Daleks

Affiliated with - Dalek Empire

Homeworld - Skaro

The Daleks are a fictional extraterrestrial race of mutants from Doctor Who. A Dalek is a grotesque mutated organism integrated with a tank-like mechanical casing made of 'polycarbide'. The resulting creatures are a pitiless race bent on universal conquest and domination. They are also, collectively, the greatest alien adversaries of the Time Lord known as the Doctor. Their most famous catchphrase is "EX-TER-MI-NATE!", with each syllable individually screeched in a frantic electronic voice.

The Daleks were created by writer Terry Nation and BBC designer Raymond Cusick and were introduced in December 1963 in the second Doctor Who serial. They became an immediate hit with viewers, featuring in many subsequent serials and two 1960s motion pictures. They have become synonymous with Doctor Who, and their behaviour and catchphrases are part of British popular culture. "Hiding behind the sofa whenever the Daleks appear".
It is also a trademark, having first been registered by the BBC in 1964 to protect its lucrative range of Dalek merchandise.

Externally, Daleks resemble human-sized salt or pepper shakers around five to six feet (152 to 183 cm) tall, with a single mechanical eyestalk mounted on a rotating dome, a gunstalk containing a projected energy weapon (or "death ray"), and a telescoping robot arm. Usually, the arm is fitted with a device for manipulation that resembles a sink plunger, but Daleks have been shown with arms that end in a tray, a mechanical claw, or other specialised equipment like flamethrowers and blowtorches. Daleks have used their plunger-like manipulator arms to interface with technology, to kill a man by crushing his skull and to extract the brainwaves from a man's head, killing him in the process. Dalek casings are made of a bonded polycarbide material that was dubbed 'dalekanium' by a human in The Dalek Invasion of Earth.

The lower half of a Dalek's shell is covered with many hemispherical protrusions or "Dalek bumps". These are described as "sense globes" or sensors in The Doctor Who Technical Manual by Mark Harris (which is of uncertain). However, in the 2005 series episode Dalek, they are part of a self-destruct system. The casings are vulnerable to "bastic"-headed bullets, and when breached tend to explode spectacularly.

The creatures inside the "travel machines" are depicted as soft and repulsive in appearance, and still vicious even without their mechanical armour. The first glimpse of the mutant in The Daleks was a claw peeking out from under a coat after it had been removed from the machine. The actual appearance of the mutant has varied, but in most cases it is an octopus-like multi-tentacled creature. The Doctor described the Daleks as "little green blobs in bonded polycarbide armour" in Remembrance of the Daleks, where a Dalek mutant was seen to have a bionically augmented claw. In Resurrection of the Daleks a Dalek creature, separated from its casing, attacks and severely injures a human soldier.

However, as the creature inside is rarely seen on screen, the misconception exists that Daleks are wholly mechanical robots. (The series itself has even made this mistake on occasion). The interdependence of biological and mechanical components makes the Daleks a type of cyborg. The Ninth Doctor, in Dalek, described the Dalek as a genius: it could run through an electronic lock's billion combinations in seconds and download all of the information on the internet into its memory, showing the union of the biological and mechanical components.

The voice of a Dalek is electronic; the Dalek creature is apparently unable to make much more than squeaking sounds when out of its casing. Once the mutant is removed, the casing itself can be entered and operated by humanoids, as seen in The Daleks, The Space Museum and Planet of the Daleks. In The Daleks, Ian Chesterton disguises himself by hiding in a Dalek shell, which alters his voice to sound like that of a Dalek.