Tardis:Merging policy

The Dalek Prime, later known as the Dalek Emperor or Golden Emperor, and, on occasions, as the Master Brain, (COMIC: City of the Daleks) was the first Dalek Emperor, and was originally the first Dalek ever created (COMIC: Genesis of Evil, PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks, War of the Daleks). Experimenting on himself, both genetically altering his organic self and moving into larger and larger casings, the Dalek Prime saw himself as superior to his brethren as well as their rightful leader, moreso than the Kaled scientist Davros, whom he believed to be a dangerous madman.

Creation
Following the neutronic war which nearly destroyed Skaro, causing both the Thals and their enemies to mutate beyond recognition, nothing stirred on the planet for two years. Two of the Daleks' humanoid forebears, Zolfian and Yarvelling, finally exited the fallout shelter in which they had survived all this time, and came across a mutated member of their species. It had a brain "a thousand times superior" to theirs by Yarvelling's analysis. Being nearly strengthless (and as weak to the lethal radiations as anyone), it had retreated into one of Yarvelling's war machines. This individual was the first of the new race of Daleks. (COMIC: Genesis of Evil)

According to another account, the first Dalek was created by the Kaled scientist Davros, and was the one to subsequently take command of the first Daleks. It was also the one to attempt to murder him in an application of the very same pitiless mindset with which Davros had programmed his creations. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks) Though identifying himself as the Dalek who fired on Davros, (PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks, War of the Daleks) the Dalek Prime also knew that he and his race were originally to have developed independently as a result of the neutron war; he accused Davros of having interfered with the Daleks' destiny in an effort to gain power over them, accelerating their evolution for his own ends. He stated it was this "futile madness" which had prompted him and the other early Daleks to elect to destroy Davros. (PROSE: War of the Daleks)

Becoming the Emperor
According to one account, the Dalek Prime was soon given a new and larger casing with a disproportionately large spheroid head section. Made out of Flidor gold, quartz and Arkellis flower sap, it also had three sense globes on each panel of its base unit unlike other Daleks. The first Dalek Emperor was now in charge, presiding over the construction of a Dalek City and taking part in the early days of the Dalek Empire's space conquest. (COMIC: Genesis of Evil, Power Play, The Amaryll Challenge et alt.)

According to another account, following the end of the war, the Dalek Prime spent his time conducting experiments on other life-forms on Skaro, creating mutations which went on to inhabit the petrified jungle and the Lake of Mutations near the foot of the Drammankin Mountains. Eventually the Dalek Prime discovered the molecules that could cause further mutation within a Dalek, and created a drug from its research which would initiate the mutation. Not prepared to test the drug on any Dalek in case it grew beyond its capabilities, the Dalek Prime used the drug on itself and evolved to the peak of Dalek evolution with hugely enhanced mental powers. Only later did it proclaim itself the Emperor of the Daleks. (PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks)

The genetically-modified Dalek, going by the designation of "Genetic Variant Two-One-Zero", was one of several modified Daleks being tested for leadership. Sent to the planet Shade, it had to collaborate with Steven Taylor to survive Chaons who infested the planet and to get to a transmat station to escape.

Several times over, Steven saved Two-One-Zero from death, once taking it out of its casing and carrying it in his hands wrapped in a tarpaulin. During the whole ordeal, Two-One-Zero exhibited qualities unusual for Daleks: he tried to save human prisoners' lives and exterminated another Dalek to save Steven's life. He promised to give Steven a transmat code to return back to the First Doctor and Vicki on the planet Entropica, but betrayed Steven in the very end, giving him transmat coordinates that would lead him to certain death had he not been saved by the First Doctor.

Upon returning to Skaro, Two-One-Zero demonstrated that it was indeed a superior Dalek as it was the only genetic variant to return from the ordeal. Hence, it was transferred to a new casing and officially declared the Emperor of Daleks, its experience with Steven prompting it to search for the Human Factor as a way to achieve total Dalek domination over the universe, (AUDIO: Across the Darkened City) an intention it would follow up on much later. (TV: The Evil of the Daleks)

