Daleks in popular culture and mythology

This article needs to be updated.

Information from COMIC: Liberation of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["Liberation of the Daleks (comic story)"] should be added; information from The Doctor Who Fun Book and PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac ^[+]Loading...["The Time Traveller's Almanac (reference book)"] should be changed to reflect their validity.

These omissions are so great that the article's factual accuracy has been compromised. Check out the discussion page and revision history for further clues about what needs to be updated in this article.

Due to their expansionist, warmongering tendencies, the Daleks were known far and wide across the universe, including on Earth, where, by the 21st century, accounts of them and their world existed not only as matters of historical fact, but as fictional antagonists and as "the stuff of legend", in much the same way as their ancient enemy the Doctor did. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe ^[+]Loading...["Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe (short story)"])

With very few exceptions, the Daleks' reputation was a wholly negative one, with the old records of the Daleks on such a remote and derelict outpost as Red Rocket Rising identifying the Daleks as "the worst of them all". (AUDIO: Blood of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["Blood of the Daleks (audio story)"])

On Earth and among humans

As real beings

The Dalek Chronicles

A photograph of some Silver Daleks printed on Earth in 2094. (PROSE: The Dalek Chronicles Found! ^[+]Loading...["The Dalek Chronicles Found! (short story)"])

Main article: Dalek Chronicles

In the 1960s, alien story-cubes containing the Dalek Chronicles arrived on Earth and were translated and illustrated by David Whitaker, Alan Fennell, Richard Jennings, Ron Turner and Eric Eden. The Chronicles featured a record of the Daleks' history, including their origins, a tale entitled The Archives of Phryne, and one of their conflicts with the Mechonoids.

These Dalek Chronicles were lost for decades and only found again in 2094, when a collected edition of them was at long last released in print to the public. A newspaper article was printed to report those news, illustrated with a photograph showing a platoon of Silver Daleks. (PROSE: The Dalek Chronicles Found! ^[+]Loading...["The Dalek Chronicles Found! (short story)"])

Information from the Vault

In the mid-2010s, a BBC Radio documentary crew visited the remains of the Vault in Utah, (AUDIO: The Dalek Conquests ^[+]Loading...["The Dalek Conquests (audio story)"]) where reclusive billionaire Henry van Statten had kept the Metaltron (a lone, insane Dalek) in captivity several years earlier only for it to eventually break out, killing hundreds of personnel. (TV: Dalek ^[+]Loading...["Dalek (TV story)"]) In the resulting documentary, narrator delved into past recorded encounters between the Daleks and a mysterious individual known as the Doctor. (AUDIO: The Dalek Conquests ^[+]Loading...["The Dalek Conquests (audio story)"])

Government records

Records were kept of the Shoreditch Incident which took place on Earth in 1963. These records were still available in the archives during the 2150s Dalek invasion of Earth, when they were found by the Daleks themselves. On their basis, the Dalek Prime learned that Davros was fated to, at some point, go back in time to 1963 and accidentally destroy Skaro with the Hand of Omega; this knowledge enabled the Dalek Prime to initiate a complex gambit to trick Davros and the Doctor both so as to save the true Skaro and make it so that a decoy planet was destroyed instead. (PROSE: War of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["War of the Daleks (novel)"])

During the Battle of Canary Wharf, footage of a bronze Daleks' base unit and sense globes were captured and shown by an emergency news broadcast shortly before it was interrupted by an attacking Dalek. (WC: Tardisode 13 ^[+]Loading...["Tardisode 13"])

Patchy records of mankind's previous contacts with the Daleks were available on Red Rocket Rising, but were incomplete enough that Eileen Klint came to the conclusion that as impotent mutants who owed their reliance on casings to the aftermath of a nuclear war, they should be pitied rather than feared, and could be trusted as allies of humanity. (AUDIO: Blood of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["Blood of the Daleks (audio story)"])

UNIT

David Edmunds, a UNIT soldier and victim of the Daleks (PROSE: Missing in Action ^[+]Loading...["Missing in Action (short story)"])

UNIT, an organisation formed to protect Earth from alien threats in the late 20th century, was first known to have engaged the Daleks at Auderly House as they, led by Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, aided the Third Doctor in negating an alternate timeline in which the Daleks conquered Earth after starting World War III. (TV: Day of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["Day of the Daleks (TV story)"]) Over the decades, UNIT developed weapons to fight the Daleks. (TV: Battlefield ^[+]Loading...["Battlefield (TV story)"])

