Dalek Empire
- You may wish to consult
Dalek Empire (disambiguation)for other, similarly-named pages.
The Dalek Empire was a time- and space-spanning empire created by the Daleks. To exterminate all life save the Daleks themselves, the Empire waged numerous interstellar wars, bringing it into frequent conflict with the Doctor. It was divided for a time during its civil war. Later, the entire Empire fought the Time Lords in the Last Great Time War, which was marked by unprecedented destruction across time. The Dalek Empire ceased to exist when the war ended, but remnants survived. One of the survivors of the Dalek Empire, Dalek Caan, would go on to become the founder of the New Dalek Empire, which itself would later be succeeded by a third empire.
History
Origins
The Empire was formed during an unknown period in Dalek history, presumably after venturing into space from their home planet of Skaro. Events from this period may have included the initial attacks on Earth. (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth)
As the Daleks started understanding the abilities of their enemy the Doctor, they focused their efforts on creating their own means of time travel, eventually creating their own time machines. They attempted to hunt down the Doctor through time and space, but failed when the Doctor caught them in a rivalry with the Mechanoids. (TV: The Chase)
Expanding the Empire
- As always, time travel makes the sequence of events here conjectural.
Settling down to more general use of their time travelling abilities, the Daleks proceeded on a grand effort to create a permanent base of operations. Using knowledge from the library of Kar-Charrat and the power of Gallifrey, the Daleks obliterated the entire Seriphia Galaxy, remaking it to their own designs. From there, the Daleks staged several major invasions of the Mutter's Spiral, notably in the 42nd and 67th centuries. (AUDIO: Dalek Empire)
Despite having their own galaxy, the Dalek Emperor maintained himself on the home planet of Skaro, and continued efforts from there to take over Earth at various points in history. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan, The Evil of the Daleks, Day of the Daleks)
At some point the Daleks' creator Davros was re-animated (TV: Destiny of the Daleks) and returned to lead the Daleks, taking the role of Emperor for himself. (TV: Resurrection of the Daleks) A schism developed between the Imperial Daleks loyal to Davros and Renegade Daleks loyal to the Dalek Supreme. The subsequent Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War stretched across the entire Dalek Empire. Even as they waged war with each other, the Seventh Doctor seemed to have opposed and defeated both factions. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)
The Dalek Prime and Davros survived the war and encountered one another once more during a decline in Dalek pervasiveness throughout the galaxy. Davros was again defeated and the Dalek Prime set about rebuilding the Empire. (PROSE: War of the Daleks)
Last Great Time War and destruction
United once more, the Daleks, including Davros (TV: Journey's End) and a new Dalek Emperor (TV: Bad Wolf) fought the Time Lords in the Last Great Time War, a titanic battle across all of history, resulting in the near-total destruction of both sides. (TV: Dalek) It was eventually revealed that "all thirteen" incarnations of the Doctor (led by the War, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors) came together to save the Time Lords and Gallifrey which was under attack by the entire empire, a "billion billion" Daleks in millions of ships. When the Doctor moved Gallifrey into a pocket universe, the Daleks were caught in their own crossfire and they destroyed themselves (rather than being destroyed along with the Time Lords by the War Doctor with the Moment, as previously believed). (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
Remnants
There were at least four different instances of Dalek survivors of the Time War: a single drone nicknamed Metaltron; the Dalek Emperor himself; the four-member Cult of Skaro alongside millions of trapped drones; and an entire ice planet of insane and damaged Daleks.
