Patient (World Enough and Time)

Patient
Biological type:	Partially cyber-converted Mondasians
Affiliated with:	Operation Exodus, the Saxon Master
Place of origin:	Mondasian colony ship: Floor 1056
Notable individuals:	Topknot
First appearance:	World Enough and Time
Appearances:	TV: The Doctor Falls PROSE: Alit in Underland
Behind the scenes video
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The patients, also referred to as the "special patients" by the Saxon Master, (TV: World Enough and Time) or simply as Cybermen, (PROSE: Alit in Underland) were an early evolution of Mondasian Cybermen created on Floor 1056 of a Mondasian colony ship. Their development was a key stage of Operation Exodus. (TV: World Enough and Time) The Mondasian children of Floor 0507 referred to the patients as the "scarecrows", as the patrol that attempted an invasion of said floor were used as scarecrows by the floor's residents after their near-nightly attacks. (TV: The Doctor Falls)

Appearance

The patients were partially cyber-converted Mondasians, although their appearance drastically differed from more traditional Cybermen. As their name implied, the patients resembled hospital patients, wearing white chest cloths with a slim chest unit (TV: World Enough and Time) featuring a computerised display unit underneath, (PROSE: Alit in Underland) connected by tubing. The patients also possessed caucasian gloves that closely resembled human hands, and their heads were completely enveloped in plastic bags that were tied in a large knot at the top of the head. Tubing also fed into the patients' noses from behind their necks, which also sported a plastic, silver band.

The early patients lacked any sort of distinct facial features, but as the patients evolved further, their faces and heads began to more closely resemble those of Mondasian Cybermen; by the time Bill Potts left the hospital of Floor 1056 for the first time, one patient possessed a mouth slit. Furthermore, one of the patients who restrained Bill in the hospital's Conversion Theatre possessed a face with completely black oval-shaped eye-pods, and a flatter black oval-shaped hole for a mouth. The other patient restraining Bill was similar in design, but also possessed a grooved, silver helmet with a band around its edge, resembling part of a Mondasian Cyberman's Cyber-helmet. (TV: World Enough and Time)

Abilities

Most of the early patients made use of a fluid canister, which contained a blue-and-white-coloured medical fluid in a clear container with a metal edge at the top of the canister. These patients were constantly connected to the canister via a small tube from the canister to the patients' right arms, and the canister's wheels allowed the patients to move around even with a canister attached to them. Notably, the patients' canisters additionally featured their primary means of communication: a voice synthesiser. The patients used a keyboard on the canister to input and vocalise basic words or phrases, although a small metal dial on top of the fluid containers allowed for their voices to be manually muted. Later models of patients distinctly lacked these fluid canisters, and vocalised using their chest units. (TV: World Enough and Time) However, the patients who attacked Floor 0507, (TV: The Doctor Falls) such as "Topknot", (PROSE: Alit in Underland) did not use these canisters, (TV: The Doctor Falls) despite having left for said floor long before Bill Potts arrived on Floor 1056. (TV: World Enough and Time)

The patients were capable of moving individually (PROSE: Alit in Underland) and in unison as a group. Although most patients could only walk at a slow pace, two further evolved patients were capable of swiftly rising from a seated position and restraining an adult human female; this also demonstrated the patients' ability to trick people into believing them to be merely sleeping. The patients possessed notable physical strength; Jorj claimed to the Twelfth Doctor, Nardole and Missy that they were "too strong" for him, a non-human, to fight, and that they could "snap [a Mondasian] in half". (TV: World Enough and Time)

Additionally, the patient nicknamed "Topknot" by Missy demonstrated a degree of scanning capabilities and was able to operate a service lift from the superstructure walkways underneath Floor 0507 to Floor 0508. Notably, the Saxon Master incorporated numerous features into the patients designed to make them serve him to a degree; the top of the patients' chest units contained a voice box which could be altered by the Master to recognise his vocal commands by receiving the vocal authorisation code Master Alpha Seven. In addition, the root command of the patients' operating system, located behind the back of their chest cloths, could be altered by the Master, as he did to Topknot so that it stopped registering lifeforms with two hearts as human. Following the Master's modifications, Topknot was able to use its scanning abilities to locate technology on Floor 0508 that the Master could use to hack into the patients he set up on Floor 1056. Furthermore, the Master installed a failsafe system into the patients that would force them to return to the hospital on Floor 1056 if they wandered too far from it, or else the patients would shut down. (PROSE: Alit in Underland)

