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"Exterminate!"
―Daleks

The Daleks are a species of genetically altered Kaleds from the planet Skaro, and are among the oldest and most dangerous enemies of the Time Lords - particularly the rogue one known as the Doctor - and most other civilizations. Their hard-wired and strongest drive is to wipe out or "exterminate" all lifeforms that are not Dalek, as they believe that it is their rightful destiny to reign supreme.

Armour[]

Jast

The top half of a Dalek casing

Daleks have a very durable shell made from dalekanium, a special alloy and bonded polycarbide. They have a rotatable midsection, (usually) bearing the gunstick and a plunger-like extendable manipulator arm capable of mimicking the motions of a natural arm. The head dome is also capable of rotating 360 degrees, and the eyestalk can move up and down. This eye provides wide-angle vision, with zoom and presumably accuracy assistance. The Dalek's eyepiece is its most vulnerable spot, and impairing its vision often leads to it desperately firing its main weapon in the hope of hitting its unseen target. The Dalek casing also functions as a fully-sealed environment suit, allowing travel through the vacuum of space or underwater without the need for additional life-support equipment.

The lower half of the Dalek shell (colloquially known as the "skirt") is studded with several fist-sized globes that act as sensory substitutes or, if need be, can also become components of the Dalek's self-destruct mechanism. Within all this, the Dalek creature is housed, surrounded by screens and machines, and attached to the life-support system.

Daleks also have force fields that make them very difficult to kill, melting incoming bullets, even though bullets can't penetrate the armor anyway. They also have very powerful weaponry, most famously the 'gunstick', with various levels of power ranging from 'stun' to a level which can destroy a large house. There are other attachments seen being used too - these include:

  • Claw arm - Equipped with a blow torch, used to cut through materials too durable for their death rays to penetrate.
    Dalek flamethrower

    Dalek Claw Arm

  • Sensor-gunstick arm - A powerful weapon used on Daleks guarding the Emperor.
  • Syringe - This is used to inject chemicals into Dalek Sec's casing.
  • Dalek claw - Used to operate Dalek machinery.

In their early years Daleks were notoriously baffled by stairs (lacking any legs or other apparati to traverse them.) However, as they advanced, they developed a system that allowed them to hover (or, as they put it, elevate) to solve this problem.

300px-Flying Dalek

Flying Dalek

Members of the elite Cult of Skaro also had the built-in ability to time-travel by performing an emergency temporal shift.

The voice of a Dalek is electronic, as the Dalek creature has no vocal apparatus as such. Their most infamous exclamation is "EX-TER-MIN-ATE!", with each syllable individually screeched in a frantic-sounding electronic scream. Other common utterances include "I (or WE) OBEY!" to any command given by a superior. Daleks also have a radio communicator built into their shells, which emits an alarm to summon other nearby Daleks if the casing was opened from outside.

At the height of their power, four Daleks claimed that they could conquer the world (this may have been a taunt).

True Form[]

Dalek True Form

Dalek True Form

The Dalek's true form is pallid, with many tentacles and the vestiges of eyes and a mouth. It has a large brain which shows through its skin, and supposedly has a very high processing ability and intelligence level. It is almost helpless without its shell, though it could kill a human being using its appendages to strangle the victim.

As a still organic life form, the Dalek body needs proteins and other nutrients to stay alive. For that reason, they occasionally absorb the obliterated remains of their victims. Their bodies are also equipped with microscopic probes which act as robotic antibodies, locating and destroying infectious agents whose remains are likewise directed to the digestive chamber to be harnessed as food.

Psychology[]

Ultimately, the most fundamental feature of Dalek culture and psychology is an unquestioned belief in the superiority of the Daleks. Other species are either to be exterminated immediately, or enslaved and then exterminated later once they are no longer necessary. They shout 'Ex-ter-min-ate!' before fighting and/or killing, and almost always use the word in place of "kill" or other such terms. Another result of this superiority complex is their complete ruthlessness, although this is also due to genetic modifications made to the original Kaled mutants by Davros. Because of this, it is nearly impossible to negotiate or reason with a Dalek and is one of many things that make them so dangerous and not to be underestimated. However, their reliance on machinery is also a weakness, albeit one that they recognize in themselves.

