Eternal Dalek

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Information from Doctor Who: Legacy and Daleks Victorious

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Eternal Dalek
Species:	Dalek
First appearance:	Victory of the Daleks
Appearances:	TV: The Pandorica Opens PROSE: The New Dalek Paradigm, Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe GAME: Doctor Who: Legacy, The Dalek Invasion of Time AUDIO: Daleks Victorious
Main voice actor:	Nicholas Briggs

The Dalek Eternal (AUDIO: Daleks Victorious) or Eternal Dalek was a specialised Dalek with yellow livery, a foundational member of the New Dalek Paradigm. Created during the "Ironside Incident" by the last Dalek Progenitor in 1941, it was the only one of the five original Progenitor Daleks to have black, not grey, sense globes on its base unit.

While the original Eternal was a unique individual, several Eternal Daleks would ultimately become active. Several were part of a Dalek Purity Squad.

Nature

The Eternal Dalek was usually silent, although when it did speak, the Supreme Dalek held its advice in high esteem. Most times, the Eternal communicated telepathically through the Pathweb. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) When they first released a set of documents about the New Dalek Paradigm to the galaxy, the Anti-Dalek Force had yet to ascertain the Eternal's true purpose, but pointed out that it was surely a deadly one, as yellow and black were recognised across the Universe as "Nature's danger colours". (PROSE: The New Dalek Paradigm)

The Eternal Dalek demonstrated a propensity for quoting prophecy. Nonetheless, to those outside the Supreme Council, the true nature of the Eternal remained a mystery, even after the fall of the Dalek Parliament. Theories about its role in the hierarchy included that it was concerned with ensuring the Daleks' survival or that it served as an advisor by seeing every possible future at once. This latter theory pondered whether the Eternal Dalek mutant was kept forever out of sync with the rest of time, creating a Dalek that was linked directly into the Time Vortex in order to see what the future held. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) This interpretation of the Eternal bore similarities to the Dalek Time Controller and the Dalek Time Strategist as well as Dalek Caan in the New Dalek Empire. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual)

Biography

A day to come

By using the Matrix to project the Doctor's future encounters with the Daleks in the post-Time War universe, the Time Lords foresaw the creation of the New Dalek Paradigm. Panopticon Scholars debated the meaning of the designation "Eternal". They discovered an ancient text with relevance to the subject, with the information being considered sensitive enough that it was redacted when mentioned in the Dalek Combat Training Manual. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual)

Origins

The Eternal Dalek emerges, freshly born and minted. (TV: Victory of the Daleks)

The Eternal Dalek was one of the five New Paradigm Daleks created during the Ironside Incident, (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual) when the last three survivors of the New Dalek Empire tricked the Eleventh Doctor into allowing them to activate the Progenitor device. It escaped through a time corridor with the others (the others being the white Supreme, blue Strategist, orange Scientist, and red Drone) and went on to help rebuild the Dalek Empire. (TV: Victory of the Daleks)

The Alliance

The Eternal Dalek among the Daleks at Stonehenge. (TV: The Pandorica Opens)

The Daleks joined the Pandorica Alliance formed to imprison the Eleventh Doctor in the Pandorica and save the universe from the cracks in time created from the TARDIS exploding. When they arrived in the Underhenge in 102 A.D. with the rest of the Alliance, the Eternal, the Supreme, and a Drone witnessed the Doctor being locked in the Pandorica. (TV: The Pandorica Opens) The Eternal Dalek was reduced to dust and stone along with the Supreme Dalek and the Drone Dalek following the total event collapse. This timeline would later be negated by the Doctor, restoring the Eternal and the other Daleks in their proper place in time. (TV: The Big Bang)

The Fall of the Eleventh

As a result of the New Dalek Paradigm's repeated losses to the Doctor, the five founders were stripped of their power in favour of the Parliament of the Daleks, which they maintained a token presence in, in the Reinvention of the Dalek Empire. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) Following Oswin Oswald deleting any information about the Doctor from the pathweb, (TV: Asylum of the Daleks) the resurrected Dalek Empire's war machine ground to a halt as they attempted to make sense of their memories. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe)

