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 group of Cybermen known as the CyberNomads were involved in the Vogan War. (PROSE: Killing Ground)

In the late 22nd century, a series of conflicts known at the time as "the Cyber-Skirmishes" 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)

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: The Revenge of the Cybermen) the "Second Cyberwar", (PROSE: Original Sin) or the Great Cyber War. (AUDIO: Last of the Cybermen) 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)

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)

The 26th century: The Orion War and the 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)

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 of these attempts were stopped by the Fifth Doctor. (TV: Earthshock)

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)

The outcome of the 26th century conflict was presumably another major defeat. The Fifth Doctor described it as a war the Cybermen could not possibly win. (TV: Earthshock)

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)

War in the Tiberian Galaxy and aftermath
Circa 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) 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.

Some of the deactivated Cybersuits also ended up in Webley's collection. However, they had similar appearances to the variety of Cybermen created by Cybus Industries and those of the Cyber Legions.

A thousand years after the end of the war in the Tiberian galaxy, the Cybermen were considered extinct again. However, the very existence of a single Cyberman was such a threat it was procedure to blow up any planet one was discovered on. 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)

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

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)

In the far future there existed "fake Cyberdudes" who did reenactments of battles from the "last great Cyberwar". Gabby Gonzalez, the Tenth Doctor, Cindy Wu, and Anubis once encountered these reenactors. (COMIC: Vortex Butterflies)

In what the Thirteenth Doctor described as the "very far future", the Cyber-Wars were fought over a period of some decades and ultimately ended with the near-annihilation of both humanity and the Cyberman and thus the fall of the Cyber-Empire. (TV: Ascension of the Cybermen) The Alliance, which opposed the Cybermen, acquired the Cyberium, an artificial intelligence containing the knowledge and history of the entire Cyber-race, and sent it back through time across space. Knowing that it was pursued by the Lone Cybermen, Captain Jack Harkness attempted make contact with the Thirteenth Doctor in 2020, using her companions to pass on a warning to not give the Lone Cybermen what it wanted. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon, The Haunting of Villa Diodati)

Via a time hop, Ashad travelled back in time to 1816 to attempt to extract the Cyberium, which had entered the body of Percy Shelley. The Thirteenth Doctor absorbed it herself, knowing Shelley's death would alter the future. However when Ashad threatened to tear reality by summoning his ship, she 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 having the Earth destroyed in 1816. After taking the Cyberium, Ashad returned to his own time, (TV: The Haunting of Villa Diodati) the immediate aftermath of the brutal Cyber-Wars which had caused all of humanity and the entire Cyber-race, save for a few survivors, to be destroyed completely, leaving the few remaining to live in a wasteland. (TV: Ascension of the Cybermen)

Behind the scenes

 * Though 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."