Barbary Pirates

Sailors aboard the brigantine invoke the Barbary pirates, labeled the 'white terror', to capture the Daleks' paralyzing dread. Richardson shouts this term as he leaps overboard, his defiance rooted in historical nightmares of pirate raids that once preyed on ships like theirs. The reference stirs collective panic among Briggs, the bosun, Willoughby, and others, equating the aliens' mechanical pursuit to infamous North African corsairs who captured crews for enslavement. This metaphor collapses human resolve, sparking mass suicides amid the Daleks' interrogation.