Slowly but surely,we're getting through those Davros Stories. We're not-so-much trying to arrange his tales in a proper chronological order as we are trying to get certain inconsistencies in those adventures to work. Technically, this is more of a FIXING CONTINUITY GLITCHES exercise. But, since we're going through all of his stories as we do it, it feels like a CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES essay, instead.
Anyhow, let's pick things back up at the end of Revelation of the Daleks.
A DALEK CIVIL WAR
And so, as the catacombs on Necros are destroyed, Davros gets hauled off by a group of darker-liveried Daleks to be brought back to Skaro to stand trial for treason against the Dalek Race. One gets the impression his punishment will be harsher than another 90 years in cryogenic suspension.
And yet, somehow, a sentence is never given. When next we see the Daleks, a civil war is going on. The white-liveried Daleks are fighting the dark-liveried Daleks. And, in a surprise twist, Davros has discarded the final vestiges of his humanity and become the Emperor for the White Daleks.
How exactly did all these changes occur?
I suppose we could accuse Andrew Cartmel of being as lazy as his predecessor. But, really, this isn't too hard of a leap to make. We've seen the Daleks engage in civil war, before (although, if we go by my timeline, that civil war occurs after this one - still, the audience has seen this sort of thing before and can easily accept it). We also know Davros is getting pretty good at getting the Daleks to obey him, these days. So you've got several factors, here, that make it easy to work out a probable sequence of events that would lead to what we see in Remembrance of the Daleks.
My guess is that Davros was returned to Skaro. The Daleks have now built a massive city over the underground bunker that once contained them. He is put on trial and delivers an impassioned speech about his rightful place in the Dalek chain of command. This sows the first seeds of dissent. The Daleks don't just start following him right away, but some become hesitant to exterminate him. A debate ensues about what should be done with their creator.
This is all the time Davros needs. We have seen that he possesses a special injector that causes anyone he uses it on to become totally obedient to him. While the Daleks argue, he manages to convert the chemical compound within the injector into a sort of airborne virus. It begins seeping through the ventilation system of the city. Daleks come in contact with it and transform into complete slaves to Davros. Daleks in more distant sections of the city start witnessing the effects and manage to seal themselves off before the gas can reach them. This is how the rift is initially caused. Daleks loyal to Davros protect him and drive away the ones that believe him to be a traitor.
It doesn't take long for Davros to send a force to Necros to unearth the army he had been building there.Those Daleks on Skaro that he affected with his mind control serum have their livery changed to match those from Necros. His army on Necros is awakened and return to Skaro. Davros now has the sheer weight of numbers on his side. He decides he is the rightful leader of the Dalek Empire.
Those Daleks who refuse to follow Davros are lesser in number and are, therefore, declared Renegades. There are enough of them to have a small spacefleet. They have also appointed one of their kind to be the Supreme Dalek and changed his livery to black.
Shortly thereafter, the Doctor intentionally leaks some information about the Hand of Omega to the Imperial Daleks. Hungry for power, Davros sends a mothership back in time to Earth in 1963. Somehow, the Renegade Daleks manage to steal that knowledge. Using a time controller, they also go back in time to retrieve the stellar manipulator.
Remembrance of the Daleks happens around now.
INTO NEW WHO
As the totally awesome Remembrance of the Daleks concludes (my second-favorite Doctor Who story, ever - read it about it right here: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2016/01/book-of-lists-top-ten-who-stories-2.html), we are not given a Davros Cliffhanger, this time. We very clearly see him escaping the horrible fate he brought upon himself. Things are left wide open so that he can menace the Doctor again in a future story.
There is a tonne of irony that this gesture creates. Firstly, the show appears to end a season later. So it looks as though the return appearance that Ben Aaronivitch sets up is never going to happen. But when the show does finally return - how things were left in the Classic Series with Davros creates complications. We'll try to fix those problems in just a few short paragraphs.
We should mention that sometime around this period in Davros' timeline he receives a visit from a model of Dalek he's never seen before. They have a strange bronze livery and seem to suddenly like nuts and bolts. These odd new Daleks claim to be from the future. They explain to Davros that the Children of Skaro have begun an ultimate battle with the Lords of Time and that he is needed in the war effort. Deciding there's not much left of his empire, anyway, he accepts the call of duty.
The Daleks transport Davros back to the future and he assists them in the Time Wars. Details of this notorious cosmic event are still sketchy, at best. But we do know that Davros eventually flies a ship that he's using into some strange being known as the Nightmare Child and is presumed to be dead. Somehow, he survives the experience. My guess is the Nightmare Child decides that killing Davros is not cruel enough. Instead, the Kaled scientist is sent back into the "normal universe"and is timelocked out of the war. This would hurt Davros far worse than the end of his existence. To not be allowed to help his creation in their greatest moment of peril would be a fate far worse than death for him.
Left in isolation somewhere in deep space, Davros sets himself to work on building a new Dalek empire. The ship he used to fly into the Nightmare Child has a lab on board. Using cells from his own body, he begins to construct a new army of Daleks. This army will eventually grow to the point that they can develop a new sort of super weapon that will truly make the Daleks the masters of all of time and space. It takes a while, but Davros does eventually set up the events of Stolen Earth/Journey's End.
