It’s not just the weapon at the “Complex” on the planet Cantera. We thought it was high time we told you what some of the other buildings are…

This strange building is the Reactor – presumably nuclear! The snaking pipes are the power output conduits which go to the electrical substations.

Of course since episode 4 there are only two working substations now! The background story is that the Daleks invaded this planet and took over the complex/research station, killing all the original occupants or at least enslaving them long enough to take control. They then brought in some of their own machinery and repurposed some of the buildings. They needed power, so of course securing the reactor was vital.

As far as we can make out there seems to be an administration building / office block behind the reactor so presumably we are talking well controlled nuclear fusion rather than fission. We don’t actually know how power is generated but rest assured the power of the daleks is now almost limitless! (sorry about that – Ed.). We’re not sure the daleks are a particularly admin-driven society so we imagine there’s a lot of unused filing cabinets in those offices. Maybe all the original stewards of this site were all captured and left to rot in there…?

Here we can see the reactor again through the various gantries and conduits of the supply network. There’s a strange hut like building at the front, and as always the building are all connected by the strange hooped corridors that are throughout the site. More sheds are evidenced below, with the same hooped corridors including sloping gantry-borne corridors. This is handy for the daleks since the whole site seems to be served by smooth corridors, slopes and lifts – even the big weapon itself. This begs the question was there a weapon here already before the daleks arrived and repurposed it? Questions one could imagine for a prequel…

We are not sure what the small green-domed buildings are for – there are quite a lot around the complex. The green seems to be atmospherically tarnished copper sheeting. Below is another, which is in danger of being overrun by the vegetation. Daleks are clearly not gardeners.

Behind and to the left of the domed building above you can see three curved metal (?) corridors. We know from episode 3 that these have been used for part of the dalek factory.

The factory is spread over three of the large twelve sided smooth clad buildings. Some of those buildings have these large corridor connections on three levels and some have higher level connectors. All this architecture has proved very handy for the Daleks. The production line itself seems to be a spider-like construction which fits within the shell of those buildings. It is all fine tracery and very functional and is presumably a modular construction that the daleks have installed within these huge buildings.

Here’s another view of those three connecting corridors – three are curved, and on the other side of one of the buildings there are three that are straight. A glance at the schema for the whole complex shows the design properly.

Auriga had actually displayed this diagram much earlier in the story than you may think…Here below we see a rough schema of the complex on the screen in the Asteroid TARDIS from the episode 3 flashback…

… whilst in episode 5 the Doctor and the newly-aged Covellitor discuss the power connections in front of much more detailed map. The display even seems to be showing that one of the electrical substations is in error status! Top right you can see the spider-construction of the inside of one of the production line buildings. We think the diagram is a schematic as the actual location on the ground of the electrical substations seems to be at variance slightly!

The weapon itself is rather interesting, being on a separate concrete platform with supports equally spaced around it to allow for the protective vanes to be lowered when it is in use. We will go into more detail on some of the buildings later on this website.

One also wonders how these images were obtained? – a drone perhaps? Well that would have been shot down day one. Certainly the Daleks in the main Weapon Control Room, led by the Weapon Control Dalek (shinier dome, yellow dome lights, not white) would be on the case!

Another building of note would be the observatory.

This looks like it has been beamed directly in from earth! It has a very similar look to known earth observatories, although it has had the same standard doorways added. The original owners of the site were very on-brand! You can see the upper doorway to the balcony in the image below. The Black Dalek Supreme seems to be on a tour of inspection. He / she needs to get back to the main control room sharpish…who knows what happens in that chamber! See the end of episode five to find out exactly what occurs there…

And finally here is that main control room from the outside. The room itself is in a quartered-off section of the ground floor, allowing for space around and above for all the technical equipment which seems to be in that building. This is one of the smaller height 12-sided buildings. There are 6 of these buildings in all – 3 for the production line and 1 for the main control room – the other two buildings are storage facilities – there’s a lot of kit here at the complex. Even the newly-created Daleks need storing… This control building also has one of those large corridor connections which is used to transport equipment to the top section.

Here we see something emerging from that long corridor – a Dalek Overhead Carrier Mechanism (as seen in the Dalek Production Line and the Weapon Control Room) bringing in via the overhead rail system one of the protective vanes that will shroud the main console area in the control room in episode 5…

All in all it is quite a complex looking complex! Quite how much has been tailored by the Daleks or just plain adapted is up for debate. Maybe the Daleks influenced the original builders. We think they were humanoid, judging by the remains found in some areas of the site. These were not shown in the story of “Devious”. Maybe they were the same race as the Princess who we saw departing life in a flashback in episode two? Many things do not seem to connect, maybe there is a story to be told there.

So there we are – a quick taster of the architecture of the scientific complex (now Dalek HQ) here on Cantera. There’s more to see both inside the complex and outside – for example the wasteland seen in episode 4 (“Quarry”) for example… We will visit some of these areas on the website as we progress towards the final episode…

More soon