User:TheCoud'veBeenKing/Sandbox II
The Black Dalek Leader, (COMIC: Plague of Death) usually just referred to as the Black Dalek, and briefly as Searcher One Leader, (COMIC: The Archives of Phryne) was the earliest Black Dalek in existence and the second-in-command of the Dalek race, after the Dalek Prime. (COMIC: Plague of Death, The Secret of the Emperor, PROSE: The Mutation of Time, The Evil of the Daleks)
Serving as the Dalek Emperor's warlord, (COMIC: The Secret of the Emperor) the Black Dalek also held the rank of Supreme Dalek or Dalek Supreme (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan, PROSE: The Chase, The Mutation of Time, AUDIO: Daughter of the Gods) and oversaw major operations during the early expansion of the Dalek Empire (COMIC: The Archives of Phryne, Return of the Elders, TV: The Chase, PROSE: The Chase) before its ultimate destruction. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan, PROSE: The Mutation of Time)
During its reign, the Black Dalek Leader did not remain the only Black Dalek in existence (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth, PROSE: Legacy of the Daleks, AUDIO: The Destroyers, Masters of Earth, The Curse of the Daleks, Return to Skaro) but it was uniquely valuable to the Dalek Prime, who considered in irreplaceable. (COMIC: Plague of Death, PROSE: The Mutation of Time)
Biography[[edit] | [edit source]]
Establishing power on Skaro[[edit] | [edit source]]
During the days when the Daleks remained confined to the Dalek City on Skaro, the Black Dalek Leader was feared among the Daleks as the enforcer of the Emperor's will. The Emperor summoned the Black Dalek to deal with Zeg after he challenged the Emperor's authority. Its weapon was unable to penetrate Zeg's metalert casing. (COMIC: Duel of the Daleks)
When the Daleks developed a means of space travel, the Emperor led an invasion force off Skaro to conquer other planets, (COMIC: The Amaryll Challenge) leaving the Black Dalek in charge of the Dalek City. When the Daleks were threatened by the outbreak of a rust plague, the Black Dalek was infected in such as way that it could be used as a vessel to transmit the plague to other Daleks. The Emperor returned to Skaro to deal with the situation. The Emperor's guards chased the Black Dalek away to protect the Emperor. The Emperor then found the Black Dalek by the Brain Machine, rusting away, resigned to its fate, ashamed as it was of letting other Daleks die. The Emperor claimed the Black Dalek was too valuable to lose and sent it to the recasting furnace to be repaired. (COMIC: Plague of Death)
Leading the early conquests[[edit] | [edit source]]
After its recovery, the Black Dalek led a force of Daleks in search of new technologies as war with the Mechanoids became evermore certain. It took on the title of Searcher One Leader, denoting its command over the saucer, Searcher One. The Black Dalek discovered an entire solar system hidden behind an invisibility shield and then directed the fight against Phryne. The Daleks successfully occupied the planet, although many Phrynians went into hiding to form a resistance movement. (COMIC: The Archives of Phryne)
The Emperor called a meeting with the Black Dalek and a Red Dalek when the presence of the One in a Million Dalek threatened to cause a civil war on Skaro. (COMIC: Shadow of Humanity)
Once the Daleks discovered the location of Earth, (COMIC: The Road to Conflict) the Black Dalek was also present on the Emperor's ship when the Daleks first ventured into Earth's solar system. The Daleks retreated in the face of resistance but vowed to return. (COMIC: Return of the Elders)
22nd century Dalek invasion[[edit] | [edit source]]
In 2157, the Daleks began a decade-long occupation of Earth and its colonies. Though the Black Dalek Leader was not involved, numerous other Black Daleks took part in the invasion, all of which were lost at the Daleks' defeat, including the Supreme Controller, the partially-black Dalek Saucer Commander, (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth), the Black Dalek Interrogator, (AUDIO: Masters of Earth) and the head of the research facility DA-17. (PROSE: Legacy of the Daleks)
After the failure of the invasion, the Daleks identified the Doctor and determined the role he played in their defeat. (TV: The Chase) Under command of the Dalek Prime, the Black Dalek, as the Supreme Dalek, or Dalek Supreme, ordered an assassination squad to pursue the Doctor's TARDIS in a Dalek time machine and exterminate the occupants. The Black Dalek and the Dalek Prime awaited regular reports on the progress from Skaro. However, the squad failed. (PROSE: The Chase)
Overseeing the master plan[[edit] | [edit source]]
