Dalek: Difference between revisions
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'''Daleks''' were [[Kaled mutant|mutated descendents]] of the [[Kaled]]s of the [[planet]] [[Skaro]]. They fought the [[Time Lord]]s in the [[Last Great Time War]], resulting in the almost total destruction of both races. They regarded the [[the Doctor]] as their greatest single enemy and were hated and feared [[universe|throughout time and space]]. | '''Daleks''' were [[Kaled mutant|mutated descendents]] of the [[Kaled]]s of the [[planet]] [[Skaro]]. They fought the [[Time Lord]]s in the [[Last Great Time War]], resulting in the almost total destruction of both races. They regarded the [[the Doctor]] as their greatest single enemy and were hated and feared [[universe|throughout time and space]]. | ||
== | ==Greetings== | ||
Hi my name is God, you did not beleive in me when i was alive. You will me rapped and you shall be burnt. | |||
Love from | |||
God | |||
==History== | ==History== | ||
Revision as of 13:50, 14 December 2009
- For the 1963 serial, see The Daleks, For the 2005 episode, see Dalek (TV story)
EX-TER-MINATE!
Daleks were mutated descendents of the Kaleds of the planet Skaro. They fought the Time Lords in the Last Great Time War, resulting in the almost total destruction of both races. They regarded the the Doctor as their greatest single enemy and were hated and feared throughout time and space.
Greetings
Hi my name is God, you did not beleive in me when i was alive. You will me rapped and you shall be burnt.
Love from
God
History
We are entombed but we live on. This is only the beginning. We will prepare. We will grow stronger. When the time is right, we will emerge and take our rightful place as the supreme power of the universe!
The Daleks were the product of a generations-long war between the Kaled and Thal races.
- Main article: Creation of the Daleks
Over the course of their history, the Daleks developed time travel (DW: The Chase), an interstellar (and later intergalactic) Dalek Empire (DW: The Daleks' Master Plan) and factory ships for conquest (DW: The Power of the Daleks). The radio dishes which had originally been required to allow them to travel on surfaces without a static charge (DW: The Dalek Invasion of Earth) also vanished, enabling Daleks to move under their own power.
- Main article: History of the Daleks
Origin of the name
"Dalek" had been the ancient Kaled word for god. Davros, the creator of the Daleks, appropriated the name, supposing the Daleks to approximate gods in evolutionary terms. (I, Davros) Obviously, however, that Dalek is an anagram of Kaled, the race from which the Daleks were genetically engineered. A scientist under the command of Davros mentioned that the word "Dalek" had never been heard before the Doctor, and then hours later, Davros himself, uttered it. (DW: Genesis of the Daleks)
It was later implied that Dalek was an extension of Dal. In this story, the Dals, and not the Kaleds, were the genetic precursors of the Daleks. (DW: The Daleks) Maybe it was an alternate universe?
Culture
All inferior creatures are to be considered the enemy of the Daleks, and destroyed!
General
Psychology
Daleks had little to no individual personality and a strict hierarchy. They were conditioned to obey a superior's orders without question. Ultimately, the most fundamental feature of Dalek culture and psychology was an unquestioned belief in the superiority of the Daleks. Other species were either to be exterminated immediately, or enslaved and then exterminated later once they were no longer necessary. The default directive of a Dalek was to destroy all non-Dalek lifeforms.
Daleks even regarded "deviant" Daleks as their enemies and worthy of destruction. The civil war between the Renegade and Imperial Daleks was a prime example of this, with each faction considering the other to be a perversion despite the relatively minor differences between them. This belief also meant that Daleks were intolerant of such "contamination" even within themselves. (DW: Dalek, DW: The Parting of the Ways, DW: Evolution of the Daleks, BFA: The Mutant Phase)
Another offshoot of this superiority complex was their complete ruthlessness, although this is also due to genetic modifications made to the original Kaled mutants by Davros. It was because of this that it was nearly impossible to negotiate or reason with a Dalek and it was this single-mindedness that made them so dangerous and not to be underestimated. However, their reliance on logic and machinery was also a weakness, albeit one that they recognized in themselves. (DW: Destiny of the Daleks) On two occasions they transferred emotions from other life-forms, in the one case Humans, having refined, the Human Factor with the help from the Doctor to create Humanised Daleks. (DW: The Evil of the Daleks) In another incident, they refined savagery, hatred and cunning from many other life forms (DWM: The Dogs of Doom)
Religion
As noted above, the Daleks that were created through the manipulation and mutation of Human genetic material by the Dalek Emperor were religious fanatics that worshiped the Emperor as their god. Normal Daleks had no religion.(DW: The Parting of the Ways)
Legal system
Although the Daleks were well known for their disregard for due process and Galactic Law, there were at least two occasions on which they took enemies back to Skaro for a "trial" rather than killing them on the spot; the first was their creator Davros (DW: Revelation of the Daleks), and the second was the renegade Time Lord known as the Master (DW: Doctor Who: The TV Movie).
