The planet Skaro lies deep in hyperspace. On the continent of Davius live the peaceful, handsome Thals. Across the Ocean of Ooze on the continent of Darren, in the city called Dalazar, live the squat ugly humanoids, the Daleks. The Thals fear an attack from the Daleks, a threat that becomes more likely when the Daleks discover cobalt in the Radiation Range Mountains. They create a neutron bomb in the desert region, Darren. When the war minister, Zolfian, says that it is time to wipe out the Thals for good, the pacifist Dalek leader, Drenz, objects but Zolfian murders him in cold blood.

The Dalek scientist Yarvelling creates metal cases (in the familiar Dalek shape) to protect the soldiers who go into the neutron field to wipe out any Thal survivors. Before the attack can be mounted, a meteor storm enters the planet's atmosphere, and the reactors explode.

For two years there is no movement on Skaro until the radioactive dust has settled. Eventually, Zolfian and Yarvelling emerge from the remains of the Dalek command centre. They find the continent of Darren and Davius to be lifeless. The great city Dalazar is in ruins. As the two of them begin to succumb to radiation sickness, a Dalek machine rises from the ruins.

Zolfian tells the war machine that Yarvelling is its creator but it denies this. It says that Yarvelling made the casing but the creature inside is a mutation, repulsive to look at. It says that there are many more such mutations and casings are needed for each. Zolfian and Yarvelling resurrect the war factories and produce many casings. One of the Daleks demands a gold machine with a spherical head and declares itself the emperor. Zolfian and Yarvelling soon die but the Emperor declares there are enough Daleks now to make up an invasion force to enslave peoples to build more Daleks.

The Daleks build themselves a new city. When their scanners detect a large object entering the atmosphere above them, the Emperor orders the city buried beneath magnetic sand. A ship belonging to Krattorians, cold-hearted slavers, lands and begins to load up on sand. Afraid of being found, the Daleks prepare to attack.

Before their assault is mounted, the slaves cease work: the magnetic sand has caused the ship's systems to malfunction. The Emperor wonders why inferior creatures can fly these machines when the |Daleks have no such ships. He listens in to their conversations and hears Sala, a young female slave, attempt to rouse the other slaves to rebellion. He sends two Daleks to kidnap her from the outskirts of the slave camp. However, Kest (the Krattorian leader) has heard rumours of the rebellion and orders Sala and Astolith arrested as ringleaders.

Sala is taken to the Emperor who tricks her into thinking he will help the slaves. Sala returns to Kest and tells him that there is a power on the planet which will kill them all. She leads him from the ship. The Emperor watches with glee. He knows that when his Daleks fail to appear the slaves and their masters will kill each other and allow him to take the ship unopposed.

Sala leads Kest away from the ship with Astolith brought along as a hostage. While the leader is away, the guards left at the ship are murdered by Daleks. The slaves and the ship are taken down to the city. Kest is furious at being tricked.

Astolith overpowers Kest's two bodyguards. He and Sala make their way down to the Dalek city to retrieve the ship. The Emperor is trying to puzzle out how to fly the ship when Kest is brought to him. Kest says that he will tell the Daleks all that they need to know if Sala and Astolith are killed.

The two rebel slaves overhear this conversation. They negotiate their way around the Dalek city until they reach the ship. Astolith tells Sala that he will be able to fly the ship once they get inside because he was once a space captain. Just as they crawl into a hatch on the ship, the Dalek Emperor and Kest decide to search the ship's interior in case the two rebels are hiding amongst the other slaves.

The Dalek search is halted when Sala's cowardly uncle, Andor, who has already betrayed the slaves to Kest, shows the Emperor instructions for flying the ship. Kest tries to get aboard but the doors of the ship close in his face and Astolith blast off. Andor, Kest and several Daleks are killed but the Emperor is more than happy to have discovered the secrets of space travel so easily.

A Dalek called Zeg is at work in the inventions factory trying to strengthen Dalekanium to improve the casings of the Daleks. However, a violent storm outside the city rips through his laboratory. Zeg is subjected to a massive burst of artificial sunlight as well as being simultaneously exposed to a variety of chemicals. His death seems assured but he emerges from the wreckage feeling a sense of joy. His casing has also turned red.

