Great Hall
The Great Hall, (COMIC: The Secret of the Emperor) also known as the Dalek control centre, (COMIC: Liberation of the Daleks) control room, (PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks) "control", (TV: The Evil of the Daleks) Emperor's throne room, (PROSE: Dalek Survival Guide) Emperor's inner sanctum, (COMIC: Liberation of the Daleks) or throne room, (PROSE: Birth of a Legend) was the location of the Dalek Emperor's huge casing on Skaro in the Dalek City. (COMIC: The Secret of the Emperor)
History[[edit] | [edit source]]
After the Golden Emperor ruled that his casing, and the augmented mechanical brain it contained, had been compromised, he had himself "taken to pieces and rebuilt" by a team of Dalek Scientists, headed by the Chief Scientist. They ultimately rebuilt him into a huge, static casing located in the Great Hall, with an augmented brain; (COMIC: The Secret of the Emperor) as it later reflected, "in order to expand its brain, it had entirely given up the power of mobility and was utterly dependent on the machinery around it to sustain its life", considering "its mobility a small price to pay for what it had become". (PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks)
The Emperor met the Second Doctor and his companions in the Great Hall, in his towering casing, as his master plan to have the Doctor distill and disseminate the Dalek Factor reached completion. He had had the Doctor's TARDIS brought to an alcove within the Great Hall also, so as to show it to the Doctor as leverage. The scheme failed, however, due to the Doctor managing to infect a number of Daleks with the Human Factor instead, sparking a Dalek Civil War. Chaos soon engulfed the Hall despite the Emperor's desperate pleas for the Daleks not to fight "in here". (TV: The Evil of the Daleks)
Being unable to move, or even to live outside of his life-support system, the Emperor seemingly died, bitterly regretting his earlier choice to sacrifice his mobility. (PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks) However, he actually survived. Bernice Summerfield met him in the aftermath of the battle, sitting impotently in his ruined casing. (AUDIO: The Lights of Skaro) Aat some point, Jamie McCrimmon and Victoria Waterfield returned to the Dalek City themselves; sneaking into the silent, darkened throne room, they were shocked to find that they had walked into the lion's dun, with the Emperor alive and well and more Daleks than ever standing guard above him, who triumphantly declared that "the Daleks [had] returned". By this time alterations had been made to the Great Hall, most notably an open window to the Emperor's left, large enough to allow Daleks on Hoverbouts to enter and leave. (HOMEVID: Emperor of the Daleks)
By the time of the onset of the Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War, the Emperor had returned to a mobile globe-headed casing, and preferred to hold council in the Dalek Court Room even on issues not directly related to trials. (COMIC: Emperor of the Daleks!)
However, a short time before the Last Great Time War, following the extermination of the Mechonoids, the Dalek Emperor once again resided in his throne room, guarded by the Imperial Guards, when he assembled four high-ranking bronze Daleks in the throne room where and organised them into the Cult of Skaro. (PROSE: Birth of a Legend)
After Skaro was rebuilt following the Time War, the name of "Dalek control" was applied to a very different control room on the surface level of the Dalek City, where a Supreme Dalek held court on a raised dais, surrounded by many Daleks of other ranks. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice, The Witch's Familiar)
Psychoplasmic duplicate[[edit] | [edit source]]
In the Dalek Dome built in the 24th century, which housed various psychoplasmic pocket realities based off of various eras of Dalek history, one window led into a version of Skaro as it existed on the eve of the Human Factor affair, complete with a Type I Dalek Emperor in a version of this room. When the Fourteenth Doctor entered it, the Emperor referred to it as his "inner sanctum". (COMIC: Liberation of the Daleks)
