Davros
- You may wish to consult
Davros (disambiguation)for other, similarly-named pages.
Davros, often referred to by his creations as the Creator, (TV: The Witch's Familiar [+]Loading...["The Witch's Familiar (TV story)"], etc.) sometimes titled Davros the Betrayer, (GAME: Worlds Apart [+]Loading...["Worlds Apart (video game)"]) and also known as the Dark Lord of Skaro, (TV: The Magician's Apprentice [+]Loading...["The Magician's Apprentice (TV story)"]) was originally the head of the Kaled Scientific Elite on the planet Skaro, but he became better known as the creator of the Daleks. The results of his attempts to bring the war on Skaro to an end were not as he envisioned, because the Daleks wiped out both the Thal and Kaled races, save for himself. Davros survived the centuries, using whatever medical assistance was available to sustain his life.
For a time, he sought to create a race of Daleks loyal to him, which led to the Imperial-Renegade Civil War, where he served as Emperor of the loyal Daleks, and later of the Dalek race as a whole. But his relationship with them was always a tense one. He was frequently hunted, maligned, or otherwise denigrated by one portion or other of the Daleks. Eventually, he abandoned all thoughts of ruling the Daleks, admitting to the Twelfth Doctor that he could never really control them.
Davros had a brilliant scientific mind, and was constantly devising ways to give his creations greatness; often overlooking the fact they saw him as beneath them, and would often keep him imprisoned, either because he was a threat or for his genius. The only time they showed respect for him was when Davros neared death; Davros was kept alive by a machine that siphoned life energy off the Daleks. This let them trick the Doctor into donating regenerative energy, which renewed Davros and the Daleks.
Through his creations, many came to consider him responsible for trillions of deaths and innumerable wars across the universe. Despite the fact that he was not unquestionably the ruler of the Daleks, he was one of the Doctor's greatest enemies, rivalling the Master in both intellect and madness. Despite this, both Davros and the Doctor called each other friends on separate occasions. Davros considered the Doctor the closest thing that the scientist had to a familiar, even as they served as foes.
The Twelfth Doctor described Davros as "an insane, paranoid genius who [had] survived amongst several billion trigger-happy mini-tanks for centuries".
Biography
Early life
Born into war
The Time Lords placed Davros's life up to his apparent death at the hands of the Daleks as concurrent to Earth's ancient history, prior to the 2nd century. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual) Davros was born in the latter part of the Thousand Year War between the Kaleds and the Thals on the planet Skaro, the result of an adulterous relationship between Lady Calcula and Councillor Quested. He had an elder half-sister, Yarvell. It was considered a time when mercy and nobility were all but non-existent on Skaro and life was harsh and grim. The use of nuclear weapons and other agents of mutation produced Mutos, who resided in the Wastelands and were often used for slave labour by both the Kaleds and the Thals.
As a child, Davros claimed that only his mother believed in him. Others feared him and his determination. His stepfather, Colonel Nasgard, whom both believed to be his biological father, wanted him to become a soldier like his ancestors, but Davros was determined to become a scientist. (AUDIO: Innocence)
Acting on a dare from Yarvell, (PROSE: The Last of the Dals) Davros ran onto a battlefield and got lost. A soldier named Kanzo tried to help when he wandered across ground covered in Handmines, but was sucked into the ground by one of them. The Twelfth Doctor heard his cries for help and threw him his sonic screwdriver, which allowed them to hear each other. Although the Doctor had intended to help the child, when he learned that he was a younger Davros, he returned to the TARDIS and departed. Shortly afterwards, Davros heard the rematerialisation of the Doctor's TARDIS, and, confused and frightened, witnessed the Twelfth Doctor point a gunstick towards him, saying that he was trying to save his friend the only way he could, before yelling "Exterminate!", (TV: The Magician's Apprentice) killing the Handmines surrounding Davros and taking him by the hand and helping him get home. (TV: The Witch's Familiar)
During his childhood, he watched the propaganda television series Captain Croag and the Highland Rangers, as did Yarvell. (AUDIO: Guilt) He privately questioned the point of such propaganda given that they spoke of a pre-War Skaro that no one knew. (PROSE: Father of the Daleks)
As a child, Davros often read the Book of Predictions, which was written in the extinct language of the Dals. Although the book was banned by the Council of Twelve, he kept it in his possession for decades. (AUDIO: Innocence, Guilt)
In Davros's teenage years, he was found by the Dal Elwyn who had received a vision that Davros would end the Thousand Year War. The two set out to the Dal capital city for the elder to give Davros a vision of his future. After the visit, an argument broke out between the two, the distraction from their precarious ledge causing Elwyn to fall to his death while traversing a perilous mountain range. (PROSE: The Last of the Dals)
Shortly after his stepfather's death, Davros joined the Military Youth before joining the Military Corps in his final year of college.
In Nasgard's will, the family finances were held in trust under Davros's name and his wife and daughter were forbidden access to it until Davros was married. Due to her connections with senior members of the Kaled judiciary, Calcula was successful in her attempts to have the terms of the will overturned. Prior to this, she had attempted to set Davros up with the daughter of Councillor Matros, another member of the Council of Twelve who belonged to one of the most influential and wealthy Kaled families. (AUDIO: Purity)
Scientific career
Having been inspired to reach for greatness by the inexplicable shock his name had produced on the strange man who'd rescued him from the hand-mines, Davros grew up to become "a brilliant scientist". (PROSE: Davros, Dark Lord of Skaro) Davros had many friends, having formed comradeships through the struggle of war, only for him to lose all of those friends in the fighting. (AUDIO: Davros)
Davros vehemently disagreed with the ideas of his half-sister Yarvell, who had become a peace activist, of a compromise with the Thals. As he approached his thirtieth birthday, he regarded the only satisfactory outcome of the war as being the extermination of the Thals and the complete dominance of the Kaleds over all of Skaro. He was forced into the Military Corps, put in charge of developing new weapons and gadgets to help Kaled soldiers. After his mother killed his father, sister and aunt, Davros no longer had anyone to impress. In honour of Yarvell's death, he and his mother commissioned a statue to house her ashes. In reality, however, Davros used her body for his genetic research. (AUDIO: Purity)
Davros's first assignment in the Scientific Corps was in food processing. Consequently, he learned that the pills were made from not only waste vegetable matter but also the bodies of the dead. (AUDIO: Davros)
One month after the death of his mother, (AUDIO: Davros, Corruption) the idea of what would one day be realised as the Dalek casing were already starting to form in Davros's imagination, (AUDIO: From the Flames) only for the scientist to be grievously wounded by a Thal bombardment of his laboratory in the Kaled Dome which cost him his taste buds, left arm and entire lower body and left his eyes with severe damage to the point where using them would cause great pain. (AUDIO: Davros, Corruption) Although the reinforced walls of the lab prevented the bombardment from killing him, (AUDIO: From the Flames) he was forced to spend the rest of his life confined to a mobile life support system attached to a wheelchair, with an eyestalk-bulb in his forehead that gave him partial eyesight without the use of his own eyes.