The Daleks that come to his aid are astonished to hear him declaring himself invincible. They shoot Zeg with no effect. He races off to the council chamber where the Emperor is announcing that plans to create space ships are being hampered by the Daleks' failure to make strong enough metals. Zeg says that he has the secret of stronger metals and he will share it if he is made emperor. The Emperor Dalek orders Zeg's execution.

The Emperor asserts his right to rule because he was chosen by the Brain Machine. Zeg says that he is invincible so the position of leader should be his. The Emperor tests Zeg's strength by calling on the dreaded Black Dalek to shoot him but Zeg survives unscathed. The Brain Machine declares that Zeg must prove his mental powers and the Emperor his physical strength in a duel.

The next day, Zeg turns up on the plain outside the city for the duel but the Emperor is nowhere to be found. Zeg follows the Emperor's tracks to the Acid River. The Emperor is lying in wait and shoots the ledge that Zeg is standing on so the red Dalek tumbles into the acid.

He survives the acid and follows the Emperor's trail through a jungle. He realises that the Emperor has had all night to set traps but he is pleased to see the Emperor at the mercury geysers. Zeg shoots the Emperor, destroying the gold casing.

He soon realises that this was a decoy; the casing was merely plastic. The Emperor uses the distraction to fire at a geyser and bathes Zeg in mercury. Again, the red Dalek escapes unscathed and chases the fleeing Emperor to the derelict Dalek workshops.

The cornered Emperor takes his last shot. He blows a tank of liquid air. The frozen liquid causes Zeg's casing, forged by heat, to disintegrate. The Emperor returns to the Dalek city as unchallenged leader and announces that they must learn to improve all Daleks so that they can take to the stars and conquer.

The initial Dalek spaceships are fraught with problems; Proto 1 explodes on launch; Proto 4 is destroyed trying to break the light barrier; Proto 9 manages to break the speed of light but melts in the process. Finally, the refrigerated Metalert hull of Proto 13 allows the Daleks to succeed and the Emperor leads a fleet out to conquer the stars.

The nearest planet to Skaro is Alvega. The Dalek saucers descend into the atmosphere but their scanners only detect plant life which puzzles the Daleks. The Emperor says that where there is mystery there is also danger and sends out scouts to investigate. They detect sounds of communication and blast the plants to clear a path. Unknown to them, the plants are the intelligent life and soon prepare a riposte.

The plants send a message to the huge underground root that is their controller. The controller orders the plants to release seeds which not only blind the scouts but also grow through their casings to immobilize them and then destroy them.

The Daleks bring one of the bell-shaped plants to the ship and use a translator to talk to it. The plant says that the species are called Amarylls and would have been welcoming if the Daleks had shown them gentility. As it is, the controller orders the plants nearest to the Dalek ships to launch an all-out attack.

The Emperor orders all of the Dalek saucers to lift off. While the majority of the fleet sets off for new conquests, four are left behind to eradicate all life on the planet. When this is done, three of the saucers land to build a new city. As the construction begins, the controller below ground summons all of its strength. The three ships are destroyed.

The fourth ship uses an excavator tool to burrow beneath the surface to find the controller. No sooner has it arrived in a subterranean chamber than a giant worm encircles the ship and crushes it.

Some of the Daleks escape from the ship and kill the worm. They realise that they are trapped below ground and the only way to escape is to follow the path that the creature entered by.

Some of the Daleks are killed by falling earth and others by heavy rock falls. Finally only one Dalek survives to make it to the central chamber. This Dalek destroys the controller and the planet explodes. Watching from space, the Emperor declares a new lesson has been learned: what cannot be conquered must be destroyed. The fleet turns its attention to Solturis, the next planet in their path, and the command is given to conquer or destroy.

The planet Solturis has prospered with a hundred years of peace. The ruler, Redlin the Just, is warned by his soothsayer, Lurr, that danger approaches. Lurr shows him a vision in a bowl of water. It displays images of Daleks and their saucers. Redline scoffs at these creatures, saying that they are only machines and seem peaceful to him.

Lurr hurries to his home. He is afraid because he knows the Daleks' true intentions are to destroy and conquer. The people of Solturis are lulled into a false sense of security when an envoy from the Daleks visits Redlin and tells him that they are only there to repair their ships and offer no threat. Secretly, the Emperor orders his spies to discover what weapons they may face so that an attack can be launched.

