
Davros
Context
Davros is one of the main recurrent villains in Doctor Who, a BBC sci-fi/horror series that has been running since 1963 (through there were hiatuses).
He’s deeply tied to the famous Daleks.
Due to space-time schenanigans, we have three (!) Dalek articles – this article about Daleks, and this article about Daleks, but also this article about Daleks.
Background
- Real Name: Davros.
- Other Aliases: The Great Healer, the Dalek Emperor.
- Marital Status: Presumed single.
- Known Relatives: None.
- Group Affiliation: Former Chief Scientist of the Kaleds, former Emperor of the Daleks, current privileged slave of the Daleks.
- Base Of Operations: Generally the planet Skaro, at one time the planet Necros, at other times mobile, when last seen the Crucible Space Station.
- Height: #‘ #” Weight: ## lbs. Age: Chronologically thousands of years.
- Eyes: None Hair: None
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Powers and Abilities
Davros is a brilliant scientist who has demonstrated mastery of :
- Biology.
- Cloning.
- Genetic engineering.
- Chemistry.
- Metallurgy.
- Robotics.
- Cybernetics.
- Artificial intelligence.
- Military tactics.
He is unable to walk and has the use of only one arm. But that arm is mechanical and therefore has formidable strength, making it inadvisable for anyone to come within grappling distance of him. The arm can also project lethal electrical blasts from its hand, giving him some ranged combat capability.
His prosthetic mobile life-support system can project a force field which can shield him from most forms of attack for a limited period of time. It also enables him to fly at moderate speeds if he has need for greater mobility than usual, such as when seeking to flee from danger.
Davros has enhanced visual and auditory capabilities due to his artificial eye and ears. He can also connect himself to computers and interface with them.
History
Davros was originally a military scientist on the planet Skaro, on the other side of this Galaxy. Around 1,500 years ago his people, the fascistic Kaleds, became locked in a total war with their enemies, the Thals. It would last for a thousand years and devastate the planet with sustained nuclear, chemical and biological warfare.
Davros was born in the final decades of this war. A scientific prodigy from his childhood onwards, he was immensely valued by his superiors.
Thus, when his laboratory was struck by an atomic artillery shell and he was maimed so severely that he would henceforth require total artificial life-support to survive, they authorized the necessary allocation of desperately scarce resources. The normal fate of any other such casualty would have been immediate euthanasia.
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Davros was kept sedated while he was connected to an array of life-support machinery. These included optical and auditory sensors to replace his destroyed eyes and ears. He was then allowed to awaken for the first time since his maiming in an otherwise unoccupied room. There was a mirror in front of him and an off-switch for his life-support within easy reach of his one remaining hand.
Davros chose to live.
Survivor
He soon designed a far more efficient life-support system which could be built into a mobile unit about the size of a motorized wheelchair. Once constructed around him to his specifications, this restored some of his mobility. He also designed improved optical and auditory sensors which could be surgically implanted directly into his skull.
Once this was done, these actually gave him sensory perception far superior to that which he had previously possessed.
By the time he was first encountered by the Fourth Doctor, in around the year 1500 A.D. by Earth reckoning, Davros had steadily risen in status over the course of 50 years. He had become the Chief Scientist of the Kaleds, heading the Elite Scientific Division.
Furthermore, Davros had determined that contamination from the nuclear and biological weapons used during the war was mutating the Kaled race. He had artificially accelerated the process to examine the ultimate evolutionary end product. These mutations were weak and crippled. They were little more than brains with tentacular appendages, with no hope of survival on their own.
Rise of the Daleks
Davros’ solution was to remove their capacity for all emotions that constituted weaknesses. To him this category included such emotions as compassion, mercy and kindness. He then placed the mutants in tank-like Mark III Travel Machines. These were partly based on the design of his own prosthetic mobile life-support system.
He later named these creatures Daleks, an anagram of Kaleds.
Davros quickly became obsessed with his creations. He declared them to be the ultimate form of life, superior to all others. To prevent his own people from shutting down the Dalek project when they began to have doubts about the wisdom of it, he betrayed them to their destruction at the hands of the Thals.
The Daleks then attacked the Thals while they were euphorically celebrating a victory they had waited a thousand years for. They almost exterminated the Thals. But at the very moment when Davros at last seemed to be triumphant over all his enemies, the Daleks themselves turned on him. They demanded that he serve them. When he refused they seemingly killed him.
