My latest Doctor Who creation is somewhat different from the last two. For a start, it only mentions the Doctor once, and only by rough description, and secondly its entirely about the cybermen; not a TARDIS, companion or Time Lord in sight. And thirdly, its not an actual story but rather a retelling of the history of the cybermen (that is, the Doctor's universe cybermen, not those alternative universe ones; obviously if it was the alternative universe ones this story would only be about two paragraphs long since they're already been wiped out), as it would be written by an inhabitant of the Doctor's universe after the event.
Anyway, I hope this will give enjoyment to fans of the classic series and knowledge, as well as enjoyment, to newcomers who know next to nothing about the cybermen of the Doctor's universe. Plus, you know, everyone in between. Its a shame cybermen got such a pathetic appearance in the new series since they're so much cooler/scarier/better in every way possible than the Daleks. (ooh, contreversy!) I mean, the cybermen have killed a companion and been indirectly responsible for one of the Doctor's regenerations; the Daleks have done neither! (Except possibly the eighth Doctor's regeneration, but after 'The Sound of Drums' it seems much more likely that the Doctor did that one himself).
This story is as true as I could make it to official Doctor Who continuity as I could make up, while using artistic licence to bridge the gaps and fill in the plotholes, as well as to make the whole thing prettier. As a result it contains very mild spoilers to the first Cybermen story, 'The Tenth Planet', though as this is an official 'missing episode' I don't think that matters too much and I hope it won't stop you reading. There are also spoilers for 'Attack of the Cybermen' but they're fairly obscure; don't be put off and remember this story is as much to give information as to entertain. Other than those two the only spoiler I give about any other cyberman story is to tell you all that the Doctor wins, which I imagine was not unexpected. This also contains information (but no spoilers) from 'Frontier in Space' though you don't need to know anything about that or any of the cybermen stories.
It took me the best part of a day to write this, what with the research and everything, so read it and enjoy it and most importantly, review it!
I do not own Doctor Who. Doctor Who owns me!
Documentation of the Origins and Development of the Cybermen, the Cyber Wars and their Aftermath
"It is amazing what people will do to survive. They'll give up anything, even the things they wished never to loose. The cybermen were the result of misguided logic in the face of disaster."
General Innes Pedler, Armageddon Convention, 2503
"The more advanced they are, the less alive they become."
Draconian Ministers, Anti-Cyberman Alliance Conference, 2526
It began on the planet Mondas. Mondas was originally the twin planet of Earth, the original home of the human race. Life evolved on Mondas in much the same way it did on Earth, only it did so faster. In the days when the early men of Earth were first discovering fire, the Mondasians were just entering the Nuclear Age and were beginning their first experiences with short-range space travel.
It would be a mistake to call humans and Mondasians the same species. The humanoid life-form is exceptionally common in different variations throughout the universe, from Earth to Voga, Melcassario to Dulkis, Kastria to Gallifrey, even the Daleks devolved from a humanoid species, all similar to look on with the only obvious differences being in organ structure and placement (differences in the skin being the most readily apparent).
Mondasians and humans evolved in very similar conditions, the same difference from the same Sun, formed from the same dust, influenced by the same moons. The worlds and the species on them were similar, but not identical.
It was roughly during Earth's Mesolithic Period, or Middle Stone Age, that disaster struck Mondas. The planet's orbit, which had always been unstable due to the competing gravitational pull of the Earth, was thrown out of its twin orbit with Earth and began to drift away from the Sun. This is not uncommon with planets that form as twin planets, but usually it occurs at a very early stage, long before life has had a chance to evolve. Usually by the time they reach the age of Mondas, their orbits would have stabled.
As it was, the technically limited Mondasians saw what had happened too late; had they had perhaps one more century they would have seen the effect and been able to develop a way to counter it.
Instead, the Mondasians drifted away from the Sun, from the source of heat and light necessary for the survival of plants and animals. The degradation of Mondasian culture that follows is largely unknown, largely due to the destruction of Mondas in (Earth date 1986 – from this point on all dates will be given in Earth terms for comparative purposes). Some records do exist from that period however, stolen from the tombs on Telos and other locations significant to the cybermen; much of the following segment is fat drawn from these records while a large portion is speculation and guess-work.
