If the Daleks then why not the Time Lords?

Discussion in 'Doctor Who' started by Gotham Central, Oct 2, 2012.

  1. Gotham Central

    Gotham Central Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I'm not totally understanding why or how it is that the Daleks still manage to be a threat in virtually every season of NuWho. The 2005 season very clearly stated that the Daleks were supposed to have been destroyed in the Time War, and the Doctor is shocked when he runs into them. I think it was the season that suggested that the only way for the Daleks to survive were for themt o start stealing humans and remaking them into Daleks.

    Now it seems that all of the traditional Daleks are back and that the very idea of them being wiped out in the Time War has been forgotten.

    So the question is why have the Daleks been spared from extermination but the Time Lords are virtually extinct? I'm not familiar with vintage Who, but does the show work better creatively with there being only one Time Lord?
     
  2. Saul

    Saul Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I think the Dalek's are easy to produce. Kinda like the Borg they can change people into Daleks or use their genetic material to create more. So as long as even one survives the Dalek empire can be rebuilt and destroyed IMO.
     
  3. NCC-1701-B

    NCC-1701-B Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Also for the fact Daleks can travel in time, so it's likely some escaped from the time war.
     
  4. The Mirrorball Man

    The Mirrorball Man Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Two reasons.

    One: yes, the show works better when there's only one(-ish) Time Lord around. The Doctor is cool. Knowing that there's a whole planet of Doctor-like beings out there, and that they're all pompous old farts in funny hats is not cool.

    Two: dramatic reasons. Daleks are the ultimate survivors. That's their purpose, that's what they're about. A story about the Daleks coming back from what we thought was total annihilation almost writes itself. Time Lords are all about decadence and complacency. A story where they'd come back from total annihilation goes against what has been their dramatic impetus up to now.
     
  5. RoJoHen

    RoJoHen Awesome Admiral

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    I rationalize it like this:

    At the end of Season 2, we have the Cult of Skaro that managed to escape the Time War by hiding in the Void. When the Doctor and Rose sucked them all back into the Void, Dalek Caan did an "emergency temporal shift" and then roamed about for a while. He had some crazy time-travelly adventures of his own, through which he and Davros managed to find/make a bunch of other Daleks that also had a bunch of their own time-travelly adventures and continued to make even more Daleks.

    Just because the Doctor time-locked the Time Lords and Daleks doesn't mean he's the only one who can unlock them.
     
  6. Mr Light

    Mr Light Admiral Admiral

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    Since they rebooted the universe in "The Big Bang", I have no idea what happened or didn't happen anymore... but in the RTD Era, didn't all the Daleks come from the single Emperor who fell out of the time lock?
     
  7. Holdfast

    Holdfast Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I've long since given up trying to understand the Dalek history/timeline (in fact, I think I gave up in the 80s). I just enjoy watching them turn up and yelling EX-TER-MI-NATE. :cool:

    I would like the Time Lords back though. Actually, I'd really like a Time Lord/Lady companion again like Romana was or, perhaps better, one as a recurring neutral/lawful-good type character (i.e. not the Master). I like it when the Doctor has an equal to play off (to some extent River has filled this role in the Smith era, as did Oswin for much of Asylum of the Daleks, and the TARDIS herself did in that one-off ep last year).
     
  8. Starkers

    Starkers Admiral Admiral

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    Time Lord action figures don't sell nearly as well as Dalek ones do...
     
  9. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    It all comes down to the fact that RTD and Moffat don't like the Time Lords. That's why RTD made them extinct, and why Moffat keeps them extinct.
     
  10. StCoop

    StCoop Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yup, that's pretty much it.
     
  11. Sci

    Sci Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Nope. Only the ones from the end of Series One.

    Here's a brief history of post-Time War Daleks:

    0. At the end of the Time War, the Doctor uses a weapon called "the Moment," incinerating the Daleks and Time Lords alike. The Time War itself has been "time locked," and the Daleks and Time Lords are largely erased from history, though advanced civilizations capable of detecting temporal alterations retain knowledge of them.

    1. A single, standard-issue Dalek somehow survived the Doctor's use of the Moment and escaped the time lock, and was transported to mid-20th Century Earth in a weakened state before ending up in the collection of Henry Van Staten in 2008, when Rose Tyler touched it. It later committed suicide upon realizing it had absorbed some of Rose's DNA. ("Dalek" -- original date cited as 2012; I conjecture that it was actually 2008 and the Doctor just misread the year-o-meter in the TARDIS again, to correct for no one knowing what a Dalek was in a supposedly post-Dalek Invasion timeframe.)

