CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES:

Episode 5 of The Tymecian version of Dalek History (a.k.a - The Right Version)

We've reached the end, at last. Just a few stories left to place in some sense of proper order and one or two more continuity issues to come up with an explanation for. Hope you've enjoyed the ride. We'll go back to shorter posts for a bit after this! 

PART FIVE:   A POSSIBLE ALTERED TIMELINE AND THE NEW DALEK PARADIGM 

And now, things get a bit tricky with continuity.   As we would only later learn, Cracks in Time are formed when the Doctor's TARDIS explodes in The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang.   These Cracks seem to have some kind of strange effect on Amy Pond's memories of the Dalek invasion that takes place sometime around 2008 (or, possibly 2009 because of the trickiness of dating RTD stories on contemporary Earth).    Could it be possible that these Cracks did more than just affect Amy's memories?   Have they erased the memories of the entire population of Earth?    Or perhaps, even, somehow erased the events altogether (the Cybernaught adventure in 18th Century London seems to suffer a similar fate).    Perhaps the Doctor and a few other key people who were "at the eye of the storm" of this temporal re-adjustment recall the event.   But, otherwise, the whole invasion has been either forgotten or even deleted from Time because of the Cracks.   The only way this becomes a legitimate problem is when we consider that Adelaide Brookes is inspired by a Dalek she saw in the invasion.    But, perhaps, in the timeline altered by the Cracks, something else influences her to explore space.    Or, perhaps she still recalls the events because she is such an important part of a Fixed Point.   Who can tell?  But it does seem that the Dalek attack on Earth in 2008/2009 becomes a non-event that is only remembered by a select few. 

Which is why Henry Van-Statten has no idea what he has locked up in his bunker in 2012 even though he should've been able to clearly identify it as a Dalek.    In his memory, the invasion that occurred a few years previously has now never happened because of the Cracks in Time that we will see in the Eleventh Doctor's adventures.

   

The Ninth Doctor lands in this new timeline and the storyline of Dalek takes place.  This is his initial encounter with the Daleks after the Time Wars - but within the experiences of the Dalek race, quite a bit has already happened for them since the battles they fought against the Time Lords.    But because this is his first time he fights them, when the Dalek self-destructs at the end of the tale, the Doctor believes he has seen the last Dalek die.  He is, of course, intensely wrong!

  

 And now we must launch ourselves' into the far-flung future. In an unseen adventure during the Time Wars, the Emperor Dalek escapes the Time Lock that has been put around the whole event.  He emerges from the War in a damaged Dalek saucer and arrives in Earth's solar system.   Somewhere, more than likely, near its outskirts.  Around the year 199 800 or so.  The Emperor is badly damaged but has survived.   Slowly, he rebuilds and restores himself.   And then sets about re-building a Dalek army.    But even in a time where the Daleks are only a vague memory, he decides to move as covertly as possible.   

            

Like the Dalek in Van Statten's museum - he believes himself to be the sole survivor of the Time Wars.   He can find no trace of the Cult of Skaro that he sealed inside a Void Ship with an imprisoned Dalek army so he must assume that they failed in their mission to keep the Dalek race alive.  The Emperor takes it upon himself to re-establish the Daleks' presence in the Universe.   But since he is alone and floating in the solar system of one of his greatest enemies - he knows he must be shrewd and stealthy.        

            

With a slow deliberateness, the Emperor sets things up so that he can begin acquiring genetic material to work with.   More than likely, he started by just raiding passing ships and harvesting the few cells from human passengers that he deemed worthy of being cultivated into Dalek embroyo.     He infused some of his own cells into the mix and breeds a Kaled Mutant/Human hybrid and places it inside a Dalek shell (perhaps he has records of when Davros did something similar on the planet Necros).   Eventually, he assembles a small squad to keep him company in his saucer and they begin to expand exponentially. 