The Dalek envoy has secretly filmed the main weapon, the Pentaray, which could destroy the Daleks. It fires a mixture of Alpha, Infra, Omega, Ultra and Beta rays. The Emperor orders its destruction. Meanwhile, Lurr asks his granddaughter Mirva to take a bowl to Redlin's son, Jareth, to show him that victory can be won but at great cost. Mirva refuses to go because she hates Jareth. Redline is also angry with his son because he is lazy and did not meet the envoy as he was ordered. The Daleks construct an effigy of the Pentaray device to smuggle into the city of Bulos. They intend to replace the real weapon with it and bring the Pentaray back to the fleet.

Lurr persuades Mirva to go to warn Jareth. He is upset when he finds that his conversation with his granddaughter has been eaves-dropped by his cousin, Geltis. Geltis plans to take Lurr's foretelling invention to the Daleks. Mirva manages to persuade Jareth to go with her to the Pentaray chamber where they find that the Daleks have smuggled out the real weapon and left a dummy behind.

When Redlin discovers the Daleks' deceit he reassures Jareth and Mirva that the Pentaray can only be fired by use of a key. Sadly, the key has been stolen by Geltis who has gone to the Daleks with it.

Geltis says that he wants the Daleks to install him as ruler of the planet. He says he will keep the key but the Daleks need to take the Pentaray high into the Tor Mountains. Redline arrives at Lurr's home and asks if he can use his bowl to discover where the key is. When the bowl shows a vision of Geltis and the Daleks with the weapon he prepares to denounce his cousin but Geltis is already in the house. He stabs Lurr and plants an explosion. Five minutes later there is a massive explosion.

Geltis escapes in a flier. As he heads to the mountains, he is seen by Redlin and Mirva. Redline tells his son to follow in his own flier. The Emperor, assured of victory, tells the fleet to leave for more conquests while two saucers remain to complete the conquest. Geltis, however, uses the Pentaray to destroy the two Daleks left to guard the weapon and prepares to turn it on Bulos for his own ends.

Jareth kills Geltis with a well-aimed rock to the head. He then attaches the Pentaray to his flier and speeds back to the city, arriving just as the two Dalek saucers begin to attack. He destroys both ships with a single shot. The Daleks, out in space, wonder whether to return to the planet and annihilate the humans there but the Emperor has just received a strange message from Skaro and says that they must turn for home.

The Daleks on Skaro have been busy creating new weapons. When an accident at the factory creating a Dalatomic beam missile is reported, the black Dalek investigates. It sees that a cloud of radioactive rust has been released that could destroy the Daleks' casings like a disease.

In tests, they prove that the rust will destroy metalert casings twice as strong as their own. Meanwhile, out in the desert, a sandstorm containing the rust destroys one of the Dalek look-out stations.

As the Daleks in the station die in agony, the black Dalek orders Dalek hoverbouts to go out to the station and destroy it. As they open fire, the rust cloud rises up and destroys the hoverbouts, causing the Dalek pilots to fall to their deaths.

As a gale force wind threatens to blow the deadly rust cloud into the Dalek city, the black Dalek consults the brain machine. Its answer is to use magnets to defend the city.

The Black Dalek orders the others to remain calm under the threat, reassuring them that they are invincible. Large electro-magnets hold the cloud in place while oil is fired at it to bring the cloud to the ground where it can be washed away. As the Daleks set about repairing the damage that has been done, one of them begins to erode away. It seems that the rust has begun to germinate and is spreading like a plague.

The Daleks begin to panic and open fire on one another if any Dalek gets too close. The Black Dalek is puzzled: despite being exposed to the infected Daleks it has suffered no damage itself. The Emperor's fleet returns and the Emperor orders some tests to be carried out. The results show that the plague is not passed from Dalek to Dalek but is being spread by one Dalek in particular. There is only one Dalek that visits all areas of the city: the Black Dalek.

The Emperor's guards attack the Black Dalek who flees into the city. The Emperor and his guards then fight their way into the city, destroying the panicked Daleks within. As the Emperor arrives at the brain machine to find the answers it discovers the Black Dalek rotting away. The Black Dalek has realised that it is the carrier of the plague and has exposed itself to the rust for the good of the others. The Emperor refuses to let it die and sends it to be recast with a new and stronger casing. While the Daleks are thus distracted, they fail to notice the arrival of a space ship on their planet.

