Theory talk:Timeline - Davros

Placement of The Davros Mission and the I, Davros Framing Narrative

Awhile back a user moved around the placement of the story The Davros Mission so that it did not take place directly after The Revelation of the Daleks and instead after The Curse of Davros. I read their reasoning for this, and I believe I even discussed it with the user in question somewhere, the Discord probably. Well after having listened to _The Davros Curse_ myself, I've come to the conclusion that this reasoning makes very little sense. I managed to get ahold of this user on the Discord again and he still maintains this theory of his, so we've decided to open it up to other people to come to some sort of consensus. So let me go ahead and lay out my own reasoning for why I don't think this version of events works as currently described in the timeline.

1. There is no evidence that the Doctor's mind wipe affected any Daleks other than the ones on Davros's ship, so him having to prove himself to all of Dalek kind all over again doesn't fit.
2. Even if it did affect all Daleks, this mind wipe wasn't just a simple mind wipe that made the Daleks forget that Davros was their emperor, it was a total mind wipe that made them forget who and what they were. As the Doctor told Flip earlier in the story, they were basically just children after this mindwipe, basically the same as the Daleks from _The Evil of the Daleks_. It's implied that Davros has to basically start from scratch with them, which further bolsters my first point because had the Doctor successfully turned all of Dalek-kind into children, that would basically be an ultimate defeat for Davros, there's no way he could even hope to undo the mindwipe of every single Dalek in the universe, even if it is in a single time zone. But let's say for the sake of argument that he did; presumably after he restored their memories, they would be loyal to him once more, which brings me to my next point...
3. The memory wiped Daleks would have absolutely no reason to arrest Davros once he helped them regain their memories of who they are, nor would they need him to have him prove to them that he is capable of being their emperor. The authorial intent was very clearly to place The Davros Mission after The Revalation of the Daleks, and I see no believable way that similar circumstances could be conjured up from the ending of The Curse of Davros.

Now with that in mind, the primary justification that this particular user has with this version of events is that it contradicts the events depicted in The Dalek Emperor! and they are trying to figure out a way to fit this version of events into this timeline while keeping the other one canon. The only problem with this is that there are many precedents for Big Finish contradicting comic stories with no way of explaining them away. And in any case, the two different versions of how Davros became the Dalek Emperor could simply considered as yet another effect of the Time War, which has often been cited as the reason for conflicting events occurring in the DWU, especially by Big Finish. I know it's probably not preferred to fall back onto this excuse, but honestly the alternative requires a lot of assumptions and too many leaps in logic to make any amount of sense. So with this in mind, I say we amend the sequence of events so that it reads as follows:

• TV: Revelation of the Daleks
• AUDIO: The Juggernauts
• COMIC: Emperor of the Daleks!
• AUDIO: The Davros Mission
• AUDIO: I, Davros (framing narrative)
• AUDIO: The Curse of Davros
• TV: Remembrance of the Daleks / Remembrance of the Daleks

Please weigh in and tell me what you think so we can come to some sort of consensus. –Nahald ☎ 05:58, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree with your assessment of the validity of the Curse of Davros mindwipe theory (a resounding "meh"); but I'm not sure about your proposed version, which implies linearity where there is none. Simply put, Emperor of the Daleks!, The Davros Mission and the I, Davros framing narrative are three incompatible puzzle pieces that are equally apt to bridge a singular gap. We should manage to find a way to express that they happen 'in parallel' in this gap. We needn't posit a fanficcy explanation of why these events are competing for a single date in Davros's life; let us just admit that they are, and leave the reader to fall back to their preferred timey-wimey explanation. (Perhaps "Davros's trial" works like "that time John Smith fell in love with Joan Redfern"?)

Well I think The Davros Mission and I, Davros could somewhat be reconciled as the Daleks simply deciding to test Davros before handing him the proverbial keys to the kingdom. I mean it doesn't make a whole lot of sense that they seemed to be put for his blood in the previous stories only for them to be like, "Jk! We're actually thinking of making you emperor!" So that story does somewhat justify this abrupt change of heart on the part of the Daleks. –Nahald ☎ 20:09, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

(Also, I'm fairly sure that The Juggernauts and Emperor of the Daleks! don't fit together either, due to Juggernauts positing a different mechanism for Davros getting his definitive batch of Imperial Daleks. But I could be misremembering) Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 12:49, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

This order is meant to reflect where in Davros' life these events would take place relative to each other, not that they happen sequentially. But perhaps I should put Emperor of the Daleks! first since it would be considered pre-Time War continuity. –Nahald ☎ 22:22, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Even in terms of "where in Davros' life these events would take place relative to each other, not that they happen sequentially", I don't quite follow. Most of The Davros Mission occurs during Davros's transportation to Skaro for trial, and his trial occurs right at the end; Emperor of the Daleks! opens on his trial. The two overlap a little bit through said trial (and give completely different accounts thereof), but Davros Mission is mostly earlier and Emperor mostly later. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 22:31, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

True but we also need to take into account that Emperor of the Daleks! also shows how Davros sustained his injuries, which conflicts with The Juggnernauts, which I forgot to account for intitially. So with that in mind, I'm going to go ahead and amend my proposed alteration to the timeline so it reads as follows:

• TV: Revelation of the Daleks
• COMIC: Emperor of the Daleks!
• AUDIO: The Juggernauts
• AUDIO: The Davros Mission
• AUDIO: I, Davros (framing narrative)
• AUDIO: The Curse of Davros
• TV: Remembrance of the Daleks / Remembrance of the Daleks

Okay so, I just recently listened to The Davros Mission again, and having done so, I've concluded the following: there really is no way around it, this story was meant to take place directly after Revelation of the Daleks and there is pretty much no way around it. Not only does this story reference the Dalek ship and Davros having just left Necros, Davros himself directly refers to the events of Revelation of the Daleks as if they just happened, recounting specifics events depicted in that story. Sorry but there really is no way this can be shoehorned into taking place post The Juggernauts. Why Big Finish would do this, considering that this was made after both The Juggernauts and I, Davros, I have no idea. Regardless, I think all we really can do is put this story as taking place directly after Revelation of the Dalek and write off the continuity errors as Time War shenanigans. Feel free to present any opposing views, but if no one has any objections, I'm going to go ahead and make this change within the next couple days, and hopefully this is the last we'll speak of this. –Nahald ☎ 04:30, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

Just leaving this here for whoever put Nemesis of the Daleks on this page - The Emperor in Nemesis of the Daleks explicitly isn't Davros, they're a separate character. Emperor of the Daleks makes this more explicit - in it, the Emperor we see in Nemesis puts Davros on trial, and the Doctor's whole plan within the story is to ensure Davros becomes Emperor and get rid of this one which he wasn't aware of until Nemesis of the Daleks.