Dalek Caan
Dalek Caan was one of four Daleks in the Cult of Skaro. Like the others, he thought like the Daleks' enemies to find new ways of defeating them. (TV: Doomsday)
At one time, Caan was the only Dalek remaining in existence. He breached the Time Lock upon the Time War, which Davros said "cost him his mind" but allowed him to see into the future. (TV: The Stolen Earth) Caan was presumably killed, along with the other remnants of the New Dalek Empire, when the Crucible was destroyed. (TV: Journey's End)
Biography
Battle of Canary Wharf
Dalek Caan was one of the three Dalek drones to follow the Cult's leader, the Supreme Dalek Sec. During the Last Great Time War between the Daleks and the Time Lords, the Cult took the Genesis Ark and fled the war into the Void, resurfacing in London in 2007.
The Daleks scanned Dr Singh's brain and learned another species, the Cybermen, had invaded Earth. The Cyber-Leader declared war while the Cult declared "pest control". Dalek Caan took part in the Battle of Canary Wharf, in which the Genesis Ark released millions of Daleks onto Earth.
Because they had been through the void, they were covered in void stuff. The Tenth Doctor opened the rift the Cybermen had come through and reversed it, sucking in all beings covered in "Void stuff". As the Daleks were sucked into the Void, Dalek Caan and the rest of the Cult activated an emergency temporal shift and escaped. (TV: Army of Ghosts/Doomsday)
The Final Experiment
The Cult ended up in New York City in 1930. They recruited Mr Diagoras, the head of construction for the Empire State Building. He kidnapped people for their research and for the "Final Experiment". Dalek Caan served as the Cult's liaison with Diagoras. Caan took him to their leader, Dalek Sec, who merged with Diagoras in his casing to become the first Dalek-human hybrid. (TV: Daleks in Manhattan)
After Dalek Sec became a Dalek-human, he decided their creator, Davros, was wrong about removing emotions and the deaths at Hooverville were wrong. Dalek Caan and the other members decided the plan Sec had for the new Daleks was unacceptable; it would change everything that made a Dalek a Dalek and they would no longer be supreme. Caan, Dalek Jast and Dalek Thay mutinied, imprisoned Sec, and poured a different gene solution into the Dalek-humans than Sec had wanted, making the new bodies one hundred percent Dalek. It is unusual why he took commamd and not dalek Thay after sec had been killed as thay was higher in rank.
Dalek Caan made himself Controller and connected with the Dalek-human army. When Dalek Thay and Dalek Jast ordered the new Daleks to destroy the Doctor, the hybrids questioned orders. The Doctor explained that he had gotten in the way of the gamma strike which had brought them to life. His DNA had become mixed with theirs, giving them a little freedom. A battle broke out between the Daleks and the Dalek-humans. Jast and Thay were destroyed. Caan saw the new Daleks as failures and killed the entire species.
Caan was the last member of the Cult and the last of the entire Dalek species. The Doctor confronted him and offered Caan help and compassion because he didn't want genocide. Caan activated an emergency temporal shift and escaped. (TV: Evolution of the Daleks)
Out of the Last Great Time War
Dalek Caan managed to enter the Time War even though it was time locked. He saved Davros from death in the jaws of the Nightmare Child. After the Daleks moved Earth to the Medusa Cascade in 2009, Dalek Caan resided on the Dalek spaceship, speaking cryptically to Davros.
The Supreme Dalek on the Crucible thought Dalek Caan was insane, while Davros disagreed. However, Davros acknowledged that he had become mad due to the strain of travelling directly into the Time War, corroborated by Caan's constant laughter and talking in seemingly precognitive riddles in an almost sing-song voice. His battle armour was also badly damaged. The upper dome was completely gone and the armour opened up to show the Dalek mutant. The gun and sucker attachment were permanently extended, seemingly unusable. (TV: The Stolen Earth)
The Prophecy
Following the movement of Earth to the Medusa Cascade, Caan prophecied of the coming of a "three-fold man", of "The Doctor's soul" being revealed, that the "Children of Time would gather" and "one would die". The "three-fold man" referred to the Doctor, the "Meta-Crisis Doctor", and the "Doctor-Donna". The last two were created when Donna Noble touched the Doctor's spare hand, which had been used as a repository for the Doctor's Regeneration energy. This created the Meta-Crisis Doctor. Donna subsequently received the mind of a Time Lord. The "Children of Time" were Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler, Mickey Smith, Sarah Jane Smith, Captain Jack Harkness and Martha Jones, who had each travelled with the Doctor. The Doctor's soul was revealed as a man who refused to use weapons but moulded his companions into them; Jack, Sarah Jane, Mickey and Jackie and Martha each threatened destruction to stop the Daleks. Their threats were all foiled when the Supreme Dalek had them teleported to the Vault. The Meta-Crisis Doctor and Donna arrived to try and stop Davros, who incapacitated them both. However, Donna's Time Lord mind, having lain dormant, was "jump-started" by Davros's attack. Using her human ingenuity coupled with her Time Lord knowledge, she deactivated the Reality Bomb and disabled Davros and his Daleks.
