CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES: THE HISTORY OF THE DALEKS CONTINUES SOME MORE - PART TWO

Finally! We're back to our regularly-scheduled entries! No need to try to figure out some of those mysteries Chibnall set up for us in the most recent season or create something celebratory for the latest anniversary of the blog. We can just get back to what I was trying to write about before all these extenuating circumstances occurred! 

When things were normal, I was trying to put a handful of new Dalek stories into my existing timeline. I'd dealt with Resolution first and felt like the entry had gone on long enough. It needed a Part Two. At long last, we're able to do the sequel. 

Since it's been a while, here's the link to Part One: 
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/02/chronologies-and-timelines-history-of.html




It is quite fitting that we divide this particular entry into two separate installments. Part One discussed Resolution: a "proper" Dalek story. The central conflict of Resolution is about dealing with a Dalek. The threat it poses to humanity and the need to eliminate it is the main thrust of the tale.

In Part Two, we are dealing with Dalek cameos. These are adventures where the Doctor's attention was focused on something else entirely for most of the episode. But a Dalek or two briefly gets introduced into the plot for a bit. Their involvement in the story is minimal, though. Once they are no longer needed, they disappear.

Dalek cameos can seem almost negligible, sometimes (I actually forgot to try to figure out a timeframe for when a Dalek briefly appears in Hell Bent and didn't even really deal with the whole thing til I was trying to work out a chronology for the Weeping Angels). But, as fleeting as they can be, it is still fun to try to figure out where they might fit in the overall history of the species.



The Pilot and the Possible Confusion It Can Create

So we're back to handling things in order of transmission. Before Part One of this latest Appendix, we looked at where Magician's Apprentice/Witch's Familiar sits in Dalek History (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/11/chronologies-and-time-lines-history-of.html). The next time a Dalek appears on the show would be near the end of The Pilot.

Where and when this cameo happens is actually somewhat difficult to determine. Details about the whole moment seem purposely vague. It's almost like Moffat is having fun with pathetic little pedants like me who try to make everything fit in its own little place. Nonetheless, I'm going to take a shot at this:

Let's start with the geographical rather than temporal location of the story. As the Doctor is trying to lead the Pilot to the Daleks, we see Nardole looking at the TARDIS console and proclaiming something to the effect of: "Not there! I hate going there!" He is, obviously, looking at a screen of some sort that is displaying the coordinates of their destination. I actually believe that Nardole is seeing that they are bound for Skaro.

The set of corridors they are running around in certainly look like this could be in the Great Dalek City that we first saw in the last Capaldi Dalek story. The conflict they are having with the Movellans appears to be a land-based battle. So either this is Skaro or just a planet the Daleks have occupied and the Movellans are trying to drive them off of it. I'm more inclined to believe it's Skaro.

Which gets me to think that the time Pilot takes place in would be shortly after the events of Apprentice/Familiar. Missy came up with some clever plan to save the Daleks from their revolting sewers (I just can't get enough of that pun) and the Daleks of Skaro are back on their feet. We are only on the Dalek homeworld for a few minutes- but I do believe Davros was probably lurking about somewhere. The TARDIS crew just isn't there long enough to see or hear from him.

Now there are some things that happen in The Pilot that renders the dating process a bit confusing. The first being that we see Movellans. This leads some to believe that the story is taking place around Destiny of the Daleks and/or Resurrection of the Daleks. Since this is when conflicts with the Movellans happened. If this were the case, this would put The Pilot at sometime around the 27th or 28th Century. I'm more inclined to believe that The Pilot takes place shortly after Apprentice/Familiar - which would put it closer to the 50th Century.

To get this to work with the timeline I prefer means that this has to be a second war that we're seeing with this android species. It helps that the Movellans appear to be acting very differently than they did last time we saw them. I believe that they have upgraded themselves since Destiny/Resurrection and now seem to have some level of emotional capacity. So these are Movellans that are much further down the road from the ones we saw in the 27th/28th Century.

Skaro was hidden from the Universe for quite some time. But, since the events of Apprentice/Familiar, the whereabouts of the planet have become widely known. The Movellans have chosen to resurrect their old feud and have taken the fight to the Dalek homeworld. The fact that we are seeing bronze-liveried Daleks is another visual cue to help re-enforce this. Destiny and Resurrection are pre-Time War stories. We only see bronze Daleks after the Time Wars. So this story must be from a second clash with the Movellans.

The other element of confusion is created by something the Doctor says to Bill as they are running around in corridors trying to evade Daleks. Bill asks if they are still in the future and the Doctor says they are now in the past. This would lead one to believe that the whole incident is taking place in some time period before Bill lived. Which would mean some time before the 21st Century. If this is the case, we would even have to disqualify Destiny and Resurrection. It is made quite clear in those tales that we are in a time period far into Earth's future. Apprentice/Familiar, by my reckoning, is at an even later time period.

So then, when is The Pilot taking place? If it is meant to be "in the past" - as the Doctor puts it, then where does it fit in Dalek History?