After he was crippled, the Scientific Corps gave Davros a projectile poison injector to allow him to kill himself. He kept it but refused to use it. (AUDIO: Davros, Corruption) In his life-support system, Davros was identified as a mutant. (TV: Destiny of the Daleks) According to some accounts, he based the design of the Dalek casing off his life-support chair. (PROSE: The Whoniverse, et. al) Thirty seconds without his life support would have killed him. The life support system was controlled by a switch on the panel of buttons on his system. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks) His chair acted as an iron lung and pacemaker, and it monitored and maintained his body. (AUDIO: Davros)
He did not require nourishment due to his life-support system, although he did occasionally eat. (AUDIO: Davros, Guilt) After he assassinated the Supremo and the other members of the Council of Twelve, Davros became the de facto Kaled head of state as their deaths left him as the most senior surviving civilian in the Kaled Dome. Davros began experimenting with organisms and teaching them to speak. In particular, he taught them to say his name. For his first experiment, he used a Thal brain, that of a spy named Baran, instead of a Kaled one. (AUDIO: Guilt)
Creation of the Daleks
By another account however, Davros's crippling had led to him being shunned and given small-scale scientific projects. With half his body crippled, Davros began working on implanting organic brains into mechanical shells to serve as semi-autonomous attack drones, being assisted by Gharman. Witnessing the fear that his first malfunctioning prototype had instilled within General Ravon and Security Chief Nyder, Davros divested a significant amount of his delegated resources into his own life support, choosing to command respect through fear. When his first successful prototype instilled greater fear, Davros used it to acquire further political power. (PROSE: Davros Genesis)
With his equally ruthless aide, Nyder, Davros ascended to a high rank in the Kaled Scientific Elite and ultimately presided over the creation of the Daleks. Having foreseen that over time the Kaleds would mutate and degenerate into mutants who could not live on their own, Davros set about accelerating this evolution, (TV: Genesis of the Daleks) leading the Daleks to come into existence earlier than they would have in the normal course of historical events, (PROSE: War of the Daleks) having decided that victory over the Thals was meaningless unless the future of the Kaleds was preserved. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) He also made alterations of his own to the Dalek genome, filtering out qualities Davros deemed "weak" to make his creations the ultimate warriors. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks)
According to another account, destroying conscience in the Kaleds had been the original purpose of his experiments, and the fact that his test subjects degenerated into mutants who needed machines to even survive — let alone move around and fight — was an unintended side effect. (PROSE: Davros, Dark Lord of Skaro)
In yet another account, Davros was working on the Dalek prototype before his accident. He dismissed many of his assistant Castavillian's suggestions for its name, all being poor anagrams of "Kaled". When he was called away by Nyder, the Fourteenth Doctor crashed onto his base of operation and accidentally damaged the multi-adaptable claw attachment Davros had originally built for the travel machine. After accidentally retroactively inspiring Castavillian to coin the terms "Dalek", "exterminating" and "genesis of the Daleks", the Doctor realised when and where he was, and, muttering frantically about "the timelines and the canon rupturing", he hastily replaced the damaged prototype's claw with a sink plunger, then left just before Davros returned. Although initially taken aback by the sink plunger arm installed into his creation, Davros decided he "liked it". (TV: Destination: Skaro)
At any rate, since the mutant creatures could not survive on their own, Davros created mobile casings for them, also making sure that they were equipped with fearsome weapons, as Davros's true ambition was to create the ultimate warrior lifeform, able to dominate Skaro forever. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks) In their later history, the Daleks would claim the travel machines Davros built were based on designs stolen from other scientists, (PROSE: War of the Daleks) with the Dalek War Machine having been developed by the inventor Yarvelling in the early days of the war against the Thals, (COMIC: Genesis of Evil) but another account held that the Mark I Travel Machine was based on Davros's own chair. (AUDIO: Guilt, et. al) In the event his creations would be destroyed, Davros designed the artificial moon of Falkus to act as a seed-vault from which the Dalek race could be rebuilt, designing the computer core to hold a digital copy of his brain so he could guide his rebuilding creations. (AUDIO: A Genius for War)
However, an intervention by the Time Lords began a chain of events after that. The Fourth Doctor was sent to Skaro at this time when Davros first demonstrated the Daleks to the Kaled Scientific Elite. With the presence of the Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith and Harry Sullivan contradicting his claim that only Skaro could support life in the galaxy, (TV: Genesis of the Daleks) Davros was enlightened to the wider universe and changed his ambitions from conquering Skaro to mastering the universe. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords) Davros imprisoned the Doctor. He used a lie detector to force the Doctor to reveal the details of the Daleks' future defeats, so that he could learn from them and so his creations, the Daleks, could avoid them (the Doctor later had this record destroyed). Davros refused to listen to the Doctor when he begged him to make the Daleks peaceful creatures of good, rather than the evil exterminators they would become. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks)
"Death" and revival
Upon activation, the Daleks exterminated Nyder. However, Davros soon became their next victim, ironically because of the programming that he himself had given them: to exterminate all those who were not pure Dalek. He begged them to have pity on him but they stated that were incapable of doing so as he had not programmed them to feel pity. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks)
As understood by human historians, the remaining Kaleds were utterly eradicated by the fledgling Daleks, with only Davros himself being known to have survived. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) Unbeknownst to the Daleks, they had actually only damaged his primary life support system. The secondary and backup circuits switched on immediately, placing him in suspended animation while his life support worked to regenerate him. (TV: Destiny of the Daleks) During this time, Davros hoped that his creations had not forgotten him, and that he would be found once more and would rule the Daleks as he had originally planned. As Davros "slept", he sensed that something "wrong" had happened to Skaro's timeline; Ace misused the omega device in a failed attempt to time lock Skaro shortly after the Thal-Dalek battle, but the timeline was soon corrected by Ace, Bernice Summerfield, and the Seventh Doctor. (AUDIO: The Lights of Skaro)
After a lengthy time had passed, the Daleks, now a major galactic power, sought to revive Davros so that he might offer them a way out of the impasse in their war with the Movellans. Both sides were in a stalemate because they were androids (TV: Destiny of the Daleks) the Daleks having elected to became "quasi-robotic" beings to better understand their foes (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual) that relied solely on logical moves, so Davros's organic mind would be able to think of ways to circumvent the situation. (TV: Destiny of the Daleks) When the Daleks approached their abandoned homeworld, Davros began to awaken, feeling the return of his children and noting to himself that he would ensure he became their emperor. Unknown to Darvos, the Doctor also returned to Skaro (WC: Risen) by chance.
As the Daleks searched for their creator, Davros's suspended body was eventually found in the underground remains of the crumbled bunker by the Doctor, making his foe the first face he saw after he was revived. Upon uniting with the Daleks, Davros opted to help the Daleks in their war against the Movellans. He devised a plan to destroy a Movellan ship. After this failed, he was captured by the Doctor and the escaped Dalek slaves, and imprisoned in a cryogenic freezer as "a block of ice". As anticipated by Tyssan, Davros was to stand trial for "crimes against the whole of sentient creation". (TV: Destiny of the Daleks)
As Davros was being transported to Earth, the ship he was on took on the Tenth Doctor and Anya Kingdom as passengers. When a Dalek fleet began closing in, the Doctor thawed Davros, hoping to use him as a bargaining chip. When the Daleks called the bluff, the ship crashed on Kembel where the group was brought before the First Movellan whom the Doctor recognised as Mark Seven. (AUDIO: The Dalek Defence)
Spared for his genius, Davros was put to work developing weapons to be used against the Daleks, managing to secure the Doctor as his assistant, mocking him that through Mark and the Movellans, the Doctor had also created a warrior race. As Davros began data mining the Movellan network, he saw an opportunity to destroy the Movellans from within. After connecting himself to the Dalek pathweb, Davros proposed a Dalek/Movellan alliance to destroy the human race, inviting the nearby Supreme Dalek to officiate the alliance. When the First Movellan's guard was lowered, Davros offered a handshake, spreading a virus throughout the Movellan network. As he basked in his victory however, the Doctor managed to isolate the Movellan flagship from the rest, limiting the spread of the virus as human forces descended onto Kembel. Davros fled with the Daleks only to be abandoned in the jungles where the Earth forces recovered him and returned him to cryogenic suspension. Though Davros was content that it had taken hundreds of humans to counter a handful of Daleks, his viral attack had inspired the Movellans to develop one that would target and end the Daleks. (AUDIO: The Triumph of Davros)
Liberation
The humans decreed an indefinite sentence of suspended animation while Davros retained full consciousness. After ninety years, the Daleks, led by the Black Dalek Leader (TV: Resurrection of the Daleks) and having returned to being mutants instead of robots, (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) liberated Davros from his prison station in space, and revived him again. They believed he might help them to find a cure for the virus with which the Movellans defeated them, a virus that attacked only Dalek tissue. Pretending to research the cure, Davros experimented on Daleks to bring them under his control. The Doctor, now in his fifth incarnation, attempted to kill Davros at this time, though he lacked the resolve to do so directly. His treachery discovered by the Dalek Supreme, Davros released the Movellan virus onto the prison ship, killing all the Daleks on board.
