B00DPX9ST8 EBOK

by Parkin, Lance

  All the Daleks present are wiped out in The Dalek Invasion of Earth and The Daleks’ Master Plan. We don’t specifically see the Black Dalek killed in either story, but neither do we see him escaping. We see the Black Dalek killed in Resurrection of the Daleks... then again, Davros is seen dying in identical circumstances and he manages to come back. The Black Dalek also dies in Remembrance of the Daleks.

  It’s a stretch, then, but just about possible that this is the same Black Dalek in every TV story. If so, it may be the same individual from “The Dalek Chronicles”.

  It seems far more likely, however, that “Black Dalek” becomes a rank as the Daleks expand. There are other stories in which Black Daleks are senior commanders - by The Evil of the Daleks, a group of Black Daleks serves the Emperor (they only have black domes and modified eyestalks). In the books, Ace kills “a Black Dalek” while she serves in Spacefleet. This represents a significant achievement, but also implies there is more than one Black Dalek at this point.

  So what is the fate of the original Black Dalek, the first Dalek Emperor’s deputy? John Peel’s War of the Daleks, taking its cue from his The Official Doctor Who and the Daleks Book and his novelisation of The Evil of the Daleks, establishes that the Dalek Prime is the last surviving Dalek from the time of their creation (all the way back to Genesis of the Daleks), so the first Black Dalek must be dead by that point. It is possible, however, that before that, the original Black Dalek became the Supreme Dalek.

  “Supreme Dalek” seems to mean a number of things over the course of the Dalek stories... When there’s an Emperor, he is also referred to as Supreme Dalek (in, for example, The Dalek World). It may just be that “Supreme Dalek” and “Emperor” are interchangeable terms. The Supreme Dalek is usually treated like the Emperor in all but name - the sole Dalek at the top of the hierarchy.

  If we go with the theory that only one individual was Emperor for most of Dalek history (see The Dalek Emperors sidebar), and that this individual was killed in The Evil of the Daleks, this creates a vacancy. This chronology places the Davros Era stories after The Evil of the Daleks, and in those, the Supreme Dalek rules the Daleks, with Davros deposing him to become a new Emperor. The (unseen) Supreme Dalek rules Dalek Central Control (from the Dalek space fleet) in Destiny of the Daleks, and Davros is keen to usurp the role. The Supreme Dalek in Resurrection of the Daleks is a Black Dalek. In Revelation of the Daleks, the (unseen) Supreme Dalek rules Skaro. In Remembrance of the Daleks, a Black Dalek leads the Renegade Faction, the group deposed by Davros.

  This could, just about, be the same individual Dalek (although, as noted, it looks like he’s killed at the end of Resurrection of the Daleks). The most natural successor to the original Emperor would be his deputy. So this Supreme Dalek might be the original Black Dalek, as introduced in “The Dalek Chronicles”. Perhaps the implication is that once the original Emperor is dead, the Black Dalek leader doesn’t quite dare to give himself the title “Emperor” - although Davros has no such qualms. This Black Dalek looks to be comprehensively killed at the end of Remembrance of the Daleks.

  There are other Supreme Daleks, however... We see “the Supreme Dalek” in one illustration for The Dalek Outer Space Book story “The Living Death” and he’s an odd mix - a standard Dalek body with a globe very like the Emperor’s for a head. The book features (in other stories) a Gold Dalek, the Dalek Emperor and the Black Dalek. This Supreme Dalek might be a very oddly drawn Emperor, or a completely new character.

  Elsewhere in The Dalek Outer Space Book, the story “Super Sub” refers to the crew of one submarine as including “a Supreme Dalek who is in charge of the fighting” and “a Black Dalek who is in charge of the scientific investigations”.

  In the Dalek Empire series, there is a Supreme Dalek who acts as the Emperor’s deputy. The third series introduces a new Supreme after the last one is killed. This replacement Supreme is also killed later in the series. Below them are Supreme Controllers - Red Daleks.

  In The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End, the Daleks are ruled by a Supreme Dalek who has a modified red and gold casing. He is killed by Captain Jack.

