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The Cyberons were a species of cybernetically augmented humanoids. The "true Cyberon" was actually the drug of the same name, a silver-ish or bluish fluid which flowed through the veins of all converted Cyberons and made up a gigantic hive mind known as the Mad Mind of Aurichall; individual Cyberon drones, "thralls" to the Mad Mind, had no individuality or emotions.
- You may wish to consult
Cyberon (disambiguation)for other, similarly-named pages.
Characteristics
Overview
The Cyberons wore what resembled white garments, (WC: Cyberon is Back!!) made from a strong fabric, with metal plates (PROSE: A Worthy Successor) and armour attached to prominent areas like the outer side of the leg, the torso, and the head. It had various pieces of technology, such as pipes, neon blue lights, and chest equipment. (WC: Cyberon is Back!!) They also had three-fingered hands. (PROSE: The Last Dose) Giles described them as a "robotic race" with the Cyberon nanite fluid as their "life-blood". (HOMEVID: The Only Cure)
Without Cyberon in their systems, a Cyberon would lose its weakness to gold but regain its emotions and individuality. One Cyberon in such a state removed what remained of its organic material in a vain attempt to return to the Cyberon homeworld of Aurichall after the planet's sensors, due to a lack of Cyberon in the drone's system, rejected its return transmaterialisation. Though left a literal shell of itself, the drone was still active but was driven mad. (PROSE: The Blue Scream of Death, WC: Cyberon is Back!!)
Conversion
Cyberons used organic matter in order to create new Cyberons. To do this they could use a Conversion Engine. (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons) The Cyberon drug took several doses to convert humans (PROSE: Cyberon) else it would fade from an individual's system, (PROSE: Silver-Tongued Liars) with the Cyberon's matrix connecting to a host's nervous system, (PROSE: The Last Dose, A Worthy Successor) but, much to Giles's surprise, Gendar biology was much more receptive, and in Maxie Masters's case, after a single dose of Cyberon, she found herself fully under the mental control of the Cyberon intelligence; her eyes glowed blue, and she had increased physical strength. This form of conversion, however, had no after-effects whatsoever after the Cyberon fluid physically drained out of her. (HOMEVID: The Only Cure) Cyberon fluid would flow out of a host's pores, and it would form the fabrics and metal plates that made up the exterior of a Cyberon. (PROSE: A Worthy Successor) At an earlier point in the Cyberons' history, however, factory ships had to be employed to create the mechanical shells in advance before the brains could be placed inside. (AUDIO: The Weapon and the Warrior)
Vulnerabilities
After Louise Bayliss's jewellery killed broke the connection the Cyberon had with its host Tom Mordley, "the boffins in the Vault" suggested that gold created interference between the Cyberon and the human nervous system, (PROSE: The Last Dose) which was how Cyberon connected to its host. (PROSE: A Worthy Successor) Indeed, gold was a viable weapon against the Cyberons, as evidenced by its use by the Superiors against the Cyberons. (PROSE: A Bright White Crack) This effect was directly rooted in properties of the Cyberon fluid: a Cyberon drone drained of Cyberon fluid would no longer have any particular weakness to gold. (PROSE: The Blue Scream of Death)
Because their brains were still organic, Cyberons were as vulnerable as humans to contagious diseases that affected the nervous system. (AUDIO: The Weapon and the Warrior)
Hierarchy
The rank-and-file of the Cyberon war machine were the Cyberwarriors. There also existed Cybertechnicians, (PROSE: Cybergeddon) Cyberon science officers with distinctive blue markings on their necks, (AUDIO: Curse of the Cyberons) and, occasionally, high-ranking Cyberleaders. (PROSE: Cybergeddon) Cyberon Commanders were in charge of smaller divisions of Cyberwarriors, such as a given ship. (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons) They could also hold the rank of Cyberon Controller. (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons, AUDIO: Curse of the Cyberons) A Cyberon Navigator assisted in steering the first fleet of Cyberon battle-cruisers to Earth at the start of the War. (COMIC: Before the Storm)
In their heyday, the ultimate leader of the Cyberons was the golden philosopher-king of the Cyberons, who stood "spitefully" at the peak of the nootropic volcano on Aurichall from which the Cyberon drug flowed. (PROSE: The Blue Scream of Death) Later, needing a new leader, the Cyberons made Dracula into their new Cyberon Controller. (AUDIO: Curse of the Cyberons) After his destruction, a Cyberleader took over as ultimate leader. (COMIC: Before the Storm) The last surviving pockets of Cyberons who reemerged in 3909, having hidden out inside the hollowed-out Asteroid GX-923, were still led by this Cyberleader. (PROSE: Cybergeddon)
