The Cybermen

You belong to us. You will be like us.

New Series Cyberman
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Who are they?

The Cybermen are six foot plus emotionless cyborgs, tin soldiers who want to convert humanity to be like themselves. Distinguished by their trademark handlebars, the Cybermen play second fiddle to the Daleks in the public's perceptions of Doctor Who monsters.

Popular Myths:

'The Cybermen's only weakness is being allergic to gold' - This common perception is wrong on two counts. Firstly, the Cybermen have also been shown to be vulnerable to gravity and radiation. Secondly, gold is dangerous to them because gold dust can clog their respiratory system (except in Silver Nemesis, where they do appear to be allergic to gold).

Cyber Timeline

• Spare Parts
• The Invasion
• The Tenth Planet
• Short Trips and Side Steps: Vrs
• Iceberg
• The Moonbase
• The Wheel in Space
• Killing Ground
• Revenge of the Cybermen
• Earthshock
• The Five Doctors
• Attack of the Cybermen
• Silver Nemesis
• Illegal Alien
• The Crystal Bucephalus
• Real Time

Cyber Biology

Cybermen are cyborgs - organic beings who have had technology grafted onto their bodies. The original Cybermen were "human" natives of Earth's twin planet Mondas - although they appear to have been physically larger than humans. Later generations of Cybermen were forcibly converted human beings. The conversion process adds a metallic exoskeleton and provides the Cyberman with much greater strength and endurance than they otherwise would have had. The process also affects the subject's brain, removing emotional responses and overwriting the original being's personality. At various points in the Cybermen's history, their bodies have been vulnerable to the effects of gravity, radiation, and gold dust clogging their breathing filters.

Cyber Culture and Psychology

The Cybermen puport to be beings of pure logic, but even so their race does have a culture. Their primary goal in life is to survive, this being the imperative that originally turned them into Cybermen. The early Cybermen split into two distinct cultures. Some Cybermen wanted to keep some vestiges of their pre-Cyber existence, retaining things like their original names. Other Cybermen wanted to take their Cybernisation to what they saw as its logical conclusion - the abandonment of all such attachments. This CyberFaction ultimately spawned all the future generations of Cybermen. However, even amongst these Cybermen there are flashes of "emotional memory" - recollections of life before they were converted. Cybermen deal with this once-in-a-century experience by directing their attention towards underlying Cybernetic principles. They also simulate some emotional responses for the effect it has on humans.

Although much of the Cybermens lifestyle is unknown, they organise themselves into a hierachy. Although the details of the hierachy varied over time, it can be summarised here. To begin with, the CyberFaction were controlled by a Cyber Planner - an immobile central control unit with no humanoid features. Later generations of Cybermen had three levels of authority. The Cyber Controller was the ultimate leader of the Cybermen (or at least any one group of them - there may have been many groups of Cybermen with their own controllers). Cyber Leaders answered to the Cyber Controller, and appear to have been put in charge of individual operations. Cyber Lieutenants functioned as aides to a Cyber Leader.

Cyber Technology

Cyberman technology is not as sophisticated as that of many other alien civilisations, and it has varied a lot over time. Their main technology is the Cybernisation process, which is not constant - the details of the process undoubtedly change over time just as the Cybermen redesign themselves over time. In some eras, the Cybermen built weapons into their bodies - usually in their chest units, whilst in others they carried a variety of projected energy weapons. They also use CyberBombs - large explosive devices, and have on occasion used humanoid androids. One other tool that they often use are small creatures known as Cybermats. Cybermats appear to be cybernetised animals used either as weaponry or as scouts.

Cyber History

At some point in prehistory the planet Mondas was Earth's twin planet. It was knocked out of its orbit around the Sun and sent spiralling into space. The Mondasians intially survived this by going to live underground where it was warmer. However, as Mondas drifted further away from the Sun, this was inadequate and the Mondasians turned to cybernetics to help them survive. They gradually came to rely more and more on this technology and the technology eventually encompassed changes to the brain. Emotions were seen as inimical to survival, and the Mondasians eliminated them.

During the era when the fundamental Cyberman technology was being developed, there was a split within the Cybermens' ranks. The Faction Cybermen wanted to take becoming Cybermen to its logical conclusion, eliminating as much of their old Mondasian identity as possible, and this faction left Mondas, arriving at Planet 14 (presumably the outermost planet of the Solar System, beyond Pluto). Some of their plans were defeated by the second Doctor whilst they were on Planet 14. However, they built a sizable space fleet with the intention of invading Earth. Meanwhile, their contemporaries on Mondas developed the technology to pilot Mondas back to its original orbit.

The Faction Cybermen arrived on Earth before the Mondasians. At some point around the 1970s (depending on your UNIT dating) these Cybermen teamed up with a human named Tobias Vaughn and his company International Electromatics as part of a plan to invade the Earth. Their efforts were, however, foiled by the second Doctor. Following their defeat and the destruction of the Cyber-Planner who had been in charge of the Faction, these Cybermen retreated - some hid on Earth's moon, others in Antarctica.

Whilst the CyberFaction were regrouping, the Mondasian Cybermen were approaching Earth. During December 1986, Mondas approached the Earth. These Cybermen planned to drain Earth of its energy, revitalising Mondas. However, Mondas absorbed too much energy and disintegrated. The main force of Mondasian Cybermen had landed at a human research base in Antartica and their remains were closely studied by one group of Faction Cybermen, who used this study of their Mondasian cousins to improve their own engineering. One faction of Cybermen was responsible for the release of a computer virus in the year two thousand.

