocenes”, after a later prehistoric period but Silurian had stuck.
The land and aquatic Silurians joined forces in their last original series appearance, in the Fifth Doctor’s adventure : Warrior’s Of The Deep – 1984. Set in the 21st Century, humans are locked in a cold war seperated into East and West bloc’s, presided over with underwater nuclear deterrant missile silo bases.
The Silurians (led by three remaining land based Silurian survivors from Doctor Who And The Silurians) attacked one of these bases, called Seabase 4 – to attempt a launch of nuclear missiles against the opposing bloc (to begin a counter attack) and bring armageddon down on the humans, allowing the Silurians to take the land – unopposed.
They launched an indestructible underwater monster, called a ‘Myrkha’, to attack the base. Meanwhile, the Fifth Doctor, caught up in these events attempts to stop the Silurians and the Myrkha by flooding the base with a gas, deadly to the Silurian’s but not humans, – killing them all.
The Silurian’s have made a number of appearance’s in the new series, but the Sea Devils are still currently all out to sea.
