| “ | I fleeew into the wild and fire! I danced and died a thousand times! | „ |
| ~ Caan, describing his journey into the Time War |
Dalek Caan is an enemy appearing on Doctor Who, first appearing as a member of the Cult of Skaro in the episodes "Army of Ghosts" and "Doomsday". He returns alongside the rest of the Cult in "Daleks in Manhattan" and "Evolution of the Daleks", and appears for the last time in "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End".
Biography
Escaping the Time War
Dalek Caan as a member of the Cult of Skaro
Dalek Caan and the other three Cult members emerged from the Void with the Genesis Ark in London in 2007 after they escaped the Time War. There, they sought to find a time traveler whom they could trick or force to open the Genesis Ark.
The Daleks scanned Dr Singh's brain and learned another species, the Cybermen, had invaded Earth. The Cyber-Leader declared war while the Cult declared "pest control". Dalek Caan took part in the Battle of Canary Wharf, in which the Genesis Ark released a very large number of Daleks onto Earth.
Because they had been through the void, they were covered in void stuff. The Tenth Doctor opened the rift the Cybermen had come through and reversed it, sucking in all beings covered in "Void stuff". As all the newly-freed Daleks were sucked into the Void, Dalek Caan and the three other Cult members activated an emergency temporal shift and escaped.
The Cult ended up in New York City in 1930. They recruited Mr Diagoras, the head of construction for the Empire State Building. He kidnapped people for their research and for the "Final Experiment". Dalek Caan served as the Cult's liaison with Diagoras. Caan took him to their leader, Dalek Sec, who merged with Diagoras in his casing to become the first Dalek-human hybrid.
After Dalek Sec became a Dalek-human, he decided that their creator, Davros, was wrong about removing emotions. He even came to understand that the recent killings of humans at Hooverville were wrong. However, Dalek Caan and the other members decided the plan Sec had for the new Daleks was unacceptable; it would change everything that made a Dalek a Dalek and they would no longer be supreme. Daleks Caan, Dalek Jast and Dalek Thay mutinied, imprisoned Sec, and poured a different gene solution into the Dalek-humans to the one Sec had wanted. The resulting force of hybrid "Dalek-humans" would have turned out exactly like Daleks, against Dalek Sec's plans, had the Doctor not intervened.
Dalek Caan made himself Controller and connected with the Dalek-human army. When Dalek Thay and Dalek Jast ordered the new Daleks to destroy the Doctor, the hybrids questioned orders. The Doctor explained that he got in the way of the gamma strike which had brought them to life. His DNA had become mixed with theirs, giving them a dose of Time Lord freedom. A battle broke out between two Cult drones and the Dalek-humans. Jast and Thay were destroyed. Only Caan remained; realising that the hybrids had been tampered with, he exterminated the entire race of "Dalek-humans".
Caan was the last member of the Cult and the last of the entire Dalek species. The Doctor confronted him and offered Caan help and compassion because he didn't want genocide. Unwilling to accept the help of the Doctor, Caan activated an emergency temporal shift and escaped.
Creation of the New Dalek Empire
Dalek Caan's next move was to discover a way to time-travel into the Time War, even though it was time-locked. He saved Davros from death in the jaws of the Nightmare Child, but at the cost of gravely altering Caan's mind. He and Davros then created the New Dalek Empire using cells from Davros' own body. But at some point, Caan began both to see the future and to completely turn against the Daleks' destructive nature. He told no one about his secret plan to undermine the new empire he helped create by assisting the Doctor. In the presence of Davros and the new Daleks, he almost constantly chuckled from inside his wrecked battle armour, and presented precognitive riddles in an almost sing-song voice. Meanwhile, the New Dalek Empire forged forward with a plot to steal planets, align them inside the Medusa Cascade, and use them to power a reality bomb in conjunction with the Crucible energy core.
The Supreme Dalek of the New Empire regarded Dalek Caan as an insane "abomination", but Davros defended him and demanded respect for Caan. Neither knew that Caan was working against them all.
