Bronze Dalek

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Bronze Daleks (PROSE: Engines of War) were the Dalek drones which served during several of the Daleks' biggest conflicts, such as the Second Dalek War, (PROSE: Prisoner of the Daleks) the Dalek-Movellan War, (TV: The Pilot) and, most notably, the Last Great Time War. (PROSE: Engines of War) After returning to use under the New Dalek Paradigm, (PROSE: The Dalek Generation) they returned to the primary foot soldier role under the resurrected Dalek Empire. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks)

The Time Lords called this casing the "Type VIII Dalek", indicating that it followed the Civil War-era Imperial Daleks, designated Type VII. They had believed that this model of casing was developed for the Time War and termed it the "ultimate warrior" (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual)

Characteristics

The bronze Dalek casing (WC: Who Are The Daleks?)

While their casings were mostly bronze, their slats and sense globes were golden. (TV: Dalek et al.) Although bronze-coloured, the metal of the casings was in actuality still Dalekanium. (TV: Evolution of the Daleks) The Time Lords understood that this model was constructed from a new Dalekanium alloy, with additional seals, detailing and structural reinforcements. Unlike earlier models, they were distinguished by ID tags which identified individual Daleks. They also boasted a rotating middle section that allowed the Dalek to attack in all directions, which the Time Lords believed to be a new ability. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual)

In addition, a band which connected the middle weapons platform to the lower base unit was coloured bronze for most of these Daleks. However, on some bronze Daleks, such as the "Metaltron", the band was golden. (TV: Dalek, Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways) This minority of bronze Daleks shared this trait with the red and golden Supreme Daleks. (COMIC: Ambush, TV: The Stolen Earth / Journey's End, The Magician's Apprentice / The Witch's Familiar)

Bronze casings were also notable for their in-built countermeasures. (TV: Dalek et al.) The casing had the ability to make any who touched it, while unprotected by gloves or such gear, sick onto it and ignite into flames if the mutant inside so wished. The casing could also extract the individual's biomass to repair damage, with the genetic material of time travellers proving particularly effective, (TV: Dalek, PROSE: Dalek, et al.) but the DNA of a non-time traveller was enough to start regenerating even a seemingly-dead mutant. (PROSE: Prisoner of the Daleks) Even if the Dalek occupant was killed, the casing could still kill those who touched it with automatic virus transmitters. (PROSE: I Am a Dalek) The Tenth Doctor remarked that "every Dalek" had countermeasures in place to prevent enemies from raiding its casing after its death, explaining that trying to "crack open" a casing was like "playing with a live hand grenade" because of the many self-destruct mechanisms contained within. (PROSE: Prisoner of the Daleks)

Hierarchy

A bronze Dalek with their contemporary Black Dalek and Supreme Dalek. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice)

The bronze-coloured drone Daleks remained subordinate to similarly designed Black Daleks, (TV: Doomsday, COMIC: The Only Good Dalek, et. al) the Dalek Inquisitor General, (PROSE: Prisoner of the Daleks) red and golden Supreme Daleks, (TV: The Stolen Earth / Journey's End) and the Dalek Emperor himself. In addition, the Emperor was protected by the Emperor's Personal Guard; mostly bronze, they were distinguished by their black domes as with their pre-Time War counterparts. (TV: The Parting of the Ways, The Evil of the Daleks)

A minority of bronze-type Daleks aboard the Dalek Emperor's flagship following the Last Great Time War had black base units with golden sense globes in addition to a black dome similar to that of the Emperor's Personal Guard. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)

Though generally appearing as foot soldiers, bronze Daleks could also be of higher ranks, distinguished from their subordinates only by their individual identifcation tag. Indeed, a bronze Dalek served as a Command Dalek during the Second Dalek War, subordinate to the Dalek Inquisitor General. (PROSE: Prisoner of the Daleks) Similarly, a bronze Dalek served as a Dalek Squad Leader during the New Dalek Paradigm's governance of the Sunlight Worlds. (PROSE: The Dalek Generation) The leader of a Dalek Death Squad was a bronze Dalek. (TV: Revolution of the Daleks)