Technology
Cyberons were capable of sending distress signals through psycho-wavelengths. (PROSE: The Blue Scream of Death) They could also use "electronic waves" to alter the minds of humans without destroying them altogether, if they deemed their intellect useful. Some feared this fate more than full conversion. (AUDIO: Curse of the Cyberons)
Cyberons had no access to time travel technology. (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons) However, they had fairly sophisticated transmaterialisation systems built into each Cyberon armour. At any time, a Cyberon in distress could attempt to transmaterialise back to its homeworld. However, should the Cyberon be deemed compromised, this could be refused, preventing the Cyberon from materialising at its intended destination. (PROSE: The Blue Scream of Death)
They ordinarily had no need of cargo bays on their ships. (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons)
One Cyberon pod which crashed on pre-21st century Earth was equipped with a self-destruct, taking the form of a red wire hanging from the ceiling of the pilot's cockpit, which was actually the only room in the fairly small craft. (HOMEVID: The Only Cure) The Cyberon battle-cruisers used at the start of the War had extremely efficient cloaking systems. (COMIC: Before the Storm)
To remedy their lack of "lateral thinking", the Cyberons created a Cybernet, (PROSE: Cybergeddon) also known as the Cyberon Network, (PROSE: Silver-Tongued Liars) a neural network that linked all Cyberon units and all their computer systems. Towards the end of the Cyber-War, they sought to make it more efficient by creating a pairing of two highly advanced positronic artificial intelligences that would, in tandem, form the core of the Cybernet and determine new strategies. Christian was logic-oriented while the other was more creative. After the end of the War, both ended up separated from the Cybernet and acquired new identities in Alliance society, leaving behind and — in one case — outright forgetting their past allegiance to the Cyberons. (PROSE: Cybergeddon)
Relationship to other species
After the 23rd century, a series of wars between humans and cyborgs plagued the universe, and the "thralls" of the Mad Mind were one of the many species that made up the Kyberkin, a blanket term used by humans to refer to the enemy, because they were "tired" of all the new names and origins they kept discovering. Among the other species to make up Kyberkin were the Silverons, Cyberites, TechKnights and Electroids. (PROSE: The Man in Grey's Christmas Carol [+]Loading...{"chaptname":"The First Haunting","chaptnum":"2","1":"The Man in Grey's Christmas Carol (short story)"})
History
Origins
The Cyberons' "distant cousins" performed acts of time travel, some of which related to the destruction of the "original homeworld." (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons) Vault staff believed the two species had a common ancestor but were otherwise distinct. (PROSE: A Worthy Successor) The Cyberon fluid was naturally-occurring, spewing out of a nootropic volcano on the Cyberon homeworld Aurichall in the Amazolian system and naturally converting any humanoids who came into contact with it. The Cyberon drug was produced by "the tectonic grinding of rival noospheres" and it was speculated by some that the Cyberons themselves were "a living extrahistorical extension of humanity’s collective speculative psyche" as it existed in the 21st century. (PROSE: The Blue Scream of Death) Landing in 2000 after flying its ship through a time rift, a Cyberon seemed to believe that it was the only Cyberon to exist in this era of history. (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons)
25th century
By 2483, the "thralls" of the Mad Mind of Aurichall were already well-known in the Amazolian system, with another planet in the system, Holofernes, having become home to human colony-cities. They were aware of the existence of ancient, abandoned Cyber-tombs on the Moon of Holofernes, which became a subjct of archaeological curiosity. The Mad Mind already had a number of human thralls, some of them old enough to remember Halloween, which had fallen out of favour on Earth after 2167; their subconscious influence caused the Mad Mind to act out meaningless Halloween rituals on 31 October, such as the Philosopher-King dressing up in a white shroud, and thralls lining up to knock on doors in the First City to no purpose. On that same day, Doctor Danielle Griss brought a "rusting" cyborg carcass out of the Cyber-tombs with the help of her wife Lana, and dissected in the Griss-Ventner habitat. It gave a few signs of trying to reactivate, but Doctor Griss seemed unconcerned, "occasionally whacking it with a wrench when one of the metal limbs gave signs of twitching". (PROSE: Samhain Miracles [+]Loading...["Samhain Miracles (short story)"]}
