B00DPX9ST8 EBOK (74 page)

Alternatively, it could be that the Doctor changes history in
The Daleks
- his first encounter with them might affect Dalek development. We know from
The Evil of the Daleks
and
Dalek
that the Daleks can be altered by contact with aliens, particularly time-travelling ones. Their first contact with the Doctor in
The Daleks
might have been the catalyst that set any Daleks that survived on course to conquer the universe and challenge the Time Lords’ supremacy. Again, though, there’s no evidence from the series that this is the case - and every Dalek on Skaro appears dead at the end of
The Daleks
.

Ironically, the
one
thing fans seem to agree on is that the Doctor is simply wrong in
The Dalek Invasion of Earth
when he said
The Daleks
was set “a million years” in the future. At the time, it was the television series’ own attempt (and in only the second Dalek story!) to explain the discrepancies in Dalek history, but virtually nobody credits the Doctor’s statement now.

So... reconciling the account given in
The Daleks
and
TV Century 21
with
Genesis of the Daleks
may not be as difficult as it appears, but merely needs a little
speculation
to smooth things over. The Thousand Years War ends in
Genesis of the Daleks
with the Kaleds wiped out and the first Daleks buried underground. These Daleks either leave Skaro to become galactic conquerors or they simply die out. For the purposes of this chronology, it’s been assumed the Doctor set the Daleks back a thousand years, so no Daleks leave Skaro at this time. Six hundred years later (according to
The Dalek Outer Space Book
), the Daleks evolved... meaning the blue-skinned humanoid Daleks (or “Dals”). We could speculate that the Dals are mutated Kaled survivors, or perhaps Dalek mutants who’ve escaped from the buried bunker.

A thousand years after
Genesis of the Daleks
, Yarvelling builds a “metal casing” that looks like Davros’ Mark III travel machine - even though it’s not exactly the same design (the mid section and colour scheme is different, matching the ones from
The Daleks
and
The Dalek Invasion of Earth
), it’s too similar to be a coincidence. Perhaps Yarvelling has based it on a design from history that he knows will scare the Thals, although it seems more likely he’s got access to ancient records of Davros’ work, or maybe he’s even managed to excavate an old Dalek casing from the Kaled bunker. The Dals also develop the Neutron bomb, which goes off (deliberately according to
The Daleks
, accidentally according to the
TV Century 21
strip) and all but wipes out life on Skaro. A mutated Dal - the creature predicted by Davros’ experiments, perhaps even a thousand-year-old survivor of those experiments - crawls into one of the casings, and becomes the sort of Dalek we’re familiar with.

Very quickly, these Daleks develop a thirst for galactic conquest, the early days of which are recounted in the
TV Century 21
strip. At some point, apparently soon after
The Dalek Invasion of Earth
, there’s a split - one group of Daleks completely abandons Skaro to become fearsome conquerors elsewhere in the universe, another group becomes confined to their city and dies off in
The Daleks
. Eventually spacefaring Daleks return to Skaro and reoccupy their planet, sharing it with the Thals, at least for a while (as seems to be the case in
Planet of the Daleks
- although, ominously, there are no Thals seen on Skaro in later TV stories).

Cybermen... Fashion Victims?

Does the variation in design between the Cybermen actually symbolise anything, and how helpful is it to the dating process? It’s a similar question to that of the Klingons in
Star Trek
- there’s a real-life reason (generally related to budgets and audience expectations) as to why they look different in the sixties and the eighties, but is there a reason
within
the fiction?

On television, it’s not even clear that the characters “see” any difference between different models of Cybermen. Ben instantly recognises the Cybermen in
The Moonbase
, even though they bear little resemblance to the ones he saw in
The Tenth Planet.
Notably, he doesn’t so much as comment that they’ve been redesigned - something that might be relevant to say, if one is evaluating the capabilities of the alien invaders that are besieging one’s moonbase. Ben is hardly alone in this, as many other characters fail to make the same observation (just to name a few, the Doctor, Polly, Jamie, Zoe, Brigadier and Sarah Jane all encounter different versions of the Cybermen). On screen at least, we never see an old model once a new one has been introduced (except for the flashback in
Earthshock
and the head in a museum in
Dalek
).

We never see two versions of the Cybermen together. Yet the development doesn’t appear to be linear in terms of fictional history - it’s strictly linear in terms of the order the Doctor meets them. Without wanting to get unduly philosophical, the television episodes we see are a
representation
of reality, not a window on it - unless there’s an unrevealled canonical reason as to why (for instance) the Silurians have zips down their backs in
Warriors of the Deep
. We’re seeing things as convincingly as the BBC can render them, so it’s entirely possible that - to the characters - the Cybermen from
The Tenth Planet
look identical to the ones in
The Moonbase
and
Earthshock
.

In the books, audios and comic strips, the distinction is made rather more often - for example, the Doctor notes that the Cybermen in “The Good Soldier” are the same design as the ones from
The Tenth Planet
.

