Davros

Davros, as he appears in Resurrection of the Daleks

SP Bowling (2021)

**Davros**, often referred to by his creations as **the Creator**, was originally the head of the Kaled Scientific Elite on the planet Skaro, but he became better known as the creator of the Daleks. The results of his attempts to bring the war on Skaro to an end were not as he envisioned, because the Daleks wiped out both the Thal and Kaled races, save for himself. Davros survived the centuries, using whatever medical assistance was available to sustain his life.

For a time, he sought to create a race of Daleks loyal to him, which led to the Imperial-Renegade Civil War, where he served as Emperor of the loyal Daleks, and later of the Dalek race as a whole. But his relationship with them was always a tense one. He was frequently hunted, maligned, or otherwise denigrated by one portion or other of the Daleks.

Davros had a brilliant scientific mind, and was constantly devising ways to give his creations greatness; often overlooking the fact they saw him as beneath them, and would often keep him imprisoned, either because he was a threat or for his genius.

Through his creations, many came to consider him responsible for trillions of deaths and innumerable wars across the universe. Despite the fact that he was not unquestionably the ruler of the Daleks, he was one of the Doctor's greatest enemies, rivalling the Master in both intellect and madness. Despite this, both Davros and the Doctor called each other friends on separate occasions. Davros considered the Doctor the closest thing that the scientist had to a familiar, even as they served as foes.

## Biography

### Scientific career

At some point during his career, Davros was grievously wounded by a Thal bombardment of his laboratory in the Kaled Dome which cost him his left arm and entire lower body and left his eyes with severe damage to the point where using them would cause great pain. He was forced to spend the rest of his life confined to a mobile life support system attached to a wheelchair, with an eyestalk-bulb in his forehead that gave him partial eyesight without the use of his own eyes. (TV: *Paradox of the Daleks*)

In his life-support system, Davros was identified as a mutant. (TV: *Destiny of the Daleks*) Thirty seconds without his life support would have killed him. The life support system was controlled by a switch on the panel of buttons on his system. (TV: *Genesis of the Daleks*)

### Creation of the Daleks

With his equally ruthless aide, Nyder, Davros ascended to a high rank in the Kaled Scientific Elite and ultimately presided over the creation of the Daleks. Having foreseen that over time the Kaleds would mutate and degenerate into mutants who could not live on their own, Davros set about accelerating this evolution. He also made alterations of his own to the Dalek genome, filtering out qualities Davros deemed "weak" to make his creations the ultimate warriors.

At any rate, since the mutant creatures could not survive on their own, Davros created mobile casings for them, also making sure that they were equipped with fearsome weapons, as Davros's true ambition was to create the ultimate warrior lifeform, able to dominate Skaro forever.

However, an intervention by the Time Lords began a chain of events after that. The Fourth Doctor was sent to Skaro at this time when Davros first demonstrated the Daleks to the Kaled Scientific Elite. With the presence of the Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith and Harry Sullivan contradicting his claim that only Skaro could support life in the galaxy, (TV: *Genesis of the Daleks*) Davros was enlightened to the wider universe and changed his ambitions from conquering Skaro to mastering the universe, by any means necessary. (TV: *Paradox of the Daleks*) Davros imprisoned the Doctor. He used a lie detector to force the Doctor to reveal the details of the Daleks' future defeats, so that he could learn from them and so his creations, the Daleks, could avoid them (the Doctor later had this record destroyed). Davros refused to listen to the Doctor when he begged him to make the Daleks peaceful creatures of good, rather than the evil exterminators they would become. (TV: *Genesis of the Daleks*)

### "Death" and revival

Upon activation, the Daleks exterminated Nyder. However, Davros soon became their next victim, ironically because of the programming that he himself had given them: to exterminate all those who were not pure Dalek. He begged them to have pity on him but they stated that were incapable of doing so as he had not programmed them to feel pity. (TV: *Genesis of the Daleks*)

Unbeknownst to the Daleks, they had actually only damaged his primary life support system. The secondary and backup circuits switched on immediately, placing him in suspended animation while his life support worked to regenerate him.

After a lengthy time had passed, the Daleks, now a major galactic power, sought to revive Davros so that he might offer them a way out of the impasse in their war with the Movellans. Both sides were in a stalemate because they were androids that relied solely on logical moves, so Davros's organic mind would be able to think of ways to circumvent the situation. (TV: *Destiny of the Daleks*) When the Daleks approached their abandoned homeworld, Davros began to awaken, feeling the return of his children and noting to himself that he would ensure he became their emperor. Unknown to Davros, the Doctor also returned to Skaro (WC: *Risen*) by chance.

