Skaro

Skaro, as it appears briefly in Paradox of the Daleks

### Inhabitants

Kaleds, Thals, Magnedons, lake mutants, Mutos, Slythers, giant clams, dinosaur-like creatures, Dals, Varga plants, Zomites, Daleks

**Skaro** was the homeworld of the Thals, of the Kaleds, and infamously, of the Daleks. The latter came to be during the Thousand Year War between the Thals and Kaleds because of the actions of the Kaled scientist Davros. After its devastation and irradiation during this war, Skaro became uninhabitable to humanoids without regular anti-radioactivity drug treatments. Subsequent attacks on the planet caused by the Dalek presence would eventually lead to its destruction at the hands of the Seventh Doctor using the Hand of Omega.

## Astronomical data

### Location

Most accounts placed Skaro as a long way away from Earth: one explained that it was in the Seventh Galaxy and nine galaxies away from Earth, (COMIC: *Legacy of Yesteryear*) while another account described Skaro as being "in the next universe but one", (PROSE: *Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks*) while another stated that Skaro was "half a universe away" from Earth. (COMIC: *The Planet of the Daleks*)

According to one account, Skaro was a wandering "mystery planet". It moved into Earth's Solar System in the 25th century, becoming located at an elliptical orbit around Earth's Sun. During this time, its orbit crossed that of Uranus and occasionally put it in the vicinity of Jupiter and Saturn. The Daleks seemingly had nothing to do with this movement, and, indeed, were frightened by the fact that Skaro's new position put it within reaches of Earth's expansionist space empire. (COMIC: *Invasion of the Daleks*)

It was the twelfth planet in its solar system. (TV: "The Ambush") Skaro's nearest neighbour was a planet called Alvega. (COMIC: *The Amaryll Challenge*)

### Nature

Skaro's radius, from the surface to the centre of its cold planetary core (the Ice Heart of Skaro), was about 10000 miles. Directly below the surface of Skaro was a "cellular layer" consisting of a network of caves inhabited by tunnel beasts. Below were the Zone of Eternal Dark, home to eerie glowing creatures; the Stratum of Screaming Winds, inhabited by Suckers; the Abyss of Death with its walls of living rock; the "depths of unknown" with their masters the Krakis; and finally the Morass, encasing the Ice Heart directly, domain of the sponge people. (COMIC: *The Dalek Trap*)

### Landscape

Before neutronic war broke out, the Daleks' humanoid forefathers and their rivals the Thals lived on two separate continents of Darren and Davius, separated by the Ocean of Ooze. (COMIC: *Genesis of Evil*) Shortly before the Thousand Year War, the Thals and the Kaleds seemed to live together on peaceful terms, with the main city of Skaro being inhabited by the leaders of both species. (TV: *Paradox of the Daleks*) By the end of the Thousand Year War, Skaro had a single large continent as the stage of the ongoing conflict between the Thals and the Kaleds. The continent was, however, divided in two by an immense mountain range. (TV: *Genesis of the Daleks*)

Much of Skaro was a wasteland, devoid of all life after centuries of war. (TV: *Genesis of the Daleks*)

A jungle once grew near the Dalek City. Following an exchange of neutron bombs, the jungle was petrified. Radiation levels across most of the planet remained high. There were less irradiated plateaus where the Thals lived. (TV: *The Daleks*)

Hydrothermal activity was indicated by the presence of place names like "Geyser Swamp". However all bodies of liquid may not have been composed of water. At least one river was known to be comprised of sulphuric acid, and the geysers in Geyser Swamp spewed mercury, rather than steam. (COMIC: *Duel of the Daleks*)

The planet had polar ice caps. The mountains at one of the poles were known as the Polar Mountains. (COMIC: *Legacy of Yesteryear*)

### Geographic features

#### Continents/regions

There were various regions on Skaro, notably Davius, Dalazar, the Wastelands and Darren. (COMIC: *Genesis of Evil*)

#### Rivers, lakes, and oceans

The Ocean of Ooze was an ocean on Skaro that separated Davius and Dalazar. (COMIC: *Genesis of Evil*) Additionally, there were several seas such as the Bottomless Sea, the Sea of Acid, the Sea of Rust, the Serpent Sea and even the River of Whirling Waters.