The virus began affecting Davros, who tried to flee to an escape pod before Stien caused the station and the prison ship to explode. (TV: Resurrection of the Daleks) Whilst the Celestial Intervention Agency believed Davros perished in the blast, (PROSE: The Dalek Problem) the scientist in fact survived but without hope of rescue, sent drifting through space in a condition that made it seem like he was dead. (AUDIO: Davros)
23rd century invasion of Earth
In the hundred years leading up to the Earth year 2254, Davros and the Daleks witnessed the human race advance their scientific knowledge to the point of becoming a threat. Ultimately, Davros decided that this problem needed to be rectified and so launched an invasion of Earth, intending to turn it into a Dalek production planet. He also stole a Time Ring from Gallifrey. (GAME: Dalek Attack)
Davros genetically tested a group of humans. Modifying their brains to remove their emotions of compassion, love and pity, Davros converted them into drones; as such, these drones were, like the Daleks, Davros's children. As the Daleks continued their 23rd century bombardment of the Earth colony of Phobos, Drone 77 and Drone 69, formerly a human male and female respectively, were questioned by Davros. When they behaved in a fashion indicating disgust for him, both moving away when he went to touch them, and demonstrated fear by seeking comfort in each other's arms, Davros ordered their extermination. As he left, he wondered if the same behaviour that he so despised also existed in the Daleks. (PROSE: An Incident Concerning the Continual Bombardment of the Phobos Colony)
Back on Skaro in 2254, Davros addressed the Battle Commander Daleks in the presence of the Emperor Dalek, commencing the invasion of Earth. However, the Seventh Doctor led a resistance against the Daleks on Earth. Confronting Davros on Skaro, the Doctor informed Davros that his invasion of Earth had been foiled and that the Time Lords would ensure that he would never threaten the universe again. Davros was then frozen in time. (GAME: Dalek Attack) According to one account, this was the Doctor's cathartic simulation created by fictional energies. (PROSE: Head Games)
A new enterprise
Davros was somehow picked up by a different space station and imprisoned in a vault. Arnold Baynes and his wife, Lorraine, extracted him and helped in his restoration. At this very same moment, the Sixth Doctor arrived after being called in by some friends. He demanded Davros be immediately placed in suspended animation, but as Davros was fully conscious he goaded the Doctor into doing the job himself. The Doctor couldn't. Feeling Davros deserved a chance for redemption, Baynes offered him a job at his company, TAI. The Doctor also offered a working relationship with Davros.
Davros gained a foothold and claimed to be working on a way to combat famine. He held great interest in the stock market and planned on closing it down by broadcasting a pattern he discovered, the results completely disrupting the galaxy and enabling Davros to gain a military foothold. However Davros began to be haunted by his past, particularly the time before his accident when he had betrayed a female Kaled scientist named Shan whom he perhaps had loved. The Doctor halted his plan but Davros escaped in a ship. The Doctor took control of the ship from the TAI control room and made it crash while Davros screamed Shan's name. (AUDIO: Davros)
Emperor of the Imperial Dalek Faction
Foundation of the Imperium
Davros survived and set himself up as "the Great Healer" on the planet Necros, operating through a fake head as a lure for assassins, and lured the Sixth Doctor there. Using the dead bodies of the rich and powerful stored at Tranquil Repose, Davros created a new race of Daleks with white and gold livery, creating a faction of "Imperial Daleks" who were totally loyal to him. However, those who Davros deemed to be not intelligent enough for his plans were converted into concentrated protein instead, becoming food for settlers in the rapidly expanding sector to combat famine.
After Kara hired Orcini, a knight of the Grand Order of Oberon, to assassinate Davros, they destroyed his fake head, and the real Davros subdued them. Davros then brought the Doctor to him, gleefully informing him that, while his allies, Natasha and Grigory, had destroyed the lab, they had been killed, and his main force of Daleks was elsewhere. During this encounter, Orcini's squire, Bostock, destroyed Davros's hand. The Supreme Dalek's forces arrived on Necros after being called in by another Tranquil Repose worker Takis and captured him to put him on trial, with his army being destroyed by Orcini. (TV: Revelation of the Daleks)
En route to Skaro, the ship carrying Davros crashed on the planet Lethe. Davros set himself up as "Professor Vaso", altering the perceptions of the humans on the colony so they would not recognise him as the "Great Healer". He attempted to create a new machine, a Juggernaut based on a Mechanoid design. Under his Vaso guise, he also "befriended" Melanie Bush, whom he saw as a skilled programmer.
Lethe's atmosphere prevented the Supreme Dalek retrieving Davros directly, but its forces intercepted the Sixth Doctor's TARDIS, forcing him to serve as an agent of the Daleks and stop Davros's researches and manipulations. The Doctor discovered two of Davros's Necros Daleks had survived the crash, but were destroyed following Davros's final gambit on the colony and the Supreme Dalek's intervention. Davros himself was left badly injured by Mel after she reprogrammed several Juggernauts into attacking him, and his self destruct system in his chair was activated leading to the destruction of the colony. (AUDIO: The Juggernauts)
Trial
- Main article: Davros' trial (Revelation of the Daleks)
According to some accounts, Davros was then taken to Skaro, to be put on trial by the ruling Dalek Emperor (COMIC: Emperor of the Daleks!) and a jury of Daleks. (PROSE: The Shoreditch Incident) The Time Lords would later question if several of the Daleks Davros had created on Necros were present on Skaro during this time, helping to explain how one portion of the Dalek race eventually accepted him as their leader after the trial. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual)
According to one account, before a sentence could be passed, however, the Sixth Doctor released a virus onto the Daleks, saved Davros, taking him on board his TARDIS. (COMIC: Emperor of the Daleks!) By suggestion of the Doctor, (COMIC: Up Above the Gods) Davros hid himself on Spiridon, along with his empire of Daleks. The Daleks who had put him on trial before came to return him to Skaro, but his Daleks held them off. Davros detonated the planet, killing the Daleks. He woke highly injured, four days into the Dalek civil war, in a new casing as the Dalek Emperor. The Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War had begun. (COMIC: Emperor of the Daleks!)
According to another account, Davros encountered the Thal Lareen while en route to Skaro. Lareen was using a stealth suit that made her invisible to Dalek scanners. Lareen attempted to find Davros's "good side," and believed she had succeeded. She gave Davros a capsule containing an enhanced version of the Movellan virus and asked him to release it during his trial. This would destroy all Daleks on Skaro, and make Davros a hero.
Upon arriving on Skaro, Davros found that the Supreme Dalek had a new casing created. The Supreme Dalek planned to be moved to the new casing and named Emperor of the Daleks after Davros's execution. During his trial, Davros told the Daleks of the Movellan virus, and proved his loyalty to the Dalek cause by refusing to release it. He then told them that Lareen was on Skaro and ordered them to exterminate her. The Daleks were impressed with this show of loyalty, and named Davros Emperor of the Daleks. (AUDIO: The Davros Mission)
A final account claimed there was no legal trial, but that the Daleks instead were "trying out" Davros as a solution to the schism that had appeared within the Dalek Empire, reluctantly asking him for direction. Davros found this pathetic and believed his creations were feeling fear, but he agreed, so he began to reflect on the past to try to uncover a new direction for the Daleks. (AUDIO: Innocence)
Emperor of the Daleks
No matter the case as to how, (COMIC: Emperor of the Daleks!, AUDIO: The Davros Mission, et. al) Davros was thus able to form his faction of "Imperial Daleks" and waged a civil war against the so-called "Renegade Daleks" loyal to the Supreme Dalek and the Dalek Prime. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks, War of the Daleks) Still, the factionalism present in Dalek ranks since the end of the Movellan war meant that not every renegade sect was at war with Davros. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks) One of Davros's earliest actions as the Imperial Emperor was to order the assassination of the First Doctor, but his plot was foiled by the Seventh Doctor during his hunt for the Key to Time. (COMIC: Time & Time Again)
At some point while Emperor, Davros developed mind-transfer technology and formed an alliance with Napoleon in the hope of changing history by altering the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo, planning to replace Napoleon's mind with that of a Dalek and use Napoleon's mind for the Dalek battle computers. The Sixth Doctor found Davros in 1815 and transferred minds with him. Davros's mind was transferred back but the Doctor revealed the deception to Napoleon, who deliberately lost the battle. (AUDIO: The Curse of Davros)
In addition to the war against the renegades, Davros' Imperial Daleks waged the "liquidation war" against the Thals, the "war of vengeance" against the Movellans and the "time campaign". (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks, PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe)
Davros came to learn of an ancient Time Lord weapon known as the Hand of Omega that had been hidden by the First Doctor on Earth in November 1963. Completely encased within an Imperial Dalek-like shell, though his head and upper body still appeared to be at least partially Kaled, by this point, he personally led the Imperial mothership to the time zone to steal the weapon, intending to make his Daleks the new Lords of Time. Decieved by the Seventh Doctor, he was nearly killed when his ship was destroyed by the Hand of Omega, but survived once again in an escape pod. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)
- For more details on this, see the Shoreditch Incident.