Survivor II
Davros was not dead. He had long been careful to guard against the possibility of assassination. One of the measures he had taken was to design an experimental force-field generator which was built into his life-support system.
It would, in theory, protect him from attacks made with energy weapons. When he was blasted by the guns of the Daleks, the generator functioned as designed up to a point. It then overloaded and burnt out.
Most of the force of the blasts was stopped and Davros sustained only comparatively moderate damage. Yet this was still enough to make it necessary for his life-support system to automatically place him into a state of suspended animation while he healed.
A subsequent malfunction due to moderate damage which the life-support system itself had sustained meant that he was not awakened when he should have been. He remained dormant for the next 3,000 years.
Expansion of the Daleks
While Davros slept, the Daleks multiplied and eventually became divided into two factions. One was content to rule Skaro unopposed. The other was more ambitious and intended to expand into space.
The latter constructed a space fleet and left Skaro. They embarked on a program of conquering other worlds. The expansionists did not attempt to maintain contact with the stay-at-homes. The two branches of the Dalek race pursued separate destinies thereafter.
In the 20th Century, the First Doctor was inadvertently responsible for wiping out the stay-at-home Daleks on Skaro. Howbeit, no word of their fate reached the expansionist Daleks out in space at the time.
In the 26th Century, the Dalek Empire fought a genocidal total war against the Human and Draconian Empires. It culminated in its near-destruction. In the aftermath the few surviving expansionist Daleks belatedly sought to renew contact with the stay-at-homes on Skaro. This is when they found that they had been extinct for centuries.
The remaining Daleks reoccupied the planet themselves, but did not discover that Davros was still alive.
XXXIInd century and beyond
Around the beginning of the 32nd Century, the Daleks began sending out long-range expeditions to other galaxies. One galaxy was eventually completely conquered by them, becoming the new focus of most of their operations.
They later took the final logical step of transferring their capital there. Thus, they left most of their remaining territory in this galaxy occupied only by a minimal garrison force. Skaro was considered of such little value that it was abandoned completely.
Around the beginning of the 40th century, the Daleks renewed their interest in the Galaxy of their origin. They again occupied Skaro, but again did not discover that Davros was still alive. Also around this time, the Daleks began to master the basic principles of time travel. Their expertise in this field would subsequently increase greatly over time.
At the beginning of the 41st Century, the Daleks once again tried to conquer their native Galaxy in a genocidal total war. Once again they were eventually beaten and forced to retreat. Skaro was once again abandoned.
XLIVth century and beyond
In the 44th and 45th Centuries, the Daleks became locked in a stalemated war with a race of humanoid androids called the Movellans. Somehow they came up with the idea that studying the original research of their creator might help them to improve their capabilities enough to give them victory. They returned to Skaro to excavate the ruins of his laboratory.
The Fourth Doctor learned of this. He set out to find and destroy anything that might benefit them before they could get to it. In the process he ended up becoming the one to finally discover Davros himself still alive in suspended animation. The doctor revived him at last after 3,000 years.
The Doctor managed to destroy the Dalek expeditionary force that was searching for Davros. He also liberated a group of human slave labourers the Daleks had brought with them, who returned to Earth taking the captive Davros with them.
On Earth, Davros was put on trial for crimes against all intelligent life. He was convicted on all counts. His sentence was to be placed back into suspended animation aboard a military space station. The intention may have been to preserve his unmatched knowledge of the Daleks. This way he could be compelled to devise weapons to be used against them in the event of another intergalactic war.
The Daleks eventually lost their war with the Movellans. A genetically-engineered virus was unleashed against them, almost exterminating them. The few survivors had to augment their meagre forces with cloned human slave-soldiers and with the few interstellar mercenaries for hire they could find who would even be prepared to work for them. They eventually reoccupied Skaro yet again.
The sleeper must awaken
90 years after Davros had been placed back into suspended animation, the space station where he was kept was attacked. It was captured by a force of slave-soldiers and mercenaries led by a mere handful of Daleks. Davros was awakened once again and given the task of finding an antidote to the Movellan virus.
He quickly began pursuing his own agenda, managing to mind-control some of the Daleks and some of their slave-soldiers to make them loyal to him. The rest retained their former loyalties. Before long a shooting war erupted between the two factions.
