B00DPX9ST8 EBOK (75 page)

David Banks (in his book
Cybermen
and novel
Iceberg
) states that there was an early schism among the Cybermen - one group stayed on Mondas and only reluctantly adopted full cybertisation (the group here named as the Type I Cybermen), while another embraced the technology (and became the Type III seen in
The Invasion
).

The covers of
Human Resources
and
Legend of the Cybermen
depict Cybermen of the same type as
The Invasion
, and are set before the discovery of Telos. The Cybermen in
Iceberg
itself are a hybrid version - Cybermen who survived
The Invasion
, in part because they’ve adapted technology from the Cybermen seen in
The Tenth Planet
.

As noted above, despite the cover image, it’s possible that the Cybermen in
Illegal Alien
are of this type.

It may or may not be significant that the Cybermen in
The Invasion
wear their chest units the other way up to the ones in
Revenge of the Cybermen
. The chest units are the same prop, and there’s a circular detail on it - on the top in
The Invasion
, the bottom in
Revenge of the Cybermen
.

One of these Cybermen ended up in Vorg’s MiniScope in
Carnival of Monsters
, and it’s also the type of Cyberman the Doctor remembers in
The War Games
.

Type IV:
“Throwback” (future, Telos), “Black Legacy” (unknown timezone, Empire), “Deathworld” (unknown timezone, Empire).

Notes: The comic strip stories are all apparently set when the Cybermen have an interstellar Empire (see “Do The Cybermen Ever Have an Empire?”). They resemble the Type III, but with a slightly more streamlined designed, and far more visible rank insignia.

Type V:
Attack of the Cybermen
(future, Telos),
Earthshock
(2526),
Silver Nemesis
(1988, hope to create a “new Mondas”), “Exodus / Revelation / Genesis” (unknown), “Kane’s Story” (4650, “Empire”).

Notes:
Attack of the Cybermen
and
Earthshock c
ould be near-contemporary stories (they are in this chronology). Both the Type IV (as seen in
Revenge of the Cybermen
) and Type V (
Attack of the Cybermen
) Cybermen fought and lost the Cyber War; Type V might be the upgraded model, developed during the fighting, although
Cyberman 2
seems to be the genesis of the
Earthshock
models, refining the
Attack of the Cybermen
versions.

However,
Silver Nemesis
(where the Cybermen are slightly redesigned) and “Kane’s Story” are outliers. We don’t have a date for “Exodus / Revelation / Genesis”. The simplest explanation for a group of Cybermen who want a New Mondas in 1988 (
Silver Nemesis
) is that they’re survivors from Mondas’ destruction in 1986 (
The Tenth Planet
). Although it’s not mentioned, they could be survivors from
Attack of the Cybermen.
Perhaps they’re from the base on the moon that’s mentioned and not accounted for - those Cybermen wanted to change history to prevent the destruction of Mondas, so perhaps their back-up plan would be to create “New Mondas”.

What’s interesting is that the Cybermen in
Attack the Cybermen
definitely have a stolen time travel vessel, there’s some evidence that the ones in
Earthshock
are time travellers, and the ones in
SIlver Nemesis
are after Gallifreyan technology. So we might be able to assume that the Type V Cybermen are all be Cybermen from the twenty-sixth century, with limited knowledge of time travel they’ve acquired from stolen technology.

This design seems to have a comeback around the Davros Era, according to “Kane’s Story”.

Type VI:
Real Time, Radio Times
eighth Doctor strips,
The Reaping
, “The Flood”.

Notes: The Cybermen continue to evolve, and by the far future they’re on the verge of extinction and apparently have one strategy: acquire a time machine and go back into history to change it.

Type VII:
Rise of the Cybermen
/
The Age of Steel, Army of Ghosts
/
Doomsday, The Next Doctor
,
The Pandorica Opens
/
The Big Bang
,
A Good Man Goes to War
,
Closing Time
.

Notes: First seen as the creations of Cybus Industries in a parallel universe.
A Good Man Goes to War
is the first time this model is seen without the Cybus Industries logo, perhaps suggesting that “our” Cybermen incorporated the technology into their own, or that the design was developed independently in the main
Doctor Who
universe.

[
1
] “Nine thousand years” before
Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma
.
Kiss of Death
also mentions Trion’s colonies.

[
2
]
Forty-Five:
“False Gods”. In
Doctor Who
terms, this accounts for why ancient calendars denote a difference in the rising and setting of the sun. As this event is recorded on the box of hieroglyphs in Userhat’s tomb, “Jane” must chronologically kill herself before Userhat acquires her TARDIS.

