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Kaled mutants were the mutated descendants of the humanoid Kaleds of the planet Skaro. Enclosed in protective armour and weaponry, they became the organic parts of the Daleks, mounted in the upper parts of the Dalek travel machines.
Biology
Kaled mutants were cephalopod, being large brained creatures with tentacles. Although usually dependent on their travel machines for offence/defence, the bare mutant could be dangerous; even the young were quite lethal and capable of strangulation with their tentacles, and, in this way, attacked the Fourth Doctor. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks) The Doctor once said that they had a deadly sting, and during a 1984 incursion into London, one of these creatures, separated from its casing, attacked and injured a human soldier without difficulty. (TV: Resurrection of the Daleks)
The mutants on occasion demonstrated an accelerated healing ability in response to localised wounds. One Dalek mutant in particular, while being tortured by Commander Farrow, began to repair its damaged body, its flesh growing over and thereby burning Farrow's hand. (AUDIO: Jubilee)
The voice of a Dalek was electronic as the actual vocalisations from the mutants amount to little more than squeaking sounds. Without the assistance of their casing, they were unable to produce speech as they do not possess tongues or vocal chords. (TV: Resurrection of the Daleks, AUDIO: Jubilee)
Young Kaled mutants were globular, soft and shapeless with several tendrils or tentacles. (TV: The Power of the Daleks, Genesis of the Daleks)
The mutants had a specific DNA type of 467-989. (TV: Daleks in Manhattan)
Kaled mutants were quite possibly fatal to a Time Lord when eaten. (PROSE: The Scarlet Empress) However, their "Dalek juice" could be ingested with no apparent ill-effect. (AUDIO: Jubilee)
The Third Doctor once described the mutants to Sarah Jane Smith as "a living, blubbling lump of hate". (TV: Death to the Daleks)
Variations
Kaled mutants often varied in appearance, though kept the same basic structure of an octopoid species with a comparatively large brain.
Some mutants were eyeless and green with whip-like tentacles. (TV: The Five Doctors, Resurrection of the Daleks)
Others were pink with no visible tentacles. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks)
During the Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War, the Imperial Daleks commanded by Davros were surgically altered, with their appendages physically grafted into their machines. In this, they differed from their rivals, the Renegade Daleks. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)
Others, after the Last Great Time War, were pale blue-green or green-brown with one large functioning eyeball and a small vestigial socket. The remnants of a face could be seen, more clearly on some mutants than on others; as well as the functioning eye and the sealed-up eye, a nose and mouth were vaguely discernible. (TV: Dalek, The Parting of the Ways) The mutants created using human cells produced small, blue-green creatures, apparently consisting purely of a head, with two eyes and an overall clearer "face". (TV: The Parting of the Ways)
Dalek Sec had lower tentacles long enough to grab hold of an adult human and had an unusual, trunk-like appendage that could envelop and carry a whole adult human. (TV: Daleks in Manhattan)
- This may just be a feature of Sec.
History
For an account of the creation of the Daleks, see separate article.
The Thals believed that the Daleks had not yet fully mutated into their final form. (TV: The Daleks) Kaled mutants appeared different over time, and, as noted above, during the war between the Imperial and Renegade Dalek factions, the two sides had physical differences, with Davros' side now altered into true cyborgs and physically made one with their travel machines. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)
Iris Wildthyme once became sick after eating a live Kaled mutant. (PROSE: The Scarlet Empress).
Behind the scenes
- In the first TV appearance of the Daleks in The Daleks a single clawed hand of the mutant was revealed. The comic The Dalek Chronicles and other media revealed many "facts" about the Daleks which did not appear on television. Nevertheless, the full appearance of the inner creatures remained undisclosed until The Power of the Daleks on television, in the form of newly created creatures. They appeared in their adult form in The Evil of the Daleks. Both appeared as eyeless shapeless creatures with tendrils.
- They first appeared in colour in Genesis of the Daleks (as young) and as adults in Destiny of the Daleks. In the latter story, the Fourth Doctor makes statements which imply that the Daleks have now abandoned any organic component and have turned themselves into robots. Future stories did not explain and elaborate and returned to the previous concept of the Daleks as ultimately organic. The Five Doctors showed much of the adult Kaled mutant for the first time.
- From Series 1 onwards, the Kaled mutants went through a major re-design. They now had a single eye, more defined bodies and 11 ropy tentacles, though the mutant seen in City of the Daleks had 12 tentacles instead of the usual 11.