            

Building more Dalek ships, the raiding parties acquire further genetic material more quickly.    And the army grows some more.  But the Emperor knows he must watch his step.   If his exploits become too big and noticeable, Earth might do something about him.   And with such a small force, he'll offer little or no resistance. 

            

As we start reaching 199 900, the Emperor Dalek changes tactics.   He sees that Earth is going through a period of Rapid Expansion and takes measures to prevent it.  He knows that a rapidly expanding Human Empire might detect his activities and bring them to an abrupt end.   If Earth is kept under restraint, he can keep harvesting from Humanity with little opposition. 

            

The Dalek Emperor actually comes up with an excellent strategy to contain Humanity that also accelerates his plan.   Now equipped with a good strong understanding of the Human Condition, he begins to manipulate the population through use of the media.   Eventually, he is able to work from behind the scenes enough to centralise Earth's media production into one main network on Satellite Five. Where he can truly control the flow of information and cause Earth to stay massively isolated.    But the Emperor still wishes to maintain his anonymity in all this.   He strikes a deal with a Jagrafess and allows him to run the operation.    The whole time, however, he is setting up a secondary system through the satellite that will enable him to abduct humans with even greater frequency.

            

It is here that the events of The Long Game occur.   Not truly a Dalek story, I know.   But a set-up to one that is soon to come.    In fact, one can almost call The Long Game/Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways a three-parter with a big space in it for other stories.

   

Even with the deposing of the Jagrafess, the Emperor's plans can't be brought to a halt.   In fact, the timing is perfect.    The Emperor has set up a transmat relay and a cloaking signal within Satellite Five and can now begin his reconstruction of the Dalek Empire in deadly earnest.   Humans are now forced regularly to participate in murderous game shows and are sent to his saucer squad to be used and processed for Dalek conversion.   

The Emperor is able to run this operation for a nice century or so and has now amassed a huge force of Daleks that is nearly ready to sweep out and conquer the Universe, once more.    He's also developed a ridiculous god-complex during all his time in isolation and has become a religion unto himself.   

            

And so, Doctor Nine returns to the scene and Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways takes place.    

            

Somehow, a few Daleks survive Rose's Wrath.    We see in the next story that Dalek saucers do have time travel capabilities. So, more than likely, one of the ships on the edge of the fleet just managed to time jump as  Rose's "ripple of destruction" was engulfing them.    But it managed only the narrowest of escapes.   The ship was badly damaged and only a handful of the crew survived.   

            

Those last few Daleks begin to scour the cosmos looking for any remaining signs of Dalek civilization that they might be able to exploit.  They have probably conceded to the idea of abiding to a sort of "Dalek Mean Time" (similiar to the idea of a "Gallifreyan Mean Time" that many fans believe Time Lords adhere to) and won't, therefore, go into their own past and steal from themselves', anymore.    So in the current time that they're in (perhaps they've returned to the 42nd/43rd Century?), they manage to make a crucial find: they discover an old Progenitor from their days of conquest before the Time Wars.   The Progenitor contains a huge supply of Dalek genetic material and can, of course, produce a massive force for them.  This a great discovery that could easilly restore them to a former glory.   After all, a single Progenitor did that for them way back in the 28th Century.      

            

Of course, they also run into a huge obstacle.   The Progenitor, with its massive security protocols, no longer recognizes them as true Daleks because their DNA is mixed with human material.    It will not accept their instructions to re-commence building Daleks because it is not certain that these are actual Daleks making the request.   The Daleks do manage to get the computer that controls the Progenitor to concede to Dalek production if the operators can get a testimony from their greatest enemy to confirm their identity.      