Following the movement of Earth to the Medusa Cascade, Caan prophecied of the coming of a "three-fold man", of "The Doctor's soul" being revealed, that the "Children of Time would gather" and "one would die". The "three-fold man" referred to the Doctor, the "Meta-Crisis Doctor", and the "Doctor-Donna". The last two were created when Donna Noble touched the Doctor's spare hand, which had been used as a repository for the Doctor's Regeneration energy. This created the Meta-Crisis Doctor. Donna subsequently received the mind of a Time Lord. The "Children of Time" were Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler, Mickey Smith, Sarah Jane Smith, Captain Jack Harkness and Martha Jones, who had each travelled with the Doctor. The Doctor's soul was revealed as a man who refused to use weapons but moulded his companions into them; Jack, Sarah Jane, Mickey and Jackie and Martha each threatened destruction to stop the Daleks. Their threats were all foiled when the Supreme Dalek had them teleported to the Vault. The Meta-Crisis Doctor and Donna arrived to try and stop Davros, who incapacitated them both. However, Donna's Time Lord mind, having lain dormant, was "jump-started" by Davros's attack. Using her human ingenuity coupled with her Time Lord knowledge, she deactivated the Reality Bomb and disabled Davros and his Daleks.
Davros demanded to know why Dalek Caan had not foreseen their defeat. Caan replied with mad giggling. The Doctor realised that Caan had foreseen these events, and had even manipulated the timelines, binding Donna and the Doctor bring events to this conclusion. Caan said he "only helped". When Davros accused Caan of betraying the Daleks, Caan replied that rather, he had witnessed the evil of his kind throughout all of time of space and how many innocent lives were massacred by his race. Even as Davros rebuilt the Daleks, Caan decreed no more.
Dalek Caan pressured the Meta-Crisis Doctor to destroy the Daleks, which he did. Caan was aboard the exploding Crucible with Davros, reminding the Doctor before he left that "One will still die." His fate, like that of Davros, remains unconfirmed, though he likely died in the explosion. Dalek Caan, like Dalek Sec before him, felt remorse for his actions and possibly mourned for the victims of the Daleks.
It is believed Dalek Caan perished in the explosion of the Crucible.
Personality
Dalek Caan together with Dalek Thay and Dalek Jast behind Dalek Sec
Dalek Caan had a mind of his own and thought for himself. That was part of the Cult of Skaro mandate: to imagine and think as their enemies thought. Unlike most Daleks, who always obeyed their superiors, Caan was independent and made his own decisions and disobeyed higher-ranking Daleks. He was the first to question the Dalek Sec-hybrid and convinced Dalek Jast and Dalek Thay to overthrow him.
After flying into the Time War, Dalek Caan lost his sanity and giggled madly. He foresaw the future with perfect accuracy because he had seen the whole of time and space. Davros noted that even the Supreme Dalek didn't dare to contradict Caan's prophecies. Though Caan had never lied about the future he did not always reveal the whole truth. Though he had foreseen that the Doctor and his companions would defeat the Daleks, he made no effort to stop them. Caan made prophecies in an almost sing-song voice.
Despite his madness, Dalek Caan was cunning enough to fool Davros throughout the War in the Medusa Cascade and betray him. In helping the Doctor defeat the Daleks, he truly thought like his enemy did: thinking like the Doctor on how to defeat the Daleks and even how to help the Doctor do it. Caan was also somewhat manipulative and the Doctor noted that he had been manipulating the timelines ever since he had rescued Davros from the Time War. However, Caan was also quite humble, at least after his change of heart, telling the Doctor that the defeat of the Daleks was inevitable and that he had only helped rather than been directly responsible for it.
Despite, or perhaps, from a Dalek's point of view, because of his insanity, Dalek Caan felt regret for everything the Daleks had done and decided to help the Doctor defeat them. Most Daleks were only capable of feeling hatred or fear, but Caan was an exception and felt remorse for the slaughter the Daleks had committed throughout time and space. After he returned to the Time War, Caan realised that the Daleks and their creator were evil monsters. Disgusted with them and himself for being one of them, Caan chose to put an end to the Daleks and made no effort to save himself when the Crucible exploded. Instead he warned the Doctor one of his companions would die.
Trivia
- Dalek Caan holds the record for most appearances by an individual Dalek with six episodes (seven, if the flashback in "The End of Time" counts).
Gallery
