Big Finish says that Davros does not become the Emperor Dalek seen in The Parting of the Ways.
Who Rules the Daleks?
There’s a fair amount of evidence the Emperor is not the ultimate, unchallengeable authority of the Daleks. In “Secret of the Emperor” (a comic from The Dalek Outer Space Book), it’s stated that senior Daleks convene periodically to elect their Emperor... or rather to re-elect him, as it’s always a unanimous vote and the only ever dissenter, seen in that story, is instantly exterminated for daring to question the Emperor’s authority.
In The Dalek Chronicles strip, the Emperor follows the advice of the Dalek Brain Machine, a central computer, and Destiny of the Daleks and Remembrance of the Daleks also show a computer dictating strategy.
War of the Daleks and Terror Firma have Daleks actively manipulating events and misleading Emperor Davros for their own ends. While Davros thinks he’s asserting his own dominance, both stories suggest that the Dalek leadership have planned the events we see to unite the Daleks and harness his genius, while keeping all manner of key information from him. The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End has Davros in a similar role, clearly more controlled by the Daleks than controlling.
Doomsday introduces the Cult of Skaro, four Daleks “above even the Emperor” (although still acknowledging his authority and concerned about his fate).
The Doctor claims in The Evil of the Daleks that the Daleks blindly obey their leaders, and this unity is their defining characteristic... to such a degree that in Remembrance of the Daleks and Dalek (and its “predecessor”, the audio Jubilee), lone Daleks commit suicide because they’ve lost their entire purpose. We’ve seen Daleks ruthlessly eradicate individuals who dare to express even modest dissent on a number of occasions. However, the Daleks have a moral code that allows them to question orders if they seem un-Dalek-like and no compunction about replacing their leaders if they fail. It’s perhaps no coincidence that this happens most visibly with two leaders who aren’t pure Daleks: Davros and Sec (in Evolution of the Daleks). Cunningly, the Daleks have their cake and eat it: they are led by strong, imaginative, ambitious individuals who can think in ways the Daleks themselves can not... but they have a very strong (overriding, in fact) sense of what it is to be a Dalek. So if their leaders stray too far away from the Dalek ideal, the Daleks can quickly reach a consensus to exterminate him, without fear of disrupting the Dalek order based on blind obedience to their leaders, by simply deciding that their leader doesn’t count as a Dalek.
Ultimately, then, the true leader of the Daleks is not an individual, it’s the belief in their own supremacy and their hatred for anything that isn’t a Dalek.
[1350] “Many years” before “War-Game”.
[1351] “Four centuries” before The Time of Angels.
[1352] Heart of TARDIS
[1353] Dating “War-Game” (DWM #100-101) - The Doctor meets Kaon again in “Warrior’s Story” (which takes place before this in Kaon’s timeline) and that adventure sets the rough date for this one. The Draconians rule “a third of the galaxy” at this point. Kaon crashed “many years ago” - enough for Kara to be born and grow to womanhood (although we don’t know how long that takes for a Draconian).
[1354] Trading Futures. Magnus Greel (from the year 5000) feared Time Agents tracking him down in The Talons of Weng-Chiang, Time Agents appeared in Eater of Wasps, and in The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, Captain Jack claims to have been a Time Agent, and knows that other Agents will be tracking him down. It’s interesting to note that in the original, unbroadcast version of An Unearthly Child, the Doctor and Susan claim to be aliens, but Susan says she was born in the forty-ninth century.
[1355] I am a Dalek
[1356] “A Glitch in Time”. It’s never specified when the time travellers come from, but this would seem to be the only era in which humanity develops time travel.
[1357] The Fennus disaster is said to have happened “long ago” prior to the main events of Helicon Prime, but as Mindy herself is portrayed as a young woman and we meet three members of the rescue team sent to Fennus, the disaster presumably - depending on human longevity in this era - happened decades rather than centuries before Helicon Prime opens.
