"Rusty" is the name given to a rebellious Dalek by the Twelfth Doctor in Doctor Who. This Dalek had been active during the Dalek Wars, an extensive interstellar conflict fought between the Dalek Empire and the Combined Galactic Resistance. However, after being significantly damaged in battle, this Dalek started to express intense hatred for Dalek life rather than non-Dalek life, desiring to hunt and exterminate his own species.
History[]
Early life[]
The Dalek that would come to be known as Rusty was once a common Dalek soldier operating during the Dalek Wars. However, some historians have claimed that this Dalek had been created prior to the Last Great Time War, though there is little evidence to confirm this. The Time Lords, observing the greater universe outside of the time-locked Time War via the Matrix, have determined that Rusty was produced some time post-47th century, after the destruction of the New Dalek Paradigm.
During some unspecified battle during the Dalek Wars, this Dalek was severely damaged and left to drift through space. Its casing's main power cell had been cracked and started to leak radiation, disrupting its shell's programming to keep him from feeling anything but xenophobic hatred towards non-Daleks. Seeing the birth of a star triggered a realisation in Rusty of the inevitability of life returning despite the efforts of the Daleks. From this, Rusty saw that the Daleks were evil and needed to be wiped from existence.
Rehabilitation[]
Eventually, Rusty was found by the Combined Galactic Resistance and brought aboard their ship, the Aristotle, in the Ryzak solar system. They attempted to open the shell, but this caused further pain to the Dalek mutant within. Badly hurt already, Rusty asked for help in recovering so he could exterminate his own race. Interested in the idea of a moral Dalek, the crew promised him medical attention.
The Doctor, Clara Oswald, Journey Blue, Ross and Gretchen Carlisle were shrunk down and ventured into Rusty's shell to try to fix the damage that was killing him. Using his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor repaired a crack in Rusty's power cell, sealing the radiation leak that was poisoning Rusty. However, without the radiation affecting him, Rusty reverted to his original Dalek programming, restored to full power and went on a rampage, killing several soldiers and sending a distress call that attracted a nearby Dalek ship. Upon urging from Clara, the Doctor decided to attempt to restore the changes once more. He had Clara reactivate the Dalek's suppressed memories so that he could see the birth of the star again and be reminded of the universe's beauty.
Clara succeeded and the Doctor telepathically linked with Rusty to show him more from inside his own mind. At first it seemed the Doctor had succeeded, as Rusty again saw beauty and divinity. However, Rusty also saw the Doctor's hatred of the Daleks, which resonated even more strongly with him. Rusty saw the Daleks as an evil which must be, in true Dalek fashion, exterminated. Rusty then went on a rampage against his own kind, slaughtering the Daleks attacking the Aristotle and fooling the saucer into retreating by falsely telling the other Daleks that the Aristotle's self-destruct had been activated. Rusty left with the Daleks to continue his efforts against them, telling the Doctor that although Rusty himself was not a "good Dalek", the Doctor was a good Dalek.
Crusade against the Daleks[]
According to human historians, Rusty's betrayal sent the Dalek Supreme Council into a world of worry, even calling off their galactic invasion out of fear that Rusty's changed worldview would infect other units, but their experiments proved that his freak turn of heart could not be mass-replicated. Relieved, and unwilling to snuff out such beautiful hatred as Rusty's, they consigned him to the Dalek Asylum, home to Daleks whose hatred was so powerful it threatened their own kind in one way or another. The asylum was ultimately destroyed by the Parliament of the Daleks. Alternatively, the Time Lords believed Rusty to be from a later point in Dalek history, dating his crusade against the Daleks beginning sometime after the asylum's destruction.
Based in Villengard[]
Rusty continued to fight the Daleks for billions of years. In time, he grew to be, as the Twelfth Doctor put it, "a bit of a legend", entirely because he was a Dalek who had turned on his own kind. As his casing grew ancient and, much like his nickname implied it should be, rusty, he isolated himself at the centre of the universe on Villengard, combating numerous Daleks that came to kill him. Rusty fended them off, positioning himself in a tower overlooking the battered city, specifically remaining in what may have once been a throne room. Hooked up to machines that appeared to be keeping the Dalek alive, Rusty would fire out the windows at the many Daleks who came to destroy him, destroying their casings and filling the ruins with a mess of broken travel machines. Many of the Dalek mutants would survive the destruction of their shells and would roam the ruins while hiding from Rusty's watchful gaze.
The Twelfth Doctor, nearing his death, came to the lone Dalek with his original incarnation to gain information on the Testimony, as Rusty still had access to the Daleks' Pathweb. Rusty attacked him but, upon the Doctor noting the Dalek had a chance to watch him die, eventually removed his gunstick as a peace offering to the Doctor. The Time Lord was well aware of the fact that Rusty could simply telekinetically recall the blaster, yet understood the action was a sign Rusty was willing to talk. When the Doctor persuaded him to help as aiding him in any form would hurt the Daleks greatly, Rusty proclaimed that the logic was ingenious and approved of it being, as the Doctor then said, "just a little bit evil". With that, the Doctor understood he could approach Rusty. Nonetheless, Rusty mocked the Doctor after he tapped his sonic sunglasses to the Dalek's manipulator arm to transfer the little information about the Testimony he did know; instead of remarking that the Doctor was a good Dalek, Rusty remarked that the Doctor "would make a good Time Lord", entirely to ridicule the Gallifreyan. Rusty projected the information from the Pathweb, revealing to the Doctor that the Testimony was simply a University of New Earth way to preserve the dead; in effect, the Doctor saw "its not an evil plan". After providing him the information he desired, the Twelfth Doctor left Rusty.