Battle of Battersea Power Station

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The Battle of Battersea Power Station was major battle between the Cybermen of Pete's World and the resistance group known as the Preachers as well as the Tenth Doctor and his companions.

History

Origins

In the parallel universe known as Pete's World, John Lumic became obsessed with immortality and thus began creating the Cybermen with the plan to eventually transform himself into one. A small resistance group known as the Preachers led by Ricky Smith rose up to combat him and his efforts while Pete Tyler acted as a loyal friend to Lumic but in reality recognized his insanity and sent information to the Preachers under the alias Gemini, believing them to be security forces. In order to create more Cybermen, Lumic would trick homeless people desperate for food into getting into lorries and then kidnap them to be Cyber-converted as they wouldn't be missed. Lumic attempts to get permission from the President of Great Britain, but he refuses so Lumic gives himself permission and orders the people taken off the streets to be upgraded. He also prepares an attack on Jackie Tyler's party, having gotten the necessary information on its security from her mind using her EarPods.

As Lumic travels back to England after successfully creating and testing the Cybermen, the Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler and Mickey Smith accidentally fall into Pete's World where they are stranded due to the Doctor's TARDIS drawing power from the main universe. The Doctor is able to find a power cell with a little bit of energy in it and gives it ten years of his own lifeforce to recharge it. As it will take twenty-four hours to charge enough to return them to their own world, Rose decides to go see her father who is dead in her world accompanied by the Doctor while Mickey goes to see his grandmother who is also dead in his world. After learning about the downloads to people's EarPods, the Doctor agrees to check out Pete Tyler as his company is owned by Lumic Industries while Mickey is abducted by the Preachers who believe he is their leader, Ricky, his alternate counterpart. After finding Ricky in their base, the Preachers are confused by the similarities between them but receive a transmission from Gemini about the fact that Lumic is making a move and the Preachers and Mickey follow them to Pete's house.

Shortly after the Doctor learns the truth about Lumic's plans from watching a copy of his presentation to the President, the Cybermen attack Pete's party and kill the President. They then kill or capture most of the guests including Jackie while Pete, Rose and the Doctor try to flee. They, Ricky, Mickey and Jake end up surrounded and are nearly killed, but the Doctor destroys the Cybermen with energy from the TARDIS power cell and they flee in the Preacher van with Mrs Moore.

Pete reveals himself as Gemini to the Preachers which disappoints him especially as Ricky turns out to only be London's Most Wanted for parking tickets, not being a revolutionary. Though the group plans to alert the authorities, Lumic uses the EarPods to take control of the people of London and move them to Battersea Power Station where he has his base of operations with the intention of upgrading them into his own personal army. The group ends up on the run from Cybermen patrols but while the others get away, Ricky is killed by the Cybermen.

Having avoided being controlled by the Ear Pods, Lumic's henchman Mr Crane pretends to volunteer for upgrading and then wrecks Lumic's life support system in an attempt to kill him. The Cybermen kill Crane and upgrade Lumic into their Cyber-Controller against his wishes. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen, The Age of Steel)

The Battle

Examining the schematics for the power plant, the group determines that there are three targets they need to hit: Lumic's zeppelin on the roof, the cooling tunnels underneath the factory and the main gate using dead EarPods to trick the Cybermen. The goal of the two groups sneaking into the factory itself is to reach the control center and shut down the conversion machines while the group attacking the zeppelin targets the transmitter on board Lumic is using to control the people through their EarPods so they will be set free and can flee. Its decided that Pete and Rose will enter through the front gate to try to rescue Jackie while the Doctor and Mrs Moore will use the cooling tunnels and Jake and Mickey will attack the zeppelin.

Jake and Mickey make their way to the zeppelin and use a bottle of something created by Mrs Moore to knock out the guards and board the zeppelin. On board the zeppelin, after taking out the remaining guards, the two men search for the transmitter controls to deactivate the transmitter, spotting an empty Cyber suit along the way. The two locate the transmitter controls, but they are locked behind protective glass. As Mickey tries to hack the zeppelin's controls so they can crash it, he inadvertently awakens the Cyber suit which attacks. Mickey lures the suit in front of the transmitter controls and tricks it into punching into the control panel. The Cyber suit is fried while the transmitter is deactivated, releasing the people from the control of their EarPods. Regaining their senses, those still not upgraded flee Battersea.