[1358] Dating Helicon Prime (BF CC #2.2) - The dating clues are very vague. Mindy is specified as human, but as Helicon Prime is such a great distance from Earth, this is presumably a long time into humanity’s expansion into space. It’s not specified how, exactly, Mindy travels back to find a post-TARDIS Jamie, raising the possibility that time travel technology is available. Even so, this placement represents a stab in the dark.
Victoria is still studying graphology, so for the Doctor and Jamie, this story likely occurs during Season 6B.
[1359] TW: The Undertaker’s Gift
[1360] “Three hundred years” before “Fire and Brimstone”.
[1361] The Taking of Planet 5 (p222).
[1362] “Three thousand years” after Ghosts of India. The metamorphic nature of Zytron energy, and the similar-sounding name, suggests it bears some relation to Zeiton-7 ore (Vengeance on Varos).
[1363] “Two hundred years” before The Time of Angels.
[1364] Borrowed Time. See the World Wars sidebar.
[1365] In the century before The Ice Warriors.
[1366] Interference. The Doctor has a pair of those binoculars, no doubt acquired when he was with the Filipino army (mentioned in The Talons of Weng-Chiang).
[1367] The English Way of Death
[1368] The Gallifrey Chronicles
[1369] According to Gryffen in K9: Jaws of Orthrus. This may mean K9 is a production model, and Marius built him from a kit. Or it may simply mean that other unique robots were built to look like dogs. It could also mean that once Marius gets back to Earth, he markets K9s commercially. The Doctor apparently acquires the Mark 2 and Mark 4 K9s very quickly - he seems to have them stored in the TARDIS, but likewise it’s impossible to say if he built or bought K9s Mark 2 to 4.
[1370] The Resurrection of Mars
[1371] “A thousand years” before City at World’s End.
[1372] The Art of Destruction. Given the catastrophes that afflict the Earth in the fifty-first century, it’s tempting to speculate that the Doctor does this somehow to protect the painting.
[1373] The Company of Friends: “Izzy’s Story”
[1374] Trading Futures
[1375] Dating The Invisible Enemy (15.2) - The Doctor states that it is the year “5000, the year of the Great Breakout” and implies that the human race has not yet left the solar system. This contradicts virtually every other story set in the future - indeed, The Invisible Enemy would fit very neatly into this timeline about the year 2100.
The Breakout might be to other galaxies, and this is supported by the audio Davros, which has humanity poised to dominate the whole galaxy and eager to expand. Alternatively, perhaps a big section of humanity wants to leave because they’ve had enough of the Ice Age, lack of scientific progress, threat of World War and genocidal dictators we hear are on Earth in The Talons of Weng-Chiang. If so, no-one mentions it in The Invisible Enemy, and Marius’ main concern with returning to Earth is that he has too much stuff to take home.
Looking more closely at the history of Earth since the collapse of the Earth Empire around the year 3000, it’s clear that there are many human colonies - but there’s no evidence that Earth has any political influence on them. While it’s a major player on the galactic political stage, Earth’s civilisation does seem to be confined to the solar system in The Daleks’ Master Plan, the Peladon stories and the Davros Era stories (which even following the Peel timeline would fall between 3000 and 5000). Earth maintains a military capable of (small) missions across the galaxy, but the fact that it’s ignorant of massive Dalek conquests in The Daleks’ Master Plan - even the fact that Earth needs to name a fleet as “the Deep Space Fleet” in Destiny of the Daleks and finds it hard to fund or reinforce Davros’ prison station in Resurrection of the Daleks -
suggests that Earth doesn’t dominate the galaxy. In The Talons of Weng-Chiang, we learn that Earth’s in a technological cul-de-sac.
In short, it actually ties in with other stories that human civilisation is confined to Earth’s solar system for a couple of millennia before 5000, by which time it’s ripe for a “breakout”, a new wave of colonisation.
The Gallifrey Chronicles gives the story the “relative date one-one-one-five-zero-zero-zero”. The TARDIS Logs offered the date “4778”.