During the Dalek invasion of Earth in the 2000s, UNIT bases across the planet were attacked and massacred by the Daleks. (TV: The Stolen Earth ^[+]Loading...["The Stolen Earth (TV story)"]/Journey's End ^[+]Loading...["Journey's End (TV story)"]) Around this time in the 2000s, Lethbridge-Stewart, now UNIT's special envoy, recalled taking on the Daleks in his day. (TV: Enemy of the Bane ^[+]Loading...["Enemy of the Bane (TV story)"])

By the 2010s, UNIT classed the Daleks as "Code D". They had traced a potential Code D that crash landed in 1962, but lost track of it in Utah. Encountering a crashed Dalek, Kate Stewart recorded it as Code D. By that time, Colonel Vikram Shindi had lost several colleagues to the Daleks. (AUDIO: The Dalek Transaction ^[+]Loading...["The Dalek Transaction (audio story)"]) The dome of a Supreme Dalek was contained in UNIT's Black Archive. (TV: The Day of the Doctor ^[+]Loading...["The Day of the Doctor (TV story)"])

Anti-Dalek Force

The Anti-Dalek Force compiled information about the Daleks, both for its own use and to better prepare the citizens of the galaxy. This included their curating of InfoFiles of various security levels.

The Stolen Earth, a record of Davros's attempt to detonate a reality bomb, was classed a Public InfoFile while the InfoFile on the Doctor was "for A.D.F. eyes only". Also in free access was a VidFile entitled Genesis of the Daleks, which included details on the planet Skaro. (PROSE: The New Dalek Paradigm ^[+]Loading...["The New Dalek Paradigm (short story)"])

Public memory

Around the early 2000s, science fiction author Paul Magrs would mention in a piece of prose that was requested anonymously, that he knew about when the Second Doctor, Iris Wildthyme, and her companion Jenny Winterleaf had defeated the Dalek Supreme in the diamond mines of Marlion. (PROSE: Bafflement and Devotion ^[+]Loading...["Bafflement and Devotion (short story)"])

The Daleks subjugate the Earth in the 2000s (TV: The Stolen Earth ^[+]Loading...["The Stolen Earth (TV story)"])

During her childhood, Adelaide Brooke was witness to the stolen planets in the sky and the Dalek invasion in the 2000s. While remaining at home as her father looked for her mother, Adelaide spotted a Dalek outside her window, which in turn looked back at her before leaving the planet. Though her parents were never seen again, Adelaide survived the ordeal, which she talked about only to her daughter Emily Brooke, who then told her daughter Susie Fontana Brooke. The Tenth Doctor was aware of this as he discussed it with Adelaide shortly before her death on 21 November 2059. Adelaide explained to the Doctor that she decided to follow the Dalek that night, not for revenge, he cited it as the moment which led Adelaide to begin the journey that took the human race all the way out to the stars, which would be continued by her descendants. (TV: The Stolen Earth ^[+]Loading...["The Stolen Earth (TV story)"])

By 2009, many people had become aware of alien life through the Cybermen and the Daleks. (TV: The Mad Woman in the Attic ^[+]Loading...["The Mad Woman in the Attic (TV story)"]) When Clyde Langer admitted to his father that he fought aliens, Paul used the Daleks as a frame of reference. (TV: The Mark of the Berserker ^[+]Loading...["The Mark of the Berserker (TV story)"])

As noted by the Twelfth Doctor in propaganda broadcasts to an occupied Earth in the late 2010s, the Daleks were among the menaces to humanity whom the Monks took credit for defeating. (TV: The Lie of the Land ^[+]Loading...["The Lie of the Land (TV story)"])

During the Redaction of 2022, Cleo Proctor found an item labeled "Dalek" in a UNIT warehouse. Though she did not know what it was, she had the feeling that she had it seen it before and was instinctively scared of it. (AUDIO: Recruits ^[+]Loading...["Recruits (audio story)"])

Dalek Dome

Main article: Dalek Dome

By 2323, Dalek Studies was a field of academia. During that year, the 22nd century invasion was displayed in the Dalek Dome as one of the greatest moments in Dalek history. The Fourteenth Doctor was horrified to see the Dalek Dome turn the suffering the Daleks spread as an inspiration for attractions. Soon, events boiled out of control into the 2323 Dalek invasion of Earth, after which the Doctor left the fate of the Dalek Dome in the hands of Georgette Gold. (COMIC: Liberation of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["Liberation of the Daleks (comic story)"])

The Human Empire to New Earth

In the "dying days" of the 64th century, the Daleks were believed to be extinct by the humans. They were proved otherwise when confronted by Daleks who had been flung through a temporal schism in the war with their relentless enemy. (PROSE: Lost Patrol ^[+]Loading...["Lost Patrol (short story)"])