It is clear that as Mondas fell away life on the planet began to die out rapidly. Over the next 10 years approximately three quarters of all plant and animal life on the planet died out. Throughout this period the Mondasians dedicated all their technology into finding ways to survive. One of their most significant (in times to come) failures appears to have been a technology that would allow them to absorb energy from other celestial bodies that the planet passed. This technology proved unstable and totally uncontrollable and it was probably shut down. However, at some point when the planet was beyond the Sol Solar System it appears to have reactivated and apparently became uncontrollable.
Eventually the Mondasians succeeded, to an extent, to save themselves; they managed to grow enough food for the remaining population. However, their numbers were still declining gradually, at their worst point reaching perhaps less than 1.5 billion living people on the planet, and very little animal life remained. The seas froze; the surface of the planet died. Transport around the planet became almost impossible but the Mondasians were using vast resources to stay alive; fossil fuels, metals and radioactive material for example. Searching for and mining these resources was almost impossible, so the earliest stages of cyber-augmentation began. Uninjured Mondasians were given mechanical implants, of metal, plastic and various fabrics, to allow them to survive in the extreme environments of their planet and to use machinery and tools that a normal person could not. Early experiments in cyber-augmentation were carried out on animals, giving birth to early forms of cybermats. Following the success of augmentations onto workers, the technology was developed for use by the general populace. The Mondasians, who had until then been slowly decreasing in number, began slowly increasing again.
Cyber-augmentations became more advanced. Continued experiments on animals allowed the Mondasians to examine the effects of wider-ranging experimentations. It is believed that eventually they created creatures with only parts of the brain, the spinal cord and nervous system and more complicated biological parts of the original animal; the rest was entirely mechanical. These early cybermats were similar in structure to the primitive cybermen.
Eventually it was suggested to try limiting negative emotions in workers, such as fear and anything that might cause irrationality. The origin or exact purpose of these experiments is unknown but after stringent tests on animals and then successful tests on certain Mondasians, most likely life-term criminals, the technology was put to use on workers. These emotions were not at this point removed, but restrained. As the technology advanced and negative emotions were further limited, terrible side-affects began to occur in the subjects used; insanity among workers at this stage was not unusual. More and more of the work done on Mondas was focussed on the modification of emotions until about 70 of all scientific advancement on the planet was in cyber-augmentation and 25 was in agriculture.
Holding this in consideration, it is possible to understand how the Mondasians failed to realise, until it was too late, that the huge mines in their planet were almost empty. They had almost no power, for fossil fuels and radioactive materials had been used up, the only plant-life in existence was needed for oxygen-production and food, the seas were frozen and the atmosphere was almost stripped away. Geothermal power (that is, power produced using heat drawn from the planet's core) was available, but was not enough to provide the planet with the energy it needed.
On top of this they were running out of metals and plastics required for both agriculture and of course cyber-augmentation.
The young new-Mondasian culture collapsed into chaos. Murder and grave-robbing to steal cyber-implants became common and little effort was made to stop it as the parts were desperately needed. The Mondasians eventually abandoned their cities on the planet's surface since they were so energy-exhaustive to run and disappeared underground, into the mines made over the last few centuries. It is estimated that less than three quarters of a million Mondasians were left alive at this point.
Over the next few thousand years Mondas drifted through the galaxy and was for the first time noticed by space-travellers. It was officially recorded as a very large asteroid with no life forms; how the Mondasians were missed by scanners has been speculated heavily. The bulk of Mondasian population was most likely beneath the ruined cities which would have reflected scanners to some extent. It should also be taken into consideration that the levels of cyber-augmentation at the point when the Mondasians left the surface of their world were high, some individuals being more than 60 mechanical.
In the end it must be admitted that no one tried to look at the planet to any real extent. What was believed to be a large asteroid did resemble a dead planet, and this frightened people away; it became a source of superstition. Scans did show that there was very little mineral value on the planet, so there was simply no reason to want to investigate further. On top of this, the ancient Mondasian system for draining energy from nearby objects had reactivated and any ship that went too close would be affected. Its progress was monitored lightly to ensure it did not become a danger to galactic society but mostly it was left alone. A few times attempts were made to have it legally destroyed, but it was for the most part ignored; it scared people.
Approximately 3000 years after the Mondasians abandoned their planet's surface, the station monitoring Mondas noted a number of very large objects detaching from the planet and drifting away. The crew believed that the 'asteroid' was beginning to break up, but in retrospect it becomes evident that these objects were in fact early cybermen space craft. The newly formed cybermen had evidently become aware of the fact that their planet was being monitored and left using stealth; something that would become a natural part of their tactics later on.
