Second Empire

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A CG webcomic made by Mechmaster with the Daleks from Doctor Who as Protagonists.

The story follows that of General Xenol of the First Conquest Army. Having ignored the orders of the Golden Emperor to establish an outpost at a swamp-world in favor of invading the more threatening planet of Slepkt IV, he is brought to Skaro for insubordination. At first the Golden Emperor congratulates Xenol for identifying the greater threat, only to chastise him for having failed to secure victory against the Slepktians.

Xenol then complains that the reason he hasn't been able to conquer Slepkt is because, while the genetic programming of his Dalek troopers produces excellent soldiers, they lack initiative and have been out-thought by the Slepktians. The Golden Emperor is having none of it and it soom becomes obvious that he cares more about having obedient drones than competent soldiers.

This gets Xenol to think with his top scientist Yttral - The Dalek Empire as it stands owes much of its power to other races, who create and mantain much of the Dalek technology. The Daleks slowly but steadily are decaying as their conquered peoples lose skilled laborers and as the genetic programming that the Daleks depend upon is steadily weakening the race by making them overdependent on their casings. Computers do much of Dalek thinking and the race has slipped into complacency, content to obey their machines. Yttral himself is considered insane for actually perfoming research. Original Kaled devices are almost mythical Lost Technology.

But the straw that broke the camel's back? New Daleks created on Skaro are no longer being issued names. The computers now only issue alphanumeric strings of code.

Xenol, supremely pissed off at this corruption of the Dalek dream, decides it's time to act, and the idea for a Second Dalek Empire is born...

It can be found here.

Now with a character page

Tropes used in Second Empire include:

Xenol: Make sure he doesn’t try rebuilding the engines or something, at least not until we land.

  • Ace Pilot: First Captain Anzollo, who outmaneuvers fighters in a gunship.
    • One of the fighter pilots of the first empire certainly counts. Anzollo has to resort to Ramming Always Works to shake him:

Red Seven: May the fates be with you Red Five.
Red Five: The fates? No, I will not leave this to fate. There is no fate save that which we make ourselves.
Dalek Controller: His computer is off. Red Five , you switched off your Battle Computer. What is wrong?
Red Five: Nothing, I am all right.
(Awesomeness ensues).

I am a Black Dalek! I am an avatar of battle! I was born to Exterminate!

  • Badass Decay: In-universe example: The Imperial Legion was once made from the hardiest, most experienced warriors from the Dalek armies. Now they’re bred for the job and haven’t fought a single battle in over one hundred years, and use Hollywood Tactics.
  • Beam Spam: This.
  • BFG: Special Weapons Daleks are here, so it’s expected.
    • The defence guns of the Second Empire base certainly count.
    • As do the guns of Dalek Storm. And the rest of the experimental squadron.
    • The Baryon Fusion Generator
  • Bling of War: General of the Imperial Legion Pturdd. He's not really that much flashier than many of other Daleks, though he does have a very shiny casing with some gold marbling around the mid section, but his gun has an extra power cable that's obviously designed to mimic an aiguillette which combined with his attitude takes him into this trope.
  • Butt Monkey: Longbark keeps getting stuck testing Yttral's inventions, whether they be teleportation, sonic specs, or invisible paint.
  • Canon Welding: Mostly Doctor Who series canon to the TV Century 21 Dalek comic strip but also including pretty much any Dalek related media seen in the last fifty years. For example, the Golden Emperor comes from the comic strip, but his Imperial Guard are taken directly from the Davros Imperial Dalek faction from the late classic series period, while Xenol's Daleks have the colouring of the Renegade Faction from the same period and his Imperial Casing is the one from Evil Of The Daleks. Both sides have capabilities taken from the latest series though like independent powered flight and many of the background characters have casings based on alternative designs from the various spin off books of the 1960's. The most obvious example though is the combination of Yarvelling, creator of the Dalek travel machines in TV Century 21 with Davros, creator of the Daleks in the TV series into a single character.
  • Colony Drop: How Xenol solves the problem of Slepkt.
  • Color Coded for Your Convenience: If you pay attention, you can tell a Dalek’s job description, rank and what Army he belongs to, simply by looking at its casing.
  • Cool Starship: The Battlesaucers. To fire at an another ship, they need to flip over to the side.
  • Crapsack World: Not apparent at first, but remember that the Daleks pretty much curb-stomp anything in the Whoniverse if The Doctor isn’t involved, and that the Time Lords were the only beings that could match the Daleks in the Time War, and even then they ended up losing (sort of). Now, we have yet to see the Doctor (or any Time Lord, in fact) in the comic. Guess what this means for the rest of the Galaxy.
    • The only reason the Daleks haven’t already killed Exterminated everything else in the galaxy is because they haven’t reached Time War levels of badassery just yet, although they do have more variety.
    • Not exactly. These Daleks are quite vicious, though the far wider and ostensibly better established First Empire is Too Dumb to Live for a large variety of reasons, most notably its overreliance on computers and genetic engineering. The Second Empire, on the other hand, stands poised to correct the problem...
  • Crazy Enough to Work: On Xenol’s plan to destroy a Battlesaucer:

Anzollo: And that is your cunning plan? To fly this gunship along the sensor shadow of a moving Battlesaucer in the middle of a void-charge attack and attach jury rigged mines to its hull without them noticing? The reason that sensor shadow tactic is not included in the Dalek Fleet Battle Manual is because it is impossible. That shadow is barely as wide as this ship. With respect General that is the most insane plan you have come up with since the one where we attack the heart of the Dalek Empire with nothing more that a gunship and thirty commandos.
Xenol: Well, apart from the stated objections, what do you think of the plan?
Anzollo: I like it. When do we start?

