Cyberon

The Cyberons were a species of cybernetically augmented humanoids. The "true Cyberon" was actually the drug of the same name, a silver-ish fluid which flowed through the veins of all converted Cyberons and made up a gigantic hive mind; individual Cyberon drones had no individuality or emotions.

Overview
The Cyberons wore what resembled white garments, with metal plates and armour attached to prominent areas like the outer side of the leg, the torso, and the head. It had various pieces of technology, such as pipes, neon blue lights, and chest equipment. (WC: Cyberon is Back!!) They also had three-fingered hands. (PROSE: The Last Dose) Giles described them as a "robotic race" with the Cyberon nanite fluid as their "life-blood". (HOMEVID: The Only Cure)

Without Cyberon in their systems, a Cyberon would lose its weakness to gold but regain its emotions and individuality. One Cyberon in such a state removed what remained of its organic material in a vain attempt to return to the Cyberon homeworld of Aurichall after the planet's sensors, due to a lack of Cyberon in the drone's system, rejected its return transmaterialisation. Though left a literal shell of itself, the drone was still active but was driven mad. (PROSE: The Blue Scream of Death, WC: Cyberon is Back!!)

Conversion
Cyberons used organic matter in order to create new Cyberons. To do this they could use a Conversion Engine. (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons) The Cyberon drug took several doses to convert humans, (PROSE: Cyberon) but, much to Giles's surprise, Gendar biology was much more receptive, and in Maxie Masters's case, after a single dose of Cyberon, she found herself fully under the mental control of the Cyberon intelligence; her eyes glowed blue, and she had increased physical strength. This form of conversion, however, had no after-effects whatsoever after the Cyberon fluid physically drained out of her. (HOMEVID: The Only Cure)

Vulnerabilities
After Louise Bayliss' jewellery killed a Cyberon, "the boffins in the Vault" suggested that gold created interference between the Cyberon and the human nervous system. (PROSE: The Last Dose) Indeed, gold was a viable weapon against the Cyberons, as evidenced by its use by the Superiors against the Cyberons. (PROSE: A Bright White Crack) This effect was directly rooted in properties of the Cyberon fluid: a Cyberon drone drained of Cyberon fluid would no longer have any particular weakness to gold. (PROSE: The Blue Scream of Death)

Hierarchy
The rank-and-file of the Cyberon war machine were the Cyberwarriors. There also existed Cybertechnicians and, occasionally, high-ranking Cyberleaders. (PROSE: Cybergeddon) Cyberon Commanders were in charge of smaller divisions of Cyberwarriors, such as a given ship. (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons) In their heyday, the ultimate leader of the Cyberons was the golden Philosopher-king of the Cyberons, who stood "spitefully" at the peak of the nootropic volcano on Aurichall from which the Cyberon drug flowed. (PROSE: The Blue Scream of Death) The last surviving pockets of Cyberons who reemerged in 3909, having hidden out inside the hollowed-out Asteroid GX-923, were led by a Cyberleader. (PROSE: Cybergeddon)

Technology
Cyberons were capable of sending distress signals through psycho-wavelengths. (PROSE: The Blue Scream of Death)

Cyberons had no access to time travel technology. (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons) However, they had fairly sophisticated transmaterialisation systems built into each Cyberon armour. At any time, a Cyberon in distress could attempt to transmaterialise back to its homeworld. However, should the Cyberon be deemed compromised, this could be refused, preventing the Cyberon from materialising at its intended destination. (PROSE: The Blue Scream of Death)

They ordinarily had no need of cargo bays on their ships. (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons)

One Cyberon pod which crashed on pre-21st century Earth was equipped with a self-destruct, taking the form of a red wire hanging from the ceiling of the pilot's cockpit, which was actually the only room in the fairly small craft. (HOMEVID: The Only Cure)