These detachments from the planet continued at irregular intervals for the next millennium, after which the planet fell silent again. It was another 1000 years before the planet showed any other sign of life. Much to the galaxy's surprise and concern, the planet suddenly steered itself off of its course and flew away across the galaxy: Mondas had been turned into a very advanced space craft.
More than that, Mondas was now the central operating controller of the vast cyber-fleets, relaying instructions between their many scattered ships. The propulsion system on Mondas was revealed to the galaxy during the mid 1600s on Earth.
What we now call the 'Covert Cyber Invasions' began. Thousands of cybermen ships were spreading like a plague throughout the galaxy. They would target a planet, often ones that had developed short-range space travel but had not yet communicated with other life, and so were of little concern to galactic civilisation of the time, and invade, cyber-convert the population and strip the planet of mineral wealth. Often they would leave a hidden squad on the planet. Since the Cyber Wars it has been found that more than a thousand young civilisations that we believed had been wiped out through civil war and natural disasters had in fact been destroyed by the cybermen. Billions upon billions of victims were converted, species wiped out. The names of those known are listed in the memorial village on Draconia.
The full extent of cyber-augmentation on victims varies between the species in question and the technological level of the invading cybermen. All cybermen retain organic brains and spinal chords, though parts of the brain are surgically cut out to remove emotion. Some organs are retained, though the heart is always replaced as it is the organ most frequent to failure. The limbs are fully replaced, though in the earliest forms the hands were left intact. The top and back of the skull is always removed but much of the face sometimes remains; the eyes and ears are removed and replaced with electronics, the teeth and the flesh of the mouth and cheeks are removed, as is the nose in all but the most primitive cybermen, but the front of the skull and rest of the skin are often left untouched.
The cybermen continued to develop technologically. The roughest ones on Mondas bore the most organic parts and the least metal, with fully unaugmented hands and cloth covers over semi-organic faces largely due to the limited technology and resources on Mondas. These cybermen were never improved as they possessed the necessary technology to carry out the tasks required of them on the control-world. The second phase of cybermen were those built using Mondas technology but with recourses from other planets. The best example of these was the cyber tombs on Telos which were established very soon after the fleets left Mondas. These were also used for covert operations when the third phase was developed, though by that stage they rarely took part in the ground-invasions.
The third phase of cybermen is the one most common and the image that comes into most people's heads when they hear the word 'cyberman'. These were developed using stolen technology and resources and were actually very diverse in their abilities so that many cyberman-experts believe it is a mistake to refer to them as a single phase.
This phase developed more advanced voices. A limited number of their leaders were slightly changed to allow them to feel a very small amount of emotion and imagination to aid them in predicting their enemies' actions and think of attack strategies. The third-phase cybermen were probably best remembered for their weakness to gold. Most of these cybermen used the subatomic element ±Akrotirium as a vital part of their circuits which is notable for being very unreactive, except with gold and a few other very rare elements. Attacking a third-phase cyberman with gold would cause its internal organs, organic and mechanical, to collapse and is the most efficient way of killing one.
(Towards the latter end of the Cyber-Wars a fourth-phase cyberman was developed with more advanced voices and a greater resistance to gold, though they were still effectively defeated using a glittergun, which fires gold dust).
During the first few centuries of the Covert Cyber Invasion the Cybermen were thought to be little more than myth. There were stories of men made of metal attacking ships and planets but their existence was not taken seriously until the late 1800s in Earth dating, when several minutes of clear recording was transmitted from a cargo transport that had stumbled upon one of their fleet ships and was attacked and destroyed. A warning was sent out and a few of the local territories briefly searched their space, but no other action was taken; nobody came close to realising the scale of the threat posed by the cybermen; indeed, no one ever predicted the size of the cyber-fleets; it was only during the Cyber Wars when their full fleets were revealed that the universe realised just how big a threat they actually were.
The cybermen eventually returned to Sol and attempted to invade Earth in 1969. The reason for this invasion attempt is unclear; it has been speculated for a long time whether or not the cybermen had a specific reason for going to Earth, for example if they thought the minerals and life forms on Earth might be specifically compatible for cyber-conversion due to humans and Mondasians evolving in similar environments, or if they simple came to Earth by coincidence; the planet did at the time match many of the criteria of the normal victims of the cyber-fleets: a mineral-rich planet with a sentient humanoid life form in the early stages of learning space travel. Their invasion attempt was of course driven off and went mostly unnoticed by the majority of the human race; the planet had not yet had open contact with alien life. Cybermen from the invasion were still living covertly on the planet 16 Earth years later.
