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Cybermen are a fictional race of cyborgs who are amongst the most persistent enemies of The Doctor in the British science fiction television series, Doctor Who. They were created by Dr. Kit Pedler, the unofficial scientific advisor to the programme in 1966.
The race originated from the planet Mondas, Earth's twin planet in prehistoric times. The planet was knocked out of solar orbit and spun out into deep space. The Mondasians, fearful for their race's survival, sent out spacecraft to colonise other worlds, including Telos. On Mondas, the native inhabitants installed a drive propulsion system in place of the planet's core.
Cybermen were originally a wholly organic species of humanoids that began to implant more and more cybernetic parts into their bodies, including brain function. This led to their development of becoming coldly logical and calculating. Emotions were only shown when naked aggression was called for.
As the original race was limited in numbers and were continually being depleted, the Cybermen became a race of conquerors who reproduce by taking other organic beings and forcibily changing them into Cybermen (a process known as Cyber-conversion) in facilities called 'Tombs'. After a period of time they would dramatically burst out of these tombs as fully fledged Cybermen.
Their major weakness is the element gold, which due to its non-corrosive nature essentially chokes their respiratory systems. Other weaknesses include solvents and excess levels of radiation.
The Cybermen also used small cybernetic insect-like creatures called Cybermats (usually Cyber-converted from rats or other rodents) as weapons of attack. Cybermats have been used as individual attack units and as carriers of plagues.
In many ways, the Cybermen can be seen as a slightly more individualistic forerunner of Star Trek's major enemy, The Borg. Similarities in speech include:
- Cyber-converted = Assimilation and
- Resistance is Useless = Resistance is Futile.
The costumes worn by Cybermen acted almost as a guide to prevailing fashion at the time of transmission. Always silver in colour and included material as cloth, rubber, pvc, chest units, tubing and cricketersers sports gloves.
Early Cybermen voices sounded alien by putTING the INflecTION IN the wrong PLACES (sic). Later the BBC used special effects from its Radiophonic Workshop by adding a Electropharynx, then a vocoder to modify speech to make it sound more alien.