To remedy their lack of "lateral thinking", the Cyberons created a Cybernet, a neural network that linked all Cyberon units and all their computer systems. Towards the end of the Cyber-War, they sought to make it more efficient by creating a pairing of two highly advanced positronic artificial intelligences that would, in tandem, form the core of the Cybernet and determine new strategies. Christian was logic-oriented while the other was more creative. After the end of the War, both ended up separated from the Cybernet and acquired new identities in Alliance society, leaving behind and — in one case — outright forgetting their past allegiance to the Cyberons. (PROSE: Cybergeddon)

Origins
The Cyberons' "distant cousins" performed acts of time travel, some of which related to the destruction of the "original homeworld." (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons) Vault staff believed the two species had a common ancestor but were otherwise distinct. (PROSE: A Worthy Successor) The Cyberon fluid was naturally-occurring, spewing out of a nootropic volcano on the Cyberon homeworld Aurichall in the Amazolian system and naturally converting any humanoids who came into contact with it. The Cyberon drug was produced by "the tectonic grinding of rival noospheres" and it was speculated by some that the Cyberons themselves were "a living extrahistorical extension of humanity’s collective speculative psyche" as it existed in the 21st century. (PROSE: The Blue Scream of Death) Landing in 2000 after flying its ship through a time rift, a Cyberon seemed to believe that it was the only Cyberon to exist in this era of history. (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons)

Early Cyberon War
In the 31st century the Earth Alliance, under President Forrester, fought the Cyberons in the protracted Cyberon War, also known as the Cyber-War. It lasted for long enough to fill the Jathar Expanse, a frequent battlefield located near the border of human space, with a "graveyard" of thousands of ships from both species. (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons) During the V-Time era, the Superiors became involved in the Cyberon conflicts, and needed large amounts of gold to keep the cyborgs at bay. Their agent Chris Cwej was aware of this; this prompted him to reflect that it would have been more convenient for the Superiors if Isaac Newton has lastingly turned his genius to alchemy. (PROSE: A Bright White Crack)

The Cyberons began developing a new kind of Conversion Engine using experimental nanites to create a "conversion field" that would convert any living things in the Engine's vicinity. One such experimental Conversion Engine was placed inside a mostly-intact Earth transport vessel in the middle of the Expanse, converting all recovery teams who found it into Cyberons before they could report on its failure. With the experiment a success, a Cyberon vessel was sent to recover the Engine and deploy it in a populated area. However, they were detected by the Oblivion Spark, who damaged their ship and pursued them to Gulliver's Rest in the Laputa system. There, the damaged Cyberon ship fled through the Merrapine Scar, a rift in space and time. (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons)

Infiltrating the 21st century
A single Cyberon survived the jump through the Merrapine Scar, which had damaged the Conversion Engine. It found itself in the Sol system in 2000, an era during which no other Cyberons yet existed in the universe. It salvaged as much of the experimental nanite solution as it could from the leaking sphere, and took them into its own body, before making controlled planetfall onto Great Britain. The crashed Cyberon pod was found by Albert Foster, a medical researcher for PKD, whose ambitions and scientific curiosity were easily twisted by the Cyberon to persuade him to accept some Cyberon fluid into his own body. He then got Foster to take him back to PKD headquarters and get his department to start producing more Cyberon drug, hoping to distribute it as a new form of medicine and convert new humans into Cyberons. (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons)

In 2008 PROBE detected an activation of Cyberon in Philadelphia and Patricia Haggard hopped on a plane to stop others from reaching it first. She traced the Cyberon to Brittany Mordley, Tom's niece. Patsy managed to talk Brittany down so she could get a hold over the Cyberon in her system. (PROSE: Silver-Tongued Liars)

Subsequently, some Cyberon fluid was kept safely at the "storage site" associated with P.R.O.B.E.. On 4 April 2021, after Maxie Masters fell victim to a mysterious illness, Giles requisitioned a single syringe of Cyberon and had it brought back to P.R.O.B.E. HQ, where he administered it to Maxie, hoping that a single dose would be enough to heal her but not to endanger her mind. However, the Cyberon had a more powerful influence on her Gendar biology than he had expected, immediately and completely overwhelming her will.