Rather than risk waiting to see if his supporters would prevail, Davros released the virus to wipe out all of the Daleks once the last of the slave-soldiers on both sides had been killed. He then seemingly succumbed to the virus himself before he could make his escape. Davros had failed to realize that his own physiology was close enough to that of the Daleks for the virus to affect him.
Survivor III
Somehow Davros managed to recover from the virus. He made his way to a remote part of the Galaxy where no-one had ever heard of him or the Daleks. He evidently spent some time thoroughly familiarizing himself with the science and technology of the 46th Century, which was far more advanced in many ways than what he had known on Skaro 4,000 years earlier.
Eventually he somehow gained control of a vast funeral centre called Tranquil Repose. It was the chief industry on the quiet backwater planet of Necros. Tranquil Repose did not only offer conventional funeral services. It also preserved terminally ill people in cryogenic suspension until medical science could discover cures for their conditions.
Davros began secretly reviving selected people in the latter category whose conditions he could devise cures for. He then genetically re-engineered them to turn them into new Daleks under his control.
When a mass famine swept much of the Galaxy, Davros was able to augment his resources by secretly reprocessing fresh corpses into a synthetic food, the export of which greatly enriched Necros and himself.
His operations there were brought to an abrupt and unexpected end when the original Daleks learned of his whereabouts. They sent a small force which destroyed his new Daleks and captured him.
Many returns to Skaro
Brought back to Skaro, Davros somehow managed to win many of the original Daleks over to his cause. He led them in attempting to depose the long-lived Dalek Supreme[1] who had ruled them for most of their history. The First Dalek Civil War was the result.
Styling himself the Dalek Emperor, Davros devised biological and technological upgrades for his supporters. These gave them an important edge, enabling them to take control of Skaro. They drove the Dalek Supreme and its supporters into exile off-planet.
he two factions were eventually duped by the manipulative Seventh Doctor. As a result, they fought for possession of an ancient Time Lord artifact of great power known as the Hand of Omega. But it proved in the event to have been booby-trapped and destroyed Skaro by turning its sun into a supernova.
Since the supporters of Davros were in control of Skaro at the time, they were the faction who were wiped out along with it.
Davros himself was aboard his command ship at the time. He barely managed to eject from it in an escape pod before it too was destroyed by the Hand. The pod was left drifting in space. Thus, Davros had to place himself back into suspended animation yet again to await rescue. It did not come for several decades.
[1] The Dalek Supreme was confusingly renamed the Dalek Prime in some of the novelizations of the TV stories and original novels, for no obvious reason.
Survivor IV
While Davros slept yet again, the Dalek Supreme and its surviving supporters occupied a nearby planet named Antalin. They used xenoforming technology to remake it into a near-perfect replica of Skaro. The Daleks then rewrote their official histories. These now claimed that it had actually been Antalin that had been destroyed by the Hand of Omega and that Antalin was actually Skaro.
Eventually Davros was found and awakened yet again by the Daleks. The Dalek Supreme deliberately allowed him to begin seeking to win Daleks over to his cause once again. Their goal was to allow those who were discontent with its own rule to expose themselves so that they could then be destroyed. The Second Dalek Civil War was the result.
It ended in victory for the supporters of the Dalek Supreme. Thus, upon its conclusion Davros was seemingly executed. In fact he had secretly been kept alive just in case the Daleks should ever have any future use for him. Davros was placed back into suspended animation. Once he was safely out of the way the Dalek Supreme hypocritically emulated him by adopting the title of Dalek Emperor.
Third Dalek Civil War
Around the beginning of the 51st Century, the Daleks experimented with restoring the capacity for emotions such as compassion to a group of Dalek test subjects. Their goal was merely to better understand how these emotions worked in order to better exploit the weaknesses of their enemies.
In the event, the test subjects soon came to regard themselves as a new breed of Dalek and refused to remain subject to the old breed.
The Third Dalek Civil War was the result. It claimed the life of the Dalek Emperor before ultimately ending in victory for the old breed. The new breed was apparently exterminated. A new Dalek Emperor eventually replaced the old one.
An unknown length of time into the future, the Daleks ultimately challenged the Time Lords of Gallifrey themselves for universal domination. The two races fought the cataclysmic Time War, in which the Eighth Doctor played a key role.
Early on in the war Davros was awakened yet again and pressed into the service of the Daleks. But he was unable to make much difference and was then seemingly killed when his ship was destroyed in battle.