[1376] Dating The Girl in the Fireplace (X2.4) - The caption cuts from events in eighteenth-century France to the future with the caption “3000 years later”, making it around 4759. However, the tenth Doctor tells Rose and Mickey that it’s “three thousand years into your future, give or take”, which would make it around 5007. Still later, the Doctor states it’s the fifty-first century. The SS Madame de Pompadour is in the Dagmar Cluster, two and a half galaxies from Earth, and the intergalactic travel probably supports the later date.
[1377] Dating K9 and the Beasts of Vega (The Adventures of K9 #2) - No date is given, but as this is set at a time when humans are mounting a massive colonisation effort, it’s probably not too much of a stretch to say it’s around K9’s home time.
[1378] Dating The Ice Warriors (5.3) - The date of this story is never given on screen. Base leader Clent says that if the glaciers advance, then “five thousand years of history” will be wiped out. If he’s referring to Britannicus Base, a Georgian house, this would make the date about 6800 AD. If he is referring to human or European history, the date becomes more vague. It has to be set well over a century in the future, because the world has been run by the Great World Computer for that long.
An article in the Radio Times at the time of broadcast stated that the year is “3000 AD”, and almost every other fan chronology used to follow that lead, although the first edition of The Making of Doctor Who said that the Doctor travels “three thousand years” into the future after The Abominable Snowmen, making the date 4935 AD. The Dark Path and Legacy both allude to the date of this story as being 3000 AD (p63 and p89 respectively). Earlier versions of Ahistory did the same. The blurb for the Region 1 VHS of the story said it was “AD 3000”.
In The Talons of Weng-Chiang, the Doctor talks of “the Ice Age about the year five thousand” - possibly even a reference to this story, if Robert Holmes was using The Making of Doctor Who as a reference.
Timelink and About Time both conclude that this is the ice age mentioned in The Talons of Weng-Chiang. This does certainly seem to be a neater solution than proposing two ice ages in quick succession - particularly when there are a fair few stories set around 3000 on an Earth which doesn’t seem to be affected by an ice age. Occam’s Razor doesn’t always work on fictional timelines, and can be wielded too liberally, but it seems sensible to invoke it here.
One peculiarity is that the Martians have only been buried for “centuries”, although it is also made clear that they have been buried since the First Ice Age, when mastodons roamed the Earth. (About Time states that mastodons became extinct five million years ago, but scientists disagree, estimating it was more like 10,000 BC.) The Terrestrial Index and Legacy (p90) both suggest that the Ice Age began as a result of “solar flares” (presumably in an attempt to link it with Earth’s evacuation in The Ark in Space), but that’s specifically ruled out as a cause in the story.
One problem is that later stories (starting with The Curse of Peladon) would establish the Martians as a significant presence in the future, which would make the humans’ ignorance of them in this story notable - mankind has apparently forgotten about the Martians who were near neighbours, and fellow members of the Galactic Federation in the Peladon stories (and who they fought against in books such as Transit and The Dying Days).
The Second Ice Age
When base leader Clent explains the historical background to The Ice Warriors, he implies that the Ice Age began a century ago, but people are still being evacuated from England during the story, suggesting that glaciation is a more recent phenomenon. It would seem that although the global temperature drop is a direct result of the destruction of plant life, its consequences weren’t felt overnight.
The present scientific consensus, of course, is that destroying the forests would cause global warming because of the resulting rise in carbon dioxide levels. However, this didn’t gain widespread awareness until the 1970s; when The Ice Warriors was produced in the 1960s, the idea that the Earth might undergo global cooling was given more credence.
[1379] Dating The Day of the Troll (BBC DW audiobook #5) - The blurb says it’s the “far future”, and the story clearly follows on from the ionization effort against the glaciers in The Ice Warriors. It’s been long enough since that story that the glaciers have been defeated, and Britain has been uninhabited for ten years.
[1380] According to the back cover copy for FP: In the Year of the Cat. This is not what we see in The Invisible Enemy or The Ice Warriors, although both do feature artificial intelligences.
