B00DPX9ST8 EBOK (318 page)

[
1438
] “Thirty years ago” in
The Mutant Phase.

[
1439
] “Twenty years” before
The Apocalypse Element.

[
1440
] Dating
The Mutant Phase
(BF #15) - No date is given, but this is the first
Doctor Who
audio set in the period of the
Dalek Empire
series; see the dating notes on
The Genocide Machine
.

[
1441
] Dating
The Genocide Machine
(BF #7) - The dating for this story - which otherwise seems so unimposing - is surprisingly important, in that the whole of the
Dalek Empire
mini-series and its related
Doctor Who
audios (
The Mutant Phase
,
The Apocalypse Element
,
Dust Breeding, Return of the Daleks
) are contingent on the placement of this one adventure. (See the dating notes under the individual audios, and especially those under
Dalek Empire I
, for why.)

Only four pieces of evidence, however, exist to help make this decision: 1. In
The Genocide Machine
, the war between the Knights of Velyshaa and Earth (mentioned in
The Sirens of Time
as ending in 3562) is said to be “centuries ago”. 2. The Big Finish website at one point dated
The Genocide Machine
to 4256. 3. Bev Tarrant, a native to the era of
The Genocide Machine
, twice states in
Benny: The Judas Gift
(definitely set in October 2607) that she’s from “three thousand years in the future”. 4.
Dalek Empire II
(set some “centuries” after
The Genocide Machine
) ends with a “Kill All Daleks” pulse being sent out into the Milky Way and Seriphia galaxies. (So, any placement for
The Genocide Machine
can’t be just before a story with high Dalek involvement in those territories.)

The two pieces of evidence central to this discussion are the website date and Bev’s statements. They can’t be reconciled without concluding that when Bev said “three thousand years”, she actually means only about 1650-ish years. Previous editions of
Ahistory
favoured the website date, but did not include the Benny series. This edition takes the “three thousand years” lines and rounds it somewhat to fit it around other stories, so that
The Genocide Machine
is set in 5256, not 4256.

One potential hiccup is that this is not long after the native time of Captain Jack Harkness and River Song, in which humanity has time technology at its disposal - whereas it manifestly doesn’t throughout
Dalek Empire
. This is an issue, however, irregardless of
Dalek Empire
’s dating - in that one brief period, mankind (or certain members of it, at the very least) has time-tech, and yet it clearly doesn’t on an ongoing basis. No explanation has been provided in any
Doctor Who
story for why this is the case.

[
1442
]
Benny: The Judas Gift

[
1443
] Dating
The Apocalypse Element
(BF #11) - This is another story set around the time of the
Dalek Empire
audios.

[
1444
] Dating
Storm Harvest
(PDA #23) - No date is given. Reg Gurney, an engineer and spy on Coralee, spent thirty years in the Space Corps and fought in the Dalek Wars, supporting that dating.

[
1445
] Dating
Dust Breeding
(BF #21) - It is “several centuries” in Ace’s future, in Earth’s colonial period and after the Dalek Wars. Bev Tarrant is also present, and for her, it is after
The Genocide Machine
.

[
1446
] Dating
Prime Time
(PDA #33) - It is a year after
Storm Harvest.

[
1447
] Dating
The Caves of Androzani
(19.6) - There is no indication of dating on screen. Sharez Jek seems worried when it appears that the Doctor and Peri are from Earth, suggesting it has political influence (and hasn’t been evacuated). The machine-pistols suggest a colonial setting, but Sirius society is long-established; there seems to be an interstellar economy and the androids are highly advanced. The Spectrox supplies must be so limited as to have little long-term effect on the human race, explaining why it is not referred to in any other story.
The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe
features a Harvesting team from Androzani Major in the year 5345, and the Harvester team seems to share the same capitalist ethos seen in the earlier story. It seems reasonable to place
The Caves of Androzani
in roughly the same era - although this is slightly arbitrary, and they could take place many centuries apart.

The Terrestrial Index
made a dubious link between the “federal forces” on Androzani Minor and the Galactic Federation (
The Curse of Peladon
), dating the story to the fifth millennium.
Timelink
chose “3983”, and
About Time
thought it was “The future, date unspecified”, while acknowledging that a dating of as early as the twenty-second century was feasible. All of these books, however, were published before being able to take the evidence from
The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe
into account.

[
1448
]
Zamper

[
1449
] “Five hundred ninety-seven” years before
Tragedy Day
(p97).

[
1450
] Dating
The Web in Space
(BBC children’s 2-in-1 #6, released in
Sightseeing in Space
) - Earth has colonies on other planets, although “Earth Corp Couriers” might be a brand name, and not service Earth itself. The Daleks are spacefaring at this time. It’s after humanity has encountered the Chelonians, but before the Chelonians go peaceful. Mention of Galaxy 16 suggests intergalactic travel, so we’re guessing to say that this story occurs in the 5300s.

