Towards the end of classic Who we had the Renegade and Imperial Daleks that were fighting a civil war of sorts. In the new series they doesn't appear to be a faction just one race of Daleks. Did one side win and rebrand themselves in the new style? Did they decide the other side wasn't so bad and merge to take on common enemies? Is there a canon explanation?
I think audio dramas and books have offered a couple of different explanations. If we go by visual design, a couple of the Renegade Daleks were seen imprisoned on the Dalek Asylum planet in "Asylum of the Daleks." Although nothing was specifically said about them, that could imply that their faction lost the civil war. Kor
The exhibition suggested that there was a civil war between the New Paradigm Daleks and 'the Children of Davros' (ie, the bronze ones). Without any details, it seems that the pro-Davros faction tends to win in the end.
I think the New Paradigm Daleks run the show—eliminating too many of their fellows too costly a chore. The renegade Daleks seemed to follow Davros…those were humans…like the glass Daleks. After the Imperial Black Dalek met an end…they unified. Only way to wipe out the Movellans. I think the Cybermen licked the Raston robot with at least one taking its speed.
The last Xmas/New Year Special had the Dalek purity squads called in to deal with the mutated clones of the Scout Dalek, so there's still an element of "don't deviate that much or you'll be zapped" in Dalek society. Whether the New Paradigm just went back to the bronze shells (since both types are seen together in Asylum) because the factories were set up for that, or they found more Bronzies and released they wouldn't survive as a race without allowing SOME variation in... who knows?
Of course, there was already a Dalek civil war way back in 1967, and that just sort of disappeared without explanation too (at least in the TV series, not sure about spin-off media). I did find it a little strange that, after being introduced with such fanfare, the New Paradigm were very quickly forgotten.
My assumption was always that after the death of the Emperor, Supremes battled for leadership running multiple factions. Eventually one won.
The Imperial Daleks exterminated all the other Daleks, they're still painted white; they just need to be cleaned.
I remember Gatiss wasn't too happy with the design according to the commentary on Victory of the Daleks. I wonder if Moffat also decided he didn't like them and switched back to the old ones.
LOL, which ones. Revelation (1985) had the Davros faction (renegades from Skaro) versus the Supreme Dalek on Skaro. This stemmed from the roots from "Resurrection". They butted heads in Remembrance (1988) except "Imperial" was now accorded Davros's side and the renegades were all over the place. Both sides probably would have reacted to the Doctor destroying Skaro the same and maybe that reunited them for a while. Dalek chronology is a fun little task... "Parting of the Ways" (2005) sets the stage to reintroduce 2 factions, loosely based on what "Revelation" did (using others' genetic material to be remade as Dalek creatures), but nothing from that would really develop until Chibnall's era, from what I recall (and being even more Earthbound, weirdly. "Victory of the Daleks" (201-something) is a rehash of "The Power of the Daleks", aping some of that 1966 story's dialogue as "remember berries" or whatever. The idea of the Dalek Paradigm was pretty good. It's let down by the most bizarre Dalek redesign, which is not supposed to look uglier than the plastic toy figures being sold on store shelves. Sadly, the idea was completely scuppered. Just because of the new look. A look that, from some angles, wasn't all that bad. But atrocious from others. Seeing only one Dalek of each color designation did not help. A bunch of orange ones in full display might have looked better than just the one trundling next to the blue, green, red, and horseshoe purple one at the end.
The Paradigm Daleks didn't just look better from certain angles (and the director of "Victory" didn't just happen to pick all the most unflattering angles), the props were actually modified to be closer to the original concept design, reducing the extreme "hunchback" that was added during construction. There was also the new metallic paintjob on the red and blue ones in Asylum of the Daleks that looked very sharp, and which went forward with my opinion of how things should be after "Victory," with the new Daleks as an elite officer class, and the rank-and-file Daleks being the bronze design. But that didn't maintain, either, as the season 9 opener took advantage of all the legacy Dalek designs they'd sourced to just have all eras of Dalek milling around on Skarro (as one might expect).
The asylum refits are certainly an improvement, though I still think overall that the increased bulk of those casings, and the need to keep repainting them from scene to scene, would have made them impractical in the long run.