CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES:

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

Again, because of the length of this one, I am releasing the chapters over the next little while in installments so that it's a bit more digestible! Since the entire essay is complete, the wait between posts won't be quite as long as it normally is. This third installment will finish dealing with Daleks in the Classic Series. 

PART THREE:   THE ESCAPE FROM SKARO AND THE MASTERY OF TIME

We are now near the end of the 28th Century. As was mentioned in Remembrance of the Daleks, Skaro has been re-colonized by our favorite Kaled Mutants. However, by returning to their homeworld, they have trapped themselves' on a planet that is soon to be destroyed by the Hand of Omega.    

Sometime around this era, the Daleks manage to capture the Master and decide to punish him for his crimes against the Universe.  Or, perhaps, they were merely just mad at him for his failure in Frontier In Space. Or the Master did something to annoy them in some other unseen adventure.  Or it’s entirely possible it was none of these options. Some fans do theorize that this whole trial was a scam concocted between the Master and the Daleks to lure the Doctor into a trap.   All that we know for sure is that at the beginning of Doctor Who - The Movie, the Daleks have the Master on Skaro and have executed him.    They also seem to have developed the most bizarre voices they've ever used! 

            

We must also guess that sometime during this period, Davros seems to have disappeared from Dalek politics.   None can say for sure exactly what became of him.    It's my bet that the Daleks from the future that were embarking upon the Time Wars went back in time for him to enlist his services for the oncoming battle.   They plucked him from the past and brought him to a future point in time where the War against the Time Lords is just beginning.   This best explains how there are several stories before the Time Wars that don't involve him but then he suddenly returns in the New Series to become a threat, once more.

            

Although Davros seems to have disappeared under mysterious circumstances, the 28th Century Daleks that he has abandoned remember him well.   They are, in fact, quite impressed with his idea of an Emperor Dalek.    After years of being the black-liveried Supreme Dalek, the ultimate leader of these intergalactic conquerors receives an upgrade and becomes the gigantic but less-than-mobile Dalek Emperor.  

            

It's also my guess that the Daleks were actually being heavily forced back by their many enemies during this era of their history.    The war with the Movellans and their own civil war have greatly reduced their number.   They can no longer properly maintain their own Empire.   Many of the worlds that they once occupied have liberated themselves' and are fighting back hard - pushing them back onto Skaro where what remains of their population has become deeply entrenched.  

            

And at the head of this assault is the Planet Earth.   Humanity has suffered at the hands of these ruthless dominators one time too many and are determined to wipe out the threat of the Daleks once and for all.  It may even be possible that they have, somehow, learnt that Skaro is soon to be destroyed by the Hand of Omega and are purposely forcing the Daleks to stay on their homeworld. Knowing that the future is coming to wipe them out.  

            

The Daleks, themselves', are now desperate.   They are trapped on a planet that they know will soon be destroyed.   So they hatch the most contrived of schemes.   They decide to fully explore the nature of the human psyche and find ways to properly exploit it.    With little or no rescources left, psychological warfare is their last hope.

            

It is most likely that the secret Cult of Skaro is initially put together in this era.    The Daleks, at this point, are greatly interested in unraveling the mystery of Human Nature.   And, at the same time, they are still on the planet Skaro - so they're more likely to give a taskforce a name like that!   Whether or not the Cult exists from this point onward and is always living among the Dalek race or is also spirited away into the future to assist in the Time Wars is uncertain.   But the Cult is definitely involved in the Time Wars and openly claims that the Emperor Dalek was in charge of forming the organization.   My guess is the Emperor assembled the group in this period of Dalek history and then used the Cult again when he re-encountered them in the Time Wars.   What the Cult got up to, exactly, between these two time periods is anyone's guess!             

            

When the Cult of Skaro doesn't seem to be making much progress, another plan is formed to figure out how humans work and  the events of Evil of the Daleks take place. Or, perhaps, it was the Cult of Skaro that was secretly engineering the events of this story from behind the scenes but we never see them onscreen.

            

By the end of Evil, it does look like there is little left of the Once Great Dalek Empire.   Another Civil War has swept through them.  There are probably a few survivors still lurking about on Skaro when the civil unrest subsides and they begin to try to re-organize themselves'.   But their efforts to reconstruct their society seem almost useless since the world they are trapped on is destined to soon explode.   

            

It is strongly implied that the Dalek Emperor somehow survives Evil of the Daleks. The Emperor Dalek probably helped re-build Dalek society for a bit but he eventually disappears from this time period.  Since he does a similar vanishing act to Davros - one might guess that the same thing was done to him.  Perhaps when Davros was lost in the battle against the Nightmare Child (whatever that is!), the Daleks from the Time War plucked another of their "greatest heroes" from their own past to lead them to victory.   Whatever the case, from hereon in, we are back to a Black Supreme Dalek running things. More than likely, this was a Dalek who was just beneath the Emperor in status that just took over after his disappearance.    Like Davros, the Emperor is not seen again until the New Series.  

            

What's left of the Daleks does rebuild itself into some kind of army.   More than likely, this is done under somewhat secret circumstances (a return to the underground bunker from which they initially emerged all that time ago?)  Perhaps the various enemy forces that have been forcing them to stay on Skaro observed the huge civil war that devastated their city and believe that they have witnessed the final end of the Daleks.    They turn their attention elsewhere and the Daleks are able to replenish their numbers without the rest of the Universe knowing.

            

A key discovery in Dalek technology becomes vital to boosting their population.   With the need to increase their numbers now a top priority, the Daleks manage to unearth some of the research Davros did while he was on Necros.   From that research, the first Progenitor is created: a machine that can store massive amounts of genetic raw material and create a Dalek army at will.   

