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One type of Cyberman originated in another universe, where they were created by John Lumic, the owner of Cybus Industries. His Cybermen believed that all people must be "upgraded" to Cyber-form, so that information would never be lost and that the humans' physical and emotional weaknesses would be abolished.
Characteristics
Conversion
Unlike the Cybermen of the Doctor's universe, these Cybermen were created by taking the brains of humans and placing them in robotic bodies. These exo-structures were built from High Content Metal and were stauncher and more heavily built than the Cybermen of Mondas. The Mondas Cybermen's weakness for gold was not present in these alternate Cybermen, though the initial models had indeed suffered from heavy impairment when exposed to gold. This defect was purged from the finished model.[source needed]
Cyber-conversion involved painfully removing the brain of the subject and placing it within a suit of armour. The brain was preserved in a cradle of Cybus-copyrighted chemicals and welded to the exo-skeleton, to which cyber-kinetic impulses were bonded. (DW: Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel) Once complete, the newly developed Cyberman had a special implant placed within them. The implant prevented them from feeling their emotions, but, if the implants were disrupted, the Cybermen entered a traumatic state as they were overloaded by the pain of the conversion. This would make them die in agony or cause their heads to explode from the overload of emotions. (DW: The Age of Steel)
In times of emergency, cyber-conversion consisted of only constructing a Cyber-suit around a living being with some internal modifications. (TW: Cyberwoman, DW: Closing Time)
Operation
The Cyber-suit was constructed from bulletproof steel. A chest plate with the Cybus Industries logo housed a "heart of steel", the function of which is unclear, and the emotional inhibitor chip. The brain, along with the skull, remained contained within the suit's head. Artificially grown nervous tissue was threaded throughout the body so the Cyberman responded like a fully biological organism.
Without a brain inserted, the Cyber-suit was a robot which apparently had sufficient processing capacity to pursue and attack a human target. (DW: The Age of Steel) Unless programmed not to, a Cyberman head will seek out a compatible new head to assimilate into its body. Because the victim would obviously fight back, the heads were outfitted with traquilizer darts. (DW: The Pandorica Opens)
Typically, Cybermen were led by a Cyber Leader during conversion missions. If the Cyber Leader was terminated then the Cybermen downloaded the shared files and nominated a new Cyber Leader. However, this would take time. (DW: Doomsday)
Weapons and technology
Originally, their only weapons were their electrified hands, (DW: Rise of the Cybermen) but they later gained a small wrist-mounted energy weapon. (DW: Army of Ghosts / Doomsday) At some point the Cybermen gained the ability to fire tranquilliser darts from their mouths. (DW: The Pandorica Opens)
The Cybermen were capable of wirelessly communicating with each other, and when a Cyber-Leader was killed, their files were transferred to an appointed Cyberman, who would subsequently be upgraded to a new Cyber-Leader. (DW: Doomsday) They could wirelessly control electronics, such as John Lumic's wheelchair; this function was associated with a Cyberman bringing its closed fist to its chest. (DW: The Age of Steel) They were also capable of using infostamps, allowing them to communicate information to other Cybermen when they were low on power. They were also able to steal other technology from the Daleks whilst inside the Void, such as a Dimension Vault. (DW: The Next Doctor)
Voice
These Cybermen spoke in a electronic voice, far more emotionless and deeper than the Cybermen of the Doctor's universe. Because of their lack of emotions, the Cybermen used technical terms like "compatible" and their battle cry, "DELETE!". (DW: Rise of the Cybermen) The Cybermen were shown to misunderstand emotional terms. For example, the Cyber-Lord couldn't understand the word 'best' so Miss Hartigan had to say "I will operate at maximum efficiency". (DW: The Next Doctor)
Hierarchy
- John Lumic/Cyber Controller - founder of Cybus Industries and creator of the Cybermen.
- Cyber-king - pilot of dreadnought ship
- Cyber Leader - Cyber commander.
- Cyber Lord - Cyber commander, a form of Cyber Leader.