As the Daleks searched for their creator, Davros's suspended body was eventually found in the underground remains of the crumbled bunker by the Doctor, making his foe the first face he saw after he was revived. Upon uniting with the Daleks, Davros opted to help the Daleks in their war against the Movellans. He devised a plan to destroy a Movellan ship. After this failed, he was captured by the Doctor and the escaped Dalek slaves, and imprisoned in a cryogenic freezer as "a block of ice". As anticipated by Tyssan, Davros was to stand trial for "crimes against the whole of sentient creation". (TV: *Destiny of the Daleks*)

### Liberation

The humans decreed an indefinite sentence of suspended animation while Davros retained full consciousness. After ninety years, the Daleks, led by the Black Dalek Leader, liberated Davros from his prison station in space, and revived him again. They believed he might help them to find a cure for the virus with which the Movellans defeated them, a virus that attacked only Dalek tissue. Pretending to research the cure, Davros experimented on Daleks to bring them under his control. The Doctor, now in his fifth incarnation, attempted to kill Davros at this time, though he lacked the resolve to do so directly. His treachery discovered by the Dalek Supreme, Davros released the Movellan virus onto the prison ship, killing all the Daleks on board.

The virus began affecting Davros, who tried to flee to an escape pod before Stien caused the station and the prison ship to explode. (TV: *Resurrection of the Daleks*)

### 23rd century invasion of Earth

In the hundred years leading up to the Earth year 2254, Davros and the Daleks witnessed the human race advance their scientific knowledge to the point of becoming a threat. Ultimately, Davros decided that this problem needed to be rectified and so launched an invasion of Earth, intending to turn it into a Dalek production planet. He also stole a Time Ring from Gallifrey. (GAME: *Dalek Attack*)

Davros genetically tested a group of humans. Modifying their brains to remove their emotions of compassion, love and pity, Davros converted them into drones; as such, these drones were, like the Daleks, Davros's children. As the Daleks continued their 23rd century bombardment of the Earth colony of Phobos, Drone 77 and Drone 69, formerly a human male and female respectively, were questioned by Davros. When they behaved in a fashion indicating disgust for him, both moving away when he went to touch them, and demonstrated fear by seeking comfort in each other's arms, Davros ordered their extermination. As he left, he wondered if the same behaviour that he so despised also existed in the Daleks. (PROSE: *An Incident Concerning the Continual Bombardment of the Phobos Colony*)

Back on Skaro in 2254, Davros addressed the Battle Commander Daleks in the presence of the Emperor Dalek, commencing the invasion of Earth. However, the Eighth Doctor led a resistance against the Daleks on Earth. Confronting Davros on Skaro, the Doctor informed Davros that his invasion of Earth had been foiled and that the Time Lords would ensure that he would never threaten the universe again. Davros was then frozen in time. (GAME: *Dalek Attack*)

### Emperor of the Imperial Dalek Faction

#### Foundation of the Imperium

Davros survived and set himself up as "the Great Healer" on the planet Necros, operating through a fake head as a lure for assassins, and lured the Sixth Doctor there. Using the dead bodies of the rich and powerful stored at Tranquil Repose, Davros created a new race of Daleks with white and gold livery, creating a faction of "Imperial Daleks" who were totally loyal to him. However, those who Davros deemed to be not intelligent enough for his plans were converted into concentrated protein instead, becoming food for settlers in the rapidly expanding sector to combat famine.

After Kara hired Orcini, a knight of the Grand Order of Oberon, to assassinate Davros, they destroyed his fake head, and the real Davros subdued them. Davros then brought the Doctor to him, gleefully informing him that, while his allies, Natasha and Grigory, had destroyed the lab, they had been killed, and his main force of Daleks was elsewhere. During this encounter, Orcini's squire, Bostock, destroyed Davros's hand. The Supreme Dalek's forces arrived on Necros after being called in by another Tranquil Repose worker Takis and captured him to put him on trial, with his army being destroyed by Orcini. (TV: *Revelation of the Daleks*)

