"Is it normal if you have never seen an episode of Dr. Who in your life ever? Because I worry."
"Normal", probably, in the sense that not spending your time reading a science-fiction online message board is normal. However, since you aren't that sort of normal, you might want to look into remedying this particular deficiency on your part.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Skaro is the homeworld of the Daleks? Davros built them didn't he? When was Skaro seen in the Telemovie?
Can we have a brief history of the Daleks please? I mean I've seen a number of Dr. Who episodes but the closest I got to seeing a Dalek story was that Dalek in "The Five Doctors" - I guess I just kept missing the Dalek episodes when I was on a Dr. Who watching 'mode'. I missed the episode where Tegan left - I think that was a Dalek episode - she was sick of the death or something? I've mainly seen 4th, 5th and 6th Dr. Who episodes (And 8th).
Peri's breasts.
I just had to say that.
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
The history of the Daleks is a bit...tricky. Lots of Doctor Who canon can be argued against being canon due to all the time travel involved. The most common theory (or at least the one that's easiest to copy and paste) is that there are two distinct Dalek timelines, with "Genesis of the Daleks" being the point where things changed (that's the episode where Baker's Doctor was ordered to go to Skaro to stop the Daleks from ever being created. It was also the first with Davros in.)
Bear in mind that what's below is part-theory, part fact (or at least fact as presented to us in the episode), so don't take it as 100% gospel. It's also possible it was written by someone who really, really hates Davros.
Also, y'know, spoilers for every Doctor Who Dalek episode ever.
FIRST HISTORY OF THE DALEKS: In The Daleks, Thal records - a mixture of oral legend and historical texts - are said to go back about half a million years. The Thals were a warrior race, while the ancestors of the Daleks (Kaleds) were teachers and philosophers. About 500 years before the events of The Daleks a thousand-year-old degenerative war between the two races came to a conclusion (Genesis of the Daleks). Davros, the leading Kaled scientist, developed the Daleks as a 'housing' for mutated Kaleds. He was killed by his creatures after slaughtering the majority of his people. As a term of contempt, the Thals termed the (remaining) Kaleds 'Dalek people' (or - on one occasion in The Daleks - Dals).
Despite these events, the war did not end until the Thals exploded a single neutron bomb. The destruction was so great that the Thals themselves were affected by the radiation. They committed themselves to pacifism as a result.
A group of advanced Daleks survived the explosion by leaving the planet in a hastily constructed spacecraft. Those Daleks left behind were early products of Davros's experimental programme and, although many survived the neutron bomb, they remained trapped in the bunkers beneath the Kaled city for centuries. These Daleks were dependent on both static electricity and high levels of radiation, and their weapons were comparatively weak. The primitive Daleks were destroyed by the Doctor in this story.
(The Doctor never establishes the date of this story, and his comment in The Dalek Invasion of Earth - that The Daleks is set a million years in the future - is pure (inaccurate) speculation. By the time of Planet of the Daleks (the 26th-century ) the tale of the Thal�s penetration of the Dalek city has become a legend.)
The more advanced Daleks developed their own technology, which enabled non-Kaleds to become Dalek mutants. A large number then returned to Skaro and began working on time travel technology in conjunction with Theodore Maxtible (The Evil of the Daleks). (The date is difficult to ascertain, but would have to be somewhere between the 19th and mid-22nd centuries.) Civil war broke out on Skaro, and for a long time the Thals were once more able to live there in peace.
One of the ships that escaped the destruction on Skaro crashed on Vulcan in the 21st or early 22nd century. (Therefore, they recognise the second Doctor, and the Earth colonists have not heard of the Daleks.) Mankind's first major encounter with the Daleks came a little later in 2164. When the Daleks were defeated (The Dalek Invasion of Earth) they completed their time travel programme ('The Daleks discovered the secret of time travel') and attempted to turn this defeat into victory by going back in time and invading the Earth in the late 21st century. ('We have invaded Earth again. We have changed the pattern of history.')
The Doctor's intervention a century later (Day of the Daleks) was so successful that this alternative time-line did not happen. (The Daleks knew of the Doctor, but did not recognise his third incarnation, using a mind analysis machine to confirm his identity.)
Stung by their twin defeats, the Daleks pursued the first incarnation of the Doctor (The Chase), reasoning that if his future intervention could be neutralised their plans would succeed.
Between the 23rd and 25th centuries the Daleks encountered the third Doctor in an untelevised adventure, and then developed a deadly space plague (Death to the Daleks). (The Doctor is recognised in Death to the Daleks, which would seem to take place before Planet of the Daleks.)
In the 26th century the Daleks planned to destroy the Earth-Draconia pact (Frontier in Space), and then conquer the galaxy with a huge, invisible army (Planet of the Daleks).
On Skaro meanwhile, the Thals ended a period of pacifistic isolation by developing space craft. Their first lengthy mission was to Spiridon, where, with the Doctor's help, the Daleks were defeated again. (The Daleks in that story identify the Doctor.)
Mission to the Unknown states that for over a thousand years the Dalek campaign ignored the Milky Way completely. From approximately 3500 they waged campaigns in the Ninth Galactic System and in the constellation of Mir, conquering 70 and 40 planets in the two regions respectively. The Daleks also returned to Skaro, wiping out the Thals who lived there. They had hoped to receive a new direction from their creator, but Davros had not survived.
In the year 4000 the Daleks returned their attention to the solar system, forging an alliance with other races (The Daleks' Master Plan). Once again, the Doctor interceded.