- Cyberman - standard unit.
- Cybershade - worker unit, made with brain of dog or cat.
- Cyberdog - search and guard unit of a converted dog.
- Cyber mat - small rodent creature, used to carry energy or convert humans into cyber slaves.
- Cyberdrone - partially converted human work unit.
- Cyber slave - humans converted through the Cyber mat's nano form.
- Controlled humans - humans controlled at the brain which are often only kept for the required purpose, then killed.
History
Creation & Expansion
The Cybermen were created in a parallel universe by John Lumic, a terminally ill and insane genius. To find a way to survive, by 2007 he perfected a method to sustain the human brain indefinitely in a cradle of chemicals, bonding the synaptic impulses to a metal exoskeleton. Lumic began to trick and abduct homeless people and convert them into Cybermen. He assassinated the President of Great Britain after the President rejected his plans. (DW: Rise of the Cybermen)
Using the EarPods he designed and sold, Lumic took mental control of the people of London, marching thousands to be cyber-converted. After his life-support systems were damaged by his assistant, Mr. Crane, Lumic was converted into the Cyber-Controller. However, the Tenth Doctor and his companions, having accidentally landed on the parallel Earth, managed to foil his plans. They freed London from mental control and disabled the Cybermen's emotional inhibitors, causing them to go insane and in some cases explode. Lumic himself fell to his apparent death into the burning remains of his factory. A human resistance group, the Preachers, then set about to clean up the remainder of Lumic's factories around the world. (DW: The Age of Steel)
Following the destruction of the Cybus Factory and the Cyber Controller in Britain, the Preachers moved around the rest of the world to carry out assaults on the rest of the Cybus Factories. One of their earliest victories came in Paris, where a stolen Cybus airship under the command of Mickey Smith fought its way through the streets, saving civilians and destroying attacking Cybermen along the way with a new weapon attached to the ship. Once the airship reached the factory, it destroyed it using an EMP. After the Cyber threat in Paris was ended, Mickey sent a video message to those who were sent on the mission, congratulating and thanking them. (VG: Save Paris)
Eventually, the Preachers had Cyber resistance and bases set up all over the world, just as the Cybermen had factories. Soon they were ready to begin their assault on what remained of Lumic's legacy. The mission was commanded overall by Jake Simmonds. The Preachers managed to develop firearms which were effective against the Cybermen and sent troops into other countries, where they recruited others to aid them in their cause. Battles ensued when a squad moved into Cyber territory but successful battles ultimately gained them control of countries where a Cyber Factory was located. From there, the Preachers would surround the factory while a single commando unit entered the factory and fought their way to the emotion inhibitor and taking it out, thus destroying the factory and all the Cyber units converted there.
However, the Cybermen also sought to do the same thing: expand, "recruit", take over, and destroy the Preacher bases. The conflict was fought all over the planet. Ultimately though, the Preachers were victorious as they succeeded in sealing the Cybermen inside their factories. Jake congratulated the resistance, but it was known that the Cybermen were not completely defeated, they had only been delayed, as Jake seemed aware of when he gave his congratulations: "You did it! The Cybermen are sealed up in their factories. We're safe for now." (VG: Cyber Assault)
The Battle of Canary Wharf
Despite their defeat, at least five million Cybermen survived and were able to infiltrate their universe's Torchwood Institute. They found a crack in the universe, caused by the passage of the Void Ship. The Cybermen were able to travel from their dimension into the Doctor's, and infiltrated the planet in the guise of benign ghosts of deceased humans. They established a base inside the Torchwood Tower at Canary Wharf. While there, they started making new Cybermen, using what materials they could find.
After two months (three years in parallel Earth time), the Cybermen suddenly appeared in their true form, occupying every landmass on the planet before breaking into houses and promising to upgrade all humans, commanded by the new Cyber-Leader. (DW: Army of Ghosts) Simultaneously, the Cult of Skaro had exited the Void Ship with the Genesis Ark. The Cult, led by Dalek Sec communicated with the Cybermen via Dalek Thay and declared war, or in Dalek Sec's words, "pest control".
