More actions
Mondasians, also called Mondans (PROSE: Iceberg) or, especially among themselves, simply humans (TV: World Enough and Time) were the natives of the planet Mondas who eventually created the technology that gave rise to the subspecies known as Cybermen. (AUDIO: Spare Parts)
Biology
Just like their planet was Earth's twin, the Mondasians themselves were also very close genetically to the Terran humans and were described by the Eighth Doctor as humanity's "closest cousins". According to the Doctor, the two species were the only ones on which the process of cyber-conversion originally worked (COMIC: The Flood), although some Cyberman groups later developed technology that allowed them to convert other species as well. (TV: Nightmare in Silver, COMIC: Assimilation²)
Etymology
Amongst Cybermen, the term Mondan had a peculiar meaning. According to at least one account, it referred to those Cybermen who stayed on Mondas and were philosophically opposed to the Faction. (PROSE: Iceberg) Mondans, according to the Faction, were not fully dedicated to the pursuit of logic and retained a bigger portion of their biological systems after conversion. Mondans, in this sense of the word, were eventually wholly eradicated after Mondas exploded. Thus, in this narrower sense of the word, Mondans were the form of Cybermen that the First Doctor encountered shortly before his regeneration. (TV: The Tenth Planet) However, this usage was not widely used or even known by other species. For most races, Mondan or Mondasian simply meant "the species that formed the biological core of the Cybermen".
Like many names, both Mondasian and Mondan were sometimes used as demonyms to mean "a thing which came from Mondas or was produced by Cybermen". For instance, the android Sara once told the Seventh Doctor that "there [were] android agents scattered all across the galaxy, scouring space for Mondasian relics", because the androids thought that Mondasian technology would give them an advantage in their war against humanity. (AUDIO: Kingdom of Silver)
Culture
Mondas was ruled by the Central Committee of Mondas, a gestalt of twenty individuals. In relation to their occupations, individual Mondasians held a title before their first names. These included "doctorman" for scientist, "sisterman" for nun or "electroman" for electrician, and eventually, "Cyberman" or "Crewman" for Cyberman (the entire population).
As with the humans of Earth, Mondasians celebrated Christmas, although they dressed their trees for symbolic reasons: the tinsel represented their journey through space; the baubles symbolised planets, and the star at the top represented their home system, Sol. (AUDIO: Spare Parts)
Technology
For a reason of which the Doctor was unclear, (TV: Attack of the Cybermen) Mondas was equipped with a propulsion system that could drive the planet out of its orbit.
Aging people often had cybernetic enhancements, comparable to pacemakers. They also made use of cybermats for security and for detecting energy.
Their cities were domed, the surface of their world considered inhospitable. However, fully converted Mondans had sufficient life-support to perform work on the surface. (AUDIO: Spare Parts)
History
.jpg)
One account claimed that the Constructors of Destiny created the Mondasians in an experiment, as a deliberate parallel to humanity, to act as a control in an experiment. (PROSE: The Quantum Archangel) Another identified Mondas as Marinus, and the Mondasians as the descendants of the Voord after they used a Worldshaper for cyber-conversion. (COMIC: The World Shapers) This was contradicted by the Twelfth Doctor, who stated that the Cybermen of Marinus developed independently from those on Mondas. He also encountered a group of Mondasians aboard one of their colony ships. While the majority on the lower floors like floor 1056 had more or less been fully converted in to Cybermen, those living on Floor 0507 and above were still in their natural state. (TV: The Doctor Falls)
At the time that the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa encountered it, before the entire population was fully converted, Mondasian society was comparable to 1950s Great Britain. (AUDIO: Spare Parts)