The final outcome of the conflict was the mutual annihilation of both sides. A handful of surviving Daleks were left scattered throughout different eras of history, with all but one of these eventually being destroyed thanks to the efforts of the Ninth and Tenth Doctors and their companions.
Survivor V
The sole remaining Dalek finally risked everything on one last desperate gamble. It attempted to go back in time to the height of the Time War and rescue Davros from the destruction of his ship.
Against incredible odds, it somehow succeeded. Davros then went on to grow an entire army of new Daleks from genetically-altered cells originally extracted from his own remaining body tissue, most of which was used up in the process.
These Daleks proved to be no more prepared to remain subject to Davros than their predecessors had been. They once again reducing him to the status of a privileged slave.
They ultimately embarked on the most ruthless and ambitious project any Daleks had ever undertaken: to travel back in time to 2008. From then they would destroy the entire multiverse except for a small pocket of spacetime under their direct control.
They were thwarted and seemingly all destroyed due to the efforts of the Tenth Doctor and his companions. Davros was seemingly killed in the process when fire engulfed his laboratory.
Whether or not this was truly the end of them and of him at last is open to question.
Description
Davros is a horribly scarred and withered humanoid. He has a glowing blue artificial eye grafted into the centre of his forehead. The sockets that once contained his natural eyes are now empty and sunken.
Maimed in his youth by the blast from an atomic artillery shell, for most of his existence he has been completely dependent upon a prosthetic mobile life-support system of his own design. It encloses the lower half of his body and his left arm from the mid-forearm down. This resembles the lower half of a Dalek casing.
A black military uniform tunic covers his upper body and disappears into the life-support system, leaving only his head and his right hand uncovered. His harsh, grating voice is electronically synthesized.
Over time Davros has progressively lost most of his organic body tissue from the neck downwards, replacing it with bionic components. Only his metal right hand is usually visible to give any indication of this.
Personality
Davros is a megalomaniac who believes that through his creations, the Daleks, he can become the supreme being and ruler of the Universe. He rarely demonstrates any emotions other than anger, hatred and vindictiveness. But if the need arises he can be remarkably charming and persuasive to those ignorant of his true nature.
Davros is fundamentally driven by a deeply-repressed self-hatred. It stems from his disability and disfigurement. Growing up in the fascistic Kaled culture indoctrinated him with contempt for the weak and unattractive from his childhood onwards. Meanwhile, the admiration and deference he received for his intellectual brilliance after reaching adulthood made him feel that he was the elite of the elite.
His subsequent maiming and the revulsion with which those around him reacted to him thereafter (which could not be concealed from a mind as perceptive as his no matter how hard people might try) presented a contrast which traumatized him deeply. So deeply that he came to subconsciously hate his own people as much as or more than their Thal enemies.
Since he could not regain his own humanity, he became driven by a subconscious urge to alleviate the feelings of inferiority his loss caused him. Thus, he would bring about a situation where all other beings would either be rendered even more inhuman than himself or simply be killed.
Daleks
This meshed perfectly with his discovery that the Kaled race were beginning to mutate into the Daleks. It led him to take control of the process and distort it to render the evolving Daleks incapable of compassion. This way they would be psychologically capable of inflicting the kind of pain and suffering he wished to visit upon all life on his behalf.
Davros’ egotism prevented him from realizing until it was too late that the Daleks would not be content to remain under his control. They would be incapable of feeling gratitude towards him for creating them or feeling loyalty towards any being not of their own kind.
After awakening from millennia of enforced dormancy, Davros found that his creations had been repeatedly thwarted in their bids for universal domination. They ultimately ended up in a situation where they needed to ask for his help once again. Thus, his conviction of his own supreme importance in the shaping of their destiny and his inherent right to rule over them became even more absolute.
Megalomaniac
He unhesitatingly embarked upon a decades-long quest to make himself their master again. That resulted in two Dalek Civil Wars and ultimately ended with him being reduced to the status of a privileged slave. He then also had to suffer the indignity of being simply kept in storage in suspended animation for long periods when his services were not required.
His ego would never have allowed him to accept this humiliating state of affairs as permanent. He would surely have been thinking up various potential long-term schemes for regaining control of the Daleks right up until their and his own seemingly final destruction.
