DARDIS
- You may be looking for Dr. Da's ship.
A DARDIS, often described as a Dalek time machine, Dalek time ship, or Dalek Time Ship, was a type of time vessel used by the Daleks.
History
According to one account, a researcher learnt from Susan Foreman that the surviving Daleks who had been defeated on Skaro in the "far distant future" by the Thals led by Ian Chesterton used a TARDIS of their own to travel into the past with the intent to wreak revenge on Ian's people or, better still, prevent Ian himself from being born. However, they were unable to go any further back than 2164 due to a leak in their fluid link, resulting in the 2164 Dalek invasion of Earth. (AUDIO: Whatever Happened to Susan Foreman?)
The first Dalek time machine was believed by the Time Lords to have been specifically developed to neutralise the threat posed by the Doctor, and that it used stolen Time Lord technology. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual) Powered by taranium, (PROSE: The Chase, The Mutation of Time) the time machine was roughly comparable in abilities to a Time Lord TARDIS. It was dimensionally transcendent and created for the express purpose of chasing the First Doctor through time and space. After the Daleks piloting it were destroyed battling Mechanoids on Mechanus, the machine was used by the Doctor's companions Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright to return home. At first the Doctor refused, insisting it was too dangerous but he changed his mind. The Doctor instructed the pair to set the ship for self-destruction after it had transported them to London on 26 June 1965. (TV: The Chase; PROSE: The Time Travellers) The loss of the first time machine a severely crippled Dalek research into time travel, (PROSE: The Mutation of Time) with all the Daleks’ taranium supply having been consumed in the failed pursuit. (PROSE: The Chase)
Through strenuous, long-term efforts, the Daleks harvested sufficient quantities of taranium to continue to use the time machines and proceed with the research, (PROSE: The Mutation of Time) and modified version of the initial model was constructed. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual) This new time machine was used by the Daleks and Mavic Chen to pursue the First Doctor and his companions are discovering they’d stolen the taranium core of the Time Destructor. This machine tracked their targets with a space-time scope and delivered the Daleks to ancient Egypt where they retrieved the core. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan)
The Master stole the DARDIS core from Skaro. (PROSE: The Quantum Archangel)
Acting on the orders of the Dalek Emperor on Skaro, a Dalek time machine, crewed by an Elite Guard Dalek and three subordinate silver Daleks, oversaw the conditioning of Caligula, Emperor of Rome, in the year 37 AD. When Caligula resisted Dalek commands, the leading Dalek deemed the mission a failure and chose to abandon it before returning to Skaro, noting that there were other nexus points in human history. (COMIC: Empire of the Daleks)
Time scout ships were usually crewed of six Daleks and could be identified by their energy signature. (AUDIO: Energy of the Daleks)
Dalek time ships were used during the invasion of Gallifrey. (AUDIO: The Apocalypse Element)
By the time of the Dalek-Movellan War, the time machines were considered lost knowledge by the Daleks. The Kembel faction was dedicated to regaining that knowledge and succeeded in recreating a time machine, however it was stolen by the Tenth Doctor who used it to return to the post-Time War universe, (AUDIO: The Triumph of Davros) although the Daleks were later able to re-establish their time travel technology with time corridors. (TV: Resurrection of the Daleks)
Dalek time ships were able to be remotely controlled from their point of destination. When Davros escaped in one, the Seventh Doctor sent him to a planet of ghosts. (AUDIO: Daleks Among Us)
During the Time War, the Cult of Skaro created a sentient time machine to infiltrate the ranks of TARDISes. It survived the conflict and turned against the Daleks, plotting against the Resurrected Dalek Empire established by the New Dalek Paradigm. (AUDIO: Didn’t You Kill My Mother?)
At some point, Bronze Daleks used a Dalek Time Ship to travel back in time to a very early point in Skaro's history, to help Davros's Daleks emerge from their entombment and build the Dalek City. However, the time-travelling Daleks then found themselves stranded because a universe-wide temporal crisis caused their ship to be grounded, just like the TARDISes of the Doctor's various incarnations. (GAME: Lost in Time)
Behind the scenes
- This craft has been widely referred to as a "DARDIS" by production crew and in fandom,[1] although the name was never used on television or in John Peel's novelisations of The Chase or The Daleks' Master Plan. The name was finally mentioned in-universe in The Quantum Archangel.
- The Dalek Handbook claims that a Dalek timeship fled the Dalek Civil War on 41st century Skaro before crashing on Vulcan prior to the 21st century.
- Dardis was also used as the name of Dr. Da's spaceship in Film Star Wins Oscar—Misses Premiere!, a 1965 parody of Dr. Who and the Daleks.
