P The Cybermen are a race of who are amongst the most persistent enemies of in the series, . Cybermen were originally a wholly species of humanoids originating on Earth's twin planet
that began to implant more and more artificial parts into their bodies
as a means of self-preservation. This led to the race becoming coldly
logical and calculating, with emotions usually only shown when naked
aggression was called for.
They were created by Dr. (the unofficial scientific advisor to the programme) and in 1966, first appearing in the serial, , the last to feature as the . They have since been featured numerous times in their extreme attempts to survive through conquest.
A version of the Cybermen appeared in the ' two-part story, "" and "". These Cybermen also appeared in the two-part 2006 season finale, "" and "". This then carried through to the spin-off in the episode "". They would later return to the revived series in the 2008 Christmas Special "", introducing two new variants of the race; the Cyber-Shades and the Cyber-King.
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[] Physical characteristics
An original Cyberman from The Tenth Planet
While the Doctor's other old enemies the
were on the whole unchanged during the original series' twenty-six
season run, the Cybermen were seen to change with almost every
encounter. The Cybermen are , but have been
augmented to the point where they have few remaining organic parts. In
their first appearance in the series, the only portions of their bodies
that still seemed human were their hands, but by their next appearance
in
(1967), their bodies were entirely covered up in their metallic suits,
with their hands replaced by two finger claws, but changed back to
regular five-fingered hands in
(1968). As they are relatively few in number, the Cybermen tend towards
covert activity, scheming from hiding and using human pawns or
to act in their place until they need to appear. They also seek to
increase their numbers by converting others into Cybermen (a process
known as "cyber-conversion").
It is presumed (and often implied) that there are still organic
components beneath their suits, meaning they are actually cyborgs, not
robots: in The Tenth Planet, a Cyberman tells a group of humans that "our brains are just like yours", although by the time of ,
their brains seem to have been replaced with electronics. Also in this
same story, two human slave-prisoners of the Cybermen on the planet
Telos, named Bates and Stratton, reveal that their organic arms and
legs have been removed by the Cybermen, and replaced by
Cyber-substitutes. In
(1982), the actors' chins were vaguely visible through a clear perspex
area on the helmet to suggest some kind of organic matter. In (1967), veins and brains were visible through the domed head of the Cyberman Controller and similarly, in (1985) and ""
(2006), the Cyber-Controller's brain is visible through the dome. The
first is a Mondas Cyber Controller, while the second involves
alternative Earth's John Lumic. However, in (1975), the Doctor says they are "total machine creatures".
The audio play
implies that the converted victim's face remains beneath the Cyberman
faceplate, although the audio plays, like all non-televised spin-off
media, are of uncertain with regards to the television series. The novel by
states that some Cybermen experience rare flashes of emotional memory
from the time before they were converted, which are then usually
suppressed. The parallel Earth Cybermen in the 2006 series are usually
constructed from human brains bonded to a Cyberman exoskeletal shell
with an artificially grown nervous system threaded throughout ("The Age
of Steel"), although direct grafting of cyber-components is another
method of conversion ("").
Although the Cybermen often claim that they have done away with
human emotion, they have exhibited emotions ranging from anger to smug
satisfaction in their confrontations with the Doctor (although this is
only clearly present during their appearances in the 1980s). Some
Cybermen in the early stories were even given individual names such as
"Krang". Some parallel Earth Cybermen did retain some memories of their
pre-conversion lives, although their emotional response varied. In
"Cyberwoman", the partial conversion led to a degree of insanity in , which was retained even after she transferred her brain into a cyberman body. In "",
Yvonne Hartman is able to retain at least some elements of her
personality in order to prevent the advance of a group of other
Cybermen, and is last seen weeping what appears to be either an
oil-like substance or blood. In the same episode, the Cyber-Leader
expresses clear frustration at the humans' refusing to surrender,
although in a later scene he criticizes the Doctor for showing emotion.