The bronze Daleks that were later named Thay, Caan and Jast respectively served in the positions of Commandant of Station Alpha, Attack Squad Leader in the Thirtieth Assault Group, and Force Leader of the Outer Rim Defensive Battalion. Furthermore, these Daleks were recruited by the Daleks to form the Cult of Skaro under the black Dalek Sec, who himself was originally the bronze Dalek Commander of the Seventh Incursion Squad before receiving a new casing composed of metalert. (PROSE: Birth of a Legend) The Cult ultimately became regarded as "above and beyond the Emperor himself." (TV: Doomsday) Upon overthrowing Sec, Caan took command of the Cult of Skaro. (TV: Evolution of the Daleks) The Emperor himself was housed in a massive bronze casing. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)

Aboard the Starbane, bronze Daleks were seen to coexist alongside identically-shaped Daleks distinguished by casings coloured red, white and green. (GAME: The Doctor and the Dalek)

Variants

A Reconnaissance Scout Dalek encountered by the Thirteenth Doctor appeared in an ancient scroll to resemble a bronze Dalek. Additionally the weapons platform of its reconstructed scrap casing beared a similar design pattern to that of a bronze Dalek. (TV: Resolution)

Assault Daleks were specialised bronze Daleks equipped with laser-cutting arms and blowtorches to replace their plunger manipulator arms. They had a claw and blowtorch combination. These were used for cutting through strong metals and for picking up objects normal Dalek drones could not. (PROSE: Prisoner of the Daleks, TV: The Parting of the Ways)

Surgical Daleks were equipped with saw arms. (PROSE: Prisoner of the Daleks)

Temporal Weapon Daleks were identical to the bronze Dalek drones with the exception of their weapons platform, which was very similar to Special Weapons Dalek, with a single, large cannon rather than a gunstick and manipulator arm. (PROSE: Engines of War)

Vault Daleks were bronze Daleks who were distinguished by their specialised manipulator arm claw. They were charged with guarding their creator Davros in the Vault, a special chamber within their giant space station the Crucible. (TV: The Stolen Earth / Journey's End)

While masquerading as the Dalek Litigator during the Daleks' manipulation of the Sunlight Worlds, the Dalek Time Controller changed his form to that of a generic bronze Dalek, albeit with a wavering effect around its grating section that was observed by the Eleventh Doctor. (PROSE: The Dalek Generation)

Bronze Daleks belonging to a Death Squad were equipped with claws on their manipulator arms. (TV: Revolution of the Daleks) Identical claws were used by bronze Daleks seeking to exploit the Flux. (TV: Once, Upon Time, The Vanquishers)

Executioner Daleks dispatched to kill the Thirteenth Doctor wielded larger guns and claws on their manipulator arms. (TV: Eve of the Daleks)

History

Pre-Time War

Bronze Daleks were involved in the 22nd century Dalek invasion. During the occupation of London, several chased the Twelfth Doctor and Clara Oswald after they landed in the midst of the occupied city with a time fly. Using a bomb the First Doctor had disarmed, the Doctor and Clara escaped after destroying a force of Bronze Daleks and many time flies. (COMIC: A Stitch in Time)

The Dalek Emperor favorable to Davros who ruled Skaro in 2254 inhabited a bronze-coloured casing similar in shape to that of the earlier Golden Emperor. However, no bronze-coloured Dalek drones were in appearance on Skaro at this time. (GAME: Dalek Attack)

Bronze Daleks, led by Dalek X, a black Dalek Inquisitor General, participated in the Second Dalek War against humanity. (PROSE: Prisoner of the Daleks) Others fought in a war against the Movellans, (TV: The Pilot) as did earlier Grey Daleks. (TV: Destiny of the Daleks) One Bronze Dalek joined two grey units in chasing Walter the Worm. (WC: The Daleks Chase Walter the Worm)