If we take it as read that the characters
do
see different models of Cybermen, the significance could be functional. Perhaps the Cybermen from
The Tenth Planet
are adapted for Arctic conditions, the ones in
The Moonbase
and
The Wheel in Space
for low gravity operation and so forth. This seems unlikely, though - the Cybermen we see are almost always intent on roughly the same thing: marching into a human military installation and taking it by force.

It may well be that what we think of as one race is, in fact, many. Elsewhere in the
Doctor Who
universe, it seems to be a common stage of evolution for an organic race to remove “weaknesses” using cybernetic implants. Not every race does so - the Gallifreyans don’t, for example, and humans apparently only ever do so in a limited fashion (as seen in, say,
Warriors of the Deep
or
The Long Game
). But a fair number of the Doctor’s adversaries are cyborgs - the Daleks, the Sontarans and the Ice Warriors all are to at least some extent. Perhaps “Cyberman” is just the name of the end result when one of the human-like races that seem to exist on countless planets independently (or semi-independently) discards their organic form for a cybernetic one. Following the dictates of pure logic, technology and elegance, they all come up with roughly the same design for their cybernetic bodies. (And therefore there must be some overwhelming logical imperative for those handles on their helmets.) In the parallel universe of
Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel
, Lumic seems to create Cybermen practically identical to the ones from our universe (name, handles and all) - and the Doctor, Rose and the Daleks all identify them.

There’s no reason why these various Cyber Races couldn’t cooperate, or even see themselves as part of the same “ethnic” or “political” group - it seems logical enough, and the Cybermen of a parallel universe offer an alliance with the Daleks in
Doomsday
. It might explain the discrepancies in the accounts of their origins, sphere of influence and levels of technology - as well as their appearance - across the series.

So perhaps the design indicates a lineage - the Cybermen of
The Invasion
and
Revenge of the Cybermen
are of one lineage, the ones of
Earthshock
and
Silver Nemesis
another. Surprisingly, while not entirely unproblematic, this does work.

Here is a list of different models, as well as the years and planets they are from. In the case of books and audios, cover art was considered as evidence if the text didn’t specify. Note that, as elsewhere in the book, it’s been assumed that the Cybermen we see aren’t time travellers unless explicitly stated. The Cybermen of the far future clearly acquire time travel - it’s usually stated that they’ve stolen the technology, but it seems equally clear that the Cybermen of
The Moonbase
or
The Invasion,
say, aren’t time travellers.

Type I:
Spare Parts
(when created, Mondas),
The Silver Turk
(1873, Mondas), “Junkyard Demon” (“pioneers”, Mondas), “The Good Solider” (1954, Mondas),
The Tenth Planet
(1986, Mondas).

Note: It seems pretty clear that these are the early Cybermen, exclusively from Mondas.

Type II:
The Harvest
(2021),
The Moonbase
(21st century, ?),
The Wheel in Space
(21st century, ?),
The Tomb of the Cybermen
(21st century, Telos),
Iceberg
(21st century),
Benny: The Crystal of Cantus
(2606, the planet Cantus),
Illegal Alien
(time travellers from the 30th century).

Notes: Again, it’s easy to group these together as the model of Cybermen who survive Mondas’ destruction and attempt to attack twenty-first century Earth, then retire to their Tombs on Telos. The Cybermen in
The Wheel in Space
are from roughly the same time period, and a slight variation on this model.

Until the Cybermen relocate to Telos, it’s unclear where they are based after Mondas’ obliteration. David Banks speculates in his
Cybermen
book that they are based on a planet on the edge of the solar system, and links this to the Planet 14 mentioned in
The Invasion
.

The Cybermen from
Illegal Alien
come from the thirtieth century. The book only refers to the mask as having “teardrops” - a feature of the type of Cyberman seen in
The Invasion
and
Revenge of the Cybermen
, which would fit with the dating. The cover of
Illegal Alien
, however, reuses a photograph from
The Wheel in Space
, another design with “teardrops”.

While
The Harvest
is an audio and we don’t see Cybermen involved (they’re not shown on the cover), the reference to
The Wheel in Space
suggests the Cybermen are the same type in both stories.

Type III:
The Invasion
(UNIT Era),
Human Resources
(2006),
Killing Ground
(22nd century, nomads),
Legend of the Cybermen
(early 22nd century),
Sword of Orion
(2503, Telos),
Kingdom of Silver
(circa 2505),
Cyberman 1
and
2
(2515-2516),
Benny: Silver Lining
(2604),
Revenge of the Cybermen
(29th century, nomadic survivors of Cyber Wars),
The Girl Who Never Was
(time travellers grounded on Earth, 500,002).

Notes: On the whole, this also seems to form a distinct group that generally has a nomadic existence (i.e. they are based in spaceships, rather than having a home planet). At least one group of these Cybermen existed before
The Tenth Planet
(the ones we see in
The Invasion
). These Cybermen fight wars against early human colony planets, and also the Cyber War referred to in
Revenge of the Cybermen
.