The Cyberon-controlled Maxie escaped from P.R.O.B.E.'s custody and made her way to an unrelated, crashed Cyberon pod which had buried itself long ago under what was now Clapham Junction after falling through time. An undamaged, but hollow, lifeless Cyberon unit still sat at the controls; after making Maxie repair the ship's wiring, the Cyberon fluid drained out of her to fill and revive the Cyberon unit. The Cyberon attacked the rest of the P.R.O.B.E. team, who had followed Maxie, but they managed to trigger the ship's self-destruct and escape with their lives while the Cyberon pod and its occupants were destroyed. (HOMEVID: The Only Cure)

End of the Cyber-War and near-extinction
Eventually, with the original Cyberon population of Aurichall neutralised, it came to be that destroying the Cyberleader of the remaining Cyberon fleet would mean final victory in the War. The Cyberleader's Cyberon fleet occupied the planet Menos. Earth Alliance forces, under the leadership of the Caradan Commander Myna Nevaryin of the warship Cydonia, attempted to launch a sneak attack, but to their surprise, their complex creative strategy was anticipated by the Cyberons, who'd somehow learned to think creatively, and all their ships were destroyed, including the Cydonia. The cause of this was the creation of a new Cybernet with two positronic intelligences at its core, one logical and one creative, to which all Cyberon systems were connected. (PROSE: Cybergeddon)

However, after crashing on Carson's Planet, a mysterious space travelled known as Fred discovered one of the experimental nanite-based Conversion Engines and was able to reconfigure it to track down and tear apart Cyberons, instead of tracking other organic beings and converting them into Cyberons. His hopes that this would bring an end to the Cyberon War (PROSE: Cyber-Hunt) proved justified, with the Cyberons being more or less completely destroyed. (PROSE: Barnyard of the Cyberons)

The surviving Cyberons, under the leadership of the Cyberleader, decided on a strategic retreat, waiting for "mission parameters" to become favourable once again: (PROSE: Cybergeddon) the nanite swarms remained active long after they'd put an end to the War, ensuring the Cyberons couldn't return to power even if any were to reemerge from hibernation. (PROSE: The Blue Scream of Death) They hid out in a mobile base disguised as an innocuous asteroid, having stockpiled millions of bodies in cryo-stasis, ready to be thawed out and converted into new Cyberwarriors once the time came. They waited for over nine hundred years, during which the Alliance's memory of them slowly faded, aside from long-lived individuals such as the Caradan Jyaxx Nevaryin, niece of Myna Nevaryin, who'd been alive as a little girl at the end of the Cyberon War. (PROSE: Cybergeddon)

Isolated survivors
One last vestige was a farming station where the Cyberon drug was used to augment animals for better meat but Chris Cwej destroyed it. This was assumed to destroy the Cyberons for good until he learned that in "the fourth millennium", the Jathar Expense had a bogeyman figure called the Carnachy, "Empire of the Consumed", that strongly resembled the Cyberons. It was unclear if this was purely myth or if the species had survived. (PROSE: Banyard of the Cyberons)

At some point, a wealthy C.E.O. residing on a human colony was gifted for his birthday a captured surviving Cyberon vessels containing "a full pantry" of Cyberons frozen in stasis. He thawed one out and, after ensuring it would be immune to the nanites, publically dissected it alive at a private party, with the aim that he and his guests would micro-dose on the Cyberon drug drained from the Cyberon. Unexpectedly, once drained of Cyberon fluid, the Cyberon, regaining individuality and no longer weak to gold, attacked them and escaped. It attempted to transmaterialise back to Aurichall but was denied, and was instead thrown back to the 21st century. (PROSE: The Blue Scream of Death)

The Cyberon landed in an alleyway, where it was spotted by an onlooker who it subsequently attacked. (WC: Cyberon is Back!!) Driven mad and running once again, the Cyberon broke down in Derby on 24 September 2020, with most of its remains soon found by the Preternatural Research Bureau. They initially did not find its head, (PROSE: The Blue Scream of Death) but by 4 April 2021, it was in Giles's possession. (HOMEVID: The Only Cure)

