Dalek Exterminator Gun

[O Wildish]

I was wondering, just what kind of energy weopon is the Exterminator Gun Daleks use, I've read a few rather odd assumptions as to what they are but what I do know it has never been really explained execpt for a comment the 7th Doctor said when examining a falllen soldier "Massive tissue displacement...nasty." also in the same story in regard to the Dalek Mother Ship's weopon capability he said that they can crack this planet like an egg. In "Dalek" the Dalek showing off fired at pipe which drenced the the area with water then it fired at the wet floor an electrocuted a number of guards, killing them and in "Stolen Earth" a trio of Daleks powered up and leveled a house, does anyone have any theroies? (not important but incidently, what with Daleks being geniuses and all calulating a code lock in mere seconds, can they ovecome Borg shields in a simular fasion?)

[Crossroads Inc.]

The only thing one can say for certain, is that it must have two settings:

Flesh, and Everything else.
Seeing as how a single blast can blow apart massive chunks of reinforced concrete (no small task) yet every time it has been used on a living person we always get the skeleton "FLASH" and death.

My guess is that it is an energy setting thing, no sense blasting a human to bits when a fraction is needed to kill them.

[Darth Tedious]

Without dialogue explaining the nature of the weapon, it's very hard to do any kind of analysis.
Honestly, the early episodes were so limited with their special effects (I'm currently watching the Dalek's first ever appearance, one of their guns just did some real psychedelic shit to what was presumably meant to be a metal wall).
Even newer portrayls with decent budgets have been largely stylised to look like the older effects.

Sure, we can count the megajoules it took for the Luftwaffe to be 'vapourised' (and that's a loose term at the best of times). But the performance of the guns is so inconsistant through the series' that it's hard to use the numbers we get in a meaningful way.

Is it a chain reaction? Could be. That would fuck our energy requirements in the arse, because chain reactions are pretty much retarded if they're not more efficient than DET.

There's also the issue of different Dalek types over the years showing markedly different perfomance.

tl;dr - Fuck knows. And even if we worked it out, it'd probably only apply to the example/episode in question.

EDIT: Crossroads makes a good point- the amount of difference we see in the effects of Dalek weapons on flesh vs. metal is ridiculous.

PS- The Daleks had a 'hurt and cause temporary paralysis' setting for their guns in The Daleks.

[mr friendly guy]

I always assumed the Daleks had different settings as well, simply because they can blow holes in walls but humans just fall down dead. No sense wasting all those ergs on a puny bag of flesh. Presumably to quantify we just have make a range from the low settings to the higher ones.

[Big Orange]

Well in "Victory of the Daleks" we observe Dalek arms exploding WWII fighter aircraft with a single blast and later on Spoiler

totally obliterate Dalek travel machines with a single blast (but that was with the larger cannon used by the Paradigm class, with the other Daleks wilfully offering themselves up for extermination).

And a while back in "The Stolen Earth" we see Crucible class Daleks switch their rays to a plasma blast setting, using them like a flamethrower to clear out a suburban home.

[Rabid]

I always thought it was some kind of "electron beam", where the lazor is composed of some kind of highly energetic plasma/contained cloud of free electrons. This would explain death animations when fired on meatsacks ("x-ray skeletons"), the scene where one of them electrify a pond of water by shooting on it (in the first season of the new series, forgot the name of the episode), or the variable settings (more or less free electrons put into the beams).

Basically, I see it as a Time-Lord Tier plasma weapon, with all of the associated magitech techno-babble explanations.

But the short answer, for me, is "They are so advanced it could as well be magic".

[Stark]

I always assumed the Daleks had different settings as well, simply because they can blow holes in walls but humans just fall down dead. No sense wasting all those ergs on a puny bag of flesh. Presumably to quantify we just have make a range from the low settings to the higher ones.

The demolition settings must be extremely inefficient (or perhaps dangerous) because in many stories the Daleks are stopped by obstacles that you'd think they'd just blow up. In many stories, shots that explode other Daleks (or robots of the week or whoever) just set off squibs when they hit the ground or walls.

And yeah a gun must be pretty powerful to blow up German bombers loaded with bombs and fuel.

[lordofchange13]

I always thought it was some kind of "electron beam", where the lazor is composed of some kind of highly energetic plasma/contained cloud of free electrons. This would explain death animations when fired on meatsacks ("x-ray skeletons"), the scene where one of them electrify a pond of water by shooting on it (in the first season of the new series, forgot the name of the episode), or the variable settings (more or less free electrons put into the beams).

Basically, I see it as a Time-Lord Tier plasma weapon, with all of the associated magitech techno-babble explanations.

But the short answer, for me, is "They are so advanced it could as well be magic".

That episode was "Dalek". When in doubt assume Clarketech!

[SpaceMarine93]

Free-electron laser?

[Starglider]

Free-electron laser?

'Free electron' refers to the lasing cavity, not the emitted beam. Externally free electron lasers function like any other laser other than the fact that the frequency can be changed more easily, and Dalek weapons are obviously not lasers.

[Eternal_Freedom]

In one of the newer books "Prisoner of the Daleks" one of the human characters (Jon Bowman) explains that Daleks weapons can blast a human to small shreds of meat, but the Daleks turn them down a bit. They quickly calculate just how much power it would take to instantly kill the human, and lower it a few notchs so the humans get a few seconds of agony as their nervous system is flayed. Fun for the whole family.

