Taren Capel

Taren Capel was a scientist who tried to instigate a "robot revolution" on Kaldor in the late 29th century.

Capel had spent almost his entire life around robots, being practically raised by them. He identified with them more than people and came to believe that robots should rule humans. He intended to lead a robot revolution, dressing himself and painting his face to resemble his robot "brothers".

Capel joined the crew of the sandminer Storm Mine 4, where he posed as chief engineer Dask (it is unknown what became of the real Dask) and reprogrammed the robot crew of the sandminer to kill the human crew, at first individually and secretly. Eventually, he ordered them to massacre the survivors, as well as the Fourth Doctor and Leela, who had recently come onboard the Storm Mine 4.

The Doctor drew Capel to a room and had Leela release helium while she was concealed from view. It changed his voice so SV7 did not recognise his commands. SV7 then throttled Capel to death, repeating the command given to him to kill all the humans. (TV: The Robots of Death)

As was eventually discovered, Capel's plan also had a second phase that was activated after his death. It concerned the transmission of a specially designed program to modify the robots' basic operational software in order to turn them into murderers. (AUDIO: Taren Capel)

After his death, Capel became idolised by a cult called the Tarenists. The cult was used by the Fendahl, which pretended to be a resurrected Capel. (AUDIO: Hidden Persuaders, Checkmate)

Behind the scenes
Capel's name is a reference to the science fiction author, who wrote the play. The story follows a robot rebellion and the downfall of the human race. The word "robot" was introduced into English through its use by Čapek.