A brilliant scientist, Davros was enrolled into the Elite of the Scientific Core following a brief but successful stint in the Kaled military's own Research and Development division. Davros was enthralled with the concept of evolution and he immersed himself in the study of various Skarosian life forms – including the then (apparantly) extinct Dal race, the Thals and the Kaleds themselves. His experiments were morally and ethically dubious, but his deviousness and brilliance won out, allowing his continued rise through the ranks of the Elite and ultimately leading him towards the pinnacle of the government itself.
During the course of his service, Davros was caught in the blast of a Thal missile and left physically crippled and twisted. Due to his undoubted genius and value to the race, it was decided that an attempt would be made to save the scientist's life. Though resources were dwindling, none were spared to create a life support mobility chair for the rising star of the Elite. At the end of their efforts, it was felt that effort may have been wasted. Davros would never be able to have anything resembling a normal life again, bound as he was to a life support chair, his vision reduced to what a lense in his forehead could gather and transmit to his brain. Rather than terminate him, they offered him a choice: Survive and help the Kaled cause, or extinguish his own life with a neuro toxin. Ultimately Davros made the single most defining decision of his life. He would survive. From this moment, everything he did would stem from his need to survive. Davros had determined that by not terminating him, the Kaleds had proved themselves weak and unworthy, unwilling to do what was necessary to survive. Perhaps as a reminder, Davros kept the neuro toxin and its injector within one of the storage compartments in his mobility chair for many centuries.
It was arguably due to Davros that both the Thals and the Kaleds became all but extinct. During the final days of the Neutronic War, the Kaled government tried to shut down Davros' experiments into determining the ultimate genetic form of the race and developing a travel machine to house this form. This interference was partially due to an extra-skarosian entity that had recently arrived on the planet. Itself an oddity, since Kaled science had determined that Skaro was the only planet that was capable of supporting life in all the nine galaxies. To continue his research, Davros engineered matters so that the Thals could develop a warhead that would penetrate the supposedly indestructible dome that protected the final Kaled city from aerial assault. At the same time, he engineered matters so that those opposed to him and his goals were killed by accelerated mutations – now called "Daleks" cased in his latest "Mark Three Travel Machine" design. The evidence of life beyond the home planet had also planted a seed in Davros' mind that would also be evident in his creations.
Shortly after these events, Davros became the last surviving Kaled. Those few who had proved themselves loyal to him were exterminated by the Dalek creatures when Davros tried to close down the automated production line that had been activated by his creations. To the Daleks, all other forms of life were inferior. Those that would not serve would be exterminated. Davros himself felt the power of a Dalek energy weapon when he tried to shut the production lines himself. Presumed dead – killed by the very weapon he had designed and constructed, Davros' body was moved down to the fourth level of the bunker where it was sealed away. The "corpse" is then given no further thought by the Daleks for many centuries.
