Silver Dalek
Silver Daleks were Dalek drones who were most commonly distinguished by their gunmetal silver casings with blue sense globes. (PROSE: Mission to the Unknown et al.) They were among the slatted Dalek casings which succeeded the Dalek War Machine as the most common variant of the Dalek travel machine sometime between the Daleks' encounter with Lodian, Yvric and Zet (COMIC: Legacy of Yesteryear) and the One in a Million Dalek's rebellion. (COMIC: Shadow of Humanity)
Appearance
The majority of Silver Daleks, true to their name, used gunmetal silver casings near-identical to Dalek War Machine, with the only key difference being a series of metal, meshed slats around the casing's weapons platform; this drew energy from the Dalek's surroundings to power the casing, in contrast to the Dalek War Machines, which relied on static electricity to function. (TV: The Space Museum et al.) The Time Lords called this casing the "Type III Dalek". (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual) From their appearance in the Dalek Civil War, the Dalek Survival Guide identified them as a later model of the original Skaro City Daleks. (PROSE: Dalek Survival Guide)
The Silver Daleks which were involved in the Exxilon Gambit and its aftermath used casings that featured black sense globes as well as black-and-silver slats on their weapons platforms. (TV: Death to the Daleks, AUDIO: The Dalek Protocol) Following the initial grey Daleks, the Type IV or "Dalek Drone Type 2", these Daleks were referred to by the Time Lords as Type V Daleks, essentially modified Type III Daleks. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual) The Dalek Survival Guide suggested that the "Dalek Drone Type 3", a variation of the "Type 1", was a version adapted for long-haul space flight, which explained the reflective surfaces that could stave off some of the adverse effects of hyperspatial exposure. (PROSE: Dalek Survival Guide) A Dalek recorded in a book by some historians utilised an identically-coloured casing, but with the same shape as a bronze Dalek, (PROSE: The Whoniverse) which was deemed the Type VIII Dalek. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual) In order to harken back to the old Dalek Empire, the Restoration Empire would utilise Silver Daleks with the original War Machine and Type III colour scheme as their primary drones. However, these updated casings otherwise matched the Type VIII design used by the Bronze Daleks. (PROSE: The Restoration Empire)
Hierarchy
The Silver Daleks were subordinate to black Supreme Daleks, black and silver Dalek saucer commanders, (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth) and the Dalek Emperor, who was himself in a massive silver casing. In addition, the Emperor was protected by the Emperor's Personal Guard; mostly silver, they were distinguished by their black domes, (TV: The Evil of the Daleks) a distinction which was later adapted to the bronze Daleks. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)
History
Origins
Silver Daleks' armours were among the slatted casings which succeeded the Dalek War Machine as the most common variant of the Dalek travel machine, sometime between the Daleks' encounter with Lodian, Yvric and Zet (COMIC: Legacy of Yesteryear) and the One in a Million Dalek's rebellion. (COMIC: Shadow of Humanity)
Conquests
By 2094, a photograph of Silver Daleks with a large, blue luminosity discharger not exhibited by later models, and an enlarged Dalek fender matching that of the later Dalek Earthforce, was freely available on Earth, where it served to illustrate a news article about the recovering of a set of story-cubes about the Daleks' history. Five of the Daleks were standing in a deserted street, with other ruined casings of the same type strewn about. (PROSE: The Dalek Chronicles Found!) Their appearance matched that of the Invasion Force in version of history "B". (PROSE: Dalek Survival Guide)
Following the conquest of Earth in the 22nd century, silver Daleks fitted with solar energy collection discs and enlarged fenders occupied the planet, led by the Black Dalek known as the Supreme Controller while each saucer was under the command of a Dalek saucer commander. They used Robomen for patrols and overseeing slaves. The Sixth Doctor foiled their plan to unleash a Varga plant virus and new Robomen Elite in 2163 and erased any record of his involvement afterwards but the invasion continued. (AUDIO: Masters of Earth) The Daleks commenced a mining operation in Bedfordshire in order to reach the Earth's magnetic core, replace it with a propulsion system, and turn the whole planet into a massive spacecraft. Some time after their takeover of Earth, however, the First Doctor foiled the plan before its completion; the pit they had dug turned into an active volcano, the eruption of which killed the remaining Daleks and destroyed their base. (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth)
In the 2150 Dalek invasion of Earth of version of history "B", silver Daleks with slats and enlarged fenders made up the Invasion Force. (PROSE: Dalek Survival Guide, TV: Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.)
