h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

At times can be very hard to follow because despite the first Cyberman story being the Tenth Planet shown in a timeline position of 1986, the fifth story to feature them in a more advanced state has them appearing in the late sixties.

The Dalek design has largely remained unchanged aside from the midriff section and the redesign in the new series, it's not hard to slot the stories into any order but the Cybermen have evolved and each story has altered their appearance.

So covering Audio/ book as well as TV series; the Cyber-history should run as;

Spare Parts- (Big Finish audio)
The Tenth Planet

The above two involve the original Cybermen from Mondas as opposed to the more robotic creatures from Telos.

Illegal Alien- (BBC book)
The Invasion
Attack of the Cybermen
Silver Nemesis
Iceberg- (New Adventure book)
The Wheel in Space
The Moonbase
Killing Ground- (Missing Adventure book.)
Revenge of the Cybermen
Earthshock
Sword of Orion- (Big Finish audio)
Cyberman 1-4 (Big Finish series)
Tomb of the Cybermen
Real Time (Webcast.)

Now this only chronological whereas unfortunately their appearance drastically alters the list.

So, any ideas as to what goes when?

Invasion might come after Tomb - *if* Telos also goes by the name 'Planet 14', which is what the cyberplanner refers to in the later story.

Thanks to the introduction of a time machine in Attack of the Cybermen, we can sort out a few of the continuity errors churned up by Earthshock. Although Revenge is the one furthest out in human history, it has to come before Earthshock because of the footage shown on the cyberscope of Revenge, the Wheel in Space, Tomb of the Cybermen and Tenth Planet.

I'd suggest that the 1980s stories come in that order - Earthshock, Five Doctors, Attack, Nemesis, just because Attack can't come before Earthshock (otherwise the sixth Doctor would have shown up on their scope).

So my guess (not counting books and audios) would be:

Tenth Planet
Moonbase
Wheel in Space
Invasion
Revenge (Cybermen assumed to have been destroyed)
Tomb (type of cybermen that went to Moonbase left behind on Telos)
Earthshock (Telos cybermen work on further conversion and evolution to emerge with new bodysuits)
Five Drs
Attack
Nemesis

It all depends from what particular time stream you are looking at when talking about what order the stories involving the Cybermen should go in. You need to ask yourself the question, "Am I looking at the stories from the time stream of the Doctor, i.e. in order of what time zone he arrives in, or from the time stream of Earth, i.e. when the human race encountered the Cybermen in chronological order?" If you take the latter, then the order of the stories (chronologically speaking, and not including books or audios) should be:

The Invasion - as that occurred in the late 1970s
Attack of the Cybermen (1) - as the Earth scenes occurred in 1985
The Tenth Planet - as that occurred in 1986
Silver Nemesis - as that occurred in 1988
The Moonbase - as that occurred in 2070
The Wheel in Space - as that occurred sometime in the 22nd century
Revenge of the Cybermen - as that occurred sometime in the 24th century
The Tomb of the Cybermen - as that also occurred around the 24th century
Earthshock - as that occurred in 2526
Attack of the Cybermen (2) - as the Telos scenes occurred in the far future

If you look at it from the Doctor's time stream, then the stories would run in the order that they were transmitted in. To quote the Seventh Doctor, "Strange business, time."

I think it's rather a case that there are or were three distinct Cyber-races at work chronologically speaking;

The first, being the inhabitants of Mondas perished when their planet boiled away in the year 1986.

The second race- an off-shoot of Mondas, an exploratory party left Mondas, possibly one of many as hinted in Real Time to seed other planets. These Moonbase-like Cybermen conquered Telos, monitoring Mondas' progress and when it died out, they took drastic action, dividing their forces into two parties; their numbers were small, one group was dispatched to Earth to affect the climate and transform the population into Cybermen.
The secondary group is dispatched to collect or harvest further humanoid species to build up numbers, the remainder submit to hibernation.

The group that travel into space adapt and change accordingly; Wheel in Space Cybermen that storm Wheel Three in an act of desperation.

Now as hinted that Cybermen might have seeded other worlds, this race might well have colonised other worlds, hence the Vogan war, Voga being a small chunk of the actual planet may well have been the site of a Cyber-tomb and adapted to survive, their current form may have been susceptible and so augmentation was required.

Now I have left out a sizeable chunk of episodes which, do hinge on how advanced Cybermen arrive in the late seventies. This is partially explained in the BBC book; Illegal Alien, which was to have been made into a TV episode but abandoned.
Featuring Wheel in Space Cybermen but materialising in 1940s, wartime London with a stolen time capsule. Suffice to say at the epilogue; a vast hoard of Cybermen are discovered in the sewers by the authorities.
This group have been salvaged by International Electromatix and the Cyberplanner constructed with salvaged cyber-material but advanced with possible time technology to incorporate advanced understanding of future events.
The deep-space transmitter used by Tobias Vaughn alerts Cyber-ships that left Telos.

