Davros
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Template:Doctorwhocharacter Davros is a character from the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who, responsible for the genesis of the Doctor's deadliest enemies, the Daleks. He was created by Terry Nation.
Davros is a scientist from the planet Skaro whose people, the Kaleds, were engaged in a bitter thousand-year war of attrition with their enemies, the Thals. Horribly scarred and crippled after what is simply described on screen as an "accident", with only one functioning arm and one cybernetic "eye" mounted on his forehead, for much of his existence he depended completely upon his mobile life-support chair which enclosed the lower half of his body. It would become an obvious inspiration for his eventual design of the Dalek.
Davros is a megalomaniac — he believed that through his creations, the Daleks, he would become the supreme being and ruler of the universe. He is a brilliant scientist who has demonstrated mastery of robotics, metallurgy, chemistry, artificial intelligence, cloning, genetic engineering, biology and military tactics.
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Character history
When he first encountered the Fourth Doctor in the 1975 serial Genesis of the Daleks, Davros (played by Michael Wisher) was the chief scientist of the Kaleds, heading the Scientific Division. He had already survived six assassination attempts. Davros realised that contamination from the nuclear and biological weapons used in the war were mutating the Kaled race, and artificially accelerated the process to examine the ultimate evolutionary end product. The mutations were weak and crippled: no more than brains with tentacular appendages and with no hope of survival on their own. His solution was to remove all emotions pertaining to weakness, such as compassion, mercy and kindness, and place the mutants in tank-like "travel machines" that were partly based on the design of his wheelchair. He named these creatures Daleks, an anagram of Kaled.
Davros quickly became obsessed with his creations, considering them to be the ultimate form of life and superior to all others. To stop his own people from shutting down his Dalek project, he arranged for them to be wiped out by the Thals. The Daleks then exterminated the Thal victors, but ultimately turned on Davros and apparently killed him.
He proved too effective a character to be kept dead and was resurrected four years later in 1979's Destiny of the Daleks (played by David Gooderson using Wisher's mask, which did not fit his face properly). The Daleks unearthed their creator — who had apparently been in suspended animation since his 'death' in Genesis — to help them break a logical impasse in their war against the android Movellans. However, the Dalek force was destroyed by the Doctor, and Davros was captured and imprisoned by the Earth Empire.
Image:MolloyDavros.jpg In the Fifth Doctor story Resurrection of the Daleks (1983), a small Dalek force aided by human mercenaries and Dalek duplicates liberated Davros (now played by Terry Molloy) from his space station prison, needing his expertise to find an antidote for a Movellan-created virus that had all but wiped them out. Believing his creations to be treacherous, Davros began using mind control on Daleks and humans, ultimately releasing the virus to kill off the Daleks before they could exterminate him. However, at the end of the story, he apparently succumbed to the virus himself before he could escape.
Davros emerged as "The Great Healer" of the funeral and cryogenic preservation centre Tranquil Repose on the planet Necros in the Sixth Doctor story Revelation of the Daleks (1985), where he used frozen bodies to engineer a new variety of Daleks loyal to him, distinguished from the original Daleks by their white and gold livery and slightly changed design. In this story there appeared to be two Davroses: one who was a head in a tank (apparently a clone), and the other in his usual chair (which could now hover), appearing when the clone was killed by an assassin. Davros could now move his neck and fire electric bolts from his hand, although this was shot off shortly before his original creations arrived to destroy his second generation of Daleks and transport him to Skaro to face trial.
Davros's last appearance (played again by Molloy) was as the Dalek Emperor in Remembrance of the Daleks (1988), with his white and gold Daleks now termed "Imperial Daleks". By this time Davros, who had apparently conquered Skaro and reduced his original race of Daleks to the status of renegades, was physically reduced to a head in a customised Dalek casing. Both Skaro and the Imperial Dalek mothership were apparently destroyed by the Seventh Doctor using the Time Lord artifact known as the Hand of Omega. However, a Dalek on the bridge of Davros's ship reported that the Emperor's escape pod was being launched at the time of its destruction, leaving a clear route to bring Davros back in the future.
