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~ The battle cry of the Daleks, and their most famous quote.noicon
“
This is only the beginning. We will prepare, we will grow stronger. When the time is right, we will emerge and take our rightful place as the supreme power of the universe!
„
~ The Daleks rising to power.
The Daleks are some of the main antagonists (alongside The Master) of the Whoniverse.
They're an alien race of squid-like superorganisms from the planet Skaro, modifying in robotic tank-like machines called "Mark III Travel Machines", invented by their creator, Davros. Their main objective is to reign supreme over the universe and destroy every other species, seeing the Doctor as "The Oncoming Storm" or their mortal enemy.
The Daleks were created by the late Terry Nation and designed by the late Raymond Cusick. They have become a very famous icon for Doctor Who, mainly for their catchphrase "EXTERMINATE!". Introduced in the 1963 Doctor Who serial "The Daleks", they remain the most frequent and dangerous of the Doctor's foes.
In the Daleks appearances in the 1960s, the Daleks were voiced by the late Peter Hawkins and the late David Graham. In the 1970s, the Daleks were mostly voiced by the late Roy Skelton and the late Michael Wisher, who also portrayed Davros in Genesis of the Daleks. In Resurrection of the Daleks, Revelation of the Daleks and Remembrance of the Daleks, they were voiced by the late Royce Mills, with Brian Mills in Resurrection, Skelton in Revelation and all three in Remembrance. In the show's Revival era, they were voiced by Nicholas Briggs.
Dalek: Then I shall follow the primary order: the Dalek instinct to destroy, to conquer! Doctor: What for? What's the point?! Don't you see? It's all gone. Everything you were, everything you stood for. Dalek: Then what should I do? Doctor: Alright, then. If you want orders, follow this one: Kill yourself. Dalek: The Daleks must survive! Doctor: The Daleks have failed! Now why don't you finish the job and make the Daleks extinct; rid the universe of your filth?! Why don't you just DIE?! Dalek: You would make a good Dalek.
„
~ The last surviving Dalek to The Doctor.
It is rare for Daleks to have any distinguishing personality, and the typical Dalek is best defined by its utter ruthlessness, cruelty, deceptiveness and above all else, obsession with racial purity. The mindset of all "true" Daleks is that all other races in the universe are inferior, worthy only of mass extermination or enslavement. Daleks have no sense of culture or society other than their focus on military conquest and extermination, with only the emotion of hatred itself considered by them to be beautiful. The Daleks' obsession with genetic and ideological purity even extends to their own race: Daleks with even minor biological differences are exterminated, and the same fate befalls those who question the orders of a superior. This has resulted in several civil wars in the Daleks' past, but they have always come back stronger than ever. The only being in the universe who the entire Dalek species have ever been known to fear is the Doctor.
The Daleks have become responsible for the extinction of thousands of races, as well as the destruction of countless worlds and civilizations, causing them to be known and feared throughout the universe. They are so deadly that even the virtually omnipotent Time Lords dreaded their rise to power, and rightly so: A clash between the two races exploded into the impossibly violent conflict known as the Last Great Time War, which cause all of space-time itself to become a battlefield and brought the Time Lords to the brink of extinction.
Despite sometimes appearing to be seemingly mindless robots, within the mechanical armor is a mutated monster - the true form of the Dalek - that is as cunning as it is violent. Daleks frequently fool other races into forming alliances with them to further the Daleks' ends, but quickly turn on their "allies" as soon as said ends were achieved and they have outlived their usefulness.
Powers and Abilities[]
The first Daleks were created as the last surviving inhabitants on the planet Skaro after a thousand years of endless warfare, yet they quickly began to advanced their military forces and technologies to become powerful enough to rival the nigh-omnipotent Time Lords themselves. By the era of the Last Great Time War, the Daleks were capable of weaponizing space-time itself to fight the Time Lords to a near stalemate, almost bringing upon the destruction of the universe. After the Last Great Time War, the surviving Daleks recovered from their previous defeats to once more become a powerful universal threat.
The Daleks had massive military forces, with spaceship fleets capable of easily destroying whole planets and conquering large parts of the universe. They were experts in time-travel, alien sciences, and technology to the point that they were capable of constructing alien superweapons powerful enough to end reality itself, such as the Reality Bomb.
It has been noted by the Doctor that the Daleks have the uncanny ability to survive and recover from almost anything, causing their species to always find a way to come back from the brink of destruction no matter how many times they are defeated.
