Emperor of the Restoration
The Emperor of the Restoration, (PROSE: The Restoration Empire) also known as the Restoration Emperor (PROSE: Secrets of Time Lord Victorious) or the Emperor of Restoration, (WC: Incoming Transmission - February Update Video [+]Loading...["Incoming Transmission - February Update Video (webcast)"]) was the Dalek Emperor who founded the Restoration Empire from the ashes of the Imperial Dalek faction following the close of the Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War. He wore a golden casing with a large bulbous dome, deliberately hearkening back to the Emperor of the bountiful, unified pre-Civil War Dalek Empire. (PROSE: The Restoration Empire)
According to some accounts, the new Dalek Emperor of the Imperial Daleks then led his people into a war against Gallifrey, becoming the Dalek Emperor in the Last Great Time War. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) According to other accounts, however, the Dalek Emperor who led the Dalek Empire following the Civil War, and onwards throughout the Time War, was instead the Dalek Prime himself, who had, in the Civil War, been the ultimate leader of the Renegade Daleks. (AUDIO: Restoration of the Daleks)
Physical appearance
The Emperor resided in a gold casing which was distinguished by an enlarged, spherical dome section like Davros' casing and that of the Dalek Prime's original Emperor's Machine. Its eye lens had an extra glowing blue ring along the outer edge, and at the middle of the dome was a grating section ring. A middle section was situated beneath the dome and above the lower section, which consisted of only three rings of sense globes rather than the standard four, making a total of 42 globes. (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times)
Biography
Rise from Supreme to Emperor
During the Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War, the Dalek Supreme who would later become the new Dalek Emperor served on the Dalek Council. After Davros fled the war, the Dalek Supreme exterminated all other members of the council and appointed himself the new Dalek Emperor. Modelling himself on a former emperor, he built himself a gold casing and augmented his brain capacity. (PROSE: The Restoration Empire) Post-Time War historians believed that Davros' successor had orchestrated the Etra Prime Incident, an attempted invasion of Gallifrey. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe)
From this position, he sought to restore the Dalek Empire to its former glory through a new hierarchy of Dalek command and a new system of production. He restored Skaro and overhauled the standard Dalek hierarchy, bringing back Silver Daleks as drones. (PROSE: The Restoration Empire) Also among the Emperor's forces was the Dalek Prime Strategist, a unit who claimed to be older than the Emperor himself. (COMIC: Defender of the Daleks)
Into the Last Great Time War
- Main article: Dalek Emperor in the Last Great Time War
According to one account, the new Dalek Emperor continued with Davros's plan for the Imperial Daleks 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) This stood in contrast to another account in which the Dalek Emperor in the Last Great Time War was the original Dalek Emperor who once led the Renegades. (AUDIO: Restoration of the Daleks) The Dalek Emperor in the Last Great Time War led his people throughout the War and eventually fell through time (TV: The Parting of the Ways) and the Void (PROSE: The Whoniverse) on the last day of the War with his command ship.
Having ended up in the era of the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire, the Emperor got to work attempting to rebuild the Dalek race over the course of a hundred years with the game show contestants of Satellite Five. His plan was eventually uncovered by the Ninth Doctor, leading to the newly restored Dalek fleet launching an invasion of the satellite and then attacking the Earth. However, when the Daleks confronted the Doctor on the top of the satellite, the Bad Wolf entity arrived in the Doctor's TARDIS. The Bad Wolf quickly destroyed the Daleks, their fleet, and the Emperor himself. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)
Shift in the timelines
When the Tenth Doctor poisoned the Kotturuh in the Dark Times, (PROSE: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead) he caused fluctuations in time (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times) which "brought back" the Emperor and his Empire, in a form which had no memory of having fought in the Time War. The Tenth Doctor recognised this as a paradox. (COMIC: Defender of the Daleks) After the crisis grew to a close, the Daleks of the Restoration Empire would ultimately head into the War with the Time Lords, though with the Dalek Prime Strategist now seriously considering the option of overthrowing the Emperor and overseeing the War himself. (PROSE: Exit Strategy)
The altered universe
The Emperor received a message from an ancient Dalek drone, which he deduced was a survivor of a Time Squad that had yet to be sent back in time. From the message, the Emperor concluded that history was under attack, which the Dalek Empire was vulnerable to, and that the Doctor was involved, but still needed more information. He decided the necessary information could be found somewhere like the Archive of Islos. (PROSE: The Last Message)
The Emperor personally led the Daleks' invasion of Islos to seize the Archive. However, the Chief Archivian made a deal for the rescue of the Archive, promising their rescuer the Daleks. When the Emperor entered the Archive along with the Strategist and Executioner, they found it empty. The Chief Archivian informed them of its deal as an Entity emerged from a portal. (WC: The Archive of Islos) The Daleks were forced to retreat from Islos and returned to Skaro, pursued by the Entity. It attacked Skaro and the Daleks' firepower proved ineffective, forcing the Emperor to order an evacuation.
