Dalek-Cyber War
The Dalek-Cyber War was the conflict between the Cybermen and the Daleks.
Overview
Missy contrasted the two species by noting that Cybermen suppressed their emotions whilst Daleks channeled them through a gun. (TV: The Witch's Familiar [+]Loading...["The Witch's Familiar (TV story)"]) The Twelfth Doctor observed that the Daleks and the Cybermen shared an "insane hunger for universal domination", (GAME: The Doctor and the Dalek [+]Loading...["The Doctor and the Dalek (video game)"]) with the Nestene Consciousness recognising that they had both formed "mighty empires". (PROSE: Revenge of the Nestene [+]Loading...["Revenge of the Nestene (short story)"]) The Thirteenth Doctor claimed that the Daleks and the Cybermen "hate[d]" each other, whilst the Spy Master pointed out that their hatred for each other was surpassed by their mutual hatred for the Doctor. (TV: The Power of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Power of the Doctor (TV story)"]) The Cybermen, specifically those from Pete's World, recognised that they and the Daleks were similar though the latter had an "inelegant" design, a concept the Daleks lacked. The Cybus Cybermen concluded that their technology was compatible to the point of proposing an alliance, suggesting that the two species together could upgrade the universe. (TV: Doomsday [+]Loading...["Doomsday (TV story)"])
The Thirteenth Doctor counted both the Daleks and the Cybermen among the most dangerous species she had ever encountered. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon [+]Loading...["Fugitive of the Judoon (TV story)"]) Indeed, during his trial, the Second Doctor presented the two species among others to the Time Lords as examples of the "evils" he had fought against. (TV: The War Games [+]Loading...["The War Games (TV story)"]) The Fifth Doctor understood that even the ancient Time Lords, who Time Scooped beings to fight in the Death Zone, would not have admitted either the Daleks or the Cybermen as they played the game too well. Nevertheless, Borusa did bring them to Gallifrey in his Game of Rassilon, though those present were destroyed in confrontations with the Doctor. (TV: The Five Doctors [+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (TV story)"]) Both were among the species whom unsuccessfully attempted to access the Matrix on Gallifrey during the Cloister Wars. (TV: Hell Bent [+]Loading...["Hell Bent (TV story)"], PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe)
Both the Daleks and the Cybermen were covered in the Sontaran Subliminal Education Matrix, which maintained that the Sontarans were superior. (PROSE: A Soldier's Education [+]Loading...["A Soldier's Education (short story)"])
As cited by the Brigadier, (TV: Enemy of the Bane [+]Loading...["Enemy of the Bane (TV story)"]) the Daleks and the Cybermen were among the most prolific threats to Earth faced by UNIT, who developed special bullets to combat each, (TV: Battlefield [+]Loading...["Battlefield (TV story)"]) classing them respectively as Code D (AUDIO: The Dalek Transaction [+]Loading...["The Dalek Transaction (audio story)"]) and Code Silver. (AUDIO: Code Silver [+]Loading...["Code Silver (audio story)"]) Amongst the deceptions employed by the Monks during their occupation of Earth was taking credit for defeating the Daleks and the Cybermen as well as the Weeping Angels. (TV: The Lie of the Land [+]Loading...["The Lie of the Land (TV story)"])
History
In the 26th century, the Isomorph Cybermen clashed with the grey Daleks at a point in time when some humans did not believe in the existence of either species. (PROSE: Heliotrope Bouquet [+]Loading...["Heliotrope Bouquet (short story)"], GRAPHIC: Dalek — Cyber War [+]Loading...["Dalek — Cyber War (illustration)"])