It seems more likely that the cybermen attacked Earth for a specific reason however, for they attempted to invade at least four more times, the second invasion being the most significant, as Mondas itself was involved and destroyed.
Mondas attacked Earth in 1986, aiming to capture humans for conversion and take the planet for its mineral wealth. Evidently the cybermen were planning to improve the defences of Mondas – perhaps they expected to be attacked now that their presence had been discovered – and some experts believe that their previous invasion may have been an attempt to steal its recourses and people for Mondas.
Mondas' energy draining technology was still active during this invasion, however, and this is largely what caused their downfall. The energy-draining technology was evidently designed to draw energy from objects a great distance away, and Mondas was too close to Earth; the humans managed to stall their invasion until Mondas absorbed too much energy and was destroyed.
The destruction of Mondas reduced the cyber-fleet to chaos, as it had been the only central communications point in the fleet. Ships were now unable to communicate with each other at all; it was more than 500 years before the fleets were able to restore a central communication system, by which point they had drawn so much attention to themselves that the feasibility of starting a war against the cybermen was in discussion.
The cybermen again attempted to invade Earth in 1988 but evidently Earth had some sort of alien protection as the entire invasion force, over a thousand cyber warships, were completely eradicated.
In the early 21st century Earth was invaded by a race of semi-robotic beings calling themselves 'cybermen', but they only vaguely resembled the third-phase cybermen so it is disputed whether these genuinely were some unknown form of cybermen or were a separate race mimicking them for unknown reasons.
Over the next century cybermen made two more attempts to invade Earth by covertly damaging the planet's eco-system from space, but on neither occasion did they succeed or set foot on Earth.
The cybermen never discovered time travel (for which we can be thankful) but evidence would suggest that at one point they managed to steal a time vessel from the Time Agency and used it to try and prevent the destruction of both Mondas and the tombs on Telos.
Their threat, if anything, became greater after the loss of Mondas, for they no longer coordinated their attacks discreetly. In 2506 the Armageddon Convention was held to discuss the use and ownership of planet or species-destroying weaponry in the universe. During the convention the idea of a war against the cybermen was first mentioned but, as the convention was intended to promote peace, the idea of war was not encouraged. The cybermen's newly established central control was contacted however, and they were told that their 'cyber bombs' – enormously powerful weapons developed by the cybermen – had been banned and should therefore be destroyed or the cybermen would face retribution. The cybermen agreed to destroy the weapons though as far as we know no bombs were ever disposed of, and indeed many were used by the cybermen in the Cyber Wars.
In 2526 a number of representatives of territories around the area where the cybermen were most active gathered together to discuss an alliance, with the aim being to form an allied army against the cybermen. The cybermen attempted and failed to sabotage the conference, though their interference was not necessary as the negotiations collapsed, largely due to animosity between Earth and Draconia; two of the most powerful planets involved, dating from the Draconia-Earth war of 2520.
However, the hostility between these planets came to an end in 2540 and in 2559 negotiations for an alliance against the cybermen began again. This time they were successful and discussions began over how they ought to proceed.
In 2570 the 'Tombs of the Cybermen' were discovered on planet Telos, where several thousand phase-two cybermen were discovered in cryogenic sleep. The archaeologists who discovered the tombs barely escaped alive and they were resealed. The tombs were invaded once more during the Cyber Wars and by that time the cybermen had themselves reopened the tombs and replaced the phase-twos inside with phase-threes. The tombs were destroyed by the martyred natives of Telos.
The Cyber Wars officially began in 2580. For the first time the full extent of the cyber-fleets were seen; even today we are still finding planets that the cybermen invaded and converted the population. The wars lasted over a century but, helped to no end by the late involvement of the Vogans, natives of Voga otherwise known as the 'Planet of Gold', and the invention of the glittergun, approximately 97 of cyber-fleets were eliminated. Towards the end of the war the cybermen attempted to return to their older methods of warfare, using covert tactics and even reintroducing cybermats, which they had not used for many centuries. It is theorised that the logically-minded cybermen, realising that an all-out war was destroying them, attempted to revert to their previously effective tactics. At the same time the alliance formed tactics to counteract the cybermen. The self-destruction of crippled ships became common practice to stop the cybermen pirating the ships and converting the crew. Steps were taken to limit the cybermens' supply of metal and plastic, from simple measures such as taking the bodies of fallen cybermen to destroying mineral-rich asteroids before they entered the cybermens' airspace. Measures were taken to force the cybermen to continue using ±Akrotirium in their construction so they could not overcome their weakness to gold.
