Dalek - Dalek Culture

Dalek Culture

Daleks have little, if any, individual personality, ostensibly no emotions other than hatred and anger, and a strict command structure in which they are conditioned to obey superiors' orders without question. Dalek speech is characterised by repeated phrases, and by orders given to themselves and to others. Unlike the stereotypical emotionless robots often found in science fiction, Daleks are often angry; author Kim Newman has described the Daleks as behaving "like toddlers in perpetual hissy fits", gloating when in power and throwing tantrums when thwarted. They tend to be excitable and will repeat the same word or phrase over and over again in heightened emotional states, most famously "Exterminate! Exterminate!"

In terms of their behaviour Daleks are extremely aggressive, and seem driven by an instinct to attack. This instinct is so strong that Daleks have been depicted fighting the urge to kill or even attacking when unarmed. The Fifth Doctor characterises this impulse by saying, "However you respond is seen as an act of provocation." The fundamental feature of Dalek culture and psychology is an unquestioned belief in the superiority of the Dalek race, and their default directive is to destroy all non-Dalek life-forms. Other species are either to be exterminated immediately, or enslaved and then exterminated later once they are no longer useful.

The Dalek obsession with their own superiority is illustrated by the schism between the Renegade and Imperial Daleks seen in Revelation of the Daleks and Remembrance of the Daleks: the two factions consider the other to be a perversion despite the relatively minor differences between them. This intolerance of any "contamination" within themselves is also shown in "Dalek", The Evil of the Daleks and in the Big Finish Productions audio play The Mutant Phase. This superiority complex is the basis of the Daleks' ruthlessness and lack of compassion. This is shown in extreme in "Victory of the Daleks", where the new, pure Daleks destroy their creators, impure Daleks, with the latters' consent. It is nearly impossible to negotiate or reason with a Dalek, a single-mindedness that makes them dangerous and not to be underestimated. The Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) is later puzzled in the "Asylum of the Daleks" as to why the Daleks don't just kill the sequestered ones that have "gone wrong." Although The Asylum is subsequently obliterated, the Prime Minister of the Daleks explains that "it is offensive to us to destroy such divine hatred," and the Doctor is sickened at the realisation that hatred is actually considered beautiful by the Daleks.

Dalek society is depicted as one of extreme scientific and technological advancement; the Third Doctor states that "it was their inventive genius that made them one of the greatest powers in the universe." However, their reliance on logic and machinery is also a strategic weakness which they recognise, and thus use more emotion-driven species as agents to compensate for these shortcomings.

Although the Daleks are not known for their regard for due process, they have taken at least two enemies back to Skaro for a "trial", rather than killing them immediately. The first was their creator, Davros, in Revelation of the Daleks, and the second was the renegade Time Lord known as the Master in the 1996 television movie. The reasons for the Master's trial, and why the Doctor would be asked to retrieve the Master's remains, have never been explained on screen. The Doctor Who Annual 2006 implies that the trial may have been due to a treaty signed between the Time Lords and the Daleks. The framing device for the I, Davros audio plays is a Dalek trial to determine if Davros should be the Daleks' leader once more.

Spin-off novels contain several tongue-in-cheek mentions of Dalek poetry, and an anecdote about an opera based upon it, which was lost to posterity when the entire cast was exterminated on the opening night. Two stanzas are given in the novel The Also People by Ben Aaronovitch. In an alternative timeline portrayed in Big Finish Productions audio adventure The Time of the Daleks, the Daleks show a fondness for the works of Shakespeare. A similar idea was satirised by comedian Frankie Boyle in the BBC comedy quiz programme Mock the Week; he gave the fictional Dalek poem "Daffodils; EXTERMINATE DAFFODILS!" as an "unlikely line to hear in Doctor Who".

Because the Doctor has defeated the Daleks so often, he has become their collective arch-enemy and they have standing orders to capture or exterminate him on sight. In later fiction, the Daleks know the Doctor as "Ka Faraq Gatri" ("Bringer of Darkness" or "Destroyer of Worlds"), and "The Oncoming Storm". Both the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) suggest that the Doctor is one of the few beings the Daleks fear. In "Doomsday", Rose notes that while the Daleks see the extermination of five million Cybermen as "pest control", "one Doctor" visibly un-nerves them (to the point they physically recoil). To his indignant surprise, in "Asylum of the Daleks", the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) learns that the Daleks have designated him as "The Predator."
As The Doctor escapes The Asylum (with companions Amy and Rory), a Dalek-converted-human prisoner provides critical assistance, which culminates in completely deleting The Doctor from the Dalek hive-consciousness (the PathWeb), thus wiping the slate entirely blank.