The Dalek City (TV: The Daleks), City of the Daleks, (PROSE: Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks) or Mensvat Esc-Dalek in the language of its inhabitants, (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks) was the main home of the Daleks on Skaro, (TV: The Daleks) though they likely came to possess other colonies on the planet. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Dalek Invasion of Earth, AUDIO: Return to Skaro)
History
Origins
Though some accounts dated the Dalek City to before the Thousand Year War, (TV: The Daleks) another held that shortly after their creation from the ashes of their humanoid forefeathers, the Dalek mutants spent two months rebuilding a city for themselves (COMIC: Power Play) in the Plain of Swords, or Vekis Nar-Kangji in the Dalek language. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks) To conceal the city from potential threats, the metallic sands of the desert surrounding it were magnetised, allowing the Daleks to pull the sand over their city within minutes, hiding it beneath an immense dune. (COMIC: Power Play)
The Daleks beneath
Dalek city immediately prior to the First Dalek War. (TV: "The Dead Planet")
At the time of the First Doctor's visit to Skaro, the Daleks lived not in the city itself, but rather below it where they thought they were shielded from radiation.
Beneath their city, based from the Master Room, (PROSE: Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks) the Daleks monitored the drop in radiation outside and made plans to leave their casings and venture outside once more when the radiation had dropped to a safer level. The entire city ran on static electricity transmitted through metal floors, which the Daleks of this era of Skaro history required to power their casings. As a consequence of this dependence, the Daleks were unable to leave their city. They were unaware that a group of Thals had also survived the neutronic war.
The city at one side had a natural protection in the form of the Lake of Mutations. Near the swamp was a lake where the Daleks got their water. (TV: The Daleks)
Thal occupation
After the Daleks were defeated in the early Thal-Dalek War, the Thals briefly moved into the city, spurred on by the Doctor to study and appropriate Dalek technology; (TV: The Daleks) a few generations later, a Thal City had been constructed, with the Dalek City empty but for the occasional Thal scientific team coming to salvage more of the Daleks' technological owners.
After the Doctor and his companions returned to Skaro thanks to the fast return switch — fifty cycles after their original trip from their subjective perspective — Susan Foreman was convinced by the enterprising Thal boy Jyden to sneak into the City. They discovered that a cabal of Daleks led by a Dalek Supreme had survived by hiding in the incubation level of the Dalek City, which appeared on no maps and had consequently remained a secret to the Thals. After sending some false emissaries, the Daleks revealed their renewed intention to destroy all Thals, the only way they could fathom of achieving peace.
This led Ian Chesterton to seemingly destroy the Dalek City once and for all, and its inhabitants with them, by overloading their power systems rather than cutting them off, causing a huge explosion. The Thals, however, now understood how persistent the threat of the Daleks was, and knew deep down that they would return once more. (AUDIO: Return to Skaro)
Early days of the Dalek Empire
Indeed, the Daleks soon returned to occupy the city once more. (COMIC: Plague of Death, TV: The Evil of the Daleks et al.)
Performing hypnosis, the Master showed Victoria Waterfield the Dalek city on Skaro during the period before the Daleks had first left the planet, offering her a chance to destroy them with the Darkheart. (PROSE: The Dark Path) Before the Daleks turned to interstellar war, the Dalek City existed for centuries as a storehouse of "wonderful inventions". (COMIC: The Message of Mystery)
The Engibrains destroying the Dalek City. (COMIC: The Menace of the Monstrons)
In the aftermath of the rust plague, (COMIC: Plague of Death) the Dalek City was destroyed by the Monstrons and their robotic Engibrains during their brief conquest of the planet Skaro. However, the Monstrons had failed to destroy the Daleks themselves, only trapping them underground; they managed to free themselves whilst another Dalek, taken prisoner by the Monstrons at an earlier stage of invasion, sacrificed itself to set off a volcano and exterminate the Monstrons with it. The Daleks then set about rebuilding their city. (COMIC: The Menace of the Monstrons) Reconstruction was complete ahead of the cold war between the Daleks and the Mechonoids. (COMIC: Eve of War)
The Great Civil War and aftermath
During the war between the Humanised Daleks and the Daleks ruled by the Emperor Dalek, the Second Doctor, having visited the Dalek City before, knew how to navigate its winding corridors. Fighting between the two groups of Daleks devastated the city, ending the Great War. (TV: The Evil of the Daleks, PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks)
