Dal (species)

The Dals were a race which lived on the planet Skaro, related in some form to the Daleks.

Historical disputes
Historians who studied the Dalek timeline were aware of postulations that there might, at one time, have existed a third intelligent species on Skaro, the Dals, whom were later obliterated in the Thousand Year War between the Kaleds and Thals. Over time the surviving Thals, reduced to a mere shadow of what they had once been, appear to have conflated the Dals and the Kaleds into a common enemy. It was speculated that the humanoid species of Skaro were the descendants of proto-humans who had been transplanted onto Skaro by alien powers. (PROSE: The Dalek Handbook, Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe)

Qualen, a Gallifreyan historian, claimed that a single humanoid race, the Skarosians, diverged into the Thals and the Kaleds. (PROSE: The Dalek Problem) In the Dalek Combat Training Manual, the Time Lords wrote that the Dals "eventually became the Kaleds." According to the text, the Dals were a race known for their "great philosophy" who had lived in peace with the Thals before becoming the Kaleds. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual)

Varna — a Kaled from before, or early during, the time of the Thousand Year War — said that "Dal" was a Kaled word for warrior, (AUDIO: The Lights of Skaro) while another account claimed that "Dal" was the original name for the Kaled species, only for the Kaleds to change their name after they moved away from the Thals. (PROSE: The History of the Daleks)

Whatever their past, the Dals were extinct by the time of the Thousand Year War between the Thals and the Kaleds, as were the Tharons, as a result of a programme of genocide orchestrated by the Kaled government. Knowledge of the Dal language was still known to a few, including Davros and Magrantine. In the Dal language, the word "Varga" meant "devourer". (AUDIO: Purity)

In Kaled society, the Dals became myths. According to the Kaled stories, the Dals possessed the gift of precognition and had purple eyes and silver hair. "A handful" of Dals however survived the extinction, living in small communities on the edge of the Kaled Dome, save for "the last true Dal" who lived in the ruins of their capital city. In Davros's teenage years, he was found by the Dal Elwyn who had received a vision that Davros would end the Thousand Year War. The two set out to the Thal capital city for the elder to give Davros a vision of his future. After the visit an argument broke out between the two, the distraction from their precarious ledge causing Elwyn to fall to his death. (PROSE: The Last of the Dals)

Books written by the Dals were burned and forbidden by the Kaleds, yet one copy of the Book of Predictions remained in Davros' family for generations. Davros, the creator of the Daleks, found a prophecy in the Book of Predictions, written in the extinct language of the Dals, which stated "...and on that day, men will become as gods." In the original language, the final word was pronounced "Dal-ek." (AUDIO: Guilt)

According to one account, two purported origin stories of the Daleks were actually distinct events within a single history. After Davros's Daleks were buried for a thousand years by the Fourth Doctor's efforts, the Kaleds evolved into the humanoid Daleks, with the Thousand Year War having come to an end. However, after the neutronic exchange that wiped out the "humanoid Dalek", or Dal, civilisation, the Dalek Prime created by Davros reemerged from underground, and, passing itself off as a new mutation, directed the new, "natural" mutant Daleks to climb into Dalek War Machine casings, seeing it as an easy way to expand its fledgling race. It then set itself up as the new race's leader. The Dal-descended Daleks remained subservient to the Dalek Prime and the other few Daleks made directly by Davros, as programming within the casings directed them to act so. (PROSE: The History of the Daleks)

Five centuries following the detonation of the neutron bomb that had ended the conflict, the Thal records described the Dals as having originally been teachers and philosophers. At this point in their history, the Thals also believed that the Dals had been the direct genetic ancestors of the Daleks rather than the Kaleds. (TV: The Daleks) The Dals being the Daleks' ancestors was later dismissed by researchers as a legend based in a half-truth. (PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters)

Behind the scenes

 * The television story The Daleks names the Dals as the predecessors of the Daleks. The television story Genesis of the Daleks, which actually showed the creation of the Daleks, contradicted this and named the Daleks' ancestors as the Kaleds. The Dals could be said to be the spiritual ancestors of the Daleks as Davros' creations were inspired by Dal prophecy, however they are not the biological ancestors of the Daleks.
 * The reference to the Dals was not retained in the film Dr. Who and the Daleks.
 * The Doctor Who Technical Manual (1983) states simply that the Dals became known as Kaleds during their conflict with the Thals.
 * The Discontinuity Guide claims that the name Dal was in fact a contraction of "Dalek people", a term of contempt used by the Thals to refer to the Kaleds who remained following the creation of the Daleks before the end of the Neutronic war.