Cyber-Wars

The Cyber-Wars were a series of galactic conflicts in which an alliance made a concerted effort to wipe out the Cybermen.

The First Cyber Wars and the Vogan war
By the 2150s, a subspecies of Cybermen known as the CyberNomads were involved in the Vogan War. (PROSE: Killing Ground)

In the late 22nd century, a series of skirmishes known at the time as "the Cyber-conflicts" occurred between humans and Cybermen at the outermost human colony planets. (PROSE: The Janus Conjunction)

There were also reference made to "Cyber-Wars" occurring by the mid-23rd century, having left Earth financially destroyed in combination with the 22nd century Dalek invasion. (PROSE: Theatre of War) One account held that the first Cyber-War began in the 2260s, when human colony worlds like Burnt Salt had their populations ravaged by mass conversions. (AUDIO: The Tyrants of Logic)

Another reference was made to Cyberwars in the early 24th century, (PROSE: The Dimension Riders) followed by a period of peaceful expansion until colonial incidents in 2387. (PROSE: Infinite Requiem)

By another account, the Galactic Cyberwars began in 2383 with an attack on the Earth Empire and, following a failed attack on Voga in 2483, finally ended in 2489 with the defeat of the Cybermen. (PROSE: The Cyber Files)

The Great Cyber War
The most well known of the Cyber-Wars was the one where the glittergun was developed. (TV: Revenge of the Cybermen) It was known as "the Cyberwar", (TV: Revenge of the Cybermen, PROSE: Doctor Who and the Revenge of the Cybermen) the "Second Cyberwar", (PROSE: Original Sin) or the Great Cyber War. (AUDIO: Last of the Cybermen, TV: The Timeless Children) Gold was a major weakness of the Cybermen. The glittergun could fire gold dust at them. According to the Fourth Doctor, humans discovered that weakness and invented the gun as a result of that discovery. This invention was the end of Cybermen, which disappeared after their attack on Voga at the end of war. According to a Cyber-Leader, if humans had not had the resources of Voga, the Cybermen would have won the war. (TV: Revenge of the Cybermen) According to, he bore witness to the war and the "atrocities" done to the Cybermen in it. (TV: The Timeless Children)

The war resulted in the near-complete destruction of the Cyber race. Earth forces launched a final assault on Telos, during which the planet's surface was bombarded. Remnant groups of Cybermen fled across the galaxy. These surviving Cybermen learned from the war that humans would always resist them and so they thought it better to destroy them rather than to conquer them. The Sixth Doctor estimated that, with the destruction of the Super Controller, these remnants would be less stable and more prone to emotions, such as revenge. (AUDIO: Last of the Cybermen)

A large Cyberman fleet escaped the bombardment of Telos and fled to a dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt. They waited 10 years after the war's conclusion, intending to travel back to the time of the bombardment, defeat the enemy and then launch an attack on Earth, changing the outcome of the conflict in their favour. However, Zoe Heriot and then Findel, managed to take over the mind of the Super Controller. They were able to control the Cyberfleet and had the thousands of ships crash into the planet. This completed the bombardment and destroyed the foundations of the Cyber Empire, ending the war. (AUDIO: Last of the Cybermen)

One remnant group attempted to retaliate by destroying Voga, the planet of gold, but were destroyed when the Fourth Doctor instructed the Vogans to fire their rocket Skystriker at the Cyber-ship. (TV: Revenge of the Cybermen)

26th century: The Orion War and an alliance against the Cybermen
By 2503, the Cyber Wars were long over and the Cybermen were in stasis in their Tombs on Telos. (AUDIO: Sword of Orion)

According to one account, Telos was destroyed by a suspected asteroid impact between five and ten years before their part in the Orion War between the Humans and the Androids in the 26th century. (AUDIO: Telos) By 3286, the earlier Orion War was viewed as part of the Cyber-Wars by Reece Goddard. (WC: Real Time, AUDIO: Real Time)

