Dalek Empire
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The Dalek Empire was an empire created by the Daleks which spanned much of time and space. With a goal to exterminate all life save the Daleks themselves, the Empire waged numerous interstellar wars, bringing it into frequent conflict with the Doctor. It was divided for a time during its civil war, but was eventually reunited. Ultimately, the entire Empire fought the Time Lords in the Last Great Time War, which was marked by unprecedented destruction across time. The Dalek Empire ceased to exist when the war ended, although remnants survived. One of the survivors of the Dalek Empire, Dalek Caan, went on to become the founder of the New Dalek Empire, which itself would later be succeeded by a third empire.
History
Origins
Inheriting the Kaled belief that Skaro was the only world in the universe that could support life, (TV: Genesis of the Daleks) the earliest incarnation of the Dalek Empire was focused only on Skaro, intending to rebuild and fully colonise their ruined planet. Their first encounter with the First Doctor, who confirmed that other life existed in the universe, (TV: The Daleks) however led the Daleks to devote themselves to one day leaving Skaro and conquer other worlds. (AUDIO: The Lights of Skaro, Return to Skaro)
With the knowledge of constructing spacecraft lost to them, (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) the Daleks first attempted to claim the Doctor's TARDIS as a means of reaching other planets, (AUDIO: Return to Skaro) but instead reverse engineered Krattorian blueprints. (COMIC: Power Play) Before their own spacecrafts were completed, it was believed that the Daleks had made alliances with spacefaring races, such as the Voord, to transport Dalek forces to desirable planets. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Daleks) After the construction of the first Dalek Fleet, the Daleks first attacked the planet Alvega, ultimately destroying it when it would not surrender to them. (COMIC: The Amaryll Challenge) In building the Dalek Empire, the Daleks experienced a technological surge comparable to the Gallifreyans' own empire building. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords)
In the early days of the Empire, Dalek factory ships were sent out by the thousands to quickly mass produce legions of Daleks on other planets. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) One of these capsules landed on the planet Vulcan where it would later be uncovered by human colonists who sought to exploit Dalek technology. The Daleks within worked to conquer the planet only to be destroyed by the Second Doctor. (TV: The Power of the Daleks)
Reconnaissance scout Daleks were also sent out ahead of the main fleet to gather information of targeted worlds before the fleet would be summoned. (TV: Resolution)
After the Dalek Empire had conquered thousands of worlds, (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) they staged an invasion and conquest of Earth in the year 2157. (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth) The Daleks intended to use Earth to enact Project Degravitate, turning the planet into a massive warship to carry their forces across the galaxy, (AUDIO: The Dalek Conquests) but the interference of the First Doctor led to their invasion being overthrown. (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth) Following this, other subjugated races began rising up against the Empire. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe)
Expanding the Empire
- As always, time travel makes the sequence of events here conjectural.
Settling down to more general use of their time travelling abilities, the Daleks proceeded on a grand effort to create a permanent base of operations. Using knowledge from the library of Kar-Charrat (AUDIO: The Genocide Machine) and the power of Gallifrey, the Daleks obliterated the entire Seriphia Galaxy, remaking it to their own designs. (AUDIO: The Apocalypse Element) From there, the Daleks staged two major invasions of the Mutter's Spiral 2,500 years apart. (AUDIO: Invasion of the Daleks, The Exterminators)
Despite having their own galaxy, the Dalek Emperor maintained himself on the home planet of Skaro, and continued efforts from there to take over Earth at various points in history. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan, The Evil of the Daleks, Day of the Daleks) The Black Dalek Leader enacted a master plan in the year 4000. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) Forming the Great Alliance, made up of representatives of the Outer Galaxies, the Black Dalek attempted to lure all the major galactic powers to the solar system which it would then destroy with a Time Destructor only the Doctor to activate the weapon on the Daleks' base on Kembel, turning its power against them. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan) While the Black Dalek Leader had survived these events, (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) all the infrastructure it had been delegated was destroyed by the weapon, dealing a severe blow to the Dalek Empire. (PROSE: The Mutation of Time) It also began the Great War, which itself led into a Dalek Civil War. (PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks) A group of human historians claimed the Black Dalek had launched the master plan at a point in time when it was the sole survivor of the Dalek Council. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe)
The Gold Dalek, aided by the Renegade Time Lord known as the Master, attempted to provoke war between the humans and Draconians, leaving both species open for Dalek conquest, (TV: Frontier in Space) and later attempted to use time travel to reconquer 22nd century Earth, (TV: Day of the Daleks) but was stopped by the Third Doctor on both counts. The Black Dalek Leader took inspiration from this and sent a taskforce of Daleks to assassinate the Doctor in his first incarnation, (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) but this failed when the Doctor trapped them in a war against the Mechonoids. (TV: The Chase) The two empires waged a devastating war against one another until the subtle interference of the Zerovians brought the conflict to an impasse, though both sides still considered the other an enemy. (COMIC: Impasse)
Some time after the Daleks' foray to Exxilon, the Daleks recommitted themselves to conquest, breaking the Draconian Empire with the Combined Galactic Resistance being formed to fight back against Dalek conquest. The Resistance managed to capture a damaged Dalek, that was later named Rusty, who claimed a desire to turn on its own kind. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) However, Rusty had access to post-Last Great Time War memories, implying that these Daleks were not of the pre-War empire and instead the New Dalek Paradigm. (TV: Into the Dalek) After the Twelfth Doctor rescued Journey Blue, the Resistance asked him to help fix Rusty as he had been turned good. The Doctor, Clara Oswald, Journey, Ross and Gretchen Alison Carlisle travelled into Rusty and located a crack in his power source that was spewing radiation and killing him, losing Ross along the way.