Leading Dalek conquest
According to one account, the development of Dalek space travel was delayed by the lack of available materials, as the harsh conditions of outer space demanded that the ships withstand heat greater than what ordinary Dalekanium could bear. A scientist, Dalek Zeg, accidentally discovered a new and stronger Dalekanium alloy, Metalert, which could withstand a sun's heat; as his casing had been the first thing transmuted to Metalert, he became immune to other Daleks' death-rays, and, boasting that he was invincible, demanded to be made the new Emperor. The Emperor thus tried to have Zeg destroyed by the Black Dalek Leader's superior firepower, but as the scientist rebellious survived even that, they went to the Brain Machine, who ordered that the Golden Emperor and Zeg duel for the title. After numerous failed attempts, the Emperor succeeded in killing Zeg using liquid air, which was 312 degrees below freezing. From the ruins of Zeg's casing, the Emperor acquired the secrets of Metalert, but later declared that it was still flawed and they were not ready to build flying machines. (COMIC: Duel of the Daleks)

As the Daleks began building their space empire, their first target was Alvega, the planet closest to Skaro. The Dalek Emperor led the attack force, which faced opposition from its plant-like inhabitants, the Amarylls. In the end, a scouting party of Daleks had to be sent to the planet's core to destroy it, which led to the explosion of the entire planet — with the Emperor observing that "what we cannot conquer, we destroy". (COMIC: The Amaryll Challenge)

Next, the fleet headed to the planet Solturis, where the peaceful ruler Redlin the Wise ignored the warnings of the prophet Lurr about the danger presented by the Daleks. As the Solturians possessed a dangerous weapon known as the Pentaray which posed a threat even to them, the Daleks initially posed as "friendly explorers of space who detest[ed] war" to gain their future victims' trust and thereby learn about the full extent of their arsenal. Despite the Daleks' well-laid plans, the prince Jareth succeeded in regaining the Pentaray just in time to annihilate the Dalek forces who had landed; the Daleks still in orbit were recalled to Skaro before they could foil this counterattack, making Solturis the first planet the Daleks failed to vanquish. (COMIC: The Penta Ray Factor)

The Emperor and the rest of his attack fleet returned to Skaro only to find the Dalek City plunged into chaos by a "plague of rust" that destroyed Daleks' casing within minutes of their catching it, usually killing the mutant in the process. It eventually surfaced that the rust germ was being carried solely by the Black Dalek Leader. Initially resigned to his fate, the Black Dalek was repaired by the Golden Emperor, who "could not afford to lose him". (COMIC: Plague of Death) Whilst the Emperor was distracted by the matter of the Plague, a warrior race known as the Monstrons attempted to take over Skaro using their robotic soldiers the Engibrains. Though they succeeded in destroying the Dalek City, they were unable to permanently subdue the Daleks, and were themselves exterminated when a Dalek sacrificed itself to set off the volcano in which the Monstrons had landed their spacecraft. The Daleks then set about rebuilding their City once more. (COMIC: The Menace of the Monstrons)

Dealings with Earth and Mankind
Some time later, mining operations on Skaro led to the release of three of the Daleks' humanoid forebears, the last three in existence — Yvric, Lodian and Zet, who had survived frozen in the mountains in life-support machines. Though mistakenly believing the metal beings now in possession of the planet to be the original robots built by Yarvelling, rather than the similarly-designed travel-machines of the modern Daleks, the humanoids realised that the Daleks were devoid of a conscience and, if not stopped, would eventually destroy every planet in the universe in their lust for conquest. Yvric tried to join forces with the "metal Daleks", offering to tell them a great secret (the location of the planet Earth, which he and Lodian had discovered before they were frozen), though he never got to reveal it, as the Daleks, not recognising one their own ancestors, mistook him for an invading android and obliterated him. Zet, having learned the secret of Earth from Lodian, tried the same thing and was met with more success, as the Golden Emperor had by then realised the truth. Before Zet could tell the metal Daleks how to get to Earth, however, Lodian caused an explosion which killed both himself and Zet, burying the secret. (COMIC: Legacy of Yesteryear)

After foiling an attempt by a Dalek who saw value in beauty to seize power, (COMIC: Shadow of Humanity) the Golden Emperor was tricked by a Jevon space-crew into letting the Jevon ship leave Skaro. Upon realising they had been tricked, the Daleks swore to wage war on humanoids like never before, (COMIC: The Emissaries of Jevo) and paid particular attention to a human spaceship that crashed on their planet. Though three of the humans managed to make it back home alive, they left behind a scrap of paper with Earth's coordinates, leading the Daleks to decide to conquer the planet Earth. (COMIC: The Road to Conflict)