After a skirmish between humans, Cybermen and Daleks, the Cult travelled to the main room in Torchwood's Canary Wharf, elevated outside above the roof, and opened the Genesis Ark, releasing millions of Daleks who, under Sec's command, started to "exterminate all life-forms below", killing human and Cyberman alike. (DW: Doomsday) Towards the end of the Cybermen-Dalek battle, the Cybermen, desperate for more troops, began directly converting people rather than transplanting their brains into Cybershells. One victim of this process was Lisa Hallett, girlfriend of Ianto Jones. (TW: Cyberwoman)
The Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler opened the Void and anything contaminated with void stuff was pulled in. This included the Cybermen. (DW: Doomsday)
However, this was not the last of the Cybermen. The Cybermen that were made on Earth, like Lisa Hallett, had never passed through the Void, therefore they were not sucked in. Ianto took Lisa away from the battle and hid her in the basement of Cardiff's Torchwood Three facility, setting up a life-support system, planning to restore her humanity. He was unsuccessful. She killed Dr. Tanizaki, fought with Torchwood staff and eventually transplanted her brain into the body of a pizza delivery girl. Lisa was finally killed by the Torchwood team. (TW: Cyberwoman)
After the battle, two boys, Harry and Sam, were working on a model train set when they found stuff from Harry's dad's previous job. Inside the box was a Cyberman, in all his individual pieces. Not knowing what it was, Sam decided to put it back together so it could watch them play. Eventually, it awoke, threatening to upgrade both Harry and Sam. It forced Sam to help build a "Cyber-Conversion Unit" using the other leftover electronics from the Torchwood Tower in the box. They, however, managed to knock the Cyberman into the Cyber-Conversion unit, causing the latter two to be destroyed. (DWF: Going Off the Rails)
Other humans, like Lisa Hallett, were converted during the battle, but fully. These survivors stole teleportation technology from Torchwood Institute in order to gather technology to help them re-open the Void and free the trapped Cybermen. They did not know how to do this, however, and so they stole the Doctor's TARDIS, trying to lure the Tenth Doctor to them for aid. Some Cybermen were destroyed by the army but the Cyber-Leader and a few others escaped to the Millennium Dome and kept the army out with a forcefield. The Doctor and Martha, however, having recovered the TARDIS, were able to enter. The Doctor was able to trick the Cybermen, allowing them to link up their equipment with the TARDIS and giving them instructions. However, the Cybermen were instead sent back to the time of the dinosaurs where they were attacked and killed by a Tyrannosaurus rex. The Cyber-Leader was destroyed after Martha damaged the forcefield and the Doctor used an electrical cord from it to destroy the leader. (QR: Made of Steel)
Escaping the Void
Due to the Daleks' damaging the barriers between realities by using the Reality bomb (DW: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End), a small amount of Cybermen were able to escape the Void, assisted by technology stolen from the Void-trapped Daleks while the rest of the Cybermen, along with the Daleks trapped in the Void, perished. Landing accidentally in London, in the year 1851, these Cybermen, under the leadership of a Cyber-Lord, made an alliance with the human Miss Hartigan, created a minion race known as Cybershades and began construction of a dreadnought robot called the CyberKing with which they planned to conquer the Earth. They also came across Jackson Lake and his family, who in his fugue state absorbed knowledge of the Doctor from an infostamp. Lake and his new companion tried to defeat them, but were unsuccessful until the real, Tenth Doctor arrived. When Miss Hartigan was converted into the CyberKing and the ship became mobile, the Doctor showed Hartigan what she had done and in her anguish she destroyed herself and the Cybermen, with the CyberKing sent to be disintegrated in the Time Vortex before it fell on London. (DW: The Next Doctor) This event was then erased from history by the Time Field (DW: Flesh and Stone), resulting in no one but the Doctor remembering it.