By the year 200,100, people such as Rodrick were aware of the Daleks but believed them to have all disappeared thousands of years prior. Jack Harkness, a Time Agent from the 51st century, recalled that the Daleks vanished out of time and space at a point when they were the greatest threat in the universe. As the Ninth Doctor revealed, that had left to fight the Last Great Time War against the Time Lords, which Jack had thought to be a legend. (TV: The Parting of the Ways ^[+]Loading...["The Parting of the Ways (TV story)"])

The Testimony Foundation was from the time of New Earth, having been founded in 5000000012. By their encounter with the First Doctor and Twelfth Doctor, they knew of the Daleks, Davros, (TV: Twice Upon a Time ^[+]Loading...["Twice Upon a Time (TV story)"]) and the Nightmare Child. (PROSE: Twice Upon a Time ^[+]Loading...["Twice Upon a Time (novelisation)"])

As works of fiction

Doctor Who and related works

This section's awfully stubby.

info from The Terror of the Umpty Ums ^[+]Loading...["The Terror of the Umpty Ums (short story)"], Peaceful Thals Ambushed! ^[+]Loading...["Peaceful Thals Ambushed! (short story)"] and Lady Penelope Investigates the stars of the Sensational new film Dr. Who and the Daleks! ^[+]Loading...["Lady Penelope Investigates the stars of the Sensational new film Dr. Who and the Daleks! (short story)"] needs to be added.

The Witch's Familiar, featuring the Daleks and the Doctor. (WC: The Zygon Isolation ^[+]Loading...["The Zygon Isolation (webcast)"])

The Daleks were an alien species in the Doctor Who series, though if they were allies or enemies or something in between, wasn't clear.

The first mention of the Daleks was in the title of Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks, a book that the "Jane Fonda" Iris gave to the Eighth Doctor, which he then thought contradicted a book by Terrance Dicks. (PROSE: Bafflement and Devotion ^[+]Loading...["Bafflement and Devotion (short story)"]) The book later found its way to Gallifrey during the War, where its title was redacted for security reasons, and the book was then illicitly shared between Time Lord inductees. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5 ^[+]Loading...["The Taking of Planet 5 (novel)"])

In October 2015, the ninth series of the show was broadcast, and the episode The Witch's Familiar seemed to feature the Daleks. (WC: The Zygon Isolation ^[+]Loading...["The Zygon Isolation (webcast)"])

Just like the flesh-and-blood Doctor, the televised and cinematic Dr. Who faced Daleks in several of his adventures, most notably three feature films where Peter Cushing played the part of the Doctor, two of which featured the Daleks. Daleks: Invasion Earth was one of those films. (PROSE: A Visit to the Cinema ^[+]Loading...["A Visit to the Cinema (short story)"], The Day of the Doctor ^[+]Loading...["The Day of the Doctor (novelisation)"])

Novels by Sarah Jane Smith

Main article: Doctor (series)

Main article: World War Skaro

After she ceased being a companion of the Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith published a number of books adapted from her experiences as a time-and-space-traveller, which were billed as science-fiction novels on Earth.

Among these were her very first published sci-fi novel, World War Skaro, published a few years after her 1983 journalistic coverage of UNIT's crackdown on COBRA (PROSE: The Roving Reporter ^[+]Loading...["The Roving Reporter (short story)"]) as well as Dalek Dawn, a part of her Doctor series in which a fictionalised version of the Doctor was featured as main character. (PROSE: Moving On ^[+]Loading...["Moving On (short story)"])

Time Surgeon

Main article: Time Surgeon

A comic-book series entitled Time Surgeon surfaced in the 21st century, based on Internet rumours about the Doctor's life. In one story called Day of the Deathroids, fearsome and exceedingly Dalek-like androids called the Deathroids were featured. The story saw them ally with the Minister to eradicate the Time Surgeon. They were capable of shooting plasma-blasts, shouting "Eradicate!" when doing so. (COMIC: Invasion of the Mindmorphs ^[+]Loading...["Invasion of the Mindmorphs (comic story)"])

Fiction based on reality

One human effort to compile an entire history of the Daleks noted in its introduction that due to the common history of Daleks and humans, humanity had created theatre, television and even merchandising which involved the Daleks, even though they knew the Daleks existed as more than fiction. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe ^[+]Loading...["Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe (short story)"])

As a myth or legend

Art depicting the defeat of the Reconnaissane Dalek at the Battle of Hope Valley. (TV: Resolution ^[+]Loading...["Resolution (TV story)"])

One Dalek's ship crash-landed in ancient Britain in 55 B.C.. The native Britons, believing it to be a deity, named the Dalek the "Bronze God". It encountered Winston Churchill and Kazran Sardick when the Eleventh Doctor took them back in time in the TARDIS. Ultimately, it was destroyed when its ship exploded. (AUDIO: Living History ^[+]Loading...["Living History (audio story)"])

