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People and planets and stars will become dust. And the dust will become atoms and the atoms will become... nothing! This is my ultimate victory Doctor! The destruction...of reality ...itself!
- This article is about the character. For the Big Finish Audio see Davros (audio story)
Davros, originally the head of the Kaled Scientific Elite on the planet Skaro, presided over the creation of the Daleks. During the Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War, he served as Emperor of the Imperial faction and later of the Dalek race itself.
Biography
Early life
Davros was born during the Thousand Year War between Thals and Kaleds on the planet Skaro. It was a time when mercy and nobility were all but non-existent and life was harsh and grim. The use of atomic weapons and other agents of mutation had started to produce mutants known as mutos.
As a child Davros claimed only his mother believed in him. Others feared him and his determination. His father wanted him to become a soldier like his elder generations. Davros was determined to become a scientist. (BFD: Innocence)
Davros had a sister called Yarvell. Davros disagreed with her ideas of a compromise with the Thals. Davros was forced into the military where he was put in charge of developing new weapons. After his mother killed his father, sister and aunt, Davros no longer had anyone that he could impress. In honour of Yarvell's death he and his mother commissioned a statue to be made to house her ashes. (BFD: Purity)
Davros began experimenting with organisms and teaching them to speak. In particular the word 'Davros.' For his first experiment he used a Thal brain instead of a Kaled one. (BFA: Guilt)
Davros was grievously wounded by an attack and afterwards he needed a mobile life support system just to stay alive, let alone to move. (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks) 30 seconds without his life support would have killed him. The life support system was controlled by a switch conveniently placed on his panel of buttons on his life support system. (DW: Genesis of the Daleks)
Creation of the Daleks
Today, the Kaled race is ended, consumed in a fire of war. But, from its ashes will rise a new race. The supreme creature. The ultimate conqueror of the universe. The Dalek!
With his equally ruthless aide Nyder, Davros ascended to a high rank in the Kaled Scientific Elite and presided over the creation of the Daleks. (DW: Genesis of the Daleks)
- For more see main article.
Davros was originally exterminated by his Daleks. However, intervention by the Time Lords began a chain of events, started by the The Doctor being sent to Skaro during this time period, where Davros first demonstrated the Daleks to the Kaled Scientific Elite. The Doctor and Davros first met at this time. Davros learned of the Doctor's mission and imprisoned him. 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 that his creation, the Daleks, could avoid them. (The Doctor later had this record destroyed.) (DW: Genesis of the Daleks)
- The official BBC Doctor Who website specifies that there are two Dalek histories, the second created by the Time Lord intervention in Dalek development. In the original timeline, Davros was killed, but he survived in the new version of events.
"Death" and revival
I created you. I am the master. Not you, I, I, I!
The Daleks eventually turned on Nyder and exterminated him. Later, they apparently exterminated Davros himself (DW: Genesis of the Daleks), but he had in fact activated a force field around his travel unit and survived in a form of suspended animation while his life support worked to regenerate him. After an unknown period of time had passed, Davros was sought both by the Daleks, now a major galactic power, and by the Doctor. The Daleks sought to revive Davros so that he might offer them a way out of their impasse in their war with the Movellans. Davros was found in the underground remains of the crumbled scientific elite bunker, and was revived. Davros opted to help the Daleks in their war against the Movellans. He devised a plan to destroy a Movellan ship but after this failed he was captured by the Doctor and escaped Dalek slaves and imprisoned in a block of ice. (DW: Destiny of the Daleks)
Leader of the Imperial Daleks faction
I have waited a long time for this. Once the Doctor is exterminated, I shall build a new race of Daleks. They will be even more deadly and I, Davros, shall be their leader! This time we shall triumph. My Daleks shall once more become the supreme beings!
The Humans decreed an indefinite sentence of suspended animation, during which time Davros retained full consciousness. After 90 years, the Daleks, led by the Dalek Supreme, liberated Davros from his prison ship in space, and revived him once more. They believed that he might help them to find a cure for the virus with which the Movellans defeated them: a virus that attacks only Dalek tissue. Under the pretense of discovering the cure, Davros began experimenting on Daleks to bring them under his control. The Doctor, now in a new incarnation, attempted to kill Davros during this time, though he ultimately lacked the resolve to do so directly. His treachery discovered by the Dalek Supreme, Davros released the Movellan virus onto the prison ship, effectively killing all the Daleks on board. The virus then began affecting Davros, who promptly fled in an escape pod before Stien caused the station -- and the prison ship -- to explode. (DW: Resurrection of the Daleks)
Davros at this point almost took his own life. He met the Doctor and tormented him as he would not kill him. (BFA: Davros)
Davros, however, survived, and set himself up as "The Great Healer" on the planet Necros and lured the Doctor there. Using the bodies of the dead at Tranquil Repose, Davros created a new race of Daleks with white and gold livery, who would later be called "Imperial Daleks". The new faction was totally loyal to him. The Supreme Dalek's forces arrived on Necros -- having been brought there by Tranquil Repose's disgruntled staff -- and captured him to put him on trial. (DW: Revelation of the Daleks)
- For more background on and an account of the war that followed between Dalek factions, see Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War.
By the time of his attempt to recover the Hand of Omega from 1963 Earth he called himself the Dalek Emperor (of the Imperial Daleks only). Apparently, he had lost most of his organic body, and was completely encased within an Imperial Dalek-like shell, though his head and upper body still appeared to be at least partially Kaled. (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks) Apparently killed by a supernova started by the Hand of Omega, he survived by escaping in an escape pod (again).
