Bronze Dalek
Bronze Daleks (PROSE: Engines of War) were the basic Daleks which served during the Last Great Time War and beyond. While their casings were mostly bronze, their slats and sense globes were golden. (TV: Dalek et al.)
In addition, a band which connected the middle weapons platform to the lower base unit was coloured bronze for most of these Daleks. However, on some bronze Daleks, such as the "Metaltron", the band was golden. (TV: Dalek, Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways) This minority of bronze Daleks shared this trait with the red Supreme Daleks. (TV: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End)
Hierarchy
The bronze Daleks were subordinate to black Daleks, (TV: Army of Ghosts/Doomsday) Dalek Inquisitor Generals, (PROSE: Prisoner of the Daleks, red Supreme Daleks, (TV: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End) and the Dalek Emperor himself. In addition, the Emperor was protected by the Emperor's Personal Guard; mostly bronze, they were distinguished by their black domes as with their pre-War counterparts. (TV: The Parting of the Ways, The Evil of the Daleks)
A minority of bronze-type Daleks aboard the Dalek Emperor's flagship following the Last Great Time War had black base units with golden sense globes in addition to a black dome similar to that of the Emperor's Personal Guard. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)
Though generally appearing as foot soldiers, bronze Daleks could also be of higher ranks, distinguished from their subordinates only by their individual identifcation tag. Indeed, the bronze Daleks that were later named Thay, Caan and Jast respectively served in the positions of Commandant of Station Alpha, Attack Squad Leader in the Thirteenth Assault Group, and Force Leader of the Outer Rim Defensive Battalion. Furthermore, these Daleks were recruited by the Daleks to form the Cult of Skaro under the black Dalek Sec, (PROSE: Birth of a Legend) ultimately becoming regarded as "above and beyond the Emperor himself." (TV: Doomsday) Upon overthrowing Sec, Caan took command of the Cult of Skaro. (TV: Evolution of the Daleks) The Emperor himself was housed in a massive bronze casing. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)
Aboard the Starbane, bronze Daleks were seen to coexist alongside identically-shaped Daleks distinguished by casings coloured red, white and green. (GAME: The Doctor and the Dalek)
Variants
Assault Daleks were specialised bronze Daleks equipped with laser-cutting arms and blowtorch to replace their plunger manipulator arms. They had a claw and blowtorch combination. These were used for cutting through strong metals and for picking up objects normal Dalek drones could not. (PROSE: Prisoner of the Daleks, TV: The Parting of the Ways)
Temporal Weapon Daleks were were identical to the bronze Dalek drones with the exception of their weapons platform, which was very similar to Special Weapons Dalek, with a single, large cannon rather than a gunstick and manipulator arm. (PROSE: Engines of War)
Vault Daleks were bronze Daleks who were distinguished by their specialised manipulator arm claw. They were charged with guarding their creator Davros in the Vault, a special chamber within their giant space station the Crucible. (TV: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End)
Reconnaissance scouts, according to the Thirteenth Doctor, were specially advanced from the basic Dalek with capabilities beyond the normal Dalek soldier. (TV: Resolution)
History
Pre-Time War
The Dalek Emperor favorable to Davros who ruled Skaro in 2254 inhabited a bronze-colored casing similar in shape to that of the earlier Golden Emperor. However, no bronze-colored Dalek drones were in apparence on Skaro at this time. (GAME: Dalek Attack)
Bronze Daleks, led by Dalek X, a black Dalek Inquisitor General, participated in the Second Dalek War against humanity. (PROSE: Prisoner of the Daleks) Others fought in a war against the Movellans, (TV: The Pilot) as did earlier Grey Daleks. (TV: Destiny of the Daleks)
A bronze Dalek attempted to gain access to the Matrix hidden underneath the Capitol on Gallifrey during the Cloister Wars. It was attacked by the Cloister Wraiths, where it became a part of the Matrix hard drive, being "filed". It was still trapped within the Cloisters following the Time War. (TV: Hell Bent)