Following the invasion, the Daleks dispensed with the discs and enlarged fenders in favor of slats. Using a taranium-powered Dalek time machine of their own, an execution squad of slatted Silver Daleks (TV: The Chase) holding the rank of Pursuer-Daleks (AUDIO: The Daleks) pursued the TARDIS throughout history in order kill the First Doctor and his companions, ultimately leading them into conflict with the Mechanoids in their Mechanoid City. The Dalek Leader slipped away from the battle with the Mechanoids after it realised that the assassination squad had no chance of winning. As the last surviving Dalek and in an act of self-sacrifice, it hacked into the city's computer systems and set the whole place to self-destruct, hoping to kill the Doctor and his companions in the blast. The Doctor escaped and the squad failed in their mission. (TV: The Chase, PROSE: The Chase)
Sometime prior to 3985, (PROSE: Legacy) Silver Daleks targeted New Mondas. They attacked the Seventh Cyber-Fleet, exterminating the CyberNeomorphs aboard and accelerating the conversions of humans they’d captured. The Daleks took control of the new Cybermen and installed Oblivion Continuums inside them, which they detonated when their Cybermen were allowed into Cyber-Control on New Mondas. Two Silver Daleks observed the explosion and proclaimed that the Cyber-Empire had fallen to the Daleks. (COMIC: Cyber Crisis)
In their scrutiny of Dalek history, the Time Lords identified a group of Daleks who were engaged in the conflict against the Space Security Service, consisting of silver Dalek drones, a Red Dalek leader and its red-domed subordinate. These Daleks all sported enlarged fenders like the Dalek Earthforce along with blue, cone-shaped luminosity dischargers. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual)
In the year 4000, the silver Daleks formed an alliance with the Outer Galaxies and Mavic Chen, who supplied them with an emm of Taranium, which was vital to the Time Destructor to wipe out the Solar System. However, the First Doctor escaped with the Taranium, and the Daleks pursued him until he apparently surrendered it to them - this turned out to be a fake, however, so a Dalek task force with a Red Dalek Leader sent from Skaro in another time machine by the Dalek Prime pursued him and his companions through time until the core was finally recovered in Ancient Egypt. They successfully recovered the core, although the Red Dalek was killed by rocks during the battle with the Egyptians. The Doctor activated the Time Destructor which destroyed the Daleks, their invasion fleet and left Kembel a wasteland. (TV: Mission to the Unknown, The Daleks' Master Plan, PROSE: The Mutation of Time) A war ensued between the Daleks and the Space Security Service. (AUDIO: The House of Kingdom)
After the Dalek war, a ship of silver Daleks travelled to the planet Exxilon in search of Parrinium, the only cure to a plague which the Daleks hoped to exploit, where all of its power was taken by the Exxilon City. The Dalek task-force encountered the Third Doctor and his companion Sarah Jane Smith along with a human expedition. They attempted to gun down the humans, but discovered that the Exxilon City had also drained their power supplies, rendering their gunsticks useless and forcing the Daleks to form an unholy alliance with the humans. While their gunsticks did not work, the Daleks replaced them with machine guns and enslaved the Exxillons in search for parrinium. When their power was restored, the Daleks revealed they were the cause of the Space plague and were about to fire plague missiles to kill the Exxilons and the Doctor as they made their getaway in their ship. However, it and its crew were destroyed by Dan Galloway, who had stowed away on the ship with a Dalek bomb, which he detonated. (TV: Death to the Daleks) Some years later silver Daleks returned to Exxilon after the plague began to infect Daleks. (AUDIO: The Dalek Protocol)
A Dalek factory ship crashed on Vulcan, where it lay for three hundred years until a human scientist named Lesterson recovered and penetrated the capsule. Once activated, the surviving silver Daleks in the capsule decided to pose as obedient robotic servant drones, claiming to be the colonists' willing servants. The Daleks took advantage of the colonists' naive trust to establish a reproduction plant - on a conveyor belt system - with which to increase their numbers. The Second Doctor eventually destroyed the Daleks by turning the colony's power source against them, but not before the Daleks killed a vast number of the colony's inhabitants. (TV: The Power of the Daleks)
The Dalek Civil War