Other Appearances[]
Dalek movies[]
The Daleks feature as the titular antagonists of Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 AD. These films act as retellings of The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth.
Looney Tunes Back in Action[]
In Looney Tunes Back in Action, the Peter Cushing movie variants of the Daleks make brief cameos in the film during the Area 52 scenes.
LEGO Dimensions[]
In LEGO Dimensions, the Daleks feature as supporting antagonists who oppose Batman, Gandalf, and Wyldstyle in the Doctor Who dimension, leading to a boss battle against the Dalek Emperor. Soon the battle ends, as the Twelth Doctor appears and shrinks the Emperor and all Daleks, saving the group.
They also appear in the game as major antagonists of the level from the Doctor Who level pack (adding Doctor).
A Dalek also serves as a vehicle for another playable character from the franchise - Cyberman.
The LEGO Batman Movie[]
The Daleks appear in The LEGO Batman Movie as supporting antagonists in a LEGO version of their Paradigm form from the 2010 episode "Victory of the Daleks". They appear in The Phantom Zone with the other non-Batman villains (this is because the LEGO Movie universe is divided into different realms based on different franchises and themes with Doctor Who being one of them) and ally themselves with The Joker to help him get revenge on Batman for not seeing him as his greatest enemy and blow up Gotham. But ultimately his plan fails and the Daleks are sent back to The Phantom Zone (presumably for all eternity). Nicholas Briggs voices them in the film.
Fall Guys[]
In Fall Guys, a Dalek costume was among the four Doctor Who-themed costumes (alongside the fourth, tenth, and thirteenth Doctors) released on Halloween, 2022, as part of the game's second F2P season.
Variants[]
Imperial Daleks[]
The Imperial Daleks were a faction of Daleks created by Davros to be loyal to him, and were minor antagonists of Resurrection of the Daleks, and major antagonists of Revelation of the Daleks and Remembrance of the Daleks. Their casings were usually painted white and gold, and the mutants would often be "impure" by Dalek standards, being made out of humans, or biomechanically enhanced.
Early prototypes for Imperial Daleks appeared in Resurrection of the Daleks, when Davros used a mind control device on two subjects, making them mindlessly loyal. However, these Daleks were destroyed in the battle with the "main" Daleks. Escaping to Necros, in Revelation of the Daleks, Davros used the bodies of cryogenically preserved humans as genetic material for the Imperial Daleks, using some as guards, while leaving an army in storage. After he was captured, the Skarosian Daleks attempted to seize the Imperial army, but it was destroyed before they could.
After gaining control of Skaro, Davros made further improvements to the Imperial Daleks, and fought a civil war with the "Renegade" Daleks. In Remembrance of the Daleks, both factions fought at London 1963, in the Battle of Shoreditch for the Time Lord artifact the Hand of Omega, The Imperials eventually won control of the Hand, but the reprogrammed Hand destroyed Skaro and the Imperial Mothership.
Renegade Daleks[]
Renegade Daleks were a faction of Daleks that were loyal to the Supreme Daleks. Their casings were often in black or grey colours, and they first appeared in Resurrection of the Daleks, where they waged a war against Davros and his faction of Imperial Daleks that he built to be loyal to only him.
In Revelation of the Daleks, a squadron of Renegade Daleks arrived to apprehend Davros, but failed due to sabotage. The civil war between the two Dalek factions then took place in 1963 when both sides fought for control over the Hand of Omega. The Renegade Daleks initially gained an upper hand over the Imperial Daleks, taking the Hand of Omega and destroying several Imperial Daleks on the way, but the Imperial Daleks ambush the Renegade base and wipe out the Renegade Daleks, taking the Hand of Omega with them.
After the Imperial Daleks were destroyed when the Doctor booby trapped the Hand of Omega to destroy Skaro and the Imperial Daleks’ mothership, the Supreme Dalek learnt of its rivals’ fate and realising he’s now the last of his race, self destructed and exploded into ash, wiping out the Renegade Daleks.
Ironside Daleks[]
“
All hail the new Daleks!
„
~ The Ironsides after creating the New Daleks.
The Ironside Daleks are villains that appear in Doctor Who, in the episode "Victory of the Daleks". The Ironside Daleks were standard Dalek drones. They had themselves painted khaki-green with the Union Flag in place of their recognition code as part of their plot. They sometimes had covers put over their blinkers to better hide from opposing forces while undercover.