A Dalek was deposited at a fort in Roman Britannia of 305 AD due to time travel experiments, (AUDIO: The Time of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["The Time of the Daleks (audio story)"]) where it proceeded to engage the soldiers, who referred to it as a "metal demon", stationed there in a brief skirmish before being quickly overwhelmed and killed. (AUDIO: Seasons of Fear ^[+]Loading...["Seasons of Fear (audio story)"])

The defeat of a reconnaissance scout Dalek by human armies in the 9th century at the Battle of Hope Valley had passed into legend as the defeat of an "impossible foe" by the early 21st century when the trisected Dalek awakened and was defeated once and for all by Team TARDIS. Art of the Battle existed with the Dalek clearly visible. (TV: Resolution ^[+]Loading...["Resolution (TV story)"])

As a complete unknown

"For many years I have had a strong memory of individuals who could be described – as per your feature – as 'metal men'. I recall these steel soldiers (as I have termed them) on the streets not just of England, but around the globe – from India to Isleworth, one might say. I even recall the media terming confrontations with these soldiers, 'the Battle of Canary Wharf'. I have vague, less tenable recollections of these individuals warring with another race of mechanised invaders and have very faint recollections of both sides battling it out above London's Docklands. My memories were so strong that I was amazed and appalled when I discovered others didn't share them. However, I've mentioned these occurrences to some friends, who seem to recognise my descriptions, before they check themselves and dismiss my claims as whimsy."A human from 2021

During the Battle of Canary Wharf, Rose Tyler used her awareness of the Daleks as well as the Time War to surprise the Cult of Skaro and thus stop from exterminating her on the spot, with Mickey Smith following her lead. (TV: Doomsday ^[+]Loading...["Doomsday (TV story)"])

By 2012, Henry van Statten, CEO of Geocomtex who claimed to own the internet, acquired an alien specimen which he christened "Metaltron", that had crashed to Earth fifty years prior. It was only through the Ninth Doctor that van Statten and Diana Goddard learnt that the Metaltron was a Dalek, which the Doctor believed at the time to be the last survivor of its species following the Last Great Time War. A commander of van Statten's security personnel ignorantly described it as a "tin robot". The Dalek itself searched for others by downloading the entire Earth's internet, scanning satellites and radio telescopes, only to find no trace of the Daleks. (TV: Dalek ^[+]Loading...["Dalek (TV story)"])

The fact that Amy Pond, who came from 2010, failed to recognise the Ironsides as Daleks came to the Eleventh Doctor's concern as he recalled their brief theft and invasion of the Earth in the 2000s. (TV: Victory of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["Victory of the Daleks (TV story)"]) He later found reason to believe that the memory of this event, among others, had been erased by cracks in time. (TV: Flesh and Stone ^[+]Loading...["Flesh and Stone (TV story)"]) Bill Potts, from 2017, did not recognise the Daleks she encountered when the Twelfth Doctor brought her into the Dalek-Movellan War. (TV: The Pilot ^[+]Loading...["The Pilot (TV story)"]) A user of Into the Unknown mentioned that, while they could remember the Battle of Canary Wharf, their friends could not. (PROSE: The Mandela Effect, Or Monsters on the Streets of London ^[+]Loading...["The Mandela Effect, Or Monsters on the Streets of London (short story)"])

On 1 January 2019, a lone reconnaisance Dalek was not recognised by any of the humans it encountered in England, including the Thirteenth Doctor's companions. (TV: Resolution ^[+]Loading...["Resolution (TV story)"]) Later, Jack Robertson, who did not recognise the word "Dalek," and the citizens of the United Kingdom were not familiar with the design of the Defence Drones, which was derived from reconnaisance Dalek. While the beginning of 2021 saw an invasion of Earth by the Defence Drones, who were themselves intercepted and destroyed by an army of bronze Death Squad Daleks, (TV: Revolution of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["Revolution of the Daleks (TV story)"]) a group of bronze Dalek Executioners which appeared on 31 December that year were not recognised by Sarah, Nick, both of whom mistook them for robots, nor Dan Lewis. (TV: Eve of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["Eve of the Daleks (TV story)"])

In addition to suddenly feeling as though she had seen it before, Cleo Proctor had an instinctive fear of an inactive Dalek she saw in a UNIT warehouse despite not recognising it. (AUDIO: Recruits ^[+]Loading...["Recruits (audio story)"]) Through the extrapolations of the Matrix, the Time War-era Time Lords became aware that Big Bang Two would cause subtle changes to Earth's timeline, citing the 2021 attack as evidence that, at large, humans of the 21st century were unfamiliar with the Daleks. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual ^[+]Loading...["Dalek Combat Training Manual (reference book)"])