Beginning in the 36th century, the Daleks began the conquest of hundreds of planets in the Ninth Galactic System and the Constellation of Miros, avoiding human space for hundreds of years. (TV: Mission to the Unknown) In the 40th century, they finally returned and began preying on human space in secret. A subordinate Black Dalek informed the Black Dalek Leader, as the Supreme Dalek, about the success of the Dalek incursion on M5. (AUDIO: The Destroyers)
During the same period, the Black Dalek Leader presided over the re-election of both the Dalek Prime as Emperor and itself as the second-in-command. The Black Dalek obliterated the entire Red Extra-Galactic Squadron when their commander denounced the Emperor for continued failure to defeat humanity. (COMIC: The Secret of the Emperor)
Destruction[[edit] | [edit source]]
In 4000, the Black Dalek oversaw the Dalek operations on planet Kembel. It led the conference which founded the Great Alliance with the emissaries from the Outer Galaxies, intent on invading the solar system once more. (TV: Mission to the Unknown, PROSE: Mission to the Unknown, WC: Mission to the Unknown)
Some months later, the Supreme Dalek held another conference as the Alliance completed preparations on the Time Destructor with the taranium supplied by Mavic Chen. The theft of the taranium by the First Doctor put the Black Dalek on edge, and it callously executed a number of its erstwhile allies, and even other Daleks, for failure during the recovery efforts.
After the Daleks believed the core was recovered, the Supreme Dalek was informed it had been fitted into the Time Destructor for testing. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan) It declared that the Daleks would "have power over all space and time". (AUDIO: The Sontarans) However, the core was a fake. The Black Dalek called the Dalek Prime for assistance and a Red Dalek led the pursuit of the Doctor. (PROSE: The Mutation of Time)
After the successful recovery of the taranium core, the Black Dalek had the surviving members of the alliance locked up and prepared to complete the Time Destructor for the invasion fleet. However, the Doctor, Steven Taylor and Sara Kingdom managed to hijack the Time Destructor itself. The active weapon wiped out all Daleks on Kembel, including the Black Dalek. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan) This was a massive blow for the Dalek Empire as the Dalek Prime considered both the fleet and the Black Dalek irreplaceable. (PROSE: The Mutation of Time)
Legacy[[edit] | [edit source]]
When the Second Doctor returned to Skaro, he encountered another Black Dalek. He wondered if it was the same Supreme Dalek from Kembel at a point in time prior to its destruction. However, by this stage, Black Daleks had become far more common and many were present in the City, indicating to the Doctor that the Black Dalek Leader was long dead. Indeed, it had been almost a millennium since the events on Kembel and the Daleks were engaged in the destructive Great War. (PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks)
By the time of the Dalek Civil War, the Emperor's Personal Guard were also also refered to as "Black Dalek Leaders". (TV: The Evil of the Daleks) After the Civil War, Black Daleks became outranked by the new Gold Daleks (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Day of the Daleks, TV: Day of the Daleks, Frontier in Space) who constituted the elite among the Daleks. Yet, in the words of the Eighth Doctor, Black Daleks remained "a lot nastier and smarter" than their Grey Dalek, Blue Dalek and Red Dalek subordinates. (PROSE: War of the Daleks)
Black Daleks continued to act as Supreme Daleks (TV: Resurrection of the Daleks, Remembrance of the Daleks) and notable individuals also acted as the Emperor's enforcers, including members of the Imperial Guard, (COMIC: Nemesis of the Daleks, AUDIO: Order of the Daleks) Dalek X, the Dalek Inquisitor General during the Second Dalek War, (PROSE: Prisoner of the Daleks) and Cult of Skaro leader Dalek Sec. (TV: Doomsday, Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks, PROSE: Birth of a Legend)
Alternate timeline[[edit] | [edit source]]
In an alternate timeline in which the First Doctor never landed on Kembel due to a temporal collision, the Daleks successfully developed the Time Destructor. The Black Dalek, recognised as the Dalek Supreme, led the Dalek Fleet at the head of an unopposed campaign of galactic conquest and destruction. After the destruction of Baralda in the Third Galaxy as a show of force, the Dalek Supreme demanded the neighbouring Urbinia to surrender and its population submit to slavery.