- Accounts differ as to whether the retrieval of Davros was not for a 'trial' in the criminal sense but rather a test to see if he was in fact worthy of becoming the supreme leader of the race (BFD: I, Davros) or if they gave him more of a literal trial (DWM: Emperor of the Daleks)
- It is not clear what the Daleks' trial of the Master involved.
Culture
The Daleks were known to write poetry (NA: The Also People), and some of the more elaborate Dalek battlecries had an almost poetic quality about them (for example, "Advance and Attack! Attack and Destroy! Destroy and Rejoice!" (DW: The Chase)) In an alternate reality, the Daleks showed a fondness for the works of William Shakespeare. (BFA: The Time of the Daleks)
Due to their frequent defeats by the Doctor, he became a legendary figure in Dalek culture and mythology. They had standing orders to capture or exterminate the Doctor on sight, and were occasionally able to identify him despite his regenerations. This was not an innate ability, but probably the result of good record keeping. The Daleks knew the Doctor as the "Ka Faraq Gatri", (which meant the "Bringer of Darkness" or "Destroyer of Worlds") (DWM: Bringer of Darkness, referencing DWN: Remembrance of the Daleks). The Doctor claimed that the Daleks also called him "the Oncoming Storm" (DW: The Parting of the Ways).
- The second name was also used by the Draconians to refer to the Doctor, though probably in a less pejorative sense. (NA: Love and War)
The Doctor's attitude towards the Daleks
The Doctor, in turn, grew to be almost monomaniacal in his belief that the Daleks were completely evil and unworthy of trust or compassion after countless encounters with the Daleks, many of which ended in considerable bloodshed. This was a sort of evolution in comparison with some of his earlier dealings with the Daleks; for example, the Doctor attempted to instill a "Human factor" in Daleks (DW: The Evil of the Daleks) and the Doctor hesitated when presented with the opportunity to destroy the Daleks at the point of their creation (DW: Genesis of the Daleks). His conviction of the irredeemable nature of the Daleks motivated a venomous outburst by the Doctor leading the mutant to observe that the Doctor "would make a good Dalek." (DW: Dalek) This bias was apparently changed with the discovery of how Daleks can, indeed, change, with a supreme effort, as seen with the Rose Tyler-Dalek hybrid created in Henry Van Statten's vaults. As of Evolution of the Daleks, the Doctor even becomes eager to help Sec create a new race of hybridized human-Daleks, even calling him "a great man" for recognizing Davros was wrong in attempting to create a race solely focusing on hatred and death. Later, The Doctor risked being killed by Caan to approach and reason with him, even after both Sec and the new Dalek hybrids were killed in front of him.
Dalek Hierarchy
- See Dalek Hierarchy.
Dalek Technology
The key item of Dalek technology is the casing, evolved from the Mark III Travel Machines built by Davros. The casings of Davros' Imperial Daleks were made out of bonded polycarbide. (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks) The eyestalk of the casing clearly bestowed superior vision to the Dalek creature, and the plunger-shaped attachment functions as a flexible and adaptable limb. Dalek gunsticks could kill almost any sentient being, although many species have developed armour capable of resisting Dalek guns. On the surface of Skaro, within the confines of the Dalek City, the machines ran on static electricity, which was fed through the floor of the city, and were incapacitated if they were removed from the floor. The technology of the casings changed over the years. The first Daleks to emerge from the bunker in which the first Daleks were entombed created a city and received power from those. (DW:Dalek) Those occupying Earth during the their 22nd century invasion had dishes on their backs. Later models of Dalek casing had their own internal power supply. Numerous models of Daleks have some degree of hover technology.
There have been numerous variations on Dalek armoured shell.
- See Dalek variants.
By the era of the Last Great Time War, Dalek technology had moved on even further - Daleks now had force-fields. Whereas previous versions of Daleks could be destroyed by well-placed bastic bullets or the like, these Daleks stopped such bullets from even getting close to the casing. Their propulsion systems not only added hover ability, but enabled independant space travel. These Daleks could use the DNA of a time traveller to regenerate their bodies and their casings just by virtue of the traveller touching the casing.