Other references

In 2006, an internet user reported having seen the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler in London last year on whoisdoctorwho.co.uk, posting using the name dalek. (PROSE: Rose sighting confirmed ^[+]Loading...["Rose sighting confirmed (short story)"])

Other realities

The Fourth Doctor once theorised the absence of the Daleks in some alternate universes as an explanation for realities in which the Krotons, Quarks and Ogrons respectively emerged as dominant powers. Indeed, a leader of the Ogron Confederation of Planets was unfamiliar with the Daleks. (COMIC: The Lost Dimension ^[+]Loading...["The Lost Dimension (comic story)"])

Empress Rose Tyler sits upon her throne. (COMIC: Empire of the Wolf ^[+]Loading...["Empire of the Wolf (comic story)"])

In one alternate timeline, the Daleks were peace-loving academics, with Skaro being the universal centre of civilisation, philosophy, democracy and art. The Time Lords of this timeline were on good terms with these Daleks. (PROSE: The Ripple Effect ^[+]Loading...["The Ripple Effect (short story)"])

In the year 2010 of Pete's World, Pete Tyler did not recognise the name "Dalek" before he and the Preachers encountered them in N-Space. (TV: Doomsday ^[+]Loading...["Doomsday (TV story)"])

In an alternate timeline created when they seized the Eye of Time, the New Dalek Paradigm invaded Earth in the year 1963. The Daleks' appearance was recorded in an issue of the Daily Times, dated 20 July 1963, before humanity was overrun and exterminated. This timeline was ultimately negated by the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond. (GAME: City of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["City of the Daleks (video game)"])

In an alternate universe, where the Doctor was an entirely fictional construct, the Daleks had appeared by 1964 in the main TV series. (PROSE: The Thief of Sherwood ^[+]Loading...["The Thief of Sherwood (short story)"])

In the year 2059 of an alternate timeline created by the erasure of Rani Chandra's friends in 2009, she recalled to Adam Lloyd that people were already aware of aliens back then through the Cybermen and the Daleks, but were yet to know "everything". (TV: The Mad Woman in the Attic ^[+]Loading...["The Mad Woman in the Attic (TV story)"])

On Skaro and in the Thal diaspora

Prior to the Daleks' re-emergence

The peaceful farming Thals originally encountered on Skaro by the First Doctor and his companions, and who would end up briefly reclaiming the Dalek City after the apparent deaths of all its residents, had not encountered the Daleks since the Neutron War. They remembered the Dals of old as great thinkers and philosophers, and still possessed centuries-old artwork depicting an ancient Thal soldier attacking a defenceless humanoid Dalek, from which the Doctor deduced that the Thals must originally have been the warlike oppressors, and the Thals their victims. (TV: The Daleks ^[+]Loading...["The Daleks (TV story)"])

Shaping Thal culture

After the Daleks grew into a fearsome space power, the Thals who survived, either on a reclaimed Skaro or elsewhere in the universe, grew to see opposing their ancestral enemies as their one purpose in the cosmos, becoming militaristic once again. (TV: Planet of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["Planet of the Daleks (TV story)"]) All Thals were raised with the extermination of the Daleks as their one great directive, and they would now do almost anything to fulfil it. (PROSE: War of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["War of the Daleks (novel)"])

In other cultures

During the Doctor's childhood

The Eleventh Doctor once reminisced about a fairy tale he loved as a child, around a thousand years earlier. It was entitled The Emperor Dalek's New Clothes. (TV: Night Terrors ^[+]Loading...["Night Terrors (TV story)"])

On Gallifrey and among Time Lords

As the enemy in the Last Great Time War

The Young Master, who had yet to leave Gallifrey, was aware of the Daleks. (AUDIO: Masterplan ^[+]Loading...["Masterplan (audio story)"])

The first incarnation of the Doctor, a Renegade Time Lord who fled Gallifrey in a stolen TARDIS, first encountered the Daleks on Skaro with his granddaughter Susan Foreman and human companions Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright. There, the Doctor and his companions helped the Thals to defeat the Daleks, who intended to exterminate them. (TV: The Daleks ^[+]Loading...["The Daleks (TV story)"]) After "delaying" the Dalek conquest of Earth, (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth ^[+]Loading...["The Dalek Invasion of Earth (TV story)"]) the Doctor was recognised as an enemy of the Daleks, who developed and sent their own time machine to pursue the TARDIS. (TV: The Chase ^[+]Loading...["The Chase (TV story)"]) One account suggested this to be the first skirmish in the Time War. (TV: The Chase ^[+]Loading...["The Chase (TV story)"], AUDIO: The Dalek Conquests ^[+]Loading...["The Dalek Conquests (audio story)"])