In "",
the Doctor is able to defeat the Cybermen by shutting down their
emotional inhibitors, enabling them to "see" what had become of them.
Their realization of what they had become led them to either simply
shut down out of sheer horror, or partially explode. Lastly, when the
first Cyber Leader is killed, his head explodes with some white liquid
leaking down his body; there are references in that episode to a
patented Cybus Industries mixture of chemicals used to preserve the
brain.
The novel by suggests that some Cybermen imitate emotions to intimidate and unnerve their victims. The Big Finish Productions audio play
(set on Mondas in the early days of cyber-conversion) suggests that the
Cybermen deliberately remove their emotions as part of the conversion
process to stifle the physical and emotional trauma of becoming a
Cyberman. The conversion process in the parallel Earth is termed
"upgrading".
This motive behind the removal of emotions is made more explicit in
"The Age of Steel" where it is done by means of an emotional inhibitor.
In that episode, the deactivation of their emotional inhibitors drives
the converted Cybermen insane when they realise what they have become,
killing them. This motive may also be applicable to Mondas Cybermen,
given their forcible conversion of other lifeforms to Cybermen to
maintain their numbers, despite the fact the Mondasians appear to have
originally willingly converted themselves as a survival mechanism.[]
Cybermen have a number of weaknesses over the years. The most notable weakness is the element .
Their aversion to gold was not mentioned until their attempt to destroy
the planetoid Voga (the so-called "Planet of Gold") in (1975). Initially, it was explained that, due to its non-corrodible nature, gold essentially their .
For example, the glittergun, a weapon used during the Cyber-Wars in the
future, fired gold dust at its targets. However, in later serials, gold
appeared to affect them rather like affects , with gold coins or gold-tipped
fired at them having the same effect. The revived series' Cybermen have
no such weakness, though the tie-in website for the episode makes
mention of it. Cybermen are also rather efficiently killed when shot with their own guns. Other weaknesses from early stories include , based technology, and excessive levels of . In "The Age of Steel" an
grenade is shown to disable a Cyberman and shut down its emotional
inhibitor. Their armour is often depicted as flexible and resistant to
bullets, but can be penetrated by gold arrows and projectiles made of
gold. The Parallel Earth Cybermen are bullet-proof and are very
resilient, but are not indestructible — they are vulnerable to heavy
explosives, electromagnetic pulses and specialised weaponry, as well as
weapons.
[] Costume details
The design of the Cybermen acted almost as a guide to prevailing
at the time of transmission. Nearly all were silver in colour and
included items and material such as cloth, rubber diving suits, , chest units, tubing, practice balls, ' gloves, and silver-painted boots. A BBC Cyberman costume from the black & white era of TV has recently been discovered.
The 1980s design used converted flight suits painted silver. Unlike
the Doctor's other foes, the Cybermen have changed substantially in
appearance over the years, looking more and more modern, although
retaining certain commonalities of design, the most iconic being the
"handle bars" attached to Cybermen heads, that were supposed to aid
with their hearing, their round eyeholes and their chest units.
Completely black-coloured Cybermen were seen briefly in "".
A Cyberman head from the 1975 serial Revenge of the Cybermen, seen here in a display case in "" (2005).
Aside from these changes, variations in design between rank-and-file Cybermen and their leaders have been seen. In and (both 1968), the Cyber Director was depicted as an immobile mechanism. In The Tomb of the Cybermen and Attack of the Cybermen, the Cyber Controller was a larger Cyberman with a high domed head instead of the "handle bar" helmet design. In Revenge of the Cybermen, the Cyber Leader had a completely black helmet except for his face. From
(1982) onwards he could be distinguished from his troops by the black
handle bars on his helmet. The Cyber-Leader in "Army of Ghosts" also
had black handles.
Because the Doctor is a time traveller, he meets the Cybermen at
various points in their history out of sequence from the order the
serials were made. This can be confusing since Cybermen from serials
set in "earlier" periods of history can sometimes look more
sophisticated than those from "later" periods. suggests in his reference work About Time 5 that the anachronistically designed Cybermen of Earthshock and Silver Nemesis are time travellers, like those in Attack of the Cybermen.