THE NEW WHO DAVROS CONUNDRUM (INSTEAD OF THE TSURANGA)
Because Davros has literally surrendered so much of his own flesh to make a new Dalek army, his life support system triggers another artificial tissue regeneration. Which causes, of course, another change in appearance. But the amount of his cells that have been used for Dalek-making causes the regeneration to take some time. Even by Stolen Earth/Journey's End, there are chunks of him still missing.
There are, however, other discrepancies in Davros' appearance that need addressing. In Remembrance of the Daleks, he appears to be nothing more than a head mounted inside the casing of an Emperor Dalek. But during his reveal in Stolen Earth, he's gotten his torso and arm back. He also appears to have a mechanical hand. Basically, we seem to be ignoring what happened to him in Remembrance. He's gone back to what he would look like after Revelation of the Daleks if he had just gotten his hand replaced from having it shot off by Orcini.
Has Remembrance of the Daleks been, somehow, purged from the timelines? A freak side effect of the Time Wars, perhaps? Or did the production team just think: "A Dalek Emperor Davros would be really convoluted to explain to a new audience!?
It's obviously that last point but let's see if we can find some way to explain why Davros is the way he is in New Who:
Between Revelation and Remembrance, Davros secures a Dalek Empire on Skaro. Once he's settled in, he gets his hand replaced mechanically. He remembers how much he's enjoyed having a spare head as a decoy so he manufactures another one. He goes much further with the misdirection this time, though. Hiding himself somewhere beneath the Dalek City in a sort of panic room, Davros places the cloned head in the casing of an Emperor Dalek. The decoy becomes a sort of figurehead leader for his army. The real Davros can monitor everything through him and deliver instructions to him through a secret communication system (perhaps, even, a telepathic link?). It's a perfect arrangement. Actual Davros stays safe in a bunker while Decoy Davros wanders around taking all the real risks.
We don't know, for sure, what happens to the Emperor Dalek version of Davros after it escapes the Hand of Omega. My guess is Davros engages some sort of self-destruct protocol he built into the casing just before he leaves for the Time Wars. Or, perhaps, that spare head is still wandering around the Universe and will return, someday, in a super-contrived continuity-nightmare of a story where it battles with the real Davros for supremacy over the Dalek Race. Jest all you want at such a prospect. We did just recently have an adventure where the Doctor went back to the beginning of the Cybermen, met two versions of the Master and then regenerated with his first incarnation. If stories like that can be written, Davros fighting his own head isn't beyond us!
ANOTHER UNSOLVED CLIFFHANGER
Once again, the 80s Davros Story tradition continues as Journey's End reaches its conclusion. Davros remains in the Crucible even though the Doctor tries to urge him into the TARDIS. He curses angrily at the Doctor as his control center comes tumbling down around him. With no choice left, the Doctor leaves him there. Presumably to die.
This was not the case, however. A few seasons later, Davros makes his return in Magician's Apprentice/Witch's Familiar. He's on Skaro, now (or, more appropriately, New Skaro). He's built up another army and realizes he's finally in the proper place in the Doctor's timeline to torment the Time Lord about abandoning him as child in the handmine field.
No mention is given on how he made it from a crumbling Crucible to a city on Skaro (yes, I wrote that sentence that way to enjoy the alliteration). So we need to fill in a few gaps:
It's my guess that Davros totally stole Dalek Caan's emergency temporal shift gear when no one was looking. While he didn't like the fact that his batch of Daleks in Stolen/End turns on him, he chooses not to shift out while he's kept prisoner in the basement. Only if his plans for universal destruction somehow fail will he take that option. So, when that finally does happen, he ducks out before getting blown up.
He has pre-programmed the emergency temporal shift equipment to take him to New Skaro where he knows some remnants of the Daleks still linger. There's some Kaled mutants wandering about and some ruined casings lying around - but that's enough for Davros to re-build an army. He sets himself to work. He also manages to genetically re-engineer a colony of Skarosian snakes to work as a hive mind together. They are obedient to him and will protect him at all costs.
It's my guess that Davros found Daleks that were blindly obedient to him like they were in various 80s stories were a bit too inefficient. Which is why he bestows a sense of free will in them again in New Who. But when they keep him as a pet in the Crucible, he takes out a few precautions on Skaro.
He remembers what the Doctor told him about mercy way back in his childhood and gives this latest batch of Daleks just a bit of that emotion in their programming. Hopefully, this will make them nicer to him. Particularly as he's starting to get real old to the point where his life support system can no longer sustain him. He will need the lifeforce of his new army to keep him alive. As an extra precaution, however, he also installs a personal force field around himself. You can never be too careful.
AFTERWORD
Again, we get a bit of a Ben Aaronivitch treatment, here. It's very obvious Davros is still alive as Witch's Apprentice concludes. We've even learnt that Missy seems to have saved the Daleks from their revolting sewers. We're not sure, how - but perhaps it will be explained in a forthcoming Davros story. As, no doubt, there will be another one sometime in the future.
I am still hoping he has to fight his own head!
Okay, another CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES in the can. I'll try to keep 'em coming for as long as I can. You guys indicate by the high number of hits that they get that you seem to really like them.
Here's the other two parts in case you've missed them:
Part 1
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2019/04/chronologies-and-timelines-davros.html
Part 2
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2019/04/chronologies-and-timelines-personal.html
Also, you may want to check out this particular part in my Dalek History essay. It explains New Skaro a bit better:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/07/chronologies-and-timelines-episode.html
Also, also: give this Appendix a read. It goes into a bit more detail about Davros' activities on New Skaro:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/11/chronologies-and-time-lines-history-of.html
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