Xenol: A moment ago you were trying to convince me it was impossible and now you are going to do it backwards?

  • Curb Stomp Battle: The initial attempt by the First Dalek Empire to exterminate Xenol's rebellion ends in this for the forces of Skaro. Xenol and his warriors wipe out an entire Imperial Legion and their support elements and transport ships almost to the last Dalek. The only survivors are a small group who escape into the local swamp of doom (implied to have been brutally killed there) and the space fleet escort saucers that stayed in orbit. Nobody knows what the hell happened.
  • Deadly Decadent Court: Computers have made Daleks complacent and made their commanders think their casings and numbers are the single important issue in battle, rather than strategy and guile. They crave the Second Empire's advances... but not their leaders.
  • Despotism Justifies the Means: The raison d'etre of the Golden Emperor. Since Davros has expressed a desire not to return to hibernation, some... friction is to be expected.
  • Dirty Coward: Pturdd. When confronted with undeniable evidence he and his entire Legion have walked into a trap they're extremely unlikely to get out alive of, he turns into a spineless wimp. Then he forgets why using the flight mechanism is an Awesome but Impractical idea.
  • Dual-Wielding: The legionnaires of the Golden Emperor's personal bodyguard have a second blast gun in place of a manipulator arm.
    • As do the First Army's INTSECTs (INTernal SECurity Troopers).
  • Elaborate Underground Base: Yttral has a pretty impressive one.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Xenol may be a Dalek, but even he’s horrified when he learns that the new Daleks produce at Skaro aren’t been issued names, just alphanumeric designations.
  • Evil vs. Evil: This is a comic about two Dalek empires decking each other out. What did you expect?
  • Explosive Overclocking: Anzollo destroys several dozen First Empire battleships by doing this on his own engines.
  • Expy: Agent 700 is basically James Bond, complete with one-liners and weaponized vehicle, in a Dalek casing.
    • Pretty much every casing from the Terry Nation comics and Doctor Who series has a lookalike.
  • Fell Off the Back of a Truck: One of the characters notes the head scientist got excellent prices for some stuff that happened to "fall off the back of a cargo ship".
  • Fun with Acronyms: The Skaro Political Intelligence and Espionage corp (SPIE)
    • Artificial Sub-inteligence System (ASS)
    • Faraway Extermination And Recon Dalek (FEARED)
    • INTernal SECurity Tropper (INTSECT). Bonus points for them being Yellow and Black and organised into Sting Teams.
  • Funny Background Event: A fair few, with Yttral being the usual suspect. Examples include during the briefing scene before the assault on Skaro, Yttral randomly takes the sanitation Dalek's floor polisher and continues to push it around the table for a significant ammount of time, and later while the Second Empire commanders are planning their defences, he seems to be gesturing at Grexnarl about how large one of the screens is totally at random.
  • General Failure: Pturdd. Combined with The Neidermeyer, Dirty Coward and Too Dumb to Live for extra humiliation.
    • Xyml is implied to have been one of these.
    • Hell, many of the First Empire generals. All of them live by the manual of war, and they have no idea of what to do when faced with an opponent that actually uses creativity or lateral thinking in their attacks.
  • Gullible Lemmings: The citizens of the First Empire.
  • Ham-to-Ham Combat: Buraoun versus Grexnarl.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: "Let us see how far we can get with determination alone."
  • Human Resources: Implied to be the case with Skaro Green.
  • Humongous Mecha: Siege Lords, which are Humongous Mecha shaped like Daleks.
  • Impossibly Cool Weapon: The very, veeery shiny Battleclaw.

Grexnarl: I do not have time to deal with this, you have to return to the sub-levels immediately.
Yttral shows him the gleaming Battleclaw
Grxnarl: All right, you have convinced me. How long will it take to fit the upgrades?

Yttral: But first... kwalorblmn. It has been prophesied.

