Thousand Year War The Thousand Year War pitted the two indigenous peoples of Skaro , the Kaled s and the Thal s , against one another . The conflict ravaged the planet with radiation , forcing the remaining combatants to live within domed cities . The war created a third race of sorts in the Muto s , made outcasts due to their disfigurement . Even as the cause of the war was lost to memory , both sides remained committed to victory - and the Kaleds achieved a scientific breakthrough when Davros engineered the Dalek s . History . Causes . By the latter stages of the war , neither the Kaleds nor the Thals could remember why it had started . ( AUDIO : " Davros " ) By the time that the Fourth Doctor visited Skaro on a mission to prevent the creation of the Dalek s , the Thal s and Kaled s lived in two domed cities overlooking a polluted wasteland . The Scientific Elite , headed by Davros and his assistant Nyder , and a Military Elite hoped to create weapons that would finally bring victory . The use of nuclear , chemical and biological weapons had led to genetic mutations among both Thals and Kaleds , disparagingly referred to as Muto s . The Mutos were driven out by the Thals and the Kaleds to keep their races pure . By this time both sides had become so desperate for soldiers that they were deploying boys in their early teens on the battlefield and the chief Kaled commander , General Ravon , was a young man in his early twenties . ( TV : " Genesis of the Daleks " ) Weapons and technology . An anachronistic mixture of technologies on the battlefield showed a society which had devolved rather than evolved , with combatants using energy weapons alongside rifles and machine guns and engaging in trench warfare as in Earth ' s early 20th century . Their uniforms were frequently mismatched - soldiers could be seen wearing modern combat jackets made of synthetic fibre with other articles of uniform made of leather . In the long - range , as well as the biological and nuclear weapons already mentioned , both sides used chemical rockets . Towards the end of the war , the Thals intended to use a neutronic missile against the Kaleds . ( TV : " Genesis of the Daleks " ) On the battlefield , mutant Handmine s were used . Kanzo was pulled underground by one , while a boy Davros , having been lost on the battlefield of the War , was surrounded by them . At that point , both laser - firing biplane s and bow s were used on the battlefield . ( TV : " The Magician ' s Apprentice " ) After an encounter with a future version of Davros , the Twelfth Doctor rescued Davros from the battlefield in order to teach him the concept of mercy . ( TV : " The Witch ' s Familiar " ) Conclusion . Davros gave the Thals information to allow them to breach the Kaled Dome , causing massive casualties amongst Davros ' own people . This provided a rationale for the Kaleds in turn to set the newly created Dalek s against the Thals . At last , a Thal rocket destroyed the Kaled Dome . Thals , led by Bettan , and Mutos , led by Sevrin , joined to fight against the Daleks emerging from the ruined Kaled city . ( TV : " Genesis of the Daleks " ) The records held by the Daleks and the Thals from over five hundred years after the war ended were heavily corrupted , describing the war as just a quick neutronic war , and not lasting for centuries . According to Alydon , Skaro , which Alydon described as " a great world , full of ideas and art and invention " , was destroyed in one day . ( TV : " The Expedition " ) One Dalek claimed that after the neutronic war , the Daleks ' " forefathers " retire d into the Dalek City , and protected themselves from the fallout inside their machines . ( TV : " The Survivors " ) Alternate timeline . In an alternate timeline , the war , known as the Neutron War , was caused accidentally . Though the Dalek s still developed , in this timeline they became peace - loving academics . Skaro was the universal centre of civilisation , philosophy , democracy and art , visited from all over the universe . ( PROSE : " The Ripple Effect " )