The Doctor repaired the crack with his sonic screwdriver, but the radiation had been causing Rusty's change, and so without it Rusty turned evil again, breaking free of its restraints and calling in more Daleks to destroy the Aristotle. At the insistence of Clara, the Doctor, Clara, Journey and Gretchen attempted to turn Rusty good again by reactivating his suppressed memories, particularly that of a star being born which would open him to the Doctor's influence.
Clara succeeded in reactivating the memories, opening Rusty's mind and the Doctor telepathically linked with him to get him to see the good in the universe through the Doctor. However, being a Dalek, the "beauty" that Rusty reacted to was the Doctor's hatred of the Daleks. Taking the Doctor's hatred as his own, Rusty turned on the Dalek boarding party attacking the Aristotle and exterminated them. Rusty told the Doctor that he wasn't a good Dalek but the Doctor was, and then he ordered the Dalek flying saucer that was docked with the Aristotle to retreat, claiming that the humans had activated the ship's self-destruct. Rusty left with the Daleks to continue his war against his own kind by destroying them from within. (TV: Into the Dalek) After managing to destroy the Dalek command ship, Rusty was retrieved by the Daleks, his new mindset causing the Dalek Supreme Council to withdraw lest Rusty's influence spread to other Daleks. After confirming it could not, Rusty was exiled to the Dalek Asylum, (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) but managed to escape, basing himself at Villengard. The Daleks made attempts to hunt him down and destroy him, but Rusty was persistently successful in fighting them off. All around his control tower were the shattered remnants of his earlier attackers. Some of the Daleks survived, albeit without their casings. (TV: Twice Upon a Time)
Empire in Civil War
After the resurrection of the Daleks' creator Davros during the Movellan war, (TV: Destiny of the Daleks) the Daleks entered a new era, led by Davros as the new Emperor. (COMIC: Emperor of the Daleks!) A schism developed between the Imperial Daleks loyal to Davros and Renegade Daleks loyal to the Dalek Supreme. The subsequent Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War stretched across the entire Dalek Empire. As the war escalated, the Seventh Doctor set a trap for factions, resulting in the destruction of (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) Skaro's second sun. (PROSE: The Stranger)
The Dalek Prime and Davros survived the war and encountered one another once more during a decline in Dalek pervasiveness throughout the galaxy. Davros was again defeated and the Dalek Prime set about rebuilding the Empire. (PROSE: War of the Daleks)
The Restoration Empire
- Main article: Restoration Empire
The Restoration Empire (short story), Mission to the Known (short story),
By another account, the Imperial Daleks had triumphed in the Civil War and, after the disappearance of Davros, a Dalek Supreme exterminated the other Daleks on the Dalek Council (PROSE: The Restoration Empire) and was elected the new Emperor of the Imperial Daleks. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) He founded the Restoration Empire, an attempt to harken back to the earliest days of the Dalek Empire. The Restoration Empire reintroduced Silver Daleks as the basic drones and the Emperor modelled himself on the Dalek Prime, creating a gold casing which augmented his brain capacity. (PROSE: The Restoration Empire) Human historians believed this Emperor continued Davros' plan to move against the High Council of the Time Lords, thus leading his armies into the Last Great Time War. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe)