Quotes
Davros: “Evil ? No, Doctor, I will not accept that. When all other life-forms are suppressed, when the Daleks are the supreme power of the Universe, then we shall have peace. All wars will end. The Daleks are the power not of evil but of good !”
The Doctor: “Evil that good may come, eh ? Tell me, Davros, if you had created a virus in your laboratory… something contagious and infectious that killed on contact… a virus that would destroy all other forms of life… would you allow its use ?”
Davros: “It is an interesting conjecture.”
The Doctor: “Would you do it ?”
Davros: “The only living thing… a microscopic organism… reigning… supreme… a fascinating idea.”
The Doctor: “But would you do it ?”
Davros: “Yes. Yes. 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: “You must obey me. I created you. I am the master. Not you, I, I, I !”
Dalek Leader: “Our programming does not permit us to acknowledge that any creature is superior to the Daleks.”
Davros: “You cannot exist without me. You cannot progress.”
Dalek Leader: “We are programmed to survive. We have the ability to develop in any way necessary to ensure that survival.”
Davros: “For the last time… I am your creator ! You must… you will… obey me !”
Dalek Leader: “We obey no one ! We are the Daleks !”
Davros: “My mistake was making them totally ruthless. It restricted their ability to cope with creatures who rely not only on logic, but instinct and intuition. That is a factor I wish to correct.”
The Doctor: “And compassion ? Are they to be programmed for that ?”
Davros: “They will learn to recognise the strength that can be drawn from such an emotion.”
The Doctor: “But only to make the Daleks more efficient killers ?”
Davros: “To make them a more positive force.”
The Doctor: “For destruction !”
Davros: “The Universe is at war, Doctor. Name one planet whose history is not littered with atrocities and ambition for empire. It is a universal way of life.”
Rose Tyler: “Doctor, what happened ?”
Davros: “Electrical energy, Miss Tyler. Every atom in existence is bound by an electrical field. The reality bomb cancels it out, structure falls apart. That test was focused on the prisoners alone. Full transmission will dissolve every form of matter.”
Rose Tyler: “The stars are going out… ”
The Doctor: “The 27 planets… they become one vast transmitter, blasting that wavelength… ”
Davros: “Across the entire universe, never stopping, never faltering, never fading. People and planets and stars will become dust. And the dust will become atoms and the atoms will become… nothing. And the wavelength will continue, breaking through the rift at the heart of the Medusa Cascade into every dimension, every parallel, every single corner of creation. *This* is my ultimate victory, Doctor ! The destruction of reality *itself* !”
DC Universe History
Many millennia ago, one of the Psions’ asteroid-based laboratories produced a variant Psion race. Their outer appearance and emotional range was more mammalian than that of their progenitors. (As noted in Genesis of the Daleks and The Stolen Earth, the Kaleds were superficially similar to Humans but had a much different internal structure).
These highly intelligent and ambitious Neo-Psions rebelled against their creators and took over their laboratory. They adapted it for spaceflight and fled the Vega system.
The Neo-Psions were unaware that the Psions were restricted to the Vega System by an edict of the Guardians of the Universe. This fact was concealed from them by the Psions to avoid loss of face before their newly-created subjects. Thus, the Neo-Psions pushed the engines of their makeshift vessel to their limits in order to quickly get as far away as possible.
They managed to reach the other side of the Galaxy before the strain crippled their ship.
Neo-Psions at large
Lacking the resources to repair their vessel and having minimal remaining flight range, the Neo-Psions landed the vessel on the first habitable world they could find, the planet Skaro. To escape the notice of any pursuing Psions, the Neo-Psions buried the vessel deep underground. They made it their policy to conceal their true origins from their descendants.
They thus hoped to be dismissed as yet another primitive humanoid culture among many in the galaxy if the Psions passed by their world.
This was not a perfect process. It took many generations for all knowledge of their true origins to finally be suppressed. Furthermore, the underlying fear that had originally motivated the deception still continued to express itself as a cultural tendency toward xenophobia.
Over time, the neo-Psions diverged over time into two separate societies known as the Kaleds and the Thals. The Kaleds retained more of the old tradition of xenophobia and the Thals less.
The 1,000 Year War
1,500 years ago, the increasing hostility between the two factions culminated in the Thousand Year War. 500 years ago, excavations for an underground research center to house the projects of the Kaled Scientific Elite accidentally uncovered the buried Psion laboratory-ship.
Davros rediscovered the true origins of his people. Yet he concealed them on the principle that knowledge is power.