By the early 40th century, the exact circumstances of the Cyberons' defeat had been lost to history and the Cyberons had been reduced to little more than mythical bogeymen. However, much of their technology had been copied and integrated into Alliance civilisations, including components directly being looted from the demolished Cyberon systems. Unbeknownst to most, this included the twin positronic minds at the heart of the Cybernet, which were looted indiscriminately and, by the early 40th century, had wound up on sale on the black market in Gand City simply as disposable positronic brains, with sellers and buyers unaware of their very special origins. By this point, the idea the the Cyberons could return was unthinkable. (PROSE: Cybergeddon)

40th century reemergence
In 3909, the Cyberons who'd been hiding inside the camouflaged base known to humanity as "Asteroid GX-923" finally awakened, attacking the passenger liner ship SS Titania for living subjects on whom to recalibrate their Conversion Engine and then beginning to convert their stock of millions of frozen bodies. They jammed the communications of the nearby Vega Station and set them a one-hour ultimatum to surrender or be destroyed. However, among the prisoners taken on the Titania was a woman called Emily who, unbeknownst even to herself, was actually an android whose positronic brain had previously been a key part of the Cybernet before the Cyberons were defeated all those centuries ago and their technology was indiscriminately looted. Her memories had subsequently been wiped many times over, most recently by Caldin Corrigan, the grieving father of the human Emily Corrigan, who had programmed the android with a facsimile of Emily's memories and personality in an effort to resurrect his daughter.

Because he was able to track her due to her android nature, Corrigan flew to the Asteroid with his robot assistant Christian — who had used to be the other Cybernet control node, and was, unlike Emily, aware of his true nature, though he kept it a secret. After Christian revealed Emily's true nature to her, the two were able to download themselves into the Cybernet due to still being compatible with its matrices, and hack it from the inside, sparking critical failures all over the Cyberon the systems, causing the Conversion Engine to halt and all functional Cyberon units to short-circuit and catch fire, including the Cyberleader. A partially-cyber-converted Corrigan spent his last moments neutralising the Asteroid-ship's weapons systems, which were still on course to fire at Vega. Emily and Christian made their escape in the nick of time before Vega's own space military disintegrated the now-inert Asteroid.

A fragment of the Cybernet survived all of this, but was well aware that it would remain incapable of effecting a resurrection of the Cyberon race unless it were reunited with Emily and Christian, an event which seemed vanishingly unlikely, especially as Christian, as part of the process of hacking the Cybernet, had had to sacrifice his first ten years of memories, thereby forgetting his origins completely. (PROSE: Cybergeddon)

Invasion of Ecto-Space
At some point, surviving Cyberons made their way into the pocket universe known as Ecto-Space, where humanity had also sent colonists. This spelled the beginning of the attempted Cyberon invasion of Ecto-Space. Jokastarnan forces, including Sergeant Dro'Ken, fought against the invasion. The Mistress, who was also native to the primary universe and had become a protector of Ecto-Space, witnessed the invasion and how the Cyberons were eventually "beaten". Years down the line, while delirious under the influence of Sherwoods disease, she briefly hallucinated that she was under attack by a squad of Cyberons. (PROSE: The Choice)

Far future
Cyberons were one of many factions that got involved in the Uprising of the Cwejen. In the far future, dead Cyberons surrounded what remained of the citadel that once belonged to the Superiors. (PROSE: Rebel Rebel)

Development history
Although they made their debut in a story with no direct legal connection to the Doctor Who universe, the Cyberons had a significant history of development which bound them inseparably with Doctor Who — long before their first mention in a story considered valid by this Wiki, the Cwej short story A Bright White Crack.