A thousand years after the events on Kembel, (PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks) under the leadership of the Dalek Emperor, silver Daleks were summoned to 19th century Earth by the human businessman and amateur alchemist Theodore Maxtible, who had devised a new form of time travel involving mirrors and static electricity, they took over Maxtible's techniques for themselves. Armed with this venue for time-space travel, they used it to trick the Second Doctor into a trap. They asked him to implant the human factor into three Daleks, claiming that they desired to become humanised Daleks allying the best of mankind and Dalek-kind. In truth, the Emperor's design was that the Doctor's experiment would, by contrast, also identify the Dalek factor, which they would then spread through Earth's history. However, having realised the Daleks' plan, the Doctor encouraged the three humanised Daleks, Alpha, Beta and Omega, to defend themselves. Fearful of the implications, the Emperor ordered many Daleks through an archway that would re-implant the Dalek factor. However, the Doctor switched factors so that all Daleks through the archway were humanised. A conflict between the normal and humanised Daleks inevitably broke out across Skaro, apparently ending the Daleks. (TV: The Evil of the Daleks)
Replacement by the Grey Daleks
At later points in the Daleks' history, Silver Daleks were phased out and Grey Daleks became the normal form of Dalek drone. (TV: Frontier in Space, Destiny of the Daleks, Revelation of the Daleks, etc.) Grey Daleks had, according one account of the Daleks' origin, been the original form of Mark III Travel Machine presented by Davros to the Kaled Scientific Elite. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks)
Return of the Silver Daleks
Drones of the Restoration Empire
In what may have been either a part of the Dalek Empire's natural history (PROSE: The Restoration Empire) or a divergence in time caused by the Kotturuh crisis, (PROSE: The Knight, The Fool, and The Dead) after the Imperial Daleks triumphed in the Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War, the Daleks refashioned into the Restoration Empire and reintroduced the Silver Dalek colour scheme as the basic Dalek drone, in an attempt to hearken back to the original Dalek hierarchy. The Restoration Empire's drones had updated casings whose structure matched the Type VIII design used by the Bronze Daleks. (PROSE: The Restoration Empire)
Further conflicts with humanity
Following the Etra Prime incident, (AUDIO: The Apocalypse Element) Silver Daleks served during the Daleks' long war with the Earth Alliance, (AUDIO: Invasion of the Daleks) including the hijacking of Project Infinity, (AUDIO: Project Infinity) and the subsequent war against the Mentor's Daleks from a parallel universe, (AUDIO: Dalek War: Chapter One) although the Daleks of N-Space briefly allied with humanity when Kalendorf deemed the Mentor's Daleks an even greater threat to humanity. (AUDIO: Dalek War: Chapter Four)
Servitude under the Dalek Time Controller
Silver Daleks continued to serve in the Dalek Empire even when the Time Lords began foreseeing "something terrible" in the time tracks, at least some of whom served under the Dalek Time Controller. (AUDIO: The Great War) Silver Daleks were used to invade Srangor, and came to work inside an underground base to assist the Dalek Time Controller and Kotris in creating a space-time projector. They also occasionally travelled to the surface of Srangor and captured survivors of the Daleks' invasion for experimentation. (AUDIO: X and the Daleks) Silver Daleks were also used to pursue the Eighth Doctor and Molly O'Sullivan across time, starting from Earth in 1914, (AUDIO: The Great War) to 1943, to the Ides Scientific Institute in 1970, and even across the universe, (AUDIO: Fugitives) before eventually recovering them. (AUDIO: Tangled Web) When the Doctor and Molly escaped to Srangor themselves, they investigated the Space-Time Projector; when Straxus was exterminated, Kotris, and by extension, his plans, were erased from history. (AUDIO: X and the Daleks)
Silver Daleks were later used to conquer the Nixyce system, (AUDIO: The Traitor) including Nixyce II (AUDIO: Eye of Darkness) and Nixyce VII; on the latter planet, Silver Daleks again served under the Dalek Time Controller and ensured the enslavement of Nixyce VII's survivors. The Eighth Doctor eventually arrived and attempted to end the slavery of Nixyce VII, but was eventually captured and taken to the Dalek Time Controller, where he revealed his true intentions in coming to the planet; (AUDIO: The Traitor) the Doctor wished for the Time Controller to use the super weapon that the Daleks had created on Nixyce VII to destroy a nearby fleet of Eminence caskets. The Time Controller complied. (AUDIO: Time's Horizon, Eyes of the Master)