An army of Cybermen were located in Ican Temples. (VG: The Mazes of Time)
Another army of Cybermen invaded medieval England, they began converting the locals by creating large statues of themselves to make the locals gather to see them. When the Doctor and Amy Pond arrived, they activated the Cybermen's power systems and used electrical currents to disable the Cybermen. (VG: The Mazes of Time)
Other groups of Cybermen apparently managed to escape the Void, but into a different point in time and space. Eventually these Cybermen would become a space-faring race. One group, during what appeared to be an early period for them in space-travel, possibly around the 26th century, were attracted towards an artefact they could not identify, which was in fact a Dalek Time Axis. As their technology was incapatible with time travel, their ship was destroyed. The Cybermen escaped and took over the ship, the SS Lucy Grey. The Eleventh Doctor and Amy were also attracted to the SS Lucy Grey by the singal from the Time Axis. The Doctor was able to overload the ship's systems destroy the Cybermen before the Daleks arrived. (VG: Return to Earth)
The Doctor later encountered these Cybermen on Telos, where the earlier arrival of Billy Jones had caused the "advanced guard" to awake from the cyber-tombs early to defend the others. The Cybermen tried to convert Billy, but he was saved by the Doctor before they could do so. (VG: The Mazes of Time)
The Cybermen were among the spiecies that made up the the Alliance. (DW: The Pandorica Opens, REF: The Brilliant Book 2012) However, the Alliance was never formed after the Big Bang Two. (DW: The Big Bang)
The Lurman Vorgenson used his machine, the Minimiser, to capture several Cybermen to be part of his travelling show dedicated to the Eleventh Doctor. The Cybermen were one of many many mind-controlled versions of his recently encountered enemies. It was revealed that the New Paradigm Daleks had planted the idea in his head to attract the Eleventh Doctor to the show with his monsters, and capture him in the Minimiser. This plan worked, although Vorgenson learned the truth. The audience managed to save the Doctor and helped him to release the Cybermen from the Minimiser to destroy the Daleks. (SP: The Monsters Are Coming!)
The Cybermen entered into an alliance with another cybernetic species, the Borg, due to their identical goals of assimilating other species. On stardate 45635.2 (2368), a joint Borg/Cyberman assault force attacked the Federation planet Delta IV and quickly overran it. This attack made the Cybermen known to the Federation. (IDW: Assimilation²)
Cybermen on Centuria
During the 41st century an interplanetary info-thief stole Cyberman blueprints from the Torchwood Archive and used them to build a new Cyber army on Centuria with the intent of auctioning them of as hi-tech soldiers. However they turned on him and made him a half-converted slave. They started to kidnap hundreds of tourists and convert them. However, the Doctor discovered this while on Centuria for a holiday and the beach he was on was attacked. He and the other beachgoers were thrown into a van. Jayne Kadett, who was tracking down interplanetary Info Theft when the Cybermen caught her, revealed to the Doctor what had happened. The Doctor and Jayne managed to escape the Cybermen and blow the restraint circuits; the Cybermen factory (Factory Zero One) was destroyed. (DWBIT: The Power of the Cybermen)
The Doctor and Kadett followed the Cyberman's signal, taking a robot-run airship across the now-deserted continent of Azlon on the planet Centuria. Before arriving at the airbus terminal (a Cyber-conversion factory), the conductor/law enforcer became influenced by the Cybermen's hypnotic signal, which was being used to subjugate the arriving humans. The Doctor, Kadett and a reprogrammed robot conductor pretended to be hypnotised and follow the other arrivals. Seizing the right moment, the Doctor disrupted the hypnotic signal and the conductor robot attacked the Cybermen. A stray shot from the conductor ruptured the fuel banks, causing a huge explosion which killed most of the newly converted Cyber-drones (basic work units) as their humanity started to become more dominant. As the Doctor and Kadett fled the explosion, they found a bit of a map in a Cyberman's hand. (DWBIT: Drones of Doom)