After the Hand of Omega
Overview
There were several conflicting accounts of the whereabouts of Davros following his escape from the exploding Dalek mothership. (PROSE: The Shoreditch Incident, AUDIO: Daleks Among Us, AUDIO: Terror Firma, PROSE: War of the Daleks) Post-Time War historians believed that Davros, in the wake of the Shoreditch Incident, lost control of his newly formed Empire, with his place being taken by a new Dalek Emperor who orchestrated the Etra Prime Incident, an attempted invasion of Gallifrey. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe)
On Earth
According to one account, after Davros's escape pod was ejected from the Dalek mothership, it immediately fell straight down towards Shoreditch. However, the Intrusion Counter-Measures Group were unable to locate it during the clean-up and cover-up of the Shoreditch Incident. Those in the know were left to dwell on the disquieting hypothesis that Davros had gone into hiding on 20th century Earth and was drawing up new plans. (PROSE: The Shoreditch Incident)
Back to Skaro
According to another account, Davros's pod spent an unknown amount of time drifting in space before being discovered by a garbage ship called the Quetzel. The Eighth Doctor and Sam Jones landed on the Quetzel. A Thal force later took control of the ship. They wanted Davros to alter their race so they could better fight the Daleks. A force of Daleks arrived and took Davros, the Doctor, Sam, the Thals, and the Quetzel engineer Chayn to Skaro, which Davros had believed destroyed by the Hand of Omega.
The Dalek Prime claimed the planet that had been destroyed was actually a decoy world named Antalin, though Davros went on to reject this idea, theorising that Skaro really had been destroyed and that the Dalek Prime's Daleks were too young to realise they were now on a replacement.
The Dalek Prime wanted to remove any supporters of Davros from the Dalek race and a new trial was held. Those Daleks loyal to Davros turned on the Dalek Prime and a civil war broke out. In the end, the Doctor and his allies escaped from Skaro, Davros's forces were defeated, and Davros was apparently executed by matter dispersal, although the Spider Dalek responsible for Davros's sentence had actually been converted to his cause earlier. (PROSE: War of the Daleks)
On Azimuth
By another account of post-Shoreditch Incident Dalek history, Davros, eventually making his way to Azimuth, attempted to make contact with other Daleks in the universe. There, he encountered the Seventh Doctor again. After Will Arrowsmith told him about the Persuasion machine, he wanted it to reassert his control over the Daleks. Davros revealed that the main reason he had returned to Azimuth was to track down an old experiment he had carried out to clone himself, but learned that the clone had developed its own consciousness after it was activated by the remaining Daleks. The clone had assumed the identity of Falkus, and now considered himself Davros's "son".
Falkus attempted to torture the Doctor for information about his past victories and brainwash his companion Elizabeth Klein to power the Persuasion machine, but Klein was actually a duplicate of herself who used the machine to destroy the Daleks and Falkus. Davros was able to escape in a Dalek time machine, but was trapped again when the Doctor diverted his escape pod to a planet occupied by the Wraiths of Lamuria, a group of spirits dedicated to punishing criminals. (AUDIO: Daleks Among Us)
Losing himself
According to yet another account, while drifting alone in space, Davros created a virus capable of killing all living things, which the Doctor had hypothetically compared the Daleks to during their first conflict on Skaro. He was found by a Nekkistani ship. They helped him, and he rewarded them by killing them. The ship with Davros on board was found drifting in the Time Vortex by the Eighth Doctor, Gemma Griffin and Samson Griffin. Davros took control of Gemma and Samson and operated on the TARDIS after Samson had rendered the Doctor unconscious. Davros established a link to the TARDIS. He sent Gemma and Samson home and left the TARDIS to be damaged by the self-destruct of the Nekkistani ship. Davros conquered Earth by causing mutations and creating new Daleks.
By the time he met the Doctor again, Davros teetered on the edge of sanity, his mind split between two warring personalities — Davros and "the Emperor". The Doctor struck a deal with the Daleks, who considered Davros an unreliable leader. They would leave Earth with their true Emperor if the Doctor did not release the virus. The Daleks accepted and left Earth with Davros, his Emperor personality dominant. (AUDIO: Terror Firma)
In the 26th century, the Emperor had forgotten who Davros even was — asking "Davros? Who is Davros?" when the captive Seventh Doctor called him by this name — and personally attended the construction of the Death Wheel in orbit of the planet Hell. Demanding to know why Helkogen production had dropped, the Emperor was answered by an Ogron, who reported that the Helkan slaves were working as fast as they were able but required food and rest. Enraged, the Emperor exterminated the Ogron and ordered the routine extermination of the Helkans until production increased, deeming completion of the Death Wheel imperative for Operation Genocide.
Soon after, a cargo ship carrying intruders to the Death Wheel was intercepted. The Seventh Doctor and Kemlo, a Helkan, were presented to the Emperor aboard the Death Wheel. The Emperor recognised the first seven incarnations of the Doctor as an enemy of the Daleks. Subjecting the Doctor to interrogation with his Imperial Guard Daleks, the Emperor revealed his intention to cleanse the planet of Hell of "humanoid infestation". Alerted to another humanoid intruder, the Emperor ordered his Imperial Guards to exterminate the Doctor. However, the Doctor was rescued by Dalek Killer Abslom Daak, who killed the Imperial Guards before making off and freeing the Helkan slaves with the Daleks in pursuit. Ultimately, Daak, after ensuring the Doctor and the Helkans got to safety, destroyed the Death Wheel, seemingly at the cost of his own life. (COMIC: Nemesis of the Daleks) The Seventh Doctor would later state that he had been wrong and the Emperor he encountered aboard the Death Wheel had not been Davros. (COMIC: Emperor of the Daleks) Later accounts indicated that Davros's actual personality became dominant once again. (TV: The Stolen Earth)
During the Last Great Time War
Sometime after the Dalek Empire had reunited (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual) following the Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War, Davros was happily recruited by the Dalek Empire to aid in an invasion of a rebel Krillitane outpost on Gryphon's Reach that was developing invisibility technology. When this invasion was foiled by the Eleventh Doctor, Davros was cast out of the empire. To redeem himself, Davros developed the invisibility technology himself and incorporated it into the Daleks. Luring the Doctor to Alacracis IV for one of their many Christmas truces, Davros had the Daleks ambush the Doctor, only for the Time Lord to offer his own life if the Daleks killed Davros as well. When the Daleks readied to fire on Davros as well, they triggered Davros's secret fail-safe within their casings and self-destructed. Returning to his ship, Davros briefly considered abandoning his children, before they returned following the declaration of the Last Great Time War, and requested his assistance in the upcoming conflict; Davros accepted. (PROSE: Father of the Daleks)
One of the events in the Last Great Time War was known as the "seven deaths of Davros". (PROSE: The Day of the Doctor)
During the "very first year" of the Time War, (TV: The Stolen Earth) Davros was promised his own legion and acceptance by the Dalek Emperor. The Emperor asked him to build a new creature to use against the Time Lords. Davros created the Nightmare Child, which was what he termed "the perfect Dalek." The Nightmare child quickly became hungry, wishing to consume everything in its path. Left with no choice but to kill it, Davros tried to send it into the Gates of Elysium. He sent a distress signal to the War Doctor, but instead of wanting to be rescued, he really only wished for the Doctor to see him die, helpless to save him. Davros's command ship flew into the jaws of the Nightmare Child, and the Gates of Elysium closed behind them. Davros was believed to have been killed. (PROSE: The Third Wise Man) In actuality, Davros was saved when Dalek Caan broke the Time War's time-lock and took him to the post-war universe. (TV: The Stolen Earth) The Advocate followed Davros and Caan out of the Time War. (COMIC: Don't Step on the Grass)
Following the Last Great Time War
