DALEK STUFF - MORE THAN I REALIZE!
Ironically, the recurring foe that we saw the least in Flux will probably take up the most amount of space to discuss. At first, I thought I would just be dealing with the brief cameos the Daleks make in Once, Upon Time and The Vanquishers and be done with it. But then I made an important realisation:
"Hey Rob," it dawned upon me as I attempted the mental gymnastics of placing the Daleks from Flux in a timeline of some sort, "There are two other Dalek stories that have come out over the last year or so that you still haven't reconciled!"
"Oh yeah!" I said back to myself in sudden surprise, "I should take care of them too!"
I have these sort of conversations with myself quite frequently. Sometimes, I'm just crossing my own timeline while still in the same incarnation. On other occasions, it's a full-on multi-incarnation adventure!
RESOLVING THE REVOLUTION
Shortly after it was transmitted, I went to the trouble of figuring out where the very fun and exciting Resolution fits within the Dalek Timescale. You can read the full entry here if you so desire: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/02/chronologies-and-timelines-history-of.html.
I actually made a very bold claim about the tale. I believe that this is the first story in the New Series that uses a Dalek from before the Time Wars. It is my theory that this Recon Dalek was sent to Earth sometime after the events of The Daleks but before Power of the Daleks.
I find this to be a rare occurrence with how the Doctor has been dealing with the Daleks since the Time Wars. For the most part, Dalek stories have been happening in a fairly linear fashion. I have even postulated that the Daleks might be operating on the equivalent of a Gallifreyan Mean Time. Admittedly, this might not actually be the case. Such rules may not exist for the Daleks. But I do think the Doctor might be making a concerted effort to keep his relationship with his greatest foes as orderly as possible. He tries his best to meet them chronologically. And he is making a concerted effort to avoid dealing with Daleks from before the Time Wars for fear that he might accidentally give them a "sneak preview" of things to come.
Resolution, then, is a bit of an oddity. Clearly, Daleks from after the Time Wars would have no need to send a Recon Dalek to Earth in the 1700s to investigate it. By this point in their history, they know Earth quite well, already. So this has to be a Dalek who comes from that specific time who is scouting the Earth. The battle that splits the Kaled Mutant into three parts represents the very first contact Daleks have with humans.
It stands to reason, then, that the Recon Kaled Mutant that is re-created by Leo Rugazzi from the remains found in the "junkyard chic" Dalek casing left behind in Resolution also hails from the same time period. Chibnall provides us with a very clear narration that this Recon Dalek has come back to make more trouble. That the Kaled Mutant originally comes from the 1700s and re-assembled itself in 2019. A clone of it was then made about a year later. From there, it creates an army that it intends to use to take over the Earth and establish a power base from which it can begin a campaign of galactic conquest.
This Recon Dalek has no idea of the contrived future that its race has forged for itself that we have already seen. It does not know of the other attempts to conquer the Earth that will happen in adventures like The Dalek Invasion of Earth or Frontier in Space. Nor is it aware that its people will eventually wage war against the Time Lords in stories like Day of the Doctor. It does not know, either, that survivors of that Great War will come back to plague the Earth in the early 21st Century in episodes like Army of Ghosts, Doomsday, The Stolen Earth and Journey's End (to make this things even more convoluted, those particular episodes all take place prior to Resolution and Revolution of the Daleks if we are viewing them from the perspective of Earth's timeline!).
While the Recon Dalek is oblivious to all this, it will still be influenced by these events as Daleks from its own far-flung future will come back and complicate things.
ESTABLISHING A SECOND DALEK TIMELINE
So, it seems pretty clear where and when the Recon Dalek and his army come from in Revolution of the Daleks - but that doesn't mean we're done sorting out the timelines for this story. There is a second group of Daleks that we also need to address. I'm speaking, of course, of the Death Squad Daleks. Or the SAS Daleks - as they are nicknamed.
Because of their bronze livery, it's clear to me that these are Post-Time-War Daleks. Sometime after their battles with Gallifrey, they have intentionally placed themselves in the Time Vortex so that they can easily go to any period in history and wipe out Daleks that they deem impure. The Question is: where do they fit in the Dalek Timeline before they entered into the Vortex?
My guess would be that they come from some time shortly after the events of Victory of the Daleks. One of the main elements of that particular story's plot involves Daleks having to prove to the Progenitor's computer that they are "true Daleks" even though they are showing signs of genetic deviation. It would seem to me that, after such an incident, the Daleks would want to create a more concrete solution for the problem of other impure strains that might be out in the Univere. We see by Assylum of the Daleks (a story that takes place a short while later in that particular part of their chronology) that they have become a mighty army, again. They can afford to allocate a small force to the Time Vortex to manage the problem. Their great numbers would also mean that they have no need of these impure Daleks to increase their size. They are just fine with having the rogue Daleks exterminated.
