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- For the Original Cyberman, see Cyberman. See also Cyberman (disambiguation).
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, removing their emotional and physical weakness.
Characteristics
Cyber-conversion involved painfully removing the brain of the subject and placing it within a suit of armour. Once complete, the newly developed Cyberman had a special implant placed within them, which prevented them from feeling their emotions. However, if the implants were disrupted, then the Cybermen entered into a traumatic state as they were overloaded by the pain of the conversion, resulting in them dying in agony or their heads exploding from the overload of emotions. (DW: Rise of the Cybermen / 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) The living being would eventually age, die and decay, but the suit would still function, searching for a new living being to assimilate. Once found, the suit would eject its previous inhabitant and forcefully take over the new component. (DW: The Pandorica Opens)
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 was contained within the head. Artificially grown nervous tissue was threaded throughout the body so the Cyberman responded like a fully biological organism. (DW: The Age of Steel)
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 / 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. (DW: Doomsday)
Weapons and Technology
Unlike the Cybermen of the main universe, these Cybermen were created by taking the heads of humans and placing them in robotic bodies. These exo-structures were stauncher and more heavily built than the Cybermen of Mondas, and the Cyberman weakness for gold was not present in these alternate Cybermen, though a tie-in Cybus Industries webpage mentioned that the initial models had, indeed, suffered from heavy impairment when exposed to gold. However, in keeping with the in-universe story, this defect was purged from the finished model.
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 abililty to fire a tranquilizer dart from their mouth. (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 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)
History
The Cybermen were created in a parallel universe by John Lumic, a terminally ill and insane genius. To find a way to survive, 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, and later assassinated the President of Great Britain after the President rejected his plans.
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 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: Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel)
- At some point after this, the Cybermen upgraded themselves with ranged energy weapons.
Despite this, some of the Cybermen survived and were able to infiltrate 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 ours, and infiltrated the planet in the disguise as the benign ghosts of deceased Humans. They established a base inside the Torchwood Tower at Canary Wharf. While there, they started making some 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. 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, proceeded to "exterminate all life-forms below", killing Human and Cyberman alike. (DW: Army of Ghosts / 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) Eventually, the Doctor and Rose Tyler opened the Void, sucking all the Daleks and Cybermen who had been in the Void back into it. (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, as she killed Dr. Tanizaki, fought with Torchwood staff and eventually transplanted her brain into the body of a pizza delivery girl. (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)
Due to the Daleks' damaging the barriers between realities (DW: The Stolen Earth), the Cybermen were able to escape the Void, assisted by technology stolen from the Void-trapped Daleks. Landing accidentally in 1851 London, they 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, during which time an infostamp was misused, leading to Lake believing he was the Doctor. Lake and his new companion tried to defeat them, but were unsuccessful until the real 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 rage she destroyed herself and the Cybermen. They were stopped and destroyed, with the CyberKing being sent to be disintegrated in the Time Vortex. (DW: The Next Doctor) This event was then temporarily erased from history by the Time Field (DW: Flesh and Stone), but later restored due to the Doctor's efforts. (DW: The Big Bang)
Another group 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, and at some point joined the Alliance formed to imprison The Doctor in the Pandorica in order to save the Universe. They had previously placed one of their own as a sentry to the Pandorica, and later their representatives were among those who arrived at Stonehenge in 102 AD to confront the Doctor. The Alliance proceeded with their plans and imprisoned the Doctor in the Pandorica. (DW: The Pandorica Opens) The explosion of the TARDIS which caused the Universe to end however still happened, and for some time the Cybermen ceased to exist. The Doctor managed to contain the explosion, saving the Universe and re-writing history. The Alliance was therefore never formed. (DW: The Big Bang) The Cybermen are presumably still at large.
Speech
These Cybermen spoke in a electric voice, far more emotionless sounding than the Cybermen of our universe. The Cybermen's voices had deepened. Because of their lack of emotions, the Cybermen used technical terms like "compatible" and mostly their battle cry, "DELETE!". The Cybermen had shown to misunderstand emotional terms, for example, the Cyber Leader couldn't understand the word 'best' so Miss Hartigan had to say "I will operate at maximum efficiency". (DW: The Next Doctor)
Process
John Lumic explained to the president of Great Britain just what this "ultimate upgrade" entailed, He begins by saying that the Human brain was the most precious thing on the planet and yet we allow it to die, but Cybus Industries has perfected a way to sustain the brain indefinitely in a cradle of 'Copyrighted' chemicals along with the latest advances in synapse research allows cyber-kinetic impulses to be bonded to a metal exo-skeleton but it is commonly mistaken to have said that they have perfected a way to bond the Human brains' own synaptic impulses to a metal exo-skeleton.