Weaknesses

As highly primitive Cybermen, the patients possessed weaknesses not exhibited by traditional Cybermen. (TV: World Enough and Time, The Doctor Falls) The rifles used by the Mondasian farmers on Floor 0507 were strong enough to incapacitate patients for at least several hours, and the chains that bound the patients to their crucifixes were strong enough to restrain them for at least a few hours, even after awaking while still bound to their crucifixes. (TV: The Doctor Falls) the Saxon Master was also able to at least briefly render a patient unconscious with a strong blow to the back of its head, (TV: World Enough and Time) and the patient nicknamed "Topknot" was parried by Missy's sonic umbrella, preventing it from attacking herself, the Master and Alit. The Master was also able to use a low setting on his laser screwdriver to briefly stun Topknot by burning a small incision into its chest unit. Additionally, Topknot disfigured one of its ankles after falling off of a cultivator machine on Floor 0508. The gunfire from the Cyber-guns of CyberNeomorphs were also capable of killing patients, as they did to Topknot on Floor 0508. (PROSE: Alit in Underland)

History

Creation

After a thousand years of occupation by hundreds of Mondasians, Floor 1056 of the Mondasian colony ship had significantly deteriorated, to the point that it was no longer sustainable for organic life. As a result, the staff of the floor's hospital began Operation Exodus, a scheme to transform the people of Floor 1056 into Cybermen, in order to survive both the conditions of the city and the exodus to Floor 0000 to take command of the colony ship. The patients were the early results of Operation Exodus, although the sheer agony they experienced following their cyber-conversions meant that they could not function as a permanent "cure" to the harsh conditions of Floor 1056. (TV: World Enough and Time) The Master, masquerading as "Razor" after being overthrown as ruler of Floor 1056, (TV: The Doctor Falls) secretly incorporated a number of features into the patients so that, upon their successful evolution into fully-converted Cybermen, he could take control of them and use the Cybermen to conquer the galaxy. (PROSE: Alit in Underland)

Attacks on the higher floors

In addition to escorting people from the city of Floor 1056 to the hospital, squads of patients were sent to the higher floors of the colony ship via the lifts, in order to capture any surviving Mondasians elsewhere on the ship for conversion as well. One squad of patients was sent to Floor 0000 to capture its remaining crew members, (TV: World Enough and Time) including the Captain and chief engineer Franq, (PROSE: Jorj) although the patients left the ship's janitor, Jorj, behind, due to him being non-human. Another squad of patients was sent to capture the residents of Floor 0507, (TV: World Enough and Time) but never returned to Floor 1056, as the adult farmers of Floor 0507 shot them down at night, before chaining the patients to crucifixes during the day. However, the patients woke up during the day, and eventually broke free again at night, leading to a constant cycle of the farmers shooting and imprisoning the patients at night, and the patients breaking free the following night. (TV: The Doctor Falls)

Evolving into Mondasian Cybermen

Following the arrival of the Twelfth Doctor's TARDIS on Floor 0000, a squad of five patients with a surgical table were sent from Floor 1056 to Floor 0000 to capture Bill Potts, the only human amongst herself, Missy, Nardole and the Twelfth Doctor, after Jorj fatally wounded her. On Floor 1056, the surgeon partially converted Bill into a patient, and installed a chest unit where her organic heart once was. Bill eventually woke up a few months later, and found a patient calling out in pain within a hospital ward; although she was nearly caught by the nurse, who muted the patient, Bill followed Razor into his living area. Over the next ten years, Razor explained to Bill the purpose of the patients and Operation Exodus, (TV: World Enough and Time) while hiding his secret intentions to control the Cybermen that the patients would evolve into. (TV: The Doctor Falls, PROSE: Alit in Underland) During these years, the patients evolved further, no longer depending on medical fluid canisters to speak, and began to develop into Mondasian Cybermen.

When Bill and Razor broke into the Conversion Theatre one night to find the lift entrances on Floor 1056, they discovered numerous patients sleeping in wheelchairs; a pair of further developed patients then restrained Bill as the surgeon and the nurse revealed themselves. Realising that Razor had led her into a trap, Bill was then fully converted into a Mondasian Cyberman by the surgeon. Two hours later, the Twelfth Doctor and Nardole accessed the Conversion Theatre after travelling in a lift with Missy from Floor 0000, and discovered the patients and the cyber-converted Bill. (TV: World Enough and Time)

By the time the Doctor, Bill, Nardole, Missy and the Master escaped Floor 1056 in a shuttlecraft, cyber-conversion factories were being built across Floor 1056, and the Mondasians and patients were eventually processed into full Mondasian Cybermen. (TV: The Doctor Falls)