The Doctor Who redesign project

- by Niklas Jansson

Foreword

I finally got to watch Doctor Who and fell in love with some of the designs. The Daleks I had already heard about of course, but many of the designs from the older periods were also charming. A lot of older games have Dalek-ish designs in them, and Doctor Who also inspired other sci-fi species like the awesome Borg (Dalek+Cybermen).

I have some 18 sheets of design thumbnails so far, but it takes time to tidy up and categorize. Only a few designs per page survive. Here's a A4 thumbnail sheet scanned at 150 pixels per inch. A few thumbnails (slightly edited) from this sheet can be seen at 1:1 scansize (about 200% the drawn size on a monitor) in the Galaxy 4 section.

Updates 2007

Content anchors

Story & Design

I don't fancy character oriented stories, instead I prefer universe descriptive stories like Star Wars where the characters are merely vessels used to explore and describe the setting. Time travel is always kind of whimsical and inconsitent, and it also kills story continuity a bit.

So, no doctor, no time travel, more large spacefleets, tactics and diplomacy. My protagonist might be different from story to story (maybe a Kroton), describing the region at hand. Like Star Trek, ships could also be more fleshed out and character-like. They tried this with the new TARDIS, but I think it's a bit too mysterious to work that way. In Star Trek you can relate to certain parts of the ship as biological functions, the shields and hull being the skin, the warp core is the heart, the computer is the brain, the engines are the legs, the weapons and tractor beams are the fists, the crew is the blood cells, and the shuttles are babies...

I will avoid silly weaknesses, like melting seemingly invincible robots with... sugar or whatever.

Elaborate scientific explainations will have to go aswell, as they never hold up to scrutiny. I'd rather have my characters fire 'Capacity 9 C-beams' or something abstract. I am doing some armour penetration, volume and kinetic impact (joule) math to assure my effects are reasonable though.

I will attempt to give the designs a 60-70 styling, which I think means primitives and no complex shapes. Kind of clumpsy looking and not too cool-detailed. Tubes, boxes, that sort of thing. The silhouettes can still be interesting though.

Dominators are dominating. Krotons holding the core.

Tech level key to the territory map above.

List of aliens

I'll have to discriminate a bit and select the stuff I like according to the following critera:

Not sure about:

Humans

Backup System

Following a Cybermen invasion attempt in 172 A.N.P.*1 a robotic species, Arrfoureyedee, secretly contacted the Earth Goverment

* After Nuclear Power, a popular dating system used by many species. Although reaching that level of technological maturity is notable in itself, the main function is to mark the year that had an effect on future radiocarbon dating methods.

Culture

During the great Settlement humans found themselves able to throw off some old burdens in building their social structure. The years Before Warp had seen some astonishing advances in robotics and information processing, a luggage that proved most useful in the early years After Warp. There were no longer a need for humans to perform monotous mechanical labor. A decentralized farming society where housing, food and information came cheap allowed the settlers to occupy themselves with labor of a more creative nature.

It is now 165 A.W. The human population is still relatively small and scattered among many colonies. Although everything is decentralize

Cybermen

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something... silver-ish.

Cybermen space fleet designs

Design comments

Daleks

Story

A group of Daleks get isolated and end up on planet Exodia in MegaCluster 5. Similar to the Borg, they gradually turn into individuals because of isolation and a bit of radioactive contamination of course. One of them (the most 'persuading' one) assumes the role as the new emperor, the other surviviours become something akin to generals. There's no contact with other Daleks.

Exodia is inhabited by primitive aliens, which the Dalek quickly turn into obedient robo slaves. Being Daleks, they soon create an army of Dalek soldiers and spaceships.

After intense mining operations, they exhaust the resources of Exodia. The exploited planet now looks like a perforated fragile shell. As all Duralium (which they use for their new casings) has been mined, they leave the planet behind and go about their usual 'ex-ter-min-ate' business.

New design

The Daleks in the TV series are a bit inconsistant in terms of vulnerbility. I'd like to think a Dalek is about as powerful as a modern tank and not easily defeated. To take them out you need something more than a regular RPG ('bazooka').

I decided to redesign them a little though. The base look kinda clumpsy (it had to be for practical production purposes, which no longer exist) so I changed it into a hover dome (which probably is blasphemous). I drew some inspiration from the talk about spider Daleks and gave them tube-hose-legs (very retro), and I also made a legged tank vehicle. Deploying a force of 100 Daleks and 5 tanks is similar to deploying 100 Abrams and 5 battleships. A force of a few thousand Daleks could take a planet with ease. They also fill out their ranks with robomen (humans/aliens wearing a mind control helmet).