            

The Daleks realize, of course, that this discovery can very easily lead to their own destruction.   Should the Progenitor fall into enemy hands, an army of re-programmed Daleks could be raised against them.  They have seen the devastation caused when Dalek fights Dalek and have learnt their lesson.   They build massive security protocols into the Progenitor to ensure that the controls only respond to Daleks. 

            

While their population has become quite healthy, mass exodus seems impossible.    The enemies that have forced them to stay on Skaro haven't abandoned all interest in them.   Should an attempt be made to rebuild the Dalek Spacefleet, these enemies would take notice of it and attack the Daleks in full force before they could put too many ships into the sky.    Once more, the Daleks must use subtlety to solve their problems.  

            

And so, they return their attention to time travel mechanics.   While they've been dabbling with Time Corridors for quite a while (sometime around Ressurection, they perfect this form of time travel), further research into this domain leads them into building TARDISes of their own.   Their very first prototype TARDIS is sent on the most crucial of missions.    While the Daleks have received many brutal bashings at the hands of Earth and its surrounding colonies, they still recognize the Doctor as their greatest enemy.   Many of their greatest defeats were caused by him.   So a special hit squad is put together and sent back to the earliest days of the Doctor's own personal timeline.   The Daleks believe that if they can kill the Doctor in his past, then many of the blows he struck against them will be wiped away since his own future versions will not be around to cause them.  Such a gesture could even eliminate the ensuing attack from the Hand of Omega and enable the Dalek race to continue living safely on Skaro.           

            

They manage to locate the Doctor in his first incarnation and send their hit squad after him.    The events of The Chase take place.    

            

The failed assassination attempt brutally sets things back for the Daleks.   As has been often witnessed in the series, time travel requires enormous power and resources.    The Daleks had put everything they had into building a TARDIS.   They had hoped that the death of the First Doctor would cause the timelines to re-set things in a way where they would find themselves' in much better shape than they currently were.

            

In a last-ditch effort, they concentrate their resources on their Time Corridor technology.   The entire Dalek population climbs aboard a huge colony ship and abandons the doomed planet of Skaro.   The colony ship quickly passes through a time corridor they've erected and makes a huge time jump into the future (perhaps a thousand years or so) and then closes down the corridor once the jump is complete.   They now have little energy left, but they have made it off Skaro before the Hand of Omega could devastate it.  If such a trip took place, it would account for the absence of Dalek stories that we see between Evil of the Daleks/The Chase (late 28th/early 29th Century) and The Dalek Masterplan (early 40th Century).    

            

With only one Progenitor in operation and little energy to power it, the Dalek population is still only so large.   So they turn their attention back to more conventional forms of conquest and begin to build up an empire in much the same way as they did in their earliest days.   They conquer worlds one-by-one, gut them, enslave or exterminate their native population and move on.  In their usual arrogance, they decide to re-christen one of the planets they’ve conquered as Skaro (or New Skaro) and use it as their center-of-operations. How long this new version of Skaro lasts – no one knows for sure. But Skaro is mentioned in The Dalek Masterplan (the timeship they pursue the Doctor with in the later episodes is sent from Skaro to Kembel) so I’m coming up with a flimsy fan-theory to compensate for it! Although, others who have attempted to chronicle Dalek history have also used the concept of a New Skaro. We do see the Eleventh Doctor making a brief visit to Skaro in Asylum of the Daleks. I'm prone to believe that it is, technically, the New Skaro of this era that we are witnessing in that scene. Post-Time-War Daleks are making a brief visit into their own past to set a trap for the Doctor. They don't stay for long, though. They don't want to cause any kind of damage to their own timelines.        

But the time jump the 29th Century Daleks made a thousand years into the future has served them well.    Many of the more prominent Intergalactic Power Blocs have only the vaguest recollection of what the Daleks had been like and little is done to stop them in their plans of conquest.   

Their galactic conquests do increase exponentially as more Progenitors are now getting built.   With such a quick easy way to increase their numbers, the Daleks start sweeping through the galaxy at great speed.   However, they are now playing on a different chessboard.   Their attempts to rule the cosmos before the 30th Century went more smoothly because they were so much more advanced than their rivals.   Here in the late 30th Century, many civilizations have matched or even surpassed their level of technology.  Taking on some of the more prominent galactic empires proves far more difficult for them.  

            

Eventually, however, the Daleks amass enough energy and resources from their plunders to put their time travel campaigns back into full swing.    More TARDISes are built and the idea of using Time as a form of weaponry begins to get explored. 

            

But at the same time, the Daleks are playing a very careful game of intergalactic politics.   They are still not quite powerful enough to hold their own against the rest of the Universe like they did in the past.  So they begin forming secret alliances with various other galactic empires.     Dalek treachery has been largely forgotten about, of course, and these empires trust that the conquerors from Skaro will honor the agreements they make with them.   

            

At this point, the Daleks create their ultimate weapon: the Time Destructor.    The Dalek Masterplan ensues. 

While their plans with the Time Destructor don't quite go the way they intended, the Daleks are certain they have reached a point in temporal engineering where they truly rival the Time Lords. Having known about the Gallifreyans for quite some time, they despised them for their technological superiority and have longed to conquer them. We have seen an assassination attempt in Ressurection and a campaign to steal Time Lord weaponry in Remembrance.  But now, the Daleks feel that they are at a level where they no longer need stealth or treachery. They can make a full frontal assault on the homeworld of the Time Lords with their own personal might. 

War is declared.