In ages past and ages yet to come, we hold science to be the cure for our ails and pains. Dreams of brilliant glories and towering edifices to greatness, preserved by our own knowledge. Sometimes, though, knowledge can turn into a dangerous tool, especially when genius is unfettered by morals.
Just look at what happened to the Kaleds.
The Daleks — Doctor Who
The species that was to become the Daleks came from the planet Skaro, originally the scientifically-focused Kaleds who waged war against the brutal and warlike Thals. Davros, a chief scientist of the Kaleds, knew that for his people to survive they would need to force a change to live in the radiation-blasted wastelands that made up their planet. Unfortunately, in making their kind more focused on survival and war, Davros turned the Kaleds into the maniacal and dangerous Daleks.
The Daleks have been the most common of the Doctor’s enemies, and he has fought them since the
series’ inception in 1963. By the time the Doctor and his companions had arrived, the Thals had become peaceful farmers trying to eke out a living on the blasted soil of Skaro, while the Daleks ruled from their city. Unable to leave thanks to the metal floors that powered their casings (And undoubtedly saving the prop team a lot of money so they didn’t have to modify the rigs to roll outside), the Doctor convinced the Thals to rise up and throw off their Dalek rulers. Since then, the Daleks have roamed the cosmos, encountering the Doctor wherever he may wind up. Considered his greatest foes, the Daleks have been responsible for the destruction of countless worlds and species in their quest to eliminate all potential foes.
In their efforts to fight the Doctor, the Daleks developed their own methods of time travel, even allying with the Master to finally rid themselves of their hated foe. They have tried to destroy Earth and mankind countless times, always managing to return from annihilation by sheer determination to become the dominant life form in the universe.
Eventually, desperation forced the Daleks to revive a dead Davros to aid them against a new enemy, only for Davros to develop a new breed of Dalek loyal only to him and creating a civil war among the species. A faction of Renegade Daleks sought to eliminate Davros under the command of the Supreme Dalek. Despite their efforts, Davros’ Imperial Daleks secured victory, and on learning he was the last of his kind the Supreme Dalek chose self-destruction over being killed by his enemies. With the end of their civil war, the Daleks went to battle against the Time Lords in a war for all existence. Faced with an impossible choice, the Doctor, in all his incarnations, managed to move around this fixed point in time by forcing the Daleks to destroy themselves.
Following this, the Daleks were later found in two separate points in time, one imprisoned by corrupt businessman Henry Van Statten for the technology it possessed, the others under the command of what was known as the Emperor Dalek. A Dalek isolated for centuries, the creature went insane to the point of convincing itself it was a god, and creating new Daleks from the corpses of dead humans. Faced with the impossible task of taking on such a force, the 11th incarnation of the Doctor chose to use the TARDIS as a weapon, generating a massive energy wave that would act as a weapon of mass destruction killing all life nearby. Sacrificing herself to prevent this, companion Rose took in the time rift, and became the entity known as Bad Wolf. Who would somehow help save the Time Lords in the past. Time travel, it’s weird.
It isn’t a secret that the Daleks are based on the Nazis. Made by those in England who saw firsthand the horrors of WWII, the cold, forcefully hostile Daleks were as a species always destined to battle the Doctor in all his forms. Of all the enemies of the Doctor, only the Daleks have become synonymous with the series for fans and non-fans alike. Only their role can never be mistaken. There is no longer any remorse or emotion left in the Daleks, only their malice. Though by now considered darkly comical for their voices and admittedly dated designs, as antagonists they are force of nature. They can no longer reason, are incapable of anything remotely resembling mercy. In seeking to save themselves from war, they gave themselves up to evil.
Reality: The Daleks are the eventual end result of being so concerned with “winning” that a group is willing to give up all that is good about themselves for the sake of it. They have lost their purpose for their cruelties and evils, and persist despite each defeat. Fractured into smaller and smaller groups after each encounter, convinced that their faction is made up of the true inheritors of the Dalek species, and that all others are simply imperfections on their ideals.
What more needs to be said?