            

A scheme is hatched to lure in the Doctor to verify them to the Progenitor.    Knowing his favorite haunts in Time and Space and actually managing to trace some communications in the Time Vortex that were sent to the TARDIS, the Daleks present themselves' as a gift to Churchill's War Effort in the 1940s.   Victory of the Daleks takes place and a new Dalek Paradigm is born.   A new model of Dalek emerges from the Progenitor.    Dalek society, itself, has always been very functional and class-based - but never moreso than now.    Daleks charged with very specific tasks receive very specific liveries.   In Victory, we see five distinct Dalek categories:  the Drone, the Strategist, the Scientist, the Eternal (whatever that is!) and the Supreme (now white instead of black).   We will later see in a cameo in The Wedding of River Song that there may be still more classes in their new social structure since a Dalek with an entirely different colour scheme from the five we saw in Victory is briefly glimpsed.   

            

Their escape back into the future with a now-active Progenitor can only mean one thing - a new Dalek army is rising.   More than likely, the Daleks have returned to where they left things off before they entered the Time Wars in the 42nd or 43rd Century.   Or they may have gone all the way back to the Year 200 100.   Or some other point in Time.   We can't say for sure, yet, until we get a better look at what they're up to.    At this point, the show has been pretty non-specific about what they're doing these days.

            

However, it does seem that a good solid Dalek army is back in action and that the Daleks are playing at intergalactic politics again (but in their own, ruthlessly treacherous way, of course).    Apparently, this latest class-driven Dalek society formed an alliance with various other races that despise the Doctor and have purposely created a trap to capture him in.   Only the goals of the Daleks seem almost altruistic this time.   Discovering that the Doctor's TARDIS would explode and destroy the Universe - they hatch a scheme to permanently imprison the Doctor beneath Stone Henge on 2nd Century Earth in hopes that this would stop the cataclysmic event from ever happening.

            

And so, The Pandorica Opens/Big Bang occurs.

            

We get a strong indication that the Daleks are major operators in this Alliance Against The Doctor.    Since most of the races attending the whole imprisonment event don't seem to have time travel technology, it seems likely that the Daleks set up a nice big Time Corridor for everyone to fly through and take them back to Stone Henge in the Second Century.   The fact that the Supreme Dalek stands at the forefront of the event would also show that a great degree of reverence was accorded to the Daleks. 

            

We then come to Asylum of the Daleks.    The Daleks, for some reason, are not fooled by the news of the Doctor's death and recruit him and his companions Rory and Amy to deal with the planet where they dump all their warriors who have gone insane.   We now see that they have a huge army again - but we still can't be sure what point in Time they are existing in.    We know it's somewhere in the future as we see humans that seem to be travelling quite comfortably in spaceships.  

 

Perhaps the most bizarre new trait of Dalek society that we see developing is an aptitude for some sort of gross bastardization of democracy.   There is now a Dalek Parliament led by a Dalek Prime Minister.    The Supreme Dalek is still a major player in the pecking order, but the Prime Minister seems a superior rank to even him.  The standard "grunt Dalek" still looks the same with his gold livery.   The multi-coloured ones with the different shape that we saw emerge from the Progenitor in Victory only seem to be higher-ranking officials.    We also see that their army has swelled to an enormous number again.    Gone are the days where only a few Daleks were rummaging around the Universe trying to save themselves'.    They are back in full force, now.  The Doctor doesn't manage to completely wipe out this latest army like he has in other recent stories like Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways or Stolen Earth/Journey's End.   Perhaps he sees that this group of Daleks won't prove to be quite as deadly of a threat as previous large-scale Dalek operations have been.

   

Most interesting, of course, is what happens at the end of this latest conflict.    Oswyn Oswald, the mysterious companion who keeps dieing and coming back, erased all records that the Daleks had of the Doctor.   He is, once more, a complete stranger to them.

   

Oswyn’s efforts, however, are quickly nullified in the next adventure we see involving Daleks. In Time of the Doctor, the Daleks are one of the many races responding to the message Gallifrey is sending out from Trenzalore. In their battle with the Papal Mainframe, the Daleks recover information about the Doctor from the church’s records. They know who the Doctor is again, and take steps towards destroying him in the village of Christmas. Those plans eventually fail as the Doctor induces a whole new regeneration cycle granted to him by the Time Lords and uses his excess regenerative energy as a weapon against a Dalek mothership that had entered Trenzalore’s atmosphere to observe the final demise of their greatest enemy.

