The Anomaly of the Daleks

On the dead Skaro, a fast-moving, Thal-created meningococcal disease swept through Kaled territory, even killing all 50 Dalek Embryos and Davros himself. Vess and Saan were left behind (with Saan badly injured). Survivors fled the planet with the Salutaries.

Most in the Empire, Dalek and Kaled alike, thought the Salutary was a mere concept with only a few individuals alive.

In truth, there are possibly hundreds to a few thousand Salutaries.

The life of a Salutary on the 'dead' Skaro is regimented since day of decant as adults. Their lives centered around planned pregnancies, births, and their children going into the Kaled population. They lived cloistered away, most children conceived artificially. Some others, like Vess and Saan, were moved to other experimental tasks that a typical Kaled couldn't (or wouldn't) safely accomplish (Temporal experiments and caring for an alt-Davros (including making immunoglobulins for him), respectively)

The facility that creates and decants Salutaries installs arrays of plugins on the back to allow for computers to monitor and edit them. With the right programs running, a Salutary's entire life and body can be viewed on a monitor. Things like independent desires, identity, thoughts, and memories can be edited or deleted. This makes for a placid, obedient subject.

The main facilities that hold Salutaries operate like hospital prisons- sterile, controlled, and devoid of any personality. Salutaries are on strict diets and schedules.

Uniforms- Outer jumpsuit 'shell' in gray. Bands on chest and arms have the serial # of the Salutary. Underneath, Salutaries wear gray T-shirts and drawstring shorts. In pregnancy, the Salutaries wear dark blue maternity scrubs to be easily spotted.

Day to day, Salutaries are inspected, monitored, and edited as needed. They are employed as sweatshop labor to produce goods for the Kaled City, mostly garments. No talking, no laughter, nothing but the hum of machines. Pregnant Salutaries are on light duty but constantly monitored, segregated out from the main group.

Among the Kaleds, the Legacy Project would stage kidnappings of young adult Kaleds, before their bodies and DNA could be destroyed by radiation, and take blood, eggs, and sperm for storage. This is then used to propagate Kaled offspring (sent to Military Orphanages) as well as create new Salutaries and keep the Doomsday Lifeline stocked.

Killing a Salutary is a process. They, biologically, refuse to die and can recover from otherwise fatal injuries. Their bodies produce specialized cells that move like tiny, tiny, translucent spiders (Spinner Cells) that extrude structural and stem cell silk (Spinner Silk) to rebuild any damaged tissue. These cells, upon detecting damage, descend on the wounds to wrap and rebuild. To regenerate injuries, the Spinner Cells take from healthy but non essential areas for energy, starting with fat stores and then muscle. Without support, lethal injuries take months to kill a Salutary, her body eating itself until it is nothing but dust and old silk.

Trigenics, if needing to kill a Salutary, often chooses to use Thal weaponry and then abandon the injured Salutary in ruins. Soldiers who have happened upon them have spread ghost stories about 'The Silk Maids', passive, dying women who are unable to speak, just whistling softly and listlessly reaching out.