Dalek travel technology varied over time. However, Dalek spaceships were consistently designed in a saucer shape, and hoverbouts allowed individual Daleks to travel without using up their own power source. The Daleks also developed time travel capabilities. Time Corridors allowed limited transport between one era and another. However, the Daleks also developed their own kind of time machine of similar capacities to the Doctor's TARDIS, though they could not change shape. These time travel machines were also dimensionally transendental. (DW: The Chase, DW: The Daleks' Master Plan)
- It is not known how advanced their time travel technology had become by the time they vanished to fight the Last Great Time War, but the fact that Dalek Caan was able to travel to the time-locked Last Great Time War meant that it must have been approaching the level used by the Time Lords themselves.
The Daleks were also experts in biological warfare, and used (or attempted to use) biological weapons on numerous occasions. (DW: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End)
Dalek writing
See Dalek writing.
Behind the Scenes
Trivia
Other appearances.
Two Doctor Who movies starring Peter Cushing featured the Daleks as the main villains: Dr. Who and the Daleks, and Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD, based on the television serials The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth, respectively. However, the movies were not straight remakes. Cushing's Doctor is not an alien, but a human inventor, and is literally named "Doctor Who." The movies used brand new Dalek props, based closely on the original design but with a wider range of colours. Originally, the movie Daleks were supposed to shoot jets of flame, but this was thought to be too graphic for children, so their weapons emitted jets of deadly vapour instead.
Marvel UK was publishing Doctor Who Magazine at the time, which included comic strip stories in its pages. Aside from meeting up with the Doctor in them, the DWM strips also introduced a new nemesis for the Daleks; the Dalek Killer named Abslom Daak. Daak was a convicted criminal in the 26th century who was given the choice between execution and being sent on a suicide mission against the Daleks. He chose the latter and, when the woman he loved was killed by the Daleks, made it his life's purpose to kill every Dalek he came across.
The Daleks have also appeared in the Dalek Empire series of audio plays by Big Finish Productions.
Story titles
Beginning with the 1965 stage play The Curse of the Daleks, the best-known title format for stories featuring the Daleks has been "... of the Daleks". This was first used on television in the 1966 serial The Power of the Daleks and was used most recently on TV in 2007's Evolution of the Daleks. In fact, if comic strips, audios and novels are included, more stories exist that do not use this title format, but "... of the Daleks" is considered ubiquitous enough that the spoof film Myth Runner includes a joking reference to an apparent future Who story entitled Deuteronomy of the Daleks.
The word Dalek has been titular to more Doctor Who televised story titles than any other noun, although Planet and Death are more ubiquitous if Hartnell-era adventures — which originally did not have story titles as such — are identified only by their episodic titles. Indeed, in the whole of the Hartnell era, Dalek was used exactly once as an onscreen title — for episode two of the adventure later re-christened as The Dalek Invasion of Earth.
See also
External links
- Dalek Links - the Web's most comprehensive listing of Dalek Web sites
- Project Dalek - build your own Dalek - The best plans on the net and the liveliest Dalek Building Forums - 5 star recommended on DalekLinks.com!
- Dalek City - Dalek Building guides
- Dalek 6388 - about the various Dalek props built for the series - an invaluable guide.
- Doctor Who Collectibles: An Annotated Bibliography
- The Last Dalek - Flash game by New Media Collective, on the BBC website
- Rassilon Omega and that Other Guy - Culture, Tech, and Timeline
External Sources
- Howe, David J & Walker, Stephen James (2003). The Television Companion: The Unofficial and Unauthorized Guide to DOCTOR WHO (2nd ed.) Surrey, UK: Telos Publishing, ISBN 1-903389051-0.
- Haining, Peter, (1988) "Doctor Who and the Merchandisers", Doctor Who: 25 Glorious Years London, UK: W.H. Allen, ISBN 0-31837661-X.
- Davies, Kevin (director) (1993). More than 30 Years in the TARDIS London, UK: BBC Video.
- Howe, David J & Walker, Stephen James (1994). The First Doctor Handbook London, UK: Virgin Publishing, ISBN 0-426-2-430-1.
- Finklestone, Peter (producer) (2003). "Talking Daleks" featurette, The Dalek Invasion of Earth London, UK: BBC Video.
- Seaborne, Gilliane (director) (2005). "Dalek", Doctor Who Confidential BBC Wales.
- Nation, Terry (ed.) (1979). Terry Nation's Dalek Special, Target Books, bottom.
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