The Dalek Time Controller, also known under the alias of the Dalek Litigator, was a Dalek from the far future, born from generations of genetic manipulation with the intent of creating a Dalek that could understand the "unfathomable patterns" of the Time Vortex, serving as "the ultimate victory of the Daleks through pure strategy."
- You may be looking for the Renegade Daleks' Time Controller device.
The Dalek Time Controller and the Doctor encountered one another on sporadic occasions in their respective timelines, with the Time Controller's first encounter with the Doctor occurring after the latter had encountered the former on several occasions (PROSE: The Dalek Generation) in at least two younger incarnations. After an encounter with the Sixth Doctor - whose encounter here was the Doctor's first meeting with the Dalek Time Controller (AUDIO: Patient Zero) - the Time Controller fought the Eighth Doctor on several different occasions. (AUDIO: Lucie Miller, To the Death, X and the Daleks, The Traitor)
After being infected with retro-genitor particles, (AUDIO: The Monster of Montmartre) as a result of existing outside of time during several changes to history, (AUDIO: X and the Daleks, The Traitor) the Dalek Time Controller was expelled from the Dalek Empire. (AUDIO: The Monster of Montmartre) After an alliance with the Reborn Master broke down, (AUDIO: Master of the Daleks) the Time Controller, along with Markus Schriver and Molly O'Sullivan, fused its consciousness with theirs and became the Eminence. (AUDIO: Eye of Darkness)
Biography
The Sunlight Worlds
The Dalek Time Controller oversaw the New Dalek Paradigm's scheme to transform the 400 Sunlight Worlds into "a billion Skaros." He manipulated the Eleventh Doctor's TARDIS' destinations in the Time Vortex and led the Doctor into uncovering the secrets to the Cradle of the Gods. The Time Controller also outranked the Dalek Supreme on this mission, and countermanded the Supreme's orders to take action, in order to not disrupt the flow of time.
The Time Controller posed as the Dalek Litigator, a judge in the law courts of the Sunlight Worlds. He acted as the prosecution when the Eleventh Doctor was placed on trial on two occasions for claiming that the Daleks were evil - something considered a hate crime - and outwitted him on both trials.
The plan backfired when the Doctor managed to convince a Dalek puppet, Jenibeth Blakely, to turn on the Dalek Time Controller. While undamaged by the fire from Jenibeth's weaponry, the Time Controller promptly retreated, but not before fatally shooting Jenibeth. (PROSE: The Dalek Generation)
Enmity with the Master
Thanks to his holistic view of the Master's crimes against the Dalek Empire, the Dalek Time Controller, back to an earlier point of Dalek history, acted once more as the Dalek Litigator in the trial of the Old Master (AUDIO: Vengeance) on Skaro. (TV: Doctor Who) However, the Litigator later discovered that the Master had survived in a new body through the aid of a Deathworm Morphant.
Tracking down the Master to 2223 Earth, the Dalek Litigator followed him back in time and contacted the Dalek Parliament of that era's native Daleks. He got himself assigned on a planned renewed Dalek invasion of Earth, nominally subordinate to the Dalek Supreme leading the invasion. The Dalek Supreme was not told about the Litigator's true nature and was irritated by his presence and the ways in which he seemed to often give orders exceeding his authority. Through the Dalek duplicate Magnus Drake, the Litigator hired Vienna Salvatori to assassinate the Master, but she had not yet succeeded by the time the Dalek Supreme's ship touched down in London.