Although one account stated that the initial Dalek invasion force was easily repelled, (COMIC: Return of the Elders) the Daleks did eventually conquer and occupy the Earth in 22nd century. The invasion force was no longer led by the Emperor himself, but rather by a Black Dalek, the Supreme Controller. The invasion was foiled by the inteference of the First Doctor and his companions. (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth)

In 2400, the Emperor gave an address at the Great Council Chamber, ordering a Dalek invasion of the solar system. (COMIC: Invasion of the Daleks) Residing in the Emperor's Quarters, the Emperor gave the order to switch on the revitalising rays. He was unaware that he was being observed by the human Jeff Stone, who was conducting espionage in the Dalek City. (COMIC: City of the Daleks)

Ultimately, this second war with Humanity ended with the Emperor being forced to sue for peace by Earth ambassadors. In a televised ceremony, the Emperor renounced the Dalek dream of conquest and promised that the Daleks would never leave Skaro again. (COMIC: Battle for the Moon)

After two hundred years of peace, a mysterious Mechanical Planet came which threatened both Skaro and Earth. The Emperor landed on Earth and made an offer to eliminate the threat in exchange for the return of confiscated Dalek weaponary, which the humans grudgingly accepted. Ultimately, the Daleks destroyed the Mechanical Planet and, with their weapons and power restored, the Emperor vowed to conquer "all the planets in every sky." (COMIC: The Mechanical Planet)

Having given him a tour of the Dalek City, the Emperor personally interogated Irishman Pat Kelley, who had arrived on Skaro in the spaceship Emerald Isle. Believing him to be a spy, the Emperor ordered all the Dalek inventions and technology, which Kelley had praised, to be screened for flaws. Interpreting Kelley's advisement for the Daleks to grow out their five-leaf clovers as an attempt at sabotage, the Emperor had his ship refitted before sending Kelley back to Earth with the clovers, believing that it would bring Earth to ruin. Little did he realise however, Kelley had infact been playing an elaborate ruse to acquire the clovers all along. (PROSE: The Five-Leaf Clover)

When the Skaro water plant was sabotaged, the Emperor initially believed that human slaves were responsible. Soon after, however, the Daleks caught an alien spy whom the Emperor ordered to be brought to him. The spy proved to be scout for an army of Birdmen that invaded Skaro. Though the invaders were ultimately exterminated, the Emperor lamented that their ability of invisibility, a potential asset to the Daleks, was lost with them. (COMIC: The Invisible Invaders)

Opposing the Doctor
At one point in their history where the Daleks had developed working time travel, the Dalek Prime sent a squad of Daleks in a time machine to pursue the TARDIS and kill the First Doctor and his companions. The Supreme Dalek supervised the operation and was to report their progress to the Dalek Prime. (PROSE: The Chase)

When a nigh-indestructible brain machine built by Dalek scientists turned against the Daleks, the Emperor reluctantly sent a Dalek to Earth to find the Doctor and ask him for help. Though hardly inclined to save the Daleks as such, the Doctor accepted, knowing that if Skaro was destroyed in a nuclear blast by the brain machine, as it threatened to do, some of the radioactive dust might reach other inhabited planets such as Earth. The Doctor successfully destroyed the brain machine, and, true to his word, the Dalek Emperor held a banquet in honor of the Doctor, who was sat to the Emperor's right. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Daleks)

In the year 4000, the Daleks constructed a base on the planet Kembel and formed an alliance with the rulers of the Outer Galaxies to gather the resources they needed to build the Time Destructor which they planned to use to wipe out the entire Solar System. The Dalek Prime awaited the completion of the invasion on Skaro. Due to the interference of the First Doctor, the Time Destructor's taranium core was stolen. The Dalek Prime sent a Red Dalek from Skaro to Kembel in another time machine to aid in its recovery. When the taranium was recovered and returned to Kembel, the Doctor got hold of the Time Destructor and wiped out the Dalek force stationed there. The Dalek Prime, unable to replace the invasion fleet and the Black Dalek commanding it, was forced to accept the defeat. (PROSE: Mission to the Unknown, The Mutation of Time)

The Human Factor and the Dalek Civil War
In the wake of the Time Destructor disaster, much of the galaxy was warned about the Dalek plan and several war forces — among them the Thals, the Draconians and the Terran Federation — were formed to battle the Dalek Empire in a series of wars fought over the course of the millennium and into the 5000s. Desperate for any edge, the Dalek Emperor abandoned mobility in favor of a new, gigantic casing encased deep within the Dalek City, where his mind was constantly connected to all of the Daleks' computers.