I would be inclined to believe that when the Doctor says they are now in the past he is speaking in relation to their last destination. The Doctor wants to see if the Pilot can time travel. So they leave modern-day Australia and go several million years into the future. Sure enough, the Pilot finds them within a few minutes. So now the Doctor wants to lead her to the Daleks. There are probably some Daleks kicking about in the time period that is several million years in the future, but he might have a harder time finding them. He wants to visit a time where he definitely knows where the Daleks are. This causes him to have to go back into the past.

So when he is saying: "We're in the past." to Bill. He is actually meaning: "We were millions of years into the future. Now, we're only thousands of years into the future."

This is considerably easier than trying to come up with a war with the Movellans that we never knew about that takes place sometime between The Daleks and the backstory of Resolution! 



Twice Upon A Time - Considerably Easier to Work Out

And so, we continue with the transmission order. Which brings us to one last Dalek cameo before Moffat and Capaldi finally bow out. I'm speaking, of course, of the Triumphant Return of Rusty the Dalek in Twice Upon A Time.

Dating this one is considerably easier than The Pilot. Moff has the Doctor establish a timeline with just one bit of dialogue. However, that dialogue might not be entirely accurate.

After persuading Rusty to get naked, the Doctor claims it's been a few million years since their first meeting during Into the Dalek (which would take place sometime in the mid-to-late 40th Century). However, the mention of New Earth in the video Rusty digs up of the Glass Woman would suggest an even later period. Something more akin to a billion years or so.

This puts the appearance of Rusty as being one of the most far-flung into the future. Rusty is probably not the last of his kind, either. We see that other Daleks come to Villengard on a regular basis to try to kill him. He's happy to just destroy their casings and let the mutants within scamper about. I get the impression that the occasional lone Dalek chooses to undertake the mission to kill Rusty. All those Kaled Mutants running around is an accumulation of many solo attempts that have been made on Rusty's life. Which indicates to me that there are tonnes of other Daleks out there that just can't be bothered to come to the ruins of the weapons factory and try to kill him. Which indicates that, even a billion or so years into the future, the Daleks are still thriving.

The only appearance later than this would be the Dalek cameo during Hell Bent. Which is, technically, taking place near the end of the Universe. We don't know, however, if the Dalek we see captured in the Cloisters is the last of its kind. By my reckoning, that Dalek would have first been trapped in the Matrix some time after the Ravalox Incident involving the Andromedans. Which, according to a vague dating we're given in Mysterious Planet, is several million years into the future. That one Dalek ends up at the Death of the Universe because Gallifrey, itself, goes there to hide for a bit. The Dalek is transported there rather than being something that has properly survived all that time. So it could be that, sometime between Twice and Hell, the Daleks do finally die out. Rusty might have even been the one to do that job. But there's really not enough for us to go on. It's equally possible that the Daleks make it all the way to the end of the Universe.

In many ways, however, Rusty's cameo in Twice Upon a Time does represent the latest period in Dalek History. The cameo in Hell Bent is a bit of a cheat since there's some time travel involved.


A Bit More Predicting That Will, More Than Likely, Prove Wrong... 

Once more, we are current on placing the latest Dalek appearances in some kind of chronological order. Yes, another Dalek story is scheduled to come out over the Holidays. I didn't feel like waiting that long to do this, though.

Doing this chronology now also allows me to make a few more unsuccessful predictions about what that Holiday Dalek Story might be about.

The title of the episode has been released. As have a few pics from the filming of the story. The name Revolution of the Daleks and images of two different models of the Daleks does seem to insinuate that a hope of mine might be coming true: we may be getting another Dalek Civil War of some sort.

If you bothered to read my Appendix that places Magician's Apprentice/Witch's Familiar in a timeline, you'll have seen that I was already entertaining the idea that there might be two distinct factions that were developing. I called one the Spacefaring Faction and the other the Skarosian Natives (or something like that). I was hoping that these two groups might clash against each other in a future story.

Could something of this nature actually be happening? They might not quite be the schisms that I described. I postulated that Davros and the Supreme Dalek would be running the Skarosian Natives while the Spacefarers might be lead by someone like the Dalek Prime Minister that we saw in Assylum of the Daleks. But it might not quite be that power structure.

Still, it does look like we will be seeing Dalek fighting Dalek. Which, for some odd reason, I find greatly exciting. Truth be told, it makes for some generally static visuals. But, somehow, that's highly entertaining for me!





Appendix to Dalek History is now complete. Let's see if my latest prediction is even close to being vaguely accurate....


Once more, if you're feeling brave (God knows you've got some time on your hands, right now, with this pandemic). Here is everything I have ever written on Dalek History: 


Original Entries: 

Part 1: 
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/06/chronologies-and-timelines-tymecian.html.

Part 2: 
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/06/chronologies-and-timelines-part-2-of.html

Part 3:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/07/chronologies-and-timelines-episode.html

Part 4: 
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/07/chronologies-and-timelines-episode-4-of.html

Part 5: 
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/07/chronologies-and-timelines-episode-5-of.html





First Appendix:   
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/11/chronologies-and-time-lines-history-of.html.

Second Appendix - Part 1: 
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/02/chronologies-and-timelines-history-of.html