Asymmetrical Dalek

"Asymmetrical Dalek" is a title based upon conjecture.

Check the behind the scenes section, the revision history and discussion page for additional comments on this article's title.

Asymmetrical Dalek
Biological type:	Dalek
Affiliated with:	Dalek Empire
Place of origin:	Skaro
First appearance:	Daleks Invade Zaos
Appearances:	Attack of the Daleks

A group of Dalek variants who had asymmetrical dome sections were encountered by the Second Doctor during his travels with his grandchildren John and Gillian.

Physical characteristics

These Daleks' casings had the same slatless mid-section as classic Dalek War Machines. However, instead of two flat luminosity dischargers on either side of their eyestalk, they had one single outsized one on the left side.

One of the asymmetrical Daleks' oddly-coloured base unit.

They also displayed a variety of colour schemes not exhibited by typical Daleks, even though they did not seem to occupy a special function; led by a Red Dalek with a golden weapons platform, the platoon encountered by the Second Doctor also included a Dalek with a teal base unit and weapons platform and black dome section, one with a teal dome, a blue base unit and a golden weapons platform, a wholly golden Dalek with blue sense globes, one with a dark blue base unit and weapons platform and a golden dome, and most strikingly, one whose base unit had panels of alternating colours, some golden and some blue. (COMIC: Attack of the Daleks)

History

An Asymmetrical Dalek fires upon the Second Doctor on Zaos (PROSE: Daleks Invade Zaos)

Seven Asymmetrical Daleks, all of them in differently-coloured casings, and with a Red Dalek as their leader, visited an alien planet at the same time as the Second Doctor and John and Gillian landed there in the TARDIS. Catching sight of the Daleks from atop a cliff, the Doctor and his grandchildren decided to stave off the Daleks' plans, whatever they may be, by throwing rocks down at the Daleks; from this height, they were protected from the Daleks' exterminators, while the rocks' falls were deadly enough to shatter the Daleks' casings and kill them.

After the time travellers succeeded in destroying four of the seven Daleks, the three survivors retreated to take cover. Before they could reappear, the travellers climbed into the Daleks' abandoned saucer transporter, which the Doctor could fly, in his opinion at least, better than the Daleks themselves — stranding the surviving trio. The Doctor and the children then decided to tour the planet by air aboard the saucer before they returned to the TARDIS. (COMIC: Attack of the Daleks)

A group of Asymmetrical Daleks targeted the planet Zaos to serve as a beachhead for a subsequent invasion of Earth. However, the Second Doctor arrived and allied with the native Zaons to fight them off. (PROSE: Daleks Invade Zaos)

Behind the scenes

In this still from Dr. Who and the Daleks, the Black Dalek appears to possess only one luminosity discharger, the other being hidden from view.

It is likely that the strange colours of the Daleks, as well as their protruding luminosity discharger, can be attributed to the anonymous artist having worked from still photographs of Dr. Who and the Daleks, the 1964 feature film with Peter Cushing, which featured a variety of colourful Daleks with large cone-shaped luminosity dischargers. The fact that each Dalek only has one, meanwhile, is easy to chalk up to the pictures available to the artist having been at an angle, not permitting one who hadn't seen the Daleks elsewhere and in motion to realise that a second discharger was hidden from view.

At any rate, given that this creation of a new Dalek design was by all appearances unintentional, it goes unmentioned in the dialogue of the story, meaning that there exists no set in-universe term for these Daleks. "Asymmetrical Daleks" is simply a moniker coined based on their greatest difference to standard Dalek War Machines, namely the fact that their "heads", due to the absence of the right-hand-side speaking light, are assymetrical.