Cyber-Scout (Monsters in Metropolis)

One Cyberman was displaced from its native time and place and ended up in the sewers of Berlin in the 1920s. The displacement damaged its Cyber-conditioning and allowed the being it once was to partially reemerge, but it also caused great pain and emotional distress. (AUDIO: Monsters in Metropolis)

Biography
In August 1925, the displaced Cyberman was found by Dieter Jovanovic, an embittered German who believed Germany should seek revenge for the humiliating peace forced upon her after the First World War. He gained control over the Cyberman, which felt unable to resist even though it objected to Jovanovic's actions and intetions.

Jovanovic infiltrated Babelsberg Studio during the filming of Metropolis, intent on stopping production because of the film's message of peace. He presented the Cyberman to the director, Fritz Lang, as an advanced puppet that could play the robot in the film, the "Machine Man". There, it murdered the lead actor, Olaf Richter, on Jovanovic's orders, even though it had no desire to kill anyone itself. The Ninth Doctor pursued it back to the sewers and realised the state it was in, leading him to try to reason with it. Jovanovic had it attack the Doctor and it knocked him out, but it was able to resist killing him.

Returning to the studio, Jovanovic set the Cyberman to kill Lang, Anna Dreyfus and others involved in the production. The Doctor reappeared and convinced it that it could disobey Jovanovic. The Cyberman strangled him to the point of unconsciousness but refused to kill him, allowing for his arrest.

Following the incident, the Doctor treated the Cyberman to a private screening of a completed version of Metropolis. It felt moved by the film. The Doctor offered it a chance of resettlement but the Cyberman refused. Having no memory of who it once was and knowing its destructive potential, it decided that it no longer wished to continue its existence. The Doctor obliged its request. He never found out exactly where the Cyberman had come from. Without the Cyberman, the Machine Man in Metropolis was instead played by actress Brigitte Helm in full costume. (AUDIO: Monsters in Metropolis)

Behind the scenes

 * The Cybermen were not originally planned to feature in the Lost Warriors box set. Their inclusion was suggested by John Dorney, writer of Monsters in Metropolis, as he continued to develop and pitch ideas for his storyline based around Metropolis. He wondered "what would it be like if they had a Cyberman instead of the robot?" (VOR 152)
 * Continuing the theme of the stories in Lost Warriors, the Cyberman is another being who has been displaced by war. The nature of the conflict is left vague, although the framing of the box set trailer implies that it relates to the Last Great Time War.
 * According to David Richardson, producer of The Ninth Doctor Adventures, Christopher Eccleston was especially fond of the scenes in which he interacted with the Cyberman. (VOR 152)