Because you don't have enough to do...

[ryard]

I'd love to see a chronological Master timeline, and chronological Dalek timeline....!

[tractator]

That sounds like a great idea.

Rather a large undertaking, though, I suspect...

[boies00]

Would you believe me if I told you the Master's Timeline had already been done?

Cameron wrote it after the release of Dust Breading but the link has vanished during a subsequent update.

I have reinstated links to this timeline on both the Dust Breeding and Master pages, at the bottom, after the first continuity note.

As for a Dalek Timeline, it's up to Cameron to write one or not.

Dom

[The Thinker]

Master Timeline, found it!

[The Valeyard]

With the way time travel tied the Daleks history in all sort of knots, I would think creating a timeline for them would be quite a challenge.

[Dominic Smith]

I've attempted to draw a few conclusions, this was written a while ago so it might need a little updating but it's a start.

Dalek History

On face value it appears that Dalek history is, in a way, initially split into two timelines. The first running between their original appearance in ‘The Daleks’ to their final battle against Jon Pertwee in ‘Death to the Daleks’. By the time ‘Genesis of the Daleks’ came to be it appeared that Dalek history had been rewritten, instead of the race known as Dals mutating and seeking refuge in their city inside metal casings as was originally adopted in the narrative of their first story, the Daleks were seen as the creations of a maverick scientist known as Davros, who appeared in every subsequent television story until the series went off-air in 1989.

So how can these two timelines be reconciled? It is possible to say that perhaps the Dalek stories placed between ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’ and ‘Death To The Daleks’ actually occur after ‘Genesis of the Daleks’, once the creatures have escaped the Doctor’s tomb, and before they eventually return to find their creator in ‘Destiny of the Daleks’.
But this still leaves a blazing continuity error in the way of two conflicting accounts of how the Daleks were created. It could be however that the Daleks seen in the original 1963 story were also Davros’ creations, maybe an earlier model (which accounts for the primitiveness of their design, in the way of the static electricity dependency). At the end of the first episode of ‘Genesis of the Daleks’ Davros and Gharman are seen in a secret base, which could mean that the original Daleks were a secret build, but when Davros saw their limitations he abandoned them.

Other inconsistencies also surround the Thals and Skaro itself. The agricultural Thals are far removed from the military organisation of those seen in later stories, and Skaro’s jungles were never seen again. It could be said. However, that the Daleks seen in the original story were actually on the other side of the planet than those in ‘Genesis of the Daleks’. The war of the two races would not have been limited to one area of the planet, and thus some groups of Thals would be at different stages of development than others, different climates and situations might well have left some more militant than others.
So, so far we can work out a rough timeline of events for the television stories at least; ‘The Daleks’ first, followed by ‘Genesis of the Daleks’, then ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’ through to ‘Death to the Daleks’ and then ‘Destiny of the Daleks’ through to ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’. It is however possible to add in the Big Finish audios and other media into the Dalek continuity. The main bulk of stories that need to be implanted are the three ‘Dalek Empire’ series and the four original Big Finish Dalek stories, ‘The Genocide Machine’, ‘The Apocalypse Element’, ‘The Mutant Phase’ and ‘Time of the Daleks’.

By continuity of these stories release and by comments made in the stories themselves (namely references to the events on Gallifrey from ‘The Apocalypse Element’ in the first Dalek Empire stories) we can place the single stories featuring the Doctor before the three spin-off series, but it is not only this that needs to be decided, these stories also need to be placed at some point in the continuity of the television series.
The non-appearance of Davros would imply that these stories take place before his return in ‘Destiny of the Daleks’, and certain dates given in the stories imply that these take place at some point after ‘Evil of the Daleks’, and that the Emperor seen in these stories is one separate from the one seen in ‘Evil’. Therefore it would be simple to place these stories after ‘Evil of the Daleks’, when presumably the Dalek have re-built their empire after the civil war (it has been documented that in the footage of the final scenes set on Skaro the casing of the destroyed Emperor Dalek was made to glow, implying that the Daleks might not be dead and that they could return, as indeed they did in ‘Day of the Daleks’).

Other Big Finish audios to feature the Daleks are ‘The Juggernauts’ and ‘Terror Firma’. The former may well take place between ‘Revelation of the Daleks’ (although it could be said that the ending of the play links to the Doctor’s comments in ‘Revelation’ of last seeing Davros when his ship blew up). Trying to link in ‘Terror Firma’ however can help to link in the two Dalek instalments of the BBC Eighth Doctor novels.

The first, ‘War of the Daleks’, actually throws the whole of Dalek continuity in a new light, in stating that that after ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’ the Daleks received a transmission from 1963 in which they saw the destruction of Skaro, which occurred in ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’. As such they terra-formed another planet to make it look like Skaro. After experimenting with time travel in ‘Day of the Daleks’ (taking that story out of major Dalek continuity as this faction of Daleks are actually not serving Davros, they consider him a traitor for what he did to their home world) the Daleks move Davros from his tomb on the real Skaro and onto the fake one. After manufacturing the Movellan army to ensure history took its true course and Davros was rediscovered by the other faction of Daleks, eventually to be tricked by the Doctor into destroying the fake Skaro in ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’, the ‘rogue’ Daleks continued to live on the true Skaro until Davros was abducted after entering suspended animation following the destruction of his fake home world. After this they eventually attempt to kill him but it could be that the Dalek sent to destroy him was in fact one that had been poisoned and was in actually on his side (a plot line in the novel), instead of killing him it actually transported him through space to where he was found in ‘Terror Firma’. The second novel, ‘Legacy of the Daleks’, is much easier to place in the continuity as it is a closed-ended story, taking place after ‘Dalek Invasion of Earth’ and not continuing into any other story.