In 2526, the general population had no knowledge of Cybermen, although various governments intended to sign a pact to unite against the Cyber-race. A force of Cybermen attempted to prevent the war. They tried to destroy the Earth, first with a Cyber-bomb and then by crashing a human-freighter into the Earth to prevent the alliance who planned to fight them from forming, destroying the unity. In the words of the Cyber-Leader, it would have been a great psychological victory that was designed to destroy the general morale. Indeed, the Cybermen of this period regularly performed scientific study of human emotion. Both attempts to destroy the Earth were stopped by the Fifth Doctor, who claimed that the Cybermen could not possibly win the coming war. (TV: Earthshock) This event was recorded under Onslaught on Earth, one of the Cyber-Documents. (AUDIO: The Ultimate Cybermen) Having failed to destroy Earth while losing their Cyber-Leader, (TV: Earthshock) the Cyber-Fleet dispersed. (TV: Time-Flight)

What happened to the fleet afterwards remained a mystery to the CyberHive, an attempt at chronicling the history of the Cybermen from the Cyber-Documents. ArcHivist Hegelia suggested that an agreement was reached to join forces against the Cybermen, resulting in a Cyber-War beginning in the solar system with a battle between the main Cyber-Fleet and human forces which extended to other parts of the galaxy before the Cybermen were ultimately overcome. From the document Departure from Telos, Hegelia found an account of the Cybermen's attempt to leave Telos, which the ArcHivist believed was in anticipation of a significant attack on the planet by galactic forces. (AUDIO: The Ultimate Cybermen) This attempt ended in failure as Telos' Cyber-Control was destroyed along with seemingly all Cybermen on the planet. (TV: Attack of the Cybermen, AUDIO: The Ultimate Cybermen) Spacefleet, which came into being during the Cyber-Wars, was used to combat the Daleks in the Second Dalek War which began later in the 26th century. (PROSE: Deceit)

By the 40th century, the Cybermen were declared extinct. At some point before this, they colonised another planet, which they named New Mondas but both New Mondas and Telos had since been destroyed. (PROSE: Legacy, AUDIO: Telos)

The Cyberiad overwhelmed
Around the 52nd century, the Cyber Legions were a powerful force in the universe. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War, PROSE: The Heist) The Legions, which were connected to the Cyberiad, had some activity in the Tiberian spiral galaxy. (PROSE: Ghost in the Machine)

In the 67th century, a vid-briefing series entitled Perils of the Constant Division provided information on, amongst others, Cyberiad-type Cybermen. (TV: The Tsuranga Conundrum)

During the early years of the Third Cyberwar, Cyberiad-type Cybermen sent hundreds of Cyber Legion Cybermats to attack Space Station Hamlyn. However, the Cybermats were all lured to defeat by the Second Doctor, using his recorder. (COMIC: The Scruffy Piper)

Agrippina was besieged by the Cyber Legions. (PROSE: Ghost in the Machine, A Girl Called Doubt) In one timeline, the Doctor died on Agrippina and billions of Cybermites attempted to convert the Doctor's TARDIS. A war was fought between the TARDIS systems and the mites, leading to the TARDIS swelling to the size of a planet after its chameleon circuit was shut down. (PROSE: The Paradox Moon)

The Tiberian spiral was a significant location in the Cyber-Wars between humanity and the Cyberiad. These Cyber-Wars had the Cybermen constantly upgrading themselves to overcome any weaknesses that could be exploited. The Tiberian spiral galaxy was sacrificed to destroy all of the Cybermen with a bomb when nothing else appeared to work.

Because of the damage done to one of the planets the war was fought on, Hedgewick bought it cheap and set up his own amusement park there; it was said to be the best ever in all of history. However, unknown to all, the planet had become home to three million damaged Cybermen transported there by a Valkyrie during the war. Patrons from Hedgewick's World of Wonders began to be kidnapped to supply spare parts to fix the damaged Cybermen. (TV: Nightmare in Silver) Their model of Cybermen may have been a result of cross pollination of the Cybus Cybermen and the Cybermen of Mondasian evolution. (PROSE: The Whoniverse)

Some of the deactivated Cybersuits also ended up in Webley's collection. They had similar appearances to the variety of Cybermen created by Cybus Industries, including two that had the Cybus logo, and those of the Cyber Legions. (TV: Nightmare in Silver)

Re-emergence
A thousand years after the end of the war in the Tiberian galaxy, the Cybermen were considered extinct once again. However, the very existence of a single Cyberman was such a threat that it had become procedure to blow up any planet where one was discovered. Shortly after the Eleventh Doctor arrived on Hedgewick's World of Wonders with Clara Oswald, Angie Maitland and her brother Artie, the three million Cybermen on the planet began to revive, planning to use the Doctor as their new Cyber-Planner. At the end of the battle, Emperor Ludens Nimrod Kendrick Cord Longstaff XLI set off a bomb to destroy the planet, killing every Cyberman there before they could escape. However, a single Cybermite survived unnoticed, (TV: Nightmare in Silver) and the battle had not stopped the threat of the Cybermen, only arrested it. (PROSE: The Whoniverse)