DoctorWhoS5E3DoctorDalek

The Doctor, seen through a Dalek eye

Daleks have little to no individual personality and a strict hierarchy, conditioned to obey a superior's orders without question. Due to their frequent defeats by the Doctor, he became an infamous figure in Dalek culture and mythology. They have standing orders to capture or exterminate the Doctor on sight, and are occasionally able to identify him despite his regenerations. This is not an innate ability, but probably the result of good record-keeping. The Daleks know the Doctor as the "Ka Faraq Gatri", (which mean the "Bringer of Darkness" or "Destroyer of Worlds"), or as the "Oncoming Storm".

Technology[]

Daleks have anti-gravity or levitation jets, in the shape of several domes, on the underside of their casing. These enable independent space flight and maneuvering.

Dalek travel technology varied over time. The Daleks also developed time travel capabilities. Time Corridors, for example, allow limited transport between one era and another.

Spaceships[]

Dalek motherships

Dalek saucers above Earth

Dalek spaceships are consistently designed in a saucer shape, and have far greater speed and firepower than a single Dalek, each ship capable of 'cracking continents', and certainly possessing planet-buster devices. Beam weapons commonly found on Dalek craft include 'deep penetration Ion Cannons', 'Anti-Matter Drills', 'Photon Impellers', massive 'Neutralizers', 'Disruptors', 'Ruby Ray Lasers', and Particle Beam weapons. The most common bomb is the Firebomb, with a blast equivalent to a small volcanic eruption (maybe 100 kilotons). These are deployed against large ground targets such as cities. Their warships are also equipped with Neutron Bombs, which wipe out organics but leave the infrastructure undamaged, by using almost all energy in producing high-energy neutrons. Neutron Strikes can be used to 'detonate stars'.

Victory of the Daleks (8)

Dalek Saucer under attack, exhibiting defensive turrets

Their warheads can be launched from torpedo ports, in Target Seeking Missiles, or via automated SpaceMine-Layers. The standard space mine has an infrared tracker, and an explosive radius of 8 miles.

These ships are capable of entering the Vortex, and have both anti-gravity and fusion drives. An acceleration compensator stops the occupants for being destroyed during acceleration. Electromagnetic pulses cause the outer hull of the saucer to spin to produce movement there, for unknown reasons. The Crucible, a Dalek station holding the Reality Bomb, is powered by a core of Z-Neutrino energy, which manifests itself as a massive, star-like fireball.

Their outer hull is made of non-corrodable spaceship-grade dalekanium, incredibly durable and resilient. The hull is protected by the ship's energy-shielding pulses and several massive shield generator arrays.

Daleks ships keep in contact with Skaro and other Dalek outposts using sub-etheric signals broadcast from the saucers signal transmitter ring and power/communications spikes. As a back up, they have "black box" recorders designed to survive the destruction of the ship.

Dalek warships have sensors (such as the Rad-Etheric Magnascope, and the Asteroid Avoidence Rods) that can 'detect a sparrow's fall' at 15,000 kilometers. Their Defense Electron Shields can function as a cloaking system to protect them for scanners. However this significantly limits their top speed. Saucer size and larger Dalek warships are equipped with electronic jamming devices that can disable all communications over a continent sized area. The Daleks have developed magnetizing beams, which can manipulate objects.

Most Daleks ships have a Suicide Unit auto-destruct system which consist of a neutron bomb. Alternatively the reactors of several ships can be linked together, to massively increase the yield when all the ships self-destruct. Their warships have numerous small servo-robots that maintain and repair them, and have spherical escape pods.

Void Ship[]

185px-The Void Ship

Void Ship

In the "Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday" a void ship is a spherical ship that is capable of travelling through the nothingness between parallel universes, existing outside the whole of time and space — though visible to the human eye, it emits no energy of any kind and has no mass to speak of, thus causing an uneasy feeling in those who look upon it. Torchwood instruments, being more advanced than any human technology, originally could not detect anything from the sphere, but began reading mass and energy emissions when the Daleks emerged; the devices might simply have been reading the Daleks themselves.

History[]

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Creation[]

Davros3

Davros, creator of the Daleks.

