Taren Capel was ascientist who tried to instigate arobot revolution onKaldor in the late29th century.

Biography[[edit] |[edit source]]

Capel spent almost his entire life aroundrobots, being practically raised by them. As a result, he identified with them more than he did withhumans and came to believe that robots should rule over them. He intended to lead a robot revolution, dressing himself and painting his face to resemble his robot "brothers".

Posing as chief engineer Dask, Capel joined the crew ofStorm Mine 4 and reprogrammed thesandminer's robot crew to kill the humans aboard, at first individually and secretly. Eventually, he ordered them to massacre the survivors, as well as theFourth Doctor andLeela who had recently come aboard. The Doctor drew Capel into a room and had Leela releasehelium whilst she was concealed from view. Not recognising his voice,SV7 throttled him to death, repeating the command given to him to kill all the humans. (TV:The Robots of Death^[+]Loading...["The Robots of Death (TV story)"])

As was eventually discovered, Capel's plan also had a second phase that was activated after his death. It concerned the transmission of a specially-designed program to modify the robots' basic operational software in order to turn them into murderers. (AUDIO:Taren Capel^[+]Loading...["Taren Capel (audio story)"]) He became idolised by a cult called theTarenists, who were used by theFendahl which pretended to be a resurrected Capel. (AUDIO:Hidden Persuaders^[+]Loading...["Hidden Persuaders (audio story)"],Checkmate^[+]Loading...["Checkmate (audio story)"])

Personality[[edit] |[edit source]]

Capel considered himself to be a "superior being" to humans, after his upbringing solely by robots. He considered the robots his brothers and sisters, emphasising with them, and Capel believed that they should rule over humans. (TV:The Robots of Death^[+]Loading...["The Robots of Death (TV story)"],PROSE:Doctor Who and the Robots of Death^[+]Loading...["Doctor Who and the Robots of Death (novelisation)"])

Behind the scenes[[edit] |[edit source]]

• Capel's name is a reference to the science fiction authorKarel Čapek, who wrote the playR.U.R..^[1] The story follows a robot rebellion and the downfall of the human race. The word "robot" was introduced into English through its use by Čapek.^[2]
• It is never explained inThe Robots of Death what became of the real Dask — if there ever was one.

Footnotes[[edit] |[edit source]]

References[[edit] |[edit source]]