  Other stories state that the Daleks are ruled by a committee, not an individual (and this was apparently the preference of Terry Nation, the Daleks’ real-life creator). In the Daleks’ first story (The Daleks), the Dalek city is ruled by “the council”, and all the Daleks we see look alike. While in Planet of the Daleks, we meet a Dalek Supreme - a larger Dalek than normal, black with gold bumps, with a redesigned eyestalk and other features - it’s clear that this very senior Dalek is just one member of the Supreme Council (the Daleks on Spiridon also report to “Supreme Command”).

  Day of the Daleks and Frontier in Space both have Daleks led by gold Daleks. We never learn their title. “The Dalek Tapes” feature on the Genesis of the Daleks DVD says these are members of the Supreme Council.

  The Dalek Outer Space Book story “The Dalek Trap” features a “leader” who is a gold Dalek, of apparently a standard design (he may be a little larger than the average Dalek, and like the Supreme Dalek in “The Living Death”, he might be the Golden Emperor drawn by someone without reference material).

  The fact that the Daleks have a Council doesn’t contradict the idea they have an Emperor. We see the Dalek Emperor in command of a council in The Dalek World.

  In The Dalek Outer Space Book, we see the most elaborate set up - below the Emperor (also referred to as “the golden Dalek”), there’s the Black Dalek, possibly that odd Supreme Dalek with a globe head, a Dalek Council (including the Gold Dalek see in “The Dalek Trap”?) and a separate group, a conclave of senior Dalek commanders, such as the red Dalek who leads Red Extra Galactic Squadron. There are other Red Daleks, as well as Blue Daleks. In “The Secret of the Emperor”, the blue/gold Daleks appear to be scientists. As noted, on the battlefront, a Dalesub has a Black Dalek and a Supreme Dalek in command.

  The Doctor Who: Aliens and Enemies book (2006), published in close cooperation with the production team of the time, describes the set up in The Parting of the Ways as the Emperor in charge with a High Council, also known as the Emperor’s Personal Guard. Some of these have black domes, some have two gunsticks.

  There are other Dalek ranks: In Destiny of the Daleks, the leader of the squad sent to recover Davros has black central slats. We never learn this Dalek’s title. In other stories (The Daleks, The Power of the Daleks, Death to the Daleks, Planet of the Daleks) we see groups of Daleks able to function perfectly well with leaders in ordinary casings.

  While the Black Dalek, the Dalek Leader (black with red details) is in command in “The Planet of the Daleks” (TV Action), his senior subordinate on the Dalek planet is a white Dalek with red detailing. The commander of the Earth expedition is also referred to as Dalek Leader and is black with gold detailing. There are Daleks with red domes that seem to outrank the standard Daleks.

  War of the Daleks states that the Dalek hierarchy - at least at that point in their history - runs: Grey Daleks, Blue Daleks, Red Daleks, Black Daleks, Gold Daleks, with the Dalek Prime as absolute authority. The Dalek Prime is described as “slightly larger than the others, with a bulbous head. It was a burnished gold colour, and had about a dozen lights about the expanded dome instead of the average Dalek’s two” - in other words, it strongly resembles the Golden Emperor.

  In Prisoner of the Daleks, the overall leader of the Daleks is the Supreme Dalek and there is a chief interrogator Dalek X, the Inquisitor General, who is black and gold.

  Victory of the Daleks introduces a “new Dalek paradigm”, with five colour-coded classes of Dalek. These are red (Drone), orange (Scientist), yellow (Eternal), blue (Strategists) and white (Supreme).

  The Davros Era

  Four consecutive Dalek TV stories (Destiny of the Daleks, Resurrection of the Daleks, Revelation of the Daleks and Remembrance of the Daleks) form a linked series in which the creator of the Daleks, Davros (first seen in Genesis of the Daleks), is revived. In due cour
se, he’s captured and imprisoned by Earth before re-engineering the Daleks and gradually taking control over his creations. The series ends with the ultimate destruction of the Daleks’ home planet of Skaro, although the novel War of the Daleks, set shortly after Remembrance of the Daleks, significantly reinterpreted those events.