One area was also known as the Geyser Swamp.

#### Settlements

Many cities and settlements existed on Skaro throughout its history, though the Thousand Year War made much of the planet's surface an inhospitable wilderness. One of the earliest was known simply as the main city of Skaro, which housed the elites of both the Kaled and Thal races shortly before the Thousand Year War broke out. (TV: *Paradox of the Daleks*) The Darrien province and the Kaled Dome dated back to the Kaled/Thal occupation of the planet, (TV: *The Daleks*) but by far the most notorious and enduring conurbation on Skaro was the Dalek City, built by the Daleks immediately after their emergence (COMIC: *Power Play*) and used as their main base of power on Skaro throughout their history. (TV: *The Daleks*, *The Evil of the Daleks*)

#### Native life

Some of the native species included the Varga plants (TV: *Mission to the Unknown*) and Slythers. (TV: *The Dalek Invasion of Earth*) The Lake of Mutations was home to a variety of life-forms, including the terrorkon and the Lake Monsters. (TV: *The Daleks*, COMIC: *The Terrorkon Harvest*) At least one area of the planet was inhabited by large dinosaur-like creatures. (COMIC: *The Planet of the Daleks*) Another Skarosian life form were magnedons; most perished in the war, leaving the landscape littered with their metallic exoskeletons. (TV: *The Daleks*)

The Mutos were mutated Kaleds and Thals, and the species which became most associated with Skaro, the Daleks, likewise descended from the Kaleds. (TV: *Genesis of the Daleks*) According to one divergent account, which made no mention of the Kaleds, the sapient species at odds with the Thals were short, large-headed, blue-skinned humanoids who already called themselves "Daleks". (COMIC: *Genesis of Evil*) Yet another dissenting account uniquely held the Daleks' planet of origin to not have been Skaro at all but rather Ameron. (PROSE: *We are the Daleks!*)

Intelligent insects called Zomites also lived on Skaro even well into the metallic Daleks' occupation of the planet; the Daleks considered them a "pest" and worked to destroy them, even allowing other "inferior" creatures to live on Skaro if they helped in the extermination of the Zomites. (COMIC: *The Daleks Destroy the Zomites*)

## History

### Pre-War history

Prior to the Thousand Year War, the Kaleds and the Thals lived at relative peace with one another. This had culminated in the building of the main city of Skaro, where the Grandmaster and High Priest of the Kaleds both resided, as well as the leaders of the Thals. At some point just before war began, the Kaled scientist Davros travelled back in time with the help of the Monk, and asserted himself as Grandmaster, intending to use Daleks brought back with him to massacre the Thals before war could break out and assert Kaled superiority. His plans were foiled by the intervention of the Eighth Doctor, Bernice Summerfield and Norman Manning, with the latter two starting a Thal uprising against the Daleks, which eventually spiralled out of control. This was the catalyst for the two races turning against each other and the Thousand Year War starting. The Doctor attributed Davros' attempt to end the war before it had begun as being the primary factor in starting the war, dubbing the event the "paradox of the Daleks". (TV: *Paradox of the Daleks*)

Following the neutronic war, Alydon described Skaro as once having been a great world "full of ideas and art and invention" before war had destroyed it all. (TV: *The Daleks*)

### A war-torn world: creation of the Daleks

According to one account, by the time of the creation of the cyborgs known as the Daleks, the Kaleds and the Thals fought the Thousand Year War over the wasteland adjacent to the Kaled Dome. (TV: *Genesis of the Daleks*) Whilst differing as to the length and circumstances of the war, many other accounts agreed that the Daleks had come about in the aftermath of a war between the Daleks' humanoid forefathers and the Thals. (TV: *The Daleks*, COMIC: *Genesis of Evil*)

Technology had devolved in this time. A Scientific Elite governed the Kaleds. By this phase of the war, biological and nuclear weapons had begun to cause mutations known as Mutos. (TV: *Genesis of the Daleks*) The Thals also underwent many mutations as a result of the War, though they eventually reverted to a humanoid form similar to their original one. (TV: *The Daleks*)