[Batman]

Why would the Daleks do that? Them wanting to exterminate humans is a long established feature of the Whoniverse (getting rid of inferior specimens and all that) but I don't think I ever saw anything hinting at Daleks bothering to make their targets suffer. If anything they'd likely consider that inefficient.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I dunno why, that's what the book said, I offer it as the only explanation off the top of my head as to why the gun has a different effect on people.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Given the extent and breadth of Dalek "civilisation" (using the term loosely), how likely is is they're all using the same thing? A Dalek from one of their moments of actual empire could well be floating around with something that makes a Dalek from their first expansion look like it's using a blunt stick, a Dalek from the Time War era should be armed with something that an Imperial Dalek would expect to see on a capital warship.
Maybe the performance of the weapons is wildly different one from another because the weapons are wildly different? Just a thought.

[Rabid]

^ Eh, why not. That's as much as good an explanation as any you could get for anything in Dr. Who.

The expression "Time War Era" made me chuckle, though, given some commentaries made by the Doctor that can leave the audience thinking that given the numerous "time-paradox" it created it "now" basically extend from the start to finish of Time, having become a constant of the Universe in itself.

[Drooling Iguana]

Even within the show's chronology, it's often argued that the first shots of the Time War were fired by the Fourth Doctor at the moment of the Daleks' creation, meaning that the Daleks have been fighting the Time War for their entire history.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Semantic point taken, but you know what I mean; the ones at the very high end of the spectrum, who are deliberately and directly in combat with the Gallifreyans, as opposed to the majority of their history when they have been merely trying to survive against and conquer lesser races- and each other from time to time, and trying not to be brought down yet again by a single rogue Gallifreyan in a type 40 Tardis.

Anybody following the Second Empire webcomic, by the way? http://www.cg-lair.co.uk/daleks/secemp00.htm- I actually went all the way through what's up looking for weapon names and appearances before thinking hold on a minute, this is noncanon and doesn't count. Still good, though. I particularly recommend pages 144, 177, 181-185, 243, 354 and 410.

[Simon_Jester]

^ Eh, why not. That's as much as good an explanation as any you could get for anything in Dr. Who.

The expression "Time War Era" made me chuckle, though, given some commentaries made by the Doctor that can leave the audience thinking that given the numerous "time-paradox" it created it "now" basically extend from the start to finish of Time, having become a constant of the Universe in itself.

No, it works.

"Time War Era" is meaningful in the sense of proper time, as measured by a Dalek's own 'clock' along its personal worldline. The Doctor himself is a fine illustration of the concept; his proper timeline has bounced up, down, backwards, forwards, and sideways through time and space until it properly resembles the Gordian knot... but for him, every individual event he's ever experienced took place either before or after every other event he's experienced, in a well defined progression. If he kept a diary, it would be linear- the experiences of the First Doctor came before those of the Second, even if on a given day the Second Doctor was closer to the beginning of the universe's proper time than the First had ever traveled.

In the Daleks' own proper time, I imagine that their armed strength just kept getting more and more powerful, and more and more dangerous, until the last moments of their existence as an empire and/or a race.

So it's as fair to say that the Daleks have a "Time War Era" as it is to say that the Doctor had a "looks like Sylvester McCoy Era." Heh.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Anybody following the Second Empire webcomic, by the way? http://www.cg-lair.co.uk/daleks/secemp00.htm- I actually went all the way through what's up looking for weapon names and appearances before thinking hold on a minute, this is noncanon and doesn't count. Still good, though. I particularly recommend pages 144, 177, 181-185, 243, 354 and 410.

That comic is utterly fantastic. The guy takes Daleks, keeps them as typical genocidal warmongers but still as likeable characters. Very successful and entertaining. I just wish it could update faster.

[Darth Tedious]

The Doctor himself is a fine illustration of the concept; his proper timeline has bounced up, down, backwards, forwards, and sideways through time and space until it properly resembles the Gordian knot... but for him, every individual event he's ever experienced took place either before or after every other event he's experienced, in a well defined progression. If he kept a diary, it would be linear- the experiences of the First Doctor came before those of the Second, even if on a given day the Second Doctor was closer to the beginning of the universe's proper time than the First had ever traveled.

Just incidentally, he does. The 500-year dairy comes up a number of times (Power of the Daleks, Tomb of the Cybermen, the 1996 movie) that I'm aware of, and probably a bunch more.

I wonder though, even through the Dalek's proper time, their power waxed and waned somewhat, didn't it?
To give an example: The Paradigm Daleks were apparently the most powerful ever, but were the 'Ironsides' that preceded them the next best thing?

[Simon_Jester]

I wonder though, even through the Dalek's proper time, their power waxed and waned somewhat, didn't it?
To give an example: The Paradigm Daleks were apparently the most powerful ever, but were the 'Ironsides' that preceded them the next best thing?

That was kind of ECR's point: that this is the result we get following the Daleks' proper time (which is not more "correct" than anyone else's, it's just a more accurate measure of how they experience time and causality). So one group of Daleks from one period in history can be far more powerful than another group from a different period- either stronger or weaker.