A Cyberman head was seen in the 2005 episode, "",
kept in a display case. The text on the info card states that the head
was found in a sewer, suggesting that the head was from . However, the enlarged Cyber-Handles suggest that the head is from . The info card states the head was found in 1975, the year in which was set and the year in which Revenge of the Cybermen was broadcast.
The Cybermen returned in episodes 5 and 6 of the 2006 season of the
new series, in a two-part story set on an alternate Earth. The new
Cybermen were designed by production designer 's team and
at Millennium FX. The new Cyberman design is physically imposing, being
about 6 feet 7 inches (2.0 m) tall. The general design is made to
resemble modern consumer electronics, such as the .
To this extent, they are made from burnished steel instead of silver,
feature the Cybus Corporation symbol on its chest, and have a general
design. The other distinct Cyberman design is that of the
Cyber-Controller, which had glowing eyes, a transparent forehead
revealing the brain, and sockets on its chest-plate providing
connectors to other systems.
The episode ""
features a partially cyber-converted woman who lacks the outer plating
of a fully converted Cyberman. Her body is encased in metal structures
but much of her flesh, including her face, is visible. She also has
clearly visible metallic breasts, though it is not clear how much of
her own flesh has been replaced and how much is merely covered. Another
character speculates she could be 40-45% human, and 55-60% Cyberman.
[] Voice
Early Cybermen had an unsettling, sing-song voice, constructed by
placing the inflections of words on the wrong syllables. In their first
appearance, the effect of this was augmented by the special effect of
having a Cyberman abruptly open his mouth wide and keep it open,
without moving his tongue or lips, while the separately recorded voice
would be playing, and then shut it quickly when the line was finished.
Although the cloth-like masks of the first Cybermen were soon replaced
by a full helmet, a similar physical effect involving the mouth "hatch"
opening and then shutting when the line was finished was used until (1968).
Later, the production team used from its by adding first a , then a ,
to modify speech to make it sound more alien and computer-like. In
later stories of the original series and in the audio plays, two copies
of the voice track were sampled and pitch-shifted downwards by
differing amounts and layered to produce the effect, sometimes with the
addition of a small amount of . From Revenge of the Cybermen to (1988) the actors provided the voices themselves, using microphones and transmitters in the chest units.
The voices for the 2006 return of the Cybermen are similar to the buzzing electronic monotone voices of the Cybermen used in The Invasion. They were provided by (who performed the voices for the Cybermen in Big Finish audio stories as well as the
in both the new series and the audio stories). As shown in the season 2
DVD special feature "Confidential Cut Downs," the timbre was created by
processing Brigg's voice through a Moog ring modulator. Unusually, in "The Age of Steel", the Cyber-Controller (John Lumic, played by ) retains his voice after being upgraded, but it is still electronic. In "Doomsday", a Cyberman which contains the brain of director Yvonne Hartman retains a female-sounding though still electronic voice, as does the partially converted
in "Cyberwoman" when her Cyberman personality is dominant. The reason
for this is that their minds are taking control of the suit into which
their brain has been placed, thus allowing the Cyber-suit's design to
be exploited through sheer mental power. In an effect reminiscent of
the earliest Cybermen's mouths snapping open while speaking, the new
Cybermen have a blue light in their "mouths" which blinks in
synchronisation with their speech.
[] Cybermen variants
Some Cybermen are given titles, being credited as "Cyber Leader" (or
variants thereof), "Cyber Lieutenant", "Cyber Scout" or the "Cyber
Controller". The Cyber Controller in particular has appeared in
multiple forms, both humanoid and as an immobile computer, and has also
been referred to as the "Cyber Planner" or "Cyber Director". The
Controller seen (and destroyed) in various serials also may or may not
be the same consciousness in different bodies; it appears to recognize
and remember the Doctor from previous encounters. In Iceberg, the first Cyber Controller is created by implanting a Cyber Director into the skull of a recently converted Cyberman.