In 6048, Cole of the human mining world Heritage mentioned that his grandmother fought in the most recent Cyberwar. (PROSE: Heritage)

Cyber-Empire has lost on all fronts
At a point in the far future where exact measurements of time were no longer meaningful, the Cybermen were utterly destroyed in a great war with the universe. (WC: Real Time, AUDIO: Real Time) All Cyber-Fleets were destroyed by a force led by the Doctor. (AUDIO: The Reaping) Only a handful of Cybermen survived, but they were tracked down by bounty hunters and mercenaries. One Cyber-Controller, who was the Sixth Doctor's former companion Evelyn Smythe, hid on Chronos and discovered a time portal leading to 3286, which he used to create the Cyberverse. (WC: Real Time) Another survivor, a Cyber-Leader, discovered an abandoned TARDIS on "a planet ruined by fire", travelled back to 1980s Earth and set a different trap for the Sixth Doctor. (AUDIO: The Reaping)

A "last great Cyberwar" saw multiple battles fought (COMIC: Vortex Butterflies) against the Cybermen, including a bloody engagement on Ryzzenbach that saw losses for both the Cybermen and humanity. (GAME: The Edge of Reality) In the far future there existed "fake Cyberdudes" who performed reenactments of battles from the last great Cyberwar. Gabby Gonzalez, the Tenth Doctor, Cindy Wu, and Anubis once encountered these reenactors. (COMIC: Vortex Butterflies)

Cyber-Wars of the Cyberium
In what the Thirteenth Doctor described as the "very far future", the Cyber-Wars were fought over a period of some decades, between humanity and a race of Cybermen identical to the Cybus Cybermen of the Cyber Legions, although by the end of the Wars they had begun to evolve themselves into Cyber-Warriors.

During the Cyber-Wars, the Cybermen were led by the Cyberium, an AI containing the complete knowledge and future history of the Cybermen. Additionally, a human known as Ashad, who developed an intense hatred for humanity, offered himself up for cyber-conversion, but was "denied" partway through, and so he confined himself to isolation out of shame. Late in the Cyber-Wars, a resistance force known as the Alliance, which opposed the Cybermen, acquired the Cyberium and sent it back through time and space in order to defeat the Cybermen by depriving them of the AI. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon, The Haunting of Villa Diodati, The Timeless Children) Ko Sharmus was part of the Alliance at this time. (TV: The Timeless Children)

Eventually, the Cyber-Empire fell, leaving both humanity and the Cybermen near-extinction. (TV: Ascension of the Cybermen)

Survivors
By the end of these Cyber-Wars, both humanity and the Cybermen had been brought to the edge of extinction. The few humans who survived the Wars travelled to the Planet of the Boundary and crossed through the Boundary; as the portal opened to a different location each time someone approached it, the few remaining Cybermen were unable to follow the surviving humans through the Boundary, allowing humanity to start again in different areas of the universe. Due to the threat that constantly followed them, the human survivors became pariahs to other races. Unbeknownst to humanity or the few surviving Cybermen, a dormant Cybercarrier containing hundreds of thousands of Cyber-Warriors was situated in the ruins of one of the final battles of the Cyber-Wars.

Following the fall of the Cyber-Empire, Ashad, still loyal to the Cybermen, believed that his full conversion was rejected because the Cybermen intended for him to resurrect and "ascend" their species. Ashad's first step in his plan to restore and ascend the Cybermen (TV: Ascension of the Cybermen) was to acquire the Cyberium. (TV: The Haunting of Villa Diodati)

Capture and recovery of the Cyberium
Knowing that the Cyberium was being pursued by Ashad - who was now also known as the "Lone Cyberman", Captain Jack Harkness attempted to make contact with the Thirteenth Doctor in 2020, but instead contacted her companions, Ryan Sinclair, Yasmin Khan and Graham O'Brien, and told them to pass on his warning to the Doctor not give the Lone Cyberman "what it [wanted]," although Jack did not refer to the Cyberium by name. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon, The Haunting of Villa Diodati)

