B00DPX9ST8 EBOK (292 page)

[
673
]
Frontier in Space

[
674
]
Earthshock

[
675
]
Colony in Space, Earthshock
. The freighter in
Earthshock
starts off in Sector 16, in “deep space”.

[
676
]
Warriors’ Gate

[
677
]
Robot
,
The Janus Conjunction
. The Mars-Venus cruise is mentioned in
Frontier in Space
, although presumably such flights take place from the twenty-first century until the far future.

[
678
]
The Highest Science
(p48).

[
679
] “More than a century” before
Benny: Parallel Lives
.

[
680
]
Benny: The Judas Gift
. In fact, this century will see humanity in major conflicts with the Cyberman, the Draconians and the Daleks.

[
681
] Dating
Army of Death
(BF #155) - The humans on Draxine are “tenth generation” settlers, which has a ring to it of their originating from Earth in the third millennium.

[
682
] Dating
The Monsters Inside
(NSA #2) - Dennel tells Rose it is “2501”.
Boom Town
refers to this story.
The Colony of Lies
, however, contradicts this book by suggesting a start date for the Earth Empire of circa 2534.

[
683
] Dating “Throwback: The Soul of a Cyberman” (
DWW
#5-7) - No date is given. The story provides the impression of being set in the future of
The Tomb of the Cybermen
, as Telos is now serving as the Cybermen’s strategic and military command centre, complete with a sprawling Cyberman city that has a monorail and space-field. This is very difficult to reconcile, however, against the comparatively shoddy state of the Cybermen seen in both
The Tomb of the Cybermen
and
Attack of the Cybermen
, and the evidence in the
Cybermen
audio series that Telos is destroyed perhaps eight years after
Attack
(which gives the Cybermen precious little time to recover from the setback in that story and to create the relatively formidable settlement seen in “Throwback”). If we’re taking the design of the Cybermen into account, though, they most resemble the model seen in
The Invasion
or
Revenge of the Cybermen
(although with unique modifications, particularly their rank insignia), which again (via
Revenge
) fits a date around the twenty-sixth century.

[
684
] The project is formally named in
Cyberman
, but such an undertaking was first seen in
Sword of Orion
.

[
685
] Dating
Sword of Orion
(BF #17) - It’s during the Orion War as featured in the
Cyberman
audios (also written, in part, by Nicholas Briggs), and “a very long time” after the Cyber Wars. The Doctor says the Cybermen are “safely tucked away in their tombs on Telos” (
The Tomb of the Cybermen
); humans assume the Cybermen are extinct. The only date given here is that the original Jansen died on “three zero zero five zero seven”. However,
Neverland
gives a firm date of 2503.

[
686
] “At least ten years” before
Cyberman
Series 1.

[
687
] Dating
To the Slaughter
(EDA #72) - The dating of this story is inconsistent. It’s “almost four hundred years” since 1938, according to Halcyon (p17, so before 2338), but Trix thinks it’s “over five hundred years” since her time (p86, so after around 2503). The story is set before
Revenge of the Cybermen
, and explains why Jupiter only has twelve natural moons in that story. When
Revenge
was broadcast, astronomers thought Jupiter had twelve moons, but dozens more have been discovered in the years since, and Jupiter at present is known to have sixty-six (nineteen were discovered in 2003 alone; three more were discovered since the second edition of
Ahistory
saw print). Earth in this era has a President, the beginning of an Empire and there’s a mention of the Draconians, supporting (strangely, perhaps) Trix over Halcyon.

[
688
] Enough time prior to
Benny: Parallel Lives:
“The Serpent’s Tooth” that the Atwallans have lost their scientific know-how.

[
689
] “A hundred years” before
Benny: The Crystal of Cantus
, as implied by Jason Kane’s narration.

[
690
] “A century” prior to
Benny: Freedom of Information.
This seems to contradict
Shadowmind
(set in 2673), which occurs during the reign of the twenty-fourth Emperor - unless the numbering system was reset, for some reason.

[
691
] The timeframe is a little unclear, but it’s repeatedly said that Jake and Vienna Carstairs - children belonging to the family in charge of Chelsea 426 - relocate there from Earth “two years” before
The Taking of Chelsea 426
.

[
692
]
Benny: The Empire State

[
693
] Dating
The Taking of Chelsea 426
(NSA #34) - The Doctor says it is “the beginning of the twenty-sixth century” (p54), roughly “five hundred years” (p37) after the twenty-first century. The day is given (p8).

