What Is a Dalek?: Nicholas Briggs's Dalek Empire, Series Three and Four (2004–08)

A couple weeks ago, I wrote up my thoughts on the first two series of Dalek Empire; here are my thoughts on the third and fourth ones. Again, I'm kind of reviewing them, but I'm more interested in thinking through what Daleks "represent" in each of the stories. While in first two series I argued they stood for the "violent sublime," humanity's propensity toward violent conflict, I think Briggs quite smartly does not keep the representations the same, but cannily explores something different every time out.

Dalek Empire III

Series three of Dalek Empire is very different to the first two, in that it jumps millennia into the future. Series two was framed by a couple historians trying to uncover what the "Great Catastrophe" was that ruined the galaxy; series three moves us into the era of those historians, as one of them tries to warn the galaxy about the Daleks... though it is, of course, too late. While series one and two had a main cast of about three characters across four discs, series three is more sprawling, both in terms of the number of cast members, and in the fact that it occupies six discs. Like he often does, Briggs uses a lot of nonlinear storytelling. I don't think the characters here will be as close to my heart as Suz, Alby, and Kalendorf, but I admired the audacity and scope of this a lot. The cliffhanger ending to episode four is genuinely beautiful. Well done, Nick Briggs, on writing, directing, music, and sound design. (And, some actor named David Tennant. Wonder why he never made it big, he was quite good.)

It was the day after the U.S. presidential election, when I listened to episode three, though, I realized what the Daleks represent in Dalek Empire III.

If I was going to be pretentious, what I love most about fiction is a sense of what you might call "epistemic crisis": the world does not work the way you think it does. Your systems for understanding the world are at fault. Obviously this drives mystery stories, honestly a genre I don't partake of very much, but always enjoy when I do. My favorite genre is science fiction, and of course this permeates science fiction; as Jo Walton says, sf stories are mystery stories where the world itself is the mystery. What are the rules then? It's a game I love to play. (I don't like fantasy as much because the game is more arbitrary there.) I don't do a lot of thrillers, but again, when I do, that's why I enjoy them; I love that disconcerting feeling you get in the best of them. Everything you know is wrong. (I've discussed this idea at length in this review of We Have Always Lived in the Castle; am I the first person to ever argue that Shirley Jackson and Nick Briggs are doing something similar?)

The critic George Levine argues that even the realist novel is about epistemology, it's about finding a system you can operate under in the world. He says that practice of realism “suggest(s) how central [...] was the enterprise of knowledge seeking and truth telling, how often plots turn on the power of protagonists to develop the proper temper and state of mind to allow realistic confrontations with the ‘object’—what one might see as the acquisition of the proper ‘method.’” One must figure out how the world works. (This is what I love about Sinclair Lewis's Arrowsmith, of course.)

Throughout Dalek Empire III, there's this ongoing undercurrent of epistemic crisis. The Graxus Rangers find out that they are ultimately disposable, that the society they thought valued their environmentalist efforts in fact didn't value them at all, and is happy to throw them away in the name of expediency. There's a thriller-type quality as they keep being surprised by the way things have shifted politically and they hadn't noticed. Listening to this right after the election, it was impossible not to notice this. The world didn't work they way they thought it did. The Daleks are simply the literalization of this discovery. There's a creeping unease to these sections that really resonated with me.

At the end of Dalek Empire III episode three, we get epistemological crisis upon epistemological crisis. Giorgi Selestru realizes he doesn't have the level of authority he thought he did, as the Galactic Union Council moves against him politically. Galanar turns out to not be a human being. Siy Tarkov's daughter turns out to have been dead all along. Galanar himself finds out that he's been created by the Daleks. The world doesn't work the way you thought it did. Again and again, characters have their assumptions shattered. It would be easy to criticize Nicholas Briggs's out-of-sequence storytelling and layered narration as gimmicky, and certainly there are authors for whom this kind of thing is a gimmick, but just like in the first two series, it is anything but. The whole story is about the shifting, contingent nature of knowledge. How could it be told any other way?