When the Question was heard emanating from Trenzalore, the usually-silent Eternal Dalek relayed the prophecy of the Fall of the Eleventh to the Supreme Dalek. Three centuries into the subsequent Siege of Trenzalore, the Daleks regained their memories of the Doctor by turning Tasha Lem into a Dalek puppet. After the memories drove the Prime Minister of the Daleks insane, the Supreme exterminated him, allowing the five founders to resume command of the empire. The Supreme eventually took The Highest Authority to Trenzalore itself to personally exterminate the Doctor. Before the Daleks could kill their foe, he was granted a new regeneration cycle by the Time Lords, the energy released destroying the Dalek flagship. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe, TV: The Time of the Doctor)

Purity Squad

Several Eternal Daleks were part of a Dalek Purity Squad that responded to an invasion of Earth by Freya's New Dalek Empire. As the "pure" Daleks battled Freya's "impure" units, the Twelfth Doctor encountered Freya. In the end, Missy would hack into the pathweb to disable Freya's bombs and get rid of the Purity Squad before she herself fled. (GAME: The Dalek Invasion of Time)

Behind the scenes

Prop history

As with its fellow new Daleks, the Eternal Dalek in Victory of the Daleks was depicted with a specially created prop. This prop was later reused for the Eternal's appearance in The Pandorica Opens.

On 21 April 2010, by which point the Strategist and Scientist had been modified to create the Stone Daleks in The Big Bang, the Eternal made a public appearance in Sheffield alongside the Drone and the Supreme to promote the video game City of the Daleks, forming the same Dalek trio which appeared in The Pandorica Opens.

The Eternal Dalek was auctioned for Children in Need in November 2022.

Invalid appearances

A Dalek drone made up in Eternal colours. (NOTVALID: Dalek Hack)

• In the stage play The Monsters Are Coming!, the Eternal claimed it could "calculate and lock Time Parameters", with the implication that its function is to turn key Dalek victories into fixed points in time to ensure the eternity of Dalek conquests.
• All five archetypes of the New Dalek Paradigm feature in The Lego Batman Movie, appearing among the inhabitants of the Phantom Zone, alongside many famous villains from a number of fictional franchises. Like the others, they are unleashed upon Gotham City by the supervillain known as "the Joker" at the climax of the film, only to be defeated and sealed back inside the prison dimension. Their one line is the exclamation "Exterminate!", actually a piece of archive audio originally recorded by Nicholas Briggs for The Parting of the Ways.
• In Dalek Hack, the player has the option to turn a Dalek's casing, shaped identically to the bronze Dalek, into any of the five colours of the New Dalek Paradigm.

Other matters

• Doctor Who Confidential revealed that the name of Eternal Dalek was provided by Steven Moffat in a "naming session" with Mark Gatiss. Neither had a meaning for the name, but Moffat opined in Confidential that he thought that the functionality of the Eternal would one day become critical to a story. The Dalek Handbook quotes Gatiss as saying "its exact function is a total mystery, but it's probably something to do with the Progenitor device and the continuation of the race."
• Doctor Who The Official Annual 2011's feature on the New Dalek Paradigm makes the claim that there is only ever one Eternal Dalek and Supreme Dalek.
• The Eternal Dalek is the only one of the five Progenitor Daleks to have black rather than grey orbs — like the Gold Daleks from TV: Day of the Daleks and Frontier in Space.
• The packaging of the action figure version of Eternal refers to the Dalek as The Eternal.
• The Eternal Dalek was the last of the New Dalek Paradigm to appear in material outside of the TV series. A yellow Dalek (with dark grey rather than black orbs) is seen on the loading screens for City of the Daleks, and in the game itself. It is the only one of five Dalek variants absent in The Eternity Clock. It would ultimately make its debut in Doctor Who: Legacy.

External links

• Dalek enemies at the Doctor Who Legacy wiki