The Strategist advised that the evacuation was failing and they should abandon the planet. The realisation that Skaro had been lost caused the Emperor to fall silent, forcing the Strategist to coordinate the retreat. After the Strategist suggested reinforcements, the Emperor decreed that the Sentinel of the Fifth Galaxy was required. The Strategist was sent to meet the Sentinel and awaken a dormant army of ten-thousand Daleks, but the Entity compromised the army and took it over. As the Executioner led Dalek forces against the army, the Strategist advised the Emperor to withdraw again as they could not sustain further losses and defended its failure. (WC: The Sentinel of the Fifth Galaxy)
The Strategist created a plan to deal with the Entity by putting it and the Mechanoid Empire against each other, believing its plan could deal with both rivals. Acting under the plan, the Emperor, planning to make the Mechanoids think that the entire Dalek Empire had been destroyed (WC: Day of Reckoning) by arriving at Mechanus in a damaged saucer with minimal support, travelled to Mechanus and claimed to seek their help. He was greeted by the Mechanoid Queen and taken to her star chamber, where they reviewed the conflict. After witnessing his Dalek guards be destroyed by her Mechanoids without any more Daleks coming to their aid, the Queen speculated that he and the Strategist were the only two Daleks left. After the Mechanoid City's power was drained, the Emperor revealed to the Queen that he'd deliberately led the Entity there. (WC: Planet of the Mechanoids)
She demanded to know why and he claimed, if the Mechanoids were truly superior, they would be able to stop the Entity. When the Entity arrived, it took over a Mechanoid and demanded the Mechanoids surrender the Emperor. The Queen decided, if it broke through their defences, she would surrender the Emperor. He and the Queen observed the Mechanoids forming a shield around the City and, as the Entity began to break through, she abandoned him out in the open. The Entity's attacks hit him numerous times, but he was saved by the efforts of the Strategist and Mechanoid 2150, who used the orbital array to force the Entity back to its original dimension. The Queen ordered him and the Strategist to leave Mechanus, warning them that the Mechanoids were coming for the Daleks. (WC: The Deadly Ally)
Returning to Skaro, the Emperor and Strategist reactivated the City and recalled the Daleks there for the battle they had now manipulated the Mechanoids into. The Mechanoids arrived and were caught off guard by the Emperor's reinforcements, given that they had been led to believe he and the Strategist were the last. He delighted in the ensuing battle, but proclaimed betrayal upon seeing the Strategist being escorted by the Queen and 2150. After the Strategist betrayed the Mechanoids and sent them through a portal into the Entity's dimension, the Emperor congratulated him. However, he also reminded the Strategist that "superior beings" were harder to manipulate. As the two inspected the battlefield, the Entity briefly possessed a ruined Mechanoid and teased them that they didn't know what was coming for them. (WC: Day of Reckoning)
Into the Dark Times
At some point after the Mechanoid-Dalek battle, the Daleks faced the threat the Entity had warned them of: (WC: Day of Reckoning) a species from the Dark Times known as the Hond, (COMIC: Defender of the Daleks) who had also been unleashed by the invasion of the Archive of Islos. The Emperor also learned that the Entity had really been the "Slave of the Hond". (PROSE: The Restoration Empire) With Skaro in danger of falling to the Hond, the Prime Strategist suggested to the Emperor that the Doctor be used against the Hond. The Tenth Doctor was captured by the Daleks and brought before the Emperor. The Emperor convinced him to help them and sent him to meet the Strategist. Together, they discovered a way to pacify the Hond, which they deployed just as they approached Skaro's defenses. Afterwards, the Doctor escaped, with the aid of the Thirteenth Doctor, and the Strategist met the furious Emperor. The Strategist defended its failure and suggested the Daleks could use the Eighth Doctor. (COMIC: Defender of the Daleks)
Eventually discovering the source of the fluctuations to be the Dark Times, where the Daleks' own timeships could not travel, the Emperor formed a Time Squad to locate the Doctor and use his TARDIS in order to travel back there. (PROSE: The Restoration Empire) The squad's main mission was to rectify the temporal fluctuations to the Daleks' benefit, or at the very least return the universe to normal. (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times, The Restoration Empire) The Emperor also left a pre-recorded message for the event of the Squad failing to prevent the changes to history, intended only for the Time Commander and Executioner.