The Litigator contacted Vienna again and demanded she bring the Master, alive, to the Dalek saucer. The Master showed up on his own accord and proved to outclass the Daleks, successfully putting the Supreme under his mental control and fighting to do the same to the Litigator, whom he recognised as the prosecutor at his trial. However, the Litigator used an emergency temporal shift to escape from the Master's mental attack. (AUDIO: Vengeance)
Patient Zero
When the Daleks tracked Mila - who they had infected - to the Amethyst Viral Containment Station in the past, the Dalek Time Controller commanded a Dalek patrol sent there, planning to move the station through time. The Sixth Doctor damaged their operations and left them trying to fend off an explosion. However, the Time Controller realised that the explosion at the Amethyst Viral Containment Station had caused the viruses to be scattered through time and allowed it to happen. The Doctor believed that the Dalek Time Controller had been destroyed in the explosion. (AUDIO: Patient Zero)
2180s invasion of Earth
However, the Dalek Time Controller was instead blasted back through the Time Vortex to the 2180s, where he was retrieved by the Daleks of that era, though the Time Controller was damaged from the travel. As the Daleks of this time were unable to fix the Time Controller themselves, they contacted the Monk, due to his temporal knowledge, and the Time Lord was able to repair him. The Dalek Time Controller took control over Dalek operations and orchestrated the second Dalek invasion of Earth, forcing the Monk to release another plague to weaken humanity. He planned to use Earth as a spaceship containing the viruses from the Viral Station, having seen where they would end up while it was in the Time Vortex, and intended to install a time warp engine into Earth to travel to this point; Earth could then be piloted through the universe, infecting planets which would later threaten the Daleks in the future. Ultimately, the Dalek Time Controller, and all Daleks on his ship, were dragged into a time warp thanks to Lucie Miller crashing a Dalek saucer containing a bomb into the mine. (AUDIO: Lucie Miller / To the Death)
Alliance with Kotris
However, the Dalek Time Controller was saved from destruction by Kotris. (AUDIO: X and the Daleks)
From then he oversaw the chasing of the Eighth Doctor and Molly O'Sullivan through time and space, (AUDIO: Fugitives) by using a relativity map and a Temporal Chamber to create a Space-time projector. Using Retro-genitor particles implanted inside Molly, the Time Controller and Kotris planned to destroy the Time Lords. (AUDIO: Tangled Web, X and the Daleks) However, when the Time Controller killed Straxus, Kotris' previous incarnation, Kotris was erased from history, therefore erasing the Dalek Time Controller's plans involving Kotris. The Dalek Time Controller was aware of the changes to history while they occurred, and swore to Kotris, before he was erased, that he would destroy the Time Lords. (AUDIO: X and the Daleks)
The Nixyce invasion
The Dalek Time Controller oversaw the invasion of Nixyce VII, and created mines in the planet to create a Dalek superweapon. The Eighth Doctor detonated a bomb located on a nearby Dalek in the Time Controller's chamber, damaging the Time Controller and causing him to flee to his ship in orbit above the planet. (AUDIO: The Traitor) Rather than destroying the weapon, the Doctor asked for the Dalek Time Controller's help in defeating the Eminence, who posed a bigger threat to the Daleks than the Doctor. (AUDIO: Eyes of the Master) The Dalek Time Controller agreed, and used the weapon to destroy the Eminence fleet. (AUDIO: Time's Horizon)
Becoming the Eminence
Alliance with the Master
After being infected with retro-genitor particles, as a result of existing outside of time during several changes to history, the Dalek Time Controller was banished from the Dalek Empire, as the Daleks did not recognise the Time Controller as a natural part of their timeline. Furthermore, the retro-genitor particles within the Time Controller gave him a symbiotic link with Molly O'Sullivan. (AUDIO: The Monster of Montmartre, Eye of Darkness)
Allying with the Reborn Master, the Dalek Time Controller travelled to Montmartre, Paris, in 1921, and created Adelaine Dutemps, a Dalek duplicate, from his own DNA. Harvesting the criminals and artists that Dutemps worked for in the Red Pagoda, the Time Controller created the Dalek Time Strategists, Daleks with an advanced understanding of temporal science, similarly to the Time Controller. (AUDIO: The Monster of Montmartre) The Dalek Time Controller used Dalek agents to capture the Doctor's TARDIS (AUDIO: A Life in the Day) in order to use the Red Pagoda to change history, as well as serving as a giant, replacement casing for the Time Controller's corroded casing. The Time Controller eventually confronted the Eighth Doctor and Liv Chenka, before capturing Liv and interrogating her on the Eminence War, particularly the Doctor's involvement in it. When the Doctor returned, the Dalek Time Controller was unable to stop him recovering his highly-damaged TARDIS, although the Time Controller was able to continue his original plan.