Sometime prior to 3985, (PROSE: Legacy [+]Loading...["Legacy (novel)"]) silver Daleks targeted New Mondas. They attacked the Seventh Cyber-Fleet, exterminating the Neomorph Cybermen aboard and accelerating the conversions of humans they had captured. The Daleks took control of the new Cybermen and installed Oblivion Continuums inside them, which they detonated when their Cybermen were allowed into Cyber-Control on New Mondas. Two Silver Daleks observed the explosion and proclaimed that the Cyber-Empire had fallen to the Daleks. (COMIC: Cyber Crisis [+]Loading...["Cyber Crisis (comic story)"]) Bronze Daleks also fought CyberNeomorphs, with their Dalek saucers engaging the Cyber-ships. (GRAPHIC: Starships and Spacestations [+]Loading...["Starships and Spacestations (reference book)"])
During the Last Great Time War, the Time Lords understood that they and the Cybermen shared a common enemy in the Daleks and, as recorded in the Dalek Combat Training Manual, sought to enlist the Cybermen as allies. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual [+]Loading...["Dalek Combat Training Manual (reference book)"]) Indeed, the Cybermen were known to have been involved in the Time War. The husk of a giant Cyberman was left in the wreckage of a Dalek mothership on Veestrax following the War. (COMIC: Outrun [+]Loading...["Outrun (comic story)"])
Emerging in the post-Time War universe, Dalek Sec of the Cult of Skaro identified the Cybermen as an "inferior species" to the Daleks. He identified the outline of those from Pete's World as "[resembling]" the Cybermen. Though the Cybermen offered an alliance, this was rejected by the Daleks. The Daleks proved resistant to Cyber firepower, whilst Cybermen fell to that of the Daleks. Energy blasters modified by the Tenth Doctor temporarily disabled the Daleks before they adapted, with the combined forces of the Cybermen, Torchwood London and the Preachers failing to stop the Cult from leaving the Torchwood Tower and opening the Genesis Ark, unleashing the millions of Daleks who attacked humans and Cybermen alike in the Battle of Canary Wharf, fighting over Tower Bridge, (PROSE: Clash of the Titans) Southwark, (PROSE: Terror in the Streets) and as far as Aberdeen, where the Cybermen used their electrified Cyber-hands to tear off the dome of a Dalek. (PROSE: Small Victories) However, the conflict was soon ended when the Doctor and Rose Tyler opened the Void, resulting in the millions of Daleks and Cybermen being sucked into it. The Cult were forced to perform an emergency temporal shift to escape. (TV: Army of Ghosts/Doomsday)
In the 1851 incident, the Doctor confronted surviving Cybermen who possessed a Dimension Vault as well as a database on the Doctor contained within infostamps, both of which he reasoned were stolen from the Daleks inside the Void. He was aware that anything that remained in the Void had perished as a result of a "greater battle". (TV: The Next Doctor [+]Loading...["The Next Doctor (TV story)"])
Under the belief that the Eleventh Doctor would cause the destruction of the universe, the Daleks and the Cybermen joined the Pandorica Alliance in an ill-fated attempt to capture him. (TV: The Pandorica Opens [+]Loading...["The Pandorica Opens (TV story)"]) Cybermen, as well as Sontarans and Slurians, attempted to seize weapons bases operated by the New Dalek Paradigm, but were exterminated. (GAME: Dalek Supremacy [+]Loading...["Dalek Supremacy (video game)"])
The expanding Cyber Legions engaged the Daleks amongst other species, though it was humanity whom remained their most persistent adversary; (PROSE: Ghost in the Machine [+]Loading...["Ghost in the Machine (short story)"]) likewise, the Daleks placed their animosity for humanity above even that for the Time Lords. (PROSE: Prisoner of the Daleks [+]Loading...["Prisoner of the Daleks (novel)"], AUDIO: Out of Time [+]Loading...["Out of Time (audio story)"]) Both the Cybermen and the Daleks were among the many species which participated in the Siege of Trenzalore, though ultimately only the Daleks remained to confront the Eleventh Doctor, the other forces having "retreated or burned". (TV: The Time of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Time of the Doctor (TV story)"]) Missy suggested that the Twelfth Doctor could use her weapons-grade Cyberdears to liberate the Dalek camps. (TV: Death in Heaven [+]Loading...["Death in Heaven (TV story)"])