The Daleks began life at the end of the Thousand Year War between the Thals and the Kaleds, the Kaled scientist Davros was put up to the task of figuring out the peak of the Kaleds evolution, which he later discovered was a small defenceless, blob-like creature which he named the Dals. Knowing that this was their ultimate fate, Davros constructed a travel machine for his creations, which he called, the Daleks (which was the ancient Thal word for Gods), seeing only inferiority in their predecessors, the Dalek Prime exterminated all the Kaleds, including Davros, bit not before the Doctor (who had been ordered to alter the Daleks' genesis by the Time Lords, in order to prevent them from taking over the universe) sealed the Daleks into the Kaled bunker, this action accidentally caused an acceleration of their development due to them now having the knowledge of not only life beyond Skaro, but the existence of time-travel as well, the Daleks became determined to conquer not just their homeworld, but the entire universe!

Sidenote: most historians put the Doctor tampering with the Daleks' creation as the first shot fired of The Last Great Time War

Life on the surface[]

Eventually, the Daleks managed to emerge onto the surface, constricting a towering city, with the Dalek prime being elected the Dalek Emperor!, the Daleks remained confined to their city due to the static electricity which they needed to power their travel machines, after some time, the Doctor in his first incarnation, along with his grand-daughter and their human companions, accidentally arrived on Skaro, they entered the Dalek city and learned that the Daleks where planning on venting the radiation from their reactor in order to make Skaro more survivable to them and make the Thals extinct, the Doctor and company lead the Thals to raid the Dalek city, following this, the Doctor believed that they had eradicated the Daleks, spoiler alert, they weren't.

The conquest of space[]

At some point in their history, the Daleks made their first spacecraft, found a new source of energy which allowed them to leave their city, and sent out Recon Daleks to different corners of the universe, one of these Daleks landed on Earth in the 12th Century, it took the united forces of three armies to take it down, and the creature inside was cut into 3 pieces and was sent to the farthest corners of the Earth.

The First Dalek invasion of Earth[]

Although the Recon Dalek never sent information of Earth's whereabouts back to Skaro, the Daleks did discover it's location invaded the planet in the late 21st century (or the early 22nd century, it depends) they began with attacking the planet with meteorites and a plauge, the most intelligent humans were turned into Robo-men and the least intelligent were used as slaves, the Daleks planned to remove the Earth's core so they could pilot the Earth around the universe as a powerful vessel of pure conquest! The 1st Doctor and his companions managed to defeat the Daleks by turning the natural forces of the Earth against them (or they incited a rebellion among the Robo-men, once again, it depends) and the Daleks left Earth, but this wouldn't be the last time they set foot (or, armour) on Earth.

The Chase[]

The Daleks got so angry that they were being defeated by an old man with a magic box, that they decided to build a Time Machine to chase the Doctor and his companions through time and space, ending up on the Mary Celeste, Dracula's Castle (yes, really) and eventually, the planet Mechanus, which then lead them into having a small conflict with the Mechanoids.

The Master Plan[]

In the year 4000, the Daleks did something, unexpected, they aligned themselves with the Four Great Powers of the Outer Galaxies with a plan to invade the Mutter's Sprial, starting with Earth. They received a Time Disruptor from Mavek Chen, Guardian of the Sol System, they planned to use it to prevent the Doctor and his companions from stopping their conquest, they were eventually defeated.

A reamergence[]

On a human colony on the Planet Vulcan (no, not THAT Planet Vulcan) a Dalek ship was discovered by a scientist who believed them to be benevolent robots only made to serve, when in actuality, they where creating new Daleks in order to exterminate the human colonists and getting off the planet, this an was foiled by the Doctor in his second incarnation.

The First Dalek Civil War[]

Following several defeats at the hands of Humanity, The Daleks travelled back in time to get two human scientists to help them discover the 'human factor' which when it was discovered, made the Daleks who where givin it child-like, asking to many questions until they eventually erupted in Civil war, by the end of it, the Dalek city was in ruins and the Emperor's casing was heavily damaged.

The REAL conquest of space[]

Following the reconstruction of Dalek society. They made many conquests, they used the very same method they used during their first conquest of Earth, this method was so flawless that many simply believed it to be a dreaded space plauge which went from planet to planet wiping entire civilizations off the face of the universe, after another failed attempt to invade the Earth using, Ogrons, the Daleks allied themselves with the rouge Time Lord The Master, sowed distrust between the Earth and Draconian Empires, and conquered the planet Spirodon planning on using the natural camouflaging abilities of the planet's inhabitants, they where eventually stopped by the Third Doctor and a group of Thals.