Although some accounts stated that these mutations of the Thals' nemeses led to their becoming the familiar tentacular blobs of hateful flesh who sealed themselves in armoured travel machines to become the Daleks, (TV: *The Daleks*, COMIC: *Genesis of Evil*) another held that before it came to that, the Kaled scientists saw the increasing number of Mutos as the end of their species in its "pure" form. Davros, now the Kaled chief scientist, decided to accelerate the mutations on purpose to determine their "ultimate form" and placed the results in travel machines, though not before making his own alterations to their genetic code to make sure that they would be heartless killers with an innate belief in their own supremacy, making them the perfect warriors as conceived of by Davros: "soldiers who would never, ever stop". (TV: *Genesis of the Daleks*)

The Fourth Doctor, transported to this time period by the Time Lords to prevent a possible future where the Daleks would rule the universe, was given the chance to destroy the first incubating Dalek embryos but feared that he had not the moral right to wipe an entire species of sentient lifeforms from history, never mind how infamous. The Doctor nevertheless played a part in entombing these early Daleks in their bunker, from which he hoped it would take them centuries to escape. The Daleks still survived and promised to re-emerge. (TV: *Genesis of the Daleks*)

A neutronic war capped off the long-standing conflict between the Thals and their nemeses, leaving Skaro utterly inhospitable to the lifeforms who had flourished there before it. Some Thals survived by developing an anti-radiation drug, (TV: *The Daleks*, COMIC: *Genesis of Evil*) whilst what few numbers of their humanoid enemies had survived the neutronic strike died of radiation poisoning. (COMIC: *Genesis of Evil*) The Daleks, on the other hand, could survive in the irradiated atmosphere thanks to their travel machines. (TV: *The Daleks*)

After building a Dalek City for themselves, (COMIC: *Power Play*) the Daleks believed the Thals to have been utterly annihilated at the end of the war, though they had in truth merely faded into obscurity by forsaking most technology and becoming peaceful farmers. (TV: *The Daleks*)

### The aftermath of the Thousand Year War, Neutronic War and Dalek Creation

Dependent on a constant feed of static electricity, the Daleks were limited to movement along inductive metal surfaces. (TV: *The Daleks*) It was speculated that prior to the Thal-Dalek battle, the Daleks had made some progress in colonising their planet. (PROSE: *Doctor Who and the Dalek Invasion of Earth*) The Thals meanwhile believed that they were now of intellectual and physical perfection. They lived a simple pastoral and pacifist lifestyle on a high plateau that was spared the neutronic fallout, though their lifestyle was dependent on a great rainfall that came every four to five years. When the rain was two years overdue, the Thals left their plateau in search of new food sources. (TV: *The Daleks*)

When the First Doctor fled prehistoric Earth, (TV: *An Unearthly Child*) his TARDIS brought him to Skaro, where he encountered the Daleks for the first time.

The Doctor's companion, Ian Chesterton, taught the Thals to use violence in self-defence, in order to protect themselves against the xenophobic Daleks who threatened them. The Daleks came to know, during this time, that they had adapted to become dependent on radiation. With levels subsiding and their lives threatened, the Daleks proposed to set off another neutron bomb. As this would take too long, the Daleks instead planned to release radiation from nuclear reactors into the atmosphere.

A combined effort by the Doctor, his companions and the Thals resulted in the electricity supply for the city being cut off, leaving the Daleks immobile and powerless. The Doctor and his companions believed the Daleks had died to the last, and lamented that they had not found another, less bloody way to save the Thals. (TV: *The Daleks*) One account suggested that the Thal-Dalek battle had taken place eighteen months prior to 31 July 2065, logically placing this fateful alien visit to Skaro in early 2064. (PROSE: *Peaceful Thals Ambushed!*)

However, the Dalek race survived. The Doctor would later theorise that they had other colonies on Skaro. Nevertheless, the Daleks did turn their attention towards the conquest of space, and, notably targeting Earth in the 22nd century (though that invasion was thwarted by the Doctor), steadily forged a sprawling Dalek Empire. (TV: *The Dalek Invasion of Earth*, COMIC: *The Amaryll Challenge*, *Legacy of Yesteryear*, *The Road to Conflict* et al.)