A space ship lands in an extinct volcano on Skaro. Inside are the humanoid aliens the Monstrons. They deploy Engibrain (giant robot) builders to transform the crater. When the Daleks detect movement in the crater, they send a Dalek in a hoverbout to investigate. The Monstrons decide to capture the Dalek and send it back with an Engibrain inside.

The Dalek is captured by a large mechanical claw and then sprayed with liquid air to cut off its communications. The Monstrons, Yeq and Kenex, decide to dissect the Dalek and see how advanced their technology is. They plan to wage war on the Daleks and enslave them. As a precaution they install a force field around the volcano. Two more Daleks, sent to find out what happened to the first scout, crash into the force field and are destroyed.

The Monstrons launch missiles at the Dalek city. These release a thick fog. The Daleks retreat into their buildings. The Monstrons arrive above the city in ships, accompanied by Engibrain soldiers. Using special filters, the Monstrons survey the city and order the soldiers to destroy the buildings.

The Engibrain soldiers drop from the attack ships and destroy the buildings of the city so that the Daleks are trapped in the ruins. Then the Engibrain builders move in and cover the rubble with liquid metal to trap any survivors in the wreckage.

Yeq and Kenex set off to scout for a landing site for the main invasion force. Inside the city, the Emperor Dalek is trapped beneath a girder. It escapes by following an old subterranean water course but is approached by a huge electric eel.

The Daleks above the ground divert their own energy into a huge magnet and pull the Emperor free of the jaws of the eel. The Emperor orders the eel to be captured and used as a power source. The two Monstrons celebrate in their ship, unaware that their Dalek captive is raising its casing temperature to escape from inside its ice block.

It shoots its way free of some Engibrain guards but the Monstrons manage to tip it into the volcano. The Dalek empties its ray gun into the volcano and sets off a huge eruption that destroys the Monstron ship. At the same time, the Emperor leads a group of surviving Daleks from the underground tunnels just in time to see the eruption. Although they do not know about the Dalek's sacrifice, they vow to rebuild the city.

The Daleks reconstruct their city and install superior warning systems so that they cannot be taken by surprise again. They also target the planet Oric for its valuable mineral deposits. In order to reach it they need to construct a refuelling space station. As this is being built it is infiltrated by a cloud of gas that takes over one of the Daleks.

This Dalek destroys one of its companions aboard the station and then three more that fly in to investigate. The Dalek is under the influence of the cloud which has been sent by a Mechanoid space ship. The Dalek is under the illusion that the other Daleks are imposters. The Mechanoids observe to see how the Daleks respond to this situation. When the rogue Dalek is captured, the red Dalek leader is informed that messages are being sent to it from an unknown source.

They see a cloud in space and blow it away to reveal a Mechanoid ship. Before the ship can escape, a Dalek saucer closes in and blows it apart with heavy ray gun fire.

Two more Mechanoid ships attack. The Dalek saucer responds with heavy fire but the Mechanoid force fields are too strong. When the Dalek saucer is destroyed, a message is sent to the Emperor warning the Daleks that the Mechanoids will not tolerate any attempts to invade their space and, what is more, the Mechanoids will soon be on their way to Skaro.

The Emperor orders the Daleks to return from the space station. They bring the infected Dalek with them. The Emperor manages to download information from this Dalek to find that their enemy, the Mechanoids, are machines with positronic brains. The Mechanoid weapons are superior so the Emperor instigates a re-armament programme so that the Daleks can engage the Mechanoids in a galactic war.

The Daleks begin to survey the galaxy for weapons that can defeat the Mechanoids. One of their saucers discovers a dead moon but the Black Dalek is suspicious. Nearby, the planet Phryne is hiding under an invisibility shield, watching the saucer. The leader Dalek performs some calculations and concludes that there is an invisible solar system in the vicinity.

The saucer lands on the moon to report back to Skaro. The Controller of the humanoids on Phryne is concerned when he hears their report: his planet guards the histories, records and treasures of over a hundred worlds. He orders the launch of a space squadron to deal with the intruders.

The Daleks send out vibrations to detect invisible planets. As they do so the attack squadron approaches and the Daleks immediately launch a missile assault.