Prior to the 2006 London UFO crash, a reader posted using the name "Davros" to the conspiracy website Doctor Who?, managed by Mickey Smith. Whilst other readers reported sightings of the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler, "Davros" ordered that the Doctor be brought to him should he be found. (PROSE: Rose sighting confirmed)
After Davros was rescued by Dalek Caan, he used cells from his own body to create the New Dalek Empire. This sacrifice left some of his internal organs and part of the ribcage exposed on his upper torso, protected by his black leather tunic. At the epicentre of this new hidden empire was a planet-sized space station known as the Crucible, stationed within the Medusa Cascade but in a pocket of time one second out of sync with the rest of the universe. At some point, these new Daleks refused to recognise Davros as their leader, and installed a Supreme Dalek. They did not exterminate Davros, though, and he still considered them his "children". They made an arrangement to keep him under guard inside the vault room of the Crucible. In return, he helped them steal 27 planets from across space and time to fuel a reality bomb, which would leave them the sole inhabitants in all existence. (TV: The Stolen Earth)
The Tenth Doctor had lost the trail on the missing Earth, but the Children of Time used the Earth's phone network to contact him. Davros then hacked into the Subwave Network to speak to him, and soon the Doctor was brought in his TARDIS aboard the Crucible where they met face-to-face. Davros and the Daleks neutralised several threats (such as Sarah Jane Smith's warp star and Martha Jones' Osterhagen key) and prepared to detonate the reality bomb. Davros was initially stunned to see Sarah Jane again after so long, but he recovered and gleefully revelled in the seemingly fated encounter once again. However, the "DoctorDonna" intervened by shutting off the bomb by closing off all of the Z-Neutrino energy relay loops of the reality bomb by using an internalised synchronous back-feed reversal loop, returning most of the stolen planets, followed by the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor maximising the Dalekanium power feeds and blasting them back, destroying the Crucible and the fleet. Before fleeing the carnage in the TARDIS, the original Tenth Doctor offered to save Davros, but the creator of the Daleks refused, naming him "the Destroyer of Worlds" and choosing to stay aboard the exploding Crucible. (TV: Journey's End)
However, Davros somehow managed to survive the destruction of the space station. (PROSE: The Whoniverse) In the TARDIS, the Tenth Doctor once watched footage of Davros's silhouette surrounded by smoke before losing the connection. Jack Harkness used this footage at the end of his monster file on Davros. (WC: Monster File: Davros) The Daleks, meanwhile, also survived; whilst those made from Davros's DNA were declared impure by the New Dalek Paradigm they established, the New Paradigm managed to restore the Dalek race and empire. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) The rebuilt Dalek Empire eventually restored Skaro to its former glory and reunited with Davros. (TV: The Witch's Familiar)
Remembering childhood
Davros eventually found himself on the brink of death and returned to the now-rebuilt Skaro. Remembered his encounter with the Twelfth Doctor in his childhood, he ordered Colony Sarff to bring him to him. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice) In what one account described as "the Last Night" of Davros's life (PROSE: Davros, Dark Lord of Skaro) and when he faced the Doctor again, Davros talked about the Daleks, calling them children. He admitted that even though he created them, he couldn't control them, claiming he couldn't stop them from exterminating the Doctor's friends. During this meeting, Davros showed the Doctor that he had recorded all his foe's speeches about morality. Perhaps as a taunt, Davros singled out one about killing a child who would grow up to be a "ruthless dictator who would destroy millions of lives"; the Doctor had the chance to prevent Davros from ever creating the monster known as Daleks, but had failed because of his compassion. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice)
Davros revealed the cables connected him to the life force of every Dalek. While attempting to make the Doctor feel compassion for him as part of a plan to steal his regenerative energy, Davros learned that the Doctor had saved Gallifrey from destruction at the end of the Time War. Whether sincerely or not, Davros congratulated the Doctor on saving his people, referring to his own failure to save the Kaled race from extinction. Shutting down his eye implant, Davros told the Doctor that he wanted to see one last sunrise with his own eyes. However, when the Doctor, apparently driven by compassion, released regenerative energy into the cables, Davros was quick to act; using Colony Sarff to secure the Doctor, he began siphoning regenerative energy from the Time Lord and transmitting it into every Dalek across Skaro, using some of it to renew himself and remove his reliance on the life support for survival.
However, after being saved by Missy, the Doctor revealed that he had known of Davros's plan, and had let him take the energy as part of his own plan to stop the Daleks. He then revealed that Davros's transmission of the energy into every Dalek on Skaro had included the decaying Daleks in the sewers beneath the Dalek City, who attacked and destroyed it, with Davros still inside when the roof of the infirmary collapsed on him, (TV: The Witch's Familiar) but he survived. To ensure their purity and survival in case he ever died, Davros recorded a "whole and true study" of Dalek history and science. In this study, he wrote that he was still connected to the life force of every Dalek, but that he had the stolen regeneration energy, making him question what may be possible in the future. He concluded his discussion by once again stating that his children were the ultimate form of life and that all other lifeforms needed to be exterminated. (PROSE: Secrets of the Dalek Laboratory)
Other realities
Alternate timelines
The Kaleds Kelleher, Milal, Sandar, and Maran originated from a potential timeline in which Davros did not create the Daleks. (AUDIO: Effect and Cause)
In an aborted timeline, the War Master used the Anti-Genesis codes to travel from the Last Great Time War to Skaro during the Thousand Year War, and lured Davros into a trap; pretending to be Davros's uncle, the Master summoned the Kaled scientist into the observation room of the Kaled Dome, so that when the Dome was hit by a bomb, Davros died instantly, whereas in the original timeline, he survived the blast due to being in his secure laboratory, although he was significantly crippled after the blast. (AUDIO: From the Flames) This change in history allowed the Master to take control of the Kaled Scientific Elite in Davros's place and, by extension, create a race of Daleks obedient to him instead of Davros. (AUDIO: The Master's Dalek Plan) This timeline was eventually erased from existence by the Master's future self, a Master from a parallel universe, and the Dalek Time Strategist, restoring Davros's position as the true creator of the Daleks. (AUDIO: He Who Wins)
Parallel universes
Numerous examples
The N-Space Davros had a vast number of alternate selves across the multiverse, most of whom were very similar to him. Some realities existed where he and the Dalek Prime were one and the same. (AUDIO: Restoration of the Daleks)
The "divided" Davros
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In one parallel universe, Davros lived with his Thal wife, Charn, on Skaro, centuries after the Kaleds and Thals had allied to eradicate the Time Lords for trying to destroy the Kaleds when they were but a "nascent species". This Davros initially did not create any Daleks, instead being a scientist of transdimensional engineering over genetics and warfare. However, when Davros tested a dimensional portal he had spent his lifetime creating, the Dalek Time Strategist travelled to Davros's universe from N-Space. Despite the efforts of the Eighth Doctor and Bliss, the Time Strategist successfully merged this Davros with echoes of all of Davros's alternate selves from throughout the multiverse, discarding this Davros's original personality in favour of a replica of the N-Space Davros, who assisted the Time Strategist in restoring the Dalek Empire to begin the Last Great Time War anew, (AUDIO: Palindrome) following the Daleks's erasure from existence by the Valeyard. (AUDIO: The War Valeyard) Davros was painfully exploited by the Strategist as a dimensional anchor, prompting him to abandon the Daleks to create new warriors on Cosca.