Therefore the Cyberplanner and the Wheel in Space Cybermen come from a farther future of around the 28th century as hinted in Illegal Alien. A time where the CyberController has been discovered, repaired and the Tombs re-opened and are awaiting confirmation of the invasion.
The Invasion was repelled, a solitary Cyber-ship crashed in the South Polar region to form the basis of the New Adventure book; Iceberg, where these Moonbase Cybermen observed the arrival of Mondas, it's destruction and salvaged what they could.

The force on Telos, having received no further word went to work to alter and complete advanced processing and create the ultimate Cybermen.
The Vogan War continued during this course, the invention of the "glitter-gun" probably making its appearance at a conference depicted in Earthshock.
The last remaining Cyber-craft tries to destroy the last remnant of the war but fails but on their way to invade and conquer are 15 000 Cybermen (Earthshock).

Using a stolen time machine (yet again) the Cybermen arrive in 1985, building a base on the moon- the throwaway line from the Cyberleader of; "Inform moonbase to alter the signal, we must increase the distortions"
These Cybermen fail as do those in the future on Telos culminating in the destruction of the Cyber-Controller and Cyber-activity on Telos.

The remaining Cyber-crew on the moon using their spacecrafts track the Nemesis, calculate its patterns and orbit. Reactivating the hidden sewer base, two "twins" are abducted and partially conditioned to act as watch dogs and sent to recon the Nemesis site.
What remaining Cyber-ships that evaded destruction in the Invasion have been altered, building in strength on the dark side of the moon into a fleet.
A scout ship is sent to recover the Nemesis but fails, as does the cyber-fleet.

So the only remaining Cybermen remain in their shielded sewer base from Attack of the Cybermen.
So they're still out there!

It all gets messed up though, because according to Earth history, Revenge happens after Earthshock. But in Cyberman history it happens before (if the Cyber-scanner is to be believed).

David Banks (who played the Cyberleader in the 1980s) tried to sort this out in his book about the Cybermen, creating a kind of family history of Cybermen. The best way to think of the Cybermen is in branches of evolution.

Branch One:

Tenth Planet Cybermen. Artificial skin is covered by cloth, speech is recognisably human but stilted and clumsy, with the notes of a human voice messed up. The voice is broadcast out of the mouth cavity, but the mouth itself does not move as the cyberman is speaking. These cybermen still have the eyes and hands of the original humanoid but with many other body parts replaced. They do not understand the concept of emotions.

Branch Two:
Cybermen are developed for space travel. They colonise the tombs on Telos. It's these that we see attack the Moonbase.Their mouth flaps open when the cyberman is speaking, and close at the end of each sentence. On Telos, the cybermen follow the instructions of a Cybercontroller, a giant Cyberman with an enlarged cranium that parodies a human brain.

An evolution of this branch later attack the Space Wheel. For the Space Wheel attack, the cybermen are guided by a Cyber-planner, an electronic brain housed in a static frame.

Branch Three:
With chunkier heads, these versions stage an invasion of Earth. Like some of the earlier Branch Two models, the ones who invade Earth are guided by a Cyber-planner.

A slightly evolved version of this branch (with minor changes to their survival suits) attack Voga. The versions in the Voga attack have advanced synthesised speech that mimicks human vocals. By this point, cyber-patrols are led by a Cyber-leader, denoted by the use of black on the helmet.

Branch Four:
The most evolved form of Cybermen has evolved speech and a sense of virtual emotion, which they have developed because fo the effect it can have on the races they attack. They show an understanding for emotions as a weakness that was lacking from the earliest cybermen. Their suits become more of an exoskeleton, as seen in Earthshock. They may have evolved from the Cybermen sealed inside the tombs on Telos (certainly their Cyber-controller is given an upgrade). Having evolved to this extend, they choose to remove weapons from their armour and instead begin to carry guns. At some point, this branch of cyberman gains the use of a time ship (time ships?) and sends troops back to various points in their own history. Each of them is despatched with the mission of destroying Earth.

- One tries to pilot a freighter to disrupt a conference destined to create a combined anti-Cyberman army.

- One attempts to steer Halley's comet into collision course with Earth to prevent the original destruction of Mondas.

- One tries to capture the Nemesis statue, a source of living metal. The entire fleet is destroyed.

- One troop is taken out of time and used as an obstacle in the Game of Rassilon.

Branch Five:
This is the branch we'll see in the new series...

Oops - simulpost there. And you've even included the books!

Well I've also missed out the audios but Spare Parts is easy to slot, as indeed is Sword of Orion- (A ship dispatched from Telos) and Cyberman series (these being the remants of cyber-ships that crashed to Earth.)
Real Time- might involve the last Cybermen based on the moon.

