CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES: HISTORY OF THE CYBERMEN - PART 3

With the Genesis of the Cybermen established, we can start moving on to their expansion campaign and the huge difference Earth has made in stopping them from taking over the cosmos.....



CHAPTER THREE: FIRST ENCOUNTERS WITH EARTH


DEEP SPACE EXPLORATION

Mondas and the Main Cyberfleet are now working together in perfect conjunction. They begin moving out and invading the many planets around them. Worlds with humans on them face mass conversion before they are stripped and then absorbed by Mondas. Other planets with lifeforms that aren't suitable for conversion are simply conquered, devastated and drained by the Cyber Homeworld. As mentioned in the last entry, there are also subsidiary fleets attacking minor colonies.

With their cold logic, the Cybermen are not even concerned about the names of the planets they are taking over. They are simply numbered. The major planets are, at least. Those smaller settlements the subsidiary fleets are taking care of receive a different designation. But the larger civilizations that suffer from the hands of the Main Fleet and then Mondas are referred to numerically. So the first planet they conquered gets called Planet 1. The next one they invade: Planet 2. And so on...

We also mentioned in the last entry that long range scout ships are going out into deep space to discover new worlds to invade. One of these ships was manned by a team of Cybus Style Cybermen. They travel far out into the galaxy to find distant potentials. Unfortunately for them, they travel too far and then run into some technical problems with their ship. They lose contact with the fleets and Mondas and are forced to crash on a planet of humans that they were about to investigate. The planet they land on is Earth. The ship embeds itself in the Earth's crust. The Cybermen probably emerged briefly to find the planet was at too primitive of a stage to provide them with a decent energy source. So they shut down for a few centuries as they wait for the civilization of humans to evolve and be more useful. The ship is set on automatic to detect when a form of energy has finally developed for them to exploit.



SIDENOTE: While I have already documented this in Part 1, I will include Cybus Cybermen incursions into our reality just to help us with understanding their timescale. So, some time after the scout ship has crashed and gone into sleep mode, a small band of Cybus Cybermen emerge into our reality. This takes place around 1851. The buried Cyber scoutship fails to detect them. The scanning system is quite weak from the damage it received from the crash. A strong energy source has to be practically on top of them before they can pick it up.

Lumic's Cybermen attempt to build a Cyber Dreadnought but the whole campaign fails quite quickly. This is, technically, their second incursion into our reality but our first experience with them in Earth's timescale. We forget the experience we had with them, though. It's postulated that the Cracks in Time the TARDIS' destruction created somehow absorbed our memories of the event.




PLANET 14

While Earth gets its first few tastes of Cybermen, the Main Fleet and Mondas continue their campaign over in their end of the universe. More and more planets receive that numerical designation as they are gutted. The Cybermen face resistance from the populations of each world, of course. But nothing manages to stop them.

Until, at last, they reach Planet 14.

Somehow, the Doctor in his second incarnation stops them from conquering that world. We don't know how, exactly. But we do know that the Cybermen get visual records of him and label him as a major threat. His success in thwarting the Planet 14 campaign is well-documented. The Cybermen face failure for the first time and this means a lot to them. The Doctor, in this particular form, is never truly forgotten.

Fortunately for the Cybermen, another nearby world is not defended by this mysterious Doctor character. The Main Fleet and Mondas have just enough power to get to it. Planet 15 is extinguished and the Cyber Race moves on.

When, exactly, the events of Planet 14 happen in the Second Doctor's personal timeline is somewhat unclear. He never seems to show much knowledge of the experience during televised episodes. Nor does Jamie - who was travelling with the Second Doctor for almost his entire era. So I'm guessing Planet 14 happened for him during Season 6b. It may have even been a specific mission he undertook on the Time Lords' behalf. They would know the importance it represents to the Cybermen and, specifically, send the Doctor there to ensure events happened the way they were meant to.




PRIMARY CAMPAIGNS TO CONQUER EARTH

Over the next few years, the campaigns of the Main Fleet and Mondas continue. More planets get those dreaded numbers assigned to them. The Cyber Race grows. Strategies are becoming more and more complicated though and Cyber Planners are developed to help handle this. They are used by the Space-Faring Cybermen, only.

Another long-range scout ship makes its way to Earth and quickly sends messages back to Main Fleet to inform them of their discovery. Earth is, easily, one of the most abundant worlds they have ever found. Both in terms of human population and overall resources.

The Cybermen back on Mondas research the Earth a bit. Other races who have made the journey between Earth and Mondas have noticed the similarities between the two worlds. Theories are postulated that they might be sister planets of some sort. The Cybermen, being so literal-minded, fail to understand that these are just theories or legends and accept this as truth.