  Three Big Finish audios (and The Davros Mission, an audio story exclusive to The Complete Davros Collection DVD set) occur in gaps between the television stories, and act as bridges between them - Resurrection of the Daleks is followed by Davros, Revelation of the Daleks is followed by The Davros Mission and The Juggernauts, and Remembrance of the Daleks is followed by Terror Firma. The comic strip “Emperor of the Daleks” depicts Davros becoming Emperor between Revelation of the Daleks and Remembrance of the Daleks. Here, for the sake of convenience, we refer to the events of these stories as “the Davros Era” - a term that is never used in any of the stories themselves.

  It is never stated exactly when the Davros Era is set, although it is clearly far in Earth’s future.

  The key story here is Remembrance of the Daleks. Before Remembrance, it was widely felt that The Evil of the Daleks really was, as the Doctor said, “the final end” of the Daleks (even though the draft script of Day of the Daleks explained that the Daleks had survived their civil war). Remembrance of the Daleks changed that, by ending with the destruction of Skaro. Clearly, taking Remembrance of the Daleks at face value, it - and by implication the rest of the Davros Era - has to happen after The Evil of the Daleks (the climax of which was set on Skaro).

  Even before that, the first two editions of The Programme Guide set Destiny of the Daleks “c.4500” (as did the earlier versions of this chronology and Timelink). Following The Programme Guide’s lead, the script of Resurrection of the Daleks referred to the year as 4590, although that’s not established on screen.

  There have been other attempts to place it. The Terrestrial Index took the Doctor’s speech to the Black Dalek in Remembrance of the Daleks that the Daleks are “a thousand years” from home literally, and respectively set the stories in “as the twenty-seventh century began”, “towards the end of the twenty-seventh century”, “as the twenty-eighth century began” and “about 2960”. The TARDIS Logs chose “8740 AD” for Destiny of the Daleks. Ben Aaronovitch’s novelisation of Remembrance of the Daleks and his introduction to the Abslom Daak - Dalek Killer graphic album had extracts from a history book, The Children of Davros, published in “4065” - apparently well after Remembrance of the Daleks.

  John Peel’s The Official Doctor Who & the Daleks Book - written with Terry Nation’s approval - offers a complete Dalek timeline, although it stresses it’s not “definitive” and could change in the light of a new story (p209), and it was written before Remembrance of the Daleks was broadcast. In Peel’s version, Genesis of the Daleks comes first, followed by The Daleks [c.1564], there are Dalek survivors in the Kaled Bunker and after five hundred years they emerge and force the Thals to flee Skaro. The Daleks discover space travel after about a hundred years, and launch The Dalek Invasion of Earth [2164]. The Dalek Wars begin, after several hundred years of Dalek preparation, leading to Frontier in Space and Planet of the Daleks [2540]. The Daleks developed time travel, as seen in The Chase. The Daleks and Mechanoids fought the Mechon Wars, and one Dalek capsule from that conflict ends up crashing on Vulcan where it is unearthed in The Power of the Daleks [“several centuries” after 2010]. The Daleks went back in time to reinvade Earth (Day of the Daleks). The Daleks were then attacked by the Movellans (Destiny of the Daleks) and the two races were deadlocked for “decades”.

  Ninety years later followed Resurrection of the Daleks (by which time, Earth and Draconia had defeated the Movellans). The Daleks exploited a space plague (Death to the Daleks). Davros had survived, but was captured by the Daleks at the end of Revelation of the Daleks, and he was taken to Skaro and executed. Weakened, the Daleks needed allies to conquer the galaxy, as seen in The Daleks’ Master Plan [4000]. This led to the Dalek Wars, that lasted “the next couple of centuries” after which the Emperor Dalek initiated the events of The Evil of the Daleks [c 4200], which ended in a civil war that wiped out the entire Dalek race, once and for all.

  No firm dates for the Davros Era are given, but working backwards, this timeline would seem to place Destiny of the Daleks somewhere in the thirty-ninth century.

  War of the Daleks, also written by Peel, attempted to reverse the destruction of Skaro in Remembrance of the Daleks, and - unsurprisingly - it broadly follows the timeline in Peel’s earlier book. Ironically, though, it undermines the case for setting the Davros Era before 4000 - first, the SSS explore Antalin (the planet the Daleks trick the Doctor into destroying instead of Skaro) after the events of The Daleks’ Master Plan. Secondly, for the Dalek plan to work, the Doctor has to think Skaro was destroyed in Remembrance of the Daleks, and he wouldn’t if he knew it still existed in the year 4000. (About Time has suggested that while the Daleks report to Skaro in The Daleks’ Master Plan, the Doctor doesn’t see them doing that, so he might not realise they do.)