It was eventually predicted by Dalek computers that the race would become extinct within 80 years if it could not secure victory. Realizing that the Doctor was the one who had turned the tide of Dalek expansion, the Emperor decided to lure the Time Lord into a trap while also exploiting the Doctor's own genius to ensure victory. (PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks)

Daleks had been summoned across time and space to Earth by the Theodore Maxtible experiments on time travel using static electricity. (TV: The Evil of the Daleks) The Emperor took advantage of this, ordering the Daleks (PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks) to capture the Doctor and his companion Jamie McCrimmon and blackmailing him with Jamie's life so that they could force him to conduct research into the Human Factor. Though the Doctor had been led to believe the Daleks simply thought the Human Factor was the edge they needed to equal the odds between them and Humanity, the Emperor's true design was that this would unlock the secrets of the Dalek Factor which was to be spread throughout all areas of human history, giving all humans the mentality of a Dalek and preventing the Great War from ever happening.

When the Doctor escaped, the Emperor was caught in the chaos of a civil war between humanised Daleks and un-altered Daleks. The fighting between the humanised rebels and the Emperor's Guards was soon taken to the Emperor's chambers by the humanised Daleks, as they intended to depose him or at least hold him accountable for his tyrannical rule over the Daleks. Lacking weaponry of his own or even the ability to flee, the Emperor watched powerlessly, with desperate cries of "Do not fight in here! Obey me! There is danger here", as the firing of Dalek weapons shot down all of its life-support cables and damaged its gigantic casing beyond repair. (TV: The Evil of the Daleks, PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks)

In the end, the support structures of the Emperor's casing collapsed and his mutated organic body fell out of it and into a pool of blazing lubricant, screaming wordlessly. Both he and the brainwashed Theodore Maxtible were engulfed in one final explosion and believed dead. (PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks) The Second Doctor believed none of the Daleks had survived the Dalek Civil War, and that he, Jamie and Victoria had witnessed the Daleks' "final end", (TV: The Evil of the Daleks, PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks) and he was "absolutely certain" that the Emperor was dead, taking comfort in the fact that even if he was wrong and some Daleks remained in the universe still, they would never again have a leader as powerful and evil as the Dalek Emperor had been. (PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks)

Imperials and Renegades: another civil war
Aafter the fighting had died down, unbeknownst to the Doctor, a light was seen blinking inside the Emperor's casing, indicating some kind of activity. (TV: The Evil of the Daleks) Shortly after this, the Emperor met Bernice Summerfield as she moved through time, and questioned her on why the Civil War had occurred and why the other Daleks questioned him. She berated the Emperor during their short discussion, mocking it for not even having a gun, and walked away so that she would live, giving "the greatest insult [she] could think to give a Dalek". The Emperor was left screaming after her for her to obey him and that she would be annihilated. (AUDIO: The Lights of Skaro)

Having survived, the Emperor's forces began rebuilding, (COMIC: Bringer of Darkness) resulting in the emergence of a new command structure involving grey Dalek drones and Golden Supreme Daleks. (TV: Day of the Daleks)

During the Dalek invasion of Earth, the Daleks had come across evidence that (PROSE: War of the Daleks) in 1963, the Seventh Doctor was to trick Davros and a group of Daleks loyal to him into detonating the Hand of Omega and destroying Skaro. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) Using this information, the Emperor hatched a complex scheme to ensure the survival of Skaro. When the time came for the Daleks to dig up and revive Davros, he first had him displaced to the planet Antalin, terraformed to resemble the Skaro of old, so that both Davros and the Doctor would believe Antalin's coordinates to be Skaro's and destroy Antalin instead. (PROSE: War of the Daleks)

The revival of Davros came in the course of the Dalek-Movellan War; the Daleks who rescued Davros from the ruins claimed that they needed his genius to break their stalemate with the Movellans. (TV: Destiny of the Daleks) The Dalek Prime later claimed that the War itself had however been a fabrication to trick Davros, with the Movellans themselves being the creations of the Daleks. (PROSE: War of the Daleks) At any rate, Davros, his execution at the hands of his first Daleks still fresh in his mind, set about creating Daleks who would be loyal to him, (TV: Destiny of the Daleks, Resurrection of the Daleks) eventually causing a full-blown civil war between Davros's Daleks, who had proclaimed him their Emperor and called themselves the Imperials, and the Daleks who still thought Davros was an inferior creature wrongly usurping authority over the "master race", a side whom Davros referred to as the Renegades (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) and who were led by the Dalek Prime. (PROSE: War of the Daleks)