Earth, with its dense population and primitive-but-strong defenses, looks like it might be a difficult planet to invade. The Cybermen that arrive in this latest scout ship construct a Cyber Planner to assist them with the problem. Mondas and the Main Fleet begin their long journey to join them.

The Cyber Planner directs its minions to form an alliance with a suitably greedy human. They select Tobias Vaughn for their campaign. Over the next five years, Vaughn conquers the Earth economically so that he can make way for the ensuing invasion force.

The events of The Invasion take place. Assigning a definite date to this adventure becomes quite tricky. It takes place sometime during the 60s or 70s. We can't say for sure. Someday, I might dare to tackle UNIT dating protocol. But I don't have enough courage to do that right now!

Whatever date it is, the events of Planet 14 are still fairly recent (perhaps only a few decades previously). Memory of the Second Doctor's image is still fairly fresh and the Cyber Planner recognizes him immediately.

At the end of The Invasion, the Main Fleet is wiped out. This represents a huge problem for Mondas. The fleet was meant to make Earth weak enough for them to absorb at safe levels. But the campaign failed. Mondas is too far into Deep Space to try to turn back. There are no other suitable planets for them to conquer in the part of the universe they are travelling through. They have to continue to Earth.

Unbeknownst to the Mondasian Cybermen, Neomorphic Cybermen with time travel capabilities make an attempt from their future to save them. They go back to 1985 and use the sewers of London, once more, as a small base of operations. They also have a ship hiding from Earth detection on the dark side of the moon. Their attempt to crash Halley's Comet into the Earth would've weakened the planet suitably so that, when Mondas does arrive, it could have harmlessly soaked up what energy remained. The plan, however, was thwarted by the Sixth Doctor and Lytton. We'll learn more about these matters when we reach the appropriate point in the Cybermen timescale. 

Mondas arrives at Earth in 1986 with a simple enough plan in mind. Earth has developed the Z-bomb: a weapon of mass-destruction. Mondas plans to explode the Z-bombs on the Earth's surface once they have soaked up an appropriate amount of energy. The events of The Tenth Planet ensue.

This campaign also fails. This time, at the hands of the about-to-regenerate First Doctor. The Cybermen fail to recognize him in this form, of course. Nor does any visual record of him in this incarnation survive beyond the destruction of Mondas. At this point, the Doctor is still only known to the Cybermen in his second body. 



SOME MINOR EARTH ADVENTURES

The Cyber-Race has received a crippling blow. Both its Main Fleet and Home Planet have been destroyed in the course of a few short years. Subsidiary Fleets are still active in the neck of the cosmos that Mondas amd the Main Fleet came from. They are attempting to grow in power and size but are only experiencing limited success.. Scout ships are also out in the furthest reaches of space looking for more worlds to invade.

The Cybermen must work on a smaller scale for a time.



Enough information gets sent back to these lesser forces to ascertain two important things:

1) Earth represents too great of a threat and must, logically, be invaded or destroyed. Which course of action they choose will depend on the strength of the attacking fleet.

2) This mysterious Doctor who thwarted the conquest of Planet 14 was, at least, partially responsible for the failure of the Primary Earth Campaigns. He must be remembered and defeated.



While the subsidiary fleets and scout ships go about their business, there is still some activity that takes place on Earth that involves the Cybermen.

In November of 1988, a fleet piloted by Neomorphic Cybermen gathered in Earth's orbit. A small attack force descended to the surface and attempted to take control of a validium statue known as Nemesis. Their plans were thwarted by the Doctor and Lady Peinforte. Like the events of Attack of the Cybermen and the various Cybus Cybermen incursions, these things are happening in a bit of a timey whimey fashion. These are Neomorphs - so they have time travel capabilities. Like the Cybermen from Attack, they hail from the far future and have journeyed into the past. Like Attack of the Cybermen, we'll elaborate further on the events of Silver Nemesis when we reach the proper point in the Cybermen's timescale.

Speaking of Cybus Cybermen, a few decades after Silver Nemesis, they attempt their first incursion into our reality (although it is the second one by our own timescale). The events of Army of Ghosts/Doomsday probably take place sometime around 2007. 

In 2011, humans lay power lines close enough to the first Cyber scout ship that crashed on Earth a few centuries previously. The ship, at last, awakens. The Cybus Style Cybermen onboard  see just how much the humans on Earth have grown and advanced. They decide to be more tactical and stealthy. They even do some research before acting.

With their advanced technology, the deepest darkest places on the internet are no match for their prying eyes. While much has been kept secret from the public through cover stories and subterfuge, the Cybermen in the scout ship learn of the failures of the Main Fleet and Mondas. They even discover information about the battle at Canary Wharf. Most importantly, however, they dig up extensive files on the Doctor. Turns out Mickey never properly used the virus the Doctor gave him at the end of World War III so there was plenty the scout ship Cybermen could learn about the Time Lord. They were, in fact, the first ones to learn that the Doctor came in many forms. So when they did run into him during Closing Time, they were able to guess who he was.