Continued resistance and evacuation efforts organised by the First and Second Doctors dried up the Dalek Supreme's patience. Eventually it ordered the Time Destructor deployed to destroy the planet after the lack of a meaningful surrender, even sacrificing the Dalek ground forces for the failure. However, the Second Doctor escaped and averted the initial TARDIS collision, resetting the timeline. (AUDIO: Daughter of the Gods)
Personality[[edit] | [edit source]]
Reputation among the Daleks[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Black Dalek Leader was feared among the Daleks as the enforcer of the Emperor's will. Other Daleks scattered when the Emperor summoned the Black Dalek to face Zeg. The Black Dalek itself taunted Zeg by counting down to the moment of their confrontation, although its assurance in its own victory proved premature. (COMIC: Duel of the Daleks)
Yet, while the Black Dalek oversaw the Dalek City in the Emperor's absence, it displayed a more vulnerable side. When it became a carrier for the rust plague, it was overcome with guilt once it realised it was causing the deaths of other Daleks. It deliberately exposed itself to the plague to let itself die before the Emperor ordered it repaired. (COMIC: Plague of Death) However, if there was no hope of saving other Daleks, the Black Dalek was willing to leave them. During the battle against the Phrynians, the Black Dalek ordered Searcher One to take off before it was struck by a kamikaze attack, sparing no thought to the other saucers which did not survive. (COMIC: The Archives of Phryne)
The Black Dalek utterly despised failure. When Dalek pursuit ships failed to capture the Doctor and recover the taranium core on Desperus, the Black Dalek ordered them to return to Kembel. Then, immediately after, it ordered its mission controller to destroy the pursuit ships without informing their occupants. After a subsequent failure on Mira, the Black Dalek, by one account, organised a recovery mission to rescue the stranded Daleks (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan) but according to another account, it left the unsuccessful Daleks to their fate. (PROSE: Mission to the Unknown) In the alternate timeline on Urbinia, the Black Dalek ordered the use of the Time Destructor regardless of any casualties suffered by the Daleks on the planet's surface. It reasoned that any such casualties were deserved, as if the ground forces had succeeded in achieving a surrender, the Time Destructor need not have been used in the first place. (AUDIO: Daughter of the Gods) The Black Dalek viewed such displays as an incentive to its subordinates to work well and make no mistakes. (PROSE: Mission to the Unknown)
Due to the Black Dalek's enduring loyalty and leadership as the Empire's second-in-command, the Dalek Prime viewed it as indispensable. (COMIC: Plague of Death, PROSE: The Mutation of Time)
Attitude towards other lifeforms[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Black Dalek viewed all other species as inferior and measured the worth of any creature's life by the duration of their usefulness. This was true of the Dalek race as a whole, but as the Daleks' representative on the Galactic Council, it was necessary to adopt a certain degree of diplomacy until the Great Alliance had served its purpose. The Alliance existed primarily as a means for the Daleks to gather resources; none of the other members were trusted and the Black Dalek resented having to work with them. (PROSE: Mission to the Unknown)
The Black Dalek scarcely hid its true feelings from the Alliance. Very early, it declared Zephon's usefulness over, grew impatient when he failed to show up to a key conference, and when Zephon was blamed for the theft of the taranium, the Black Dalek had him executed in front of the other delegates. Later, the Black Dalek selected Trantis as a test subject for the Time Destructor when it felt he was growing too ambitious; when the device failed to work and Trantis survived, the Black Dalek had him killed anyway. Once the Alliance had served its purpose, the Black Dalek broke up the surviving delegates' with a booming "Silence!" and then locked them up.