Davros found himself teetering on the edge of sanity when he encountered the Eighth Doctor on Earth, which he had taken over with a virus. At this time, Davros's Dalek personality was very nearly dominant. At the end of the story, Davros becomes the Emperor of the Daleks, his mind fully turned into Dalek. Presumably he may have been encased in the Emperor Dalek casing in "The Evil Of The Daleks" and the explosions resulting from the Dalek Civil War restored his "Davros" personality, however this is only speculation. Davros now back to his original form which enabled him to participate in the Last Great Time War. (BFA: Terror Firma)
After this, Davros went on to be the commander of the Daleks in the Time War, only to supposedly die during the first year of the conflict (despite the Doctor's efforts to save him) at the Gate of Elysium, when his command ship flew into the jaws of the Nightmare Child. However, Dalek Caan broke the War's time lock and saved him from death. Davros then rebuilt the Dalek race by using a large number of his own cells, turning each one into a new Dalek, leaving his internal organs and skeleton exposed (under his jacket). Davros called these Daleks his "children". (DW: The Stolen Earth)
Return
Welcome... to my new empire, Doctor.
After Davros was rescued by Dalek Caan and had finished creating his new army of Daleks, he used a planet sized ship known as the Crucible to travel the universe and "steal" planets. These planets were then put around the Crucible. Earth was the final planet to be taken by Davros and his New Daleks. They took the planets to the Medusa Cascade where he and his Daleks awaited the arival of the Doctor in a pocket of time 1 second out of sync with the rest of the universe. Davros used advanced technology to hack into the wavelengths of the Subwave Network and talk to the Doctor, explaining to his nemesis how he had survived. (DW: The Stolen Earth)
It quickly became apparent that Davros had once again become a slave to the Daleks rule who placed him under guard within the Vault on the Crucible as part of a deal he made with the Supreme One.(If Davros was indeed a slave, it is puzzeling as to why there was a terminal in his prison (the Vault) which could be used to control every aspect of the Daleks travel machines and the Crucible, especially as it did appear to be opperatable by Dalek implements. This was used by Donna and the Doctor to destroy the Daleks). This arrangement required Davros to build a Reality bomb powered by the Crucible and the 27 planets in the Medusa Cascade which would destroy all of existence leaving the Daleks the sole inhabitants of the universe. However, his plan failed due to the intervention of the Doctor and Donna Noble who destroyed the Dalek race once more leaving Davros on a burning Crucible. Before leaving in the TARDIS, the Doctor offered to save Davros but the creator of the Daleks refused stating that he named the Doctor the destroyer of worlds, after which he was apparentley engulfed in flames.
Creations
Supreme Dalek? Ha! That is a title I shall dispute most vigorously, I created the Daleks. It is I who shall control their destiny, I am the Supreme Commander!
Most notable of Davros' creations is the Mark III travel machine, which then 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. (EDA: 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 Mechanoids. (BFA: The Juggernauts)
Personality
Yes... yes. To hold in my hand a capsule that contained such power... to know that life and death on such a scale was my choice. To know that the tiny pressure on my thumb, enough to break the glass, would end everything. Yes - I would do it. That power would set me up above the gods! And through the Daleks, I shall have that power!
Davros had a sound mind early in his life. Brilliant and driven, he relentlessly experimented to find the final form of the Kaled people. Davros was a cool and sadistic person; it was his ability to command and delegate that was most forceful and cold. While his conversation with the Doctor following his awakening (DW: Destiny of the Daleks) suggests that he may have survived the extermination attempt through forethought, it does still seem to have made Davros more bitter than he had originally been.
Physical characteristics
Davros was originally seen by the Doctor sitting upright in a movement and life support chair resembling the base of a Dalek. His Kaled body was similar to that of a human, though a blue eye in his forehead replaced his lost vision, allowing him some semblance of sight. He had only his right hand, which he used to operate various controls on his chair. These in turn could perform various functions from controlling doors, the Mark III travel machines, to his own life support system.
On Necros, Bostock fired a gun which destroyed most of his right hand and thus his independent operability. (DW: Revelation of the Daleks) For a short time after, his hand was replaced with a claw (DWM: Emperor of the Daleks) and finally replaced with a prosthetic substitute of future human design (BFA: The Juggernauts), (though its first appearance on screen was in DW: The Stolen Earth) He was capable of firing electric shocks from his mechanical hands allowing him to ward off attackers and stun them. (DW: Revelation of the Daleks) & (DW: Journey's End)
Behind the Scenes
Michael Wisher (who had previously played the voice of the Daleks in several Third Doctor stories) portrayed Davros (as well as provided the Daleks' voices) in his debut story Genesis of the Daleks. The creator of the Daleks and of Davros, Terry Nation, intended to imply that Davros had not actually died during that story by showing Davros' life support button still working, a detail not actually shown in the filmed story. When Davros returned in Destiny of the Daleks, Wisher could not play the part, so David Gooderson was cast in the role. Subsequently, Terry Molloy, who first appeared in Davros' third story, Resurrection of the Daleks, has played the role on television and audio more times than any other actor.
Davros appeared in a one-off fan-produced stage play, The Trial of Davros, with Michael Wisher. The second version of the play starred Terry Molloy and Peter Miles reprising his role as Davros' henchman Nyder.
Davros appeared on stage at the Doctor Who Prom. Once again he was played by Julian Bleach and welcomed the Prommers to his Dalek Empire and claiming the Royal Albert Hall as his new palace and asking a Dalek if the conductor had been conditioned to play only Dalek music.
It is believed by Russell T Davies that he survived, perhaps using an emergency temporal shift or yet another escape pod. (DW: Journey's End) It is in fact rumoured that Sarah Jane has nightmares about him in the second series of The Sarah Jane Adventures. If confirmed, this could foreshadow his survival and return in future.