Nestene Consciousness – A disembodied alien consciousness able to animate and control plastic. The Nestenes leveraged their control over high-weight organic polymers to conquer planets which had reached a particular level of industrial development, but found spacefaring races not worth the effort to conquer (NDA: Autonomy), though they did make at least one attempt to conquer the New Earth Republic during a period of decline (PDA: SynthespiansTM). The consciousness made three attempts to conquer Earth during its “optimal phase”, which occurred during the 1980s and 1990s. These attempts all followed the same basic pattern: a fragment of the consciousness would be sent to Earth to create Autons, plastic constructs which could set the stage for the invasion. These autons would exploit human greed to construct a plastic host body from which all plastic on Earth could be controlled once the Consciousness had fully transferred itself. Some autons duplicated and replaced important humans (OS: Spearhead from Space, US: Plastic Fantastic), while others were traps intended to sew chaos by killing large numbers of humans unexpectedly (OS: Terror of the Autons, US: Artificial). In two of these attempts, the consciousness hired The Master to act as their agent on Earth (OS: Terror of the Autons, US: Artifical/Plastic Fantastic). In each case, The Doctor was able to destroy the host body before the Nestene Consciousness could transfer into it. Fragments of the Nestene Consciousness survived the aborted invasions and were awakened in the early 21st century and began to take over the recreation facility Hyperville (NDA: Autonomy). The Nestene Consciousness was a combatant in the Time War on the side of the Time Lords for a time, but withdrew from the war when their protein planets were destroyed (BF: Liberation).
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. -- Shakespeare, King Henry V IV.iii