Discussions over Cybernetics.
In the security room, Davros was watching the operation as it proceeded under his optical sensor. The Kaled in the operations theatre was one of the most highly decorated of their air corps, and he had won many battles for the Kaled cause, sometimes using unorthodox tactics even to the point of insubordination and disobeying rules and orders from officers younger and infinitely incompetent since he had been fighting long before they had, which had made him extremely heroic because his actions, ultimately, proved to be good for morale.
That was one of the primary reasons why Mogran and the other spineless fools in the Kaled government who'd lasted even after the Supremo was killed a while back had pressed the elite to use the new cybernetics technology. If this Kaled died, it would make the populace believe that the war would end with a decisive Thal victory, and there weren't that many of them around anymore as the war increasingly made the government more and more desperate. They'd lowered the age of Kaleds who'd be accepted as soldiers again, and Davros wondered when the Kaled people on the whole would accept facts. It never failed to amaze him that despite how many clues were dangled in front of them, they just failed to take the joke.
They'd lost the War, they were just too stupid to see it.
Davros had come to that conclusion a long time ago, even before he had been crippled. He had witnessed first-hand the incompetence and the stupidity of the Kaled military and the government. It was one of the reasons why he'd been desperate to leave the trenches and become a part of the Elite.
And then he'd discovered his race would not last forever and was destined to degenerate into a race of crippled monsters. For years, he had toiled trying to find solutions, even using Thal and Kaled brains to help him along, even as some of the discoveries had led to this. Cybernetics was not one of his specialities but it was close since he had envisioned there was no other way of carrying his people.
He had planned on developing a travel machine complete with a power source, a weapon system, and life support to house the mutated creatures, but as he'd experimented with more brains, some of his designs had been forced to change.
"He's gone through dozens of surgeries, Davros. He's survived through all of them. It's remarkable," Aklor, the Kaled he'd placed in charge of all cybernetic research commented.
"Hardly a surprise. He has a strong constitution and he was trained as a Black Spectre," Davros's last words were filled with respect. Black Spectres' were an elite fighting force, named after a legion of warriors who'd lived off the land and were capable of sneaking up on an enemy without them realising it.
The order had remained in power for centuries, even as the war had worsened, and chemicals and radioactivity had only damaged the climate and landscape of Skaro.
"And don't forget, the Black Spectres of today undergo surgeries to make them stronger, faster, and more powerful in battle. And we all know the mortality rate of those surgeries," Davros added.
"Yes," Aklor nodded with a sniff. "An 80% mortality rate, as they make the injections, perform brain surgery and work on the skeletons."
Davros had always actually admired that as it showed how driven the Kaleds were. As far as he was aware the Thals had nothing that compared to it.
"How is our friend accepting the new organs?"
"As you know, the crash badly damaged and burnt his body; we're treating the burns with the Bacta substance you invented a long time ago, and he's accepted the heart and the single lung we prepared for him."
"I thought the second lung was badly damaged."
"We found it was perfectly fine, Davros."
"Very well. What of the rest of him?" Davros asked.
"Well, his legs were burnt off, so they had to be replaced. The work done to his skeleton actually proved to be good enough to help us fit the prosthetics," Aklor replied.
"How so?" Davros had many unanswered questions when Mogran had given them the task of rebuilding this soldier; he'd worried the man's previous surgeries might hinder their work.
"We're not sure at this point, but we believe because of the many operations and injections he was given, he possessed the musculature to make it easier to accept the prosthetics."
"Fascinating," and Davros meant it, "This is the latest work in cybernetics, Aklor. How goes the experimentation and the progress?"
"It's going better than we thought. We've already performed enough autopsies and post mortems on dead soldiers, and our work with the brains has helped our knowledge of how to link implants to neurons," Aklor was one of the few scientists in the whole elite who believed the war was lost and he believed everything Davros did was for the Greater Good, unlike Ronson and Gharman who believed in peace.
For the last few months, Davros had been busy rethinking many of his ideas and his plans for the cybernetics and for the travel machine.
"Aklor, have you completed those cybernetic experiments involving those brains?"
During those last few months, Davros had gotten the other Kaled's team to design and build experimental cybernetic systems while they studied the brains of Kaleds and Thals while he completed the research by himself.
Aklor looked thoughtful. "We've made a lot of progress on the experiments, Davros."
"Good," Davros replied, a nagging feeling he'd been experiencing for the last few months coming back to him. He had been impressed by the growth of their knowledge into cybernetics, remembering his disgust for how primitive his carriage was. "Aklor, do you believe it's possible for my carriage to be replaced by cybernetic limbs and a chest piece?"
Aklor looked intrigued. "I believe so, Davros," the cyberneticist replied. "We are making ever-increasing strides. But what of the government? They are making it clear cybernetics is to be used for the important. The average soldier is irrelevant and expendable to them."
Ah, the typical arrogance of the Kaleds.
"What gave you the belief I care what fools like that spineless bunch think?" Davros retorted.