The Cyberon War
- Main article: Cyberon War
First phase
The Earth Alliance encountered the Cyberons towards the end of humanity's first phase of galactic expansion. War was immediate and engulfed the whole galaxy. (AUDIO: Curse of the Cyberons) The conflict, known as the Cyber-War or Cyberon War, dragged on for over a century. (AUDIO: Curse of the Cyberons, PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons)
Intent on "liberating" the Earth-people from their "limited minds and bodies", a fleet of Cyberon battle-cruisers led by Cyberon Cyberleader One made their way to Earth in a surprise attack thanks to extensive shielding. They landed in all major cities, which were woefully unprepared, with New York City falling within the first hour of the invasion. Five hours later, London was bombed "down to atoms". This destroyed the sentient computer Box, whose extensive knowledge had allowed her to foresee how the entire War would go in advance, though she was helpless to stop it. Before being destroyed, Box shared her knowledge with the immortal shapeshifter Lauren Anderson, (COMIC: Before the Storm) who had faced future Cyberons thrown back in time, much earlier in her personal timeline. (PROSE: Cyberon, COMIC: Before the Storm) The War quickly engulfed the whole galaxy, and would for a century. (AUDIO: Curse of the Cyberons)
During the first half of the War, the Cyberons had the advantage, (AUDIO: Curse of the Cyberons) but the Earth Alliance opposed them all across the Galaxy. The Cyberons found their way to a pocket universe known as Ecto-Space, but they were ultimately repelled by the Mistress. (COMIC: Before the Storm) Jokastarnan forces, including Sergeant Dro'Ken, had also fought against the invasion. (PROSE: The Choice)
The New Cyberon Era
In the second half of the century of war between the Cyberons and the Earth Alliance, the Alliance began to gain an advantage on the Cyberons, having discovered the effectiveness of bastic bullets against them. Over a nex few decades, multiple planets were retaken, (AUDIO: Curse of the Cyberons) with even the original Cyberon homeworld being destroyed in 2989 along with the Cyberon King. (COMIC: Before the Storm) However, this was a pyrrhic victory as the retaken planets had, without exception, been ravaged and turned into lifeless mechanical wastelands. Humanity failed to press its advantage to a full victory, and were desperate for a further edge against the Cyberons, leading to frantic black-ops scientific research.
One of the avenues was the recovery of the head of the ancient vampire Dracula, which the Alliance hoped to study on a secret space station orbiting Mars to learn how to duplicate Dracula's physical capabilities, creating an army of vampiric "supersoldiers" who could hold their own against the Cyberons. The Cyberons learned of this plan, and, having lost their original leader, stole the head from the cruiser The Demeter. Dracula accepted the role of Cyberon Controller and, after being mounted into a new mechanical body, declared the beginning of a "New Cyberon Era". (AUDIO: Curse of the Cyberons)
Eventually, the Cyberons detected human transmissions about a great weapon being hidden in the remote Asteroid B-725. Dracula took a ship there personally only to find a woman in a wheelchair who explained that she was dying of a degenerative, contagious disease affecting her brain, and had retreated to this laboratory to work in peace without endangering others. Unable to develop a cure as she'd initially hoped, she had chosen to help the War effort another way by actually making the disease more infectious and then luring the Cyberons here. Dracula and his Cyberon party were now all contaminated, with Dracula's Cyberon bodyguards dying almost instantly. Before they died, they pinned Dracula in place, and held him firm even in death, so that he couldn't spread the infection to the wider Cyberon race. The woman mocked the trapped Controller with her last breath, declaring that he had been beaten by "weakness" and declaring herself "the Weapon and the Warrior". (AUDIO: The Weapon and the Warrior)
In 2992, the "ancient horror" who had become Cyber-Controller was destroyed by the "last scion of the Clan Van Helsing", who "launched it into the Sun". However, the Cyberon hive-mind itself survived. By 2996, a new leader had been found in the form of a more traditional Cyberleader. (COMIC: Before the Storm)
Final phase of the War
By either 2777 (PROSE: Cyber-Hunt) or the early 31st century, (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons, Cybergeddon) the War was coming to a close, with the Earth Alliance now under President Forrester. (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons) It lasted for long enough to fill the Jathar Expanse, a frequent battlefield located near the border of human space, with a "graveyard" of thousands of ships from both species. (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons) During the V-Time era, the Superiors became involved in the Cyberon conflicts, and needed large amounts of gold to keep the cyborgs at bay. Their agent Chris Cwej was aware of this; this prompted him to reflect that it would have been more convenient for the Superiors if Isaac Newton has lastingly turned his genius to alchemy. (PROSE: A Bright White Crack)