#### Trial

According to some accounts, Davros was then taken to Skaro, to be put on trial by the ruling Dalek Emperor (COMIC: *Emperor of the Daleks!*) and a jury of Daleks. (PROSE: *The Shoreditch Incident*)

According to one account, before a sentence could be passed, however, the Sixth Doctor released a virus onto the Daleks, saved Davros, taking him on board his TARDIS. (COMIC: *Emperor of the Daleks!*) By suggestion of the Doctor, (COMIC: *Up Above the Gods*) Davros hid himself on Spiridon, along with his empire of Daleks. The Daleks who had put him on trial before came to return him to Skaro, but his Daleks held them off. Davros detonated the planet, killing the Daleks. He woke highly injured, four days into the Dalek civil war, in a new casing as the Dalek Emperor. The Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War had begun. (COMIC: *Emperor of the Daleks!*)

#### Emperor of the Daleks

Davros was thus able to form his faction of "Imperial Daleks" and waged a civil war against the so-called "Renegade Daleks" loyal to the Supreme Dalek and the Dalek Prime. (PROSE: *Remembrance of the Daleks*, *Destruction of the Daleks*) Still, the factionalism present in Dalek ranks since the end of the Movellan war meant that not every renegade sect was at war with Davros. (PROSE: *Remembrance of the Daleks*)

In addition to the war against the renegades, Davros' Imperial Daleks waged the "liquidation war" against the Thals, the "war of vengeance" against the Movellans and the "time campaign". (PROSE: *Remembrance of the Daleks*)

Davros came to learn of an ancient Time Lord weapon known as the Hand of Omega that had been hidden by the First Doctor on Earth in November 1963. Completely encased within an Imperial Dalek-like shell, though his head and upper body still appeared to be at least partially Kaled, by this point, he personally lead the Imperial mothership to the time zone to steal the weapon, intending to make his Daleks the new Lords of Time. Decieved by the Seventh Doctor, he was nearly killed when his ship was destroyed by the Hand of Omega, but survived once again in an escape pod. (TV: *Remembrance of the Daleks*)

### After the Hand of Omega

There were several conflicting accounts of the whereabouts of Davros following his escape from the exploding Dalek mothership. (TV: *Destruction of the Daleks*, PROSE: *The Shoreditch Incident*)

#### On Earth

According to one account, after Davros's escape pod was ejected from the Dalek mothership, it immediately fell straight down towards Shoreditch. However, the Intrusion Counter-Measures Group were unable to locate it during the clean-up and cover-up of the Shoreditch Incident. Those in the know were left to dwell on the disquieting hypothesis that Davros had gone into hiding on 20th century Earth and was drawing up new plans. (PROSE: *The Shoreditch Incident*)

#### Mobile Headquarters

According to another account, Davros' escape pod was picked up by another Dalek mothership, which he had previously alerted. From there, he oversaw the attacks on the Renegade forced based on Tethrak. (PROSE: *Destruction of the Daleks*) Following the destruction of Tethrak, and as a by-product, the Renegade faction, Davros was left as supreme leader of the Daleks. (TV: *Destruction of the Daleks*) One account stated that soon after the final battle of the civil war, the Daleks tracked down the Dalek Prime, who personally submitted to Davros. (PROSE: *Destruction of the Daleks*) From there, Davros was able to control the whole Dalek empire, sending squadrons of loyal Imperial Daleks to quell opposition, such as that stirred up by the Sixth Doctor on a planet under their control. (TV: *Destiny*)

### Acts as Supreme Leader

In an attempt to secure the Daleks' position as the supreme being in the universe, Davros devised a plan to go back in time and wipe out the Thals before the Thousand Year War could take place. He enlisted the help of the Monk to make his plan possible and succeeded in appointing himself Grandmaster of the Kaleds upon reaching the time before the war. When he learned of the arrival of the Eighth Doctor on Skaro, he ordered the Monk to bring the Doctor to him, all the while conducting test runs on the Daleks' latest plan. Upon being brought before Davros, the Doctor criticised the plan, believing that it would remove the Daleks from existence, though the Monk explained that he had increased the reach of his TARDIS to allow the Daleks to survive on past the Thals' premature extinction. Davros had the Doctor and his companions, Bernice Summerfield and Norman Manning, imprisoned, intending to conduct experiments on them later. He gave the orders for the Daleks to mobilise and kill every Thal they saw.