By the end of their second incarnation, the Doctor, via a Thought Channel, cited the Daleks as the "worst of all" the evils he had fought as he stood trial for defying the Time Lords' non-interference policy. Conjuring an image of a Dalek, the Doctor described them as "a pitiless race of conquerors exterminating all who came up against them" as he condemned the Time Lords' inaction. Ultimately, the Time Lords accepted his plea that there was evil in the universe that must be fought, and that he still had a part to play in that battle, resulting in his forced regeneration and exile to Earth. (TV: The War Games ^[+]Loading...["The War Games (TV story)"])

It was further suggested that, (AUDIO: The Dalek Conquests ^[+]Loading...["The Dalek Conquests (audio story)"]) after the Third Doctor helped negate an alternate timeline in which they successfully conquered Earth by starting World War III in the late 20th century, (TV: Day of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["Day of the Daleks (TV story)"]) the Daleks were brought to the attention of the Time Lords, who accepted the Doctor's plea to guide the TARDIS to Spiridon, where the Doctor neutralised the Dalek army in 2540. (TV: Planet of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["Planet of the Daleks (TV story)"])

Ultimately, the Time Lords forsaw a time in which the Daleks had destroyed all other life forms and become the dominant creature in the universe. Sent by either a Time Lord from his own era (PROSE: Lungbarrow ^[+]Loading...["Lungbarrow (novel)"]) or one from a future point when Gallifrey was threatened by Daleks, (AUDIO: Ascension ^[+]Loading...["Ascension (Gallifrey audio story)"]) the Fourth Doctor was given a mission on Skaro during the Thousand Year War with certain objectives:

• If possible, to avert the creation of the Daleks
• Otherwise to alter their development and make them less aggressive
• To find some intrinsic flaw or weakness to exploit in the Daleks

The Doctor did not avert their creation, but he believed he might have set back Dalek history for a thousand years, but a serious side effect of this was that the Daleks were alerted to the concept of life on other worlds and time travel early, and that they now knew that aliens from the future had tried to avert their creation. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["Genesis of the Daleks (TV story)"]) This attempt created hostilities in the Daleks towards Time Lords and would eventually lead to war. (WC: Monster File: Daleks ^[+]Loading...["Monster File: Daleks (webcast)"], AUDIO: The Dalek Conquests ^[+]Loading...["The Dalek Conquests (audio story)"]) The Eternity Circle even considered this act the very beginning of the Time War, (PROSE: Engines of War ^[+]Loading...["Engines of War (novel)"]) while Rojan considered it to be an early event before the War escalated. (PROSE: The Stranger ^[+]Loading...["The Stranger (short story)"]) The Eleventh Doctor himself referred to it as the "first shot." (COMIC: Hunters of the Burning Stone ^[+]Loading...["Hunters of the Burning Stone (comic story)"])

Records in the Doctor's TARDIS

The Doctor themselves kept memorabilia from their face-offs with the Daleks in their TARDIS. As early as a short time after their first regeneration into the Second Doctor, the Doctor possessed a piece of Dalek technology as one of the treasures in a trunk inside his TARDIS. (TV: The Power of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["The Power of the Daleks (TV story)"]) The Eleventh Doctor would later attempt to parade a Dalek eyestalk as a "proof of courage" when trying to establish relations with some of the alien ships stationed above Trenzalore at the dawn of Siege of Trenzalore. (TV: The Time of the Doctor ^[+]Loading...["The Time of the Doctor (TV story)"])

Archibald Hamish Lethbridge-Stewart quizzically holding the Daleks' master plan VHS tape. (TV: Twice Upon a Time ^[+]Loading...["Twice Upon a Time (TV story)"])

Most strikingly, by the end of their twelfth life, the Doctor owned a VHS tape containing a copy of "the Daleks' master plan", even though the Daleks themselves had lost their own copy centuries earlier. The Doctor casually speculated that the Daleks would do almost anything to get this video document back. (PROSE: Twice Upon a Time ^[+]Loading...["Twice Upon a Time (novelisation)"]) The tape was briefly held up in confusion by Archibald Hamish Lethbridge-Stewart as he explored the TARDIS control room in utmost bafflement. (TV: Twice Upon a Time ^[+]Loading...["Twice Upon a Time (TV story)"], PROSE: Twice Upon a Time ^[+]Loading...["Twice Upon a Time (novelisation)"])

