Daleks – Militaristic race from the planet Skaro. The Daleks were created by the scientist Davros by genetic engineering of the Kaled race to survive after their planet was heavily irradiated in a war with the Thals [OS: Genesis of the Daleks]. To protect their mutated bodies, the Daleks enclosed themselves in armored suits similar to small tanks, some of which, called “Spider-Daleks” moved on spider-like metal legs. The Doctor encountered a Dalek city and led to its destruction by disabling their power supply [OS: The Daleks]. He would return in a later incarnation and unwittingly reactivate it [US: Children of War]. The Daleks would make several attempts to conquer Earth in the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries [US: Invasion, OS: The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Day of the Daleks], and would ultimately build a large empire based in the Seriphia galaxy [OS: The Daleks’ Masterplan, BF: Dalek Empire]. The Dalek Empire fought wars with humans and their allies [OS: Death to the Daleks] and also with the android Movellans [OS: Destiny of the Daleks]. The Daleks possessed only a primitive form of time travel for most of their history and occasionally clashed with the Time Lords, attempting to steal the secrets of advanced time travel [OS: Resurrection of the Daleks, Remembrance of the Daleks], prompting the Time Lords to attempt to avert their creation. At some point late in their history they developed proper dimensionally transcendent timeships [OS: The Chase]. The Daleks were nearly wiped out in a rebellion by a Dalek faction which had been augmented with the “human factor” [OS: Evil of the Daleks]. Their recently captured creator was conscripted to engineer a new Dalek race, but Davros assumed the role of Dalek Emperor, leading to a civil war between his new Daleks and the surviving original Daleks. The Daleks considered the Doctor their greatest foe, calling him by the title “Bringer of Darkness”. The War Lords may have altered Dalek history to increase their militant xenophobia.
The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king. -- Shakespeare, Hamlet II.ii