Interestingly enough, these are the first Cybermen of our reality to attempt to build a Cyber Controller. We can't say, exactly, where the idea came from. Perhaps they actually downloaded some secret files from the Cybus Cybermen at Canary Wharf and saw that they, very briefly, used a Cyber Controller in their past.

Sometime around 2014, Missy attempts a mass conversion of humans with the army she's put together throughout the span of Series Eight. The adventure in Dark Water/Death In Heaven takes place. This, of course, is another tale involving a lesser race of Cybermen. It's entirely possible that the Mondasian Cybermen never even hear of this.

We should note, however, that there have now been too many experiences with Cybermen during the late 20th/early 21st Century to keep them concealed from public knowledge. A newscast heard in the background of one scene in Death In Heaven mentions knowledge of a previous attack from the Cybermen. Which one it was, exactly, we can't be sure. There are so many to choose from in this era!


SECONDARY CAMPAIGNS TO CONQUER EARTH

Things seem to settle down with Earth and the Cybermen for a bit.  But, after nearly a century of operating in their own end of the universe, the Cybermen return their attention to Earth.

A subsidiary fleet makes the journey to Earth in the Year 2070. They have recognized a tactical weakness in the way Earth controls its weather via a station on the moon. These Cybermen have calculated that they still lack the might to overcome Earth's opposition so they opt to just wipe out the population through weather catastrophes that they could generate from the moonbase. Earth cannot be allowed to prosper any further or they may, eventually, represent a legitimate threat to what remains of the Cyber Race.

The Moonbase takes place, here. Visual records of the Second Doctor still remain in the memory banks of the Cybermen. He is still designated as a dangerous enemy so the Cybermen recognize him. They may not mention Planet 14 in this instance because the passing of time may have corrupted files a bit. Or they just didn't see it necessary to bring up the subject.

Knowledge of the Cybermen attacks during the late 20th/early 21st Century have probably become very public by this point. The crew of Weather Control talk quite openly about the Cybermen. But they also mention how no one's heard from them in forever. So Missy's Army might be the last time we had any experience with them until the events of The Moonbase. It's my guess, however, that information regarding The Invasion, The Tenth Planet, Army of Ghosts/Doomsday and Dark Water/Death In Heaven are well-known by everyone. Some of the other stories that take place during that time might not have gotten any attention at all. Attack of the Cybermen, Silver Nemesis and Closing Time all happened on a pretty covert scale.

A few of the Cybermen's saucers do appear to get repelled and, quite possibly, destroyed at the end of The Moonbase. Was this all that existed of this particular fleet? We can't say for sure...

A second subsidiary fleet, eventually, makes an attempt on Earth in the story The Wheel In Space. Dating Wheel is a tricky matter. No clear date is given in the actual transmitted story. Because we see Zoe joining the TARDIS crew at the end of Wheel, mention is made of her background in other stories she stars in. This can help us determine when Wheel happened.

The best we get is that Zoe is from the 21st Century. The Mind Robber seems to insinuate she's from the early 21st Century but I'm more inclined to think she's into vintage telepress comics and hails from a much later era. I'd like to think she's from the tail end of the 21st Century. Maybe even as late as the 2090s. If I could, I'd like to put her at an even later date but she does admit during her interrogation in The War Games that she's from the 21st Century so we have to commit to that.

It would appear, though, that attacks from the Cybermen and, probably, other aggressive alien species have prompted the humans of late 21st Century Earth to set up a long-range defense system with their "space wheel" stations. The Cybermen actually see the program as another tactical weakness. If they can take over just one space wheel - that can clear the way for an attack armada.

In a very contrived manner, they attempt to infiltrate space station W3. Once more, their old enemy is there to stop them. The Second Doctor doesn't seem to get recognized until the Cyber Planner sees an image of him - but they still remember.

Space Station W3 definitely does some real damage to the Cyber fleet. Most likely, the Cybermen are facing other defeats in other invasion attempts, too. Their forces are dwindling. They're running low on resources and energy. They must rest.

They will find a place to slumber on the planet Telos.




.... And we'll stop Chapter Three here. In our next installment we'll look at the intergalactic wars that finally erupt between Earth and the Cyber Race. And, of course, we'll be looking at Telos.    


Part 1 of Cyber History: 
https://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2018/02/chronologies-and-timelines-history-of.html

Part 2 of Cyber History: 
https://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2018/02/chronologies-and-timelines-history-of_9.html