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I just watched the 11th Doctor's episode Victory of the Daleks, where the Daleks that survived the episode Stolen Earth managed to create a so-called pure Dalek.

I knew that the Emperor of the Daleks did create a hybrid of human and Dalek in order to save the race of Daleks. The hybrid Daleks are already powerful.

After the creation of these pure Daleks, they made a decision to destroy all the hybrid Daleks that created them. Somehow it shows that the pure Daleks are much powerful than the hybrid Daleks in the post-Time-War time.

So my questions are:

  1. How powerful are the Pure Daleks compared to the hybrid Daleks? How is their appearance different than the hybrid Daleks? I can see they were more colorful.

  2. Because the timeline is so complex, I cannot distinguish when were the Daleks pure or hybrid (because they can go back time and breed). Are all the Daleks after the Time War hybrid?

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  • There were also hybrid daleks in "Revelation of the Daleks", a sixth doctor story. And didn't daleks also convert humans into slaves of some sort in that episode "Utopia"? weren't they going to some sort of dalek trap? Or am I thinking of a different episode?
    – David Good
    Sep 5, 2011 at 23:06

1 Answer 1

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I believe you have misinterpreted events.

The Daleks are extremely racist, and absolutely convinced of their own genetic superiority. By definition, they believe all other genetic lines to be inferior, and further they believe fully that all inferior lines must be destroyed.

The hybrid Daleks are the epitome of self-loathing racists -- they are "impure", they know this, and they despise themselves for it. "Rose's" Dalek in the episode Dalek is a perfect example of this, although he seems to be more capable of accepting it than Daleks we meet later.

The hybrid Daleks want to be destroyed to eliminate their own impure DNA from the universe. Thus, when they succeed in creating "pure" Daleks, and those pure ones decide to eliminate the hybrids, the hybrids agree with this assessment and allow themselves to be destroyed.

Further, though, we know from Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks that Dalek weapons are fully capable of overcoming Dalek shields and armor and destroying Daleks:

We see the enslaved Dalek humans turn on their masters and destroy them with Dalek weapons, even while those Daleks were actively resisting their own destruction and fighting back.

The hybrid Daleks did no such thing -- in fact, IIRC, at least one of them says that he agrees with the pure Daleks before being destroyed, so I think it's quite believable that he deliberately disabled his own defenses in order to make his own destruction easier.

All that said, the reaction of the Doctor -- and the accompanying dramatic music etc. -- do lead us to think that the new pure Daleks are more dangerous. Not more powerful, but more dangerous. Why? Simply put: They don't hate themselves. They are pure, they are superior (to their way of thinking, of course), so there's no wishy-washy "Destroy everything else, but I also have to be destroyed" thinking going on for them. (Although a counter-point is previous statements from the Doctor implying that the self-loathing Daleks are more dangerous, because they hate themselves. So, not really sure which way it really goes here -- maybe the Doctor believed that until it was no longer academic and he was facing pure Daleks.)

In answer to your second question: Nope. At the very least, the Dalek in the episode Dalek, the damaged one that the Doctor and Rose encounter in what's-his-name's vault and that Rose accidentally reinvigorates with her touch, was pure, a survivor of the Time War (at least until it incorporate Rose's DNA and became impure, of course). We also see other survivors of the Time War, such as those who escaped in the Void Ship -- they, too, are pure. Until the creation of these pure Daleks, all Daleks created after the Time War are hybrids of some type or other, yes, but those that directly escaped/survived the Time War were pure, as are the colorful new pure ones the hybrids managed to create.

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  • 1
    And why do the new Daleks having different colors? The other normal, low-rank Dalek are all golden. Jul 16, 2011 at 15:51
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    @gunbuster Out-of-universe, the writers just wanted a clear way to say "these are the new Daleks"; giving them each individual colors, too, allows them to develop each character. Previously, Daleks were all just Daleks, no individuals at all; the reboot series has seen more than a couple unique individuals among the Daleks. In-universe... we're not given an explanation. They just are. No one comments on it, no one seems to even notice it, so we're left with no answer at all.
    – Kromey
    Jul 18, 2011 at 16:38
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    I'd imagine Rose's Dalek was more able to accept it, because as far as he knew he was the single, lone Dalek left in the universe. As such, he probably saw little reason to continue. With him alone, there was no hope of being able to rebuild the Dalek empire. He was a through-and-through soldier without a war.
    – eidylon
    Sep 6, 2011 at 15:07
  • @gunbuster each of the colors means something, I don't remember which means what.
    – dkuntz2
    Sep 8, 2011 at 21:32
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    @gunbuster: the colours are as follows: White = Supreme; Red = Drone; Blue = Strategist; Orange = Scientist; Yellow = “Eternal”. Whatever that means.
    – alexwlchan
    Dec 10, 2011 at 13:38

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