Davros was eventually captured by the restored Daleks and attempted to rally the Daleks against the resurrected Dalek Emperor, provoking a brief rebellion which the Emperor's forces prevailed in. Afterwards he was imprisoned on Falkus as the Emperor believed he would be of further use in the Time War. (AUDIO: Restoration of the Daleks)
Davros gained control of the prison facility on Falkus, which enabled him to send a message to Gallifrey requesting rescue by the Doctor in return for aiding their war effort. Eventually managing to evade both Time Lords and Daleks, Davros landed near Drammankin Lake where he was attacked by a mutation. (AUDIO: A Genius for War)
The Unbound Universe
In the Unbound Universe, Davros was a Kaled scientist from Skaro who betrayed his people to the Thals when the Kaleds tried to shut down his experiments. Sometime after this, during the Quatch Empire's first attempt to conquer Skaro, Davros was crippled by a Quatch attack - although he was unaware of the culprits - forcing him to use a similar ocular system and life support chair (AUDIO: Masters of War) to his N-Space counterpart. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks) Davros eventually ended the Kaled-Thal War, instigated by the Quatch when their attempt to conquer Skaro failed, by creating the Unbound Universe's Daleks, of which he made two variants: "the Renegades", who attempted to kill Davros and abandoned him to conquer the Unbound Universe, and a race of Daleks who retained a cold, logical understanding of pity and mercy. However, after further developing the latter race of Daleks over several years, Davros felt that he could never make them strong, intelligent and loyal to him all at once. After being contacted by the Quatch, who had learned of Davros after they encountered some of "the Renegades", Davros accepted their offer to serve the Quatch Empire, and left Skaro in a small spaceship, abandoning the Daleks. Over several decades, Davros served alongside the Quatchs' greatest scientists, and eventually became their Chief Technician.
Eventually, Davros and the Quatch returned to Skaro and attempted to invade the planet once again. Davros offered the Daleks loyal to him, who had returned to Skaro in preparation for the Quatchs' return, the chance to survive the invasion by becoming servants of the Quatch Empire; however, most of the Daleks instead fought against Davros and the Quatch alongside the Thals, after persuasion from the Unbound Doctor. During the battle between Skaro and the Quatch Empire, the Daleks, the Doctor, and the Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart of the Unbound Universe successfully breached the Quatch mothership, where the Doctor revealed to Davros, using information gathered from a Quatch prisoner's data bank, that the Quatch were responsible for crippling Davros and starting the Kaled-Thal War, as well as, by extension, the creation of the Daleks. Enraged by this, Davros decided to finally achieve the vengeance he had sought against those that had crippled him for almost his entire life, using a secret program he developed to disable the technology stabilising the Quatch in the Unbound Universe, which forced the Quatch back to their native dimension; the huge instability generated by dozens of Quatch doing so destroyed the Quatch mothership, killing Davros in the process. (AUDIO: Masters of War)
Creations
Most notable of Davros's creations was the Mark III travel machine, which became known as a Dalek. Davros also experimented with other Dalek forms, such as a Dalek able to walk over rough terrain known as a Spider Dalek. (PROSE: War of the Daleks)
Davros also created an Imperial faction of Daleks to counter what he saw as a renegade faction of Daleks, as well as the cybernetic Juggernauts by combining human components and DNA with the robotic Mechonoids. (AUDIO: The Juggernauts)
The Twelfth Doctor would later poke fun of what Davros invented, saying that he couldn't even invent legs, and asking how the Daleks felt when everyone else had more than one eye. (TV: The Witch's Familiar)
Personality
Davros had a sound mind early in his life, but the incident that crippled him and his overall experiences in the Thal-Kaled war left him a depraved and insane megalomaniac. He became tyrannical and ruthless, tolerating no opposition to his will and dismissing fairness and democracy as "the creeds of cowards". He did not believe the Daleks were evil, instead believing they would bring peace by becoming the sole life-forms of the universe; he believed different species could not peacefully co-exist, so believed the utter extermination of all other races was the only way the Daleks could succeed at bringing peace. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks) Even years later, he maintained that the Daleks existed "for the ultimate good of the universe". (TV: The Magician's Apprentice)
By creating the Daleks, he paradoxically believed that he had saved his own kind despite him not considering the Daleks to be Kaleds, instead viewing them as his children. (TV: The Witch's Familiar) To Davros, comparing the Daleks to the Kaleds was like saying a pearl was the heir to the stone that formed it; the Daleks were far beyond Davros's own species in his mind. (PROSE: Father of the Daleks) Brilliant and driven, he relentlessly experimented to find the final form of the Kaled people. Although he respected the Fourth Doctor as a fellow scientist, he refused to make the Daleks into less vicious creatures, which almost resulted in his death. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks) He also told the Sixth Doctor that he was the closest thing he had left to a friend, reflecting that "in some strange dream of history" they may have actually been friends. Even though the Doctor insisted that the two of them were not friends, Davros nonetheless noted they were both scientists who had "been through a lot" together. (AUDIO: Davros)
Overall, the Doctor and Davros knew each other for so long that "galaxies [had] burned" over the course of their relationship. Davros once joked that the Doctor "slaughter[ing]" Daleks, while he "slaughtered" Time Lords, was the "conventional means of communication" in their dynamic. (TV: The Witch's Familiar) Over the years, Davros and the Doctor had several truces where they met with each other on Christmas. During one meeting, Davros admitted to his foe that the Daleks would never see him as a father, yet he proclaimed that changing them in any way, even to make them love him, would not make them Daleks, and therefore not his children in his eyes, anymore. Davros at times found himself enjoying part of that Christmas on Red Moon of Xhe, but he claimed it was only because of the low oxygen affecting him. (PROSE: Father of the Daleks)
During the war in the Medusa Cascade, though he proclaimed the Doctor to be arrogant (TV: The Stolen Earth) and took a sadistic pleasure in reminding the Doctor of how many people had died for him, Davros still sought a moment to catch up with his nemesis "after so very long". He also implied that he considered the Doctor to be a coward, calling him "the man who keeps running". The final words Davros spoke to the Tenth Doctor was to insult him, calling him "the destroyer of worlds". (TV: Journey's End) During his scheme to trick the Twelfth Doctor into giving his regeneration energy, Davros stated that he had always admired his nemesis and claimed to wish that they, at least once, could be on the same side. While it later appeared that Davros had been putting on an act, he also displayed joy when the Doctor told him Gallifrey survived, as it meant the Doctor had saved his own kind. (TV: The Witch's Familiar) Even after that event, he believed he and the Doctor could have created "a true hybrid" if they had worked together. (PROSE: Secrets of the Dalek Laboratory)
Davros was malevolent and sadistic, and it was his ability to command and delegate that was most forceful and cold. While his conversation with the Doctor following his awakening (TV: Destiny of the Daleks) suggested that he may have survived the extermination attempt through forethought, it seemed to have made Davros even more bitter. This led him to making the Imperial Daleks. (TV: Revelation of the Daleks) His sadistic side increased after the Time War as he demonstrated a desire to psychologically torment the Doctor, informing the Tenth Doctor that he turned his companions into soldiers and weapons (TV: Journey's End) and mocking the Twelfth Doctor by claiming that his compassion was the reason that he had lost his friends and his TARDIS due to his refusal to destroy Davros or the Daleks at their beginning. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice) Clara Oswald considered him extremely smart but also extremely cruel. (PROSE: The Companion's Companion)
During the lead-up to the Last Great Time War, Davros felt the pride of a father when the Daleks told him they had declared war on the Time Lords. (PROSE: Father of the Daleks) Davros had joy in his voice when he saved the Daleks from the Nightmare Child, yet the Daleks would never care about his sacrifice. Ultimately, Davros had made the Daleks, a race that could only hate, but he had always tried to get them to love him as their father. (PROSE: The Third Wise Man) He had many moments of parental pride and fondness for the Daleks, being eager to talk about, and learn of, their accomplishments (TV: Destiny of the Daleks, The Magician's Apprentice, PROSE: Father of the Daleks) yet paradoxically thought little of their intelligence and abilities, believing that they could not progress without him. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks, AUDIO: The Triumph of Davros)
For all his desire to rule the Daleks before and throughout the Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War, (TV: Revelation of the Daleks) he eventually lost that desire, simply accepting arrangements that kept him alive and involved in their affairs. (TV: Journey's End) He claimed the Daleks had a genetic fault that made them respect him and showcase mercy towards him. (TV: The Witch's Familiar) Instead of ruling over them, he wanted his "children" to love him as their father and sought to simply to be involved in their empire. (PROSE: Father of the Daleks) The Movellans' analysis of Davros noted that he prioritised his own survival above all else, (AUDIO: The Triumph of Davros) but, by this point in his life, he was more than willing to give his life for the creations that would never thank him for such an act. While he tried to get them to accept and love him as a parent, (PROSE: The Third Wise Man) he also maintained that, if the Daleks were to return that love, they would no longer be his children. (PROSE: Father of the Daleks)
After his rescue from the Time War, Davros again was willing to work alongside the Daleks instead of ruling them. He also seemed to have developed a dislike of pride and vanity; he admonished the Dalek Supreme for displaying pride and distastefully noted "arrogance" in the Doctor's voice. (TV: The Stolen Earth) During the reality bomb testing, he had proclaimed "Behold, the apotheosis of my genius", showing that he himself was as narcissistic as ever. He was also a complete maniac, even more than before, and was consumed by an insane desire to completely destroy the entire omniverse. Davros chose apparent death instead of accepting the Doctor's offer to save him from the exploding Crucible. (TV: Journey's End)
Davros did possess a sense of humour, however rarely it was expressed. He coldly quipped that informing the beneficiaries of his Necros-produced protein that they would be eating their own relatives would have created "consumer resistance". (TV: Revelation of the Daleks) He once remarked to the Doctor that "your appearance is as inconstant as your intelligence", and when the Doctor reminded him that he had defeated him each time they had met, Davros laughed and replied, "You flatter yourself!" (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) He later seemingly parodied his own hyperbolic tendencies when listing the Doctor's failures, ending with the matter-of-fact statement, "Oh, the end of the universe has come." (TV: Journey's End) On Skaro, Davros, aware that the Daleks intended to exterminate the Doctor's companions, facetiously responded to the Doctor's questioning with "Who can say? You know what children are like." (TV: The Magician's Apprentice) Later, when the Doctor admitted his doubt that Davros was dying even when looking at him, Davros told the Time Lord that he was "not a good doctor", at which both men laughed. (TV: The Witch's Familiar)
Physical characteristics
Body
As a child, Davros had the skin tone similar to a Caucasian human, brown hair and two functioning blue eyes. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice / The Witch's Familiar) However, his body was mangled by a Thal bombardment. (AUDIO: Davros, Corruption) By the Movellans' definition, Davros became a humanoid mutant (TV: Destiny of the Daleks) after he had taken on a cyborg form and life-support system.