[
1451
] Dating
The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe
(X7.0) - One of the expedition team, Droxil, states that “the year is 5345”. Droxil is “from” Androzani Major, meaning that this is a different planet, although they call the trees “Androzani Trees”.

[
1452
] Dating
Dalek Empire I
(episode one,
Invasion of the Daleks
; episode two,
The Human Factor
) - As with the Davros Era, the
Dalek Empire
mini-series (I-IV) are fairly easy to date in relation to one another, but it’s harder to establish the century they are set. The only tangible dating evidence is the Dalek Emperor’s comment in
Dalek Empire I
episode four that it’s been “centuries” since the Daleks invaded the Kar-Charrat library in
The Genocide Machine
, which in this chronology is dated to circa 5256. The war between the Knights of Velyshaa and Earth (mentioned in
The Sirens of Time
as ending in 3562) is said to have occurred “long ago”.

[
1453
] Dating
Return of the Daleks
(BF subscription promo #4) - The story occurs between
Dalek Empire I
episodes one (
Invasion of the Daleks
) and two (
The Human Factor
).

The knock-on effect of moving the
Dalek Empire
stories to the sixth millennium (see
The Genocide Machine
for how this came about) introduces a contradiction that
Ahistory
Second Edition had otherwise resolved. In
Return of the Daleks
, the seventh Doctor guarantees that the Dalek army on Spiridon (from
Planet of the Daleks
) remains frozen; later on, in “Emperor of the Daleks”, Davros appropriates this army to create his Imperial Daleks. Reconciling the accounts of these stories was based upon the numbers of the Spiridon army... The Thals in
Planet of the Daleks
believe that “ten thousand Daleks” are buried on Spiridon, but
Return of the Daleks
says this is faulty information, and the frozen Daleks actually number 1,100,000. “Emperor of the Daleks” has Davros labouring on Spiridon for a year, whereupon he unleashes an army of four million gold-and-white Daleks. So, one could conclude that the third Doctor froze the Dalek army (cited as only ten thousand, but actually numbering 1,100,000) in
Planet of the Daleks
, that the seventh Doctor prevented their revival in
Return of the Daleks
, and that Davros later used the Spiridon army to cobble together his force of four million Daleks.

All well and good... save that moving
Return of the Daleks
forward in time means that the seventh Doctor is here re-freezing a Dalek army that Davros has already appropriated for use elsewhere. One explanation is that it’s never expressly established that Davros takes
each and every
last Dalek from Spiridon - perhaps he builds four million Daleks, but leaves one million(ish) behind on Spiridon as reinforcements to call upon should he need them. Or, perhaps he actually constructs
five
million Daleks, takes four million with him and leaves the extra one million behind. Either way, it’s understandable why the seventh Doctor would want to keep the surplus million Daleks frozen. What this
doesn’t
explain is how, if
Return of the Daleks
comes later than “Emperor of the Daleks”, the Spiridons are still invisible in “Emperor” when
Return
states that they become visible following
Planet of the Daleks
, and only regain their invisibility owing to the Doctor releasing a virus during Mendes and Kalendorf’s revolution.

[
1454
] Dating
Brotherhood of the Daleks
(BF #114) - Dating clues abound, but no actual year is mentioned. Kyropites previously appeared in
The Mind’s Eye
, but there’s no other relation given between that story and this one.

One of the Thals says, “And there are Ganatus knows how many levels like this...”; if this denotes the slain Ganatus from
The Daleks
,
Brotherhood of the Daleks
must take place after that. The Thals have now settled on New Davias, on such a scale that it’s quite possibly where they went prior to Skaro’s obliteration in
Remembrance of the Daleks
.

Tellingly, the Daleks at present have an empire. Also, one of the Thals is a veteran of “the Mechanoid Wars”, which are likely to have occurred in the third or fourth millennia, as there’s no record of the Mechanoids even being active later than some excavated ones dug up in 4620 (in
The Juggernauts
). Additionally, Murgat says that the Doctor aided the Thals in driving the Daleks from this sector of the galaxy, but the Doctor says he hasn’t been near Antares in six millennia, and assumes that Murgat refers to events in his personal future. It seems reasonable to take this as a reference to
Return of the Daleks
, meaning that
Brotherhood of the Daleks
must occur in close relation to the
Dalek Empire
series - which is handy, as the Daleks do have an empire at that point.

At least two of the Daleks present remember meeting Charley in Folkestone in
Terror Firma
, but allowing that those post-
Remembrance
Daleks likely have some form of time travel (however crude), it’s not an altogether helpful detail. The term “Thaleks” was used in the Unbound story
Auld Mortality
.