  • Lost Technology: Most of the original Kaled technology. Yttral lampshades that while the Daleks are more intelligent, the Kaleds were smarter. He wanted to examine old examples to reverse engineer them, but was denied at every opportunity, despite being the top Dalek scientist in centuries. He's understandably pissed. Add to that there is very little actual research being carried and that the Daleks are almost fully dependent on their slaves and on Davros to create and innovate new technology and you'll understand one of the major flaws of the First Empire.
  • The Mole: Agent Hexacentum, later Dalek Snelldron.
  • More Dakka: Yttral’s Rotary Neutron Guns.
    • And the Special Weapons Dalek.
    • And Section Leader Storm.
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Let’s see, we have Emperor Xenol (who gets called “The Dark Emperor” by the First Empire Daleks), Generals Grexnarl and Aychemex, First Captains Anzollo and Gnerk, Sub-commander Zlonozite, Golden Emperor Xanzathix, Yarvelling Davros, High Marshal Zolfian Kalkaderak… pretty much every name given is this trope.
    • Hell, even the minor characters have pretty scary-sounding names! General Services Dalek Grexzol, anyone?
      • Except for Pturdd.
  • Obfuscating Insanity: Yttral. While he's definitely more than a little out there he's not as much of a Cloudcuckoolander as he appears and as this interlude shows there's method to his madness.
  • Painting the Fourth Wall: Daleks speak in their usual angular font. Ancient Kaled uses a much fancier script. Other alien races have their own fonts (Mechanoids speak only in bar codes). Davros' text is a slimmer, unbolded version of the Daleks'.
  • Praetorian Guard: Complete with extra armor (that they can’t seem to make proper use of).
  • Punny Name: General Pturdd
  • Ramming Always Works: How the Millenium Thargon disables one of the Siege Lords. Though it did result in another Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Rousing Speech: Grexnarl gives one.

Note: This is just whow the scene appears in Grexnarl's imagination

  • Scarily Competent Tracker: The Phonar operatior is so damn good at his job he can identify the excact model of a coupling manipulator, just by the noise it makes when dropped.
  • Scenery Porn: Mechmaster has some pretty impressive CG scenery.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Davros. He's left in a special chamber that slows the degeneration to his ravaged body, though now he's been successfully converted into a more mobile form, the issue of him not wanting to return to his can has already shown up...
  • Self-Destruct Mechanism: Used by Second Empire troops to blow up their dead units so no technology can be reverse-engineered.
  • Serial Escalation: How many ShoutOuts can we cram into this Comic? Into this chapter? into this page? Into this panel? Into This. Single. Sentence?
  • Shout-Out: Lots.
  • Super Prototype: Compared to the First Empire units, Second Empire travel machines are considerably more advanced. The First Empire desperately seeks the technology, but to compensate, it has access to larger armies, allowing it to think that there's a chance Zerg Rush is a valid tactic in this case.
  • Super Soldier: Xenol, Pturdd and Yttral. Xenol and Pturdd were part of Project Ancestral, an attempt to create a better Dalek commander by reactivating dormant Kaled genes. As a result, Xenol is charismatic, extremely competent leader, but is independent to the point of insubordination; and Pturdd is a merciless and bloodthirsty commander, but also a Jerkass with an ego the size of a planet and a General Failure. Yttral is part of Project Y, an attempt to create a substitute for Davros. Of the ten Daleks to undergo conversion, only three survived; of those three, one became a vegetable and was Exterminated, the other was brilliant but couldn’t forget the trauma of his creation and slowly went insane; Yttral, the third, is arguably one of the greatest Dalek minds, but is erratic and uncontrollable by Dalek standards (by ours, he just comes off as a very eccentric Absent-Minded Professor).
    • Dalek Storm's casing has the speed, range and firepower of a Combat Hoverbout.

Yttral: It is also very shiny.

  • Take That: In the Dalek History Vaults, the New Paradigm Daleks are in the section reserved for the Empire's "worst mistakes, preserved for all eternity".
  • Techno Babble: On why they need silent running in space:

Xenol: Silent running? Surely the nebula gasses are not dense enough for sound transmission, even in the Shoal zone.
Anzollo: That is correct, but we are moving so fast that the ship creates a bow wave of highly compressed gases that acts as a quantum resonator. Excited by sound vibrations it propagates etheric waves through the medium of subspace.
Xenol: Ah. I see. Quantum.

    • Also parodied here with the operating principles of the Baryon Fusion Generator:

Yttral: The underlying scientific principles are well established of course, simple stated... blah blah blah... Meson polarity inversion... blah blah... Boson nullification... blah blah blah... Unstable quark pairs... blah blah blah blah.
Grexnarl: I see, so it is quantum, then? This is utterly fascinating, Yttral, I do hope I am not keeping you from anything more important.

Yttral: I am the first Science Dalek to actually do research in over five hundred years and yet they call me mad!

  • Those Three Daleks: The three General Services Daleks who become minor recurring characters. One of them, Grexzol, won’t stop talking; the second tries to ignore him (“I am still not listening!”); and the third keeps asking to drive the transporter.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Kwalorblmn, for the entire Dalek species. Justified in that it’s the only plant that can grow in the radioactive wasteland that is Skaro.
  • Unusual Euphemism: The word Thal is thrown around a lot.
    • Made funnier by this flashback from Davros

High Marshal Zolfian:…may their very name become a curse for ten times ten thousand years.

  • Wiper Start: Occurs when Agent 700 tries to start an advanced Hoverbout with a nonstandard control layout.
  • Zerg Rush: The First Empire's invasion. Holy crap.

EX-TER-MINATE!!

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