The first was a single drone who "fell through time" after the Time War in a heavily damaged state, and plummeted to the Ascension Islands of Earth circa 1962. This Dalek encountered the Ninth Doctor and had no idea the Dalek Empire had been destroyed. The drone killed approximately 200 humans, but soon self-destructed after being unable to cope with the human emotions which were unintentionally acquired from Rose Tyler's DNA. (TV: Dalek)
The Dalek Emperor himself survived the Time War, when his heavily-damaged flagship was flung into the far future. For hundreds of years, he slowly built a Dalek Fleet, created about half a million Daleks of human origin from dead human cells, and established the first Dalek religion with himself as god. In the year 200,100, the Emperor and this fleet fought the Battle of the Game Station and bombarded Earth so heavily as to deform entire continents. However, he and his entire force were then disintegrated by Rose Tyler, who became the Bad Wolf entity. Events resulting from the Emperor's attack forced the Ninth Doctor to regenerate. (TV: Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways)
The Cult of Skaro (four genius Daleks with names: Sec, Caan, Thay, and Jast) survived as well, but not by accident like the other Time War remnants. Aboard an extremely advanced Void Ship, they retreated to the Void (the nothingness found between all parallel universes), exempting themselves from the war's devastation. With them was a stolen Time Lord prison vessel which they called the "Genesis Ark", containing millions of trapped Daleks. The trapped Daleks were freed by the Cult to fight both Cybermen and humans at the Battle of Canary Wharf, but were soon hurled back into the Void by the Doctor (TV: Army of Ghosts/Doomsday). The four members of the Cult escaped the Doctor's Void trap by utilizing emergency temporal shifts, fleeing to New York City in the 1930s. There, Dalek Sec merged human DNA into his own body, becoming a Human-Dalek hybrid. Appalled at this breach of Dalek "purity", his three subordinates (Caan, Thay, and Jast) mutinied against him. They hijacked Sec's Final Experiment to insert pure-Dalek DNA (not Sec's hybrid DNA) into the hundreds of brain-blanked bodies of their human victims. All of the "Dalek-human" hybrids, and all the Daleks except Caan, were killed in the subsequent events. (TV: Daleks in Manhattan, Evolution of the Daleks)
The fourth remnant of the Dalek Empire would be found in the millions of insane and battle-scarred individuals imprisoned on the frozen Dalek Asylum planet. Some of the Daleks there were from as far back as the First Doctor's encounter with them at Aridius. They were initially feared, respected, and preserved by the New Dalek Paradigm (the most successful of the two subsequent empires). Eventually, however, the Paradigm Daleks considered their insane predecessors a potential threat when they found a serious fault in the planet's force field. After forcing the Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond, and Rory Williams to assist, the Daleks destroyed the entire Asylum planet, wiping out what remained of the first Dalek Empire. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks)
Further Dalek empires
After the destruction of the Dalek Empire, two subsequent empires were established: the New Dalek Empire, followed by the New Dalek Paradigm.
The New Dalek Empire was established by Dalek Caan, who made a perilous journey back through time into the first year of the Time War, and rescued Davros from the "jaws of the Nightmare Child". Davros sacrificed cells from his own body to create millions of new Daleks. Together they built a massive fleet and a space station called the Crucible within the Medusa Cascade. Dalek Caan worked in secret to betray the New Empire and Davros, however, and assisted the Doctor and Donna Noble in disarming the reality bomb and foiling the stolen planets plot. The Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor then caused a chain reaction which destroyed the New Empire, including apparently Davros and Caan. (TV: The Stolen Earth, Journey's End)
Only three Dalek drones survived the New Empire's demise. Aboard their heavily-damaged saucer, they located the last remaining Progenitor device. Through a deception called the "Ironside Project", they tricked the Eleventh Doctor into helping them activate the Progenitor. The device then cloned five new Daleks using the pure Dalek DNA stored within, and created new, larger battle armour for them. These newcomers destroyed their three forebears and escaped through a time corridor to the 41st century, where they built the third Dalek empire based on the New Dalek Paradigm. (TV: Victory of the Daleks) The Paradigm empire would eventually grow to be overseen by a Parliament led by a Dalek Prime Minister. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks)
The Daleks at some point after a vast Galactic Recession established the Sunlight Worlds, 400 worlds and the planet Carthedia acting as a government state. Humans were allowed to live there, not knowing of the danger of the Daleks. The Dalek time controller planned to use the Cradle of the Gods to turn the Sunlight Worlds into copies of Skaro. However the Eleventh Doctor and Jenibeth Blakely foiled this plan. (PROSE: The Dalek Generation)
Alternate timelines
Following their escape, the new Daleks discovered the lost Time Lord artefact, the Eye of Time, allowing them to alter time as they saw fit. The Daleks returned to Skaro, rebuilt their capital city of Kaalann, appointed a new emperor, and began rebuilding their empire. One of the empire's first acts with their new-found power over time was to invade Earth in 1963. In this new timeline, they succeeded in killing every member of the human race. However, the Doctor and Amy Pond successfully undid these events, leaving Earth unconquered and erasing the new empire from existence. (GAME: City of the Daleks)
An alternate timeline created when guerrillas from this timeline travelled back and accidentally caused a war by assassinating delegates meant the Daleks invaded Earth. This was averted when the Third Doctor travelled back from this timeline and told the guerrilla responsible the truth. Daleks and Ogrons travelled back to keep this timeline intact, but the guerrilla destroyed them with a bomb (TV: Day of the Daleks)
In another alternate timeline, the Daleks invaded Earth in the 17th century. This was averted by the Eighth Doctor and Charley Pollard. (AUDIO: The Time of the Daleks)