During the 21st Century, the CyberFaction launched three major attacks against humanity. The first attack happened in 2006, and was masterminded by the group hiding in the Antarctic. They attempted to convert the staff of an Antarctic research base and the passengers onboard a luxury cruise that was in the area. However, they were defeated by the seventh Doctor, who used the co-incident reversal of the Earth's magnetic field to defeat them. During these events, the Doctor left some traces of his memory in the Cybermens' records. The second was an attempt to capture space station W3. Using Cybermats - small creatures that had been cybernised - to infiltrate the station, they planned to use it as part of an assault on Earth. However their plans were prevented by the intervention of the Doctor. Their third attack centred on a human base on Earth's moon which housed a weather control device known as the Gravitron. The Cybermen planned to use the Gravitron as a weapon in the invasion of Earth. This invasion attempt was also defeated by the intervention of the second Doctor.

At some point the Cybermen left Earth's solar system. It is unclear whether some Cybermen left before the 21st Century invasion attempts, inbetween them or afterwards, but the CyberRace scattered into groups of "CyberNomads". One such group conquered the human colony on Agora, reducing them to breeding stock for conversion. The population had most of its technology taken away, and was reduced to farming the planet for survival. The Cybermen would arrive at Agora at regular intervals and select specimens from the adult population for conversion into Cybermen. Their dominance over Agora was defeated in 2191 by the Sixth Doctor and locals who used stolen Cyber-Technology to turn themselves into "Bronze Knights" - effectively becoming Cybermen with the aim of defeating the actual Cybermen.

After this point the Cybermen disappeared into obscurity. One group, most likely descended from the groups which attacked Earth in the 21st Century, conquered the planet of Telos and built a series of "tombs" there. These tombs were actually cryogenic chambers. The Cybermen sealed themselves in to store energy, hoping that eventually they would be revived - either by other Cybermen, or by humans which they could convert into new Cybermen.

Around 2486, a group of humans discovered the CyberTombs on Telos and attempted to revive them. However, the Cybermen attempted to convert the humans. The intervention of the Second Doctor defeated the Cybermen, they were resealed inside their tomb, although the humans lost several of their number.

At some point after this, the entombed Cybermen on Telos came into contact with another group of Cybermen, and this alliance created a new design of Cybermen, sometimes referred to as the CyberNeomorphs. This new design was more streamlined than previous designs.

In 2526, a group of these CyberNeomorphs attempted to sabotage a human peace conference, placing a bomb on Earth and, when it was deactivated by the intervention of the fifth Doctor, crashing a freighter onto Earth. However, the Doctor's intervention led to to the ship instead crashing into prehistoric Earth, killing off the dinosaurs. It is possible that this particular group of Cybermen had travelled back in time from later in Cyberhistory as they had access to records of the fourth Doctor's battle against some Cybermen from the 29th Century, although this could also be a memory from the seventh Doctor acquired in 2006.

Following these events, the Cybermen became engaged in a major CyberWar with humanity, and possibly other allied species. Eventually they lost the war when humanity discovered a key weakness in their design - gold dust clogged their respiratory machinery. As a large planetoid called Voga - made mostly of gold - had recently been discovered, this key weapon secured the human victory.

Towards the end of the Cyberwar, those Cybermen based on Telos used time travel technology to go back to 1985 in an attempt to prevent the original destruction of Mondas by trying to crash Halley's comet into Earth. Their plan failed thanks to the intervention of the sixth Doctor, who also interfered with their evacuation of Telos - causing the deaths of most of the survivors - certainly the CyberController, the Cyberleader, and the CyberLieutenant were destroyed.

At least one group of CyberNomads survived the Cyberwar. They eventually attempted to take revenge in the 29th or 30th century, attacking Voga (which was now in orbit around Jupiter). Their aim was to destroy Voga, as they were still vulnerable to gold. Their plans were thwarted by the intervention of the fourth Doctor.

Three other incidents involving the Cybermen are impossible to date relative to CyberHistory. The first of these was the abduction of a group of CyberNeomorph Cybermen to Gallifrey to compete in the Game of Rassilon. The second involved a group of Cybermen who looked very similar to the Neomorph Cybermen. They travelled to Earth with an entire warfleet in 1988 to retrieve the Nemesis Statue - an ancient Time Lord weapon that the Doctor had cast into Earth orbit. The seventh Doctor used the Nemesis Statue to destroy the CyberFleet. The third was a group of Cybermen who travelled back to Earth during World War Two. They were also defeated by the seventh Doctor.

At some point after the Cyberwars, a group of Cybermen were involved in a war against the rogue Time Lord Morbius under the command of a mysterious individual called the Supremo, who led a force of Cybermen, Sontarans, Draconians, and humans to defeat Morbius.

Many centuries into the future, after the rise and fall of the Galactic Federation, the Cybermen established themselves as a major galactic power. However, this breed of Cybermen were not obsessed with survival and posed no real threat to the rest of the galaxy.

One group of Cybermen late in history discovered a time travel machine. These Cybermen were resource-starved to the point where they only partially converted new recruits. They came into contact with a resistance fighter from an alternative history where the Cybermen had infected humanity with a virus turning them into Cybermen. He attempted to use a reverse virus on these Cybermen, but instead the Cybermen used his virus to create the original cyber-virus and infected the sixth Doctor's companion Evelyn Smythe with it. Paradoxically, these Cybermen had originated from a world where the infected Evelyn had spread the virus to Earth and Evelyn herself had become the CyberController.

You visited the Whoniverse at 5:10 am GMT on Saturday 13th March 2010