The Cyberons' complex history began when the August 1994 issue of DWM when BBV Productions announced pre-production on "a chilling CYBERMAN adventure. 'Sword of Orion'." This film would have been an adaptation of the Audio Visuals story of the same name, which was later also adapted by Big Finish as licensed Doctor Who. This film evolved into being a story called Sentinel about Cybermen on an island, although this plot was abandoned and later repurposed for Autons. In 1995, the film, now called Cyberwar, was covered in DWM 225 and The Doctors: 30 Years of Time Travel and Beyond, the latter using Cyberman designs from The Dark Dimension and indicating the film would feature the Cybermen facing the Ice Warriors. However, despite all this, Bill Baggs was unable to secure the rights to use Cybermen. At one stage, an alternative script for Sentinel or Cyberwar that employed the Mandragora Helix in the place of the Cybermen was considered. (REF: Downtime – The Lost Years of Doctor Who)

With the decision taken to instead develop of a new creature who would retain the core appeal of the Cybermen, but be distinct enough to constitute a separate copyright in BBV's control. Designer and self-confessed Cyberman fan Terry Cooper was approached, turning in a design which would be used in the Cyberons' live-action appearances — although very different looks were used for the covers of the first handful of audioplays featuring the Cyberons. (REF: Making the Cyberons)

Solo appearances
The Cyberons had their debut in BBV Productions' audio play Cyber-Hunt, released in November 1998 as the final Series 1 story of Audio Adventures in Time & Space. It was a scaled down version of Cyber-War, with Cyberons in the place of Cybermen. As the first of BBV's The Wanderer series, it also featured Nicholas Briggs as a variation of his Audio Visuals Doctor, reimagined as the titular Wanderer; the only other The Wanderer story did not feature the Cyberons. The main setting of Cyber-Hunt, Carson's Planet, later reappeared in the Big Finish Productions story "Death to the Daleks!". In addition to voicing the Doctor-standin, Briggs, under his alias of David Sax, also provided the Cyberon voices for Cyber-Hunt.

The Cyberons reappeared in February 2000 in Cybergeddon, the first story of Series 3 of Audio Adventures. This story did not feature Briggs' Wanderer, and was labelled as part of "the Cyberons series". At some point prior to the release of his Sontarans story Silent Warrior, Peter Grehan had also submitted a script featuring BBV's "Time-Travellers", the Professor and Alice, thinly-veiled analogues to the Seventh Doctor and Ace, fighting the Cyberons, which was not picked up. (REF: Downtime – The Lost Years of Doctor Who)

The Cyberons appeared in live action as antagonists of BBV's January 2001 film Cyberon, written by Lance Parkin. This film is of interest to Doctor Who for the character of Lauren Anderson, who was reused in the Who spinoff  Zygon: When Being You Just Isn't Enough. This essentially placed Zygon as a crossover between the adventures of Lauren Anderson and Doctor Who, retroactively suggesting that the earlier film, and by extension all previous appearances of the Cyberons, took place in the DWU. The present Wiki does not currently cover these stories, however, as they contained no DWU elements at the time of their release.

Interestingly, despite the shared name, Lance Parkin originally intended for the Cyberon film to be out of continuity with the earlier audio plays, feeling that the Cyberon concept should have a fresh start, freed of the baggage of the Cyber-Hunt and Cybergeddon portrayals of the aliens as "Aldi-own-brand Cybermen". As such, the Cyberons in Cyberon were active in the 20th century, in contrast to their existing in the far future in the original audioplays. "For those that keep track of these things, 'Cyberon' in this story has nothing to do with the ‘Cyberons’ that have appeared in a couple of BBV's audio stories. The video isn't a spin-off from those, there's no need to listen to them to get up to speed. Anyone expecting a Cybermen story, or who assumes this video will feature monsters just like the Cybermen, but with a slightly different name, will be in for a surprise, but hopefully not a disappointment."

- Lance Parkin in "The Celestial Toyroom"

However, with the benefit of hindsight, Parkin ceased to enforce this distinction. (REF: Downtime – The Lost Years of Doctor Who) The Arcbeatle Press's Flight of the Cyberons, written with Parkin's blessing, would ultimately present an explanation for the presence of the Cyberons in the 20th century in the context of the "Cyber-War" of the earlier audio plays.