The Dalek Prime reigns supreme
When the Shoreditch Incident actually came to pass, the Doctor indeed tricked Davros and his Imperials into destroying themselves with the Hand of Omega after they had wiped out most of the Renegades. The Doctor convinced what he believed to be the last of the Reneagdes to self-destruct, hitting it with the realization that the Daleks had failed and it no longer had any purpose. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) In truth, thanks to the Dalek Prime's foreseeing the Incident, many Daleks loyal to it were safe on the real Skaro, though their Empire was considerably weakened. With Davros believed dead and all of his genetically-modified loyal Daleks destroyed, the Dalek Prime switched the denominations of the Dalek factions, calling his own side the Imperials while giving the name of Renegades to any of the Daleks on Skaro who, while genetically identical to the Prime's Daleks, still felt sympathy for Davros's cause.

Davros, who had survived in an escape pod and returned to using his original life-support chair rather than the Emperor casing, was eventually located. Although a faction of Thals attempted to capture him in the presence of the Eighth Doctor, it was not long before the Daleks were alerted to the discovery and brought Davros and the Doctor to Skaro. Thus, the Doctor once again encountered the Dalek Prime, who was getting about by means of his old golden bulbous-headed casing.

The Dalek Prime's final plan was to place Davros on trial so as to ferret out any of the Daleks secretly loyal to Davros from his people. He left the Doctor alive to witness the trial, planning to use him as a contingency plan to destroy Davros if the Dalek Prime's own forces failed to do so, and had the opportunity to explain the "truth" about the supposed destruction of Skaro to him as well as to Davros. During Davros's trial, one of Davros's supporters destroyed a decoy of the Dalek Prime, igniting another civil war. The Dalek Prime claimed victory after Davros's capture and apparent execution and after his supporters were apparently wiped out. (PROSE: War of the Daleks)

Alternate timelines
In an alternate timeline where the Daleks came under attack by the infection called the Mutant Phase, the Dalek Emperor still commanded the empire from Skaro, the Fifth Doctor commenting that they'd both "had a face-lift" since they last met. As the Mutant Phase swarm destroyed Skaro, the Emperor was able to place its mind into the body of the Thal Ganatus, possessing him, and ordering the Doctor to take him back to the 22nd century Dalek invasion of Earth, where the Mutant Phase started. Travelling back in time, the Emperor tried to warn the Daleks of the great catastrophe that would devastate their race, but the Doctor explained that his interference is what caused the mutation in the first place. When the Emperor realised this, he chose not to change the past, erasing both himself and the Mutant Phase from existence. (AUDIO: The Mutant Phase)

Behind the scenes

 * Although the Dalek Emperor appears to die at the end of The Evil of the Daleks, and is personally believed to have done so by many (including writers such as John Peel, who contentiously holds The Evil of the Daleks to take place at the very end of the Daleks' timeline, after the Imperial-Renegade Civil War and the events of War of the Daleks). However, he is shown to have survived in The Lights of Skaro and Bringer of Darkness and still "reign supreme" over Skaro. The 2011 non-narrative reference book The Dalek Handbook also concurs that the Emperor survived and refocused his attention on time travel strategies. This not only allows for the events of War of the Daleks, and, with it, the Imperial-Renegade Civil War, to take place after The Evil of the Daleks, but also implicitly suggests that any number of Dalek Emperors at later points in the Daleks' timeline may still be the same individual.
 * Novels usually refer to the Dalek Prime or Emperor as a "he" rather than an "it" like all the other standard Daleks. This would also happen with Dalek X in the novel Prisoner of the Daleks.
 * In parallel with John Peel's creation of "the Dalek Prime" as the designation of the first-ever Dalek who goes on to become the Dalek Emperor (a name he hoped to debut in the TV series in the cancelled TV serial War of the Daleks, whose outline was later loosely reworked into the novel of the same name), "Dalek Prime" as a rank in Dalek hierarchy was also used in the audio story The Four Doctors and in the video game The Last Dalek, the latter of which is not accepted as a valid source by this Wiki.