On the Eye of Orion, Liv Chenka specifically identified the Dalek Commander of a small contingent of Daleks as silver in colour. This Commander, along with its subordinate Daleks, were exterminated by the Dalek Time Controller (as by this point, the Time Controller had been banished from the Dalek Empire). Shortly afterwards, a force of Silver Daleks, led by a gold Dalek Supreme, landed on the Eye of Orion and dispelled the Eminence gas containing Markus Schriver's consciousness back into Schriver's bunker; the Daleks then forced the Eighth Doctor to lead them to the Dalek Time Controller, where they trapped him, along with Liv, Schriver and the Time Controller, inside the bunker. The Silver Dalek force then left the Eye of Orion, shortly before a temporal wave could hit. Back onboard their ship, the Silver Daleks were ordered by the Dalek Supreme to reconstitute the remains of the Dalek duplicate Adelaine Dutemps, (AUDIO: Eye of Darkness) who the Daleks had recovered from Montmartre, Paris, in 1921, (AUDIO: The Monster of Montmartre) into a unique Dalek Time Strategist. (AUDIO: Eye of Darkness)
Service in the Restoration Empire
Following the Restoration Empire detecting the temporal fluctuations caused by the Tenth Doctor's actions in the Dark Times, (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times) and a message from a future version of their drones, (PROSE: The Last Message) the Emperor of the Restoration led the Silver Daleks to invade Islos for information, (WC: The Archive of Islos) only to find themselves pitted against an Entity. Following the Evacuation of Skaro and a failed attempt to awaken a reserve force of Daleks, (WC: The Sentinel of the Fifth Galaxy) a handful of Silver Daleks accompanied the Emperor to Mechanus where they were destroyed. (WC: Planet of the Mechanoids) A larger force who had hidden in underground bunkers later fought against the Mechanoids on Skaro. (WC: Day of Reckoning)
When the Restoration Empire later fought a losing war against the Hond, a group of Silver Daleks were sent to recruit an earlier version of the Tenth Doctor to aid the Daleks. A larger group assigned to aid the Doctor in defending the Dalek City followed a dark Grey Dalek. When the Hond were defeated, the Silver Daleks attempted to exterminate the Doctor only for the Thirteenth Doctor to help her past self escape the city. (COMIC: Defender of the Daleks)
At least twelve (AUDIO: The Enemy of My Enemy) time-sensitive Silver Daleks were assigned to the Dalek Time Squad on its mission to investigate the fluctuations in time. They were not supposed to think for themselves, but River Song suspected that they could. (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times) They were ordered to invade Wrax when the Dalek Time Commander realised that the Wraxians intended to use the Devolver against the Daleks. (AUDIO: The Enemy of My Enemy) In the Dark Times, the Silver Dalek drones were deployed in the Battle of Mordeela and sent in scout ships to hunt down the last of the Kotturuh and subjects for the Symbiont, including Ikalla on Entranxis. After the creation of the Symbiont by combining Dalek and Great Vampire DNA, numerous Drones were enhanced with the hybrid DNA and subsequently deployed in the Time Squad's attack on pre-Time Lord Gallifrey. The hybrids died after the last judgement of the Kotturuh was inflicted on them by Inyit. The rest of the drones returned to the saucer as the Daleks panicked, fearing the judgement could spread to pure Dalek DNA, which was then forced into the Time Vortex by the Eighth Doctor. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass) The Doctor continued to sabotage the ship in the Vortex, forcing the Silver Daleks to attempt repairs. After the Dalek Prime Strategist destroyed the Dalek Time Commander, the Silver Daleks turned on him as a traitor as the Dalek saucer broke apart. (AUDIO: Mutually Assured Destruction) Many of the Silver Dalek drones were torn apart by time winds, (PROSE: Exit Strategy) however, one Dalek survived, ending up adrift in space. (PROSE: The Last Message) It later boarded the Starship Future where it rebuilt a bronze casing and encountered the Fourth Doctor. (AUDIO: Genetics of the Daleks)
After the resolution of the crisis in the Dark Times, with the prospect of open warfare between Daleks and Time Lords accelerating, (PROSE: Exit Strategy, TV: The End of Time et al) the Silver Daleks began to be replaced by the Bronze Daleks as the standard design for Dalek drones. (PROSE: Birth of a Legend, TV: Dalek et al)
Phasing out and persistence
The Dalek race was a reunited force for the Last Great Time War. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual) Shortly before the outbreak of the Time War, (PROSE: Birth of a Legend) the bronze Dalek design used in the Second Dalek War (PROSE: Prisoner of the Daleks) was reintroduced as the standard design for all Dalek drones, in preparation for the conflict that would soon begin. This marked the end of the Silver Daleks' dominance in the Dalek Empire's history. (TV: Dalek et al)
However, some Silver Daleks continued to exist following the design's disappearance from the Dalek Empire.
