Howling:The Daleks in "Day of the Daleks"

The Daleks in "Day of the Daleks" evidently come from a time many centuries in the future, as they recognise the First and Second Doctors, but not the Third. So if they conquered Earth sometime in the late 20th/early 21st century, they must have travelled back in time from their home era......but surely that would cause a massive paradox in their history, likely eradicating the future they came from? 82.2.136.93 19:25, September 7, 2011 (UTC)

The Daleks in Day of the Daleks come from the 22nd century but it's not clear from the broadcast story when they conquered Earth. The freedom fighters wanted to kill Sir Reginald Styles because they believed he'd blown up the peace conference and that resulted in a series of wars whose eventual effect was to leave Earth vulnerable to conquest. As the Doctor figured out, the explosion hadn't been caused by Styles -- he was an obnoxious, pompous ass but not a villain. It had been caused by the freedom fighters who were trying to kill him; they had brought about the very event they'd set out to prevent. As the Doctor told them, they'd set out to change history but had instead become part of it. The Doctor didn't stop the explosion from happening but did get UNIT to evacuate the delegates from the house (giving the Brigadier the chance to shout at Styles and order him about, which the Brigadier seemed to enjoy doing). Shura, one of the freedom fighters, waited until the Daleks were in the house, then blew them (and himself) up, instead of the delegates. The result was that history was changed -- redirected on to an alternate track in which the Dalek conquest didn't happen.

The whole story was an example of a "bootstrap" paradox being broken by the Doctor's intervention.

I'm not really sure what question(s) you're raising but I hope this helps. --89.242.67.85 02:07, September 8, 2011 (UTC)

If you watch the episodes, it looks like Letts and Marks intended us to see the Daleks and the human freedom fighters as being from the middle of The Dalek Invasion of Earth. The Daleks came back to try to prevent the humans from changing history, not to change history. They didn't have to worry about causing a paradox. Of course the humans did; maybe they were risking changing the past so much that they would cease to exist. But all they were risking was an existence under the thumb of the Daleks, which probably isn't much of a loss.

However, if you believe Terry Nation, there was a lot more going on. (And, even though Nation had no involvement with this story, and never wrote the followup story he was thinking about, John Peel later used it in the novel War of the Daleks. Besides, if the creator of the Daleks isn't allowed to fanwank Dalek continuity, who is?)

In the original timeline, the Daleks invaded Earth in 2142 (in The Dalek Invasion of Earth—yes, everyone but Terry knows 2142 is contradicted on-screen, and his whole reason for insisting on that date was that he doesn't know what years the London Blitz happened, but humor him), and were kicked off in 2152. They couldn't abide losing to the pathetic low-tech humans like that, so they decided to go back in time and change history. And they were fully aware that everyone involved in the plan might cease to exist, but ask any Dalek whether he'd trade his own existence away to make the Dalek Empire as a whole stronger, and what do you think he'd say?

Unfortunately for them, all they accomplished was to create an alternate timeline. In that alternate timeline, the invasion was a success, and humanity never recovered from the 2142 invasion. But the original timeline still existed, unchanged, and that's where the Daleks who'd created the plan (and the Daleks in all later stories, and possibly even some of the earlier ones) live. So as far as they know, the plan failed. (That's why they never tried to change history again, at least until the Last Great Time War.)

Anyway, at least the alternate-timeline Daleks were happy. Until the freedom fighters accidentally accomplished their mission (as described by 89 above), which wiped out that alternate timeline. --173.228.85.35 05:19, September 8, 2011 (UTC)