If you’ve not seen the Victory of the Daleks and don’t want spoilers then – look away now.
Gone?
Right; the rest of us can speculate as to whether we’ll see a Doctor Who episode that puts the spotlight on the Eternal Dalek?
In Victory of the Daleks we saw a new generation of pure Daleks. They were strong colours and each had a role.
There was the;
- White Supreme Dalek
- Red Drone Dalek
- Yellow Eternal Dalek
- Blue Strategist Dalek
- Orange Scientist Dalek
We know what those roles will be for the most. Mark Gatiss looks cheeky and says, “Who knows?” in relation to (we assume) the Eternal Dalek.
Steven Moffat says the name sounds important and in Doctor Who Confidenatial he bets us that it will be really important. It was also Steven Moffat who created the Eternal Dalek, suggesting the name to Gatiss. In other words; the Eternal Dalek was added to the script by the lead writer.
So what do you think? How important will the Eternal Dalek be in the future?
What do you think the role will be?
Perhaps the Eternal Daleks are the ones responsible for ensuring the survival of the Dalek species, creating failsafes such as the Void Ship and the Progenitor so that even if the Daleks are seemingly destroyed they can still return.
I think that's a really good theory. It makes a lot of sense and helps explain all the “returns” the Daleks have managed over the years. It could also be the Dalek responsible for looking at the 'eternal' racial purity of the species.
It did come out of the Progenitor after the supreme dalek. That makes me think it is less important in the dalek chain of command – but it's hard to make that fit.
Also, did anybody else notice how all the other Daleks had silver orbs on their body casing while the Eternal Dalek has black orbs? It could just be a case of it looking better black than silver, or it could imply that the Eternal Dalek does indeed have some significance.
When I heard there was only 1 “Eternal” my immediate association was “Davros”.
I hadn’t heard that. Yeah; that’s pretty compelling… who/what else could it be?
The eternal daleks are so damn frickin cool! They look awesome.
That would be my guess as well, the Eternal Dalek being tasked with ensuring the absolute continuation of the racially pure Dalek species so they will never again come as close to extinction as they did.
On the subject of Dalek racial purity, in the Stolen Earth two-parter, Davros claimed to have grown his Dalek army from his own genetic material, which is pure Kalid and should, therefore, be technically acceptable as a template for pure Dalek.
One has to assume then that the three Daleks from 'Victory of the Daleks' were not survivors of that conflict but an earlier one when hybrid Daleks were still dominant.
Davros presumably mutated differently to how he mutated materials for the first daleks. Do therefore his own DNA is different, probably racial difference contributed to his seeming defeat in genesis
That would explain why they were able to get on so well with the Time War Daleks in the Dalek Parliament. They found Davros’ daleks to be pure, so coexisted.
It does make you want to question the decision to create the human-dalek hybrid. Why? If the progenitor would only respond to “pure” then they'd be loosing the ability to use this (clearly powerful) re-creation technology. In fact, the whole progentior tech is a bit strange. I like your arguement that the Kaled core is “pure” but doesn't that mean any form of evolution from the daleks is a corruption. The Eternal Dalek, itself, is a corruption because it's not one of the original Kaled core daleks. Or am I wrapping up the evolution of the dalek bio-creature into the… Read more »
If the Progenitor contains 'pure' Dalek DNA then by all rights it should be of Kaled origin and not be tainted with genetic material from ANY other species. I think the design and specifications of the machine part of the Dalek are quite aside from the purity issue. Even those Daleks who were mutations of their Kaled predecessors back on Skaro had a number of casings that differed from the original Mark III Travel Machine developed by Davros. There are probably a number of reasons why the Daleks first started abandoning their genetic purity. Who remembers their war with the… Read more »
Well thought out and stated. In the back of my head, though, I have the idea that all daleks should be Eternal Daleks. Everyone of them should be focused on making sure the dalek race lives on forever.
I suppose, as you say, the Eternal Dalek can be even more focused on this – watching out for problems like insane Emperor Daleks.
They should have been kaled and it was a shockingly missed opportunity to save a lot of money and also have logic for once in this series. Sure, some fans would hate them but some do now, as for me i would prefer this to make sense.
I still prefare the Mark III to the Mark IV
I agree about the eternal being focused on survival, i had the same theory.
hmmm my guese would be the survival of the dalek race IE (city of the daleks.. dr wipes out the daleks… eternals look into it.. “ello ello we shouldnt of invaded earth, *time jump* dont invade earth the doctor will keel us!” dalek empire returns)
failing that… some sort of intelligence dalek
The new dalek is very cool,only prob is i dont know what the yellow daleks job,i know the orange is scintist,reds are drones and blue is army,white is commander.Dunno what yellow is though,ive completed the dalek episode in the adventure games,but when are got the hidden dalek card it said yellow daleks pupuse is unknown,im only ten lolz
blue is a strategist
The eternal dalek will have the role of the “spiritual” side of Dalek society. Its yellow design and black orbs indicates a “godlike” presence to the other daleks. Its invincible and cannot be destroyed by anything and will rebuild the dalek race if the existing ones get wiped out. The word “eternal” have always been familiar with gods and with the old dalek they once the stated the emperor dalek was the god of all daleks also. Its the only role i can think of anyway.
I think that’s a credible theory. It’ll be a big step to make it truly invincible but treating it as the religious leader of the Daleks makes a lot of sense.
i felt that the eternal dalek would be specifically made to survive, not to conquer. if all other daleks were destroyed, the eternal would keep the biology and be able to clone more daleks at will… hence the daleks will be eternal
Like the seed dalek in renosance of the daleks! I see…
The Eyernal obviously has a higher status than the Emperor (if he were alive) because in Dalek society, Daleks important in the continuation of the race have higher status over the ruling class(Supremes, emperors and the like). Its the only one of the new Dalek paradigm that has black hemispheres, si is time proof. in the Big Bang, only 2 stone daleks were present but 3 were in the Pandorica opens. Either because 1 was erased as time went by or the eternal escaped.
on another note, did anyone realise that Rivers Sogs gun is like a Nerf Nite Finder?
The eternal Dalek will most likely be behind the return of daleks from all eras of the show, set to occur in the first episode of series 7.
The Eternal is probably intended to maintain the timeline by keeping the humans beyond the Fourth Wall guessing instead of smashing down the dimensional boundaries with crossover fanfics.
Sounds silly but I reckon it could be true.