Dalek Furiogo was receiving new orders. Daleks were to prepare for changes to their cloud memory software. An upgrade. Daleks in Furiogo's section were to prepare for invasion and mass extermination of a Nestene-held planet of strategic importance. Daleks in another section were informed of Davros' birthday. Daleks were to prepare for a difficult upgrade. Furiogo was surprised by that instruction, no upgrade had ever been difficult for the Dalek race.
The message changed, but the change was not obviously relayed to Dalek Furiogo. Rather, Furiogo's memory of the message seemed different. Upon re-checking it, it appeared the message now said that Daleks were to prepare for disappointing information. The Doctor. The Time Lords.
The message changed again. Victory. The Time Lords. Gallifrey located.
Dalek Furiogo was receiving new memories, knowledge he found familiar, though completely new. The Daleks were at war with the Time Lords, again. Dalek Furiogo was to take part in a huge invasion fleet against the Nestene-held planet of Polymos.
Defeat. Scarro assaulted. Scarro evacua- Preliminary Assault on Gallifrey successful. Scarro well defended. Defeat in the Laegar sector. Laegar sector retrospectively discovered.
Now another change. It wasn't a huge invasion force – many sections had been reassigned months ago. Scarro has been saved. Now Dalek Furiogo was to lead an assault by a small force upon a town sitting directly above the Rift, so as to enable small craft, energy-harvesting vessels, to land safely and consume Rift energy. Furiogo would lead the assault by virtue of its rank, gained through glorious combat in the early days of the Time War. Except, that hadn't been the case until now. Dalek Furiogo hadn't fought in the time war, until now. Dalek Furiogo had never known the words Time War to mean what they now meant, until now. Dalek Furiogo had fought valiantly over a long career, but not, it seemed, until just a few moments ago.
It is of vital importance that Scarro be protected in all periods from any assault. Dalek craft shall defend the planet in all periods.
Dalek Furiogo was receiving new memories and new orders. Daleks should prepare for a new upgrade that will assist with the conversion of new memories and realities into coherent conscious thought. Dalek Furiogo has been selected for a scouting mission to the planet of Polymos. The Time War between the Daleks and the Time Lords has now been raging for 17 seconds. Another message logged a much larger figure. From now on, messages will not contain such information.
Gallifrey must be located. A Time Lord agent has deleted its whereabouts from our cloud memory.
Update almost completed, and now Dalek Furiogo understood. It had been fighting this Time War since its first moments as a Dalek. The Time War was all that Furiogo had ever known. Old memories disappeared. Memories of conventional warfare against lesser foes became myth, and Daleks do not maintain myths.
Dalek Furiogo was to report to superiors and take part in an invasion of Polymos. The vehicle's offline system is doing its regular scan – for interest, the first use of the words Time War were 33 seconds ago. The Time War has been raging forever. There is nothing but the Time War. Yet… 34 seconds…
Dalek Furiogo's systems had finished updating. The update had presented some difficulty, but Furiogo would not and could not dwell upon challenging changes to reality.
Sometime later, as it experienced, Dalek Furiogo prepared to drop to the planet's surface as part of the small vanguard assault team. The town of Carbonic had roughly 30'000 Nestene duplicates, and would be easily destroyed.
The planet is under assault by the Time Lords now. They must know that the Daleks are harvesting energy here. The assault team will have to manually drop. The Warrior has been seen. The updated cloud memory system fed this to Furiogo as if it were entirely conceivable.
Dalek Furiogo was falling now, in an assault pod. He was leading a squad of 6, then a vanguard of three. Then he was alone. As the pod entered the planet's fumy atmosphere, he saw he was one of millions of invading Daleks. Then they were among thousands of mines, exploding all around them. The Time Lords had planted those in the sky in preparation. Furiogo's pod struck a mine, and the Dalek experienced the first microseconds of an explosion. Then the mines were gone, and most of the Daleks, and the Pod was only slightly damaged, and then intact. There had been no battle. But now there were Time Lords, out in force. The pod continued to fall, as Battle-Tardis' fought lower-space Dalek aircraft. Dalek Furiogo became aware that it was now the focus of operations in the War. Protect Furiogo were the new orders. Furiogo must reach the surface of Polymos.
