The Daleks (short story)

The Daleks
Main character(s):	David Whitaker
Featuring:	Terry Nation
Main setting:	London
Key crew
Writer:	David Whitaker
Release details
Release date:	21 December 1965
Reprinted in:	The Doctor Who File

You may wish to consult The Daleks (disambiguation) for other, similarly-named pages.

The Daleks was the short story published in the theatre programme for the 1965 stage play The Curse of the Daleks. Written by David Whitaker, it told the tale of how Terry Nation discovered and translated the "Dalek Chronicles", upon which the real-world Nation had purportedly based all Dalek stories written up to that point.

Summary

Two years before the present, David Whitaker is writing at his home when he is telephoned by Terry Nation, who asks if he can discuss a matter of utmost importance with him. Whitaker agrees and, an hour later, they are both settled down together in chairs.

Nation reveals a small glass cube to Whitaker which he explains he found in his garden. He further elaborates that he drilled a hole through to its centre after which several slivers of metal fell into hand that he determined to be microfilms upon inspection. These are adventures from the future, the information therein somehow transported back through time.

Nation goes onto paint a picture of a planet named Skaro, located in the next universe but one, and its inhabitants, a peace-loving people named the Thals. Whitaker learns of the dead forests, a lake of mutations, a brilliant city rising out of a desert, as well as the other species living on the planet, inhuman and terrifying creatures called the Daleks.

His explanation complete, Whitaker tells his audience that more story-cubes have come to light since that day, with he and Nation working together to interpret their contents to present to the world, which has become increasingly anxious to learn more about mysterious aliens. He states the play they are there to see is based on a cube discovered in Kensington Gardens and, expressing his firm belief there are other cubes in existence, encourages the audience to keep their eyes open for more.

Characters

• David Whitaker
• Terry Nation

Worldbuilding

• David Whitaker and Terry Nation discuss the story-cube over a tray of coffee and sandwiches.
• The story-cubes are twice the size of a lump of sugar.
• Whitaker and Nation are both unaware of "the curve of Time" responsible for sending the story-cubes to Earth. They theorise a friendly planet sent them down deliberately as a warning or that some Dalek history museum exploded violently in space which showered the stream of time by accident with the Daleks' secrets.
• Whitaker suggests that more story-cubes could be hidden in a clump of grass or lying at the base of a tree.

Notes

• Although this story marked the first explanation of the nature of the Dalek Chronicles in a valid source, at the time of its publication they were at the centre of a marketing attempt to portray the Daleks' adventures as happening in the real world. In addition to The Curse of the Daleks itself, The Dalek Book, The Dalek World, The Dalek Outer Space Book and, retroactively, The Daleks, were all framed as being translated from the Chronicles.
• Although the date this story is set is not given, it implicitly occurs in 1965, the real world present day, with Nation's discovery of the first story-cube two years prior presumably preceding the broadcast of The Daleks in 1963.
• The story is reprinted in The Doctor Who File.

Continuity

• Skaro is in the next universe but one. (PROSE: Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks, COMIC: The Road to Conflict)