Despite all these defeats the Daleks were never entirely wiped out and the Time Lords predicted a time when the Daleks could become the dominant life-form in the cosmos. As a result of the Doctor's intervention Dalek 'history' was massively changed. (See The second history of the Daleks).
SECOND HISTORY OF THE DALEKS:
The Doctor does succeed in changing history in Genesis of the Daleks. The events of previous Dalek stories, if they happened at all, are now vastly different. The Doctor delays Dalek development by 1000 years, but, more importantly, his actions cause Davros to remain alive.
The Doctor's warnings about the dangers of the Daleks had some effect on their creator, making him paranoid enough to activate a force field in his chair. He thus survives the Daleks' assassination attempt. In the previous time line, Davros was killed and forgotten. Davros also remembered some of the Dalek defeats mentioned by the Doctor. For example, the Daleks retain an interest in Earth and want to invade it again, especially as Davros thinks he knows how they were defeated.
The Daleks, unaware that Davros survived their attack, leave Skaro as soon as they can, going out into space and abandoning their homeworld. They either exterminate the Thals when they leave the bunker or note with disinterest that they have already gone. Embroiled in a war with the Movellans, a group of Daleks return to Skaro many centuries later (Destiny of the Daleks). Davros is, however, taken prisoner by humans, and the Daleks are forced to fight the Movellans without his help.
The Movellans win the war with a virus. Ninety years later a detachment of surviving Daleks rescue their imprisoned creator (Resurrection of the Daleks). The Daleks recognise the Doctor, perhaps from their tactical survey of Gallifrey. This faction is led by the Dalek Supreme, and they have returned to Skaro, perhaps hoping to recover information and equipment left behind.
One hundred years later Davros arrives on Nekros, his programme to turn humans into Daleks already well advanced. (Perhaps when interrogated the Doctor told Davros of the events of Evil of the Daleks, leading Davros to conclude that if the Daleks possess some of the 'human factor' they will not be slaves to logic, and will not be drawn into an impasse as with the Movellans.)
Skaro is known and feared by humans as the Dalek homeworld, but the creatures are not regarded as being an overwhelming threat. (In this time line the combined Draconian/human peace is strong enough to encourage such complacency.) The Supreme Dalek arrests Davros (Revelation of the Daleks) and tries him.
On Skaro, Davros wins the arguments regarding human tissue and mentality, and takes over the white/gold Daleks, augmenting them and himself. He becomes Emperor (perhaps again trying to duplicate a successful pattern described by the Doctor). However, some Daleks rebel over the issue of racial purity.
They learn of the Hand of Omega and leave Skaro to retrieve it and use it to threaten or destroy Davros. Both factions use their primitive time corridor technology to return to Earth in 1963 (Remembrance of the Daleks). Skaro is destroyed by the Hand 1000 years before or after (according to the Doctor) - probably after, putting the date of its destruction somewhere around the 30th century. Davros is left in space near Earth in 1963.
Prior to Genesis of the Daleks, Davros did not feature in Dalek history and was never referred to. Without him the Daleks had a solid, cohesive empire, always with one purpose. With him around they are a mess of squabbling factions, incapable of the unity needed to develop dimensionally transcendental time travel. Whilst Davros lives the Daleks will remain disorganised, and will never become the threat that the Time Lords so feared.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Wow Psyliam , u really know your daleks! + Just seen a picture of new dalek. Looks pretty much the same except for a couple of tiny cosmetics. However the one I saw was gold. Perhaps this was the infamous 'Supreme Dalek'?
Registered: Jan 2005
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I've got this old "The Ultimate Doctor Who and the Daleks" book that chronicles everything through "Revelation", which I should really dig up again. They do a unified history of the Daleks which maintains the final Troughton Dalek story (meant to be the end of the Daleks so Nation could market them elsewhere) AS the ultimate end of the Daleks, with everything else fitting in between. I'm not a great fan of Davros (it really relegated the Daleks to the role of thugs following the guy around), and I do hope that the new series disposes of the guy permenantly so as to not act as a sonic-screwdriver-esque crutch, but I'd think he should stay within a proper unified continuity.
posted
Don't think they're all out on DVD only a handful.
And there were roughly:
26 seasons, 158 stories, 700 episodes. 3, 4 or 5 episodes in each 'story'. There are a number of episodes missing from the earlier years as the BBC destroyed the tapes to make more room in their warehouse or something like that. Plus there was the Doctor Who TV Movie with Paul McGann as the 8th Doctor made in 1996. Alot didn't like it, Alot did. I did.
If you lived in the UK or Australia or New Zealand Doctor Who might have been a staple of your childhood years - in Australia I remember it being on each night at 6 or 6:30 before the News on the ABC.
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
The picture I saw appeared in The Sun newspaper a few weeks ago over here in england. I have only just seen it though! I shall try to find a link to it.
Registered: Jan 2005
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Note that this isn't REALLY a new Dalek - the rumour is that this may be the last of the OLD Daleks, which clears the way for a new breed of mechanical monsters to show up later it he season.
quote:Doctor Who fans are in for a special treat when the new series hits the screens - Daleks with legs.
The BBC is considering solving the greatest challenge facing the trundling terminators: that of climbing a simple flight of stairs. What's more, the new-look salt cellars may also have the ability to fly.
Baaaad idea.
...unless it's the thing inside the Dalek's "head" they're referring to. I recall one of etting out and killing someone in Tegan's final episode.
It reminded me of the bad guys from Krull. (Liam Neeson's bestest movie evar!)
[ January 12, 2005, 12:18 AM: Message edited by: Jason Abbadon ]
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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