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The Thousand Year War was the major war fought on Skaro between the Thals and Kaleds. It may not have literally lasted a thousand years.
History
The cause of the war
The exact reason or purpose of the war remains unknown.
- However, a main cause may have been a Kaled notion of racial purity (DW: Genesis of the Daleks). Later records would state that Thals were originally believed to have been a war-like race, the Kaleds originally peaceful and scientific. (DW: The Daleks)
By the time that the Doctor visited Skaro, the Thal and Kaleds lived in a two domed cities with a wasteland between them. In the Kaled Dome two councils, the Scientific Elite, headed by Davros and his assistant Nyder, and a Military Elite. The use of nuclears and chemical-biological weapons had led to the creation of the Mutos, mutated outcasts who scavenged the wastelands.
By this time, so many of the Kaleds had died that they resorted to using teenagers as military officers in the field. (DW: Genesis of the Daleks)
Weapons and Technology
An anachronistic mixture of technologies on the battlefield showed a society which had devolved rather than evolved, with combatants using energy weapons used alongside machine guns and engaging in trench warfare as in Earth's early 20th century, some clad in synthetic fibres and some in animal skins.
In the long-range, as well as the biological and nuclear weapons already mentioned, both sides used chemical rockets. Towards the end of the war, the Thals intended to use a neutronic missile against the Kaleds. (DW: Genesis of the Daleks)
Conclusion
The war did not conclude so much as peter out. Davros gave the Thals information as to how to allow them to breach the Kaled Dome, causing massive casualties amongst Davros' own people.
This would provide a rationale for the Kaleds in turn to set the newly created Daleks against the Thals. At last, a Thal rocket destroyed the Kaled Dome. Thals, led by Bettan, and Mutos, led by Sevrin, joined to fight back the Daleks now emerging from the ruined Kaled city. (DW: Genesis of the Daleks)
- A considerable discrepancy exists between future accounts describing the war was just a quick neutronic war (DW: The Daleks). This may refer to a later event or else with time, legend replaced accurate history.