
Name:
Skaro
Also Called:
D5-Gamma-Z-Alpha
Type:
Planet
Location:
Seventh Galaxy Hyperspace Solar System
Moons:
Flidor
Falkus
Omega
Mysterium
Natives:
Kaleds
Thals Mutos Slythers
Giant clam dinosaur-like creatures
Dals Tharons
Varga plant
Handmines
Zomites
Daleks
First Seen In:
An Unearthly Child
Other Appearances:
The Daleks
The Evil of the Daleks
The Tomb of the Cybermen
Genesis of the Daleks
Destiny of the Daleks
Remembrance of the Daleks
The TV Movie
Asylum of the Daleks
The Magician’s Apprentice
The Witch’s Familiar
The Genocide Machine
The Mutant Phase
Davros
The Time Museum
Across the Darkened City
Innocence
Purity
Corruption
Guilt
Random Ghosts
The Lights of Skaro
The Ultimate Adventure
The Curse of the Daleks
The Dalek Conquests
From the Flames
The Master’s Dalek Plan
Shockwave
He Who Wins
Return to Skaro
Invasion of the Daleks
The Oil Well
The Message of Mystery
City of the Daleks
Battle for the Moon
The Mechanical Planet
Treasure of the Daleks
The Dalek Trap
Genesis of Evil
Power Play
Duel of the Daleks
The Amaryll Challenger Plague of Death
The Menace of the Monstrons
Eve of War
The Rogue Planet
Impasse
The Terrorkon Harvest
Legacy of the Yesteryear
Shadow of Humanity
The Emissaries of Jev
The Road to Conflict
The Planet of the Daleks
Emperor of the Daleks!
The Professor, the Queen and the Bookshop
The Test of Time
The Only Good Dalek
Prologue: The Fifth Doctor
Defender of the Daleks
City of the Daleks
Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure With The Daleks
Doctor Who and the Genesis of the Daleks
Doctor Who and the Destiny of the Daleks
The Chase
Doctor Who and an Unearthly Child
The Mutation of Time
Remembrance of the Daleks
The Evil of the Daleks
The Dark Path
War of the Daleks
The Infinity Doctors
Break-through!
Diamond Dust
The Ripple Effect
Doctor Who and the Daleks
click on images to enlarge
Skaro was made into a radioactive wasteland following a 1000 year long nuclear civil war between the Kaleds and the Thals. Nearly all life, plant and animal, on Skaro perished.
Due to the radiation levels there were many mutations leading to the birth of the Daleks.
When the First Doctor visited Skaro with Ian, Barbara and Susan he found a petrified forest, and the petrified body of a creature that was made extinct during the war. All trees were like stone, and the ground was turned to dust. No crops could grow.
The Fourth Doctor visited Skaro during the war at the orders of the Time Lords. He was unable to stop the creation of The Daleks and the nuclear war that was in progress.
The surface of the planet is barren and mountainous. The Dalek city visited by the First Doctor had an excellent natural defence for one side: an almost impassable mountain surrounded by a lake in which there are many ferocious mutations.
In the last story to feature The Daleks Remembrance of the Daleks – at the end of the story the Seventh Doctor blew up Skaros sun which apparently blew up Skaro itself.
However in the TV Movie it appeared again at the start of the film.