The attack squadron is destroyed. The squadron leader flies his ship straight at the Dalek ship on the surface of the moon but it manages to launch in time to escape. The Daleks stranded on the moon are destroyed but the saucer makes its way inside the invisibility field and reports back to the Emperor that the planet is at their mercy.

The Dalek ship enters the planet's atmosphere where it is bombarded with Actinic rays. The Daleks fight back with Gamma Beta rays and the defences of Phryne are overcome.

The Daleks fight their way through the streets. Some are destroyed by the security forces but one of the Daleks gets through to the Controller's headquarters and demands the planet's surrender.

The Controller tells the Dalek that his people will never surrender. They will fight on, hiding in the mountains and building new weapons. This is actually a message to Saf, the Controller's friend, who is hiding nearby. Saf makes his way down to the streets to gather some other survivors. As he does so, the Controller tells the Daleks that the planet holds the secrets and histories of a hundred worlds. When the Dalek orders him to reveal their whereabouts the Controller says that they are not written but remembered: the archives are in the people's heads. When the Dalek orders the destruction of a building full of people to prove how remorseless they are, the Controller leaps to his death from the top of the building. Saf resolves to forget the past and build for the future.

A comet crashes through space dust, forming a new planet that falls into, ad through, a star. Daleks observe this process.

They name this new planet 'Skardal'. It collides with an uninhabited world and heads towards Skaro.

The Emperor launches a fleet of saucers. It is less a last hope and more a chance to triumph.

The fleet use their technology to magnetise a meteor shower in the path of the rogue planet. The planet veers away from Skaro and heads towards the Mechanoid homeworld.

The planet Zeros finds itself dangerously close to the war between the Daleks and the Mechanoids. The Zerovian council meets in secret (contrary to normal practice). They decide that the only solution is to send an agent to both sides to prevent either of them gaining the upper hand. Gry, the Zerovian ruler, reveals a robot agent, 2K.

2K lands on Skaro but is detected making its way into the city. The robot learns that the Daleks' plan is to let Skardel occupy the Mechanoids and then launch an attack. However, at the point where this information is discovered, 2K is confronted on top of the Dalek information chamber by two guards in hoverbouts.

As the guards open fire, 2K uses a jet-pack to escape. The Daleks shoot, and destroy, each other. 2K realises that he needs to steal a Dalek ship to overtake the planet Skardel. However, he is seen on his way to the space field and suspected of being a Mechanoid spy. He is brought down by a magnetic beam.

He dives to the ground and uses a screw device in his head to burrow through the earth to reach a missile silo. Realising that the missile is faster than any space ship he enters via a service hatch and launches the missile.

The Emperor decides to let the missile hit Mechanus but 2K separates the warhead and sends it back towards Skaro.

While the Daleks try to use the missile's self destruct systems, to no avail, 2K lands on Mechanus. The Dalek's launch anti-missile rockets, Skardel carries on its way and the Mechanoids surround the robot spy.

The warhead hits Skardel and blows the planet to pieces. 2K shows this happening, on his scanner, to the Mechanoids. He lies and says that this was the Daleks' plan to save Mechanus. The Mechanoids are puzzled as to why their enemies should save them from the rogue planet but decide to climb down from their war footing. They allow 2K to leave but tell him they are still the Daleks' enemies.

The Daleks have built underwater defences at the Lake of Mutations, primarily to keep the Terrorkons at bay. One of these large, two-headed, dinosaur type creatures breaks through the electric defence barrier and attacks Dalek submarines sent to fend it off.

With the Voltastream barrier down, even land-based Daleks find themselves useless against the creature. More Terrorkons rise up out of the lake.

The Daleks consider firing underwater missiles but the Emperor is worried that an explosion could damage the city. A device is lowered into the lake to lure the monsters away from the city while the missiles are recovered but when the Daleks arrive they find that the Terrorkons have stolen one of them.

Most of the Terrorkons are trapped at one end of the lake by Daleks using Voltoscopes but the monster with the missile manages to escape into an underwater cave. With the threat to the city coming closer, the Daleks decide to evacuate.

The city is empty apart from the Emperor and the Red Dalek. They decide to travel inside the mountain via extractor pipes that were built to take hydrogen from the lake. As they begin their journey, the Terrorkon finds that the missile is inedible and throws it away. The warhead begins to activate.

