R is for... Recon Dalek

An obscure 9th Century legend told of a powerful creature which devastated the land. It took the combined might of three armies to defeat it. Its armour was destroyed, whilst it was cut into three parts which were to be buried in different parts of the world, ranging from England to an obscure Pacific island. Custodians were employed to guard over each of the pieces for all time. Unfortunately, the English Custodian was waylaid by bandits and killed before he could bury his piece in the designated place. It lay abandoned and ignored, eventually being buried beneath what would become Sheffield's City Hall. 

In 2019 a group of archaeologists uncovered the remains and subjected them to ultraviolet light. This reanimated the creature, and it was able to teleport its other parts to its location and reconstitute itself. It then mentally enslaved one of the archaeologists - a young woman named Lin - to use her to build new armour for itself.

First, it had to retrieve one of its old weapons which was being guarded in a special vault - locating it after having Lin access UNIT files.

The creature then had her take it to a remote farm where it could force her to construct its new shell from whatever material lay to hand.

The creature was a Reconnaissance Dalek - a special breed sent out as an advance scout to planets which the Daleks planned to invade and colonise. They were amongst the first Daleks to leave Skaro.

The TARDIS had landed at the dig site and the Doctor had identified the creature. She traced the Recon Dalek to the farm but was too late to prevent it gaining its new piecemeal shell and armaments. An army unit then tried to stop it, but was completely destroyed.

The Recon Dalek needed to fulfil its original mission, and so travelled to GCHQ, the UK Government's communications centre, so that it could contact Skaro and summon an invasion force.

The Doctor was able to employ an adapted microwave oven to destroy its shell. The mutant survived, but was sucked out of the TARDIS and into a supernova.

Some genetic material survived in the remains of the shell, and the businessman Jack Robertson arranged for it to be hijacked. He then reverse-engineered it to create Defence Drones, based on its design. These were sold to the UK Government to be employed as an additional police and security force. They were purely robotic. However, the scientist working with Robertson on the project - Leo Rugazzi - had cloned the Recon Dalek mutant from its genetic traces, and it took over his mind. He was compelled to set up a secret laboratory where thousands more mutants could be bred. These were brought to life with ultraviolet light and teleported into the Defence Drone shells. Faced with a new Dalek army already established in Britain, the Doctor decided to fight fire with fire and invited a Dalek Death Squad to come to Earth. 

They saw the new Daleks as genetically inferior creatures and wiped them out.

 

Appearances: Resolution (2019), Revolution of the Daleks (2020)

• The Recon Dalek was the first fully remote-controlled design, with no human operator inside.
• To conceal its involvement in the 2019 New Year's Special, it was codenamed "Kevin" in the scripts.