In the 31st century the Earth Alliance, under President Forrester, fought the Cyberons in the protracted Cyberon War, also known as the Cyber-War. It lasted for long enough to fill the Jathar Expanse, a frequent battlefield located near the border of human space, with a "graveyard" of thousands of ships from both species. (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons) During the V-Time era, the Superiors became involved in the Cyberon conflicts, and needed large amounts of gold to keep the cyborgs at bay. Their agent Chris Cwej was aware of this; this prompted him to reflect that it would have been more convenient for the Superiors if Isaac Newton has lastingly turned his genius to alchemy. (PROSE: A Bright White Crack)
The Cyberons began developing a new kind of Conversion Engine using experimental nanites to create a "conversion field" that would convert any living things in the Engine's vicinity. One such experimental Conversion Engine was placed inside a mostly-intact Earth transport vessel in the middle of the Expanse, converting all recovery teams who found it into Cyberons before they could report on its failure. With the experiment a success, a Cyberon vessel was sent to recover the Engine and deploy it in a populated area. However, they were detected by the Oblivion Spark, who damaged their ship and pursued them to Gulliver's Rest in the Laputa system. There, the damaged Cyberon ship fled through the Merrapine Scar, a rift in space and time. (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons)
Infiltrating the 21st century
A single Cyberon survived the jump through the Merrapine Scar, which had damaged the Conversion Engine. It found itself in the Sol system in 2000, an era during which no other Cyberons yet existed in the universe. It salvaged as much of the experimental nanite solution as it could from the leaking sphere, and took them into its own body, before making controlled planetfall onto Great Britain. The crashed Cyberon pod was found by Albert Foster, a medical researcher for PKD, whose ambitions and scientific curiosity were easily twisted by the Cyberon to persuade him to accept some Cyberon fluid into his own body. He then got Foster to take him back to PKD headquarters and get his department to start producing more Cyberon drug, hoping to distribute it as a new form of medicine and convert new humans into Cyberons. (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons)
Over the course of eight years, Tom was discredited, being called a con artist, and Cyberon was mostly forgotten. However, Tom's niece Brittany, was subjected to years of bullying about her uncle. In 2008, in Philadelphia, Brittany found a single vial of Cyberon among Tom's old possessions, and after administering the drug after a troubling incident with a bully at school, the Cyberon partially converted Brittany and attempted to begin to convert more individuals, but struggled due to lack of resources. Brittany, feeling the culmination of the bullying and perhaps the lies about Tom being true come to a breaking point, went to commit suicide. However, P.R.O.B.E. had detected the activation of Cyberon, and Patricia Haggard flew over to investigate, finding Brittany and convincing her not to go through with her plan, and to let the Cyberon fade from her system. It did, but Brittany was left with the Cyberon augmentations. (PROSE: Silver-Tongued Liars)
In March 2011, Giles and Archie were sent to investigate the Vault (Cheviot Hills) by Patsy due to a duo of deaths; after meeting director Vanessa Hardcastle and head scientist Miles Werbiansky, they found that the Cyberon drug had leaked out of its container in the low risk storage, and the Cyberon had taken the body of a deceased girl Abigail, but unbenknownst to the Cyberon, the girl was a werewolf. The werewolf DNA mutated the Cyberon, and the cyberwolf hybrid rampaged around the Vault. Giles was able to convince it to shut itself down as it could carry out what it was designed to do and also risked the survival of the Cyberon species. (PROSE: A Worthy Successor)
On 4 April 2021, after Maxie Masters fell victim to a mysterious illness, Giles requisitioned a single syringe of Cyberon from the "storage site" and had it brought back to P.R.O.B.E. HQ, where he administered it to Maxie, hoping that a single dose would be enough to heal her but not to endanger her mind. However, the Cyberon had a more powerful influence on her Gendar biology than he had expected, immediately and completely overwhelming her will.