No doubt, this was just one of many motherships still floating around the cosmos somewhere in our own future. We still don’t know, for sure, what year this current Dalek army has situated itself in but we are seeing human colony worlds so we know this must be some century way past our own. The Dalek menace has definitely survived beyond the battle at Trenzalore.

Into the Dalek offers us a better idea of where in the future those Daleks might be. We’re still not entirely sure what era these gold-liveried Daleks now find themselves’ in  but we are definitely in the far-flung future.  The notorious “Tella-Tubby Daleks” seemed to have totally disappeared – we do see a Dalek giving a lot of orders but it bears the shape of the Daleks we’ve been seeing most frequently in the New Series rather than Daleks that were first created in Victory. But it’s also entirely possible that the Victory Daleks are still lurking about, somewhere.

            

Humanity doesn’t look to be in good shape, though. It does almost seem like, possibly, the Daleks are finally winning in the conflicts against Earth-Occupied Space. The humans that we see fighting against them seem more like a group of rebels trying to take them out rather than a proper army. It’s difficult to tell, though. These could just be humans on a deep-reconnaissance mission and that’s why we see them in such a small amount. Or it could be that the Daleks are finally conquering humanity and there are only small pockets of resistance left. Again, it’s difficult to tell.

I would be inclined to believe, though, that we are in a period of time and space that takes place after the 40^th Century (post-Dalek Masterplan). That the Daleks have returned to where they had left things off before the Time War. And I do think that, just this once, they are succeeding in the quest to eliminate humanity and conquer the part of the galaxy that humans currently occupy.

Of course, the creation of “Rusty the Good Dalek” could change things drastically. We saw in Evil of the Daleks how just three Daleks could make a serious difference in Dalek ideology. Rusty’s attitude could prove to be a serious poisoning of the well if he’s able to start interacting with other Daleks out there. Will he make the difference that humanity needs, right now?

            

We'll have to wait and see...

            

CONCLUSION: 

           

            

There you have it: an arrangement of stories that makes the best chronological sense of all the Dalek adventures that the show has, so far, produced.    It should be noted that most of my suppositions were based on the levels of technology that the Daleks were displaying in those tales.    Daleks dependent on primitive forms of locomotion like static electricity or satellite dishes are obviously nearer to the beginning of their history (the First Doctor claiming that Dalek Invasion of Earth takes place before The Daleks, by the way, is just completely inaccurate.  He was simply making a wild guess that was totally wrong).   

            

There are also a whole series of stories in which there is no indication that the Daleks have discovered time travel, yet.    This becomes the second era in Dalek history: the period where the Daleks don't appear to be based on Skaro and are waging an ongoing inter-galactic war with Earth.   

Next, of course, are the stories where Daleks are showing signs of primitive time travel technology.   The days of Time Corridors and the Return to Skaro.    Shortly thereafter, are the tales in which Daleks appear to have built TARDISes of their own.   We can only presume that, after acquiring such advanced time travel skills, they become worthy adversaries for Gallifrey and the Time Wars ensue.

      

All New Who stories take place after the Time Wars and can, therefore, happen in a fairly chronolgical order.    Dalek and Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways get slightly re-arranged, of course.   Otherwise, the Doctor and the Daleks seem to be moving along the Causal Nexus in a, more or less, linear fashion to each other.    Unlike Classic Who, where the Doctor appears to be jumping up and down throughout their history.

Another important point of this whole useless exercise was to try to make sense of some of the continuity glitches that have occurred in various Dalek stories.    I have done my best to explain problems like the Kaled/Dal discrepancy that we see in the Origins of the Daleks.   Or the fact that Henry Van Statten doesn't realize he has a Dalek in his bunker in 2012 even though there was a massive Dalek invasion only a few years earlier.

  

I hope that you have found my explanations of such problems to be both creative and feasible.