The two Daleks emerge from the pipe and begin to deactivate the warhead. As they do so, the Terrorkon spots them but before it can strike it is attacked and beaten by a huge electric eel. The Emperor declares that the city is safe for now but says that they must search the rest of the planet to discover any other hidden dangers.

As the Daleks search, they encounter many things. Some are dangers - such as sand creatures in the deserts - and are destroyed. Others are more profitable - precious stones in the mountains - and are exploited. Meanwhile, one of the Dalek ships fires a ray into a mountain in the Polar Regions to discover any mineral content. Nothing valuable is detected but, unknown to the Daleks, machines beneath come into life and bodies that have been in suspended animation begin to thaw.

Three of the old, humanoid Daleks wake. They make their way to the entrance of their cave and look out. They realise that centuries have passed since the neutron bomb explosion that ended their race. They see a Dalek hoverbout brought down by the cold and speculate that Yarvelling's metal slaves have taken control of the planet. They fear that the metal ones will kill them.

Lodian, Zet and Yvric are all scientists. They watch with interest when a rescue mission is mounted to save the downed hoverbout. When the Daleks realise that the hoverbout is irreparable and the Dalek inside is damaged they destroy the craft along with its pilot. Two of the scientists are appalled but Yvric thinks that the actions make sense. Lodian says that such mentality will destroy the universe and he speculates that these are robots with positronic brains and no conscience.

Yvric and Lodian argue. Yvric races out into the ice to make himself known to the Daleks: he feels that he has many secrets to share that will make him one of their leaders. The Daleks, however, assume he is an invading android and kill him. Zet asks if Yvric would have been able to tell the Daleks anything useful and Lodian says that the greatest secret was a planet they discovered together, nine galaxies away, called Earth.

Lodian takes Zet to the hall of screens where he will see the images of the planet Earth. Meanwhile, the Emperor is reviewing film of the Polar rescue mission and notices a similarity between the creature killed on the ice and the Dalek ancestors. He orders a search of the mountain.

Lodian shows Zet the Earth. He is appalled when he thinks what the metal Daleks will do with such a planet but Zet knocks him unconscious and plans to reveal the secret for his own gain. The Dalek patrol discovers the mountain laboratory and finds Zet. He tells them that he has found the key to the conquest of the skies and tells them that Lodian will be able to reveal more. As the Daleks take the two men out of the chamber, Lodian begins to recover consciousness.

He waits until he has been carried out of the cave and then makes a break for freedom, running away across the snow. One of the Daleks prepares to kill him but is destroyed by another Dalek which realises that he is more valuable alive. Zet is astonished, and scared, by the Dalek's pragmatic approach to murder. The Dalek then tells him that it is down to Zet to find Lodian and it reminds the scientist that his life is expendable, too.

They see Lodian scrambling up the snowy slopes of the mountain. A Dalek fires a warning shot that starts an avalanche.

The Daleks are engulfed by the snow but Lodian manages to cling to a branch and then escape back to the mountain cave. Zet, too, survives and follows Lodian because he knows that his survival will depend on producing the scientist. Other Dalek ships arrive outside as Lodian makes his way to a hidden space ship. He plans to fly to Earth and warn the people of the Daleks.

Zet reaches the ship before it launches and fires a pistol shot at it, to no effect. As the Daleks make their way down to the launch bay, Lodian is faced with a terrible decision. If he leaves Zet behind, the Daleks will discover the secret of Earth. In a noble gesture, he presses the self destruct button. The ship, the chamber, the mountain and the Daleks are all destroyed in the explosion. The secret of Earth dies with them.

The Emperor Dalek is ordering the building of a new road to the Lake of Mutations. As he deploys various groups they all reply "We obey!" except for one voice that asks, "Why?" when the Emperor hears this asks who questioned him. None of the Daleks responds so he sends the whole unit for examination. He is worried: that one word could spell the end of their civilization.

Despite exhaustive tests, none of the six Daleks in the unit show any signs of having questioned the Emperor's authority. However, in the Dalek rest area that the six Daleks use, flowers are discovered. The Emperor says that this is a sign that one of the Daleks has retained its humanoid qualities. Meanwhile, the unit are out destroying mutated flowers beyond the city. One of the Daleks shoots and destroys the hoverbout that is burning through the forest.