Before moving on to ‘Terror Firma’ and beyond, it is worth noting that other Dalek stories, such as the Telos novella ‘The Dalek Factor’, the Bernice Summerfield Audio ‘Death To The Daleks’ and also the comic strips, all probably take place either during the Dalek empire spanning up until ‘Evil of the Daleks’ or indeed the other covered by the Big Finish audios.
‘Terror Firma’ sees the demise of Davros, as he is turned into the Emperor Dalek. The Daleks themselves, created from human material, are not killed by the end of this story and so it follows that it may well be these Daleks who were seen in the 2005 television series, who fought in the Time War. However, it may be that the Daleks seen in ‘War of the Daleks’ were those in the television stories, as they were not destroyed by the end of the novel. However their ranking system (the presence of a Dalek Prime) seems to contradict this as those in the Time Wars had an Emperor. It is because of this that a prediction or assumption has to be made as to what happened. The ‘pure’ Daleks from the novels would probably have defeated the half-human ones, and perhaps Davros would have been destroyed. However by ‘Terror Firma’ it is established that the Daleks were no longer the threat of the universe and so perhaps the Daleks from Skaro under command of the Daleks Prime were actually destroyed by some other force, perhaps the last surviving Thals.

After ‘Terror Firma’, as the Daleks and their Emperor leave Earth we can assume that after some time they become involved in the Time War. Although not directly connected to those Daleks who tried to invade Gallifrey in ‘The Apocalypse Element’ or whom the Time Lords sent to destroy in ‘Genesis of the Daleks’ it is possible further skirmishes followed, and eventually the wars begun, with Davros, alias the Emperor, returning to Skaro and creating more Dalek material ready for battle.

The exact details of the Time War are yet to be revealed but so far, from the Dalek point of view we do know that the creatures had a home world, that the Emperor escaped the ‘inferno’ the Doctor used to destroy the creature that also destroyed the Time Lords and was seen again in ‘Bad Wolf’/ ‘The Parting of the Ways’, and that the Cult of Skaro also escaped escorting a Time Lord prison for the Daleks, seen again in ‘Army of Ghosts’/ ‘Doomsday’. They returned in 'Daleks in Manhattan' / 'Evolution of the Daleks' whereupon all but Dalek Caan were destroyed, who escaped once again via Emergency Temporal Shift. Two lone Dalek soldiers were seen in the television story ‘Dalek’ and the Quickread novel ‘I Am A Dalek’.

So to condense all of this we can draw up the following chain of events:

• Davros creates a group of prototype Daleks, which he abandons due to limitations. They are destroyed by the First Doctor and Davros then moves on to create a more perfected Dalek design as seen in ‘Genesis of the Daleks’
  
• After the Fourth Doctor imprisons the Daleks after his mission for the Time Lords they eventually break free and move out to create the first Dalek empire, consisting of every television story between ‘Dalek Invasion of Earth’ and ‘Evil of the Daleks’, apart from ‘Day of the Daleks’ and also including the novel ‘Legacy of the Daleks’.
  
• After the failed invasion of Earth, thwarted again by the First Doctor, some of the Daleks see the destruction of Skaro at the hands of Davros and the Seventh Doctor. To stop this they create the fake Skaro and move Davros there, before creating the Movellans and manipulating the Doctor, Davros and their fellow Daleks to ensure history runs its course. In the process of this they trigger the events that take place in ‘Day of the Daleks’.
  
• Meanwhile, the main faction of Daleks return to the fake Skaro, unaware of the switch. The continue to build a second empire as detailed in the Big Finish audio spin-offs and other audios; ‘The Genocide Machine’, ‘The Apocalypse Element’, ‘The Mutant Phase’ and ‘Time of the Daleks’.
  
• After the events of ‘Death To The Daleks’ the creatures come up against the Movellans and are forced to return to find Davros, triggering the series of events that continue through the rest of the television stories, the Big Finish Audio ‘The Juggernauts’.
  
• After ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ Davros is frozen in time and taken back to the true Skaro, where the events of the novel ‘War of the Daleks’ take place. This then leads into the audio ‘Terror Firma’ and then on to the Time War, presuming that the rogue Daleks seen in ‘War of the Daleks’ (who created the fake Skaro) are destroyed at some point after the novel.
  
• After fighting the Time Wars against the Time Lords the Daleks are almost all destroyed by, presumably, the Eighth Doctor (who possibly returns to Earth to track down the Nestene Consciousness and then regenerates) and the only survivors are the Emperor (who hides himself away, rebuilding an army that is seen in ‘Bad Wolf’ / ‘The Parting of the Ways’), the Cult of Skaro (who find themselves in the void between dimensions with the Genesis Arc, only to return to Earth in ‘Army of Ghosts’ / ‘Doomsday’. Two lone survivors are also found on Earth, the details of which are found in the television episode ‘Dalek’ and the short novel ‘I Am A Dalek’.
  
• The Cult of Skaro returned in 'Daleks in Manhattan' / 'Evolution of the Daleks', whereupon Dalek Sec was transformed into a half-human / half-Dalek hybrid. He was destroyed, as were Dalek Thay and Dalek Jast. Dalek Caan escaped Manhattan via Emergency Temporal Shift.
  

Further developments are yet to be seen, these notes are subject to change with future releases, particularly the Big Finish spin-off series ‘I, Davros’ and the ‘Short Trips’ collection entitled ‘Dalek Empire’.

*****

Hope that's of some help.

Dominic

[The Valeyard]

Where does the original "the Daleks" story fit in? I would presume that it would be a part of the First Dalek Empire

[Nytik]

Wow, thats a pretty... detailed... set of Dalek events. As for the Master timeline, brilliant.