Following the arrival of the Master from an alternate timeline, as well as numerous Daleks, (AUDIO: The Monster of Montmartre) the Dalek Time Controller and the Master used their Daleks to establish the alternate timeline by conquering all of Earth; by 1961, Earth had become New Skaro, and all of humanity had either been exterminated, enslaved, or converted into Daleks. Inside a control centre, the Time Controller secretly prepared to betray the Master, predicting that the latter was already planning to betray him. When the Master travelled to a Dalek camp in the ruins of Moscow to retrieve the Doctor - who had crashed his TARDIS in the alternate timeline and was badly amnesic - the Time Controller ordered for the Doctor to be brought to him so as to replace the Master in their operation. Inside the control centre, the Dalek Time Controller and the Master betrayed each other, leading to a civil war between the Dalek Time Strategists, who had been summoned from 1921, and the 75% of the Daleks that the Master had programmed to fight the Time Strategists. The Dalek Time Controller then took Liv Chenka and Molly O'Sullivan as hostages, before stealing the Doctor's TARDIS. (AUDIO: Master of the Daleks)
Genesis of the Eminence
Arriving at the Eye of Orion - which secretly housed a Dalek weapons facility - the Dalek Time Controller allowed Molly to be sent away for medical assistance, as her unstable condition was a threat to the Time Controller's life. The Time Controller forced Liv to remain with him as he killed a genetically-modified Orion worker and a Dalek patrol to access the secure bunker containing Markus Schriver. Inside, the Dalek Time Controller battled with Schriver for control of the gas that would become the Eminence, with the Time Controller eventually transferring his consciousness into the gas to fight Schriver. Suddenly, a Dalek squad led by the Dalek Supreme arrived, having been led there by the Eighth Doctor.
The Supreme revealed that its plan had been to allow the Dalek Time Controller to the Eye of Orion so as to separate his consciousness and destroy him, along with Markus Schriver. Shortly after the Supreme left, Molly O'Sullivan, who had managed to pilot the Doctor's TARDIS into the bunker, allowed her consciousness to become part of the Eminence too, giving her the chance to banish the Eminence (AUDIO: Eye of Darkness) to the very end of the universe, where the Doctor, Liv and Molly's past selves would encounter it on the Orpheus, (AUDIO: Time's Horizon) and would eventually end the Eminence entirely. (AUDIO: Rule of the Eminence)
Legacy
Shortly after swiftly leaving the Eye of Orion, the Daleks recovered the remains of Adelaine Dutemps. The Dalek Supreme ordered for Dutemps' remains to be reconstituted as a unique Dalek Time Strategist, (AUDIO: Eye of Darkness) who would go on to serve as second-in-command to the Dalek Empire during the Last Great Time War. (AUDIO: The Shadow Vortex et al)
The Dalek Combat Training Manual, published by the Time Lords during the Time War, were aware of the Time Controller through many reports of the Daleks' wider activities, filing him along with the Time Strategists as potentially apocryphal "anomalies". (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual)
Appearance
Whilst overseeing the operation of the Sunlight Worlds, the Dalek Time Controller’s casing constantly shifted in colour and shape, with a pair of rings rotating diagonally across his larger grating section; from afar, these rings appeared solid, but when viewed closer to the Time Controller, they wavered, more closely resembling the debris fields of a gas giant. These rings could also spin at different speeds. The Time Vortex could be seen inside the grating section as well, and even possessed some degree of a suction effect. When masquerading as the Dalek Litigator, the Dalek Time Controller resembled a standard bronze Dalek Drone, although the shimmering effect generated by his grating rings was still noticeable by time-sensitive individuals such as the Eleventh Doctor. (PROSE: The Dalek Generation)
However, when encountered by the Sixth and Eighth Doctors, the Dalek Time Controller had a far more stable form, appearing similarly in shape to a Silver Dalek drone, whilst retaining his enlarged grating section and pair of neck rings. He possessed black sense globes, and his dome, weapons platform and base unit were coloured blue. (AUDIO: X and the Daleks)
Behind the scenes
- The Dalek Time Controller was also pictured in the preview image for DWM 411.