The Dalek Emperor was the supreme ruler of the Dalek Empire, commanding the Dalek race and the planet Skaro.
At least six different Dalek Emperors were believed to have existed, counting Davros.
History
Dalek Prime
One of the first Daleks, who exterminated Davros and proclaimed the Daleks' future victory over the universe (TV: Genesis of the Daleks), assumed the role of Dalek Prime (later Dalek Emperor) and would continue to act as the Emperor throughout Dalek history. (PROSE: War of the Daleks)
The Golden Emperor
After the neutronic war that devastated Skaro, the mutants had survived in the casings. The only humanoid Dalek survivors of the war, Yarvelling and the warlord Zolfian encountered a Dalek which persuaded them to build more Dalek casings for their mutated descendants. Before the last two humanoid Daleks died, a special casing was built for the Emperor to reflect its new rank, made of Flidor gold, quartz and Arkellis flower sap. The Golden Emperor[1] was slightly shorter than the other Daleks, with disproportionately large spheroid head section and in gold rather than grey. It also had three globes on each panel unlike other daleks. (COMIC: Genesis of Evil)
The Emperor within the Dalek City
The next known incarnation of the Emperor remained in an enormous, immobile, conical shell plugged into a corner of the control room in the Dalek City on Skaro. It was connected to the wall by tubes, and spoke in an echoing voice.
This Emperor was seemingly destroyed by a civil war between humanised Daleks and un-altered Daleks. However, a light was seen blinking on its casing at the end, indicating some kind of activity. (TV: The Evil of the Daleks)
Davros as Emperor
Davros was made the Emperor of the Imperial Dalek faction of the Daleks during the Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War. He was encased in a customised Dalek casing with a dome top which could open and close, his body below his head and shoulders covered in a mass of tubing and cables, implying he had greatly deteriorated physically. He was last seen heading for an escape pod just before his ship was destroyed in the wake of the supernova (set off by the Hand of Omega) that consumed Skaro. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) Later, Davros' increasingly unstable mind was obliterated by a totally Dalek personality, that of the Emperor. This new Emperor took command of Davros' Daleks and departed. (AUDIO: Terror Firma)
By the time the Tenth Doctor met Davros after the Last Great Time War, Davros' old personality had regained control. (TV: The Stolen Earth)
Emperor of the Dalek Empire
When the Daleks launched an invasion of the Milky Way from the Seriphia Galaxy, a Dalek Emperor was in command. While it successfully conquered much of the galaxy, its real goal was Project Infinity. It intended to summon Daleks from another reality. When those Daleks turned out to be appalled by genocide, the Emperor was captured by the Earth Alliance (AUDIO: "Death to the Daleks!", Project Infinity) but transmitted its consciousness into a human, Susan Mendes, to continue the war. (AUDIO: Dalek War: Chapter One) It erased her consciousness and intended to use her form to con the galaxy into lowering its guard; however, a psychic trap caused the remnants of Mendes to awaken and trigger the destruction of all Dalek technology, killing the Emperor and devastating the Empire. (AUDIO: Dalek War: Chapter Four)
During the Time War
As many as two Emperors may have existed during the Time War, though they could have been one and the same. One resided in Kaalann on Skaro. When Skaro was devastated, he was thought to have been killed. (GAME: City of the Daleks) That Emperor (or his successor if he truly was killed) during the Time War, he terrified the Master by taking control of something significant called "the Cruciform". (TV: The Sound of Drums)
The Dalek Emperor was aboard its saucer flagship when the Doctor used The Moment to simultaneously time-lock and end the Time War. This event was an "inferno" which destroyed virtually all Time Lords and Daleks; as such the Emperor was believed to have died with the rest of its species, but this was mistaken. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)
Surviving the Time War