[1381] FP: In the Year of the Cat. This is intended as the background of Mr. Sin from The Talons of Weng-Chiang, who is here referenced as “the Pig” automaton. For that reason, the Pig and his fellows originate from “three thousand years” after 1762.
[1382] “Agent Provocateur”. Captain Jack and River Song, natives of this time, both use sonic technology. The Hollow Men specifies one of Magnus Greel’s atrocities (mentioned by the Doctor in The Talons of Weng-Chiang) as being “the sonic massacres in fifty-first century Brisbane”.
[1383] The Talons of Weng-Chiang. This happened “about the year five thousand” according to the Doctor; “the fifty-first” century according to Greel. The Doctor says he was with the Filipino army during their final advance. Note that World War Six is averted at this time, not fought, as some sources state.
Y5K
There are three television stories which establish versions of the state of Earth around the year 5000 which seem difficult to reconcile - The Ice Warriors, The Talons of Weng-Chiang and The Invisible Enemy. It’s notable that those last two have the Doctor and Leela involved in events of the year 5000 in near-consecutive stories (only Horror of Fang Rock is between them) without any link being made.
From the details given in the stories, there’s a way to reconcile them - The Invisible Enemy happens first, in “the year 5000” itself. It’s a time where Earth has highly advanced technology and a rather sterile, computer-dependent society. The Ice Warriors depicts exactly the same sort of society. The Ice Warriors also suggests that the Ice Age has been around for a century of wintery weather - but goes on to claim that it’s only recently reached a crisis point, with glaciers threatening the imminent destruction of major cities. At the time of The Invisible Enemy, it’s clearly not a pressing problem (no-one mentions the issue, and Marius is planning to return to Earth). But it might be a factor (or the factor) in the “breakout” - a mass emigration to other planets would ease population pressures on Earth.
After this, when the slowly-advancing ice starts encroaching on the temperate areas (in both hemispheres), the crisis seen in The Ice Warriors occurs. (This happens in an unknown year, but possibly later on in the year 5000 itself.) There is mass migration to the equator, and we see some people in that story have rejected the computer-controlled society for a more atavistic lifestyle. It’s easy to imagine such a rigidly-controlled society collapsing very quickly if the computers started failing (or arguing with each other) - it might even happen in days. Society would be split in two - those heading off into space (the scientists), and the ones staying behind (the more atavistic).
An unregulated society with little scientific progress... is exactly what The Talons of Weng-Chiang tells us the world is like in Greel’s time, “about the year 5000” and “the fifty-first century”. Greel’s a scientist - but clearly one who’d thrive better on the barbaric, individualistic Earth than on a regulated, sterile space station. Environmental collapse and warfare ma
de the Earth a very hostile environment, as seen in Emotional Chemistry (towards the beginning of the process) and “The Keep” (ten years on).
Meanwhile, The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances tells us that humanity has spread across the galaxy. The Girl in the Fireplace shows us that, like the society seen in The Ice Warriors, people of this time clearly like reminders of the past along with their high-technology. And - as in the earlier story - when the technology fails, humanity doesn’t last long.
[1384] The Hollow Men, in the “fifty-first century”.
[1385] The Shadow of Weng-Chiang
[1386] Dating Emotional Chemistry (EDA #66) - The date is given in the blurb, and is clearly tied in with The Talons of Weng-Chiang. It’s left unclear as to whether the retasking Kinzhal proposes for his paratroopers (presuming it actually happens) leads to the founding of the Time Agents; Talons suggests that the Time Agency was active before this, otherwise Greel wouldn’t worry about “Time Agents” following him. (Unless, perhaps, he’d previously encountered some from another era.) The psionic weapon surfaces in Eater of Wasps.
[1387] Dating “The Keep” (DWM #248-249) - It’s “the fifty-first century”, and the age of Magnus Greel. It’s confirmed that the problem with the sun leads to the “solar flares” in “Wormwood”.
[1388] “Fire and Brimstone”
[1389] Borrowed Time. The historical alteration is presumably undone when Blythe’s scheme is nullified.
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