Why do people keep forgetting about the Daleks?

Due to Doctor Who's habit of setting lots of high-profile invasion stories in the contemporary present day, and odd phenomenon has occurred over time as showrunners have come and gone, in that the Human population appears to completely forget about Daleks, and all other aliens for that matter, as times goes on. In this video, we are going to take a look at this quirk of the show and try to make sense of it... somehow.

All footage is the property of the BBC. Music by Frank Klepacki.

[timecontroller]

Torchwood retcon drug getting into the water supply is my head canon

[layeredchips]

I think it’s also important to note that the Dalek invasion in the 22nd century was the first successful long-term invasion. The Battle of Canary Wharf only lasted an hour or two, the events of The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End lasted at most a few days, and the events of Revolution Of The Daleks only lasted a single night.

In comparison, the invasion of the 22nd century saw a successful invasion enacted by the Daleks that lasted, depending on the source, up to a decade, which is far longer than any previous Dalek invasion or incursion on Earth

[Gzeebo]

"Your species has the most amazing capacity for self-deception, matched by only its ingenuity when trying to destroy itself." – The Doctor, London, 1963. During another forgotten Dalek incursion.

[Mr_Bunk]

My theory is something I refer to as the ‘Anarchic Timeline’: Various events in Doctor Who - most notably (but not limited to) the Time War, the cracks in time, Sutekh’s Empire of Death, and the Flux - have gradually and unceasingly altered the very structure and composition of time, space and history itself. Ultimately, the Time Lords were right in that time should not have been meddled with by anyone, for this meddling - no matter the intent - has kept changing and warping it beyond the ability of anyone to predict or stop. Timelines are only seen as stable and rigid relative to the tenure of each incarnation of the Doctor, and sometimes not even that is certain if you keep in mind Atlantis existed in three different, contradictory ways in the 3rd Doctor’s era.
The Imperial-Renegade clash at Coal Hill school happened, but also didn’t.
The Dalek invasion of Canary warp happened, but also didn’t.
The Medusa Cascade invasion, the 22nd Century invasion, any one of the Human-Dalek wars, and every other significant event in the Whoniverse is subject to a random chance of re-happening or un-happening. If the doctor were ever to realise this…it would crush them utterly.

[brisk_eventide]

I love the 9th Doctors' explanation:

"You're happy to believe in something that's invisible, but if it's staring you in the face, nope, can't see it. There's a scientific explanation for that. You're thick."

I have a theory that the cracks are still closing in our time, hence the memory gaps. But for everyone else in The Doctors life/timeline, they're closed and finished. Like it's still happening for us common folk, but for time travellers and those exposed to background radiation/the time vortex, the cracks in time are no longer a threat.
Little bit of a timey wimey thing.

[davidroberts]

Have you also considered this.
1. In "Rememberance of the Daleks" the Seventh Doctor tells Ace that the human race has an amazing capacity for self-deception when she tells him she can't remember either the Nestenes or the Zygons.
2. In "Spyfall" the head of MI6, "C" smugly tells the Thirteen Doctor that officially, there's no such thing as extra-terestial life just before he's shot and killed.
3. So a combination of official denial (plus cover-up), public indifference and also relying on UNIT is probably the reason why the public have little or no knowledge of previous etc invasions.
4. Probably another reason why the public are suddenly remembering the recent 21st Century invasions was that UNIT had been shut down due to funding (and no doubt political) reasons in the late 2000s/2010s which allowed alien serial killers, giant spiders, recon Daleks and Judon to run amuck on Earth. The result being that UNIT was revived and (by the look of things) has been given a very high profile.

[greggoleggo]

I like to imagine that somewhere outside the universe is a time sensitive dalek erasing the memories of any species the daleks have unsuccessfully conquered so that they A can’t plan a counterattack based on dalek weaknesses and B can’t tell the wider universe of the daleks failures.

[theeverlastingautumn]

Humanity really went 'I Forgor' whenever Daleks came back

[SonicTimewarp]

I think the simplest solution for the RTD era invasions is the one given to us in part by 11 in Victory. The cracks in reality caused by the TARDIS exploding erased at least the memory of the events from the minds of humanity (including the Cyberking in Victorian London). As for the Chibnall invasions, the defence drones could be rationalised in most people’s minds as a robot uprising or glitch in the programming as only a few select people knew about the first Recon Scout dalek and the mutant inside.

The Ironsides were a secret experimental project that were only in Churchill’s war room building, so only the people in the building would know about it.

[thatgamingkiwi]

I had the silly thought of the Daleks travelling through time and eliminating any recorded mention of them in history so people just forget they exist.

[Coroplocs-Chameleon]

Maybe it is because THE DALEKS ARE SECRETLY THE SIL-

Wait, what was I typing again?

[theastrogoth]

Not just Daleks. Every alien being apparently.

[Dalek]

Since Series 5 I always thought that The Cracks in Time erased most of Humanity's memories of The Battle of The Medusa Cascade, and when The Doctor repaired The Universe so the explosion never happened the damage left The Human Race with no recollection of The Dalek invasion of 2009 (The Stolen Earth/Journey's End) with the exception of The Doctor's Friends and Unit. And of course Adelaide Brooke from The Waters of Mars since the event shaped her future.

Which would explain why no-one thought, 'These new Defence Drones look eerily similar to Daleks' in Revolution of The Daleks.

[zarrg]

Out there theory - perhaps the Time lords afflicted the daleks with some kind of virus or "curse" dureing the time war that slowly erases them from any given point in time, the Daleks have made mesures to alleviate this condition but are unable to fully get rid of it.

[LULU-animate]

I think the ‘healed timelines’ theory could be correct as we see instances in Big Finish of characters being able to recall differing or ‘original’ timelines, in ‘planet of the Ogrons’ we see that the doctor is able to recall a timeline where the Ogrons weren’t present for ‘Day of the Daleks, and ‘frontier in space’ (as you pointed out in the Dalek overseer video) as well as the president in ‘Jubilee’ being able to remember the doctor and even thanking him for saving them from the Daleks (even though this in this timeline it never happened) these instances could explain why some people forget the invasions whilst the doctor (as well as other characters) do not

[OfficialMisterBoo]

Series 5 explained that everyone forgot the events of RTD Dalek stories because the surviving Daleks fell through a crack in time to WW2 London. (Which is stupid, you are not going to forget humanity because a single man fell through the crack)

[stevenstocker]

People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a nonlinear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey... stuff.

[NateOwen]

UNIT and Torchwood use a worldwide memory wipe to erase the various Dalek invasions from peoples’ memories and therefore history

[FactionParadox]

7th said in Rememberance that the Daleks wanted "the power the Time Lords have". He didn't say technology, they were already a temporal power in their won right for centuries with their time corridor technology. I think the power he's referring to is the power to change established history, that power is what makes them the Lords of Time. The Daleks can wipe out civilizations, bring death to trillions, but they do not have the power to alter what must happen. The timeline has a set path and their goal to become the only species in the universe would alter that irrevocably. They want the power to change what must happen so their genetic crusade against creation can happen. It explains the Dalek Time Controller/Strategist, a being that can read the timelines so their plans are not brought to failure. It also adds a reason for the Time War, wiping them out might have been a last ditch effort to get what they wanted.

[Artblawk]

I like to think that the 'healing timelines' theory has been essentially amplified for the daleks because they were part of the time war since Ncuti's Doctor made a point about the genocide rippling out across time and space and how ingrained in time lord history the daleks are.