The Cyber-Controller in "The Age of Steel" used the brain of ,
the creator of the Cybermen in that parallel reality. In "Doomsday", a
Cyber-Leader appears, and when he is destroyed, mention is made of
downloading his data files into another Cyberman unit, which is then
upgraded to Cyber-Leader.
The 2008 Christmas special, "", featured a new variant called a Cybershade.,
The Doctor theorises that it is a more primitive version of a Cyberman,
using the brain of a cat or a dog. In the same story a "Cyber-King"
appears; according to the Doctor, it is a "-class"
ship resembling a Cyberman hundreds of feet tall, and contains a
Cyber-factory in its chest. It is controlled from within its mouth. Its
right arm can be converted into a cannon, and its left into a laser.
[] Technology
Cybermen technology is almost completely oriented towards weaponry, apart from their own bodies. When originally seen in The Tenth Planet they had large energy weapons that attached to their chests. In The Moonbase,
the Cybermen had two types of weaponry: an electrical discharge from
their hands, which stunned the target, and a type of gun. They also
made use of a large laser cannon with which they attempted to attack
the base itself.
The hand discharge was also present in The Tomb of the Cybermen, which featured a smaller, hand-held cyber-weapon shaped like a that was described as an . In The Wheel in Space the Cybermen could use the discharge to also operate machinery, and had built into their chest units. They displayed the same units in The Invasion as well as carrying large rifles for medium distance combat. In Revenge of the Cybermen and Real Time their weapons were built into their helmets. Killing Ground
indicates that this type of Cybermen also have more powerful hand
weapons. Subsequent appearances have shown them armed almost
exclusively with hand-held cyberguns.
The Cybermen have access to known as cobalt bombs, which are also sometimes known as Cyber-bombs, which were banned by the galactic (Revenge of the Cybermen). A "Cyber-megatron bomb" was mentioned in The Invasion, supposedly powerful enough to destroy all life on Earth. In Earthshock, the Cybermen also used androids as part of their plans to invade Earth.
The parallel Earth Cybermen
their victims by touching them and at first carried no other weaponry.
In "Army of Ghosts" and "Doomsday", the Cybermen are equipped with
retractable energy weapons housed within their forearms (these were
actually first shown in "",
but only very briefly and were not used during that episode), but also
use modified human weapons to battle the Daleks. The arm mounted guns
prove effective against humans but are unable to penetrate Dalek
shields. Two Cybermen sent to parley with Dalek Thay at the Battle of
Canary Wharf shot the Dalek but were promptly exterminated. In the episode "" the partially converted
used her electrical touch against the Torchwood team, as well as an
energy beam fired from her arm which could only stun the part of the
body at which it was aimed.
[] Cybermats
The Cybermen also use smaller, cybernetic creatures called "cybermats" as weapons of attack. In their first appearance in The Tomb of the Cybermen, they resembled oversized metallic
and had segmented bodies with hair-like tactile sensor probes along the
base of their heads, which were topped with crystalline eyes. The
described them as a "form of metallic life," implying that they may be
semi-organic like the Cybermen, and that they attacked by feeding off
brain waves.
The second model of cybermat seen in The Wheel in Space was
used for sabotage, able to tune in on human brainwaves. They were
carried to the "Wheel" in small but high-density sacs that sank through
the hull of the space station, causing drops in air pressure. These
cybermats had solid
for eyes instead of crystals. The Second Doctor used an audio frequency
to jam them, causing them to spin, crash and disintegrate.
The third model, seen in Revenge of the Cybermen, was a much
larger, snake-like cybermat that could be remotely controlled and could
inject poison into its victims. It had no visible eyes or other
features, and was as vulnerable to gold dust as the Cybermen were.
