CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES: HISTORY OF THE CYBERMEN

I've been wanting to tackle this one for a while, now. Particularly since World Enough and Time and The Doctor Falls aired. Seeing such a substantial contribution to the Cybermen's origins had me, practically, foaming at the mouth to explore their background more thoroughly in this blog. But I wasn't sure if Twice Upon A Time might offer further details on Cyber-History since the First Doctor was being extracted from his adventures in The Tenth Planet. So I chose to wait until after the episode was shown. 

As fate would have it, I didn't really need to hold out. The events of The Tenth Planet are only touched upon (and lovingly re-created) quite briefly. I wanted to tie up a few loose ends in January with entries that I had been meaning to write for a while and just haven't gotten around to. With that done, I can finally embrace this particular topic with vim and vigor. It's probably going to take a few entries to cover everything. It's also going to get pretty convoluted, in places. So strap yourselves' in! 




It's almost sad that the Cybermen are eternally ranked as second fiddle to the Daleks. In many ways, they are the superior monster. Their origins are far more interesting. They represent a greater threat (Daleks tend to just kill or enslave you, Cybermen turn you into one of them - that's far scarier, in my book!). They're even able to negotiate stairs in a far more practical fashion! But, for some reason, those Skarosian Meanies always seem to outdo our Mondasian/Telosian/Possibly-A-Few-Other-Planets-Of--Origin Conquerors. Even on the one occasion where we actually saw them do battle - the Daleks seemed to be coming out ahead.

As we explore a possibly coherent timeline that gets all the different stories about them to make some sort of sense, I hope we're all able to step back a bit and take a better look at how great the Cybermen truly are. They will probably never quite grab the same ratings that the Daleks do whenever they make an appearance - but I think they're a far more interesting and even terrifying alien.


PART 1: THE LESSER RACES

During the first few minutes of The Doctor Falls, our favorite Time Lord makes a very important point about the evolution of these mechanical zombies. He explains that all humanoid races, at some point, explore the idea of full cybernization and mass conversion. Put in simpler terms, the Cybermen actually originate from several different planets and cultures. In that same speech, he very quickly names just a few places where Cybermen come from.

This infers, of course, that there are several different "races" of Cybemen lurking about in the Universe. One could even pre-suppose that every time we see a different model of Cybermen in the show - it hails from a different background. The Cybermen we see in The Tenth Planet, for instance, obviously come from Mondas. But the Cybermen we see in The Moonbase do not resemble them at all. Could it be that they actually hail from an entirely different world? Perhaps the planet Selius B had a race of humans that evolved on it and decided to become fully cybernetic. It's this version that we see attacking the weather control station on the moon.

Fast forward a few more seasons and we see that the Cybermen in The Invasion look radically different from Mondasian Cybermen or Cybermen from Selious B. Could they come from the Planet Roota-Booga-Nubius?

I'm making up silly names for planets because the idea, itself, is fairly silly. But it's still something to consider...

For the sake of this essay, however, I'm going to say that the bulk of the stories we see involving Cybermen are about the race that originated on Mondas. There's a fair amount of evidence to substantiate this. Flashback sequences in Earthshock or the development of different models on the Mondasian colony ship are just a few of the stronger examples that support this notion. But there are references all over the place that show us that about 75% of the Cybermen stories that we see involve this specific species.

However, there are a few stories and references that designate that there are, at least, three other species of Cybermen out there in the Universe (or in a universe nearby). I like to see these as The Lesser Races of Cybermen. They've had some success at conquering the galaxy but not nearly as much as our Mondasians.

We'll discuss the timelines of the lesser races first.


LIFE ON MARINUS

To me, it's almost not worth mentioning these guys. But I know some of the hardcores would object if I don't cover them, at least, a little bit.

Marinus is one of the planets mentioned in The Doctor Falls as being a place that has produced Cybermen. To fans less sad and pathetic than I am, it's just the name of a fictional planet. Some of you that have gone back and enjoyed the Classic Series know that there is a world called Marinus in a story called The Keys of Marinus. But if you've really frittered your life away on this show, you know of the notorious comic strip tale entitled The World Shapers that claims that Marinus was an earlier name for Mondas and that the people of that world eventually become Cybermen.