Silver Daleks with blue domes appeared during the Time War among the many units on Moldox who surrounded the War Doctor and Cinder. (PROSE: Engines of War)
A number of Silver Daleks from earlier in the Dalek Empire's timeline were kept within the Dalek Asylum after being deemed insane, including survivors of encounters with the Doctor, (TV: Asylum of the Daleks) including Silver Daleks from Vulcan (TV: The Power of the Daleks) and Exxilon. (TV: Death to the Daleks) These insane Daleks were killed when the Asylum was destroyed by the Parliament of the Daleks, which was staffed almost entirely by bronze Daleks, with other "Paradigm" Daleks serving in command roles. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks) Nevertheless, the painting Predator of the Daleks depicted the Parliament as being filled with silver Daleks, both with and without slats, alongside their bronze successors. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe)
Silver Daleks were also among a diverse range of Daleks who, led by a red Supreme Dalek, resided on the rebuilt Skaro where Davros lived. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice) 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)
On Earth, during 1st January 2019, the heavily rusted casing of a Reconnaissance Dalek bore faded silver paint on its base unit. (TV: Resolution) The Defence Drones that Leo Rugazzi and Jack Robertson later created, based on the Reconnaissance Dalek's casing, were coloured black and silver. (TV: Revolution of the Daleks)
Alternate timelines
In an alternate timeline created when the TARDISes of the First and Second Doctors crashed into each other, in 4000, the Daleks successfully developed the Time Destructor. In this timeline, Silver Daleks landed on Urbinia and commenced the Harvesting of Urbinia. This timeline was averted when the Second Doctor travelled back in time and stopped his TARDIS from colliding with the First Doctor's TARDIS. (AUDIO: Daughter of the Gods)
In an alternate timeline created when the Reborn Master and the Dalek Time Controller conquered Earth in the 20th century, by 1961, Earth had become "New Skaro", and humanity was harvested to create Silver Daleks in Dalek slave camps; when humanity was approaching extinction, Sontarans and Draconians were also harvested to create more Silver Daleks. (AUDIO: Master of the Daleks) After the Master travelled with numerous Silver Daleks from 1961 to Montmartre, Paris in 1921, the Silver Daleks assisted in the invasion of Earth to establish this timeline. (AUDIO: The Monster of Montmartre) Later, the Master betrayed the Dalek Time Controller and revealed that he had secretly programmed 75% of the Dalek army to obey him, sparking a civil war between the Master's Silver Daleks, the Dalek Time Strategists, who had arrived from 1921, and, eventually, an ever-growing army of newly-born Sontaran clones created by the Eighth Doctor. (AUDIO: Master of the Daleks) This timeline was erased when a temporal wave passed over the Eye of Orion. (AUDIO: Eye of Darkness)
Other references
During his trial, the Second Doctor recalled the Daleks, specifically drawing the image of a familiar Silver Dalek in the Thought Channel, as one of the adversaries he had broken the Time Lord code of non-interference to fight. (TV: The War Games)
Behind the scenes
Merchandise
- "Type III" Silver Daleks as seen in the Doctor Who serials of the 1960s were notably used by Big Finish Productions to represent the Daleks in a number of stories set following the Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War including The Apocalypse Element, The Time of the Daleks, Terror Firma and the Dalek Empire series.
- A variation of the silver Dalek drone with purple sense globes, along with a Purple-Top Dalek, was among the cards released by Weetabix.
- Dapol, which produced a range of toys based on the classic series of Doctor Who, released several original silver Dalek variants which did not appear on-screen.
- W008-3 was silver with blue slats in addition to sense globes.
- A "Millennium Dalek" (W008-M6) had a sparkly silver body with a golden neck grille, slats and sense globes.
- In 2014, Character Options released a Dalek Invasion of Earth set with the colours of the Black Supreme and Silver Dalek drone applied to the bronze Dalek model.[1]
Invalid sources
- Silver Daleks (with larger luminosity dischargers than their TV counterparts') serve as foot soldiers in the theatrical film Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., adapted from The Dalek Invasion of Earth.
- The King Dalek was supported by Silver Dalek Guards whose casings sported a head section and shoulder platform "arms" coloured red. (NOTVALID: War of the Daleks)
- The Dalek Handbook claims that the grey Daleks succeeded the silver Daleks as drones following the Dalek Civil War, dated to the 41st century, and that their presence in the 26th century Operation Divide and Conquer and the Spiridon campaign was indicative of continued operations to overwrite history in the Daleks' favour, with the silver Daleks seen in the Exxilon Gambit being 27th century-native Daleks that had been subsumed into future Dalek forces.
- The Dalek Handbook's list of Dalek paradigms, by real world appearance, counts the "Type III" Silver Daleks as their own paradigm following the Dalek Earthforce and preceding the Grey Daleks.