A bronze Dalek attempted to gain access to the Matrix hidden underneath the Capitol on Gallifrey during the Cloister Wars. It was attacked by the Cloister Wraiths, where it became a part of the Matrix hard drive, being "filed". It was still trapped within the Cloisters following the Time War. (TV: Hell Bent)

The Daleks of the Restoration Empire, which followed the Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War, (PROSE: The Restoration Empire) used casings with a structure matching the "Type VIII" bronze Daleks but with different colours according to rank, with the Dalek Drones appearing with a silver colour scheme much like the earlier "Type III Daleks". (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual) The Dalek Prime Strategist was distinguished in that its casing was that of an early Dalek War Machine. (COMIC: Defender of the Daleks) The last surviving Silver Dalek Drone of the Restoration Empire's Dalek Time Squad rebuilt its casing in the bronze design after being brought aboard the Starship Future. (AUDIO: Genetics of the Daleks)

Lead-up to the Time War

Bronze Daleks, led by a Supreme, were used during the Daleks’ takeover of the Axis and subsequent incursions into alternate Gallifreys. (AUDIO: Extermination) They attempted to invade Gallifrey of the main universe via the Matrix but were trapped in an projection by Romana and a projection of her future self. (AUDIO: Ascension)

Prior to the Time War, bronze Daleks attacked Galacton to energise its core to create fuel for the Seventh Fleet (PROSE: Mission to Galacton) and, led by a bronze Dalek Commander, saw to the extermination of the Mechonoids on Magella. Following this, the Dalek Commander was summoned by the Dalek Emperor alongside three other high-ranking bronze Daleks. Anticipating the oncoming Time War, the Emperor named the four Daleks, who formed the Cult of Skaro; led by the Commander who was transfered to a black Metalert casing and named Dalek Sec, the remaining bronze Daleks were named Thay, Jast and Caan. (PROSE: Birth of a Legend)

Time War

A Bronze Dalek being commanded by a Dalek Supreme during the Time War. (COMIC: Ambush)

Led by the Dalek Emperor and Time Strategist, bronze Daleks fought throughout the Last Great Time War against the Time Lords, (AUDIO: Gallifrey: Time War, Only the Good, The Eighth Doctor: Time War, The War Doctor, COMIC: Ambush, PROSE: Engines of War) who believed that this model had been made for the Time War. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual)

Bronze Daleks made up the vast majority of the "billion billion" Dalek Fleet that converged on Gallifrey on the last day of the Time War. Having successfully penetrated the sky trenches, they engaged in the fall of Arcadia, where they were fought by the War Doctor and Gallifreyan soldiers. When the thirteen Doctors saved Gallifrey by transporting it to a pocket universe, the Dalek Fleet inadverently destroyed themselves in their own crossfire. (TV: The Last Day, TV: The Day of the Doctor) The Ninth Doctor, along with the rest of the universe, believed the entire Dalek race to have been wiped out along with Gallifrey. (TV: Dalek) Due to "chronological complications" after the destruction of Gallifrey, the planet along with many artefacts and the Daleks themselves, appeared in another universe called New Eden. There, the posthuman inhabitants referred to the Dalek invaders as "Biomechanoid Combat Units", not knowing their true name. They then fought the Biomechanoids around Gallifrey, in a remote area of space. (GAME: The Interstellar Convergence)

Rebuilding post-Time War

However, the Doctor found that one bronze Dalek had survived, crashing to Earth in 1962. Eventually, in 2012, it came to the possession of Henry van Statten, who ignorantly named it the "Metaltron". Ultimately, the Dalek, after finding that it had been "contaminated" by Rose Tyler's human DNA chose to self-destruct. (TV: Dalek)

The Emperor and his Personal Guard. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)

Surviving the war in his flagship, the Dalek Emperor, guarded as ever by the Emperor's Personal Guard, created an army of half a million bronze Dalek of human origin. At the end of the Battle of the Game Station in 200,100, they were all reduced to dust by Rose Tyler, under the possession of the Bad Wolf entity. (TV: Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways)