In Spare Parts, "mats" are cybernetically augmented
creatures, sometimes kept as pets. Cybermats of a different design are
used for surveillance by Mondas' Central Committee. The creatures
occasionally go wild, chewing on power sources, and must be rounded up
by a "mat-catcher." In the novel by and ,
set in the 1940s, the Cybermen create cybermats by cyber-converting
local animals like cats or birds, possibly because of lack of
technological resources.
In the audio adventure ,
a Cyberman reveals that the organs of children who are too small to be
fully cyber-converted are used in the creation of cybermats.
[] History
[] Conceptual history
The name "Cyberman" comes from , a term coined in 's book Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine
(MIT Press, 1948). Wiener used the term in reference to the control of
complex systems in the animal world and in mechanical networks, in
particular self-regulating control systems. By 1960, doctors were
performing research into surgically or mechanically augmenting humans
or animals to operate machinery in space, leading to the coining of the
term "cyborg", for "cybernetic organism".
In the 1960s, "spare-part" surgery was starting out, with the first,
gigantic heart-lung machines being developed. There were also serious
suggestions of wiring the nerve endings of amputees directly into
machines for quicker response.
In 1963, Kit Pedler had a conversation with his wife (who was also a
doctor) about what would happen if a person had so many prostheses that
they could no longer distinguish themselves between man and machine. He
got the opportunity to develop this idea when, in 1966, after an
appearance on the BBC science programmes and , the BBC hired him to help on the Doctor Who serial . That eventually led to him writing, with Gerry Davis's help, The Tenth Planet for Doctor Who.
Pedler, influenced by the logic-driven from the
comic strip, originally envisaged the Cybermen as "space monks", but
was persuaded by Davis to concentrate on his fears about the direction
of spare-part surgery. The original Cybermen were imagined as human,
but with plastic and metal prostheses. The Cybermen of The Tenth Planet
still have human hands, and their facial structures are visible beneath
the masks they wear. However, over time, they evolved into metallic,
more robot-like designs.
The Cybermen attracted controversy when parents complained after a scene in The Tomb of the Cybermen
in which a dying Cyberman spurted white foam from its innards. Another
incident was initiated by Pedler himself, who took a man in a Cyberman
costume into a busy shopping area of .
The reaction of the public was predictable, and the crowd almost
blocked the street and the police were called in. Pedler said that he
"wanted to know how people would react to something quite unusual," but
also admitted that he "wanted to be a nuisance." Pedler wrote his last Cyberman story, The Invasion, in 1968, and left Doctor Who with Gerry Davis to develop the scientific thriller series .
[] History within the show
[] Origins
Millennia ago, during prehistoric times, Mondas was knocked out of
solar orbit and drifted into deep space. The Mondasians, already far in
advance of Earth's technology and fearful for their race's survival,
sent out spacecraft to colonise other worlds, including , where they pushed the native Cryons aside and used the planet to house vast tombs where they could take refuge in when necessary.
On Mondas, the Mondasians were dying out, and therefore, in order to
survive and continue the race, they replaced most of their bodies with
Cybernetic parts. Having eventually removed all emotion from their
brains, to maintain their sanity, the natives installed a drive
propulsion system so they could pilot the planet itself through space.
As the original race was limited in numbers and were continually being
depleted, the Mondasians — now Cybermen — became a race of conquerors
who reproduced by taking other organic beings and forcibly changing
them into Cybermen. The origins of the Cybermen were further elaborated
upon in Spare Parts.
The move to "cybernise" Mondasians must have commenced on Mondas
before they conquered Telos. Otherwise, there must have been some
ongoing contact between Mondas and Telos after it was conquered, or the
move to develop into Cybermen must have been paralleled after that
point.
[] The Earth invasions
The Cybermen's first attempt at invading Earth, around 1970, was chronicled in The Invasion.
A group of Cybermen from "Planet 14" had allied themselves with
industrialist Tobias Vaughn, who installed mind control circuits in
electrical appliances manufactured by his International Electromatics
company, paving the way for a ground invasion. This was uncovered by
the newly formed , led by , who repelled the invasion with the help of the , and .