After Bernice and Norman managed to escape and start a Thal uprising, Davros had the Monk question the Doctor on the names of his companions. He was able to refer these results to his Daleks, though by that point, the uprising had gotten out of hand. Bernice and Norman materialised inside the Grandmaster's chamber, and, with the help of the Doctor, told Davros about the Monk's plans to erase the Daleks from existence after the Thals had been destroyed. The Doctor succeeded in lowering the reach of the Monk's TARDIS, erasing the Daleks Davros had brought with him from existence. Enraged, Davros left with the Monk, torturing the renegade Time Lord for his betrayal after he had started the dematerialisation process. (TV: *Paradox of the Daleks*)

## Personality

> "To hold in my hand, a capsule that contained such power. To know that life and death on such a scale was my choice. To know that the tiny pressure of my thumb, enough to break the glass, would end everything... Yes! I would do it! That power would set me up above the gods! And through the Daleks, I shall have that power!"
> *-Davros, to the Fourth Doctor*
>
>

Davros had a sound mind early in his life, but the incident that crippled him and his overall experiences in the Thal-Kaled war left him a depraved and insane megalomaniac. He became tyrannical and ruthless, tolerating no opposition to his will and dismissing fairness and democracy as "the creeds of cowards". He did not believe the Daleks were evil, instead believing they would bring peace by becoming the sole life-forms of the universe; he believed different species could not peacefully co-exist, so believed the utter extermination of all other races was the only way the Daleks could succeed at bringing peace.

Brilliant and driven, he relentlessly experimented to find the final form of the Kaled people. Although he respected the Fourth Doctor as a fellow scientist, he refused to make the Daleks into less vicious creatures, which almost resulted in his death. (TV: *Genesis of the Daleks*)

Davros was malevolent and sadistic, and it was his ability to command and delegate that was most forceful and cold. While his conversation with the Doctor following his awakening (TV: *Destiny of the Daleks*) suggested that he may have survived the extermination attempt through forethought, it seemed to have made Davros even more bitter. This led him to making the Imperial Daleks, (TV: *Revelation of the Daleks*) and trying to erase the Thals from history. (TV: *Paradox of the Daleks*) He did not take kindly to betrayal, deeming it an insult to his intelligence, though he only seemed to seek retribution where it was safest for him. (TV: *Paradox of the Daleks*)

He had many moments of parental pride and fondness for the Daleks, being eager to talk about, and learn of, their accomplishments (TV: *Destiny of the Daleks*, *Paradox of the Daleks*) yet paradoxically thought little of their intelligence and abilities, believing that they could not progress without him. (TV: *Genesis of the Daleks*)

Davros did possess a sense of humour, however rarely it was expressed. He coldly quipped that informing the beneficiaries of his Necros-produced protein that they would be eating their own relatives would have created "consumer resistance". (TV: *Revelation of the Daleks*) He once remarked to the Doctor that "your appearance is as inconstant as your intelligence", and when the Doctor reminded him that he had defeated him each time they had met, Davros laughed and replied, "You flatter yourself!" (TV: *Remembrance of the Daleks*)

## Physical Characteristics

By the Movellans' definition, Davros was a humanoid mutant. (TV: *Destiny of the Daleks*)

Davros was originally seen by the Fourth Doctor sitting upright in a life-support chariot resembling the base of a Dalek. His skin was discoloured and his body crippled by some accident in his past, leaving him without the use his legs or his left arm. His Kaled body was humanoid, though a blue lens in his forehead replaced his lost vision, allowing him a semblance of sight. This appendage mirrored the look of a Dalek's eyestalk lens. A metal brace was attached to his head, and wires were plugged into his skull. Davros also had a throat microphone implant to enhance his damaged voice. He had only his right hand, which he used to operate controls on his chariot. These could perform functions for controlling doors, the Mark III travel machines, or his own life support system. (TV: *Genesis of the Daleks*)

Davros's body was old and withered with parchment-thin skin and a shrivelled skull with sunken pits for eyes and a thin, cruel gash for a mouth. He was more machine than man, with his lungs, heart, speech, hearing and sight being mechanically or electronically aided. He had a helmet-like arrangement of wires and plastic tubes suspended over his head. (PROSE: *Doctor Who and the Destiny of the Daleks*)

Following his cryogenic imprisonment, Davros's face gained a yellowish, sagging appearance. (TV: *Resurrection of the Daleks*)

Davros's chair had anti-gravity gravitors that enabled him to hover, possibly an upgrade. (TV: *Revelation of the Daleks*)