The Daleks are an epistemic rupture made metallic flesh: you are exterminated by your own lack of understanding of the nature of the universe. If only you had understood, might you have survived? But of course you can't. The universe never conforms to our expectations; that's why we need fiction to try to make sense of it all.

I had all these thoughts formulated following the end of episode three. If that had been all there was to Dalek Empire III, I would have been satisfied. Indeed, I might have worried I was projecting a bit. But as I listened to episode six, I only found more evidence for my assertion. Again and again, characters confront the fact that not only don't know what's really going on, there is no way to ever know what's going on. Did Elaria betray the Graxus Wardens to the Daleks? How did the Daleks track down their ship? Did Elaria switch sides and aid the Galactic Union? We don't know and we never will know. The only certainty that Galanar can find is that Siy Tarkov, a man who threw away two decades of his life working to stop the Daleks, will become one himself. Siy Tarkov realizes that humanity will make itself more Dalek-like willingly, it will choose to become fascist. No wonder Galanar becomes homicidal.

At the end, though, Galanar is brought before the Dalek Supreme, and in this conversation—a brilliant, clever exchange, perhaps the best thing Nicholas Briggs has ever written—we realize that the Daleks aren't just a force of epistemic crisis, they are also an embodiment of the futility of attempts to prevent it. Why do Daleks do what they do? Because the universe doesn't work the way they think it does, either. In the Dalek Supreme's last conversation with Galanar, she reveals her own lack of knowledge of how the universe works. Fascism is an attempt to stave off epistemic crisis: by forcing the universe to work the way you think it works.

The only power you can have then, in the face of the Daleks, in the face of epistemic crisis, is acceptance. Not acceptance of what the Daleks, the fascists do, but acceptance of the fact that the universe will surprise you in terrible ways. You can't force it not to, otherwise you will become them.

Dalek Empire: The Fearless

Though Dalek Empire III ends with a lot of unknowns that certainly could be followed up, the fourth series of Dalek Empire totally ignores them—perhaps wisely, given what I wrote above. Would the ending of Dalek Empire III be so effective on a relisten if, when you heard it again, you knew the answers to all of those questions?

In the extras to series two, Briggs had stated his original intention was for series two to be a series of one-offs set during the war. I think this was even his original intention for series three as well. Each time, though, he was persuaded to continue the story and move it forward instead. He finally did move backward with the final series of Dalek Empire, The Fearless, which returns to the time of the first set (it's set during episode three of series one, I think), though it's one big story as opposed to a number of one-offs. We even get an appearance by Suz.

But even if the story moves backward chronologically, it moves forward thematically. If you are first-time listener, do not slot this in chronologically, because episode one of The Fearless picks right up from episode six of Dalek Empire III. In the latter, Siy Tarkov speculates that the only way to  defeat a Dalek is to willingly make yourself more Dalek-like... and that's exactly what humanity is doing in The Fearless, which focuses on a group of Earth Alliance soldiers in dehumanizing power armor, mainly one played by Noel Clarke (Mickey on the tv show) named Salus Kade.

I thought this idea was potentially quite strong, but I found The Fearless the least effective and least interesting of the four Dalek Empire sets. Thematically, at least, I feel like it's a bit too bound in Salus Kade specifically and thus not interested enough in the broader social forces that give rise to something like fascism. Kade's life is horrific, but it's also very specific and unique. Noel Clarke gives it his all, but I think the character as written is a bit one-note, and Clarke doesn't do enough to open him up. (Even though, on the extras, he reveals himself to be a very thoughtful performer.) I did really like Maureen O'Brien (Vicki in the tv show) as the ruthless general.

I like the idea of exploring humanity's tendency to fascism, it's a very obvious use of the Daleks but surprisingly not one we see in a lot of stories, but the story doesn't do enough with the concept. Unfortunately!