In The Tenth Planet, the and his companions and , met an advance force of Cybermen that landed near an space tracking station in the year 1986. This advance force was to prepare for the return of Mondas to the .
As Mondas approached, it began to drain Earth's energy for the
Cybermen's use, but in the process absorbed too much energy and
disintegrated. The Cybermen on Earth also fell apart as their homeworld
was destroyed.
In 1988 a fleet of Cyber warships was assembled to convert Earth
into a New Mondas. A scouting party was sent to Earth in search of the
legendary Nemesis statue, a artifact of immense power, made of the "living metal" validium. Due to the machinations of the and his companion , however, the Nemesis destroyed the entire Cyber-fleet instead. (Silver Nemesis).
In 2012, the inert head of a Cyberman was part of the Vault, a collection of alien artefacts belonging to American billionaire ("", 2005). According to its label, it was recovered from the sewers in 1975 and presumably came from the 1970 invasion attempt, although it is of a design only seen in Revenge of the Cybermen, which took place in the late 29th century (in a sense, the label is accurate, as Revenge was broadcast in 1975).
By the mid-21st century, mankind had reached beyond its planet and set up
in deep space. One of these, Space Station W3, known as "The Wheel,"
was the site of a takeover by Cybermen who wanted to use it as a
staging point for yet another invasion of Earth. The , and prevented this in The Wheel in Space.
The Cybermen returned in The Moonbase. By the year 2070, Earth's weather was being controlled by the Gravitron installation on the .
The Cybermen planned to use the Gravitron to disrupt the planet's
weather patterns and destroy all life on it, eliminating a threat to
their survival. This attempt was also stopped by the Second Doctor, , , and the surviving crew of the moonbase.
[] The Cyber-Wars
Five centuries after the destruction of Mondas, the Cybermen had all
but passed into legend when an archaeological expedition to the planet
Telos uncovered their resting place in The Tomb of the Cybermen.
However, those Cybermen were not dead but merely in hibernation, and
were briefly revived before the Second Doctor returned them to their
eternal sleep, with help from some of the archaeologists, Jamie and
Victoria.
This was short-lived, however. By the beginning of the 26th century,
the Cybermen were back in force, and the galactic situation was grave
enough that Earth hosted a conference in 2526 that would unite the
forces of several planets in a war against the Cybermen. A force of
Cybermen tried to disrupt this conference, first by trying to
infiltrate Earth in a freighter and when that was discovered by the ,
to crash the freighter into Earth and cause an ecological disaster.
Although the attempt failed, the freighter was catapulted back in time
to become the (Earthshock). Unfortunately, the Doctor's Companion was trapped aboard the freighter, and died in the crash; leaving the , and to mourn him.
The Cybermen faced complete defeat now that humanity was united
against them in the Cyber-Wars. The glittergun had been developed as a
weapon against them, with ,
the legendary "Planet of Gold", being a major supplier of gold dust
ammunition. Meanwhile, the native Cryons on the planet Telos rose up
and sabotaged the Cybermens' hibernation tombs. Using a captured time
travel machine, a group of Cybermen travelled back to Earth in 1985 to
try to prevent the destruction of Mondas, but were stopped by the and his companion (Attack of the Cybermen). The Cryons also finally succeeded in taking back Telos.
The Cybermen did survive, but by the late 29th century they had been
reduced to small remnant groups wandering throughout space. The , and
encountered one such group during this time; and the Doctor very
sarcastically pointed out their diminished state, noting that they had
"no home planet, no influence, nothing!", and were "just a bunch of
pathetic tin soldiers, skulking about the galaxy in an ancient
spaceship." These Cybermen had discovered that Voga had drifted through
space and wandered into the , being pulled into orbit around
as a new moon. They planned to restore their race's power with a plan
of revenge against Voga by destroying it with Cyber-bombs. They hoped
that this would disrupt their enemies' supply of gold, but their plot
was stopped by the Doctor. This was their last chronological appearance
to date, with the Cybermen seemingly vanishing from history after this
point (Revenge of the Cybermen).