After the Civil War, the Daleks rebuilt the Dalek City and introduced a new command structure involving Gold Daleks which outranked the Black Daleks. (TV: Day of the Daleks, Frontier in Space, PROSE: Day of the Daleks)
Under the Dalek Prime
Following the Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War, the Dalek Prime controlled the Dalek city and it had a spaceport. The city contained a war room where the Daleks could monitor their numerous battle fronts while elsewhere on Skaro there were industrial facilities for their war machine. A brief but destructive war broke out in the city following Davros's staged trial, between the Daleks loyal to the Dalek Prime and those who found Davros a worthier leader for the Dalek nation. As anticipated by the Dalek Prime, who had allowed the conflict to break out to root out Daleks of wavering loyalty, his side won, though Davros somehow survived the ordeal. (PROSE: War of the Daleks)
The Last Great Time War
The City still served as the Daleks' main base during the Last Great Time War; after the Cult of Skaro was formed by the Dalek Emperor, they headed to the secret Strategy Chambers of the Cult of Skaro, a special area of the city secluded from the roaming grounds of other Daleks. (PROSE: Birth of a Legend)
Beyond the Time War
Though the Cult of Skaro originally believed their entire planet was "gone… destroyed in a great war", (TV: Daleks in Manhattan) the planet was later "brought back" by the New Dalek Paradigm, (GAME: City of the Daleks, TV: Asylum of the Daleks) and the Dalek City with it. It had been fully restored to its former glory when a dying Davros returned there to finish his life "with his children", (TV: The Magician's Apprentice) before hatching a plan to extend his life and strengthen all the Daleks on Skaro using regeneration energy stolen from Twelfth Doctor. Davros had brought with him Colony Sarff, a gestalt entity composed of sentient snake-like beings, whom he named "head of security" for the City whilst he resided there. The Dalek City's sewers were, by this point, fairly full with the resentful elderly Daleks too decayed to steer their casings anymore and who had been dumped there by the newer generation. (TV: The Witch's Familiar)
Destruction
A stunned Dalek Supreme and several other Daleks inside the rapidly-collapsing City as the Twelfth Doctor and Clara make their escape. (TV: The Witch's Familiar)
Davros's scheme to steal regeneration energy from the overly compassionate Time Lord had been anticipated by the Twelfth Doctor, who let him go through with the theft. This was due to a fault in Davros's plan which the Kaled scientist had failed to anticipate: channelling regeneration energy into "every Dalek on Skaro" meant that the rotting Daleks in the sewers would also be rejuvenated. The millions of rabid, insane Dalek mutants soon tore up through the floors of the Dalek City, hungry for vengeance on the newer generations, and destroyed them alongside the City. (TV: The Witch's Familiar)
Population
Following the Last Great Time War, the Daleks of the Dalek City came in multiple casings from across Dalek history. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar) Among them were numerous bronze Daleks, (TV: Dalek et al.) their contemporary Black Dalek, (TV: Army of Ghosts et al.) a Renegade Dalek and an Imperial Special Weapons Dalek. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) They were led by a red Supreme Dalek, identical to the late leader of the New Dalek Empire. (TV: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End) Also present were a minority of silver Daleks, a Dalek War Machine, contemporary Elite Guard Dalek, and a slatted silver Dalek. They were distingiushed from earlier silver Daleks by their light blue middle sections and flashing blue eye lens. Another oddity was a mostly silver Dalek with a Time War-era base unit. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar)
Behind the scenes
The Dalek City, rusted and covered in vegetation, battered by a rainstorm. (NOTVALID: A return to Skaro for the First Doctor…)
Although Mensvat Esc-Dalek remains the only other name given to the Dalek City in sources which this Wiki chooses to deem valid, it is not the only name ever proposed for the city: The Dalek Handbook states that the city was named Kaalann, a name used for the Dalek City featured in the video game City of the Daleks. Nevertheless, and although dialogue in that game suggests that this city is indeed the same as the original Dalek City (the Eleventh Doctor says of Kaalann, "last time I saw it, it was in ruins and the Daleks had fled"), the link is not formally established. As Doctor Who and the Dalek Invasion of Earth and Return to Skaro raise the possibility of other Dalek settlements on Skaro, Kaalann itself could also be one of these alternative settlements.
The seemingly-empty and decaying Dalek City was featured as one of the settings in the animated webcast prequel to Return to Skaro, A return to Skaro for the First Doctor..., which is not currently considered a valid source for in-universe pages by this Wiki due to having been labeled a trailer.