The Emperor's lone ship barely survived the Time War, falling through time in a heavily damaged state. This Emperor was a Dalek mutant floating in a transparent tank of liquid, topped by a giant-sized Dalek dome, complete with eyestalk, flanked by panels of armour dotted by Dalek "bumps" with a ring-shaped "throne" on the bottom. It went into seclusion at the edge of the Solar system "damaged but rebuilding" during the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. Circa 199,909, it secretly installed the Jagrafess aboard Satellite Five to play the "long game" of slowly manipulating humans and re-establishing the Dalek species and fleet. Ninety-one years after the Jagrafess was killed, circa the year 200,000, the Emperor was still using Satellite Five (now renamed the "Game Station") to manipulate humanity and conceal his fleet. (TV: Bad Wolf) The Emperor secretly used transmat technology aboard the space station to kidnap humans for nearly two hundred years. The kidnapped humans were harvested for their genetic material, and "one cell in a billion" was used to rebuild a new race of Daleks numbering roughly 400,000 aboard a fleet of 200 ships. Because this Emperor had recreated the Dalek race, it saw itself as a god and was worshipped by the new Daleks. These and other religious concepts such as blasphemy were new to Dalek psychology. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)
The Emperor's pawn aboard Satellite Five, the Controller, hated her masters and transmatted the Ninth Doctor aboard the ship to help defeat them. When he encountered the Emperor and his new religiously fanatical Daleks, the Doctor surmised that they were driven insane both because they isolated themselves for so long, but also because they were in denial of the fact that they were part human. The Daleks killed almost everyone aboard Satellite Five, and they attacked Earth, bombing millions of people, to transform it into the Emperor's "temple". Shortly afterward the Doctor turned down his chance to use an uncalibrated Delta Wave to destroy all nearby life, human and Dalek alike. The Emperor thought he was victorious, but he and his entire fleet were atomized by Rose Tyler after she had absorbed the energies of the time vortex and became the Bad Wolf entity temporal paradox in 200,100. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)
The Progenitor Dalek Emperor
When the New Dalek Paradigm went back to the ruined Skaro, they created a new Emperor Dalek, reusing the shell of the old one, albeit with new paint. His blue colouring suggests he was a Strategist Dalek, had ties to that role or was the mastermind of all of the Daleks' plans for universal conquest. When the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond travelled back in time to when Skaro was devastated and before the new Daleks arrived with the Eye of Time, they erased the Daleks' alterations and Kaalann was left abandoned. The new Emperor was never created as a result. (GAME: City of the Daleks)
When the New Dalek Paradigm took control of Earth in 2106, they were led by a new Emperor Dalek. This Emperor was different from the Time War Emperor, as it was coloured purple, was able to form a sphere and its weaponry was much larger. This new Emperor wanted to completely change time by using a piece of the Eternity Clock, and remove Gallifrey from existence, the Dalek's would then become the new Lords of Time. The Eleventh Doctor and River Song were able to remove the piece of the Eternity Clock from the Dalek's possession, and stop them from taking over Earth and changing time. (GAME: The Eternity Clock)
Behind the scenes
Other Dalek Emperors
- A Dalek Emperor appears in charge of the Dalek Factor factory/planet. It is referred to as "an" Emperor, implying there was more than one at that time. (PROSE: The Dalek Factor)
- A Dalek Emperor was the subject of The Emperor Dalek's New Clothes, a bedtime story which the Eleventh Doctor claimed to have heard in his childhood. although this may be just a joke about the emperor's new clothes. (TV: Night Terrors)
- A Dalek Emperor from an alternate timeline travelled back in time to warn the Daleks of a great catastrophe that would devastate their race. (AUDIO: The Mutant Phase)
- A Dalek Emperor composed the plan to send the Master to divide the humans and Draconians, and gave him a squad of Ogrons to complete his task. (AUDIO: The Dalek Conquests)
The Dalek Handbook
According to the non-narrative material Doctor Who: The Dalek Handbook, the Emperor in the Dalek City survived the Great Civil War and would revamp the Dalek command structure, as well as focus his strategies on rewriting the Dalek timeline.