Cybermen in popular culture and mythology

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Due to their expansionist, warmongering tendencies, the Cybermen were known far and wide across the universe, including on Earth, where, by the 21st century, accounts of them existed not only as matters of historical fact, but as fictional antagonists and as "the stuff of legend", in much the same way as their long-standing enemy the Doctor did.

On Earth and among humans

As real beings

Historical contact with humanity

In the late 20th century, the Cybermen of the Early CyberFaction, led by a Cyber-Planner that recognised the Doctor from Planet 14, launched an invasion of Earth, aided by Tobias Vaughn of International Electromatics. However, this invasion was thwarted by the Second Doctor and the newly formed United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, led by Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, who saw that the Cyber-Fleet was destroyed. (TV: The Invasion)

In December 1986, the Cybermen of Mondas introduced themselves to humanity as they landed on Earth in an invasion, which ended with their defeat and the destruction of Mondas. (TV: The Tenth Planet)

In 2007, an army of Cybermen from a parallel Earth, (TV: Army of Ghosts) named Pete's World, (TV: Doomsday, etc.) crossed over and invaded the Earth of the Doctor's universe, beginning with an advance guard planted within Torchwood Tower at Canary Wharf in London. Though the Torchwood Institute had been working to defend the British Empire from aliens since 1879, Torchwood One director Yvonne Hartman was unfamiliar with the Cybermen until this encounter. (TV: Army of Ghosts) Taking control of Torchwood's ghost shifts, Cyber-Leader One saw the full transfer of five million Cybermen from their homeworld, appearing across Earth including in London, Paris, Delhi (TV: Army of Ghosts) and Spain. (TV: The Runaway Bride) In a global broadcast from Torchwood Tower, the Cyber-Leader ordered the surrender of all humankind only to be met with armed resistance, beginning the Battle of Canary Wharf, a battle which was ended within the day as the Tenth Doctor pulled the Cybermen back into the Void from which they came. (TV: Doomsday)

Following the battle, some refused to accept the existence of alien life, to the confusion of Jack Harkness, who cited the battle with a "Cyberman in every home" to Gwen Cooper. Gwen noted that her boyfriend, Rhys Williams, believed such appearances to be a result of mass hallucinations caused by psychotropic drugs planted in the water supplies, a theory which Jack called "stupid". (TV: Everything Changes)

Michael Hamilton continued to see Cybermen outside of his mother's house. (TV: Greeks Bearing Gifts)

By 2009, many people had become aware of alien life through the Cybermen and the Daleks. (TV: The Mad Woman in the Attic)

In 2012, an invasion of Earth by the Cybermen, which involved the Doctor, was recorded on the internet. (COMIC: Invasion of the Mindmorphs) Also, by 2012, the head of a Cyberman was part of the Van Statten Collection in the Exhibit Room of Henry Van Statten's Vault. (PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac ^[+]Loading...{"chaptname":"Everything Changes","page":"147","chaptnum":"3","1":"The Time Traveller's Almanac (reference book)"})

As noted by the Twelfth Doctor in propaganda broadcasts to an occupied Earth in the late 2010s, the weapons-grade Cybermen were among the menaces to humanity whom the Monks took credit for defeating. (TV: The Lie of the Land)

Also in the late 2010s, a Cyberman hijacked both BBC One and BBC One Northern Ireland, setting the presenters for upgrading, and announcing that time was running out for the Twelfth Doctor. (TV: Cyberman Ident Interruption ^[+]Loading...["Cyberman Ident Interruption (TV story)"])

In 2070, Jack Hobson claimed that every child knew the Cybermen, but that they were all destroyed ages ago. (TV: The Moonbase)

In the 25th century, the Brotherhood of Logicians searched the universe for the last remains of the Cybermen, who were by that point believed to have died out five hundred years prior. (TV: The Tomb of the Cybermen)

In the 52nd century, the Church was aware of Cyber Legions. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)

