Dalek Caan
Dalek Caan was one of four Daleks in the Cult of Skaro. Like the others, he thought like the Daleks' enemies to find new ways of defeating them. Caan breached the Time Lock upon the Time War, which Davros said "cost him his mind" but allowed him to see into the future. Caan seems to have been killed, along with the other remnants of the New Dalek Empire, when the Crucible was destroyed. His actions aboard that doomed ship could, from a certain point of view, make him the second of only three "good Daleks" in the New Series.
History
Battle of Canary Wharf
Dalek Caan was one of the three Standard Daleks to follow the Cult's leader, the supreme Dalek Sec. During the Last Great Time War between the Daleks and the Time Lords, the Cult took the Genesis Ark and fled the war into the Void, resurfacing in London in 2007.
The Daleks scanned of Dr. Singh's brain and discovered another species, the Cybermen, had invaded Earth. The Cyber-Leader declared war while the Cult declared "pest control". Caan took part in the Battle of Canary Wharf while the Genesis Ark released millions of Daleks onto Earth. Because they had been through the void, they were covered in void stuff. The Tenth Doctor opened the rift the Cybermen had come through and reversed it, sucking in all beings covered in void stuff. As the Daleks were sucked into the Void, Dalek Caan and the rest of the Cult activated an emergency temporal shift and escaped. (DW: Army of Ghosts/Doomsday)
The Final Experiment
The Cult ended up in New York City in 1930 and recruited Mr. Diagoras, the head of construction for the Empire State Building. He kidnapped people for their research and for the "Final Experiment". Dalek Caan served as the Cult's liason with Diagoras. Caan took Diagoras to their leader, Sec, who merged with Diagoras in his casing to become the first human-Dalek. (DW: Daleks in Manhattan)
After Sec became a Dalek-human, he decided their creator, Davros, was wrong about removing emotions and the deaths at Hooverville were wrong. Caan and the other members decided the plan Sec had for the new Daleks was unacceptable; it would change everything that made a Dalek a Dalek and they would no longer be supreme. Caan led a mutiny with Dalek Jast and Dalek Thay to imprison Sec, having poured a different gene solution into the Dalek-humans than Sec had wanted, making the new bodies one hundred percent Dalek.
Dalek Caan made himself Controller and connected with the Dalek-human army. When Thay and Jast ordered the new Daleks to destroy the Doctor, they questioned orders. The Doctor explained that he had gotten in the way of the gamma strike which had brought them to life. His DNA had become mixed with theirs, giving them a little freedom. A battle broke out between the Daleks and the Dalek-humans. Jast and Thay were destroyed. Caan saw the new Daleks as failures and killed the entire species.
Caan was the last member of the Cult and the last of the entire Dalek species. The Doctor confronted him and offered Caan help and compassion, as he didn't want genocide. Caan activated an emergency temporal shift and escaped. (DW: Evolution of the Daleks)
"Insanity"
Dalek Caan teleported to the Time War though it was time locked. He saved Davros. After the Daleks moved Earth to the Medusa Cascade in 2009, Dalek Caan resided on the Dalek spaceship, speaking cryptically to Davros.
The Supreme Dalek on the Crucible thought Caan mad, while Davros disagreed. However, Davros acknowledged that he had become mad due to the strain of time-travelling directly into the Time War, corroborated by Caan's insane laughter and talking in seemingly precognitive riddles in an almost sing-song voice. His battle armour was also badly damaged, the upper dome completely gone and the armour opened up to show the Dalek mutant. The gun and sucker attachment were also permanently extended, if seemingly unusable. (DW: The Stolen Earth)
The Prophecy
Following the movement of Earth to the Medusa Cascade, Caan prophecied of the coming of a "three-fold man", of "The Doctor's soul" being revealed, the "Children of Time would gather" and "one would die". The "three-fold man" referred to the Doctor, the "Meta-Crisis Doctor", and the "Doctor-Donna", the last two having been created when Donna Noble touched the Doctor's spare hand, which had been used as a repository for the Doctor's Regeneration energy, resulting in the Meta-Crisis Doctor's creation, and Donna subsequently receiving the mind of a Time Lord. The "Children of Time" were Rose, Jackie, Mickey, Sarah Jane, Captain Jack, and Martha who had all travelled with the Doctor. The Doctor's soul was revealed as being a man who refused to use weapons but moulded his companions into weapons; Jack, Sarah Jane, Mickey and Jackie and Martha each threatened destruction to stop the Daleks. Their threats were all foiled when the Supreme Dalek had them teleported to the Vault. The Meta-Crisis Doctor and Donna arrived to try and stop Davros, who incapacitated them both. However, Donna's Time Lord mind, having lain dormant, was "jumpstarted" by Davros's attack. Using her human ingenuity coupled with her Time Lord knowledge, she deactivated the Reality Bomb and disabled Davros and his Daleks.