Davros demanded to know why Dalek Caan had not foreseen their defeat. Caan replied with mad giggling. The Doctor realised that Caan had foreseen these events, and had even manipulated the timelines, binding Donna and the Doctor bring events to this conclusion. Caan said he "only helped". When Davros accused Caan of betraying the Daleks, Caan replied that rather, he had seen the Daleks: he had witnessed the evil of his kind throughout all of time of space and how many innocent lives were massacred by his race. Even as Davros rebuilt the Daleks, Caan decreed no more.
Dalek Caan pressured the Meta-Crisis Doctor to destroy the Daleks, which he did. Caan was last seen on the exploding Crucible with Davros, reminding the Doctor before he left that "One will still die." His fate, like that of Davros, remains unconfirmed, though he likely died in the explosion. Dalek Caan, like Dalek Sec before him, felt remorse for his actions and possibly mourned for the victims of the Daleks.
Apparently, the companion who "died" was Donna, whose memories of her travels with the Doctor had to be erased to save her from burning out from the Time Lord knowledge that she carried. Should Donna ever remember her travels, the knowledge would destroy her. The Doctor told her family that the Donna she had become was dead. (TV: Journey's End)
Personality
Dalek Caan had a mind of his own and thought for himself. That was part of the Cult of Skaro mandate: to imagine and think as their enemies thought. Unlike most Daleks, who always obeyed their superiors, Caan was independent and made his own decisions and disobeyed higher-ranking Daleks. He was the first to question the Dalek Sec-hybrid and convinced Dalek Jast and Dalek Thay to overthrow him. (TV: Evolution of the Daleks)
After flying into the Time War, Dalek Caan lost his sanity and giggled madly. He foresaw the future with perfect accuracy because he had seen the whole of time and space. Davros noted that even the Supreme Dalek didn't dare to contradict Caan's prophecies. Though Caan had never lied about the future he did not always reveal the whole truth. Though he had foreseen that the Doctor and his companions would defeat the Daleks, he made no effort to stop them. Caan made prophecies in an almost sing-song voice.
Despite his madness, Dalek Caan was cunning enough to fool Davros throughout the War in the Medusa Cascade and betray him. In helping the Doctor defeat the Daleks, he truly thought like his enemy did: thinking like the Doctor on how to defeat the Daleks and even how to help the Doctor do it. Caan was also somewhat manipulative and the Doctor noted that he had been manipulating the timelines ever since he had rescued Davros from the Time War. However, Caan was also quite humble, at least after his change of heart, telling the Doctor that the defeat of the Daleks was inevitable and that he had only helped rather than been directly responsible for it. (TV: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End)
Despite, or perhaps, from a Dalek's point of view, because of his insanity, Dalek Caan felt regret for everything the Daleks had done and decided to help the Doctor defeat them. Most Daleks were only capable of feeling hatred or fear, but Caan was an exception and felt remorse for the slaughter the Daleks had committed throughout time and space. After he returned to the Time War, Caan realised that the Daleks and their creator were evil monsters. Disgusted with them and himself for being one of them, Caan chose to put an end to the Daleks and made no effort to save himself when the Crucible exploded. Instead he warned the Doctor one of his companions would die. (TV: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End)
Other information
Dalek Caan, as with all Daleks that originated from the Last Great Time War, possessed markings below his eyepiece to identify him. (TV: Doomsday)
Caan's voice was originally the deepest of the Cult of Skaro. However, after the Cult revolted against Dalek Sec, Caan's voice changed to the same pitch as Sec's.[source needed]
Whenever the Tenth Doctor encountered Daleks, Caan was present.[source needed]
Behind the scenes
- In Daleks in Manhattan and Evolution of the Daleks, Caan's recognition code changes between Thay's and Jast's. This is a production error. All three Daleks share the same outward appearance, minus the recognition code sections on their casings, which are relatively small and easy to overlook. It is evidence that the production crews confused the Dalek builds during filming and did not catch their mistakes.