He outlined a contingency plan, the "Ultimate End", ordering them to target Gallifrey, to prevent the rise of the Time Lords. (PROSE: Mission to the Known) When the Daleks failed to stop the Tenth Doctor at the Battle of Mordeela, the Ultimate End was enacted, only for it to run contrary to the Prime Strategist's own agenda of experimenting on the species of the Dark Times and was eventually foiled in the Defence of Gallifrey. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass) The friction it has created allowed the Eighth Doctor to turn the Time Squad against each other, whilst he saw to the destruction of their ship in the Time Vortex. (AUDIO: Mutually Assured Destruction)
Linking back to the Time War
- Main article: Dalek Emperor in the Last Great Time War
After surviving the explosion of the Time Squad's ship, the Dalek Prime Strategist blamed the Emperor’s over ambition for the failure of the mission, believing that he could have deterred his Emperor from going through with the Ultimate End if if he'd been aware of it. Foreseeing that the Emperor would likely be emboldened by the Daleks’ defeat and blame the Time Lords for the changes to history, the Strategist believed he would declare war on the Time Lords. The Strategist resolved to aid the Emperor through the coming war, but also acknowledged to himself that the current Emperor may not be the leader the Daleks needed to win the War. The Strategist thus planned to usurp him as Dalek Emperor if he proved unsuitable and used an emergency temporal shift to return to his side. (PROSE: Exit Strategy)
With the Time War restored to history, (TV: The End of Time, et al) the Dalek Emperor of the conflict led the Dalek Empire against the Time Lords until the final battle, which caused his flagship to fall through time (TV: The Parting of the Ways) and the Void. (PROSE: The Whoniverse) However, they survived and temporally landed during the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. The Emperor began infiltrating Satellite Five, a space station orbiting Earth, and kidnapped humans from the station over a period of one-hundred years to use their cells to create a new army of Daleks. In 200100, he and his army confronted the Ninth Doctor. Despite cornering him on the top floor of the station, they were destroyed by the Bad Wolf. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)
References
Records of the Emperor survived in the Matrix, though the Time Lords listed him as an anomaly as they were unable to properly reconcile him and his Restoration Empire with established Dalek history. They suspected the Emperor of the Restoration to have either been apocrypha or information from another reality. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual)
Personality and traits
According to a Data Worm, the Emperor of the Restoration was the most aggressive Dalek Emperor it knew of, although it was not the most cunning nor the most intelligent. Nevertheless, the Data Worm believed no one should trust the Emperor. (PROSE: Secrets of Time Lord Victorious)
Behind the scenes
- Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe stated that a "new Emperor" succeeded Davros, who had escaped from the Hand of Omega and lost control of "his newly formed Empire". The Time Lord Victorious multimedia project would identify Davros's successor as the Emperor of the Restoration and his state as the Restoration Empire, maintaining that the Imperial Daleks had prevailed in the Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War.
- Speaking of his portrayal as the Emperor, Nicholas Briggs described him as "high and mighty".[1]
- One 2021 post on the official Twitter account claimed that "Some accounts state that the 'Emperor of the Restoration', who led the Daleks after the Civil War, is actually the Dalek Prime. Before it led the Daleks in the Time War, it created the Dalek Time Squad".[2] This information is not reflected within the narrative of Worlds Apart and indeed does not match other Time Lord Victorious material, which consistently portrayed the Emperor of the Restoration as a distinct Emperor who had appropriated the image of his predecessor, rather than being the same individual. The phrase "Some accounts state…" echoes a common writing quirk of our own Wiki, suggesting the aberrant Twitter post may have originated as a misreading of our own Wiki's coverage of these characters.
Footnotes
- ↑ Briggs as the Dalek Emperor
- ↑ Doctor Who: Worlds Apart (20 October 2021). Some accounts state…. Twitter. Archived from the original on 8 February 2024.