[
694
]
Benny: Another Girl, Another Planet

[
695
]
Benny: Tears of the Oracle

[
696
] Dating
Kingdom of Silver
(BF #112a) - The story occurs during the Orion War. Both the Orion androids and the Earth military have dispatched agents to scour the galaxy to salvage Cyber-technology - as is the case in
Sword of Orion
, perhaps suggesting that
Kingdom of Silver
happens about the same time. But in truth,
Kingdom of Silver
could occur at any pretty much point between here and
Cyberman
, set in 2515. The Tasak Cybermen here want to send out a reactivation signal to the thousands of dormant Cyber-tombs, somewhat contradicting
Cyberman
’s claim that the tomb on Telos was the “master vault” given the special status of sending out such a signal.

[
697
] Dating “Keepsake” (BF #112b) - The Orion War is still ongoing, and although the Orion androids still view Cyber-technology as a potential resource, there’s no mention of the Cybermen having overrun Earth or encroaching into Orion territory (as occurs in
Cyberman
). Writer James Swallow intended
Keepsake
as a prelude to
Cyberman 2
, which is set in 2515.

[
698
]
Cyberman 2: Machines

[
699
] The background detail to
Cyberman
Series 1.

[
700
]
Cyberman 2: Terror

[
701
]
Cyberman 2: Outsiders

[
702
]
Cyberman 2: Terror

[
703
] Dating
Cyberman
Series 1 and 2 (BF mini-series) - The evidence is abundant, but placement requires juggling
Cyberman
in relation to other stories.

Telos has been fragmented for as much as ten years, so it’s at least that long since
Attack of the Cybermen
. Likewise, events in
Sword of Orion
(set in 2503) lead into these audio series. Samantha isn’t surprised that Barnaby - one of the highest-ranking officers in Earth’s military - has never heard of the Cybermen (though a couple of minor characters in
Cyberman 2
have heard vague rumours about them), so it’s definitely before the Cyber War and Earth’s involvement in the alliance against the Cybermen in
Earthshock
(set in 2526). There’s no mention of the Draconians, so
Cyberman
almost certainly happens before the Draconian War occurs circa 2520.

Brett’s victory against the Android Eighth Fleet is said to make the public on Earth the happiest it’s been “in twenty years”. If this denotes the current duration of the Orion War (said to start in 2495, according to statements made in
Sword of Orion
and
Neverland
),
Cyberman
Series 1 by logical extension would occur around 2515. It’s repeatedly said that Series 2 opens “six months” after that, and the remainder of the story seems to take a few days, or at most a few weeks.

Presumably, the Cybermen’s retreat into space - and the survivors on Earth becoming all-too-horrifyingly aware of the Cybermen’s existence - is the event that seeds humanity’s future conflicts with the Cybermen, i.e. both the proposed alliance against the Cybermen in
Earthshock
and the Cyber War itself. In fact, the final installment of
Cyberman 2
entails the emergence of a “more advanced design of Cybermen” that’s been made from “harvested human materials”, which - although we can’t
see
the Cybermen in question for confirmation - is probably meant to denote the
Earthshock
-style models. (Even so, this doesn’t expressly rule out the sometimes-floated theory - not adopted by this chronology - that the Cybermen in
Earthshock
are time travellers.) Given the need to place
Attack of the Cybermen
before Telos’ destruction, it’s possible that the “more advanced” models in the mini-series are an improvement of the eminently killable versions first developed on Telos and seen in
Attack
.

Earth’s current political structure bears some similarities to that in
Frontier in Space
, set in 2540: there’s a global Senate, and in
Cyberman 2
:
Extinction
, Hunt is referred to as the “executive-in-chief of the Earth Empire”. A feature of
Cyberman
that isn’t mentioned in
Frontier in Space
is that the Earth president is based in the White House - either the current building in Washington, D.C., or one of the same name. It’s entirely possible that in the interim between
Cyberman
and
Frontier in Space
, the White House was discontinued as the chief executive’s residence - possibly to get a fresh start after Hunt’s disastrous tenure, or possibly to eliminate the stigma of President Levison having been assassinated there.

[
704
]
Real Time
, possibly denoting the Orion-Cyber conflict that breaks out at the end of
Cyberman 2
, and perhaps a prelude conflict to the greater Cyber War.

[
705
] Dating
Parasite
(NA #33) - The dating of this story is problematic. Mark Bannen is the son of Alex Bannen, who died in
Lucifer Rising
“more than two centuries” ago (p165), so the story is set after 2357. 1706 “was more than seven hundred years ago” (p140), so it is after 2406. Mark Bannen was a baby during the Mexico riots of 2146 and has been kept alive by the Artifact since the founding of the colony “three hundred sixty-seven” years ago (p73), so the story must be set after 2513. This last date is supported in that Earth now has “Empire” (p136-137).