Tying back to the DWU
The first appearance of the Cyberons in a piece of media covered by this Wiki in its own right came in the comedic, fourth-wall-breaking standalone BBV production Do You Have a Licence to Save this Planet?. Within the continuity of the film, the Cyberons were an "unlicensed" species. They desired to complete themselves by gaining the "ears" they lacked, which, by making them properly licensed, would allow them to gain fame and fortune through merchandising. The story was, overall, a self-parody of BBV's modus operandi when it came to their Doctor Who spin-offs; as such, the Cyberons' role in the plot lampooned the way in which were originally conceived as stand-ins for the Cybermen, with the only major difference in design between the two races being the Cyberons' lack of the trademark handle-like tubes on their Cyber-helmet — what the parodical Cyberons in Do You Have a Licence to Save This Planet refer to as "ears". As related by Gareth Preston in Downtime – The Lost Years of Doctor Who: "The Cyberons, which were so obviously imitation Cybermen, I was amazed Bill got away with those two audios. That got me wondering what the Cyberons themselves thought about it? Could it be they might have an insecurity about it and were envious of the merchandising that the Cybermen enjoyed?"

- Gareth Preston

Within the story, the Licensor ensnared a few Cyberons into his service through false promises, sending them to what he believed to be Earth as his agents, alongside some regular Autons. The Licensor's schemes were foiled by the Chiropodist (or "Foot Doctor"), who had in truth tricked the Licensor and his party onto Unlicensed Earth, which, due to the ironclad laws of the Licensor himself, thus ceased to exist with them on it. Prior to this, the Foot Doctor had revealed the deceitful nature of the Licensor's deal with the Cyberons, causing them to turn against him. (NOTVALID: Do You Have a Licence to Save this Planet?)

Finally, in 2020, the Cyberons were properly introduced (albeit through the back door) to the mainstream, "valid" DWU by the short story A Bright White Crack. The second entry in the licensed solo adventures of Seventh Doctor companion Chris Cwej, the story featured a licensed reference to the Cyberons as a species with whom the Superiors had dealings which required gold.

Shortly thereafter, the short story anthology Cyberon was published. As spoken of in interviews surrounding its release, the book made an effort to tie the Cyberons further into the Doctor Who universe than the original film did, despite being an expanded novelisation of said film: the stories saw the Cyberons interact with established Doctor Who concepts such as P.R.O.B.E. and, once again, Chris Cwej. It also introduced their homeworld Aurichall, placed in the Amazolian system, a location introduced in the Faction Paradox series. This was followed by expanded novelisations of Cyber-Hunt and Cybergeddon which retained this newfound DWU continuity, making use of Aurichall and other concepts introduced in the anthology, as part of the Novelisations in Time & Space series. More Than Human..., an animated webcast, was released as a narrative trailer for the three Cyberon books now in existence.

The afterword of Arcbeatle Press's anthology True Origins announced that it would be their final release featuring the concepts they had licensed from BBV, including the Cyberons.

Starting on 30 January 2022 with the upload of a trailer for, videos on the official BBV Productions YouTube channel, including trailers for DWU productions such as Auton, featured a brief CGI-animated outro of a Cyberon demanding that the viewer subscribe to the YouTube channel, or else be destroyed. This clip used the same CGI model created by James Lee and previously used in More Than Human, which appeared again soon after in The Only Cure, a P.R.O.B.E. short exclusive to the P.R.O.B.E. Case Files - Volume 2, where the Preternatural Research Bureau again faced a Cyberon. The short The Only Cure featured on P.R.O.B.E. Case Files - Volume 2 briefly featured the original Cyberon design via a severed Cyberon head in the possession of PROBE, officially bringing an element of the Cyberon's original design into a source seen as valid on this wiki, although live-action footage depicts the helmet with the modern design.

For April Fools' Day in 2022, BBV jokingly announced a spurious fourth film in the Auton Trilogy, Auton 4: Nestene Revelations, which, judging by the cover, would also have featured Giles, a Krynoid, and a mustachioed, hat-wearing Cyberon called "Cyber Ron". Notably, "Cyber Ron" was depicted using the Cyberon design from the original Cyberon film, rather than the more rounded facial mold of James Lee's CGI creations. The spoof DVD cover also announced that an audio drama called Cideron was included in the purported DVD release, an allusion to the release of the audio drama Cyber-Hunt on the DVD release of the first Auton film.