His later genetic experiments were partially inspired by the records of those performed by the Psions in the creation of his species. His ultimate creations were in many ways a reversion back to typical Psion traits.
The callous intellect and limited emotional range of the Daleks were innate aspects of standard Psion physiology. It is likewise no coincidence that the mutated appearance of Davros himself in the wake of his maiming bears some resemblance to that of his Psion forebears.
Daleks
The Daleks even repudiated their humanoid forebears as a lesser alien species. This was an unwitting historical parallel to a tradition on the part of the Psions of removing the vestigial tails of infants at birth in rejection of their own “savage” origins.
After the Thousand Year War ended with the extermination of the Kaleds and seemingly of the Thals as well, the Daleks began a methodical expansion into space. Their initial efforts were battled by the Green Lantern Corps.
As these initial encounters with the GLC took place when their Power Rings were still vulnerable to yellow, the Daleks created special contingents of gold-plated Dalek shells as a counter-measure. This was enough of a wide-spread practice at the time that some gold-plated components came to be seen even on Daleks not intended to fight the Corps.
No Man Escapes…
Then the Daleks first encountered the Manhunter androids. The two groups immediately developed a vicious mutual enmity for reasons neither species was consciously aware of. As agents of the Oans who had originally confined the Psions to Vega, the Manhunters had residual elements of their programming “instinctively” driving them to contain the Psion-derived Daleks.
In turn, the Daleks were compelled by subconscious Psion racial memories to see the Manhunters as an extreme threat. This would have serious consequences for both groups later in galactic history.
The Daleks attempted to use the temporal wakes of various universal time-altering incidents in the 20th Century such as the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour, and the Infinite Crisis as camouflage for their initial attacks in the Last Great Time War. The losses of various planets inflicted during that war were mistaken by most to have been casualties of those aforementioned incidents.
Only a few temporal studies experts in the DCU are even aware that the Last Great Time War took place. Because Earth had a central place in in those time shifts, the Daleks who survived the Great War further exploited the residual temporal disturbances as a means to hide from detection, which is why their subsequent re-emergences all took place near that planet.
The Legion Age
In the 30th and 31st Centuries, the Daleks (who at that time are actually ancestors of the distant-future Daleks who triggered the Last Great Time War) are a nuisance to the United Planets. They are also an occasional foes of the Legion of Super Heroes.
Like numerous other threats, the Daleks would periodically emerge from the “hostile and unexplored” quadrant of the Galaxy outside of UP space.
However, they are not as much of a threat as they were in previous times or would be again later. At that point they are still recovering from the Dalek Wars of the 26th Century. They are also being harried by the Khunds and the Dark Circle on either side of their domain.
When the Daleks began recruiting humans to betray this Galaxy to them around the beginning of the 41st Century, the leader of the conspiracy was none other than the undying Vandal Savage.
XLIVth century
Around the beginning of the 44th Century, a splinter group of the Manhunters would focus solely on combating the expanding Dalek menace. This faction eschewed their standard design, using the same resources to instead produce much greater numbers of less powerful android forms. For the same reason, the standard Manhunter power baton was reduced to a simple power pack for the bodies in question.
This Manhunter faction called themselves the Movellans after their primary factory world. Their war with the Daleks would eventually spread across the galaxy in a stalemate that lasted for centuries.
This stalemate finally ended in the 46th Century when the Movellans created a genetically-engineered virus that specifically targeted Dalek physiology. However, the Daleks would eventually recover from this defeat as they had all of their previous ones.
Marvel Universe History
The Celestials visited Skaro a million years ago. There, they created analogues of the Eternals and Deviants. These never existed in large numbers and eventually dwindled into extinction. But before that there was some interbreeding with the ordinary population of Skaro.
The descendants of those who interbred with the Eternal-analogues became the Thals. They inherited greater genetic stability. This enabled their gene pool to eventually stabilize back into a humanoid template following the mutations caused by the Thousand-Year War.
The descendants of those who interbred with the Deviant-analogues became the Kaleds. They inherited greater genetic instability which led to the mutations caused by the War altering their gene pool almost beyond recognition. It eventually stabilized into a radically non-humanoid template, resulting in the Daleks.
During the Dalek Wars of the 26th Century the Rigellian Empire would have been a key ally of the Humans and Draconians against the Daleks. The Kree, Skrull and Shi’ar Empires are too far away for it to seem very likely that they’d feel threatened enough to get involved.