Unknown to anyone, the Daleks created, and launched, a time capsule during the final battle of the Time War with a single bronze Dalek with the plan to spread the Dalek factor on Earth, to use humanity's life force and raw materials to build more Daleks for back-up in the final battle. The capsule's engines failed in the journey and the Dalek within ejected, falling to Earth in 70 AD. The Dalek died but released a small amount of Dalek factor that remained dormant in the genetic structure of approximately one in 500,000,000 humans. When the Dalek casing was uncovered in Crediton Vale in Dorset, England in the 2000s, the Dalek factor became active in Kate Yates whose newfound Dalek powers allowed her to grow a new Dalek mutant within the casing.

The Dalek pursued the Tenth Doctor, who eventually knocked it into the sea with a crane from the dig site where the Dalek was found, although the Dalek electrocuted the Doctor and escaped. After breaking into a train and recovering its gunstick from Frank Openshaw, the leader of the team who excavated the Dalek's casing, the Dalek exterminated Frank along with several civilians before slaughtering dozens of people in Twyford. It then united with Kate Yates, whose Dalek personality had become dominant. Upon receiving a Time Ring from the Tenth Doctor it intended to travel to Earth in 500,000,000 to use humanity's resources to rebuild its race but failed when Kate's human personality resurfaced and set the Dalek's Time Ring to self-destruct. The self-destruct caused a warp implosion that atomised the Dalek and made the Dalek factor go dormant again in humanity. (PROSE: I Am a Dalek)

In 2007, the Tenth Doctor and Bronwyn Ceredig overheard a bronze Dalek on Black Island in Yns Du, Wales. The Dalek had been generated from Rose Tyler's memories after she had been put asleep by Nathaniel Morton and the Cynrog Peyne and forced to dream of some of the aliens she had encountered; these dreams were fed back to a Cynrog machine in the lighthouse on Black Island that allowed for dream-generated creatures to be made physical. The Dalek, along with a pair of Slitheen and a replica of the Nestene Consciousness that had also been generated from Rose's memories, ceased to exist after Rose was disconnected from the Cynrog machine. (PROSE: The Nightmare of Black Island)

Dalek Thay of the Cult of Skaro. (TV: Doomsday)

Within a Void Ship, the Cult of Skaro survived the Time War as well, taking with them the Genesis Ark, which contained millions of bronze Daleks imprisoned by the Time Lords. Emerging on Earth in 2007, the Cult were able to open the Ark, unleashing the millions of Daleks who attacked humans and parallel world Cybermen in the Battle of Canary Wharf. However, the conflict was soon ended when the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler opened the Void, resulting in the millions of Daleks and Cybermen being sucked into it. The Cult were forced to perform an emergency temporal shift to escape. (TV: Army of Ghosts / Doomsday) Those contained within the Void were eventually destroyed as a result of the reality bomb. (TV: The Next Doctor)

Appearing in New York in 1930, the Cult attempted to rebuild their race in the Final Experiment. Discarding his casing to assume the form of a Human-Dalek, Sec collaborated with the Doctor to combine Dalek and human DNA, believing that the Daleks could only survive with humanity's thought and emotions. This, however, put him at odds with his bronze subordinates, who overthrew him with Caan taking command. After Sec gave his life to save the Doctor, Thay and Jast were destroyed by Dalek-humans infused with Gallifreyan DNA, who were then terminated by Caan. Rejecting an offer by the Doctor to help him, Caan used an emergency temporal shift to escape. (TV: Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks)

The bronze Daleks of the New Dalek Empire (TV: The Stolen Earth)

Breaking the time-lock to enter the first year of the Time War, an act which ultimately cost him his sanity, Caan rescued Davros from death. Using his own DNA, Davros proceeded to create a New Dalek Empire composed mostly of bronze Daleks with a red Supreme Dalek. Though this Supreme Dalek usurped Davros' as ruler, he did allow Davros to remain aboard the Crucible alongside the mentally broken Caan, whose half-broken casing his Dalek mutant form.