The Cybermen

The Time Lords understood that they and the Cybermen shared a common enemy in the Daleks and, during the Last Great Time War, sought to enlist the Cybermen as allies. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual ^[+]Loading...["Dalek Combat Training Manual (reference book)"]) Indeed, the Cybermen were known to have been involved in the Time War. (COMIC: Outrun ^[+]Loading...["Outrun (comic story)"]) Dalek Sec of the Cult of Skaro identified the Cybermen as an "inferior species" to the Daleks. He identified the outline of those from Pete's World as "[resembling]" the Cybermen. (TV: Doomsday ^[+]Loading...["Doomsday (TV story)"])

Under the belief that the Eleventh Doctor would cause the destruction of the universe, the Daleks and the Cybermen joined the Pandorica Alliance in an ill-fated attempt to capture him. (TV: The Pandorica Opens ^[+]Loading...["The Pandorica Opens (TV story)"])

The expanding Cyber Legions engaged the Daleks amongst other species. (PROSE: Ghost in the Machine ^[+]Loading...["Ghost in the Machine (short story)"]) Both the Daleks and the Cybermen were among the many species which participated in the Siege of Trenzalore, though ultimately only the Daleks remained to confront the Eleventh Doctor, the other forces having "retreated or burned". (TV: The Time of the Doctor ^[+]Loading...["The Time of the Doctor (TV story)"]) Missy suggested that the Twelfth Doctor could use her weapons-grade Cyberdears to liberate the Dalek camps. (TV: Death in Heaven ^[+]Loading...["Death in Heaven (TV story)"])

Motiviated by their hatred for the Doctor, the Daleks entered in an alliance with the Spy Master and his CyberMasters as part of the Master's ill-fated plan to eliminate the Thirteenth Doctor. Still, the Doctor recongised both species continued to hate each other. Indeed, the Daleks and Cybermen had different plans for Earth: The Daleks wanted humanity destroyed, while the Cybermen hoped to convert the species. (TV: The Power of the Doctor ^[+]Loading...["The Power of the Doctor (TV story)"])

The Sontarans

The Daleks had their own entry in the Sontaran Subliminal Education Matrix which counted them as a dangerous foe of the Sontarans. While noting that the two species shared a bloodlust and a will to bend all opposition to their "iron rule", it maintained that the Sontarans were motivated by honour and their own "superiority" whilst the Daleks were motivated by their hatred for all other life forms which was characterised as a dishonourable "weakness" and "sickness" that dwarfed the Sontarans' own animosity for their long-standing enemies, the Rutan Host. It did, however, observe that the Daleks were "the right height". (PROSE: A Soldier's Education ^[+]Loading...["A Soldier's Education (short story)"])

In an alternate timeline where the Daleks working under the Dalek Time Controller and the Reborn Master took over Earth in 1921, the Sontarans continued focusing on their conflict with the Rutans, initially having "no quarrel" with the Daleks until, in 1961, they started attacking Sontaran spacecraft as a means to harvest bio-matter to create new Daleks. (AUDIO: Master of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["Master of the Daleks (audio story)"]) Indeed, in the natural timeline, it was known that the Rutan-Sontaran War continued even as the Daleks fought over Mutter's Spiral against humanity in the Second Dalek War. (COMIC: Pureblood ^[+]Loading...["Pureblood (comic story)"])

During the Last Great Time War, both the Daleks and the Time Lords refused to ally with the Sontarans, leading the warrior race to make an ill-fated attempt to open up their own front in the conflict by kidnapping representatives of both powers including the Dalek Time Strategist. (AUDIO: The Eternity Cage ^[+]Loading...["The Eternity Cage (audio story)"]) In the post-Time War universe, the Sontarans understood that they were not allowed to be a part of the legendary Time War. (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem ^[+]Loading...["The Sontaran Stratagem (TV story)"])

The Sontarans, along with the Daleks, joined the Pandorica Alliance which attempted to imprison the Eleventh Doctor to save the universe. (TV: The Pandorica Opens ^[+]Loading...["The Pandorica Opens (TV story)"]) The Sontarans were also among the species which participated in the Siege of Trenzalore before their forces "retreated or burned", leaving only the Daleks to face the Doctor at the end. (TV: The Time of the Doctor ^[+]Loading...["The Time of the Doctor (TV story)"])

Rhodia

Andrea Quill, the last survivor of the Quill of the planet Rhodia and guardian of Rhodian Prince Charlie Smith, was aware of the Daleks, (PROSE: The Stone House ^[+]Loading...["The Stone House (novel)"]) as well as their Time War with the Time Lords of Gallifrey. In contrast, Charlie, who was himself the last surviving Rhodian, was unfamiliar with the Daleks, mistaking one for a robot. (AUDIO: In Remembrance ^[+]Loading...["In Remembrance (audio story)"])