This namecheck implies that the events of The World Shapers is, in some way, canon. Should we accept that the plot happened exactly the way it did in the comic strip, however, it would make the sorting out of this timeline even more convoluted and confusing.

I would suggest, instead, that there was a race of Cybermen that did evolve on Marinus but not in the way that the comic strip presents things. It may even be as simple as a few scientists on that particular world built a handful of Cybermen, at one point, in a highly controlled experiment. When they saw the results of their work they were mortified and, immediately, destroyed them. On the end of the spectrum, things may have gone as far as a full conversion of the planet's population and a successful galactic campaign. Whatever happened, Marinus was never re-named Mondas. It's just a world that bred its own branch of Cybernmen that we've never actually seen in action on the show. They're just mentioned by the Doctor in that one brief scene.

The fact that the Doctor even discusses Marinus would seem to indicate this. Otherwise, why wouldn't he just say Mondas? That's what Marinus will, eventually, become according to The World Shapers - so why bother to make the distinction? It seems clear that a race of Cybermen was created there but not according to the events described in the comic strip.

UNRELATED SIDENOTE:    I have a similar theory about the companions the Eighth Doctor namechecks in Night of the Doctor. He has adventures with these characters but probably not quite in the way that Big Finish tells them. Otherwise, the Ninth Doctor would have noticed how much the events in Dalek resemble a previous experience he had when he was in his eighth incarnation (the Big Finish story Jubilee was re-written to become Dalek). In both these instances, time flows in a pattern similar to some spin-off fiction - but not exactly the same.

Just to really document all this properly, we should try to pinpoint exactly when The Keys of Marinus takes place in relationship to the development of the Marinusian Cybermen. If the Cybermen were more of a limited experiment that was abandoned, it could be that Keys takes place after Cybermen walked the surface of Marinus. I'm more inclined to believe, however, that a formidable Cyber-Army was constructed on the planet and even went out to conquer some corner of the Universe. So I think this Season One tale took place before Cybermen were invented on this world. Otherwise, we would have seen some hint of them somewhere during the TARDIS crew's quest for the keys. The fact that the people of Marinus are quite comfortable with the idea of having their minds controlled by a giant computer would lead us to believe that becoming Cybermen is something they may find appealing.

Finding any kind of specific date for when the Marinusian Cybermen existed is still an impossibility, at this point. The Keys of Marinus and the Doctor mentioning them in The Doctor Falls provide no proper points of reference on the matter.

Okay, that's sorted out. You're welcome, hardcores!



MISSY'S ARMY

Our next race of Cybermen isn't just a reference made in some throwaway dialogue, it has some actual screentime. But the reign of this particular breed is pretty short-lived.

Having just regenerated - the Master re-christens himself Missy, installs a new dematerialisation circuit and flees the Mondasian colony ship. Disappointed in herself for failing to re-direct the fate of those Mondasian Cybermen, Missy decides to create a Cyber-army of her own.

Secretly following the Doctor in his travels, she begins downloading the minds of the people who get killed in the cross-fire of his battles into a Matrix Data Slice (a sort of Gallifreyan hard drive). At the same time, she is creating one of the most efficient conversion processes a Cyber-race has ever developed. The whole thing seems to happen on an atomic level.  Atoms from existing Cybermen can be used to convert the atoms of deceased organic tissue into cybernetic beings.

Once she has harvested enough human souls, Missy releases the small armies she has built in various strategic global locations to spread their seed. She was able to set up these caches of Cybermen through a dummy corporation she created known as 3M. Although she has been travelling throughout time and space to harvest souls, the proper establishing of her army happens on Earth - sometime  around 2014.

This particular breed of Cybermen were also capable of flight. Which was a necessary skill to have for her plan to be properly executed. Her Cybermen would fly into Earth's atmosphere and willingly explode. Their atoms would then seek out nearby graveyards to infect the dead buried there and convert them into Cyber-bodies. Those minds she was storing in her data cloud would then be downloaded into the waiting metal exoskeletons.