Davros demanded to know why Caan had not foreseen their defeat. Caan replied with mad giggling. The Doctor deduced that Caan had foreseen these events, and manipulated the timelines, bringing events to this conclusion. Caan said he "only helped." Davros accused Caan of betraying the Daleks. Caan replied that he had seen the Daleks:; he had witnessed the evil of his kind throughout all of time of space and how many innocent lives were massacred by his race, and had decreed no more.
Caan pressured the Meta-Crisis Doctor to destroy the Daleks, which he did. Caan was last seen on the exploding Crucible with Davros, reminding the Doctor before he left that "One will still die." His fate, like that of Davros, remains unrevealed though he likely died in the explosion. Dalek Caan, like Dalek Sec before him, felt remorse for his actions and possibly mourned for the victims of the Daleks.
Apparently, the companion who "died" was Donna, whose memories of her travels with the Doctor had to be erased to save her from burning out from the Time Lord knowledge that she carried. Should Donna ever remember her travels, the knowledge would destroy her. The Doctor told her family that the Donna she had become was dead. (DW: Journey's End)
Personality
Dalek Caan had a mind of his own and thought for himself; that was part of the Cult of Skaro mandate: to imagine and think as their enemies thought. Unlike most Daleks who always obeyed their superiors, Caan was independent and made his own decisions and disobeyed higher-ranking Daleks. He was the first to question the Dalek Sec-hybrid and convinced Daleks Jast and Thay to overthrow him. (DW: Evolution of the Daleks)
After flying into the Time War, Dalek Caan lost his sanity and giggled madly. He foresaw the future with perfect accuracy because he had seen the whole of time and space. Davros noted that even the Supreme Dalek didn't dare to contradict Caan's prophecies. However, though Caan had never lied about the future he did not always reveal the whole truth. Though he had foreseen that the Doctor and his companions would defeat the Daleks, he made no effort to stop them. Caan made prophecies in an almost sing-song voice.
Despite his madness Caan was cunning enough to fool Davros throughout the whole Medusa Cascade incident and betray him. In helping the Doctor defeat the Daleks, he truly thought like his enemy did: thinking like the Doctor on how to defeat the Daleks and how to help the Doctor do it. Caan was also manipulative and the Doctor noted that he had been manipulating the timelines ever since he had rescued Davros from the Time War. Caan was also shown to be quite humble, at least after his change of heart, telling the Doctor that the defeat of the Daleks was inevitable and that he had only helped rather than been directly responsible for it. (DW: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End)
Despite, or perhaps, from a Dalek's point of view, because of his insanity, Caan felt regret for everything the Daleks had done and decided to help the Doctor defeat them. No other Daleks was capable of feeling any emotions except hatred, but Caan felt remorse. Having seen the whole of time and space when he returned to the Time War, he realised that the Daleks and their creator were evil monsters. Disgusted with them and himself for being one of them, Caan decided to put an end to the Daleks and made no effort to save himself when the Crucible was about to explode; instead he warned the Doctor one of his companions would die. (DW: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End) Ironically, he was the first member of the Cult of Skaro to consider turning against Dalek Sec. (DW: Evolution of the Daleks)
Behind the scenes
- In Daleks in Manhattan and Evolution of the Daleks, Caan's recognition code changes between Thay's and Jast's.
- Caan's voice was originally gruff and deep. However, after the Cult revolted against Dalek Sec, Caan's voice changed to the same pitch as Sec's.
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