Prior to the Time War, bronze Daleks, led by a Black Dalek, saw to the extermination of the Mechonoids. Following this, the Black Dalek was summoned by the Dalek Emperor alongside three high-ranking bronze Daleks. Anticipating the oncoming Time War, the Emperor named the four Daleks, who formed the Cult of Skaro; led by the black Dalek Sec, the bronze Daleks were named Thay, Jast and Caan. (PROSE: Birth of a Legend)
Time War
Led by the Dalek Emperor, bronze Daleks made up the vast majority of the "billion billion" Dalek Fleet that converged on Gallifrey on the last day of the Time War. Having successfully penetrated the sky trenches, they engaged in the fall of Arcadia, where they were fought by the War Doctor and Gallifreyan soldiers. When the thirteen Doctors saved Gallifrey by transporting it to a pocket universe, the Dalek Fleet inadverently destroyed themselves in their own crossfire. (TV: The Last Day, TV: The Day of the Doctor) The Ninth Doctor, along with the rest of the universe, believed the entire Dalek race to have been wiped out along with Gallifrey. (TV: Dalek)
Post-Time War
However, the Doctor found that one bronze Dalek had survived, crashing to Earth in 1962. Eventually, in 2012, it came to the possession of Henry van Statten, who ignorantly named it the "Metaltron". Ultimately, the Dalek, after finding that it had been "contaminated" by Rose Tyler's human DNA chose to self-destruct. (TV: Dalek)
Surviving the war in his flagship, the Dalek Emperor, guarded as ever by the Emperor's Personal Guard, created an army of half a million bronze Dalek of human origin. At the end of the Battle of the Game Station in 200,100, they were all reduced to dust by Rose Tyler, under the possession of the Bad Wolf entity. (TV: Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways)
Unknown to anyone, the Daleks created a time capsule launched during the final battle with a single bronze Dalek with the plan to spread the Dalek Factor on Earth to use humanity's life force and raw materials to build more Daleks for back-up in the war. The capsule's engines failed in the journey and the Dalek within ejected, falling to Earth in 70 AD. The Dalek died but released a small amount of Dalek Factor that remained dormant in the genetic structure of humanity. When the Dalek casing was uncovered in 21st century England, the Dalek Factor became active in Kate Yates who's Dalek personality grew a new Dalek within the casing. The Dalek intended to travel to the future and use humanity's resources to rebuild its race but failed when Kate's human personality resurfaced and set the Dalek's Time Ring to self-destruct. The self-destruct caused a warp implosion that atomised the Dalek and made the Dalek Factor go dormant again in humanity. (PROSE: I Am a Dalek)
Within a Void Ship, the Cult of Skaro survived the Time War as well, taking with them the Genesis Ark, which contained millions of bronze Daleks imprisoned by the Time Lords. Emerging on Earth in 2007, the Cult were able to open the Ark, unleashing the millions of Daleks who attacked humans and parallel world Cybermen in the Battle of Canary Wharf. However, the conflict was soon ended when the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler opened the Void, resulting in the millions of Daleks and Cybermen being sucked into it. The Cult were forced to perform an emergency temporal shift to escape. (TV: Army of Ghosts/Doomsday) Those contained within the Void were eventually destroyed as a result of the reality bomb. (TV: The Next Doctor)
Appearing in New York in 1930, the Cult attempted to rebuild their race in the Final Experiment. Discarding his casing to assume the form of a Human-Dalek, Sec collaborated with the Doctor to combine Dalek and human DNA, believing that the Daleks could only survive with humanity's thought and emotions. This, however, put him at odds with his bronze subordinates, who overthrew him with Caan taking command. After Sec gave his life to save the Doctor, Thay and Jast were destroyed by Dalek-humans infused with Gallifreyan DNA, who were then terminated by Caan. Rejecting an offer by the Doctor to help him, Caan used an emergency temporal shift to escape. (TV: Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks)
Breaking the time-lock to enter the first year of the Time War, an act which ultimately cost him his sanity, Caan rescued Davros from death. Using his own DNA, Davros proceeded to create a New Dalek Empire composed mostly of bronze Daleks with a red Supreme Dalek. Though this Supreme Dalek usurped Davros' as ruler, he did allow Davros to remain aboard the Crucible alongside the mentally broken Caan, whose half-broken casing his Dalek mutant form.