    2. The Emperor of the Daleks -- who apparently replaced or overthrew Davros as Dalek leader early in the Time War -- also somehow survived, and escaped the time lock. The Emperor ended up in the 2,001st Century, and enacts a centuries-long plan to manipulate the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire through the use of mass media while using Human refugees and dissidents as raw material to create a race of Daleks with Human DNA elements who will worship it as a god. The Emperor and its devotees are all vaporized by Rose Tyler upon her return to the 2,002nd Century from 21st Century Earth. ("Bad Wolf"/"The Parting of the Ways")

    3. During the war, the Cult of Skaro entered the Void in a specialized ship while escorting the hijacked Genesis Ark, a specialized Time Lord prison ship containing hundreds of Dalek prisoners of war. The Cult of Skaro escapes the Void in 2007 Britain, unleashing their liberated forces upon the occupying Cybus Cybermen army before the Doctor and Rose are able to suck them back into the Void. The Cult itself uses an emergency temporal shift to escape to 1930s New York. ("Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday")

    4. The Cult of Skaro, numbering at only 4 -- the last remaining Daleks in all of time and space -- enact a plan in 1930s New York to create Human/Dalek hybrids. This plan is thwarted when the Cult turns on its leader, Dalek-Sec. The only survivor is Dalek-Caan. ("Daleks in Manhattan"/"Evolution of the Daleks")

    5. Using his emergency temporal shift, Dalek-Caan attempts a suicidal run into the time lock -- and, amazingly, succeeds in penetrating it. He thereby rescues Davros from an early point in the Time War. Davros and Dalek-Caan, now driven mad, escape to the Medusa Cascade of the early 21st Century. From there, Davros uses his own tissue to create a new Dalek army with Kaled DNA elements. In 2009, this new Dalek Empire invades Earth and abducts numerous planets in an attempt to active a Reality Bomb that will wipe out all matter excepting their own, but are thwarted by the Doctor and his friends, who use Dalek technology to destroy all Dalek ships and forces... ("The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End")

    6. ... except for a single ship with a handful of Davros-tissue Daleks. These Daleks eventually located a Progenitor Device on 1940s Earth, which they use to create a new set of genetically pure Daleks (referred to as the "New Dalek Paradigm"). These new Daleks immediately exterminate their Davros-contaminated creators before escaping into the past from the Doctor. From there, they re-establish Daleks into history, creating a new Dalek Empire. This timeline's Dalek Empire eventually allies itself with the Shadow Proclamation, the Sontaran Empire, and the Cybermen in an attempt to trap the Doctor in the Pandorica to avert the destruction of reality by the explosion of the TARDIS on 23 June 2010; this Empire is also the one from which the Doctor stole information on the Silence, and which recruited the Doctor to help destroy its Asylum. ("Victory of the Daleks," "The Pandorica Opens," "The Wedding of River Song," "Asylum of the Daleks")

    Tl;dr version:

    In other words, the Dalek Empire that exists today can trace a direct line to Dalek-Caan of the Cult of Skaro for its survival. Dalek-Caan escaped the Time War in the Void, Dalek-Caan rescued Davros, Davros created his genetically impure army, some of the Davros-contaminated Daleks found a Progenitor Device, the Progenitor-created Daleks went back in time to found the Empire that exists now. So what happens now is, the Progenitor Daleks have now re-established themselves into history, but the Time Lords remain erased from history.
     
  12. Gotham Central

    Gotham Central Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Have either stated that conclusively or is that pure fan conjecture?
     
  13. Mr Light

    Mr Light Admiral Admiral

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    I just read RTD's "The Writer's Tale" and he says he made the right decision to off the Time Lords because they don't work in the story and rob all the drama since there's an all powerful race of good guys lurking in the wings, and they were stuffy ponces anyway.
     
  14. Sci

    Sci Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    The Time Lords are much more interesting in their absence than in their presence.
     
  15. Gotham Central

    Gotham Central Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Its funny that he sees them as a race of stuffy good guys. My only exposure to Time Lords other than the Doctor, thus far has shown them all to be malevolent. These are the folks that were willing to sacrifice Earth in order to resurrect Gallifrey. I know that the Doctors says in 'The End of Time" that the Time War changed the Time Lords, but damn, they were down right evil in that. Thus far, the Doctor has looked more like an anomaly instead of being representative of his race.
     
  16. Awesome Possum

    Awesome Possum Moddin' Admiral

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    From what I've seen of old Who, they were a race of jerks. Only the Doctor, the Master and Romana were interesting.
     
  17. ATimson

    ATimson Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Seeing as how you cite the Master, jerks can be interesting. ;)
     
  18. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

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    To quote the sixth Doctor :

    In all my travelling throughout the universe, I have battled against evil, against power-mad conspirators. I should have stayed here. The oldest civilisation: decadent, degenerate, and rotten to the core. Power-mad conspirators, Daleks, Sontarans, Cybermen - they're still in the nursery compared to us. Ten million years of absolute power. That's what it takes to be really corrupt.
     
  19. Sindatur

    Sindatur The Gray Owl Wizard Admiral

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    Is it any wonder McCoy became so Secretive and Manipulative? ;)

    For any "NuWho Only Fans", the Classic Tom Baker Serial, Genesis of The Daleks, where the Doctor is forced into a situation where The Time Lords want The Doctor to destroy the Daleks at their Genesis. This Story, is said by Many an Uber-Fan, to be the "First Strike in the Time War". I think all "NuWho UberFans" should see this for Reference's sake (IMHO, Of course)
     
  20. Awesome Possum

    Awesome Possum Moddin' Admiral

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    Just normal jerks, like ones from your job. Not the kind who try to blow up half the universe.