The ArcHive

The ArcHive was a supercomputer which contained detailed accounts of the history of the Cybermen, compiled and recorded by its ArcHivists. (PROSE: Killing Ground, AUDIO: Origins of the Cybermen)

As works of fiction

Doctor Who

Main article: Doctor Who (N-Space)

The Cybermen were featured in the Doctor Who series by the 21st century. (PROSE: The Terror of the Umpty Ums)

Novels by Sarah Jane Smith

Main article: Doctor (series)

After she ceased being a companion of the Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith published a number of books adapted from her experiences as a time-and-space-traveller, which were billed as science-fiction novels on Earth.

Among these was Return to the Ark, a part of her Doctor series in which a fictionalised version of the Doctor was featured as main character. (PROSE: Moving On)

Other works

Some years after the first Cyberman invasion of Earth, Lloyd Kingsley-Sayle shot a film about the invasion. At the request of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, who was concerned that the movie would reveal too much about UNIT the Second Doctor posed as a scientific advisor on the set. The Brigadier was concerned that the movie would reveal too much about UNIT. By this point, the general public did not remember even the name of the invaders, but enough remembered something to start getting suspicious if the film were stopped. Using the public's ignorance to his advantage, the Doctor changed the name of the invaders to the fictional Zexians, a race of robots. (PROSE: Scientific Adviser)

As a complete unknown

Londoner Rose Tyler, who joined the Ninth Doctor in the TARDIS in March 2005, (TV: Rose) was initially unfamiliar with the Cybermen, her first encounter being with a inactive specimen in Henry van Statten's vault. (TV: Dalek) Through this sight, she recognised the Cybermen in Pete's World. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen) Rose's mother, Jackie Tyler, remained ignorant of the Cybermen until they crossed over to the Doctor's universe during the Battle of Canary Wharf. (TV: Army of Ghosts)

The Eleventh Doctor observed that the CyberKing, "a giant Cyberman walk[ing] over all of Victorian London" on Christmas 1851, was not remembered. He found reason to believe that the memory of its appearance was erased by a crack in time. (TV: Flesh and Stone, The Next Doctor)

In 2011, Colchester resident Craig Owens did not recognise a Cyberman which was near-identical to those that appeared during the Battle of Canary Wharf. (TV: Closing Time)

Sheffield residents Graham O'Brien, Ryan Sinclair and Yasmin Khan, who joined the Thirteenth Doctor in September 2018, (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth) were unaware of the Cybermen until they were told of them by Jack Harkness. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon)

In 2079, Jarvis Bennett failed to recognise the Cybermen. (TV: The Wheel in Space)

Other realities

In the year 2059 of an alternate timeline created by the erasure of Rani Chandra's friends in 2009, she recalled to Adam Lloyd that people were already aware of aliens back then through the Cybermen and the Daleks, but were yet to know "everything". (TV: The Mad Woman in the Attic)

In a parallel universe which the Tenth Doctor named Pete's World, Cybermen were created on Earth by Cybus Industries, led by the terminally ill John Lumic. Promoted as Human.2, the "ultimate upgrade" of humanity, the Cybermen were sent forth to enforce a compulsory program to upgrade all humans, with those refusing to be upgraded being "deleted". In 2007, the Doctor, having accidentally crossed over from N-Space, faced the Cybermen and Lumic in a confrontation which ended with the destruction of London's Cyber-factory and Lumic's death. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel) However, Cybermen remained across the world and were fought by the Preachers in a conflict which ended with the Cybermen being sealed in their Cyber-factories. (GAME: Save Paris, Cyber Assault) By 2010, an army of five million Cybermen crossed over and invaded N-Space in the Battle of Canary Wharf only to be defeated by the Doctor, who sent the majority of these Cybermen into the Void while an attempt to return and "regain the homeworld" by the Cyber-Leader was stopped by Yvonne Hartman. (TV: Army of Ghosts/Doomsday) However, some Cybermen survived and so this Cyber-race continued to appear in N-Space. (PROSE: Made of Steel, TV: The Next Doctor, The Pandorica Opens, COMIC: Time of the Cybermen)