The "Ironside Dalek" was a ruse created by three surviving Daleks of the New Dalek Empire. It was designed to lure the Eleventh Doctor to them, trick him into delivering a testimony to identify him as Daleks and enable them to activate the Progenitor. The Project was a complete success, and the New Dalek Paradigm was the outcome.
During World War II, British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, believed that the Ironsides would be the weapons that would win him the war, erroneously believing that they were designed by Dr. Edwin Bracewell (who was actually a Dalek creation himself.)
The Dalek Emperor is the supreme ruler of the Dalek Empire. Sources vary as to how many Emperors the Daleks have had as well as the identity of each Emperor, but one account gives the first Dalek Emperor's identity as the same Dalek which shot Davros in "Genesis of the Daleks" before proclaiming the Daleks' campaign of supremacy. The Dalek Emperor ruled over the Dalek Empire during the Daleks' encounters with the First and Second Doctors, although only the Second Doctor encountered it in-person.
Black Supreme Dalek[]
The Black Supreme Dalek is a Supreme Dalek who led the Daleks in several large-scale operations and frequently faced the First Doctor. It was alternatively referred to as the "Supreme Controller." Its exact relationship with the Dalek Emperor is not fully defined in the TV series, but it appears to be a high-ranking subordinate to the Emperor, with The Dalek Chronicles specifying it as second-in-command in to the Emperor.
Dalek Supreme Council[]
The Dalek Supreme Council is a league of Supreme Daleks who rose to power in the Dalek Empire following the Dalek Emperor's apparent destruction in "The Evil of the Daleks." A Dalek Supreme who was a member of the council traveled to Spiridon to personally take control of Dalek operations on the planet and oversee the Daleks' planned conquest of the Milky Way galaxy.
Renegade Supreme Dalek[]
The Renegade Supreme Dalek led the Daleks during their war against the Movellans and oversaw the plot to seek out the assistance of Davros, only to end up fighting Davros in a civil war for control of the Daleks. After Davros created the Imperial Daleks and used them to take control of Skaro, the Supreme Dalek led the Renegade Daleks against them.
A group of four Daleks assembled by the Dalek Emperor to imagine new ways for the Daleks to survive, the Cult of Skaro were among the few surviving Daleks to survive the Time War. The leader of the Cult, Dalek Sec, oversaw an operation to restore the Daleks to power by freeing the thousands of Daleks imprisoned in the Genesis Ark by the Time Lords and using them to conquer Earth.
Supreme One[]
After Dalek Caan rescued Davros from the Time War, Davros created a new batch of Daleks and formed the New Dalek Empire. The leader of these new Daleks was a Supreme Dalek which Davros dubbed the "Supreme One", who quickly displaced Davros as leader of the New Dalek Empire. Despite this, Davros was able to work out an "arrangement" with the Supreme One and continued to cooperate with his creations, masterminding a plan to wipe out all non-Dalek life in the universe by creating the Reality Bomb.
A white variant of Supreme Dalek spawned by the Progenitor took control of the New Dalek Paradigm upon its creation. It led the New Dalek Paradigm in several operations, including allying with other enemies of the Doctor to seal him in the Pandorica. While at first there was only one Supreme Dalek of the New Dalek Paradigm, it appears multiple Supreme Daleks were manufactured to lead the new Dalek force.
Dalek Prime Minister[]
The Dalek Prime Minister is the head of the Dalek Parliament, which took control of the New Dalek Paradigm at some point following an offscreen shift in the Daleks' organizational structure. It was ranked even above the Supreme Dalek of the New Dalek Paradigm and was continuously fed information through a web of data the Daleks were collectively plugged into that contained information on their entire history.
Hierarchy[]
Supreme Dalek[]
Supreme Daleks are the leaders of the Dalek Empire. They possess distinct casings from regular Daleks and typically oversee large-scale military operations. While the Supreme Daleks have at times served as rulers of the Dalek Empire, despite their name they have at some points been subordinate to other rulers, such as the Dalek Emperor and Dalek Prime Minister.
Gold Daleks are high-ranking commanders of the Dalek military forces, being directly below Supreme Daleks in the Dalek hierarchy. A Gold Dalek was appointed by the Dalek Supreme Council to represent it and oversaw "Operation Divide and Conquer", a plan by the Daleks and the Master to start a war between the human race and the Draconians, as well as the Dalek-occupied Earth in the alternate timeline seen in "Day of the Daleks".