In 2694 the Central Control of the cybermen was destroyed. By 2712 the Cyber Wars had ended, the once vast fleets, over 25 billion cybermen, destroyed, at the tragic cost of over 40 billion lives. The cybermen were reduced to a few roaming bands, many of which have since been reported and destroyed by territorial police or bounty hunters. Measures have since been taken to prevent the cybermen regaining their numbers, such as offering rewards for anyone who reports the presence of even a single cyberman or piece of cyber-technology, and restricting the availability of materials used by cybermen for their own construction.
The range and diversity of cybermen seen since the ends of the Cyber Wars is notable, due, no doubt, to the lack of communication between remaining forces, their lack of materials and their logical need to redevelop themselves after their crushing defeat. Some appear in forms more similar to the original Mondasian cybermen; in places hideous only-partially converted cybermen have been found while some not noticeably different from the phase-three cybermen. They have not been totally inactive since the Cyber Wars, their most notable action being of course the attack on planet Voga in 2875. They have also attempted take-overs of isolated stations and undeveloped planets, but through the diligence and hard work of the anti-cybermen units they have had very few victories and their numbers continue to decline.
Many experts discuss the motivation of the cybermen. What makes them so determined to spread throughout the universe even when they are almost destroyed? One of the earliest theories was that they believe they are better off without emotions and wish to spread remove emotions from others so that they too will be advantaged in this way. The cybermen have certainly used this explanation when trying to justify their actions to others, though this may be a common lie to try and make people side with them without complaint. The more common idea is that, as the Mondasians main purpose in their final years was to ensure their survival, the cybermen are also fighting for this goal but, through logical flaw, have come to the conclusion that they can only do this by making every other creature in the universe like themselves.
In 2850 the Draconian Empire commissioned the construction of a memorial village on Draconia to commemorate the many victims of the cybermen. The village includes many exhibits about their creation and evolution, the Cyber Wars and the current known activities of the cybermen. It includes a list of the planets, empires and territories that took part in the war, prominently mentioning those that formed the original alliance and any planets who were unwillingly forced to fight to defend themselves from invasion. Approximately 30 billion names of men and women who died fighting the cybermen are also listed, including, since 2904, the names of a number of humans who died in the 20th and 21st centuries fighting off the cybermens' invasions of Earth.
In addition to this there is another list of planets and worlds that were invaded and taken over by the cybermen, where the inhabitants were slaughtered or converted, prior to, during and after the Wars, giving, where necessary, both the names of planets given by observers, and any names used by the local inhabitants of the planet. As more dead worlds with the remains of cyber-conversion factories are discovered, the list continues to grow. In 2876 it was decided, after much debate, to add the name 'Mondas' to that list.
If anyone manages to work out where I got Akrotirium from they get a shiny cyber-cookie as reward for their awesome Doctor Who knowledge. They will then be escorted to cyber-conversion as anyone with knowledge like that can only be useful to the cyber-invasions. 'You belong to us; you will become like us!'
I was very interested in how the cybermen went from practically human to emotionally devoid planet-crushing monsters, which I'm sure has been of interest to innumerable other cybermen fans and indeed to their creator, Kit Pedler. I wanted to show how, in my mind, their society could degenerate so massively that they erased their own emotions and identities.
We don't know much about the period before the Cyber Wars except for the repeated invasion attempts on Earth, and I wanted to explain why that is while staying within continuity. Explanations for the cybermen's first three attempts to invade Earth are given in the Seventh Doctor's story, 'The Silver Nemesis', which in my opinion is well worth watching, though apparently the plot was very similar to 'Remembrance of the Daleks' which appeared just a couple of weeks earlier so the critics of the time were rather harsh. It's so annoying when you have a great idea only to find out someone else has already done it! (Curse you Douglas Adams.)
The peace conference is in 'Earthshock', Voga comes in 'Revenge of the Cybermen', the tombs are from 'Tombs of the Cybermen' and were revisited in 'Attack of the Cybermen', which is also where the Cybermen get timetravel. Other information can be had from the BBC's Doctor Who website.
Draconians originate from 'Frontier in Space' and were mentioned in 'Revenge of the Cybermen'. The Memorial Village on Draconia is entirely my own invention. I thought it seemed fitting that someone would pay respect to the uncountable number of victims of the cybermen, including the Mondasians who I'm sure didn't want to become emotionless monsters.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed it. now review or we'll come and cyber-convert you!