Above all, the Black Dalek loathed Mavic Chen, viewing him as untrustworthy (with justification), arrogant, overambitious and delusional, not helped by the fact that Chen was human. Several times did the Dalek try to kill Chen for failure or treachery but Chen always managed to escape with his silver tongue and logical assessment of the situation. Only when he had nothing more to contribute and tried to take command of the Daleks was he finally killed, (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan) which the Black Dalek thought about many time after the loss of the core. (PROSE: Mission to the Unknown)
In the timeline in which the Harvest of Urbinia took place, the Dalek Supreme sought to capture Chancellor Atrias to have him enforce the surrender of his people. Yet when Atrias was captured and claimed he was no longer in charge, the Dalek Supreme simply killed him. Although it intended to use the Urbinians as slave labour, it had no qualms about eradicating them all with the Time Destructor when they refused to give in. (AUDIO: Daughter of the Gods)
Before the incident on Kembel, the Black Dalek had never met the Doctor but knew of his reputation and knew him to be dangerous. Though frustrated by the Daleks' continued failure to recover the taranium core, the Black Dalek considered that the development made sense once it learned of the Doctor's involvement. (PROSE: Mission to the Unknown) Indeed, it was in its first and only encounter with the Doctor that the Black Dalek met its end. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan, PROSE: The Mutation of Time)
At almost no point did the Black Dalek permit fire near the taranium core or the Time Destructor during its construction, lest they be damaged and ruin all the Daleks had worked for, even at the cost of letting their enemies escape them. Even when the Doctor fled the hidden base on Kembel with the active Time Destructor, the Black Dalek, so close to victory, still hoped to retrieve it. The Daleks only fired on the weapon when they began to succumb to its effects, by which point it was too late. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan)
Other characteristics[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Black Dalek was capable of critical strategic thinking. When, as Searcher One Leader, it led the Daleks into an apparently-uninhabited region of space, its suspicions led it to uncover an entire galaxy hidden by the Phrynians' invisibility force field, precipitating the successful occupation of Phryne. (COMIC: The Archives of Phryne)
It spoke with a higher-pitched voice than most other Daleks. (TV: The Chase, Mission to the Unknown, The Daleks' Master Plan, AUDIO: The Sontarans, Daughter of the Gods, WC: Mission to the Unknown)
Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]
Identity[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Black Dalek Leader first appeared in Duel of the Daleks and became a recurring character throughout The Dalek Chronicles. For years, whether or not it was ever intended, there was no definitive link made between the Black Dalek Leader, the Black Dalek which appears in The Chase, or the Supreme Dalek which features in Mission to the Unknown and The Daleks' Master Plan.
The connections were made by John Peel in his novelisations: The Chase, Mission to the Unknown, The Mutation of Time and The Evil of the Daleks. Peel wrote these as interconnected works and established the Black Dalek from The Chase and Mission to the Unknown/The Daleks' Master Plan as one and the same in the process.
Furthermore, the novelisations take inspiration from The Dalek Chronicles, most notably in the form of the Dalek Prime's bulbous gold casing. For the Black Dalek, it is considered "irreplaceable" and "the second in command of the Daleks race" in The Mutation of Time, with the latter repeated in the novelisation of The Evil of the Daleks, matching the status of the Black Dalek Leader as established in Plague of Death and The Secret of the Emperor.
.jpg)
As a result, it could be said that the Black Dalek Leader became the first ever character originating in spin-off media to make its way into the TV series, if retroactively. Its first appearance in Duel of the Daleks #3 on 17 April 1965 predated the airing of the first episode of The Chase on 22 May 1965 by over a month. The links, however, were not made until the release of the relevant novelisations: The Chase on 20 July 1989, Mission to the Unknown on 21 September 1989, The Mutation of Time on 19 October 1989 (the most direct of the links) and The Evil of the Daleks on 19 August 1993.
It is also managed to maintain a place among the franchises' longest-serving characters. After its reappearance in Return of the Elders, the short-lived 1997 continuation of The Dalek Chronicles in Doctor Who Magazine, it went into hibernation for nearly two decades but reemerged in the new millennium in two instalments of The Early Adventures. The first was a cameo in The Sontarans on 14 December 2016, in a scene linking that story to Master Plan. It appeared in a larger role in Daughter of the Gods as late as 13 November 2019, more than 54 years after its comic debut.
Other matters[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The Black Dalek was voiced by either David Graham or Peter Hawkins in its original televised appearances. Nicholas Briggs provided its voice for the novelisation audiobooks, as well as the reconstruction of Mission to the Unknown by the University of Central Lancashire and Daughter of the Gods. In all its appearances in performed media, its voice is higher-pitched than most other Daleks. Briggs, however, gave the Supreme Dalek a much lower, booming voice like that of the Time War-era Dalek Emperor and red Supreme Dalek in the stageplay adaptation of The Daleks' Master Plan. (BFX: Seven Keys to Doomsday)
- Because The Dalek Chronicles went through frequent art shifts, the Black Dalek Leader often changes colour and design between stories. In Duel of the Daleks, it is black and silver; in Plague of Death, it is black and gold; and in The Archives of Phryne, (following a casing restructuring) it is black, gold and silver, resembling the Black Dalek from Dr. Who and the Daleks, who replaced the Glass Dalek as the leader of the Dalek City in this retelling of The Daleks starring Peter Cushing (which is not considered a valid source by this Wiki). In The Secret of the Emperor in The Dalek Outer Space Book, it is also black and gold. In its televised appearances, the prop was black and silver with slats (absent in the comics) and blue sense globes.
