Dalek

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For the 2005 episode, see Dalek (TV story). For the 1964 episode, see The Daleks (TV story).


The Daleks (pronounced "DAH-lecks") are a extraterrestrial race of mutated Kaleds from the planet Skaro. They travel around in tank-like mechanical casings, a ruthless race bent on universal conquest and domination, utterly without pity, compassion or remorse. They are also, collectively, the greatest alien adversaries of the Time Lord known as The Doctor. Their most infamous catchphrase is "EX-TER-MIN-ATE!", with each syllable individually screeched in a frantic electronic voice. Other common utterances include "I (or WE) OBEY!" to any command given by a superior.

Physical characteristics

Externally, Daleks resemble man-sized pepper shakers, with a single mechanical eyestalk in a rotating dome, a gunstick containing a directed energy weapon (or "death ray"), and a telescoping robot arm. Usually, the arm is fitted with a device for manipulation that resembles a plunger, but sometimes this is replaced with a tray, a mechanical claw, or some other piece of specialised equipment like a flamethrower. The plunger can be used as a bludgeon (DW: Dalek). The casings are made of bonded polycarbide armour (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks, Doomsday), a material that has also been called dalekanium. (DW: The Dalek Invasion of Earth)

In an alternate future, dalekanium is an unstable explosive that can penetrate Dalek casings (DW: Day of the Daleks). The two may be the same, or the term may simply be a neologism to describe a product of the Daleks. The lower shell is covered with many hemispherical protrusions or "Dalek bumps". These have been described as being a sensor array, and as being part of a self-destruct system (DW: Dalek).

File:Mo dv01.jpg
Davros, creator of the Daleks.

The creatures inside their "travel machines" are soft and repulsive in appearance, but still vicious even without their mechanical armour. During a 1984 incursion into London, a Dalek creature, separated from its casing, attacked and killed a human soldier (DW: Resurrection of the Daleks). The Doctor has described the Daleks as "little green blobs in bonded polycarbide armour." However, as the creature inside is rarely seen, the misconception that Daleks are wholly mechanical robots exists. The interdependence of biological and mechanical components makes the Daleks a type of cyborg.

The voice of a Dalek is electronic, the Dalek creature having no vocal apparatus as such. Daleks also have a radio communicator built into their shells, and emit an alarm to summon other nearby Daleks if the casing is opened from outside. The Dalek's eyepiece is its most vulnerable spot, and impairing its vision often leads to a blind firing of its weapon.

Due to their gliding motion Daleks were notoriously unable to tackle stairs, which made them easy to overcome under the right circumstances. For example, at one time the Doctor and his companions escaped from Dalek pursuers by climbing into a ceiling duct. He then called down, "If you're supposed to be the superior race of the universe, why don't you try climbing after us? Bye bye!" (DW: Destiny of the Daleks) The Daleks generally make up for their lack of mobility with overwhelming firepower. Also, some models appear to be able to hover, using a sort of limited antigravity. (DW: The Chase, Revelation of the Daleks, Remembrance of the Daleks, Dalek onwards)

The Dalek casing also functions as a fully sealed environment suit, allowing travel through a vacuum or underwater without the need for additional life support equipment. (DW: The Dalek Invasion of Earth, The Parting of the Ways)

History

Main article: History of the Daleks

The Daleks were the product of a generations-long war between the Kaled and Thal races. They were created by the crippled Kaled chief scientist and evil genius Davros. The mutations produced by the fallout from the nuclear and biochemical weapons used in the war were accelerated by Davros and placed in tank-like "travel machines" whose design was based on his own life-support chair. (DW: Genesis of the Daleks)

Over the course of their history, the Daleks developed, in no particular order, time travel (DW: The Chase), an interstellar 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 also vanished, enabling Daleks to move under their own power.

Only a few Daleks appear to have survived the Time War which they fought with the Time Lords. One of them was the Dalek Emperor, who rebuilt the Dalek race. This Emperor came to see itself as a god, and built its new society around the Daleks' worship of itself. In the end, the Daleks and their fleet were reduced to atoms. (DW: The Parting of the Ways)

Culture

Daleks have little to no individual personality and a strict command structure. They are conditioned to obey superior orders without question. Ultimately, the most fundamental feature of Dalek culture and psychology is an unquestioned belief in the superiority of the Daleks. Other species are either to be exterminated immediately, or enslaved and then exterminated later once they are no longer necessary. The default directive of a Dalek is to destroy all non-Dalek lifeforms.