But I am missing out an audio and indeed a book; Killing Ground that featured Vogan-Cybermen, which could slot into the Vogan wars but the audio; which I'm not sure I should name but to give it a sort of pun intended; "Dr Who and the Combine Harvesters" features a group of Cybermen in the year 2025.

Oops- missed out The Five Doctors; possibly these were lifted out of the the Cybermen that escaped the freighter in Earthshock.

I have the David Banks book "Cybermen" as they are my second favourite race in "Doctor Who," and although I didn't have the book with me when I wrote that earlier posting, I'm pretty certain I have committed the list of Cybermen stories according to Earth chronology (i.e. when humans encountered the Cybermen in year/century order) to memory, and that enabled me to write the earlier posting without the book.

I think a lot of it depends on whether you believe that each time the Doctor encountered the Cybermen they had merely augmented themselves further, simply replacing parts of their bodies with new parts, in which case the Cybermen are the same as those found on Mondas, only massively improved and updated, or if you believe that each time the Cybermen appeared, they were from different factions, planets or star systems, as has already been mentioned earlier in this thread.

From Outpost Gallifrey's news page:

"Cybermen are the arch-enemas in the UK’s favourite sci-fi telly show Dr Who"

Well thanks for that image. Just when I was eating a cob, too.

Who thinks the new Cybermen are very poor in design? I do.

They're actually growing on me.

I think we need to see them moving about more before we make a judgement. I was imagining how they might look - unlike the Daleks, they've never had a consistent look about them - even the 1980s ones have differences that mark them out significantly from story to story - but I was surprised to see something that harked back to the 1960s in its *un*designed feel. It looks quite functional rather than the rather daft baroque things from the 1980s, but it also looks more contoured than the Troughton ones.

If this had turned up in the 1980s, I don't think anyone would have batted an eye, but because it's a step away from the most recent ones it'll take getting used to.

All I will say though is my spies tell me they are HUUUUUUGE. Really playing to the 'Silver giants' title.
Marvellous!

I think they have been designed with computer graphics and then tailored to fit the actors, whereas in the past they were designed by the costume department and specifically made for the actors that were hired.

The design itself aside from the teardrops is pretty much directed at memories of the general public, who have vague memories of them being "silver robots" and the design is certainly impressive, looking very stable and powerful.
With this completed image, perhaps in the episodes the organic side will be the full focus, a full cyber-convert might appear prominently in the second episode so as to build up the change, gradual as it is.

Though although they're quite menacing, I would have thought a more organic Cyberman would be shown to be scary, to exaggerate the terror and disuade thoughts of silly robots. Now thinking this,perhaps the reason they've done away with that, is not to appear too much of a contrast to the borg.
Also to portray them not simply as cyborgs but as soldiers, an army of unstoppable soldiers, "super-soldiers"!

I think that the heads of the new Cybermen are actually not too bad and reminiscent of those seen during the era of the Second Doctor, in particular "The Wheel in Space," but my real problem with the new Cybermen is that their bodies seem far too chunky and segmented. They look like they are either complete robots - which if the design team are sticking with the notion that the Cybermen are part-humanoid, part-mechanical is wrong - or they are wearing some kind of body armour. It just seems too far removed from their previous selves to be taken seriously. Also the 'C' on their chests instead of the chest panel is just laughable, like the design team are deliberately trying to take the piss out of the Cybermen.

I just hope that their weaponry, movement and voices make up for their very poor design.

I like the new Cybermen. They have a reassuring absence of moonboots and wicket-keeper's gloves.

I think it would be pretty cool to see their head-mounted blasters return, as I think they were rather good when they made their one and only appearance in "Revenge of the Cybermen," because it meant that in order to disarm the Cybermen, you had to blow their heads off! Also, they never appeared to run out of ammunition, presumably converting energy from the Cybermen's power packs (located on their backs) into some kind of destructive electrical energy that was unleashed bolt by bolt and could either stun or kill.

The Cybermen in the BBC webcast adventure "Real Time" had similar head-mounted blasters that fired laser beams instead of bolts of electrical energy. I think it would be cool if they used a similar idea for the new Cybermen.

You're forgetting the Moonbase and Wheel in Space - the Cybermen in those used mind control from their heads...

As for the old costumes, they were actually all made to one size, not for specific actors. You can see this with Michael Kilgarriff in Attack of the Cybermen - being considerably taller than everybody else, they had to get him into silver lycra to mask the gap between his glove and his sleeve.

I'm convinced we'll get a very clear indication that these are not robots. It looks to me like they designed them to look robotic just so that the reveal (like they did with the Dalek) is even more startling.

As for the 'designed with computer graphics' thing. Who do you think would have been in there every step of the way making sure the things would be practical? Yep. The costume department.