Jacob Sowersby
Jacob Sowersby was a human who lived on the Earth colony planet Tiestus in July 2114. During said time, he was partially cyber-converted during an invasion by the Cybermen, but successfully defeated them and had his conversion reversed.
Biography[[edit] | [edit source]]
By July 2114, Jacob Sowersby was thirteen years-old, and was nearing his fourteenth birthday. Sometime prior to Wednesday 4 July 2114, he acquired a BOB.
On Wednesday 4 July 2114, Jacob downloaded an update for his BOB that gave him the ability to automatically transcribe his thoughts into personal diary entries; he began by using BOB to take a picture of some spaghetti bolognese that he ate for dinner. On Thursday 5 July, Jacob went to school and spoke to Charlie about Meena, who Jacob had feelings for. He contemplated confessing his feelings to Meena, and uploaded his thoughts of these events as another BOB entry.
The Cyberman invasion[[edit] | [edit source]]
On Friday 6 July, Jacob intended to ask Meena on a date, but chose not to, due to Charlie being with her, and suspecting that Charlie had feelings for him. He also gave away his packed lunch and ate a large pork pie instead while he was in Capitol City. Furthermore, Jacob witnessed a Cyber-ship fly over Tiestus, and, mistaking it for a shooting star, attempted to take a photograph of it, but missed his chance. He recorded these experiences as another BOB entry.
On Saturday 7 July, Jacob played football with 'Little' and 'Large', and ate tortillas for dinner cooked by his mother. Unable to sleep that night, Jacob decided to watch television, with his BOB uploading a diary entry for these events. On television, Jacob watched TTN24's live broadcast of the landing of the Cyber-ship that he saw the previous day, and witnessed the Cybermen (PROSE: Cybermen: Status Update [+]Loading...["Cybermen: Status Update (short story)"]) – who resembled the advanced models of Cybermen of the Cyber Legions active by the end of the Cyber Wars of the 250th Millennium (PROSE: Ghost in the Machine [+]Loading...["Ghost in the Machine (short story)"], TV: Nightmare in Silver [+]Loading...["Nightmare in Silver (TV story)"]) – murder President Morris and commence an invasion of Tiestus. Jacob, along with Jade Sowersby and his mother, fled their house and attempted to reach a shuttle to escape Tiestus.
Jacob attempted to hide with his mother, Jade, and several other humans, but they fled again when they were discovered by the Cybermen and "Little" and "Large", who had been partially cyber-converted. However, on the early morning of Sunday 8 July, Jacob and the other humans were eventually caught by the Cybermen, who locked them in a warehouse that they had modified into a conversion chamber. When the Cybermen began taking groups of people for conversion, Jacob volunteered to be upgraded instead of Jade, and therefore was taken with a group of nine humans into the conversion chamber.
Partial conversion[[edit] | [edit source]]
However, Jacob's conversion was temporarily halted when his cyber-conversion unit detected that his BOB, implanted into Jacob's brain, was preventing Jacob from being brought under Cyber-Control. As a result of his unstable conditioning, Jacob's thoughts began to get mixed up with information regarding the Cybermen via Cybercontrol. Shortly afterwards, Meena recovered Jacob from his conversion chamber, and hid with her and a group of rebel humans fighting to save people from cyber-conversion. To defeat the Cybermen, Jacob decided to connect his BOB with those of Meena and the other rebel humans, before using his status as a partially-converted Cyberman to broadcast his, Meena, and the rebel humans' thoughts through Cybercontrol and into the mind of every other Cyberman connected to the network.
After Jacob connected his BOB to those of the other rebel humans, including Meena, Charlie, Adam, Natalie and Jodie, their thoughts began to mix and were broadcast through Cybercontrol. In response, Cybercontrol located Jacob and the human rebels, and ordered all the Cybermen to locate and kill Jacob, but the thoughts of Jacob and the rebel humans began to contaminate Cybercontrol; by the time the Cybermen located Jacob and the human rebels, they were too confused to kill him or the other humans. Jacob used this opportunity to run and find his mother and Jade, although he noted that he would return to find Meena, who had chosen to hide from the Cybermen. Jacob quickly found his mother and Jade, who were among the next humans to be converted, whilst Cybercontrol shut down completely as a result of the contamination caused by the thoughts of Jacob and the rebel humans; this also caused all of the Cybermen on Tiestus to permanently shut down too.