This belief is thought to be the reason why Daleks have never significantly modified their mechanical shell's designs to overcome its obvious physical limitations; any such modification would deviate from the Dalek ideal, and therefore must be inferior and deserving of extermination. The schism between the Renegade and Imperial Daleks is a prime example of this, with each faction considering the other to be a perversion despite the relatively minor differences between them. It also means, however, that Daleks are intolerant of such "contamination" even within themselves. (DW: Dalek, BFA: The Mutant Phase)

Another offshoot of this superiority complex is their complete ruthlessness and lack of compassion, although this is also due to genetic modifications made to the original Kaled mutants by Davros. It is because of this that it is nearly impossible to negotiate or reason with a Dalek and it is this single-mindedness that makes them so dangerous and not to be underestimated. However, their reliance on logic and machinery is also a weakness that they recognize. As a result, they also make use of non-Dalek species to compensate for these shortcomings.

File:Mo da02.jpg
One of the Daleks as they appeared during the Doctor's first encounter with them on Skaro.

As noted above the Daleks that were resurrected through the manipulation and mutation of human genetic material by the Dalek Emperor were religious fanatics that worshiped the Emperor as their god. (DW: The Parting of the Ways)

Although the Daleks are well known for their disregard for due process, there have been two known occasions on which they have taken 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). It is not clear what was actually involved. The Master's trial presumably took place before the destruction of Skaro. The reasons for the Master's trial, and why the Doctor would be asked to retrieve the Master's remains, have never been explained.

It has been suggested that the Daleks' 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)

The Daleks are known to write poetry (NA: The Also People), and some of the more elaborate Dalek battlecries have an almost poetic quality about them (for example, "Seek and Locate! Locate and Destroy! Destroy and Rejoice!" (DW: The Chase)) In an alternate reality, the Daleks showed a fondness for the works of Shakespeare. (BFA: The Time of the Daleks)

Due to their frequent defeats by the Doctor, he has become a sort of bogeyman in Dalek culture. They have standing orders to capture or exterminate the Doctor on sight, and are occasionally able to identify him despite his regenerations. This is probably not an innate ability, but rather because of good record keeping. The Daleks know the Doctor as the Ka Faraq Gatri, (meaning "The Bringer of Darkness" or "Destroyer of Worlds") (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks (Novelisation)). The Doctor claimed that the Daleks call him "The Oncoming Storm" (DW: The Parting of the Ways). This name was also used by the Draconians to refer to the Doctor. (NA: Love and War)

The Doctor, in turn, has grown to be almost monomaniacal in his belief that the Daleks are completely evil and unworthy of trust or compassion. This contrasts with some of his earlier dealings with the Daleks; for example the Doctor attempted to instil a "human factor" in Daleks (DW: The Evil of the Daleks) and he 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 irredeemability 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)

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.

Nation also authorised the publication of the comic strip The Daleks in the comic TV Century 21. The one-page strip (written by David Whitaker but credited to Nation) featured the Daleks as protagonists and "heroes", and continued for two years, from their creation of the mechanised Daleks by the humanoid Dalek scientist Yarvelling to their eventual discovery in the ruins of a crashed space-liner of the co-ordinates for Earth, which they proposed to invade. Although much of the material in these strips directly contradicted what was shown on television later, some concepts like the Daleks using humanoid duplicates and the design of the Dalek Emperor did show up later on in the programme. In 1994, the UK arm of Marvel Comics reprinted all the TV 21 strips in a collected edition titled The Dalek Chronicles.

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 25th 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, of which three mini-series, two of 4 CDs each and one of 6 CDs, have so far been produced, and which saw the return of the original Dalek Emperor. They have also returned to bedevil the Doctor in Big Finish's Doctor Who line of audio plays.

Major appearances

Television episodes

Comic Relief special (parody)

Stage plays

Original novels

Audio plays

Doctor Who

Professor Bernice Summerfield

Dalek Empire (series)

  • Invasion of the Daleks
  • The Human Factor
  • Death to the Daleks!
  • Project Infinity

Dalek Empire II: Dalek War

  • Chapter One
  • Chapter Two
  • Chapter Three
  • Chapter Four

Dalek Empire III

  • The Exterminators
  • The Healers
  • The Survivors
  • The Demons
  • The Warriors
  • The Future

See also

External links

References

  • Howe, David J & Walker, Stephen James (2003). The Television Companion: The Unofficial and Unauthorised 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.
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