Temporal fluctuations, (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times) caused by the Tenth Doctor defeating the Kotturuh in the Dark Times, (PROSE: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead) appeared to alter events so this Empire did not immediately fight the Time War. (COMIC: Defender of the Daleks) The fluctuations were detected by the Daleks and the Emperor learnt that history was under attack via a message sent by the last survivor of a Time Squad which had yet to be sent back in time. Wanting more information, (PROSE: The Last Message) he led the Daleks in an invasion of Islos to seize the Archive. However the Chief Archivian made a deal with an Entity from outside time and space for the Archive’s rescue, promising their rescuer the Dalek Emperor. Upon entering the empty Archive, the Emperor, Prime Strategist and Executioner found a portal from which the Entity emerged. (WC: The Archive of Islos) The Daleks were able to dupe the Mechonoids into defeating this creature, (WC: Planet of the Mechonoids, The Deadly Ally) before banishing both of their foes to the Entity's dimension. The Entity however warned the Daleks of an oncoming threat. (WC: Day of Reckoning)
This threat materialised in the form of the Hond, an omnicidal species from the Dark Times. The Restoration Empire initially attempted to ally with them only to be turned down and forced on the defensive. When only Skaro remained, the Daleks sought out the Tenth Doctor, who believed that the Restoration Empire was the result of a paradox, for aid, bringing him before the Emperor. Working, albeit reluctantly, with the Strategist, the Doctor deduced that the Hond were suffering made manifest and managed to cure them of their suffering, ending their crusade against the Daleks. A Grey Dalek made an attempt to exterminate the Tenth Doctor but the Thirteenth Doctor helped him escape. With one Doctor lost to them, the Strategist suggested the Daleks turn their attention to other Doctors. (COMIC: Defender of the Daleks)
The Emperor created a Time Squad to investigate the fluctuations in time and rectify them to the Dalek Empire’s benefit. (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times) The Time Squad abducted the Eighth Doctor, (AUDIO: He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not) and convinced him to help them. They travelled back to the Dark Times with him, (AUDIO: The Enemy of My Enemy) where they confronted the Tenth Doctor at Mordeela. (PROSE: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead)
The Dalek Time Squad quickly proved the superior force in the Battle of Mordeela but was unable to destroy the HMS Donna a result of Brian unleashing various ancient weapons on their ship. Fearing that any remaining Kotturuh would judge the Daleks, scout ships were sent to exterminate what remained of the aliens. While the Prime Strategist and Scientist began experimenting on the unique creatures of the Dark Times, the Time Commander and Executioner began preparing for the Ultimate End, as ordered by the Emperor in pre-recorded instructions, destroying pre-Time Lord Gallifrey. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass)
After visiting several planets, (COMIC: Tales of the Dark Times) the Daleks captured a Great Vampire and used its DNA to engineer an undying form of Dalek mutant, the Symbiont. The Tenth and Eighth Doctors infiltrated the saucer and learnt of the Daleks’ plans. Knowing Gallifrey would now be defended, the Strategist ordered the Drones be enhanced with Symbiont DNA whilst the original was sent to Birinji to kill the last of the Kotturuh, Inyit. The hybrid Drones were deployed against Gallifrey, managing to quickly overwhelm the HMS Donna and three coffin ships defending the planet however perished when Inyit used her final judgement to give the original of their number a short lifespan. Fearing that this judgement would spread to pure Dalek DNA, the Daleks panicked and retreated to their saucer, despite the Strategist’s desire to press the attack. This enabled the Eighth Doctor to board their craft and detonate an explosive, forcing the saucer into the Time Vortex. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass)
The Eighth Doctor managed to destroy the saucer while inside the Vortex, as the Time Squad descended into infighting. (AUDIO: Mutually Assured Destruction) The drone who unknowingly enacted the bootstrap paradox survived (PROSE: The Last Message) and attempted to raise its own army on the Starship Future only to be defeated by the Fourth Doctor. (AUDIO: Genetics of the Daleks) The Dalek Prime Strategist also survived, observing other Daleks being torn apart by time winds. He escaped via an emergency temporal shift, powered using Kotturuh crystals he’d stored in his casing.