For me, then, the Death Squad Daleks come from some time between Victory of the Daleks and The Pandorica Opens/Big Bang. Or, quite possibly, shortly after Pandorica Opens/Big Bang and Assylum of the Daleks. Dealing with the Cracks in Time the Doctor's exploding TARDIS caused might have been a higher priority than creating a Death Squad. It all depends on just how much time actually passes between Vicotry and Pandorica/Bang. If the Cracks In Time Crisis happens almost immediately after Victory then forming the Death Squad might have taken a bit longer. If it took a while for the disaster to occur, the Death Squad might have come along first. But all three stories, I feel, happen quite close together. I do think the Death Squad would hail from sometime around this period.
If you want a better look at that particular period of their history, here is the entry that covers it: https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/4155651475182736486?blogID=4155651475182736486.
AT LAST, WE GET TO THE FLUX
Finally, we've reached the Daleks that we see in Flux. While we clearly established in Part One of this little dissertation that the Flux is taking place in late 2021, I don't believe the Daleks that we see during the event are from that particular time period. These are, in fact, Daleks from the far-flung future that have travelled back in time and gotten trapped in this period as the Universe seems to be ending.
As usual, I'm going with my philosophy of: "If it's a bronze-liveried Dalek - it's from after the Time Wars." Which is exactly the sort of Dalek we see in both Once, Upon Time and The Vanquishers. Had it actually been Daleks that existed around that era, they would have been more of a gunmetal grey. It's entirely possible, of course, there were some contemporary Daleks roaming about as the Disaster unfolded. We just don't see any of them. More than likely, the Flux wiped them out fairly quickly and these time travelling Daleks were all that remained.
We could easily say that these Daleks came from any period after the Time Wars. Their presence in Flux is so fleeting that we can't really get any kind of clear idea of their true place in the timeline. At no point do we hear a Dalek proclaim: "We have just survived our battle with the Cybermen at Canary Wharf!" or "We just defeated the revolting sewers of Skaro!" or anything like that. Absolutely no clear point of reference is given.
Just to make things simple, though, I'm going to say this is a very recent form of Post-Time-War Dalek. These are Daleks from shortly after their cameo in The Pilot but before their appearance in Twice Upon a Time. Like the Sontarans and Weeping Angels that we spoke of in Part One, there is a huge gap of time that takes place between the two stories I just mentioned. No doubt, more adventures from this era will eventually be made. To get a clearer idea of when these stories take place, you can check out this entry: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/03/chronologies-and-timelines-history-of.html.
There is one big question that still needs to be addressed: What are Daleks from somewhere near the 50th Century suddenly doing in the 21st? The simplest guess would be that an army had been sent into the past on a mission of some sort. Perhaps the Daleks were actually attempting to meddle in time. As they were trying to alter history, the Flux began and they were caught up in it. Gunmetal Grey Contemporary Daleks were destroyed by the Flux but the time-travelling Bronze Time War Survivors were escaping the peril for as long as they could.
I do have a more elaborate theory as to why the Daleks went into the past to encounter the Flux but I'll get into it in the next part of the essay. There is another group of recurring foes that are also doing some time travelling (Hint: their name rhymes with Ryberpen). As I place them in their timeline, I will also divulge my Daleks and Cybermen From the Future Have Purposely Sought out the Flux Hypothesis.
EVE
And now, all that's left is to figure out where Eve of the Daleks fits into all of this. A snippet of dialogue within the story makes it all quite easy. At one point during all those time loops, the Daleks explain that they are a special hit squad dispatched to take out the Doctor as an act of revenge for what she did to their forces in the Flux. The Doctor explains, of course, that she wasn't the one who did it. It was the Sontarans. The Daleks don't care and just want to kill her, anyway.
This means that the hit squad has also travelled from the future. Like the army before them, they would come from some time after The Pilot but before Twice Upon a Time. The large group of Daleks from this period goes back in time first and is wiped out by the Sontaran double-cross. A short while later, the team we see in Eve of the Daleks makes a similar trip to eliminate the Doctor, Yaz and Dan. They also fail.
THAT'S IT FOR DALEKS
With this latest appendix, we are now up-to-date with the chronologies of all the latest Dalek stories and cameos. Revolution of the Daleks. Once, Upon Time, The Vanquishers and Eve of the Daleks now fit into the neat little timeline I've made for them. No doubt, there will be more adventures for me to arrange soon enough.
I will bother to note that at this current place in their timeline (between The Pilot and Twice Upon a Time) the Daleks do seem weak. Pilot indicates that they are, once more, at war with the Movellans. Perhaps, just like last time, the Movellans got in a good shot at them and there's not many Daleks left. On top of the Second Movellan War, they also lost large numbers in the Flux. These losses have greatly damaged their campaign to conquer the Universe. Which is why they would go to the trouble of hunting the Doctor down and trying to eliminate her once and for all. They really want to make sure she will no longer interfere as they attempt to re-build their numbers.
And so ends our second chapter. We still have two more creatures to place in their proper timeline. We will tackle them in Part Three...
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for the comment! It will be posted shortly...