The Cyberon-controlled Maxie escaped from P.R.O.B.E.'s custody and made her way to an unrelated, crashed Cyberon pod which had buried itself long ago under what was now Clapham Junction after falling through time. An undamaged, but hollow, lifeless Cyberon unit still sat at the controls; after making Maxie repair the ship's wiring, the Cyberon fluid drained out of her to fill and revive the Cyberon unit. The Cyberon attacked the rest of the P.R.O.B.E. team, who had followed Maxie, but they managed to trigger the ship's self-destruct and escape with their lives while the Cyberon pod and its occupants were destroyed. (HOMEVID: The Only Cure)
End of the Cyber-War and near-extinction
Eventually, with the original Cyberon population of Aurichall neutralised, it came to be that destroying the Cyberleader of the remaining Cyberon fleet would mean final victory in the War. The Cyberleader's Cyberon fleet occupied the planet Menos. Earth Alliance forces, under the leadership of the Caradan Commander Myna Nevaryin of the warship Cydonia, attempted to launch a sneak attack, but to their surprise, their complex creative strategy was anticipated by the Cyberons, who'd somehow learned to think creatively, and all their ships were destroyed, including the Cydonia. The cause of this was the creation of a new Cybernet with two positronic intelligences at its core, one logical and one creative, to which all Cyberon systems were connected. (PROSE: Cybergeddon)
However, after crashing on Carson's Planet, a mysterious space travelled known as Fred discovered one of the experimental nanite-based Conversion Engines and was able to reconfigure it to track down and tear apart Cyberons, instead of tracking other organic beings and converting them into Cyberons. His hopes that this would bring an end to the Cyberon War (PROSE: Cyber-Hunt) proved justified, with the Cyberons being more or less completely destroyed. (PROSE: Barnyard of the Cyberons)
The surviving Cyberons, under the leadership of the Cyberleader, decided on a strategic retreat, waiting for "mission parameters" to become favourable once again: (PROSE: Cybergeddon) the nanite swarms remained active long after they'd put an end to the War, ensuring the Cyberons couldn't return to power even if any were to reemerge from hibernation. (PROSE: The Blue Scream of Death) They hid out in a mobile base disguised as an innocuous asteroid, having stockpiled millions of bodies in cryo-stasis, ready to be thawed out and converted into new Cyberwarriors once the time came. They waited for over nine hundred years, during which the Alliance's memory of them slowly faded, aside from long-lived individuals such as the Caradan Jyaxx Nevaryin, niece of Myna Nevaryin, who'd been alive as a little girl at the end of the Cyberon War. (PROSE: Cybergeddon)
Isolated survivors
One last vestige was a farming station where the Cyberon drug was used to augment animals for better meat but Chris Cwej destroyed it. This was assumed to destroy the Cyberons for good until he learned that in "the fourth millennium", the Jathar Expense had a bogeyman figure called the Carnachy, "Empire of the Consumed", that strongly resembled the Cyberons. It was unclear if this was purely myth or if the species had survived. (PROSE: Banyard of the Cyberons)
At some point, a wealthy C.E.O. residing on a human colony was gifted for his birthday a captured surviving Cyberon vessels containing "a full pantry" of Cyberons frozen in stasis. He thawed one out and, after ensuring it would be immune to the nanites, publicly dissected it alive at a private party, with the aim that he and his guests would micro-dose on the Cyberon drug drained from the Cyberon. Unexpectedly, once drained of Cyberon fluid, the Cyberon, regaining individuality and no longer weak to gold, attacked them and escaped. It attempted to transmaterialise back to Aurichall but was denied, and was instead thrown back to the 21st century. (PROSE: The Blue Scream of Death)
The Cyberon landed in an alleyway, where it was spotted by an onlooker who it subsequently attacked. (WC: Cyberon is Back!!) Driven mad and running once again, the Cyberon broke down in Derby on 24 September 2020, with most of its remains soon found by the Preternatural Research Bureau. They initially did not find its head, (PROSE: The Blue Scream of Death) but by 4 April 2021, it was in Giles's possession. (HOMEVID: The Only Cure)