Gathering 27 stolen planets in the Medusa Cascade, the Daleks launched a brief invasion in which they easily overwhelmed human military forces, sustaining only minimal casualties at the hands of the Children of Time. Notably, one Dalek chose to spare the life of the young Adelaide Brooke, who it recognised as a fixed point in time. (TV: The Waters of Mars) Ultimately, the New Dalek Empire was destroyed by the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor, who used the Daleks' Dalekanium power feed against them. (TV: The Stolen Earth / Journey's End)

A small group of bronze Daleks were found by the Tenth Doctor on 22nd century Earth. They intended to use a proton cannon to conquer the planet by rendering humanity intangible, only for the Doctor to turn the weapon against them. Trapped in an intangible state, the Daleks judged this an unacceptable outcome and self-destructed. (COMIC: Extermination of the Daleks)

New Paradigm and Resurrected Empire

Having survived the New Dalek Empire's destruction, (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) A single Dalek flying saucer, containing three Daleks, located a progenitor; while this progenitor had the potential to restore the Dalek race, it would not recognise these Daleks' DNA. As a single bronze Dalek remained aboard, the other two masqueraded as Ironsides, ostensibly the creation of a human scientist, actually a android created by the Daleks, for the British war effort in the Second World War. In reality, the Daleks' plan was to lure and provoke a testimony from the Doctor, which would confirm them as Daleks to the progenitor. After a month in 1941, this succeeded as the Eleventh Doctor identified them as Daleks, thus enabling the creation of a New Dalek Paradigm. Sporting larger casings, the new paradigm consisted of five archetypes which included a red Drone Dalek, subordinate to the white Supreme Dalek. The older three Daleks, who were deemed as "inferior" by their successors, allowed themselves to be exterminated before the new Daleks departed to rebuild their race. (TV: Victory of the Daleks)

Bronze Daleks alongside red Drone Daleks in the Parliament of the Daleks (TV: Asylum of the Daleks)

For a while, the red Drone Daleks appeared en masse as the foot soldiers of the New Paradigm's (GAME: City of the Daleks, COMIC: The Only Good Dalek) Dalek Imperial Army. However, the New Paradigm (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) eventually began to rely heavily on bronze drones instead. (PROSE: The Dalek Generation, et. al) Led by a Black Dalek, bronze Daleks made up the crew of Survey Ship Delta, one of three Survey Ships assigned to the Dalek Project, the analysis of how humanity waged war throughout the history of Earth. The Eleventh Doctor saw that these Daleks were all destroyed along with the Proto-Daleks in No Man's Land in 1917, and later returned to deal with a bronze Quasimodo Dalek in 2017. (COMIC: The Dalek Project)

During the New Dalek Paradigm's manipulation of the Sunlight Worlds to discover the Cradle of the Gods, bronze Daleks made up the majority of the Daleks involved in the operation, subordinate to a white Supreme Dalek, the secondary leader, and the Dalek Time Controller, who served as overall leader; on this particular mission the Time Controller frequently masqueraded as the Dalek Litigator, appearing as a regular bronze Dalek, although the Eleventh Doctor observed a wavering effect around its grating section. In addition a Dalek Squad Leader, identical to a standard bronze Dalek, led a patrol of Daleks in pursuit of the Doctor when he tried to escape with Sabel, Jenibeth and Ollus Blakely in his TARDIS. Five bronze Daleks were destroyed by Jenibeth, now converted into a Dalek puppet, after her original childlike personality resurfaced; shortly after the remaining Daleks, including the Dalek Time Controller, abandoned the Sunlight Worlds after they believed the Cradle of the Gods was about to destroy all of the Sunlight Worlds. (PROSE: The Dalek Generation)

After its repeated series of failures that that the Eleventh Doctor had inflicted on the Paradigm, the empire reorganised itself under the Parliament of the Daleks, led by the Prime Minister of the Daleks. Eager to distance this reinvented Dalek Empire from the Paradigm's failures, the Prime Minister promoted the Red Daleks to an officer class and formally had the drones return to the Bronze Dalek style of those who had fought in the Last Great Time War, feeling that their design was the one most likely to invoke fear across the galaxy. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks; PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe)

