Progenitor

The Progenitor device was a piece of Dalek technology designed to create new Daleks. It stored pure Dalek DNA. Thousands of such machines were created by the Dalek Empire in the past. Eventually, all but one were lost.

Following a previous Dalek invasion that was stopped by the Tenth Doctor, a Dalek saucer managed to survive but was severely depleted by its hardships and badly damaged. The crew managed to locate one of the last Progenitor devices, but, as these Daleks had been created from the DNA of Davros, the machine refused to activate for them, as it did not consider them to be "pure". It was programmed to recognise the Time Lord known as "the Doctor" as an enemy. Thus, the Daleks went back in time to World War II where they created an android called Professor Edwin Bracewell who was completely unaware of his true origin. Masquerading as human, he "created" military robots in the Ironside Project for the United Kingdom for use against the Nazis. The Daleks waited for the Doctor to discover them.

When the Eleventh Doctor arrived, the Daleks pretended to be simple human weapons, which caused the Doctor to become frustrated to the point that he declared them to be Daleks. With the testimonial recorded, the group of Daleks transmitted the recording to the progenitor which recognised the Doctor and thus accepted the command to activate. Within moments, the New Dalek Paradigm was created. The New Paradigm quickly exterminated the forebears who willingly offered themselves for extermination. The New Paradigm intended to escape through a time corridor to the future so that they could rebuild their empire. Despite the Doctor's best efforts, the Daleks managed to escape. (TV: Victory of the Daleks)

Behind the scenes

 * A cut line had the Doctor stating that the Daleks had been altering their DNA in order to keep surviving for a long time, indicating other, older incarnations of the Daleks wouldn't be recognised by the Progenitor either.


 * There is a logical paradox associated with the device. It was designed to storage a "pure" Dalek's DNA - i.e. mutated Kaled DNA, on the basis of which first Daleks were created. But the Daleks of the New Dalek Empire were re-created from the Davros DNA, i.e. - Kaled DNA. So, logically, the Daleks of theNew Dalek Empire were the most "pure" Daleks in the universe, the closest to original first Daleks on Skaro! It is completely unclear why the device don't recognize them at all.