His skin was discoloured and his body crippled by the accident in his past, leaving him without the use his legs or his left arm. His Kaled body was humanoid, though a blue lens in his forehead replaced his lost vision, allowing him a semblance of sight. He had only his right hand, which he used to operate controls on his chariot. These could perform functions for controlling doors, the Mark III travel machines, or his own life support system. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks)
Davros's body was old and withered, with parchment-thin skin and a shrivelled skull with sunken pits for eyes and a thin, cruel gash for a mouth. He was more machine than man, with his lungs, heart, speech, hearing and sight being mechanically or electronically aided. He had a helmet-like arrangement of wires and plastic tubes suspended over his head. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Destiny of the Daleks)
As Davros's life-support system maintained the function of his vital organs and revivified necrotising tissue, his appearance underwent subtle changes over time. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual) Following his cryogenic imprisonment, Davros's face gained a yellowish, sagging appearance, (TV: Resurrection of the Daleks, et. al) while, by the time after the Time War, a darker colour had returned to his face. (TV: The Stolen Earth, et. al) Indeed, Davros himself needed to be "reconstructed" after each of his many deaths, but he always made sure his repairs kept him with a similar image. Upon meeting the Eleventh Doctor, he questioned why he did so instead of changing himself into a younger form. The Doctor also noted this meant his skin remained thin, as if Davros was looking to be insulted. (PROSE: Father of the Daleks)
During an earlier meeting the Eighth Doctor, he claimed that he had been "clinging" onto his physical form but regretted the decision, deciding that he did not need his withered body to remain himself. (AUDIO: Terror Firma) Still, he continued to do so. (TV: The Stolen Earth, et. al) Despite the change in his appearance over the years, (TV: Genesis of the Daleks, The Stolen Earth) Sarah Jane Smith was able to recongise Davros's voice (TV: The Stolen Earth) despite it also taking on a different quality over the centuries. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks, The Stolen Earth, et. al)
While tricking the Twelfth Doctor into using his regeneration energy to create a new Time Lord-Dalek race, it was revealed that while Davros didn't use his real eyes and hadn't in a long time, he was not blind and could still open his eyes and see. When he did this, he shut down his artificial eye in the middle of his forehead. (TV: The Witch's Familiar)
Chair
Davros was originally seen by the Fourth Doctor sitting upright in a life-support chariot resembling the base of a Dalek. Davros's blue eye appendage mirrored the look of a Dalek's eyestalk lens. A metal brace was attached to his head, and wires were plugged into his skull. Davros also had a throat microphone implant to enhance his damaged voice. A metal brace was attached to his head, and wires were plugged into his skull. Davros also had a throat microphone implant to enhance his damaged voice. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks)
During the Necros Incident, Davros's chair had anti-gravity gravitors that enabled him to hover, possibly an upgrade. (TV: Revelation of the Daleks)
On Necros, Bostock fired a gun which destroyed most of his right hand and with it his ability to operate independently. (TV: Revelation of the Daleks) For a short time after, his hand was replaced with a claw (COMIC: Emperor of the Daleks!) and finally with a prosthetic substitute. (AUDIO: The Juggernauts, TV: The Stolen Earth, Journey's End, The Magician's Apprentice, The Witch's Familiar) He was capable of projecting electric shocks from both his organic and mechanical hands and his eye, allowing him to ward off attackers and stun or even kill them. (AUDIO: Davros, TV: Revelation of the Daleks, Journey's End)
During the Dalek Civil War, Davros sat in a bloated dome. His head was cradled by metal braces from which wires trailed down into the hidden body of the Dalek shell. His eyes were hollow scars and the skin of his cheeks was withered and cracked. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks)
By the time that Davros had risen to become the Emperor of the Imperial Dalek faction during the Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War, his life-support chariot no longer featured a button with which he could deactivate his life support, (AUDIO: The Curse of Davros) as it had when he had first met the Doctor on Skaro. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks)
Davros later dispensed with his skull wires and throat microphone. However, he retained his head brace. (TV: The Stolen Earth / Journey's End) His artificial eye was evidently connected to his nervous system and susceptible to pain, as he visibly winced when Missy jabbed him in that eye. (TV: The Witch's Familiar)
Other information
The Sixth Doctor objected to Jack Harkness marrying Callista while posing as him, likening the situation to a marriage with the Dalek Emperor. Jack countered by pointing out that the Doctor was still fighting the Daleks, and used a hypothetical romance with Davros to taunt him. (AUDIO: Piece of Mind)
In the video game Happy Deathday, played by Izzy Sinclair on the Time-Space Visualiser, Davros was among a host of "every single enemy" that the Doctor had ever defeated, who were assembled by the Beige Guardian and pitted against the Doctor's first eight incarnations. (COMIC: Happy Deathday)
From the Matrix's projection of the Security Drone Incident, it came much to the concern of the Time Lords that the Reconnaissance Dalek was able to create a whole new mutant strain of the Dalek race without the advanced skills of Davros, the Dalek Emperor or the Cult of Skaro. As such, they began research into the genetic make-up of the reconnaissance scouts to further understand the extent of their abilities. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual)
The Ninth Doctor once referenced Davros (though not by name) to Henry van Statten, calling him a "genius" as well as a "man who was king of his own little world". He commented that van Statten would like him. (TV: Dalek) Following his transformation into a Human-Dalek, Dalek Sec said that the creator was wrong to believe that removing emotions made the Daleks stronger, to the surprise of the Tenth Doctor. (TV: Evolution of the Daleks) After the 21st century Dalek invasion, the Tenth Doctor's meeting with Davros remained fresh in his mind, remembering the insane genius when he had an adventure with River Song shortly afterward. (AUDIO: Expiry Dating)
The Eleventh Doctor claimed that the TARDIS had a GPS with Davros's voice. (AUDIO: Trouble in Paradise) He also once jokingly mentioned Davros as someone to go to if one needed a reality bomb, but Alice Obiefune, being unfamiliar with Davros, questioned who he was and whether he was a friend of the Doctor. (COMIC: What He Wants) When the Eleventh Doctor and Ian Chesterton were forced to bear witness to the Doctor's memories by the Prometheans, the face of Davros was one of the many foes the two saw. (COMIC: Hunters of the Burning Stone)
Davros was also known as the Dark Lord of Skaro. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice) Along with the likes of the Cybermen, the Weeping Angels, and more, he was included in the Perils of the Constant Division, a series of vid-briefings on dangerous beings. (TV: The Tsuranga Conundrum) The Testimony Foundation also knew of Davros and the Daleks. (TV: Twice Upon a Time)
A Dalek traitor voiced its belief that the Daleks should be destroyed since while they were originally created to ensure the survival of the Kaleds, their mission had deviated and eroded Kaled identity. Upon hearing this, the Thirteenth Doctor remarked that the Daleks' creator would be both impressed and horrified. (TV: The Power of the Doctor)
During the 1966 Dalek invasion of Earth, the Fourteenth Doctor nicknamed the Supreme Dalek "Diana Ross". He later attempted to explain to the Daleks a pun using her name, comparing "Di Ross" to "Davros". (COMIC: Liberation of the Daleks)
Behind the scenes
Actors
Michael Wisher (who had previously played the voice of the Daleks in several Third Doctor stories) portrayed Davros in his debut story Genesis of the Daleks. (He also contributed toward the voices of Daleks for the same story.) Wisher rehearsed with a paper bag on his head because of the limited vision he would have with the Davros mask makeup. He was credited as "Davros, Supreme Kaled Scientist" on the sleeve of the Genesis of the Daleks LP.