The Doctor and Mrs Moore make their way through the cooling tunnels which are filled with upgraded but non-active Cybermen, but accidentally trigger a trap that alerts the Cybermen to their presence. The two manage to flee the Cybermen up a ladder and lock the trap door at the top of the ladder behind them. On the next level, a Cyberman attacks them, but Mrs Moore takes it out with an electromagnetic bomb. The two perform a makeshift autopsy on the Cyberman, discovering that it has an artificially grown central nervous system and an emotional inhibitor. As they discuss how without the emotional inhibitor the Cybermen would go insane after seeing what they've become, the Cyberman is revealed to still be alive, its emotional inhibitor destroyed by Mrs Moore's bomb. After speaking to the Cyberman, Sally Phelan about who she is, the Doctor deactivates her with his sonic screwdriver in a mercy killing. However, the revelation of the emotional inhibitor gives the Doctor a plan to stop the Cybermen: if they can find the cancellation code for the emotional inhibitor and feed it through the system, the Cybermen would regain their human emotions and realize what they are which he believes would destroy them. At that moment, another Cyberman arrives and kills Mrs Moore. Detecting that the Doctor is not human, it takes him to Cyber Control for analysis.

Rose and Pete successfully infiltrate the factory which has upgraded over six thousand people successfully, but are exposed when they run into an upgraded Jackie and express emotion at her now being a Cyberman. As Pete used to work for Lumic, the Jackie Cyberman orders them taken to Cyber Control, the factory's control room.

In Cyber Control, the Doctor, Pete and Rose meet the now-upgraded John Lumic who has been turned into the Cyber-Controller, the Cybermen's leader. Shortly afterwards, Mickey destroys the transmitter controls and the unupgraded people flee. However, Lumic informs them that he has Cyber factories on all seven continents and the Cybermen will take the world by force since the EarPods have failed. The Doctor points out to Lumic how he is removing the very thing that led him to make the Cybermen by getting rid of emotions and speaks to Mickey, watching from the zeppelin, disguised as ranting about humanity to Lumic. The Doctor instructs Mickey to find the cancellation code for the emotional inhibitor in the Lumic Family Database under Binary Nine and send it to Rose's superphone. Mickey is able to hack the database, find the code and text it to Rose. With the code now on Rose's phone, the Doctor plugs it into a docking port and the code is transmitted throughout the Cybermen in the factory.

With their emotional inhibitors turned off, the Cybermen regain their humanity and horrified by what they have become, start to explode, causing Battersea to start to explode as well. The Doctor, Rose and Pete attempt to run for safety, but find their way out blocked. Meanwhile, Jake tries to flee with Mickey in Lumic's zeppelin, but Mickey refuses to leave the others behind and calls Rose to order them to the roof so he can pick them up in the zeppelin. As the group climbs a rope ladder to the zeppelin, Lumic, who survived the deactivation of the emotional inhibitors, starts climbing the ladder after them. The Doctor tosses Pete, the lowest person on the ladder the sonic screwdriver and orders him to use it against the rope ladder. Declaring that he's doing this in the name of Jackie Tyler, Pete uses the sonic screwdriver on the rope ladder, severing it below him. Lumic falls into the exploding factory, killing him. The Doctor and the others escape in the zeppelin as Battersea and all the Cybermen within it are destroyed, liberating London from the control of the Cybermen. (TV: The Age of Steel)

Aftermath

The Doctor, Rose, Pete, Jake and Mickey return to the TARDIS, but Pete rejects Rose's offers to show him the inside and the revelation that she is his daughter from a parallel world and leaves to inform the authorities of the other Lumic factories and Cybermen in storage and carry on the fight. Jake also agrees to find Mrs Moore's family and tell them how she died saving the world. While the Doctor and Rose prepare to leave, Mickey informs them that he's going to stay even though the Doctor can never return for him in order to continue on Ricky's fight and look after his grandmother, seeing it as a second chance for him to take care of her. Mickey shares a tearful goodbye with Rose who gives him her phone as it still has the emotional inhibitor's deactivation code which he can use to stop the Cybermen across the world. After watching Rose and the Doctor leave, Mickey tells Jake that while he's not Ricky, they can fight in his name and they set out to liberate Paris from the Cybermen. (TV: The Age of Steel)

Mickey, Jake and Pete later return during the Battle of Canary Wharf to reveal that after the battle, the Cybermen were locked inside the factories rather than killed. People debated what to do with them, but they eventually escaped the factories, invaded Pete's World's version of Torchwood One and made their way through the breach between worlds into the main universe. During the Battle of Canary Wharf, the Doctor banishes the five million Cybermen from Pete's World into the Void with Rose's help, trapping them there forever. (TV: Doomsday) Most are killed when the reality bomb affects the Void, (TV: Journey's End) but some manage to escape beforehand. (TV: The Next Doctor, The Pandorica Opens)

Following his decision to stay and fight the Cybermen, Mickey remains in Pete's World for the next several years. However, after he returns to his own world to help defeat the 21st century Dalek invasion and the reality bomb, he remains behind there, stating that his grandmother died in the years between the Battle of Battersea Power Station and the Dalek invasion and with her and the Cybermen gone, he has no reason to remain in Pete's World anymore. (TV: Journey's End)