Auton

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Auton
Doctor Who race
The Autons from their first appearance.
First appearance	Spearhead from Space (1970)
Last appearance	"The Big Bang" (2010)
Created by	Robert Holmes
In-universe information
Home world	Unknown (possibly Polymos)
Type	Living plastic automata
Affiliation	Nestene Consciousness

The Autons are an artificial life form from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and adversaries of the Doctor. They were originally created by scriptwriter Robert Holmes for Jon Pertwee's first serial as the Doctor, Spearhead from Space (1970), and were the first monsters to be presented in colour on the series.

They returned for the following season's Terror of the Autons (1971), which also introduced the character of the Master, but they did not appear again in the original series. Holmes intended to feature the Autons for season 23 of Doctor Who in 1986 in a story entitled Yellow Fever and How to Cure It, which featured the Master and the Rani, but it was abandoned due to the programme being put on an 18-month hiatus.^[1]

Autons are essentially life-sized plastic dummies, automatons animated by the Nestene Consciousness, an extraterrestrial, disembodied gestalt intelligence which first arrived on Earth in hollow plastic meteorites. Their name comes from Auto Plastics, the company that was infiltrated by the Nestenes and subsequently manufactured their Auton shells in Spearhead From Space.

Autons conceal deadly weapons within their hands, which can kill or vaporise their targets. The typical Auton does not look particularly realistic, resembling a mannequin, being robotic in its movements and mute. However, more sophisticated Autons can be created, which look and act human except for a slight plastic sheen to the skin and a flat-sounding voice.^[2] In Series 5 of the relaunched Doctor Who series, they are shown as being able to create fully lifelike human replicas, able to fool other humans.^[3]