Van Statten Incident
Check the behind the scenes section, the revision history and discussion page for additional comments on this article's title.
The Battle of Geocomtex, known to the Time Lords as the "Van Statten Incident", began when the "last" Dalek, nicknamed the "Metaltron", escaped from an area within a Geocomtex facility known as the Vault in 2012.
History
A day to come
Watching a projection of the "Van Statten Incident," the Time War-era Time Lords saw that any Dalek they encountered could absorb temporal energy from a time traveller to repair itself. Disturbed, the military ordered that no Time Lord have direct with a Dalek casing, (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual [+]Loading...["Dalek Combat Training Manual (novel)"]) which also had the ability to burn those who touched it. (TV: Dalek [+]Loading...["Dalek (TV story)"]) Meanwhile, the Time Lords began to experiment to see if they could introduce unfamiliar emotions to Daleks like Rose had, albeit without putting their own personnel at risk by seeing if it could be done remotely. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual [+]Loading...["Dalek Combat Training Manual (reference book)"])
The Metaltron attacks
After the Dalek escaped its bonds with the inadvertent help of Rose Tyler, over two hundred security personnel fought the Dalek. All were exterminated without damaging it as the Dalek was protected with a forcefield which melted the bullets fired at it, and it had the ability to rotate its midsection so it was able to shoot multiple targets without completely turning itself around.
The Dalek continued travelling through the facility, up through the facility's staircases. In one skirmish with the facility's remaining security forces, it activated the fire extinguishers, soaking the personnel with water before the Dalek opened fire, electrocuting all the humans simultaneously with its weapons' conductivity. Over 200 died in the battle.
The Dalek finally located van Statten, who had held it captive, and nearly killed him, but was halted by Rose Tyler. Rose had some sway over the Dalek's actions as it had absorbed her DNA to regenerate itself and escape its captivity. A side effect of this absorption was an awakening of its emotions including fear, doubt and compassion. Though the Ninth Doctor threatened to destroy the Dalek with an alien weapon, he was also stopped by Rose, who showed him the Dalek's change.
The Dalek ended its emotion-induced pain by self-destructing. It asked Rose to give this order herself, which she did reluctantly to end its misery. Following this outcome the facility was sealed up, and van Statten's memory was erased by orders of his assistant, Diana Goddard, in a hostile takeover. (TV: Dalek [+]Loading...["Dalek (TV story)"], PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac [+]Loading...{"chaptname":"Everything Changes","page":"146-149","chaptnum":"3","1":"The Time Traveller's Almanac (reference book)"})
Aftermath and legacy
The incident was the first time the Doctor had found a survivor of the Time War. Although he believed that this was the last Dalek, he would soon find out how wrong he was. The Dalek Emperor himself survived, when his heavily-damaged flagship was flung through time before the time-lock occurred. (TV: The Parting of the Ways [+]Loading...["The Parting of the Ways (TV story)"]) Likewise, the four-member Cult of Skaro survived aboard their Void Ship, having in their possession a prison vessel loaded with millions of Daleks. (TV: Army of Ghosts [+]Loading...["Army of Ghosts (TV story)"]/Doomsday [+]Loading...["Doomsday (TV story)"])
Rose would later recall her restoration of the "Metaltron" Dalek with her touch when the Cult of Skaro demanded that she open the Genesis Ark. She explained to Mickey Smith that the Dalek was broken and dying but when she touched him she brought him back to life, as the Daleks had evolved to use as a power supply the background radiation one "soaked up" from travelling through time in the TARDIS. (TV: Doomsday [+]Loading...["Doomsday (TV story)"])
Van Statten mysteriously disappeared, (PROSE: The Whoniverse [+]Loading...["The Whoniverse (novel)"]) as his employees wiped his memories and dropped him (TV: Dalek [+]Loading...["Dalek (TV story)"]) in Sacramento (PROSE: Mickey's Blog [+]Loading...{"page":"172","1":"Mickey's Blog (short story)"}) to punish him for the Dalek massacre. (TV: Dalek [+]Loading...["Dalek (TV story)"]) At that time, a rumour that he had a Dalek in his collection had spread. Its origin of falling down to the Ascension Islands was also rumoured. Though UNIT could find no trace of the Metaltron when they catalogued van Statten's collection, (PROSE: The Whoniverse [+]Loading...["The Whoniverse (novel)"]) they were aware of its existence, classing it as a Code D, but lost track of it once it was relocated to the Vault. (PROSE: Object Auction [+]Loading...["Object Auction (short story)"], AUDIO: The Dalek Transaction [+]Loading...["The Dalek Transaction (audio story)"])
It was from the Vault that The Dalek Conquests was recorded, recounting this event as part of what they knew of Dalek history. (AUDIO: The Dalek Conquests [+]Loading...["The Dalek Conquests (audio story)"]) Later human historians included a brief mention of this Dalek and its tragic fate in a book looking back on the history of the Dalek Empire. (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)"]) An account of the history of the universe recounted that van Statten was rumoured to have the Dalek. (PROSE: The Whoniverse [+]Loading...["The Whoniverse (novel)"]) A Time Lord author later noted that the Metaltron had been the first Dalek to be seen after the Time War and disproved the belief that they had been rendered extinct at the Fall of Gallifrey. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords [+]Loading...["A Brief History of Time Lords (novel)"])
Rusty the Dalek was later able to remember the event when the Twelfth Doctor and Clara Oswald reopened Rusty's suppressed memories. (TV: Into the Dalek [+]Loading...["Into the Dalek (TV story)"])
Behind the scenes
- The online game The Last Dalek presents an alternate version of the events of Dalek. In the game, the Dalek fights through the Vault, faces van Statten's forces and eventually the Doctor, who is exterminated by the Dalek. The game is completed when the Dalek finds and destroys the Doctor's TARDIS.
- To explain how Henry van Statten was unfamiliar with the Daleks, The Time Traveller's Almanac suggested that this event 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.