By the early 40th century, the exact circumstances of the Cyberons' defeat had been lost to history and the Cyberons had been reduced to little more than mythical bogeymen. However, much of their technology had been copied and integrated into Alliance civilisations, including components directly being looted from the demolished Cyberon systems. Unbeknownst to most, this included the twin positronic minds at the heart of the Cybernet, which were looted indiscriminately and, by the early 40th century, had wound up on sale on the black market in Gand City simply as disposable positronic brains, with sellers and buyers unaware of their very special origins. By this point, the idea the the Cyberons could return was unthinkable. (PROSE: Cybergeddon)
40th century reemergence
In 3909, the Cyberons who'd been hiding inside the camouflaged base known to humanity as "Asteroid GX-923" finally awakened, attacking the passenger liner ship SS Titania for living subjects on whom to recalibrate their Conversion Engine and then beginning to convert their stock of millions of frozen bodies. They jammed the communications of the nearby Vega Station and set them a one-hour ultimatum to surrender or be destroyed. However, among the prisoners taken on the Titania was a woman called Emily who, unbeknownst even to herself, was actually an android whose positronic brain had previously been a key part of the Cybernet before the Cyberons were defeated all those centuries ago and their technology was indiscriminately looted. Her memories had subsequently been wiped many times over, most recently by Caldin Corrigan, the grieving father of the human Emily Corrigan, who had programmed the android with a facsimile of Emily's memories and personality in an effort to resurrect his daughter.
Because he was able to track her due to her android nature, Corrigan flew to the Asteroid with his robot assistant Christian — who had used to be the other Cybernet control node, and was, unlike Emily, aware of his true nature, though he kept it a secret. After Christian revealed Emily's true nature to her, the two were able to download themselves into the Cybernet due to still being compatible with its matrices, and hack it from the inside, sparking critical failures all over the Cyberon the systems, causing the Conversion Engine to halt and all functional Cyberon units to short-circuit and catch fire, including the Cyberleader. A partially cyber-converted Corrigan spent his last moments neutralising the Asteroid-ship's weapons systems, which were still on course to fire at Vega. Emily and Christian made their escape in the nick of time before Vega's own space military disintegrated the now-inert Asteroid.
A fragment of the Cybernet survived all of this, but was well aware that it would remain incapable of effecting a resurrection of the Cyberon race unless it were reunited with Emily and Christian, an event which seemed vanishingly unlikely, especially as Christian, as part of the process of hacking the Cybernet, had had to sacrifice his first ten years of memories, thereby forgetting his origins completely. (PROSE: Cybergeddon)
Legacy
While delirious under the influence of Sherwoods disease, the Mistress, who had been involved in the Cyberon invasion of Ecto-Space, briefly hallucinated that she was under attack by a squad of Cyberons. (PROSE: The Choice)
Far future
Cyberons were one of many factions that got involved in the Uprising of the Cwejen. In the far future, dead Cyberons surrounded what remained of the citadel that once belonged to the Superiors. (PROSE: Rebel Rebel)
Undated events
At some point, the "empire of cyborg thingies" tried to conquer Gendar, which prompted Virtuoso out of retirement. (PROSE: The Gendar Conspiracy)
Behind the scenes
Development history
Although they made their debut in a story with no direct legal connection to the Doctor Who universe, the Cyberons had a significant history of development which bound them inseparably with Doctor Who — long before their first mention in a story considered as a valid source by this Wiki, the Cwej short story A Bright White Crack.