Humanity restored[[edit] | [edit source]]
On Monday 9 July, following the end of the Cybermen's failed invasion of Tiestus, Jacob's partial conversion was reversed. With his school closed for the next week as a result of the invasion attempt, Jacob used his BOB to take a photograph of himself holding a pork pie whilst stood in front of two dead Cybermen and a building, before he left to find Meena and confess his feelings to her. (PROSE: Cybermen: Status Update [+]Loading...["Cybermen: Status Update (short story)"])
Appearance[[edit] | [edit source]]
Jacob Sowersby had short brown hair. In a photograph of himself, Jade Sowersby, their their mother and father, Jacob wore a formal white ed shirt with long sleeves and a brown jacket. While eating spaghetti bolognese on Wednesday 4 July 2114, Jacob wore a white buttoned shirt.
During the Cyberman invasion of Tiestus, following his partial cyber-conversion on Sunday 8 July 2114, Jacob briefly possessed the chest and power cell of a Cyberman (PROSE: Cybermen: Status Update [+]Loading...["Cybermen: Status Update (short story)"]) identical to the advanced Cybermen of the Cyber Legions that fought in the Cyber Wars of the 250th Millennium. (PROSE: Ghost in the Machine [+]Loading...["Ghost in the Machine (short story)"], TV: Nightmare in Silver [+]Loading...["Nightmare in Silver (TV story)"]) The left side of his face also featured a large metal implant (PROSE: Cybermen: Status Update [+]Loading...["Cybermen: Status Update (short story)"]) identical to that possessed by the Eleventh Doctor when he was partially converted into the Cyber-Planner "Mr Clever" on Hedgewick's World of Wonders. (TV: Nightmare in Silver [+]Loading...["Nightmare in Silver (TV story)"])
On Monday 9 July 2114, in the aftermath of the failed Cyberman invasion of Tiestus, Jacob wore a blue buttoned shirt and some dark legwear when using his BOB to take a picture of himself in front of some dead Cybermen. (PROSE: Cybermen: Status Update [+]Loading...["Cybermen: Status Update (short story)"])
Personality[[edit] | [edit source]]
Jacob Sowersby was an energetic teenage boy who enjoyed playing sports, particularly football and running. He also enjoyed frequently using his BOB. Jacob was a fan of the James Bond movies, and often recalled the eponymous character's signature catchphrase "the name's Bond. James Bond", and even used said phrase as a means of calming himself down. Jacob also enjoyed playing video games, and was a big fan of the singer Sarah Sperger, to the point that he wanted to acquire her autograph even when trapped and awaiting imminent cyber-conversion. Jacob also enjoyed a degree of rudeness, such as his attempt to use profanity in his BOB.
Jacob loved eating pork pies, and he ate them on a frequent basis; on one occasion, for his lunch, Jacob ate a pork pie that he thought was "bigger than [his] face", and even delayed confessing his feelings to Meena just to eat a pork pie in front of two dead Cybermen in the aftermath of the Cyber-invasion of Tiestus. Beyond pork pies, Jacob also enjoyed spaghetti bolognese, ice cream and tortillas, but hated cabbage.
Aside from PE, Jacob hated school, particularly mathematics, and did not pay attention to English, noting that this was why he did not know what contractions were; he was particularly happy about school being closed temporarily in the aftermath of the Cybermen's failed invasion of Tiestus. Furthermore, Jacob displayed no interest in politics, such as when President Morris welcomed the Cybermen to Tiestus with "some kind of boring book". Although he was not necessarily upset with his life, Jacob desired more from it, considering Tiestus to be "seriously the dullest planet in the universe".
