Doctor Who and the Dalek invasion of Planet Earth 2150. The MMT version.

Many years ago when Doctor Who storylines were more comprehensible than they now are, or at least they were to me, the Daleks invaded planet Earth.

Even though the series was and still is made by the BBC, and the Daleks were their invention, the evil Daleks still chose to base their Earth invasion operations in the London of 2150.  Or, maybe it was something to do with an abundance of a mineral to be found somewhere in the Home Counties which was running out on the Daleks’ home planet of Skaro. The Daleks , not being very nimble creatures, would be much better at extermination than mining, so naturally required the services of the local able bodied , but unwilling, population.

The Dalek solution was to convert suitable humanoid specimens into Robomen. This involved the forced fitting of a thought-control device, which looked rather like a motor cycle helmet with a transistor radio strapped on the side. This turned them into willing workers for the Dalek  Empire. It may well also have been part of the Dalek undoing. Thought control devices are childsplay to the Doctor,  who would have, in the final confrontation,  rewritten the source code in half a minute  flat to entice the Robomen to switch sides.

If the Daleks had taken the trouble to visit the British  Library to look up some old MMT textbooks they could have found an alternative solution. They would have noticed how much time and effort us Earthlings invest in our houses and property. They wouldn’t have bothered about pounds or dollars, but they may well have then decided to levy a property tax denominated in Kaleds: the currency of the Dalek empire. Non payment of taxes of course would mean the property would be destroyed , and all occupants exterminated!

Of course, the future Earthlings would not have had any Kaleds themselves. The Daleks then would have placed job advertisements in the local newspapers offering generous payment in Kaleds, so the ‘lucky’ workers would have had not only enough to pay their own taxes, but some extra too, to spend on buying goods and services from others who needed the Kaleds to pay their taxes. I suppose the Doctor’s best tactic then would be to teach a version of neo-liberal economics to the Dalek financial elites who would  possibly have been persuaded they were running out of Kaleds and had to cut back their spending, balance their books,  and sack all the newly recruited Earthling miners. But that would be too far fetched a plot line even for Doctor Who!

I’m not sure if we children of the 60’s would have been quite as fascinated by Daleks if they’d turned out to be just tax monsters, but we’d certainly have learned a useful lesson in economics.