Ultimately, the process would renew itself over and over. Cybermen could, now, invade the Earth, kill its population and convert their corpses into an even bigger army. This particular breed, even in its most early stages, seemed quite unbeatable.

Had it not been for Missy's insane decision to hand this army over to the Doctor, the Earth would have been surely doomed. With the help of Danny Pink, the Doctor is able to dismantle this particular branch of Cybermen before they can do too much damage.

Missy's Army, for all its deadliness and raw power, dies before it can even fully flourish.



THE LEGACY OF JOHN LUMIC

At last, we reach the lesser race with the most screentime. Six whole episodes, in fact.

In a parallel universe where Britain seems a bit more Right Wing, a wheelchair-bound genius is  attempting to perpetuate himself into a race of cyborgs (sound familiar?!). John Lumic heads up the Cybus Corporation - one of the most powerful companies in the world. Lumic, however, is dying. He develops a way of artificially extending his life by using his wealth and resources to build a special exoskeleton that can house a human consciousness. He has also installed a special emotion inhibitor so that the mind housed inside the metallic body can function more efficiently. The first Cyberman is born.

The Tenth Doctor, Micky and Rose accidentally drop into this reality just as Lumic's plans in London are reaching fruition.  With the help of Pete Tyler and a group of rebels who call themselves' The Preachers, they stop the army Lumic was attempting to build out of the population of Britain's capitol. Lumic, himself, is converted into a Cyber-Controller before facing his demise.

It is made abundantly clear, however, that there are other armies hidden away in the various major cities of the world. As the Doctor and Rose return back to their own universe, Micky chooses to stay behind and help with the disbanding of the other Cyber-armies. These are, in a nutshell, the events that transpire during Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel.

At the end of Age of Steel, the situation seems under control. But, as we would later learn, destroying the rest of the Cyber-armies was more complicated than anticipated. An ethics debate ensued among the humans in this reality. The Cybermen were a proper lifeform onto themselves - did they have the right to kill them?

Secured in their factories - the Cybus Cybermen looked for a means of escape. Eventually, they discovered the Daleks' Void Ship. They used it as a means to pull themselves' into our reality and invade us. Army of Ghosts/Doomsday happens at this point.

For the first and only time, we get to see a battle erupt between Daleks and Cybermen. The Daleks seem to be the clear victors. However, in defense of the Cybermen, the Cybus version is pretty primitive. More advanced Cybermen from our universe would have put up a better fight.

Dating these four episodes can be a tricky task. They are contemporary to when they were transmitted - but only so much. Firstly, we have the complication that a year has passed between Rose and Aliens of London. So, although Army of Ghosts/Doomsday was shown in 2006, it's more likely to be taking place in 2007. On top of that, Pete Tyler reveals in Doomsday that the events of Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel occurred - roughly - three years previously. So it's most likely that those two episodes happened sometime around 2004. Unless time in the parallel reality runs at a different speed from ours.

The Cybus Cybermen do manage another breach into our reality. At the end of Doomsday, they are sucked back into the Void along with the Daleks. The fight they began at Canary Wharf continues within the Void. During that battle, the Cybermen are able to steal some Dalek technology that brings them back onto our plain of existence. However, it also sends them into the past. Their entry point is London in 1851. Even with these primitive conditions, however, they are still able to build a Cybermen Dreadnought and another attempt is made to invade our version of Earth. These are, of course, the events of The Next Doctor.  With the help of Jackson Lake and Rosita, the Doctor is able to thwart their plans.

It may be possible that other Cybus Cybermen have found breaches into our reality. It does look like Lumic's Cybermen make one more appearance in The Pandorica Opens. How this version got through - we can't say, for sure. But, after that appearance, there is a conspicuous absence of Cybus logos on the chest plates of this type of Cybermen. Which indicates to me that, any other time we see this model, they're local. I'll explain how Cybermen from our reality can still look like Cybus Cybermen in my next installment...






That's all for Part One. The Lesser Races have been covered. As we move on to Part Two, we'll be looking at the breed that populate most of the Cybermen stories. We'll be examining their early days...