[
3
]
The Daemons, City of Death.

[
4
]
Pyramids of Mars. Return of the Living Dad, GodEngine
and
The Quantum Archangel
contain the further references.

[
5
]
FP: Ozymandias

[
6
]
FP: Coming to Dust
,
FP: The Ship of a Billion Years.

[
7
]
FP: Words from Nine Divinities

[
8
]
FP: Coming to Dust
,
FP: The Ship of a Billion Years
,
FP: Body Politic
,
FP: Words of Nine Divinities
.

[
9
]
FP: The Ship of a Billion Years

[
10
]
FP: The Judgment of Sutekh
,
FP: Body Politic
.

[
11
] All according to the Doctor in
The Sands of Time
(p233-235); he says the Sphinx was built “between eight and ten thousand years ago” (p234).

[
12
]
The Sands of Time
(p235).

[
13
]
Pyramids of Mars

The Devil’s in the Detail

Both
Pyramids of Mars
and
The Satan Pit
feature a god-like being - Sutekh and the Beast, respectively - who is said to be the inspiration for the Biblical Satan. The two of them even sound the same (purely because Gabriel Woolf portrayed Sutekh and voiced the Beast).
The Daemons
also features a devil-like being, but no-one in the story quite says that he’s Satan - it’s just that the Daemons have inspired myths of powerful horned beings. Finally,
TW: End of Days
has another creature named Abaddon that’s apparently of the same race as the Beast in
The Satan Pit.

The Beast and Sutekh do not appear to be the same being - not if the Beast truly was imprisoned before the universe began, and only released in Earth’s future - but the two beings’ stories do contain parallels. Much of human mythology in the
Doctor Who
universe seems to be a mish-mash of dimly-remembered ancient encounters with alien races. It therefore seems possible - and forgivable - that people have elided legends of the Beast and Sutekh, although the extent of this isn’t clear.

[
14
] Respectively given in
The Sands of Time
and Series 2 of the
Faction Paradox
audios.

[
15
]
The Sands of Time
. Egyptian mythology can’t decide on Horus’ exact relationship to Set;
The Sands of Time
(pgs 142, 158) solves this by making Horus a “psi-child” of Osiris, which simultaneously makes him Sutekh’s brother and nephew. The Cult of Sutekh also appears in the New Adventure
Set Piece.
In the scripts for
Pyramids of Mars
, the name Osirians is also sometimes spelt (and is always pronounced) “Osirans”.

[
16
]
Pyramids of Mars
,
The Sands of Time.

[
17
] Dating
FP: Ozymandias
,
FP: The Judgment of Sutekh
(
FP
audios #2.5-2.6) - The story ends in accordance with Sutekh’s status in
Pyramids of Mars
.

[
18
]
Pyramids of Mars
,
The Sands of Time.

[
19
]
The Big Bang
. This could happen at any time, but it has an Osirian ring to it.

[
20
] This happened “generations” before
K9: The Curse of Anubis
, with the Huducts ruling the Anubians for millennia. K9 did this at some unknown point before
K9: Regeneration
(possibly while working for the Time Lords). We see pictures of the races the Anubians conquered, not their names. The Anubians resemble the Egyptian god Anubis, and their technology, design, written language and imagery all looks Ancient Egyptian. There’s no suggestion they’ve been to Egypt or even Earth before, though, and so they could well be a race influenced by the Osirians.

[
21
] Variously said to occur “thousands of years” and “countless millennia” before
The Bride of Peladon
. In Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet was a daughter of Ra and a warrior goddess of Upper Egypt, although she was sometimes regarded as a more vengeful aspect of Hathor. Her cult was particularly dominant in the twelfth dynasty (1991 BC to 1802 BC), only a few centuries before Erimem’s time. The “dying beer with pomegranate juice” story comes from a myth focused around an annual Sekhmet festival, although this has Ra dying the entire Nile (which turns red every year when it fills with silt).

The Curse of Peladon
says that trisilicate can be found on Mars, where Sutekh was imprisoned, so it makes sense that the Osirians would use it to bind Sekhmet. It’s not entirely clear, though, if Sekhmet was deliberately entombed on Peladon or if she was blasted into space at random and happened - very coincidentally - to wind up on a planet loaded with trisilicate, the best means of restraining her. Sekhmet’s claim that she “created” the desert and set Sutekh to rule over it can probably be excused as propaganda, as with talk that she’s the “Queen of the Osirians” (if she is, it’s probably only by virtue of the rest being dead).

[
22
] “Several millennia” before Barrie wrote
Peter Pan
, according to
The Tomorrow Windows
.