In other cultures

On Gallifrey and among Time Lords

By the end of their second incarnation, the Doctor, via a Thought Channel, cited the Cybermen among the evils he had fought as he stood trial for defying the Time Lords' non-interference policy. Conjuring an image of Cyberman, the Doctor described them as "half creature, half machine" as he condemned the Time Lords' inaction. Ultimately, the Time Lords accepted his plea that there was evil in the universe that must be fought, and that he still had a part to play in that battle, resulting in his forced regeneration and exile to Earth. (TV: The War Games)

While on Telos, the Sixth Doctor suspected that the Time Lords had manoeuvred him into thwarting the Cybermen's attempt to use Halley's Comet to destroy Earth in 1985 and so avert the destruction of Mondas in 1986, which would have violated the Web of Time. (TV: Attack of the Cybermen)

A pair of Time Lords observed that the Cybermen, within five million years after their creation on the planet known as Planet 14, Marinus and ultimately Mondas, would evolve beyond the need for bodies, becoming beings of pure thought, the most peace-loving and advanced race in the universe, leading a new era of understanding. (COMIC: The World Shapers)

Despite having observed them as a potential threat to the universe, (PROSE: The Cyber Files ^[+]Loading...["The Cyber Files (novel)"]) the Time Lords actively sought an alliance with the cyborgs in the Last Great Time War, having seen that they shared a common enemy in the Dalek Empire. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual ^[+]Loading...["Dalek Combat Training Manual (reference book)"]) Such was similiar to the alternate War in Heaven seen by the Sixth Doctor, in which the Cyberlords were the Time Lords' greatest ally against the Daleks, though history was later rewritten to turn the Cyberlord Hegemony to the side of the Dalek Empire. (PROSE: The Quantum Archangel ^[+]Loading...["The Quantum Archangel (novel)"]) Following the war, however, the Time Lords were wary of the Cybermen and ordered that any potential instance of their use of temporal technology be reported to the Celestial Intervention Agency. (PROSE: TARDIS Type 40 Instruction Manual ^[+]Loading...["TARDIS Type 40 Instruction Manual (reference book)"])

The Daleks

The Time Lords understood that they and the Cybermen shared a common enemy in the Daleks and, during the Last Great Time War, sought to enlist the Cybermen as allies. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual) Indeed, the Cybermen were known to have been involved in the Time War. (COMIC: Outrun) 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. (TV: Doomsday)

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)

The expanding Cyber Legions engaged the Daleks amongst other species. (PROSE: Ghost in the Machine) 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) Missy suggested that the Twelfth Doctor could use her weapons-grade Cyberdears to liberate the Dalek camps. (TV: Death in Heaven)

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)

The Sontarans

The Cybermen had their own entry in the Sontaran Subliminal Education Matrix which commended them for their admission of "inferiority" while claiming that the Cybermen's resulting need for "upgrades" paled in comparison to "true Sontaran efficiency" which enabled them to do so before birth. (PROSE: A Soldier's Education)

The Secret Lives of Monsters presented an image of Cybus-style Cybermen fighting Sontarans. (PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters)

Others

Following the Last Great Time War, the Nestene Consciousness recognised the "mighty" empire of the Cybermen. (PROSE: Revenge of the Nestene)

In addition to the Daleks, (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual, Heliotrope Bouquet, COMIC: Cyber Crisis) the Cybermen counted the Slitheen, the Judoon and the Racnoss as enemies. (PROSE: Ghost in the Machine)

Trick-or-treaters on Verticulus dressed as Cybermen as well as bronze Daleks. (COMIC: Wholloween)

In the 67th century, a vid-briefing series entitled Perils of the Constant Division provided information on, amongst others, Cyberiad-type Cybermen. (TV: The Tsuranga Conundrum)