The Daleks engaged in a race against the Cybermen to obtain the Orb of Fates, the key to a Time Lord warship and superweapon called the Starbane. One bronze Dalek managed to obtain one piece of the Orb and hid it inside its casing after it was taken prisoner by two weapons-grade Cybermen and interrogated as to the artefact's whereabouts. The Dalek sent a distress signal which was answered by the Twelfth Doctor who flattened the interrogating Cybermen with his TARDIS. The Dalek, whom the Doctor called "Lumpy", claimed its nature had been altered by the Cybermen during its imprisonment and it expressed a desire to see both the Daleks and the Cybermen thwarted in their attempts to gain control of the Starbane. The Doctor, however, correctly anticipated that the Dalek would deceive him, and so manipulated Lumpy into destroying the Starbane. (GAME: The Doctor and the Dalek)
In the aftermath of the first Flux event, both the Dalek War Fleet (TV: The Vanquishers [+]Loading...["The Vanquishers (TV story)"]) and the Cyber-Warriors' Cyber-Fleet moved to conquer what remained of the universe, fighting against each other as well as the Sontaran Empire for control of sectors of space. (TV: Once, Upon Time [+]Loading...["Once, Upon Time (TV story)"]) Seeking to end the war as the ultimate vanquishers in the universe, the Sontarans lured the Dalek War Fleet and the Cyber-Fleet to a rendezvous on Earth, where they would combine their efforts to destroy the rest of the universe, beginning with humanity. It was, however, a trick to position the Daleks and Cybermen in front of the final Flux event, where they would be destroyed once and for all. Manipulating the situation to her advantage, the Thirteenth Doctor timed the Lupari fleet's shield to give way and destroy not only the Daleks and Cybermen, but the Sontarans also. All three fleets were promptly annihilated. (TV: The Vanquishers [+]Loading...["The Vanquishers (TV story)"])
Motiviated by their hatred for the Doctor, the Cybermen entered in an alliance with the Spy Master and the Daleks as part of the Master's ill-fated plan to eliminate the Thirteenth Doctor. (TV: The Power of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Power of the Doctor (TV story)"])
Alternate timelines
In an alternate timeline created by the Black Guardian where the First Doctor never left Gallifrey and became Lord President, both the Daleks and the Cybermen were among numerous species whom invaded Earth and fought for control of the planet. (COMIC: Time & Time Again)
In an alternate timeline known as the "Cyberverse" which started with a change in history in 1927, the Daleks were one of several major powers in the universe who were conquered by the Cybermen by 1951. (WC: Real Time/AUDIO: Real Time)
In an alternate timeline where the Daleks were peaceful and on friendly terms with the Time Lords, the Cybermen remained a dangerous force in the universe along with the Sontarans. As such, the Daleks maintained their defenses and protected other worlds such as Markhan, who did not have the technology to defeat the Cybermen on their own. (PROSE: The Ripple Effect)
In an alternate timeline where Rassilon gave the Cybermen the means to conquer all of time and space, the Cybermen conquered Skaro and erased the Daleks from history. (COMIC: Supremacy of the Cybermen [+]Loading...["Supremacy of the Cybermen (comic story)"]) Eventually, the Cybermen forced the Fifth Doctor's TARDIS to land on Skaro, where a Nomad Cyber-Leader ordered a CyberIsomorph to kill the Doctor and Peri Brown. (COMIC: Prologue: The Fifth Doctor [+]Loading...["Prologue: The Fifth Doctor (comic story)"]) This timeline was eventually erased when, at the end of the universe, the Twelfth Doctor and a betrayed Rassilon used the Eye of Harmony on Gallifrey to regenerate the universe and restore the original timeline. (COMIC: Supremacy of the Cybermen [+]Loading...["Supremacy of the Cybermen (comic story)"])