A voyage to Exxilon[]

The Daleks went to the planet Exxilon to conquer it, but the absorbtion of the psychic energy which powered their travel machines and their weapons, for the first time in their post 1000 year war history, they had to invent non-energy based weaponry, they where eventually defeated by the Doctor and a group of Humans.

The Dalek-Movellan War[]

At an unknown point, the Daleks entered into a conflict with an android race known as the Movellans, but the odd thing is, neither side of the war ever made a full attack on the other, they simply waited and saw what their enemy was up to, and if their battle computers told them that should attack, they attacked, both sides were relying on the logic of their battle computers to help them win the war, eventually the Daleks did some quite unorthodox things during the war, including replacing parts of themselves with mechanical augmentations, after a while, the Daleks where done with waiting to make a move and brought back their creator Davros in order for him to upgrade their battle computer, eventually, it was determined that the victors of the war, would be the first side to turn off their battle computer.

A sickening defeat[]

The war with the Movellans ended with a Dalek defeat after the Movellans engineered a anti Dalek virus which nearly drove the Daleks to extinction, to help them find a cure, the Daleks one again asked Davros for help, Davros instead planned on engineering a new race of Daleks who where loyal to him, to destroy the Daleks who allied themselves with the Dalek Supreme, this plan failed once again due to the intervention of The Doctor, and in another cruel twist of fate, it turned out Davros' Kaled genes were also susceptible to the Movellan virus.

The Battle on Nekross[]

The Daleks later reamerged on the planet Nekross, with Davros bioengineering these new Daleks from the dead bodies that were kept there, eventually, the Supreme's Daleks cought wind of his plan and went to the planet, capturing him and taking him back to Skaro to be put on trial.

The Second Dalek Civil War[]

Davros managed to escape the wrath of the supreme and the Daleks now truly were split into two, the Renegade Daleks who where loyal to the Supreme and had access to the Dalek battle computer, and the cybernetically-augmented Imperial Dalek who where loyal to the Dalek Emperor (a.k.a Davros), the war had its largest battle in 1963 when both Dalek factions went to Earth in order to gain the power of the Hand of Omega, Davros wished to use it to turn Skaro's sun into a source of unlimited energy, unfortunately, The Doctor made it so that when the Imperial Daleks gained the Hand of Omega and aimed it at Skaro's sun, the star went supernova, burning Skaro and the imperial fleet to a crisp.

The Last Great Time War[]

After the loss of Skaro, both Dalek factions reunified with one major goal in mind, the total extermination of the Time Lords! The war was long, deadly, painful, people would fight then die then live again only to have never been born at all, but something more destructive was being created in the fire and the pain of the war, Davros had finally created it, the perfect Dalek, The Nightmare Child was born. At the Gates of Elysium, Davros fell into the jaws of his perfect creation, how or if it was ever defeated have been lost to time.

The Final Battle[]

Following the fall of Arcadia, the Daleks waged a massive final push on Gallifrey, killing thousands, but then, all of the Doctor's incarnations gathered together to seal Gallifrey away in a pocket reality, causing the Daleks to destroy themselves in the crossfire.

Time War saucers

Dalek Saucers in the Time War

After the Time War[]

The Doctor thought he was the only survivor, until he came across a Dalek that had been captured and tortured by Humans. This Dalek absorbed Rose Tyler's DNA to rebuild itself, but gained her emotions so destroyed itself.

The Dalek Emperor also survived and created an army of Daleks from the bodies of dead humans. These Daleks hated their own existence because they had begun life as an inferior species. On the verge of conquering Earth, they were destroyed by Rose Tyler, the Doctor's human companion, who had absorbed the power of the TARDIS to save the doctor.

The Battle of Canary Wharf[]

However, the Cult of Skaro, 4 Daleks whose purpose was to imagine and think like their enemy (regular Daleks have no imagination), survived by hiding in the Void. They hid with the Genesis Ark, a Time Lord prison ship which held millions of Daleks, and entered the world after the Cybermen opened the Rift to the Void, allowing the Cybermen army through. There was a great battle, with the Daleks clearly winning, but the Doctor reopened the Void and all the Genesis Ark-held Daleks and Void-borne Cybermen were sucked in. The Cult of Skaro, however, escaped through the use of an 'Emergency Temporal Shift'.

