Many centuries ago, the planet Skaro was populated by two intellegent humanoid race, the Kaleds and the Thals. For reasons lost to history, these two races hated each other with a passion. This hatred lead to a war which engulfed the whole of Skaro for a thousand years- at first with ray-guns and nuclear missiles then, as the land was laid waste and resources dried up, with rifles and landmines. The Kaleds and Thals were forced to live in vast bunkers, protected by giant domes. The once fertile land between the domes was a wasteland, inhabited only by skirmishing soldiers and outcast mutants created by the war.

Meanwhile, in an annexe to the Kaled bunker, the gretest scientists of the Kaled race have been given a huge slice of the dwindling resources and given the task of bringing the war to a victorious conclusion. The leader of theses scientists, the crippled, misshapen Davros, soon realises that the war is a secondary issue. If the genetic decay which the Kaleds are suffering continues unabaited, then eventually the race will become nothing but a bunch of blobs with tentacles; barely able to survive without life support.

And so Davros, unable to reverse the mutations, hits upon a plan. By creating mobile life support machines based on the designs of his own life-support chair, the Kaled mutants will be able to survive.

And had Davros been a sane scientist, there the story would have ended. But Davros, being quite, quite mad, decided to a) install death rays on all the travel machines and b) genetically alter the mutants, so as to give them an unshakable belief in their own superiority, and to make them constitutionally unable to feel pitty or remorse. Ah. As a result, the Daleks murdered Davros, who they saw as a lesser being, and went on to become one of the greatest forces for evil in the entire universe.

Enter The Doctor. In his many adventures throughout space and time, the Doctor had fought and defeated the evil of the Daleks again and again. But in spite of his many victories, even he could not defeat the Daleks everywhere. Their power grew as plenet after planet fell to them. Eventually, even the Time Lords, who pride themselves upon non-interference in the affairs of others were obliged to take action. They hit upon a simple, elegent plan: take the Doctor to the place and time where the Daleks originated, and have him either destroy them, or alter their evolution so as to make them into a less aggressive type of being.

The Doctor attempted to reason with Davros, to no avail. He then decided to blow up the chamber in which the Kaled mutants were being bred. However, at the last moment, he changed his mind. For a start, he realised that what he was doing was tantamount to genocide. For a second, he realised that some good would come from the Dalek menace- warring planets would make peace in order to fight them, for example.

However, the Doctor's intervention did result in the Dalek bunker being sealed in. Perhaps it was this impediment to their early growth that slowed Dalek expansion slightly, so the Movellan androids could develop an empire of their own. When the two empires met, it was hate at first sight. For many centuries, the two fleets fought in space in a deadly stalemate. Two evenly matched fleets with entirely unimaginative tactics, neither was able to gain the upper hand. The Daleks eventually came to realise that they needed someone who could think illogically and imaginativley. If this person happened to be a genius as well, so much the better.

And so the Daleks returned to Skaro (the Thals, who had survived the war unmutated, being conspicuous in their absence) to find their fallen creator. Davros had survived the Dalek attack by activating the suspended animation function of his chair. The Doctor was able to prevent Davros from falling into the, um, hands of the Daleks, and he was returned to suspended animation and placed in a human space station prison.

But, of course you can't keep a good villain frozen. Davros was sprung from jail, only to catch Dalek plague and get blown up in deep space, survive, and turn up twice more to attempt to lead the Daleks to victory.

Davros was like Frankenstein, up to a point. He shared Frankenstein's manic zeal, but while Victor's sin was abondoning his creation, Davros' was hanging around and bringing them up wrong. Davros was much more like Hitler in that he wished for his race to be the only one in existance- but first, he had to remake his race to his specifications.

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