RECREATION OF SKARO
After the new Progenitor Daleks escaped, (Victory of the Daleks) they rebuilt Skaro (The Witch’s Familiar) The Dalek Emperor, their city of Kaalann and later their whole empire. The Eleventh Doctor discovered that the New Dalek Empire had invaded Earth in 1963. He went to the rebuilt city of Kaalann and discovered that The Daleks had found the Eye of Time, a Time Lord device that helped them alter Earth’s timeline. Using the Eye, The Doctor travelled to Kaalann in its ruined state before the return of the Daleks. He sabotaged The Daleks‘ vision, allowing him to deactivate the Eye. The timeline returned to normal and the New Dalek Empire and their 1963 invasion of Earth was erased. Skaro reverted to its ruined condition. (City of the Daleks)
An area of the petrified jungle was salvaged by humans at some point close to the 41st century and taken to Earth’s Station 7 for research. (The Only Good Dalek)
The Eleventh Doctor revisited the devastated Skaro after being summoned by a woman called Darla, who claimed to have been looking for her daughter, Hannah. He did his with great reluctance, even going as far as avoiding calling its name. However, this was a trap to capture him, Darla had been taken over by the Daleks. (Asylum of the Daleks)
A dying Davros returned to Skaro, which had been completely restored by this point, after barely surviving the destruction of his Crucible at the hands of the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor, claiming “Where does an old man come to die? But with his children.” Davros later sent Colony Sarff to find the Twelfth Doctor and bring him to Skaro. The Doctor willingly came and was joined by Missy and Clara Oswald. The building Sarff’s ship landed in appeared to be a space station floating in space, but turned out to actually be on Skaro with the rest of the planet invisible to the rest of the universe. (The Magician’s Apprentice) The Doctor’s regeneration energy was transmitted to every Dalek on Skaro when Davros apparently tricked him into releasing it into cables connecting him to the life of every Dalek. However, this was a ruse by The Doctor. The energy regenerated the sewer Daleks, who destroyed the Dalek city. (The Witch’s Familiar)
ASTRONOMICAL DATA
LOCATION
Most accounts placed Skaro as a long way away from Earth: one explained that it was in the Seventh Galaxy and nine galaxies away from Earth, (The Infinity Doctors, Legacy of Yesteryear) while another account described Skaro as being “in the next universe but one”, (Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks) while another stated that Skaro was “half a universe away” from Earth. (The Planet of the Daleks) According to another account, it was located in the Eighth Galaxy. (The Destroyers) Skaro was, at any rate, located in hyperspace. (Genesis of Evil) According to one account, Dr Who was driven to travel back to the 2150 Dalek invasion of Earth because he had seen records on the Earth of the year 3000 of an alien invasion at that time. These records described the invaders are originating from a planet designated M-1, which orbited the star Deneb. (Daleks, invasión a la Tierra año 2150)
According to one account, Skaro was a wandering “mystery planet”. It moved into Earth’s Solar System in the 25th century, becoming located at an elliptical orbit around Earth’s Sun. During this time, its orbit crossed that of Uranus and occasionally put it in the vicinity of Jupiter and Saturn. The Daleks seemingly had nothing to do with this movement, and, indeed, were frightened by the fact that Skaro’s new position put it within the reaches of Earth’s expansionist space empire. (Invasion of the Daleks)
Another account called Skaro’s location the “Skaro system”. (War of the Daleks) It was the twelfth planet in its solar system, (“The Ambush”, The Infinity Doctors) and it had at least two suns. (The Stranger) It had a similar atmosphere, climate and gravity to Earth, though it was plagued by sulphuric rain. (City of the Daleks, Asylum of the Daleks) Skaro’s nearest neighbour was a planet called Alvega. (The Amaryll Challenge)
NATURE
Skaro’s radius, from the surface to the centre of its cold planetary core (the Ice Heart of Skaro), was about 10000 miles. Directly below the surface of Skaro was a “cellular layer” consisting of a network of caves inhabited by tunnel beasts. Below were the Zone of Eternal Dark, home to eerie glowing creatures; the Stratum of Screaming Winds, inhabited by Suckers; the Abyss of Death with its walls of living rock; the “depths of unknown” with their masters the Krakis; and finally the Morass, encasing the Ice Heart directly, domain of the sponge people. (The Dalek Trap)
Before neutronic war broke out, The Daleks’ humanoid forefathers and their rivals the Thals lived on two separate continents of Darren and Davius, separated by the Ocean of Ooze, (Genesis of Evil) although by the end of the Thousand Year War, Skaro had a single large continent as the stage of the ongoing conflict between the Thals and the Kaleds. The continent was, however, divided in two by an immense mountain range. (Genesis of the Daleks)
Much of Skaro was a wasteland, devoid of all life after centuries of war. (Genesis of the Daleks)
A jungle once grew near the Dalek City. Following an exchange of neutron bombs, the jungle was petrified. Radiation levels across most of the planet remained high. There were less irradiated plateaus where the Thals lived. (The Daleks)
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