All three of the aforementioned extragalactic empires might eventually end up being found amongst the totalitarian regimes conspiring with the Daleks against the expanding empire of Kang the Conqueror at the beginning of the 41st Century.
Game Stats — DC Heroes RPG
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Davros (Early Career)
Dex: 00 | Str: 00 | Bod: 02 | Motivation: Power Lust/Nihilist/Psychopath |
Int: 14 | Wil: 12 | Min: 12 | Occupation: Scientist, Conqueror, Exterminator |
Inf: 10 | Aur: 08 | Spi: 10 | Resources {or Wealth}: 015 |
Init: 024 | HP: 050 |
Powers:
Recall: 10
Bonuses and Limitations:
Recall: Skilled Power.
Skills:
Charisma: 10, Computers: 15, Gadgetry: 15, Medicine: 15, Military Science (Cartography, Cryptography, ECM)*: 14, Military Science (Field Command): 08, Scientist: 15, Thief (Security Systems): 14
Advantages:
Slowed Aging, Genius, Gift of Gab, Leadership, Scholar (Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Genetics, Mechanics, Computers, Robotics, Cybernetics, Bionics), Headquarters: Expansive (Various throughout his career.)
Connections:
The Daleks (High).
Drawbacks:
Strange Appearance, Age (Old), CPR (Davros is completely dependent on his prosthetic mobile life-support system for respiration, sustenance, sensory perception, mobility and speech.), SIA (toward exerting control over the Daleks), SIA (toward conquering or destroying the Universe), SIA (toward destroying the Doctor), Arch Enemy (the Doctor).
Equipment:
PROSTHETIC MOBILE LIFE-SUPPORT SYSTEM [BODY 06 INT 01, Scientist (Research): 12, Regeneration: 01, Suspension: 35, Force Field: 00, Power Reserve (Force Field): 16, Running: 02, Telescopic Vision: 04, Microscopic Vision: 04, Extended Hearing: 04, Interface: 3, Radio Communication: 10, Recall: 20. Drawbacks – Misc.: The Life-Support System can only move over a flat surface. Rugged terrain and stairs represent insurmountable obstacles for it. Bonuses & Limitations:
- Scientist (Research): Only usable to scan electronic data through Interface.
- Force Field: Operates at only half APs against Dalek weaponry. Serious Power Burnout. This is a Seriously Marginal Power.
- Regeneration and Suspension: Combined. Automatically Activated if Davros sustains enough RAPs of any kind of Damage to render him unconscious.
- Running: Requires a flat surface to move over.
- Interface: Requires Physical Connection
- Radio Communication: Encrypted. Normally only used to communicate with Daleks.]
Note: Since the body of Davros is completely integrated into his prosthetic mobile life-support system, the Vision and Hearing Powers conferred upon him by his implanted visual and auditory sensors are treated as abilities possessed by the life-support system rather than ones possessed by Davros himself.
Davros (Later Career)
Dex: 00 | Str: 00 | Bod: 01 | Motivation: Power Lust/Nihilist/Psychopath |
Int: 14 | Wil: 12 | Min: 12 | Occupation: Scientist, Conqueror, Exterminator |
Inf: 10 | Aur: 08 | Spi: 10 | Resources {or Wealth}: 025 |
Init: 024 | HP: 100 |
Powers:
Recall: 10
Bonuses and Limitations:
Recall: Skilled Power.
Skills:
Charisma: 10, Computers: 15, Gadgetry: 15, Medicine: 15, Military Science (Cartography, Cryptography, ECM)*: 14, Military Science (Field Command): 08, Scientist: 15, Thief (Security Systems): 14
Advantages:
Slowed Aging, Genius, Gift of Gab, Leadership, Scholar (Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Genetics, Mechanics, Computers, Robotics, Cybernetics, Bionics), Headquarters: Expansive (Various throughout his career.)
Connections:
The Daleks (High).
Drawbacks:
Strange Appearance, Age (Old), CPR (Davros is completely dependent on his prosthetic mobile life-support system and bionic body components for respiration, sustenance, sensory perception, mobility and speech.), SIA (toward exerting control over the Daleks), SIA (toward conquering or destroying the Universe), SIA (toward destroying the Doctor), Arch Enemy (the Doctor).
