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In 'Victory of the Daleks' we see the pure Daleks being created:

Shiny Daleks

However in 'Asylum of the Daleks' we see their parliament:

Not so shiny

They're very different. Did the 'pure' ones not survive? Did they change colours? What's going on!

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  • 3
    In other shots of Asylum of the Daleks, you can see the pure colored ones.
    – ardent
    Sep 5, 2012 at 21:00
  • 1
    Yea... I was wondering where the Power Rangers Daleks went....
    – Naftali
    Sep 5, 2012 at 21:00
  • @ardentsonata you can?!
    – AncientSwordRage
    Sep 5, 2012 at 21:01
  • @Pureferret, unless I was hallucinating (which is entirely possible) I thought I saw the Red colored one. Otherwise, I'll just chaulk it up to retcon, which this episode seems to take great pleasure in.
    – ardent
    Sep 5, 2012 at 21:02
  • Did anybody notice that there are no "pure" Daleks on the asylum planet? I would have liked it if there were.
    – Mr Lister
    Sep 8, 2012 at 14:46

3 Answers 3

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Those Daleks are indeed represented at the parliament. We see the white Dalek Supreme next to the Prime Minister of the Daleks:

enter image description here

We also see the red ones a number of times in the background, but quite clearly in a couple of shots (to the left in this one):

enter image description here

Finally, a shot with what looks like a blue one on the left of the white and red Daleks, though less clear than the rest:

enter image description here

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  • 1
    So they didn't kill off all of the impure daleks?
    – AncientSwordRage
    Sep 5, 2012 at 22:23
  • 4
    @Pureferrt, I'm thinking this is either a massive retcon (where the hell did the Prime Minister dalek come from), or all those daleks are pure daleks, just to a different spec.
    – ardent
    Sep 5, 2012 at 22:35
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    They actually went around and collected every Dalek they could to make this scene. Moffat said he wanted to make the Daleks scary again. It's too late for me to go looking for it but the is a youtube vid where he introduces it and some articles that tell of them finding all the Daleks.
    – shachna
    Sep 7, 2012 at 1:47
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You can't judge a Dalek by its casing. The episode "Dalek" establishes this style of casing as being the style used in the Time War - when the Daleks were still pure. Davros was "lost" in the first year of the Time War, as stated repeatedly by the Doctor, most notably in "Journeys End" where the impure Daleks are introduced and their origin explained. Davros was brought out of the Time Lock by Caan, and using his own body cells (showing exposed bones on his chest as he explains), he grew a new breed of Daleks. These impure Daleks have casings that are largely modeled off of Caan and the other war Daleks.

The remnants of these impure Daleks find the progenitor device created during the Time War. It contains pure Dalek DNA which is then used to create the new "pure" Daleks in "Victory of the Daleks" - and the casing colors are stated to designate the function of each Dalek. The restored "pure" Daleks go off and repopulate with the knowledge that their worst enemy from the Time War is still alive.

That is as far as we know for certain. Extrapolating from that, though, the decision to return to the war model casing makes sense.

There are also "millions" of pure Daleks with these war style casings who were trapped in the Void in "Parting of the Ways". In "The Next Doctor", it is stated that the Cybermen stole the device the Daleks were working on to escape. This second possibility would explain the mixture of new white, blue and red Daleks among the brass colored Daleks. It also explains the sudden appearance of a parliament in what had always been a hierarchical command structure - two groups of Daleks with their own hierarchy and needing to integrate might combine their command structures in a new way.

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  • Why were the Daleks formed from the DNA of Davros considered as impure? They were still formed from Kaled DNA.
    – user66716
    Jul 9, 2018 at 20:15
  • @jim Daleks were genetically modified to remove what Davros considered to be flaws in the Kaled. These modifications may not have been exactly repeatable.
    – Jules
    Jul 10, 2018 at 13:24
  • @Jules Thanks, yes this is a possibility
    – user66716
    Jul 11, 2018 at 8:01
  • "You can't judge a Dalek by its casing": Brilliant!
    – user66716
    Jul 11, 2018 at 8:02
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The New Paradigm Daleks were a marketing failure - nobody liked them.

The new series Dalek design was made the size it was so it would be at eye-to-eyestalk level with Rose Tyler. The New Paradigm Daleks were designed to match Matt Smith's height. But as Moffat said himself, "They're scarier when they're wee".

They made a brief appearance in Asylum, and not again. There was an assumption by some fans that they took some sort of ruler emeritus position. They never seemed to make MORE of them, save for that initial five.

It can be assumed that the genetically pure Kaled Mutant's WITHIN the Dalek travel machine became the new genetic base of new Daleks created afterwards, using the "original" casing and design.

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