Dalek Saucer Commander[]
Dalek Saucer Commanders are in control of the saucer-like spaceships used by the Daleks for space travel. Their casings are primarily colored black with alternating silver panels. They typically command smaller-scale operations or portions of large-scale ones. A Dalek Saucer Commander oversaw the Daleks' invasion of Earth during the 22nd Century and answered to the Supreme Dalek, acting as its second-in-command in the operation to turn Earth into a superweapon.
Dalek Section Leader[]
Dalek Section Leaders are Dalek drones given a tentative authority over regular Daleks in small-scale operations and outposts. They lacked distinct casings and were expendable in the Dalek hierarchy, making them liable to be executed by higher-ranking Daleks for failure, as seen with the fate of the Dalek Section Leader on Spiridon.
Trivia[]
According to one of the show's writers Terry Nation, the Daleks were deliberately modeled after elements of Nazi ideology: viewing themselves as the superior life form and enact a relentless crusade to destroy all life they consider inferior.
Their battle cry of "exterminate" was also based upon language used by the architects of the Holocaust.
During their appearances in the eras of the First and Second Doctors, they would periodically lift and lower their right plunger arm, as to mimic the Nazi "Sieg Heil."
While Daleks are typically addressed with male pronouns, they are technically genderless.
A common joke during the classic era was that due to their design and lack of legs, Daleks were unable to climb stairs. An Imperial Dalek hovering up a flight of stairs in Remembrance of the Daleks was included by the showrunners to end that joke yet the joke persisted in popular culture. Their supposed inability of being able to climb stairs was referenced in Dalek; their first appearance in the revived series, when a group run up a flight of stairs to escape from a Dalek, thinking it cannot follow after them, only to be shocked when it begins to elevate over the stairs after them. Later episodes of the revived series have shown that Daleks are not only fully capable of flight, but also are capable of flying through space as well.
The Funnybot from South Park is modelled after the Daleks.
The Daleks, along with the Cybermen, Weeping Angels, The Master, and Sontarans are the most popular Doctor Who villains due to being used more than the other villains. In fact, The Daleks are the most popular Doctor Who villains as they appeared in many more media.
The Daleks also make an appearance in Looney Tunes: Back in Action, where they are released by Marvin the Martian in order of Mr. Chairman to cause chaos in Area 52.
The Daleks were included in the film at the suggestion of Mr. Chairman's portrayer Steve Martin, who agreed to do the film upon reading the script if the Daleks were included in the Area 52 sequence. However, this caused Warner Bros. to have legal problems with the estate of Terry Nation, as Warner had assumed that the Daleks were in public domain when they weren't. Either way, the issue was likely solved without complications, as the Daleks were later included in The LEGO Batman Movie.
Despite their iconic and long-running status in the show, some fans of Doctor Who have grown tired of Daleks due to what they see as over-exposure, which diminishes their threat and often resigns them to "mook" style enemies.
One of the many actors to play the Daleks was John Scott Martin who also played the Nucleus Of The Swarm and a member of Crimson Permanent Assurance.
Their bodies served as a body design for Brain from the Teen Titans animated series.
In an episode of Shaun the Sheep called Party Animal, one of the sheep was dressed as a dalek for the costume party that's being held by the farmer.
In Shaun the Sheep: Farmageddon, the sheep disguised themselves as Daleks in order to enter the fair.
Despite Steven Moffat's intention to replace the bronze Tenth Doctor era Daleks with new red drones of the New Dalek Paradigm, fans did NOT react well to the multicolor Daleks. This resulted in-universe changes, with the Dalek Prime Monster prompting the red drones to commanders of the bronze drones; believing the bronze ones would invoke more fear due to their usage in the Time War.
The Three Families The Mother | The Cousin | The Gentleman | Charlotte Wills | Brian Friedkin | Jilly Kitzinger | Blue-eyed man | Jack's Kidnapper | Lyn Peterfield
Batman: Dark Tomorrow (2003) Ra's al Ghul | Black Mask | False Face Society | Ubu | Joker | Killer Croc | Mr. Freeze | Victor Zsasz | Poison Ivy | Talia al Ghul | Ratcatcher | Ventriloquist & Scarface
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Villains