Hybridization[]

Their leader, Dalek Sec, was imprisoned by the other three when, after turning himself into a Human-Dalek hybrid, discovered emotions and planned to continue the species by creating hybrids using the bodies of humans whose minds had been destroyed. He was later accidentally exterminated when he tried to save the Doctor, who Dalek Sec claimed was the key to saving the Daleks. His experiment was interrupted by the remaining members (breaking the law that 'Daleks must obey'), and the results were humans with the minds of Daleks. However, the Doctor got in the way of the gamma beam, mixing in Time Lord DNA, so the Dalek Humans had curiosity and some free will, and destroyed two more members of the Cult of Skaro. The final member, Dalek Caan, escaped from the Doctor (who was offering to help him) using an emergency temporal shift, but the Doctor said that they would meet again.

The New Dalek Empire[]

Before they did, Caan had travelled to and from the Time War and brought back Davros, the original creator of the Daleks. Caan's entering the War meant he absorbed the knowledge of the universe, and realised the Daleks had to be undone. Davros created an army of real, true Daleks and created a 'Reality Bomb', a matter-annihilating device, amplified by being broadcast through certain planets, of which Earth was one. The Doctor, aided by a Metacrisis-produced human Doctor and a Donna with a Time Lord mind, eventually destroyed the entire army and left Davros in an exploding ship.

A New Dalek Paradigm[]

New daleks

The eleventh Doctor and the new Dalek paradigm

The Doctor then encountered the Daleks in his eleventh form, where they pretended to serve under the British Forces in World War 2. However, in order to survive over the years, they had been forced to endure some degree of DNA contamination by other species, driving them to use a Progenitor to recreate a new race of "pure" Daleks. They were so genetically different to the Daleks that had designed the device, however, the Progenitor did not recognize them as Daleks, and thus did not allow them access. However, they circumvented this by laying a trap for their nemesis, the Doctor, by posing as loyal robot soldiers for the British during World War II. Using his testimony that they were in fact Daleks, they used this information to convince the Progenitor, and a race of newer, "pure" Daleks was born. Despite the Doctor's determination to bring a "final end" to the Daleks, they escaped him yet again. These "New Paradigm" Daleks served as an "officer class" to their smaller, bronze predecessors.

A New end[]

The Daleks briefly had an alliance with the alternate Earth Cybermen, the Judoon, the Sontarans, the Autons, the Blowfish, the Silurians, the Uvodni, the Roboforms, the Hoix, the Draconians and the Sycorax in order to seal away the Doctor in the Pandorica in an attempt to seal the cracks in time, unfortunately this caused total event collapse (a.k.a the undoing of all of time), two New Paradigm Daleks were recovered from beneath Stone Henge, one of whom was reactivated by the light of the Pandorica, after the universe was restarted by the Doctor and his compatriots, it is assumed that The Alliance was erased from existence.

Gallery[]

Notes[]

  • In the first story arc they appeared in, in 1963 - nowadays known as "The Daleks" - it is stated that they were mutations of a species known as the "Dals", who acted as scientists and engineers as opposed to the warrior race that was the Thals. An image of what the Dals looked like is seen by the characters, but not by the audience. The dialogue seems to imply that these creatures were not a physically human-like race like the Kaleds were later revealed to be.
    • However, in The Dalek Chronicles comic strips written by the Daleks' creator, Terry Nation, alongside Doctor Who co-creator David Whitaker; the original Dalek race is portrayed as diminutive blue-skinned humanoids.
  • In the Peter Cushing movie Dr. Who and the Daleks, the Dalek creature removed from the armor is mostly unseen (as in the original series). However, unlike the series, it is shown to have a webbed hand instead of a tentacle.
  • According to Derrick J. Wyatt, it is possible that the Omnitrix from the Ben 10 franchise can accept Dalek DNA because, despite being cybernetically-enhanced, they are alien in nature. As such, a replica Omnitrix designed by Black Hat Organization is confirmed to contain Dalek DNA.

External links[]

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