Talk:Dalek (The Master's Dalek Plan)

Should this be merged?

I'm not 100% familiar with the policy for articles on alternate timeline individuals/species. I know that with parallel universe versions of N-Space characters, a separate page is justified as parallel universe characters have separate histories, but with alternate timeline version, it seems that separate pages tend to not happen. However, there are pages such as Rose Tyler (Sea Devil Earth), which detail alternate timeline versions of established characters, but on a separate page. Therefore, should this page be merged with Dalek? Or should we leave it as it is? Thalek Prime Overseer ☎ 01:06, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

It's really a case-by-case thing, weighing such concerns as in-universe ontology (do the sympathetic characters in the story consider the parallel/alternate versions to have individual identity, or more like their-usual-selves-with-amnesia?) and practicality (is this a one-line mention of "in one time-track, X happened instead of Y", or something with its own lengthy history that would completely eat up the "Alternate timelines" section of the "prime" counterpart's page?).

As an example of the first concern: Rose Tyler (Sea Devil Earth) loudly proclaims her difference from the Rose the Doctor knew. She also keeps existing at the end of the story, separate from the "original" Rose Tyler, who's presumably safe and sound in Pete's World throughout. The two could conceivably meet. Hence, she has her own page. By contrast, Rory Williams in The Wedding of River Song also exists within an alternate timeline where he's more warlike than the original, and no longer knows who his love interest is; but the narrative clearly treats him as a-thing-that-happens-to-Rory, and after Time snaps back together "normal Rory" apparently remembers those events and considers them to have happened to him. So, we just cover him on the main Rory page.

As an example of the second concern, still from The Wedding of River Song: who knows whether Charles Dickens remembers having been a TV showrunner once Time is unscrambled and he gets deposited back in the 19th century. But it's a five-second cameo, so it's harmless to make a note of him on the main Dickens page. Whereas in The Girl Who Waited: "Old Amy", while she does cease to exist in favour of the "correct" Amy by the story's end, interacts a whole bunch with her original self. It would be messy, bordering on illegible, to try to write about Girl Who Waited in a linear fashion at Amy Pond. So, she gets her own page.

So how does this apply here? I think the arrow falls down on "Separate page". These Daleks are ontologically different from the originals (different weapons, different programming), not just the prime-Daleks in different circumstances. And we have a lot of information specific to them, which would clog up the already very large Dalek page.

(Also, they're arguably a Dalek variant regardless of their timey-wimey nature, and we usually give those their own pages… But that's a secondary concern.) Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 02:07, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Ah, okay. Thanks for clarifying; I already felt that this page should exist rather than being merged with Dalek to avoid clogging up the Alternate timelines section, but I just wanted to clarify if this page was justified by wiki policy. It was a random thought I had when editing Dalek (Masters of War).Thalek Prime Overseer ☎ 11:22, 15 February 2021 (UTC)