The Cyberons' complex history began when the August 1994 issue of DWM when BBV Productions announced pre-production on "a chilling CYBERMAN adventure. 'Sword of Orion'." This film would have been an adaptation of the Audio Visuals story of the same name, which was later also adapted by Big Finish as licensed Doctor Who. This film evolved into being a story called Sentinel about Cybermen on an island, although this plot was abandoned and later repurposed for Autons. In 1995, the film, now called Cyberwar, was covered in DWM 225 and The Doctors: 30 Years of Time Travel and Beyond, the latter using Cyberman designs from The Dark Dimension and indicating the film would feature the Cybermen facing the Ice Warriors. However, despite all this, Bill Baggs was unable to secure the rights to use Cybermen. At one stage, an alternative script for Sentinel or Cyberwar that employed the Mandragora Helix in the place of the Cybermen was considered.[1]
With the decision taken to instead develop of a new creature who would retain the core appeal of the Cybermen, but be distinct enough to constitute a separate copyright in BBV's control. Designer and self-confessed Cyberman fan Terry Cooper was approached, turning in a design which would be used in the Cyberons' live-action appearances — although very different looks were used for the covers of the first handful of audioplays featuring the Cyberons.[2]
Solo appearances
The Cyberons had their debut in BBV Productions' audio play Cyber-Hunt, released in November 1998 as the final Series 1 story of Audio Adventures in Time & Space. It was a scaled down version of Cyber-War, with Cyberons in the place of Cybermen. As the first of BBV's The Wanderer series, it also featured Nicholas Briggs as a variation of his Audio Visuals Doctor, reimagined as the titular Wanderer; the only other The Wanderer story did not feature the Cyberons. The main setting of Cyber-Hunt, Carson's Planet, later reappeared in the Big Finish Productions story "Death to the Daleks!". In addition to voicing the Doctor stand-in, Briggs, under his alias of David Sax, also provided the Cyberon voices for Cyber-Hunt.
The Cyberons reappeared in February 2000 in Cybergeddon, the first story of Series 3 of Audio Adventures. This story did not feature Briggs' Wanderer, and was labelled as part of "the Cyberons series". At some point prior to the release of his Sontarans story Silent Warrior, Peter Grehan had also submitted a script featuring BBV's "Time-Travellers", the Professor and Alice, thinly-veiled analogues to the Seventh Doctor and Ace, fighting the Cyberons, which was not picked up.[1]
The Cyberons appeared in live action as antagonists of BBV's January 2001 film Cyberon, written by Lance Parkin. This film is of interest to Doctor Who for the character of Lauren Anderson, who was reused in the Who spinoff Zygon: When Being You Just Isn't Enough. This essentially placed Zygon as a crossover between the adventures of Lauren Anderson and Doctor Who, retroactively suggesting that the earlier film, and by extension all previous appearances of the Cyberons, took place in the DWU. The present Wiki does not currently cover these stories, however, as they contained no DWU elements at the time of their release.
Interestingly, despite the shared name, Lance Parkin originally intended for the Cyberon film to be out of continuity with the earlier audio plays, feeling that the Cyberon concept should have a fresh start, freed of the baggage of the Cyber-Hunt and Cybergeddon portrayals of the aliens as "Aldi-own-brand Cybermen". As such, the Cyberons in Cyberon were active in the 20th century, in contrast to their existing in the far future in the original audioplays.
For those that keep track of these things, 'Cyberon' in this story has nothing to do with the ‘Cyberons’ that have appeared in a couple of BBV's audio stories. The video isn't a spin-off from those, there's no need to listen to them to get up to speed. Anyone expecting a Cybermen story, or who assumes this video will feature monsters just like the Cybermen, but with a slightly different name, will be in for a surprise, but hopefully not a disappointment.
However, with the benefit of hindsight, Parkin ceased to enforce this distinction.[1] The Arcbeatle Press's Flight of the Cyberons, written with Parkin's blessing, would ultimately present an explanation for the presence of the Cyberons in the 20th century in the context of the "Cyber-War" of the earlier audio plays.