A Cyberman (of the type seen in The Invasion) also appeared in the exhibit in (1973). Three squads of Cybermen of the Earthshock variety, each led by a Cyber-Leader, appeared in (1983) in a slightly larger role.
[] Parallel Earth and the Battle of Canary Wharf
In the ""/"" two-part story, the , , and
crash down into a parallel London in a parallel universe, where the
Cybermen are being created on modern-day Earth. These alternate
Cybermen were created as an "upgrade" to humanity and the ultimate move
into cyberspace, allowing the brain to survive in an ageless steel
body. These Cybermen also referred to themselves as "Human Point 2
(Human.2)" and "deleted" all those deemed incompatible with the upgrade. They could electrocute humans with a touch.
These Cybermen were created by ,
a terminally ill and insane genius whose company, Cybus Industries, had
advanced humanity considerably. To find a way to survive, he perfected
a method to sustain the human brain indefinitely in a cradle of
chemicals, bonding the synaptic impulses to a metal exoskeleton. The
Cybermen "handle bars" were part of a high-tech communications device
called an EarPod. Also created by Lumic, the EarPods were used
extensively in the place of MP3 players and mobile phones, allowing
information to be directly downloaded into people's heads.
Lumic began to trick and abduct homeless people and convert them
into Cybermen, and assassinated the President of Great Britain after
the President rejected his plans. Using the EarPods, Lumic took mental
control of London, marching thousands to be cyber-converted. He was
betrayed by an old friend who damaged his wheelchair's life-support
systems. He had told the Cybermen that he would upgrade 'only with my
last breath' and since that moment was at hand he was involuntarily
upgraded into the Cyber-Controller, a superior model of Cyberman.
However, the Doctor and his companions, having accidentally landed on
the parallel Earth, managed to foil his plans. They freed London from
mental control and disabled the Cybermen's emotional inhibitors,
causing them to go insane and in some cases explode. Lumic himself fell
to his apparent death into the burning remains of his factory. A human
resistance group, the Preachers, then set about to clean up the
remainder of Lumic's factories around the world.
These Cybermen reappeared in the 2006 season finale "Army of Ghosts"
and "Doomsday". It is to be noted that these Cybermen also use energy
weapons built into their right arms. However, in "The Age of Steel"
after the conversion sequence, the newly created Cybermen can be seen
to have the retractable weapons in place after exiting the conversion
chambers. Having infiltrated that world's version of the and discovering a breach between universes caused by the passage of an interdimensional , the Cybermen used it to invade the Doctor's universe. However, the void ship's users, the ,
also revealed themselves, leading to all-out war across London with
mankind caught in the crossfire. Eventually, the Doctor re-opened the
breach, causing the Cybermen and Daleks (who had been saturated with
background radiation from the ) to be sucked back into it. The breach then sealed itself, leaving the Cybermen and Daleks (except the , who used their emergency temporal shift function to escape) seemingly trapped in the Void forever.
[] Torchwood Three Incident
Lisa the "Cyberwoman"
In "" it was revealed that at the height of the ""
the Cybermen had begun to directly convert whole bodies using regular
Earth technology, rather than transplant their brains into parallel
earth Cyberman shells. One of their victims, a woman called , was only partially converted when the power was shut off and she was rescued by her boyfriend, .
Jones took her to in
along with a cyber-conversion unit which he made into a life support
system for her under her directions. He tried to find a cure for her
condition, calling on cybernetics expert Dr Tanizaki. Unfortunately
Hallett's Cyberman personality asserted itself, leading to her killing
Tanizaki and trying to take over Torchwood Three as a staging area for
a new Cyberman army. She eventually transplanted her own brain into the
body of a pizza delivery girl whom she let into the base, and was shot
to death by the other members of the Torchwood team.
[] The CyberKing
A small handful of the Cybermen t