The fumy atmosphere cleared up. The planet's name changed. Faliamora? Its inhabitants were peaceful and primitive. Furiogo had changed course, but had always been on this course. He was heading to a flatter landing area. The surface of the planet had shifted, but always been this way. The Rift remained.
Furiogo had been in the Pod for 94 seconds, and had received 190'393 updates on mission status in that time, though it only remembered the most recent one, and was aware of this only as a statistic. The most recent update informed Furiogo that the orders remained to secure the landing site and protect it from possible Gallifreyan intervention; that other units were protecting the mission elsewhere. The Rift could provide energy for a simultaneous assault on Gallifrey, across more time zones than previously attempted. Than ever attempted. Than would ever be attempted (pending future information or changes to this timeline).
100 metres above the surface now, of an idyllic landscape, with plush greenery and clear blue rivers, the Pod broke apart as planned and Dalek Furiogo descended to a sandy plateau jutting out of the plastic dessert wasteland. A plateau bisected by an unlikely stream flowing in two directions – away from the Rift.
As Furiogo landed, the scenery changed. Slave labourers ran from the site of the Dalek as it blasted its way through the floors of a functioning factory – ever descending to the base. Industrial kilns blazed all around Furiogo, but the factory soon disappeared, or parts of it. Now dilapidated. A mass grave marked by a few signposts and gravestones. Furiogo had landed at the Rift. Energy Harvesters would not be far behind. The area seemed protected. Even the Time vortex was being defended, Dalek Furiogo was assured.
How are we defending the Time Vortex? That Information is not available or conceivable for your operating system.
Something had obviously failed. A Tardis was materialising in front of him. The ruins of the factory were now those of a picturesque small town – Furiogo became aware of snow, and then forgot as the climate changed. A Battle waged all around them. Furiogo's connection to the network went down, and came back up again as the wooden shop fronts blazed in fire. The Dalek exterminated some running civilians, quite by instinct. 7 dead before the air filled with thick smoke. The light was blocked by the clouds from the burning planet surface. Battle Tardises and Dalek fighter pods shot at each other through the sky. Dalek Furiogo felt hot. The Tardis ahead was taking shape. A black box.
It knew that box. The Warrior. The one who had stayed away. The one who had been someone else.
The planet fell silent. The sky cleared. The place of the town was now a deserted plateau once more. A battle that had raged for a thousand years had now never raged. Dalek Furiogo felt a sense of abandonment. The energy harvesters were no longer coming to this place. Furiogo had one objective – exterminate the Warrior. It focused its lens on the door to the Black Box. Where there had once been glass windows set into the door frame, wooden panels had been hastily applied. Furiogo understood that the camouflage mechanism was broken on this model.
If not for the black wooden replacement panels, Furiogo would've seen the reflection, seen that it was time to turn around.
Instead, the Dalek only realised that there were two Tardises when the vehicle it had lived in for many years exploded around it. Dalek Furiogo was launched into the open air, landing in the plastic sand. The pain of the blast was immediately followed by the sting of the sand, the burning heat of the sun, the searing pain caused by the use of its large, naked, eye, half submerged also in the plastic sand. To breathe was hell, but Furiogo found itself doing it now, for the first time since first entering a vehicle. It was sheer pain even to move, for propelling itself with its limbs was not something the Dalek Furiogo had done since nursery. Those limbs were not suited for this, and they were very much out of practice.
Furiogo became vaguely aware of the surroundings having changed again. The air was thick once more. The old memories disappeared. The feed of new orders had stopped. Furiogo was no longer connected to the network. All it was aware of was the War, the endless War. The Daleks had always fought an endless war. The enemies had always hated them. But things had changed now. Things weren't right. Was this memory… correct? Why did Furiogo remember a town, where there was now a concrete yard. Why did it remember the friction of plastic sand, where now there was a concrete yard? This planet had been cursed by this war. Time here meant nothing. Time was merely another weapon. That's why they called it the Time War.
Dalek Furiogo went silently mad in the few seconds between being attacked and being executed.