Using the TARDIS, the Doctor and Kadett followed the Cybermen's map to Centuria's arctic zone where the Cybermen planned to ship upgraded human drones. Homaj, a half human, half Cyber drone, escaped the Cybermen who forced him and others to mine Hargstones. A giant purple Ice Snake attacked, but Cybermen with Cyberdogs deleted it. Homaj ran off into the frozen wasteland but the Doctor and Kadett were captured and taken to a huge mine below the ice. Inside the mine, the Doctor created a distraction while Kadett stole some explosives. The distraction caused a Cyberman to split one of the cave walls, disturbing a nest of Ice Snakes which attacked them. Escaping the mine, the Doctor and Kadett saw the Cybership has already departed with its cargo. Homaj waited for them and informed them he had intercepted a message saying that the cargo was going to Centuria Central. He then took the explosives from Kadett and headed back to the mine. In an act of self-sacrifice, he permanently sealed it. The Doctor and Kadett left in the Tardis in pursuit of the Cybership. (DWBIT: Enemy Mine)
The TARDIS landed in Centuria Central in a temporal stasis field. Kadett was caught in the frozen moment but the Doctor, being a Time Lord, could resist the field. Cybermen in a patrol aircar spotted him moving around and pursued. The Doctor used his sonic screwdriver to bring the aircar crashing down, drawing the attention of other Cybermen, who arrived to salvage parts and take them back to base. The Doctor smuggled himself into the base with the salvage. The base was the Triplanetary base which the Doctor suspected had been robbed of its Hargstone reserves to enable the Cybermen to maintain a stasis machine. The Doctor learned from the Cybermen that they had built the stasis machine from Torchwood files and used the device to subdue opposition. Choosing the most secure place for the machine, the Doctor escaped and headed for the bank's vault, but it was made of titanium and was protected by laser-proof glass and destructor rays. When the Doctor couldn't get in he used the sonic screwdriver to turn the destructor rays inwards, destroying the stasis machine. The Cybermen had a mental link with the machine that enables them to move around inside the stasis field, so when the machine was destroyed the temporal feedback overloaded their circuits. However, a Cyber-helmet in the shadows glowed red, suggesting that the Cybermen presence on Centuria wasn't completely destroyed. (DWBIT: Time of the Cybermen)
Alternative Timelines
- During the war between the Cybermen and the Preachers, the Cybermen recruited a special unit to become the Cyber-Leader to command them after the death of the Cyber Controller. The Cyber-Leader, with the help of an advisor Cyberman, coordinated attacks against Preacher territory, sending in Cyber units to battle them for control and eventually infiltrating their bases and destroying their transmittors. Soon the Cybermen were victorious, after which the Cyber-Leader was seen as obsolete and was deleted. (VG: Cyber Assault)
- During the Battle of Canary Wharf, a squad of Cybermen arrived off the London underground and fought their way through the Torchwood building, fighting Torchwood guards, scientists and defences along the way. They acquired stronger weaponry than that of their own for the final battle between the Daleks. In the end, the Cybermen were victorious in destroying Dalek Sec and brought about the extinction of the Daleks. However, it is unknown if the Tenth Doctor still opened the Void and sucked the Cybermen back in or not. (VG: Daleks v Cybermen)
Other Information
- The Tenth Doctor kept one of the Cybus logos from a Cyberman chest plate in the TARDIS. (DW: The Unicorn and the Wasp, NSA: The Taking of Chelsea 426)
- The Mondasian Cybermen who were part of the Cyber Legions resembled the Cybus variants, but lacked the 'C' on their logo. (DW: A Good Man Goes to War, Closing Time)
Behind the scenes
According to non-narrative information in DWBIT 17 and the DWBIT Dalek vs Cybermen Special, during the Battle of Canary Wharf, the weaponry of the Cybermen was mostly ineffective to Dalek casing, but there were some Dalek casualties as the Cybermen were able to tear the domes of some Daleks right off, some instances as part of an ambush.