Others

As real beings

Briant Michel was an artist who created the painting Taming the Exxilons, which depicted a platoon of primitive Daleks laying waste to primitive, pitiful Exxilons. Michel was harshly criticised upon unveiling the work for its glorification of the Daleks and their ethnic cleansing. It was later discovered that Michel had in fact been a Dalek replicant, thus explaining his loyalty. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe ^[+]Loading...["Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe (short story)"])

Following the Last Great Time War, the Nestene Consciousness recognised the "mighty" empire of the Daleks. (PROSE: Revenge of the Nestene ^[+]Loading...["Revenge of the Nestene (short story)"]) Silver Tear's fear of the Daleks was used against her aboard the Minotaur's prison ship. (TV: The God Complex ^[+]Loading...["The God Complex (TV story)"])

Mythology

One history book about the Daleks noted that the Daleks often carved out a space for themselves in the mythology of the races they conquered. Some viewed them as demons, others as bogey-men, and others yet as ancient gods from beyond the stars, meting out wrathful judgement to nonbelievers.

These cultures also tended to develop creation myths about the Daleks, sometimes containing a grain of truth, but altered to befit the aesthetic sensibilities of the species involved. One such creation myth retold the story of Yarvelling, Zolfian and Drenz, (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe ^[+]Loading...["Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe (short story)"]) which some accounts depicted as the real origin of the Daleks (COMIC: Genesis of Evil ^[+]Loading...["Genesis of Evil (comic story)"], TV: The Daleks ^[+]Loading...["The Daleks (TV story)"]) but was decried by the aforementioned human historians as likely fictional, except as a short-lived aberrant timeline during the Last Great Time War. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe ^[+]Loading...["Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe (short story)"])

The idea of the Daleks getting their start on Ameron as descendants of humans altered by the godlike Halldons, as formulated by Bryant Anderson, (PROSE: We are the Daleks! ^[+]Loading...["We are the Daleks! (short story)"]) was held by the history book to be late humanity's own fulfilment of this "pattern", although they admitted that the story may have some scientific grounding all the same, either with the Ameronian Daleks being a distinct lineage from their Skaro homologues, or with similar events having taken place on ancient Skaro with the "proto-humans" evolving into Thals and Kaleds. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe ^[+]Loading...["Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe (short story)"])

Trick-or-treaters on Verticulus dressed as bronze Daleks as well as Cybermen. (COMIC: Wholloween ^[+]Loading...["Wholloween (comic story)"])

A Christmas decoration depicting a Dalek. (WC: Unexpected Christmas Presence ^[+]Loading...["Unexpected Christmas Presence (webcast)"])

A decoration depicting a Dalek was present on a Christmas tree in a home occupied by Yung-Star and Zelda. (WC: Unexpected Christmas Presence ^[+]Loading...["Unexpected Christmas Presence (webcast)"])

Other realities

Earth-33⅓

A Dalek-flavoured totem pole. (COMIC: Who Was 'Ere! ^[+]Loading...["Who Was 'Ere! (comic story)"])

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Several parodical stories in 1987's The Doctor Who Fun Book presented contradictory looks at the production and fandom of Doctor Who, at different "levels" of metafiction, including references to the Daleks.

In COMIC: Who Was 'Ere!, for one, a North American Totem featuring a Dalek as one of the creatures in the carvings (as well as a police box) is cited as one example of the Doctor's meddling in human history, taken to be suggesting that the Doctor visited America before Christopher Columbus. Meanwhile, COMIC: Dalek Invasion of Ealing 1987 concerned itself with the Daleks seemingly exploiting their own Earth reputations as characters in BBC productions, wreaking genuine havoc on Ealing under the pretence of some BBC filming (with John Nathan-Turner in attendance).

Behind the scenes

In non-valid sources

An individual wearing a "Mini Dalek". (COMIC: Untitled ^[+]Loading...["Untitled (Countdown for TV Action Annual 1973 comic story)"])

An individual once walked past an employee and a camera operator while wearing what the operator described as a "Mini Dalek". (COMIC: Untitled ^[+]Loading...["Untitled (Countdown for TV Action Annual 1973 comic story)"])

The Time Traveller's Almanac

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Explaining how Henry van Statten was unfamiliar with the Dalek he named Metaltron, The Time Traveller's Almanac suggested that the Van Statten Incident took place in a timeline where the Cult of Skaro did not emerge from the Sphere and precipitate the Battle of Canary Wharf in 2007 and so did not go on to influence the construction of the Empire State Building, nor was the Earth transported to the Medusa Cascade since the personal timelines of both the Doctor and the Dalek race had not progressed to the point where those events occurred.