Of Broken Whisks and Sink Plungers...
Please note that there is no offence meant in the below essay, it's just the product of an hours boredom and a piece of paper! :P
The Evolution of the Dalek
Any person who dares to call themselves a sci-fi lover knows of their existence. They may have just heard about them, never actually watched the program, but it is common knowledge that the daleks are the biggest thorn in the Doctor’s side since regeneration. Lately the Doctor’s arch-nemesis has undergone some plastic surgery of its own, procuring a bustle of dalekanium and an extra foot of growth so they can actually look snootily down their eyestalk at the human race before the face plunger of doom does some serious interior redesigning.
Therefore it seems quite prudent to analyse the origins of this upside down ice-cream cone menace. Where did this loathing of everything apart from themselves originate? Where did they decide that being defeated by stairs was a good battle strategy? Where on earth did they pinch the technology from? Old age pensioners on mobility scooters, that’s who. It makes sense if you look at it by standing on your head and peering through a kaleidoscope. Great grandma Bessie rattling on down the road in her MK Shoprover 1000 at the grand speed of five miles a millennia decides she’s fed up of being sent zooming into a ditch by a turbo-charged-likely-to-spontaneously-combust Ford Fiesta. So, she gets Alfred from the garage down the street to build her a protective shell. A bubble, so that when she lands in that baby chasm of brown ooze she finds it takes twice as long to get out with all the extra weight, but at least her cabbages are undamaged. Just given a fresh coating of mud.
That was just the beginning. The other OAPs catch on to the idea and build bigger, tougher cones, try and stick points on the outside, but have to settle for concrete macaroons to not anger the shop owners with more scrapes in their freshly painted door frames. Some of them become fully domesticated, with a plunger for cleaning out horizontal sinks and a whisk for decorating the walls with Victoria sponge batter. Eventually they stop coming out from the armour at all, just live through the blue tinted world of an eyepiece, giving a wonderfully Marvinesque outlook on life.
At some point a more adventurous old biddy decided that living in a bungalow was too flat, so, in order to figure out the problem of stairs, she stuck a couple of jet thrusters in the bottom…the first tests were somewhat inconclusive due to never finding bits larger than a acorn. Old people have been rumoured to not have a good grasp of technology - although some could say they had the principles behind it but hadn’t managed to grasp the intricacies. Another theory is that technologic ineptitude is just a cover for what’s going on in Nanageddon HQ, where revenge against the yobs is planned with malicious glee and lots of cackling.
We keep being told that the daleks are from quite the distance away, and keep coming back to earth because we’re the most stubborn species to eradicate. Or maybe it is old Bill’s way of getting revenge for that whoopee cushion on his rocking chair. Or just because they have nothing better to do now that the scrabble club has been disbanded.
Oh yes, some of them returned to normal life - fetching tea, carrying folders, jumping up and down trying to reach the corner of the ceiling with a feather duster. Can you imagine a dalek going shopping? The looks on the pimple faced shelf stackers at Asda as the whirring menace storms up to them and jabs them in the stomach with a demented kitchen implement. ‘WHERE IS THE TOMATO SOUP? WHY IS THERE NO TOMATO SOUP? EXPLAIN! EXPLAIN!’ and as the dalek whirls off to join its fellow tyrant in armour, he hears a muttered ‘THE SOONER WE GET A MORRISONS IN THIS PLACE, THE BETTER!’
As entertaining as the notion of dalek Khan trying to purchase a carton of milk and root vegetables for a casserole is, you must also ask yourself the question: where do they keep the cash? Like an ATM, would you see a small pile of notes and a one pence piece spurt out of a hidden slot, or do they carry a handbag of consumer disruption? No one’s ever had the guts to ask them for fear of being whisked to death. There’s nothing quite as terrifying as having your brain sucked out through a plunger by an overgrown NooNoo.
And now I have managed to destroy any remaining fantasies of the daleks being the most evil, horrifying species to attempt to take over the world, made you wonder why it takes one mechanic and his sonic screwdriver so many failed attempts to send them back to the retirement home from whence they came, I shall take my leave and rest safe in the knowledge that there is nothing that cannot be brought down a peg through the use of a frilly pin apron and a feather duster. That and knowing that they are unable to retaliate with a scathing essay on the evolution of humans from monkeys because they lack the necessary fingers and thumbs with which to operate a keyboard.
EXTERMINATE COMPUTER! EXTERMINATE!
~ This is property of Kirstine Heald, anyone who attempts to steal it and use it as their own shall find their attempts met with pain, frustration and a black eye caused by my cat wielding a frying pan.