The Cyberons would go on to appear in the comedic, fourth-wall-breaking standalone BBV production Do You Have a Licence to Save this Planet?, which, despite featuring the licenced usage of Autons and Krynoids, is not covered by this wiki due to its liberal unlicenced use of Rassilon. Within the continuity of the film, the Cyberons were an "unlicensed" species. They desired to complete themselves by gaining the "ears" they lacked, which, by making them properly licensed, would allow them to gain fame and fortune through merchandising. The story was, overall, a self-parody of BBV's modus operandi when it came to their Doctor Who spin-offs; as such, the Cyberons' role in the plot lampooned the way in which were originally conceived as stand-ins for the Cybermen, with the only major difference in design between the two races being the Cyberons' lack of the trademark handle-like tubes on their Cyber-helmet — what the parodical Cyberons in Do You Have a Licence to Save This Planet refer to as "ears". As related by Gareth Preston in Downtime – The Lost Years of Doctor Who:
The Cyberons, which were so obviously imitation Cybermen, I was amazed Bill got away with those two audios. That got me wondering what the Cyberons themselves thought about it? Could it be they might have an insecurity about it and were envious of the merchandising that the Cybermen enjoyed?
Within the story, the Licensor ensnared a few Cyberons into his service through false promises, sending them to what he believed to be Earth as his agents, alongside some regular Autons. The Licensor's schemes were foiled by the Chiropodist (or "Foot Doctor"), who had in truth tricked the Licensor and his party onto Unlicensed Earth, which, due to the ironclad laws of the Licensor himself, thus ceased to exist with them on it. Prior to this, the Foot Doctor had revealed the deceitful nature of the Licensor's deal with the Cyberons, causing them to turn against him. (NOTVALID: Do You Have a Licence to Save this Planet?)
Tying back into the DWU
Finally, in 2020, the Cyberons made their first appearance in a story covered by this wiki, and were properly introduced (albeit through the back door) to the mainstream, "valid" DWU by the short story A Bright White Crack. The second entry in the licensed solo adventures of Seventh Doctor companion Chris Cwej, the story featured a licensed reference to the Cyberons as a species with whom the Superiors had dealings which required gold.
Shortly thereafter, the short story anthology Cyberon was published. As spoken of in interviews surrounding its release, the book made an effort to tie the Cyberons further into the Doctor Who universe than the original film did, despite being an expanded novelisation of said film: the stories saw the Cyberons interact with established Doctor Who concepts such as P.R.O.B.E. and, once again, Chris Cwej. It also introduced their homeworld Aurichall, placed in the Amazolian system, a location introduced in the Faction Paradox series. This was followed by expanded novelisations of Cyber-Hunt and Cybergeddon which retained this newfound DWU continuity, making use of Aurichall and other concepts introduced in the anthology, as part of the Novelisations in Time & Space series. More Than Human..., an animated webcast, was released as a narrative trailer for the three Cyberon books now in existence.
The afterword of Arcbeatle Press's anthology True Origins announced that it would be their final release featuring the concepts they had licensed from BBV, including the Cyberons.
Starting on 30 January 2022 with the upload of a trailer for The Airzone Solution, videos on the official BBV Productions YouTube channel, including trailers for DWU productions such as Auton, featured a brief CGI-animated outro of a Cyberon demanding that the viewer subscribe to the YouTube channel, or else be destroyed. This clip used the same CGI model created by James Lee and previously used in More Than Human, which appeared again soon after in The Only Cure, a P.R.O.B.E. short exclusive to the P.R.O.B.E. Case Files - Volume 2, where the Preternatural Research Bureau again faced a Cyberon. The short The Only Cure featured on P.R.O.B.E. Case Files - Volume 2 briefly featured the original Cyberon design via a severed Cyberon head in the possession of PROBE, officially bringing an element of the Cyberon's original design into a source seen as valid on this wiki, although live-action footage depicts the helmet with the modern design.
For April Fools' Day in 2022, BBV jokingly announced a spurious fourth film in the Auton Trilogy, Auton 4: Nestene Revelations, which, judging by the cover, would also have featured Giles, a Krynoid, and a mustachioed, hat-wearing Cyberon called "Cyber Ron". Notably, "Cyber Ron" was depicted using the Cyberon design from the original Cyberon film, rather than the more rounded facial mould of James Lee's CGI creations. The spoof DVD cover also announced that an audio drama called Cideron was included in the purported DVD release, an allusion to the release of the audio drama Cyber-Hunt on the DVD release of the first Auton film.[3]
On 24 December 2023, they released a Happy Holidays from the BBV Team! promotional video which featured clips of actual BBV contributors wishing buyers a happy festive season, but also a custom-animated clip of a Cyberon wearing a Santa Claus hat, wishing "a merry Christmas and a happy New Year to all those capable of experiencing emotions".