The Emperor Dalek surveys the wreckage of the hoverbout and realises it was destroyed to protect a single flower. Other Dalek units begin to return from their work saying that they have been ordered to cease road construction. They are all garlanded with flowers and they say that this was another Dalek order, along with the imperative to preserve beauty. When one of the Emperor's Daleks crushes a flower, the garlanded Daleks open fire and kill it in return.

However, the independent-thinking Dalek tries to assume power as the new Emperor Dalek. It announces that beauty is strength. The golden Emperor comes forward to point out that the flowers in the garlands are already dying and asks where the strength is. The other Daleks turn on the usurper and open fire. The rebellion is over.

A ship sets off from Jevo to the planet Arides. It is imperative that it gets there quickly for the deadly pollen from the flowers that grow on Arides will kill anything and a recent survey has shown that the giant flowers have mutated and grown larger still. In order to get their quickly, the ship has to pass through the 'Unknown Region' which will take it close to Skaro.

The Daleks detect that the ship ('Guardian') is carrying missiles and crewed by androids. They bring it down with a magnetrap.

The magnetic beam prevents the 'Guardian' using its missiles to fight its way clear. The android commander, Kirid, demands an audience with the Dalek Emperor and tells him that the pollen from Arides will kill human, android or animal. The Emperor responds that Daleks are none of these things before ordering Kirid's death.

Kirid accepts his death because it will be quicker than that the Daleks will suffer. Intrigued, the Emperor asks for an explanation. Kirid sets up a test. He produces a gun that he says contains the seeds of the Arides flowers. It easily destroys the Daleks' strongest metal, metalert. The Emperor asks why the gun isn't destroyed, too, and Kirid tells him it has been fashioned from the flowers themselves. The Emperor lets Kirid return to his ship to continue with his mission. Kirid tells the rest of the crew that he actually used an Ultra Gamma gun but they then discover that the Daleks stole the gun before he returned to the ship.

A Dalek reports the ruse to the Emperor but is destroyed when the gun explodes after testing. The Guardian reaches Arides and begins to spray the flowers, only to find a Dalek fleet closing in.

The crew of the Guardian elect to stay and complete their job instead of fleeing. No sooner are the flowers destroyed than the Daleks arrive and a fierce fight begins. As the Guardian is shot down, the Emperor decides that the human spirit needs to be crushed once and for all.

The Earth ship 'Starmaker' is driven off course by a meteor storm. Captain Fleet diverts to the nearest planet - Skaro - without realising that the storm was actually created by the Daleks.

The ship lands and prepares to make repairs. The Emperor observes the humans and decides not to destroy them. He thinks they may come from a planet rich in polar magnetism and aluminium. When the passengers leave the ship two children, Tom and Jennie, are kidnapped by a Dalek and flown back to the city.

They decide to make a break for freedom when the first opportunity arises. As they do, as soon as they land in the city, a Dalek shoots to exterminate them. Back on the Starmaker, the children's absence has been noticed. Captain Fleet orders a force field to be used to protect the ship while a search is mounted.

The children dodge away from the Daleks and run through the city. While Jennie hides, Tom leaps onto the back of one Dalek and causes a fight that sees it and another Dalek to destroy each other. The two children reunite and hide out until they see Captain Fleet being brought into the city by other Daleks.

They follow the Daleks and lure some away by knocking over boxes before dropping a heavy box on the single Dalek leading Fleet. The three humans race for a door which is closing.

They manage to get through the door just in time. While the city is searched, the trio find their way to the Emperor's chambers and overhear his plan to get past the Starmaker's force field by tunnelling under it.

They find the communications room and set it on fire to make the Daleks evacuate. Fleet manages to radio the Starmaker with a warning just as the Daleks begin to burrow out of the ground beneath the ship.

The captain and Tom watch in horror as their ship is destroyed by the Daleks. They decide not to tell Jennie what they saw and make their way to a Dalek transporter ship.

They steal aboard and the captain checks out the controls, deciding that he can fly the ship. They launch successfully and fly back to Earth. Unfortunately, the Daleks have searched the wreckage of the Starmaker and realise that if they traverse the universe to the galaxy beyond Andromeda they will find Earth. The Emperor says that their goal is to discover this planet and conquer it.