Cyberiad

Cyberiad
Affiliation:	Cybermen
Bases:	Hedgewick's World of Wonders
Leader:	Cyber-Planner
Notable members:	Cybermen, Eleventh Doctor
First appearance:	Nightmare in Silver
Appearances:	COMIC: Supremacy of the Cybermen PROSE: Ghost in the Machine

The Cyberiad was the shared consciousness of a faction of Cybermen, similar to a hive mind. It contained the collective knowledge of every active operating cyber-unit on any level. The Cyberiad was what any upgraded organism was connected to in order for any Cyber-Planners to control them. In addition, basic cyber-units would sometimes greet any near-upgraded organisms to the Cyberiad.

History

A historical account of N-Space postulated that the Cyberiad was descended from a union of the Cybermen of Mondas and those of Pete's World. While this had led to these new Cybermen becoming much stronger than either of their ancestors, (PROSE: The Whoniverse) they still retained some weaknesses of earlier models, such as gold.

An advanced Cyberman that was part of the Cyberiad (TV: Nightmare in Silver)

The Cyberiad fought in the Cyber-Wars against humanity's empire, constantly upgrading themselves, even overcoming their inability to upgrade non human species. The humans eventually responded by destroying the Tiberian spiral galaxy. While this was thought to have been the end of the Cyberiad, the Cybermen survived beneath Hedgewick's World of Wonders. They began kidnapping guests to both repair their damaged units and build a new Cyber-Planner but their actions caused visitors to stop coming to the planet.

When the Eleventh Doctor began erasing himself from history, the Cyberiad lost all memory of its foe. When he came to Hedgewick's World, the Cyberiad selected him as the host for the new Cyber-Planner. Calling itself Mr Clever, the new Cyber-Planner accessed information from the Doctor's mind about his past and on the Time Lords. (TV: Nightmare in Silver) Later Cybermen were indeed able to remember the Doctor, with information about the Time Lord enemy being stored as part of the Cyberium. (TV: Ascension of the Cybermen) Activating the three million Cybermen, Mr Clever tried to take full control of the Doctor but he managed to escape with his allies as Hedgewick's World was destroyed. (TV: Nightmare in Silver) Though it was initially thought that the Cybermen had been destroyed, they managed to recover from this defeat. (PROSE: The Whoniverse)

The Cyberiad managed to survive until the end of the universe, basing themselves in an asteroid colony under the command of a new Cyber-Controller. It was in this state that they were found by the recently exiled Rassilon. Being welcomed, Rassilon joined the Cyberiad as the Cyber-President. Leading the Gallifreyan Cyber Fleet back to his homeworld, Rassilon granted the Cyberiad full access to the resources of the Time Lords. As the Cybermen assimilated all of history, they abducted the Eleventh Doctor for conversion on prehistoric Earth. Within his conversion pod, he communicated with the Cyberiad before spreading his emotions to the Cyber-Silurians. Unamused, the Cyberiad terminated the compromised units before launching a fleet of Cyber-Arks with which to infect developing planets with cyber-technology. In the alternate timeline that this created, the Cyberiad, augmented by Gallifreyan technology, became the dominant force in the universe, defeating the Doctor across all their incarnations and even fighting in the Last Great Time War, before its perversion of history was undone through the efforts of a remorseful Rassilon and the Twelfth Doctor. (COMIC: Supremacy of the Cybermen)

Behind the scenes

• The Cyberiad (Polish: Cyberiada) was a series of short stories about robots by Polish author Stanisław Lem.