For Destiny of the Daleks, David Gooderson took over the role for the unavailable Wisher.
Subsequently, Terry Molloy, who first appeared in Davros's third story, Resurrection of the Daleks in 1984, has played the role on television three times and in audio more than ten times. Rory Jennings played Davros as a child in an extended flashback sequence in the Big Finish Productions audio mini-series I, Davros, which examined Davros's life before creating the Daleks.
Julian Bleach played Davros on television in The Stolen Earth and Journey's End in 2008, and again in The Magician's Apprentice and The Witch's Familiar in 2015, and once more in the Children in Need mini-episode Destination: Skaro in 2023. In the last one he had no prosthetic mask at all. Joey Price also portrayed Davros as a child in The Magician's Apprentice and The Witch's Familiar.
In the audio story The Curse of Davros, Davros was played by Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor switches bodies with Davros in an attempt to reform the Daleks.
As revealed in DWM 571, the webcast mini-episode Risen, Pete McTighe persuaded David Gooderson to return as Davros, recording a new monologue as the character, set directly before the event of Destiny of the Daleks. However, Gooderson only provided a voice performance: the glimpses of Davros's physical form instead featured SP Bowling (the collector who'd lent a Davros chair to the production) silently embodying the creator of the Daleks, wearing a mask sculpt identical to Gooderson's in Destiny of the Daleks. Bowling was uncredited for this role.
Purpose
Terry Nation saw Davros as a voice for the Daleks. In DWM #250, he commented:
The Daleks, when they have to make any kind of long speech, are immensely boring creatures. You can't have a Dalek doing four or five sentences in a row, so I wanted someone to speak for them. The thing that was half-man and half-Dalek was a perfect example of this, and I made sure he was not killed...he actually became a very good plot piece.
Anatomical controversy
In Remembrance of the Daleks, only Davros's head was seen inside the Imperial Casing, poking out of a tangle of wire. As Ben Aaronovitch revealed in DWM 147, his intention was that Davros's head was all that was left of his body; following being threatened at gunpoint by the Doctor in Resurrection of the Daleks, he had decided to upgrade himself into a Dalek to protect his life. Aaronovitch suspected that he had even only kept his face so that he could use it "to sneer at the Doctor" during what he thought would be their final meeting, and was planning to have it removed also in the long run. This intent is alluded to in the story by the Seventh Doctor's line "Davros... I see you've discarded the last vestiges of a human form".
However, in the filmed episode, the visible movements of Terry Molloy's shoulders underneath the mass of wires obscured this intent, which has been followed inconsistently in later stories. The comic story Emperor of the Daleks!, a prequel to Remembrance of the Daleks, depicted Davros being incorporated into the Imperial Casing to sustain his life after he is grievously injured in an explosion, lending weight to the idea that the head is all that is left of his original body. However, War of the Daleks, which featured Davros immediately following the events of Remembrance of the Daleks, featured Davros back in his original chair, complete with torso and arm.
Accordingly, when Davros returned on television in The Stolen Earth, his organic torso and arm were intact, and elements of the plot suggested that Davros did not have the means to regenerate lost organs and appendages.
References in invalid sources
The Programme Guide
Long before the Sixth Doctor suggested that Davros could become Emperor of the Daleks in Revelation of the Daleks, the original second volume of The Doctor Who Programme Guide (1981) suggested that the Emperor seen in The Evil of the Daleks was not only the "last Emperor Dalek", indicating the existence of a predecessor, but also "the final incarnation" of Davros before his Daleks were usurped by the Humanised Daleks created by the Second Doctor.
The Terrestrial Index
The Terrestrial Index (1991), which stated that the Dalek Civil War was indeed the Final End of the Daleks, suggested that the Emperor seen in The Evil of the Daleks was the final form of Davros achieved by self-inflicted mutations long following the so-called destruction of Skaro. Incidentally, Terror Firma would depict an Emperor Davros now with elements of The Evil of the Daleks casing.
The Discontinuity Guide
The Discontinuity Guide made the claim that, originally, Davros was killed and forgotten, and that the Fourth Doctor's interference with the creation of the Daleks created a new timeline where Davros survived, the Doctor's warnings about the Daleks having made Davros paranoid enough to activate a force field in his chair. As a result, whilst the Daleks originally had a solid, cohesive empire, always with one purpose, Davros's presence reduced them to "a mess of squabbling factions" which were "incapable of the unity needed to develop dimensionally transcendental time travel. Published before the Last Great Time War was established in Doctor Who lore, The Discontinuity Guide went on to claim that "whilst Davros lives the Daleks will remain disorganised, and will never become the threat that the Time Lords so feared."[1]
Unreleased sources
The ending of Genesis of the Daleks would have shown a button on Davros's wheelchair flashing after his "death", hinting that he had not died. In the event, by mistake, this detail did not make it onto screen.
Davros would have appeared in the cancelled BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures novel Enemy of the Daleks, having degenerated further from a disembodied head in Remembrance of the Daleks into a digitised artificial intelligence.
Anatomy
Terry Nation's Dalek Annual 1978 also provided an anatomy of Davros, naming the components in his life-support system:
- Vibro-sensor
- Omnipute
- Fatigue Eliminator
- Audio input
- Transmission controls
- Energiser
- Disc sensors
- Pacemaker controls
- Circuit monitors
- Veracity perceptor
- Power source indicators
- Fail safe defence
- Dalek voice control
- Telepathic receptor
- Super optic
Stage appearance
Davros appeared on stage, once more played by Julian Bleach, during the initial Doctor Who at the Proms. He dramatically appeared on-stage to welcome attendees to his Dalek Empire and claimed the Royal Albert Hall as his new palace and the audience would become his slaves. This wiki deems the Prom presentations, often a mix of in-universe and real-world guests, to be an invalid source for narrative.
Theory
The 2005 releases of the television story The Parting of the Ways, which introduced the Dalek Emperor in the Last Great Time War, and the audio story Terror Firma, in which Davros' original personality gave way to "the Emperor", gave rise to a theory which suggested that Davros was destined to become the Emperor seen in The Parting of the Ways. This was acknowledged by AHistory, which noted that this theory was officially denied by Big Finish. Davros's return in The Stolen Earth and subsequent stories firmly established that Davros and the War Emperor were separate individuals and that Davros had returned to his original personality by the Last Great Time War.
LEGO appearance
Davros appears in the Doctor Who level pack in LEGO Dimensions.
This wiki does not consider Dimensions to be a valid source due to role-play-like mechanics within the non-story elements of the game.
Minecraft rollercoaster
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Davros was once on Minecraftia, and appeared during a rollercoaster ride by Christel Dee. (NOTVALID: Doctor Who Minecraft)