The Doctor, Ian and Barbara Wright visited Skaro again, where they inadvertently helped the Daleks exterminate their pests, the Zomites. (COMIC: *The Daleks Destroy the Zomites*)

### Spaceflight era and after

By the 25th century, Skaro was a "wandering planet". It drifted into Earth's solar system, leading the Emperor to attempt to conquer the system and enslave humanity, partially out of fear that the rapidly-expanding Earth Empire might conquer Skaro, instead. (COMIC: *Invasion of the Daleks*)

By the 26th century, it seemed that the Thals had reclaimed Skaro from the Daleks. (TV: *Planet of the Daleks*) However, by 4000 Skaro appeared to be under Dalek control, as Daleks on Kembel requested a Dalek time machine from Skaro. (TV: *The Daleks’ Master Plan*)

A thousand years after the events on Kembel, the Dalek Prime had moved into a larger casing at the cost of his mobility, (PROSE: *The Evil of the Daleks*) ruling Skaro from within the Dalek City. In this era, the Second Doctor attempted to cause the Daleks' "final end", introducing the Human Factor in a faction of Daleks to spark a devastating Dalek Civil War. (TV: *The Evil of the Daleks*) The humanised Daleks were ultimately forced to flee Skaro in a captured saucer. (TV: *Children of the Revolution*)

Skaro was under the control of the Dalek Prime's forces during the Dalek-Movellan War. (TV: *Destiny of the Daleks*)

### Destruction of Skaro

Skaro was destroyed when, as planned by the Seventh Doctor, the Hand of Omega detonated its sun, causing it to go supernova. The stellar explosion released a shockwave which quickly struck the nearby world. It ripped and burned the planet to smithereens. (TV: *Remembrance of the Daleks*)

According to another account, however Skaro was destroyed when a powerful being known as the Father of Time, who was in truth the Doctor's own future self, took the First Doctor and Susan Foreman shortly before they landed at 76 Totter's Lane to the Skaro of the "unforeseeable future", being careful not to reveal the name of the Daleks to them, (COMIC: *The Test of Time*) as they had yet to meet them on a much earlier Skaro. (TV: *The Daleks*)

There, the Doctor and Susan met two advanced Daleks in spiked, bumpless casings, who were guarding Zone X, where an excavation into the very heart of Skaro could be accessed. Before the Daleks could exterminate the two Time Lords, the planet began to tear itself apart, the final consequence of all the abuse the Daleks had put themselves through. The Doctor and Susan survived by thinking to ride out the storm from the very heart of the planet; considering that they had passed his "test", the Father of Time pulled Susan and the Doctor back into their TARDIS just as Skaro imploded. (COMIC: *The Test of Time*)

### Alternate timelines

In an alternative 22nd century, the Daleks conquered Earth after World War III had occurred there in the 20th century, and transported Earth's mineral wealth back to Skaro. This timeline was eventually averted by the Third Doctor. (TV: *Day of the Daleks*)

## Behind the Scenes

*The Discontinuity Guide* made the claim that, originally, Davros was killed and forgotten by the Daleks. In the original timeline, the Thousand Year War was ended by a neutron bomb detonated by the Thals, with the advanced Daleks fleeing the planet in a hastily constructed spacecraft whilst more primitive Daleks, the early products of Davros' experimental program, remained in the Dalek City. After the primitive Daleks were wiped out in the Thal-Dalek battle, the advanced Daleks returned to make Skaro their home until the Dalek Civil War forced them to depart once again, leaving the Thals in peace before they developed space travel, fighting the Daleks in the Spiridon campaign. Eventually, at some point between the years 3500 and 4000, the Daleks returned to Skaro once again and wiped out the Thals who lived there. The Fourth Doctor's interference in the creation of the Daleks creates a new timeline in which Davros survived. In this timeline, Skaro is ultimately destroyed by the Hand of Omega. *The Discontinuity Guide* takes the Seventh Doctor's words that the Black Dalek Leader in 1963 is "a thousand years from a disintergrated home" literally whilst conceding that it is more likely in the future than the past, thus Skaro is destroyed somewhere around the 30th century.

According to the non-narrative source *The Dalek Pocketbook and Space Travellers Guide*, the Island of Gushing Gold was a landmark on Skaro which jetted molten gold into the air.