Jacob had a particularly strong love for his family, and was determined to save them from being cyber-converted during the Cybermen's invasion of Tiestus, or worse; he refused to leave his mother behind when they were trying to outrun the Cybermen, despite her injured foot and her insistence to him to leave her behind, and volunteered himself for cyber-conversion in his sister's place, despite finding Jade to be annoying at times - for example, when she would steal his video games - and sometimes finding her misfortune humorous. Jacob noted that his attempt to save Jade from cyber-conversion caused their mother to cry even more than when their father died. As he left to be converted, Jacob avoided crying so as to avoid showing his fear to his mother and sister, and believed that, as he was nearly fourteen years-old, they had no reason to be scared for him. His love for his family was so strong that, upon defeating the Cybermen, Jacob fled to find his mother and Jade despite Meena staying and hiding from the malfunctioning Cybermen.
Jacob was best friends with 'Little' and 'Large', who he humorously referred to as such due to both boys' real names being ‘Simon', and because of their extreme height differences, but became terrified of them when they were partially cyber-converted during the Cybermen's invasion of Tiestus. He also had romantic feelings for Meena, although he was hesitant to confess these to her, and thought that he would "die" if she knew how he felt about her. In his efforts to learn whether Meena was in a relationship or not, Jacob became briefly acquainted with her friend Charlie, although his situation became even more complicated when he realised that Charlie may had also developed feelings for him. By the beginning of the Cyber-invasion of Tiestus, however, Jacob had developed the confidence to confess his feelings to Meena, and while initially sad that, as a consequence of his plan to stop the Cybermen's invasion of Tiestus, he would have to expose his feelings for Meena to her and numerous other humans, Jacob eventually decided to directly confess his feelings to Meena on the day after the invasion ended.
While initially fascinated by the Cybermen, Jacob quickly became terrified of them when they killed President Morris and began invading Tiestus, wishing that the situation were merely a nightmare that he could wake up from. Although he wanted to escape the Cybermen after being imprisoned in a warehouse for conversion, Jacob was too scared to do so after witnessing a man attempt escape only to be attacked by the Cybermen. After initially mistaking the Cybermen for robots, Jacob briefly preferred the idea of being converted into a Cyberman over death, naively believing that as a Cyberman he would still be able to enjoy his hobbies; he did not tell anyone else this, as he knew they would get angry with him. However, upon entering the conversion chamber, Jacob's fear of the Cybermen quickly resurfaced.
As a result of his BOB implant preventing his mind from succumbing to total Cyber-Control, after being converted, Jacob not only began to lose some of his memories, but his own thoughts also began mixing with information about the Cybermen. The partial mental reprogramming that he had experienced also led to Jacob adopting elements of Cyberman psychology, such as liking the fact that he was a Cyberman, a hatred of gold (PROSE: Cybermen: Status Update [+]Loading...["Cybermen: Status Update (short story)"]) – a substance which many Cyber-subspecies were weak to (TV: Revenge of the Cybermen [+]Loading...["Revenge of the Cybermen (TV story)"], et al.) – and the belief that by upgrading organic lifeforms, the Cybermen were saving them. Jacob also initially believed that he did not want to be rescued from his conversion unit and wanted his full upgrade to be completed, and also that humans were "weak".
However, Jacob's own thoughts still manifested as well, such as his desire to find his mother and sister, and sometimes stuttered between using the pronouns "they" and "we". During this time, Jacob wished to remember everything that he was, as opposed to what the Cybermen were, and noted that the Cybermen had forgotten "good things" such as pork pies and football. Jacob also did not trust himself due to his unstable mental state, and was not sure if he were "brilliant" when Meena kissed him and described him as such after he proposed his plan to defeat the Cybermen, but decided that he and the others would metaphorically "keep [their] fingers crossed". Jacob was also unable to use contractions for a time after his conversion, although this eventually passed.
After the Cybermen invading Tiestus permanently shut down due to Cybercontrol being contaminated with human thoughts and emotions, Jacob's original personality fully resurfaced when his cyber-conversion was reversed. (PROSE: Cybermen: Status Update [+]Loading...["Cybermen: Status Update (short story)"])