Dalek thumbnails

Dalek Duralium*

Dalek anatomy

* Official information states: "The outer casing is made of Dalekenium, a metal alloy developed by the Dals, which is ten times stronger than steel, yet it is only a quarter of the weight of aluminum." I just made wild guesses about the durability and weight, but ended up pretty close. My Duralium variant is about 12 times stronger, and a bit heavier than Aluminium. I didn't want the Dalek to be too flimsy so I used a weight slightly over that of Aluminium.

I have made a few different types of ships, a fighter/scout, a troop transport, a destroyer, a carrier and a mothership. The overall design is a mushroom with a flat shape through the center in just one axis. All larger ships have a troop transport in the top, and several fighters docked at 90 degrees.

The ship armour is a mixture of more common materials and layers of Duralium, especially around vital ship systems.

Movellan

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Sontaran

Melkur and Sontaran color illustration

Rutan

Design comments

After almost a page littered with little ships, I stumbled on a simple sea shell design that I think might work.

Exo armour with a transparant canopy revealing the green slime ball creature.

Kroton

Story Synopsis

This little script is merely meant to describe the nature of the Kroton. It might need a B plot and human characters. Here are some Kroton thumbnails to go with the text below. I need to storyboard it so I can put a vertical image next to the text.

A group of Dalek surviviors are left crippled after a battle with the Movellans.

They Crash on a planet, but quickly begin to rebuild, making use of the primitive locals.

One Dalek locates an old crashed Kroton Ship in a crater. There are strange canisters of liquid onboard.

The Dalek interface with the DynaSphere onboard the derelict Kroton vessel. The Dynasphere 'fries' the Dalek. A survivial/scout form Kroton forms out of the Liquid Super Crystal seen earlier.

The Kroton finds that its ship is non-funtional, and goes out on an adventure to find a solution.

Three Daleks sent to investigate the Kroton ship further intercepts the Kroton. The leader fires upon the Kroton after the usual introductional phrases.

The Dalek leader, clearly being very powerful, are surprised and agitated to find it failed to disable the Alien. Several shots are fired by the Daleks, but the Kroton appears to be getting away.

The leader goes into lock-down mode, diverts the power to its weapon, and fires a devastating blast. The Kroton is reduced to liquid.

The Daleks forcefield grapples the liquid (with the 'suction cup'), forming it like an amoeba like sphere in the air.

Believing the alien is dead, they take the 'corpse' back to the Dalek base for investigation.

They drop it in a tank with Dalek interface knobs on it. They fail to figure out what it is and leave to investigate other matters, like the Kroton ship..

The Kroton reforms. It finds itself close to the Dalek nursery. It absorbs all Daleks, reducing them to dust. Now it has enough highbrain power to go into battle mode, but still needs Liquid Super Crystal.

It locates a mineral store room and does some miracle archemy, then changes into a potent battle form.

A Dalek suddenly enters, fires. Smoke and debris. The Kroton emerges unharmed and the Dalek shows a hint of fear. The Kroton Towers above it.

Meanwhile the Daleks investigating the Kroton ship have been alerted. Heading back to base in a hurry, they find it smoking half in ruins, something hanging in the sky above.

The Kroton, hovering in mid air, turns with a sinister look to spot them. It fires an intense beam at the Daleks and studies the effects. There's a large crater in the ground.

The Kroton ship emerges from the ground, shredding it. It is massive.

The Kroton ship leaves the planet. The Kroton is contemplating the canisters of liquid lining the walls around the Dynasphere core. Entering another part of the ship, thousands of more canisters are revealed.

Dominators

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Dominator and Quark thumbnails

Ice Warriors

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Alpha

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Galaxy 4 stuff

Rill, Chumblies and Drahvi thumbnails.

The Chase stuff

Mechanoid variants, Mire beast and Fungoids.

Macra

Design comments

I wanted something Volkswagen-Tachikoma-Tank-like here, there's not a whole lot of material to go on so I'm taking a few liberties.

6 legs, 6 arms, Massive damage!

More concepts - I'm trying out a Beetle design. It's a bit "Machinen Krieger"-esque too I guess.

Gundan

Black knight Terminators?

War Machines

WOTAN strikes back.

Vortis hybrids

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- by Niklas Jansson 2007 - Doctor Who and all associated trademarks are © BBC - No infringement intended.