  Some fans have speculated that the Daleks might move to “New Skaro” after Remembrance of the Daleks, but no evidence exists for this on screen, and on the occasions when we see Skaro it is clearly the same world - the Doctor knows his way around in The Evil of the Daleks and Destiny of the Daleks. In the Time War shown in the EDAs, the Time Lords created duplicate home planets and it’s possible that the Daleks might do the same.

  In two New Adventures by Andy Lane (Lucifer Rising, Original Sin) we discover that the Guild of Adjudicators eventually becomes the Grand Order of Oberon referred to in Revelation of the Daleks, yet the Adjudicators are still active in Original Sin, so Revelation of the Daleks must take place well after the thirtieth century.

  Mission to the Unknown established that the Daleks hadn’t been a military force in Earth’s galaxy for a thousand years prior to 4000 (and in one of the scenes where “galaxy” seems to mean “galaxy”, not “solar system”). This - and perhaps the presence of the Galactic Federation - would seem to rule out the Davros Era taking place between 3000 and 4000. Humans from the time of Destiny, Resurrection and Revelation all know and fear the Daleks, and see them as an active threat - whereas in Mission to the Unknown, Gordon Lowery only knows that the Daleks invaded Earth “a thousand years ago”, and needs their renewed interest in Earth space spelled out for him. The Daleks have been deadlocked for “centuries” with the Movellans before Destiny of the Daleks (tellingly, Peel has to reduce this to “decades” in his timeline). The preminence of the Earth Empire in the centuries before 3000 seems incompatible with the idea the Daleks are a major galactic power. All in all, it seems likely that Destiny of the Daleks is set at least “centuries” after 4000. As we know the Dalek Empire series is set in the first half of the millennium, the case for The Programme Guide’s 4600 AD date, while not indisputable, is certainly persuasive.

  [1] Gryffen is a regular character in the K9 TV series. K9: Taphony and the Time Loop establishes the year of his birth.

  [2] The Condemned

  [3] Dating The God Complex (X6.11) - No year is stated, but there’s no evidence that the station can abduct people through time, and the participants seem contemporary: mention is made of blogging, of the Internet, of the American CIA and of the Klingon language being the purview of geeks. Everyone’s attire, Joe’s horseshoe tie-tack included, is consistent with the modern day. The prison is made to look like a 1980s hotel, and, tellingly, Rita is familiar enough with such décor that it “takes her by surprise” to be trapped in it.

  The Doctor returns Amy and Rory to Earth at a point between Let’s Kill Hitler and Closing Time. The wild card here is to what degree he knows about the horrific events of TW: Miracle Day and - presuming he can’t intervene in order to let history unfold as scheduled - whether he would deposit his best friends back on Earth in the thick of it. It seems reasonable to think that he drops Amy and Rory off after the worst con
sequences of the Miracle have come and gone; he might even drop them off in early 2012, after civilisation has recovered somewhat.

  [4] Dating Closing Time (X6.12) - The story unfolds over three days, ending on a Sunday (the Doctor: “Even with time travel, getting glaziers on a Sunday, tricky”), and is predicated on the idea that Sophie has gone away for the weekend and left Craig alone with Alfie. The time of year is indicated when the Doctor and Craig stand next to an advert for a “Spring Season” sales event. All well and good, but otherwise, this story’s dating clues and continuity concerns make its placement very difficult.

  The central question is whether, when the Doctor repeatedly says he will die “tomorrow” (“tomorrow is the day I [die]”, “tomorrow I’m going to die”, etc.), he means it’s chronologically tomorrow (i.e. 22nd April, 2011, as first mentioned in The Impossible Astronaut) or that it’s tomorrow in his personal timestream. The latter seems more likely - as a time traveller, he could (and already has) spend years if not decades postponing his getting shot at Lake Silencio. It’s only halfway through The Wedding of River Song, in fact, that he fully resigns himself to his fate and goes there.