Second Dalek War The Second Dalek War was a war between the Dalek s and human ity . It was one of a series of conflicts which became known as the Dalek Wars . Origins . In the 26th century , following the human - Draconian War , the Dalek Empire tried to manipulate the rival empires of Earth and Draconia into another war . The Dalek s allied themselves with and supported him with Ogron s , using hypnosound technology to trick human s and Draconian s alike into thinking the other empire was attacking . They also quietly conquered the planet Spiridon and began experiments to turn their armies invisible ; an army of ten thousand Daleks awaited this treatment . However , the Third Doctor exposed their plan , helped General Williams and the Draconian Prince escape from the Master ' s custody and sent a message to the Time Lord s to take him to the Dalek army . With the help of a group of Thal s , the Doctor prevented the Daleks from retrieving the army . Once the Earth and Draconian Empires learned it was the Daleks disturbing the peace , war was declared on the Dalek Empire . ( TV : " Frontier in Space , Planet of the Daleks " ) The war . The Second Dalek War was a vicious conflict that ravaged many worlds and lasted decades . One of the earliest events of the war was the First Dalek Incursion , during which the planet Arkheon was destroyed by Dalek planet splitters . The " Wayfarer " , a ship that would play a crucial role towards the war ' s end , saw action during the incursion . ( PROSE : " Prisoner of the Daleks " ) Earth ' s government enacted emergency powers that allowed it to commandeer personnel , resources and ships from powerful human corporations . ( PROSE : " Love and War , Return of the Living Dad , Deceit " ) Even Earth ' s worst criminals were enlisted after being given the choice of execution or becoming highly armed Dalek Killer soldiers . Bounty hunters could also make a living by killing Daleks and returning their eyestalks to the Earth forces to confirm the kill . They were worth 20 decacredits . ( COMIC : " Abslom Daak . . . Dalek Killer " , PROSE : " Love and War " , " Prisoner of the Daleks " ) Because the war lasted so long , there were many humans born during the time of the conflict that did not know what it was like to live in times of peace . This was referred to as the Dalek Generation . ( PROSE : " Prisoner of the Daleks " ) The Dalek military forces upgraded from their more basic casings that they entered the war with ( TV : " Frontier in Space " , " Planet of the Daleks " ) to a more advanced casing . The Dalek drone s and low - ranking officers were all bronze . ( PROSE : " Prisoner of the Daleks " ) The end of the war . After decades of fighting , the Daleks came to realise that they were losing . To try and secure victory , they tried to utilise the Arkheon Threshold , a rift in time located in the remains of Arkheon , to wipe out humanity from its very beginnings . They captured human prisoners and use them as slave s to dig through the crust of the planet and reach the Threshold . When the TARDIS jumped a time track , the Tenth Doctor found himself on the planet Hurala during the war . After capturing a Dalek prisoner , he loosely joined forces with a crew of Dalek Bounty Hunters on board the " Wayfarer " , a ship commanded by a Space Major who had deserted , Jon Bowman . About the same time , the people of the planet Auros learned of an approaching Dalek fleet . The population destroyed their planet with Osterhagen technology and fled before the Daleks arrived . However , it was all a trap . The Daleks waited for the refugee fleet to come to them and the Dalek Inquisitor General , Dalek X , ordered the citizens sent to work in the Arkheon mines . The Wayfarer crew interrogated their Dalek prisoner . The Doctor extracted — he believed — the Daleks ' plan to use the Arkheon Threshold to achieve victory . He did not realise the Daleks had already found the Threshold until it was too late . The crew and he were taken prisoner on Arkheon and the Doctor admitted who he was . Dalek X arrived to subject the Doctor to torture and extract Bowman ' s brain to learn how to bypass Earth ' s defence systems . The Doctor explained that the Daleks did not have the technology to use the Threshold but Dalek X thought the Doctor ' s TARDIS would allow their plan to succeed . The Doctor took Dalek X to Hurala , using the TARDIS as a lure , where Bowman , Koral and he escaped due to Cuttin ' Edge attacking a Dalek and being exterminated . The Doctor detonated the abandoned fueling station on Hurala , destroying all the Daleks as well as Dalek X ' s flagship , the " Exterminator " . The loss put a huge dent in the Dalek war machine . Earth pushed back their fleet and the Dalek Empire surrendered shortly after . Dalek X was knocked down a gantry and survived the explosion , though was badly damaged and unable to escape . The Doctor visited him after receiving his transmission , but said nobody else would , the Dalek Fleet was in disarray , and that he had sealed the Threshold . ( PROSE : " Prisoner of the Daleks " ) Aftermath and legacy . For the victorious Earth Central forces , the result also led to a major restructuring of humanity ' s intergalactic government . The corporations , formerly masters of human colonies across explored space , had suffered as a result of the Human - Draconian War , the Dalek Plague and the harsh rule enforced on them by Earth ' s rulers . Advances in communications technology helped Earth occupy the vacuum left by the corporations ' rule , and historians such as Galactic Federation Archivist Ven Kalik agreed the seeds of the later Earth Alliance and Earth Empire were sown in the Second Dalek War . ( PROSE : " Deceit " ) The outbreak of the Third Dalek War some time later only worsened the burden felt by the Earth Empire after the Human - Draconian War and the Second Dalek War and their expansionist phase came to an end . Planets such as Mechanus were never colonised and the Mechonoid s created to prepare these planets for colonisation were forgotten about . ( PROSE : " The Chase " ) The Daleks returned to using their more basic casings after the war . ( TV : " Destiny of the Daleks " , " Resurrection of the Daleks " et al . ) However the stronger casings used towards the end of the war eventually came back into use and became standard for all Daleks during the Last Great Time War . ( TV : " Dalek " , " The Last Day " , " The Day of the Doctor " ) The New Dalek Paradigm also made use of the casing for all of their foot soldiers . ( TV : " Asylum of the Daleks " , " The Time of the Doctor " , " Into the Dalek " , COMIC : " The Dalek Project " , PROSE : " The Dalek Generation " )