Gathering 27 stolen planets in the Medusa Cascade, the Daleks launched a brief invasion in which they easily overwhelmed human military forces, sustaining only minimal casualties at the hands of the Children of Time. Notably, one Dalek chose to spare the life of the young Adelaide Brooke, who it recognised as a fixed point in time. (TV: The Waters of Mars) Ultimately, the New Dalek Empire was destroyed by the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor, who used the Daleks' Dalekanium power feed against them. (TV: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End)
A small group of bronze Daleks were found by the Tenth Doctor on 22nd century Earth. They intended to use a proton cannon to conquer the planet by rendering humanity intangible, only for the Doctor to turn the weapon against them. Trapped in an intangible state, the Daleks judged this an unacceptable outcome and self-destructed. (COMIC: Extermination of the Daleks)
A single Dalek ship, containing three Daleks, survived an encounter with the Doctor, taking with them a progenitor; while this progenitor had the potential to restore the Dalek race, it would not recognise these Daleks' DNA. As a single bronze Dalek remained aboard, the other two masqueraded as Ironsides, ostensibly the creation of a human scientist, actually a android created by the Daleks, for the British war effort in the Second World War. In reality, the Daleks' plan was to lure and provoke a testimony from the Doctor, which would confirm them as Daleks to the progenitor. After a month in 1941, this succeeded as the Eleventh Doctor identified them as Daleks, thus enabling the creation of a New Dalek Paradigm. Sporting larger casings, the new paradigm consisted of five archetypes which included a red Drone Dalek, subordinate to the white Supreme Dalek. The older three Daleks, who were deemed as "inferior" by their successors, allowed themselves to be exterminated before the new Daleks departed to rebuild their race. (TV: Victory of the Daleks)
For a while, the red Drone Daleks appeared en masse as the foot soldiers of the Dalek Empire. (GAME: City of the Daleks, COMIC: The Only Good Dalek) However, a Parliament of the Daleks was later established, led by the Prime Minister of the Daleks. Bronze Dalek drones made up the vast majority of the parliament, subordinate to the New Dalek Paradigm archetypes. Other bronze Daleks, that had survived encounters with the Doctor, were among those classed as insane and taken to the Dalek Asylum. Oswin Oswald, a human that had been converted by the Dalek inmates, was contained in a bronze casing. Ultimately, she and the insane Daleks died when the asylum was destroyed by the Parliament of the Daleks. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks)
A single Dalek survived, albeit heavily damaged, when its ship crash landed in ancient Britain. The native Britons, believing it to be a deity, named the Dalek the "Bronze God". It encountered Winston Churchill and Kazran Sardick when the Eleventh Doctor took them back in time in the TARDIS. Ultimately, it was destroyed when its ship exploded. (AUDIO: Living History)
A bronze Dalek crash landed to 21st century Earth and was acquired by a human guerrilla faction, who scavenged its weathered casing for parts. (AUDIO: The Dalek Transaction)
Bronze Daleks participated in the Siege of Trenzalore, (TV: The Time of the Dalek) and the war with the Combined Galactic Resistance. One of them, named Rusty by the Twelfth Doctor, joined the resistance to destroy his kind, becoming known as the "good Dalek". (TV: Into the Dalek) Eventually making his home on Villengard, Rusty survived for billions of years into the far future, defending himself as Daleks were repeatedly sent to destroy him. (TV: Twice Upon a Time)
Bronze Daleks were among a diverse range of Daleks who, led by a red Supreme Dalek, resided on the rebuilt Skaro where Davros lived, having survived the destruction of the Crucible. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice) One bronze Dalek was killed by Missy, allowing Clara Oswald to temporarily operate its casing so that they could safely navigate the Dalek City. When the Doctor's regeneration energy rejuvenated the discarded Daleks from the sewers, the city-dwelling Daleks were overrun and destroyed. (TV: The Witch's Familiar)
Behind the scenes
- The bronze "Metaltron" functions as the player character in the online game The Last Dalek, which presents an alternate version of the events of Dalek.
- A total of eight bronze Daleks appear in the online game Daleks v Cybermen, in which the player controls a squad of Cybermen in an alternate take on Doomsday. The first appears at the end of Level 3, a second alongside human soldiers at the start of Level 4, with the remaining six at the end accompanying Dalek Sec, the Black Dalek. Evidently, the Genesis Ark, containing millions of Daleks, had already been opened. The three members of the Cult of Skaro in addition to Sec are not distinguished in the game, leaving their presence uncertain.
- Bronze Daleks, including Emperor's Personal Guards at times, are featured in depictions of all the battles and conflicts depicted in the Dalek Wars section of Doctor Who: Battles in Time magazines.
- While the majority take place in new settings, others feature scenes concurrent to select television episodes, such as the Battle of Canary Wharf in Doomsday and the 21st century Dalek invasion in The Stolen Earth. Curiously, bronze Daleks are also inaccurately featured in pre-Time War events derived from "classic series" episodes, including the attack on the Thal Dome during Genesis of the Daleks, the 22nd century Dalek invasion and contemporary Dalek invasion of Mars preceeding The Dalek Invasion of Earth, the battle against the Mechonoids during The Chase, and the Great War during The Evil of the Daleks.
- A bronze Dalek features in the comic story The Invasion of Bash Street.
- The "Dalek Patrol Ship" sets released in 2014 by Character Options included an exclusive 3.75-inch bronze "Dalek pilot" figurine bearing a black dome and alternating black "skirt" panels identical to the colour scheme of the Dalek saucer commander.
- Bronze Daleks appear as enemies in the Doctor Who: Legacy mobile game. The original version, dubbed "Time War Dalek", is followed by several variants including "Aristotle Daleks" distinguished by white grating sections which do not appear in Into the Dalek, battered "Asylum Daleks", Glider Daleks and Temporal Weapon Daleks. In addition, bronze drones appear in several versions including "Pixelated", "Cartoony", "Retro Comic" and "Infinity".
- Unlike the cover of Engines of War, which depicts the Dalek as identical to the bronze Dalek drone but with a distinct weapons platform, Legacy's Temporal Weapons Daleks appear as a bronze version of the Special Weapons Dalek.