In the 2005 series, it was revealed that the Daleks and the Time Lords had engaged in a mutually destructive Time War, although the Dalek Emperor survived to build a new race of Daleks. Davros was referred to (albeit not by name) in the episode Dalek: the Ninth Doctor explains that the Daleks were created by a genius, "a man who was king of his own little world."
When the Emperor made its appearance in the season finale, The Parting of the Ways, it was a Dalek mutant floating in tank of fluid connected to a giant Dalek shell, and was evidently not Davros. Davros's status at this point, or any role he may have played in the Time War, is unknown.
An article by Russell T. Davies in the Doctor Who Annual 2006 states that one of the "Dalek Puppet Emperors" openly declared his hostilities towards the Time Lords and their planet, Gallifrey. This may be a reference to Davros's threats against the Time Lords in Remembrance of the Daleks.
Other appearances
Terry Molloy has reprised his role as Davros in the spin-off audio plays produced by Big Finish Productions, mostly notably Davros (taking place during the Sixth Doctor's era), which explored the scientist's life prior to his crippling injury, which is attributed to a Thal nuclear attack. The upcoming Big Finish minseries I, Davros, also starring Molloy, will explore Davros's early life further.
Davros, which does not feature the Daleks, fills in the gaps between Resurrection of the Daleks and Revelation of the Daleks, and has the scientist trying to manipulate the galaxy's economy into a war footing similar to Skaro's. The Sixth Doctor manages to defeat his plans, and he is last seen when his ship explodes, an event obliquely mentioned in Revelation.
The subsequent play The Juggernauts similarly takes place between Revelation and Remembrance. There, Davros adds human nervous tissue to robotic Mechanoids to create the Juggernauts of the play's title; he hopes to use these as an army to destroy the Daleks. At the end of the story, the self-destruct mechanism of Davros's life-support chair explodes, destroying an entire human colony. It is not clear how Davros survives to become the Dalek Emperor, as seen in Remembrance.
By the time of the Eighth Doctor audio play Terror Firma (set after Remembrance), Davros is commanding a Dalek army which has successfully conquered the Earth. His mental instability has grown to the point where "Davros" and "the Emperor" exist within him as different personalities. His Daleks recognize this instability and rebel against Davros. By the story's end the Emperor personality is dominant, and the Daleks agree to follow him and leave Earth.
This seemed to contradict the events of the Eighth Doctor Adventures novel War of the Daleks by John Peel, in which an unmerged Davros was placed on trial by the Dalek Prime, a combination of the Dalek Emperor and the Dalek Supreme. The novel also revealed that the planet Antalin had been terraformed to resemble Skaro and destroyed in its place. It was also revealed the Dalek/Movellan war (and indeed most of Dalek history before the destruction of "Skaro") was actually faked for Davros' benefit.
War of the Daleks, like the audio plays, is of uncertain canonicity when it comes to the television series. War however, was so badly received by some fans that they even disavowed it within the continuity of the novels. Others welcomed War for having the Daleks reassert their original independence from Davros.
At the conclusion of War, Davros was seemingly disintegrated by a Spider Dalek on the order of the Dalek Prime. However, Davros had previously subverted the programming of one of the Spider Daleks, and even he was not certain in the end if he was being disintegrated or being teleported away to safety, leaving the possibility open for his return.
How Terror Firma and War can be reconciled is not clear, which provides support to the proposition that the novels and the audio plays take place in separate continuities. However, this has not prevented some fans from trying to do so.
List of appearances
Television
- Genesis of the Daleks: March 8–April 12, 1975
- Destiny of the Daleks: September 1–September 22, 1979
- Resurrection of the Daleks: February 8–February 15, 1984
- Revelation of the Daleks: March 23–March 30, 1985
- Remembrance of the Daleks: October 5–October 26, 1988
Audio plays
- Davros (Doctor Who audio)
- The Juggernauts
- Terror Firma
- I, Davros (to be released)
Original novels
- War of the Daleks by John Peel (Eighth Doctor Adventures)