After the crisis grew to a close, the Strategist believed that the Daleks of the Restoration Empire would ultimately head into the War with the Time Lords, though with him now seriously considering the option of overthrowing the Emperor and overseeing the War himself. (PROSE: Exit Strategy)
Last Great Time War and destruction
United and re-unified once more, the Daleks, under leadership of the Dalek Emperor, (TV: The Parting of the Ways) disappeared from normal space during the Tenth Dalek Occupation, (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords) into the Time Vortex where they constructed a fleet, (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) with which to wage war against the Time Lords in the Last Great Time War. (TV: Dalek) After being asked to help, Davros joined their effort, (PROSE: Father of the Daleks) until he was lost to the Nightmare Child at the Gates of Elysium. (PROSE: The Third Wise Man) The Daleks' temporal strategies were guided by the Dalek Time Strategist. (AUDIO: Desperate Measures)
In the early days of the War, the Daleks sought means to invade Gallifrey. They investigated the rift at the heart of the Obscura, unaware they had been lured there as part of a trap designed by Irving Braxiatel, (AUDIO: Soldier Obscura) and invaded the pocket dimension containing Project Revenant. The invasion was successful however the Celestial Intervention Agency arranged the facility's destruction before the Daleks took control, resulting in the pocket dimension collapsing. (AUDIO: Desperate Measures)
The Time War raged, in a linear sense, for four centuries, enduring for so long that the Empire's ideals of racial purity eventually became diluted, as did the notion of absolute conformity. Groups such as the Eternity Circle, (PROSE: Engines of War) the Cult of Skaro, (TV: Doomsday) and the Volatix Cabal were created with the capacity for independent thought so as to match the imagination of the Time Lords. (COMIC: Downtime) To boost their overworked army, the Dalek Empire began converting conquered humans into Daleks and harvested versions of themselves from alternate realities, creating the Skaro Degradations. (PROSE: Engines of War) The Overseer conducted experiments on Ogrons on The Planet, however after a rebellion on The Planet he was relieved of command and his experiments stopped by other Daleks who deemed them an abomination. (AUDIO: Planet of the Ogrons)
The Daleks were wiped out by the Valeyard turning a temporal superweapon against them on Grahv, however the Strategist survived. (AUDIO: The War Valeyard) Manipulating a parallel universe version of Davros, he used dimensional engineering to restore the Dalek Empire including the Emperor and the Time War resumed. (AUDIO: Palindrome, Restoration of the Daleks)
The Daleks formed alliances in the course of their campaign against the Time Lords, including with the Morlontoa, (COMIC: The Clockwise War) the Taalyens, (AUDIO: The Thousand Worlds, The Heart of the Battle) and the Enigma, which briefly wiped out the Time Lords on their behalf until the War Doctor convinced it not to. (AUDIO: The Enigma Dimension) They also used human agents, such as crime boss Jarred McKenzie on Unity (AUDIO: Unity) and Lara Zannis. (AUDIO: The Shadow Vortex)
On the last day of the Time War, the Daleks finally breached the defences around Gallifrey, with the entire might of the Dalek Empire, numbering a "billion billion" units on ten million warships, converging on the planet. Though the Daleks managed to invade Arcadia, Gallifrey's second city, they were unable to breach the Capitol's defences, instead commencing an orbital bombardment to destroy Gallifrey. Faced with this onslaught, the War Doctor stole the Moment, seeking to destroy both Time Lords and Daleks, only for the superweapon to have him meet his Tenth and Eleventh selves, with the latter's companion, Clara Oswald, convincing the Doctor to find a better way. Summoning "all thirteen" of his incarnations, the Doctor utilised stasis cube technology to move Gallifrey into a pocket universe. Panicking at the sight of thirteen police boxes, the Daleks increased their firepower with the Dalek Empire ultimately destroying itself in its own crossfire when the planet disappeared. (TV: The Day of the Doctor) The Emperor recalled this destruction as an "inferno". (TV: The Parting of the Ways)
Unable to retain his memories of the War's true ending, the Ninth Doctor believed that he had detonated the Moment and destroyed the Dalek Empire. (TV: Dalek)
Remnants
There were at least four different instances of Dalek survivors of the Time War: a single drone which fell through time, landing on Earth in the 20th century, (TV: Dalek) the Dalek Emperor himself, (TV: The Parting of the Ways) the four-member Cult of Skaro, in possession of a Genesis Ark containing millions of trapped drones (TV: Doomsday) and the inmates of the Dalek Asylum, a prison planet containing thousands of insane and damaged Daleks. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks)
The Doctor would later ponder the possibility that some Daleks had become so scared of the conflict that they'd fled, hiding themselves away. (PROSE: The Day of the Doctor)
Further Dalek empires
After the destruction of the Dalek Empire, two subsequent empires were established: the New Dalek Empire, followed by the New Dalek Paradigm.