On Necros, Bostock fired a gun which destroyed most of his right hand and with it his ability to operate independently. (TV: *Revelation of the Daleks*) For a short time after, his hand was replaced with a claw (COMIC: *Emperor of the Daleks!*) and finally with a prosthetic substitute. (TV: *Paradox of the Daleks*) He was capable of projecting electric shocks from both his organic and mechanical hands, allowing him to ward off attackers and stun or even kill them. (TV: *Revelation of the Daleks*, *Paradox of the Daleks*)

During the Dalek Civil War, Davros sat in a bloated dome. His head was cradled by metal braces from which wires trailed down into the hidden body of the Dalek shell. His eyes were hollow scars and the skin of his cheeks was withered and cracked. (PROSE: *Remembrance of the Daleks*)

## Behind the Scenes

### Actors

Michael Wisher (who had previously played the voice of the Daleks in several Third Doctor stories) portrayed Davros in his debut story *Genesis of the Daleks*. (He also contributed toward the voices of Daleks for the same story.) Wisher rehearsed with a paper bag on his head because of the limited vision he would have with the Davros mask makeup. He was credited as "Davros, Supreme Kaled Scientist" on the sleeve of the *Genesis of the Daleks* LP.

For *Destiny of the Daleks*, David Gooderson took over the role for the unavailable Wisher.

Subsequently, Terry Molloy, who first appeared in Davros's third story, *Resurrection of the Daleks*, has played the role on television more times than any other actor, beginning in 1984.

As revealed in DWM 571, the webcast mini-episode *Risen*, Pete McTighe persuaded David Gooderson to return as Davros, recording a new monologue as the character, set directly before the event of *Destiny of the Daleks*. However, Gooderson only provided a voice performance: the glimpses of Davros's physical form instead featured SP Bowling (the collector who'd lent a Davros chair to the production) silently embodying the creator of the Daleks, wearing a mask sculpt identical to Gooderson's in *Destiny of the Daleks*. Bowling was uncredited for this role.

### Purpose

Terry Nation saw Davros as a voice for the Daleks. In DWM 250, he commented:

> The Daleks, when they have to make any kind of long speech, are immensely boring creatures. You can't have a Dalek doing four or five sentences in a row, so I wanted someone to speak for them. The thing that was half-man and half-Dalek was a perfect example of this, and I made sure he was not killed...he actually became a very good plot piece.
> -*Terry Nation*
>
>

### Anatomical controversy

In *Remembrance of the Daleks*, only Davros's head was seen inside the Imperial Casing, poking out of a tangle of wire. As Ben Aaronovitch revealed in DWM 147, his intention was that Davros's head was all that was left of his body; following being threatened at gunpoint by the Doctor in *Resurrection of the Daleks*, he had decided to upgrade himself into a Dalek to protect his life. Aaronovitch suspected that he had even only kept his face so that he could use it "to sneer at the Doctor" during what he thought would be their final meeting, and was planning to have it removed also in the long run. This intent is alluded to in the story by the Seventh Doctor's line "Davros... I see you've discarded the last vestiges of a human form".

However, in the filmed episode, the visible movements of Terry Molloy's shoulders underneath the mass of wires obscured this intent, which has been followed inconsistently in later stories. The comic story *Emperor of the Daleks!*, a prequel to *Remembrance of the Daleks*, depicted Davros being incorporated into the Imperial Casing to sustain his life after he is grievously injured in an explosion, lending weight to the idea that the head is all that is left of his original body. However, *Paradox of the Daleks*, which featured Davros years after the events of *Remembrance of the Daleks*, featured Davros back in his original chair, complete with torso and arm.

### Anatomy

*Terry Nation's Dalek Annual 1978* also provided an anatomy of Davros, naming the components in his life-support system:

1. Vibro-sensor
2. Omnipute
3. Fatigue Eliminator
4. Audio input
5. Transmission controls
6. Energiser
7. Disc sensors
8. Pacemaker controls
9. Circuit monitors
10. Veracity perceptor
11. Power source indicators
12. Fail safe defence
13. Dalek voice control
14. Telepathic receptor
15. Super optic

### *Lego* appearance

Davros appears in the *Doctor Who* level pack in *LEGO Dimensions*.

This wiki does not consider *Dimensions* to be a valid source due to role-play-like mechanics within the non-story elements of the game.