When the human starliner Alaska crashed into the Dalek Asylum, thereby compromising the planet's security, the Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond and Rory Williams were captured by the Daleks and confronted by the Prime Minister of the Daleks onboard the Parliament of the Daleks, who tasked them with deactivating the asylum's planetary forcefield so that the Daleks could destroy it. A large number of bronze Daleks were among those classed as insane and therefore kept within the asylum, with a handful of bronze Daleks being kept in the asylum's intensive care area. Oswin Oswald, a human that had been converted by the Dalek inmates, was contained in a bronze casing. Ultimately, she and the insane Daleks died when she disabled the asylum's planetary shield, allowing the asylum to be destroyed by the Parliament of the Daleks. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks)

Bronze Daleks participated in the Siege of Trenzalore, (TV: The Time of the Doctor) and the war with the Combined Galactic Resistance. One of them, named Rusty by the Twelfth Doctor, joined the resistance to destroy his kind, becoming known as the "good Dalek". (TV: Into the Dalek) Eventually making his home on Villengard, Rusty survived for billions of years into the far future, defending himself as Daleks were repeatedly sent to destroy him. (TV: Twice Upon a Time)

A bronze Dalek alongside an older model. (TV: The Witch’s Familiar)

Bronze Daleks were among a diverse range of Daleks who, led by a red Supreme Dalek, resided on the rebuilt Skaro where Davros lived, having survived the destruction of the Crucible. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice) One bronze Dalek was killed by Missy, allowing Clara Oswald to temporarily operate its casing so that they could safely navigate the Dalek City. When the Doctor's regeneration energy rejuvenated the discarded Daleks from the sewers, the city-dwelling Daleks were overrun and destroyed. (TV: The Witch's Familiar)

A Dalek Death Squad that the Thirteenth Doctor summoned to Earth in 2021 to fight the Defence Drones consisted entirely of bronze Daleks. (TV: Revolution of the Daleks)

During the Great Disruption caused by the Flux, Bel sighted bronze Daleks who were taking over a portion of the galaxy which she coined the Dalek Sector. (TV: Once, Upon Time) Later in the crisis, bronze Daleks, belonging to the Dalek War Fleet, (TV: Eve of the Daleks) responded to the Sontarans' offer of an alliance, only to be destroyed by the second Flux event as the Sontarans had planned. (TV: The Vanquishers) After the Daleks' discovered her role in the War Fleet's destruction, five bronze Executioner Daleks were dispatched to kill the Thirteenth Doctor, tracing her to ELF Storage in 2021. They became caught in a time loop created by her TARDIS, with the Doctor eventually devising a way to destroy them after they'd repeatedly exterminated her. (TV: Eve of the Daleks)

A group of bronze Daleks allied with the Spy Master and his CyberMasters as part of an ill-fated plot to eliminate the Thirteenth Doctor. Appearing on Earth in 2022, they intercepted and destroyed a Dalek traitor who intended to help the Doctor destroy the Daleks, but were themselves ultimately destroyed by a volcanic eruption. (TV: The Power of the Doctor)

Undated events

A single Dalek survived, albeit heavily damaged, when its ship crash landed in ancient Britain. 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)

A bronze Dalek crash landed to 21st century Earth and was acquired by a human guerrilla faction, who scavenged its weathered casing for parts. (AUDIO: The Dalek Transaction)

A bronze Dalek from at some point in their history was one of multiple alien entities that arrived in the River Thames of London in the early morning of 19 August 2020. However, it was intercepted by military personnel before it could attack the civilian population. (WC: 14683 UNIT Field Log)

Other references

Trick-or-treaters on Verticulus dressed as bronze Daleks as well as Cybermen. (COMIC: Wholloween)

Fake Bronze Daleks created by the Dalek Dome company appeared to attack Earth in 1966, encountering the newly-regenerated Fourteenth Doctor, as a theme park attraction. (COMIC: Liberation of the Daleks)

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