Producer John Nathan-Turner wanted to start "Doctor Who" twenty-fifth anniversary season "with a bang" by doing a story with the Doctor's most famous adversaries, the Daleks. Nathan-Turner and script editor Andrew Cartmel hired Ben Aaronovitch to write the story; Aaronovitch, who had not written for television before, was ecstatic. Aaronovitch was 25 years old at the time, and had been recommended to Cartmel by fellow BBC script editor Caroline Oulton. He initially developed a story idea which later became "Battlefield" (1989), before Cartmel then commissioned Aaronovitch to write the Dalek story, originally titled "Nemesis of the Doctor". According to deals made with Terry Nation, the creator of the Daleks, the script for a Dalek story had to be approved by Nation if he was not writing it. Despite initial concerns, the storyline was approved. One of Cartmel's goals with the story was to have the Doctor be a commanding centre, rather than being "pushed and pulled" by the story as he felt had been happening recently. As such, Aaronovitch wanted there to be a spirit of the Doctor just wanting to tackle the Daleks. Two of the first things Aaronovitch thought of when creating the story was the 1963 setting and a Dalek climbing up stairs. He decided to reveal the Daleks in the middle of the first episode instead of as its cliffhanger, and then have the latter be a Dalek levitating up stairs to surprise viewers. The inability of Daleks to climb stairs was an urban myth and a joke, with the Doctor even joking about it in "Destiny of the Daleks" (1979). "Remembrance" was intended to put it to rest, though Cartmel noted that the joke was still prevalent. The Dalek civil war seen in "Remembrance" was intended to be an outcome of the previous Dalek story, "Revelation of the Daleks" (1985). Aaronovitch felt that destroying Skaro at the end seemed like a logical conclusion, but he noted that it might not be the best decision in the long run.