Via time hop, Ashad travelled back in time to Villa Diodati on Earth in 1816, to recover the Cyberium, which had been discovered by Percy Shelley; the Cyberium inhabited Shelley's body and hid itself and Shelley through invisibility and a perception filter that it placed on the Villa. Eventually, Ashad and the Thirteenth Doctor found Shelley and the former released the Cyberium from Shelley, before absorbing the Cyberium herself. However, when Ashad threatened to tear the Earth apart by summoning his ship, the Doctor relinquished the Cyberium to him, knowingly ignoring Jack's warning but deciding she would rather confront the Cybermen in the future than change the course of history by allowing Earth to be destroyed in 1816. After taking the Cyberium, Ashad returned to his own time. (TV: The Haunting of Villa Diodati)

Ashad's "ascension" of the Cybermen
Years after the brutal Cyber-Wars ended, only seven known human survivors remained in the galaxy, hiding on a wasteland planet while they worked to repair their Gravraft. At least one other human, Ko Sharmus, remained on the planet of the Boundary, the galaxy's last safe place, where he held up camp on the chance that any more human survivors might find their way. The Boundary acted as a gateway to another point in the universe through which other survivors of the war had fled a long time before. (TV: Ascension of the Cybermen)

Using a Cybercarrier retrieved from one of the site of the Cybermen's greatest defeat, a ship which carried hundreds of thousands of Cyber-Warriors, ready to be awakened, (TV: Ascension of the Cybermen) Ashad attempted to bring about a new Cyber-Empire. His initial plan was to effect a "final ascension" for the Cybermen, into robots, before destroying all organic life in the universe with the death particle. Allying himself with, he landed his carrier on Gallifrey. However, the Master betrayed and killed Ashad in order to gain the Cyberium for himself. In the wake of the Master's plot to create and unleash a new race of CyberMasters, the Doctor's companions and the human survivors of the war destroyed the Cybercarrier and the Cyber-Army aboard it, foiling Ashad's plot. Ko Sharmus subsequently sacrificed himself to use the death particle to stop the Master and his army of CyberMasters. (TV: The Timeless Children)

One last remnant
While most of the Cyberman had been wiped out through their wars with the universe, (TV: Ascension of the Cybermen) at least a single colony of Cybermen, clinging to life on an asteroid, remained active during the final days of the universe. Under the leadership of a Cyber-Controller, the Cybermen pretended to ally with Rassilon after he was banished from Gallifrey, leading to the Cybermen launching a campaign to conquer all of space and time.

The Cybermen overwhelmed the Earth in the early 21st century, converting humanity, creating what was dubbed the Cyber-Earth, and defeating the Ninth Doctor. With all of history under their power, the Cybermen then plotted to transform the next universe into the Age of the Cyberiad. However, the Twelfth Doctor and Rassilon were able to avert the entire timeline the Cybermen had created, leaving the end of universe Cybermen nothing more than a distant asteroid colony once again. (COMIC: Supremacy of the Cybermen)

Behind the scenes

 * As related by The Terrestrial Index, the first series of Cyber Wars were fought by Earth, its colonies and allies in the early 23rd century. The First Cyber Wars ended in defeat for the Cybermen who made a partly successful attack on Voga in their retreat before conquering Telos, where they established Cyber-tombs to prepare for future assaults. Eventually, the Cybermen re-emerged as a threat in the early 26th century, and the Second Cyber Wars were fought following a failed attempt by the Cybermen to destroy Earth. Faced with the gold reserves of Voga, the Cybermen were again defeated and, just before the Alliance's forces made a final attack on Telos, the Cybermen made an ill-fated attempt to prevent the destruction of Mondas and destroy Earth in 1986.
 * The Discontinuity Guide claims that the pursuit of Voga occurred in the late 27th century. Later, the Cybermen of Telos seized an alien time vessel with which they made a failed attempt to prevent the destruction of Mondas and destroy Earth in 1986. Following this, 15,000 Cybermen were sent back in an abortive attempt to change the outcome of the Cyber-Wars in the 26th century. It is speculated that this was the "last ditch plan" of the Cyber-race.
 * Although not stated in the episode, writer Neil Gaiman revealed that he set Nightmare in Silver as taking place "a quarter of a million years into the future."