The New Dalek Empire was established by Dalek Caan, who made a perilous journey back through time into the first year of the Time War, and rescued Davros from the "jaws of the Nightmare Child". Davros sacrificed cells from his own body to create millions of new Daleks. Together they built a massive fleet and a space station called the Crucible within the Medusa Cascade. Dalek Caan worked in secret to betray the New Empire and Davros, however, and assisted the Doctor and Donna Noble in disarming the reality bomb and foiling the stolen planets plot. The Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor then caused a chain reaction which destroyed the New Empire, including apparently Davros and Caan. (TV: The Stolen Earth, Journey's End)
Through a deception called the "Ironside Project", three Daleks, (TV: Victory of the Daleks) having survived the destruction of the New Dalek Empire, (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) tricked the Eleventh Doctor into helping them activate the Progenitor. The device then created five new Daleks, referred to as a New Dalek Paradigm. These newcomers destroyed their three forebears and escaped through a time corridor. Amy Pond speculated that the new Daleks would need time to "build themselves up". (TV: Victory of the Daleks)
Reeling from its defeat at the hands of the Ninth Doctor in March 2005, the post-Time War Nestene Consciousness considered allying with the "mighty empires" of the Daleks and the Cybermen in order to rid the universe of the Doctor, (PROSE: Revenge of the Nestene) a prospect which would be realised with the Alliance, which the New Paradigm participated in. (TV: The Pandorica Opens)
The Paradigm's new empire would eventually grow to be overseen by a Parliament led by a Dalek Prime Minister. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks)
Sometime after a vast Galactic Recession, the New Dalek Paradigm established the Sunlight Worlds, 400 worlds and the planet Carthedia acting as a government state. Humans were allowed to live there, not knowing of the danger of the Daleks. The Dalek Time Controller planned to use the Cradle of the Gods to turn the Sunlight Worlds into a billion copies of Skaro. However, the Eleventh Doctor and Jenibeth Blakely foiled this plan. (PROSE: The Dalek Generation)
When it seemed as though the Time Lords might return to the universe during the Siege of Trenzalore, the Paradigm committed the entirety of its military might to denying this. When the Eleventh Doctor regenerated and destroyed their forces, human historians speculated this could be the Daleks' final defeat. They were not fully convinced, however. (TV: The Time of the Doctor, PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe)
The Daleks restored Skaro and made it the centre of their empire. Davros stated they brought back the world due to their strong concept of home. (TV: The Witch's Familiar) Missy had an outstanding death warrant in the Dalek Empire. (AUDIO: The Bekdel Test)
Alternate timelines
Following their escape, the new Daleks discovered the lost Time Lord artefact, the Eye of Time, allowing them to alter time as they saw fit. The Daleks returned to Skaro, rebuilt their capital city of Kaalann, appointed a new Emperor, and began rebuilding their empire. One of the empire's first acts with their new-found power over time was to invade Earth in 1963. In this new timeline, they succeeded in killing every member of the human race. However, the Doctor and Amy Pond successfully undid these events, leaving Earth unconquered and erasing the new empire from existence. (GAME: City of the Daleks)
Another alternate timeline was created when guerrillas from this timeline travelled back and accidentally caused a war by assassinating delegates, allowing the Daleks to invade Earth. This was averted when the Third Doctor travelled back from this timeline and told the guerrilla responsible the truth. Daleks and Ogrons travelled back to keep this timeline intact, but the guerrilla destroyed them with a bomb. (TV: Day of the Daleks)
In another alternate timeline, the Daleks invaded Earth in the 17th century. This was averted by the Eighth Doctor and Charley Pollard. (AUDIO: The Time of the Daleks)
Following his acquisition of the Anti-Genesis codes from Gallifrey during the Last Great Time War, the War Master travelled to Skaro during the Thousand Year War and ensured that Davros was killed by the bomb that had crippled him in the regular timeline. (AUDIO: From the Flames) In Davros's place, the Master infiltrated the Kaled Scientific Elite (AUDIO: The Master's Dalek Plan) and created a new race of Daleks loyal to him instead, (AUDIO: Shockwave) eventually creating a Dalek empire which conquered all of existence. However, this timeline was eventually erased by this Master's future self, a parallel universe Master, and the Dalek Time Strategist, as this timeline almost erased all of reality due to the extreme paradoxes it was built upon. (AUDIO: He Who Wins)
Behind the scenes
- According to non-narrative info in DWBIT 47, the Daleks had a Second Dalek Empire.