Equipment:
PROSTHETIC MOBILE LIFE-SUPPORT SYSTEM and integrated BIONIC BODY COMPONENTS [/DEX/ 02 /STR/ 04 BODY 09 INT 02, Scientist (Research): 50, Regeneration: 01, Suspension: 35, Force Field: 00, Power Reserve (Force Field): 08, Lightning: 08, Running: 02, Flight: 05, Telescopic Vision: 04, Microscopic Vision: 04, Ultra Vision: 03, Thermal Vision: 03, Extended Hearing: 04, Interface: 12, Radio Communication: 10, Recall: 30. Bonuses & Limitations:
- Scientist (Research): Only usable to scan electronic data through Interface.
- Regeneration and Suspension: Combined. Automatically Activated if Davros sustains enough RAPs of any kind of Damage to render him unconscious.
- Force Field: Can Attack Through Field. Operates at only half APs against Dalek weaponry. This is a Seriously Marginal Power.
- Lightning: No Range — Range of 1 AP only. Channelled through the bionic components of Davros himself and projected from his metal right hand.
- Running: Requires a flat surface to move over.
- Flight: This is a Seriously Marginal Power.
- Thermal Vision: Imaging Bonus
- Interface: Requires Physical Connection
- Radio Communication: Video Capability. Encrypted. Normally only used to communicate with Daleks.]
What little remains of the organic body of Davros and the bionic components that have replaced the rest of it are completely integrated into his prosthetic mobile life-support system. Therefore, the DEX and STR derived from the bionic components and the Vision and Hearing Powers conferred upon him by his implanted visual and auditory sensors are treated as abilities possessed by the life-support system rather than ones possessed by Davros himself.
The life and times of Davros
As can be seen above, for much of his career Davros had 2 APs of BODY. That progressively went down to 1 AP as more and more of his organic body was replaced by technology.
At the very beginning of his recorded career he had the leading personnel of the Kaled Elite Scientific Division as Assistants and Security-Commander Nyder as a Sidekick. He also had a High Level Connection to the ruling clique of the Kaled people.
During his time as the Great Healer of Necros he had a High Level Connection to the government of Necros. He also enjoyed Popularity which was conditional on his true identity and history remaining secret. He had his true identity and history, the true origins of his small Dalek retinue and the true nature of the synthetic food he mass-produced as Dark Secrets.
He had already received concealed bionic implants which enabled him to project Lightning at 4 APs from his original right hand. His prosthetic mobile life-support system had Power Reserve (Force Field) at 12 APs with Minor Power Burnout, representing a transitional stage in his gradual refinement of the technology involved (settling for reduced AP Levels as the price of greater reliability).
Later on
Davros lost his original right hand just before the period of the First and Second Dalek Civil Wars. Much of his remaining organic body tissue was removed for unknown reasons soon after those conflicts began. Perhaps it was because of organic deterioration due to age or because of delayed effects from the radiation blast that maimed him.
Thus, he was effectively reduced to a head and a partial torso. These were placed within a customized Dalek casing with a spherical upper half and no appendages.
He had a translucent hexagonal panel set into the upper front section of the sphere (in a position approximating the one where an eyestalk would be mounted on a standard Dalek casing) through which his artificial eye could see out. If he wished, the upper front section could retract inward and then slide upward and inward to reveal his head and shoulders within the casing, but this was rare.
While the casing remained closed Davros outwardly appeared to be a variant model of Dalek himself. This probably facilitated his acceptance as Dalek Emperor by his supporters. He would not have wished to needlessly do anything to remind them that he was not truly one of them. During this time he had no Lightning and he had the Dalek Supreme as an additional Arch Enemy.
Later on
After the conflicts ended his head and partial torso were eventually removed from the casing. They were grafted into a bionic partial body which was completely integrated into a new prosthetic mobile life-support system.
This procedure once again left him with a complete torso and a non-functional left arm that both disappeared from external view into the life-support system below. He again had a functional right arm which for game purposes restored some DEX to him for the first time since his maiming and could project Lightning at 8 APs.
When Davros set out to grow an entire army of new Daleks from his own cells, he had the remaining organic body tissue in his torso removed and harvested to create cell cultures. He replaced it with still more bionic components. His body is now entirely mechanical from the neck down.
Source of Character: Doctor Who.
Helper(s): Writeup for The Daleks v1.92 by Kal-El el Vigilante, Wikipedia.