The sonic screwdriver would, in rare occasions, be used as an offensive weapon, firing energy blasts. The Eleventh Doctor used it in this manner to help River Song defeat a group of Silents, defeating at least two of them. ( TV: Day of the Moon) The Twelfth Doctor used the same model of screwdriver to blast a Hyperion, buying himself and others time to escape from it. ( COMIC: The Hyperion Empire) It could also destroy ice creatures when it received the latest update. ( TV: The Snowmen) Despite his occasional arrogance, [1] the Third Doctor genuinely cared for his companions in a paternal fashion, and even held a thinly veiled but grudging admiration for his nemesis, the Master, and for UNIT's leader, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, with whom he eventually became friends. In fact, even when his much-resented exile was lifted, the moral and dashing Third Doctor continued to help UNIT protect the Earth from all manner of alien threats, a role that continued into his future incarnations.

Identified by the Daleks as a " sonic probe", ( TV: Doomsday) the sonic screwdriver was considered to be very advanced Gallifreyan technology, ( PROSE: Heart of TARDIS) although somebody could make one by using resources found on 21st century Earth with help from Stenza technology. ( TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth) During the Dalek-Movellan War, Davros dismissed the sonic screwdriver as a "simple" tool. ( AUDIO: The Triumph of Davros) Each time a gesture is performed correctly, the Sonic will send the infrared (IR) remote control code that is programmed onto that gesture and will make the standard sonic buzz. If no IR code has been programmed onto that gesture, the Sonic will say “unassigned“. For the 50th anniversary special, " The Day of the Doctor" (2013), another version was seen in the hands of John Hurt's War Doctor. The design was similar to the one used by Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor. This time the halo and bullet tip had been removed, replaced by a red light as well as a large red dial added to the base. Character Options released a version of this sonic screwdriver on 23 November 2013 at London's ExCel labelling it "The Other Doctor's Sonic". [9] It was established as a plot point in that episode that the sonic screwdrivers employed by various Doctor incarnations all use the same software, something the War Doctor exploited by running a calculation over a course of several centuries with the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors seeing the calculation completed through their models. It is also directly implied after the fact that the sonic screwdriver has actually been a part of every doctor's retinue, despite its disappearance for doctors six & seven; the Tenth Doctor says to the Gallifreyan high command, as all thirteen doctors are about to change history by saving the planet, that the calculations for doing what's about to be done have been "running all my lives." In addition, when combined, the screwdrivers of the War, Tenth, and Eleventh Doctor could create a sonic force field blast to repel and destroy a Dalek. The sonic screwdriver could also detect, triangulate and deactivate signals. ( TV: Rose, Army of Ghosts, etc.) It could scan pieces of technology to discover their properties and faults. ( TV: Midnight, The Next Doctor) It could also analyse objects ( TV: The Eleventh Hour, COMIC: Doomsilk) or detect certain materials in the area. ( COMIC: The Halls of Sacrifice) These included time traces ( TV: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith) and forms of energy. ( COMIC: Mortal Beloved)

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The unlicensed fan fiction novel Time's Champion speculates that the Sixth Doctor has re-built the sonic screwdriver. [ citation needed] He used a similar device in The Nightmare Fair, a script which was never produced for television but has been adapted twice. Doctor Who – Sonic Screwdriver Wave 2 – 5th Doctor". Forbidden Planet International. Archived from the original on 20 July 2014 . Retrieved 17 January 2014. The Seventh Doctor acquired a sonic screwdriver at an unspecified point of his life. Many contradictory accounts existed, including one which claimed he had acquired it at some point before meeting Bernice Summerfield, ( AUDIO: Love and War) and another, which claimed he acquired it from himself on a parallel Earth where the species Homo Reptilicus had conquered the Earth and killed his third incarnation. ( PROSE: Blood Heat, First Frontier) The Doctor himself claimed that he had only recently built one shortly before re-encountering Mortimus, ( PROSE: No Future) and that he received it as compensation after suing the Terileptils for criminal damage. ( PROSE: GodEngine) The Eighth Doctor claimed that this screwdriver was a spare model that had "rolled under the TARDIS console and remained there" until the Seventh Doctor found it. ( PROSE: Frontier Worlds) While trapped on Apalapucia for thirty-six years, Amy Pond cobbled together a sonic device from various pieces of technology, but insisted upon calling it a sonic probe. She later conceded that it was a "sonic screwdriver". ( TV: The Girl Who Waited)

The sonic screwdriver also affected alive beings: the Third Doctor used it to cure Henry VIII of his cataracts, ( PROSE: Hiccup in Time) distract giant maggots, ( TV: The Green Death) break a hypnotic trance ( TV: Death to the Daleks) and overload the brains of Space Greyhounds. ( COMIC: The Forgotten) The Third Doctor wields an early model of the Doctor's sonic screwdriver. ( GRAPHIC: Doctor Who Evergreen)The Doctor has used other sonic devices similar to the sonic screwdriver, including the "door handle" of Inferno ( Liz Shaw having one of her own) and a pen-sized white noise generator in Four to Doomsday.