Pete's World

A Parallel London - Doctor Who - The Rise of the Cybermen - BBC

The Doctor's TARDIS accidentally lands in Pete's World. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen)

"Pete's World" was the Tenth Doctor's name for an alternate universe that was home to Cybermen created by John Lumic, the head of Cybus Industries.

Overview

The Doctor derived the name from Pete Tyler, that universe's version of Rose Tyler's father, who in her universe had died in 1987. Time ran ahead in this universe, compared to the Doctor's universe, so that when it was 2007 in the Doctor's universe it was simultaneously three years later in Pete's World. (TV: Doomsday)

Differences

In this reality all of Pete's "daft little plans" and get-rich-quick schemes all worked out, effectively making him a rich and successful businessman.

Historical

Pre-Cybermen

Great Britain had a President as head of state, instead of a monarch. Army blockades and nightly curfews were in place for lower-income areas of London. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen)

John Lumic's Cybus Industries had a high profile internationally. It created the EarPods; owned Vitex, Pete Tyler's nutritional drink company; owned International Electromatics as a front organisation; and had created CybusNet, the world's premier global information system. Secretly, Lumic had them also create the first Cybermen. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen)

Even though the Doctor apparently did not exist in this world, or at least didn't travel to earth in this world, Torchwood Institute nevertheless existed. It was operating publicly, with reports it issued being mentioned in the news. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen) The planet also had a Bio-Convention, whereby Geneva had to approve any creation of new life forms. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen)

Europe contained the nation of New Germany (TV: Rise of the Cybermen) and South America was unified in a South American State; in 2004 it lost 265,000 people across its borders and south, implied to be due to Cyberman experiments. (WC: Tardisode 5)

Post-Cybermen

Following the Cybermen incident and the death of the British President, a People's Republic was formed in Britain with Harriet Jones as the new President. (TV: Doomsday)

Torchwood was infiltrated by Cybermen, who used its technology to cross dimensions. The Institute was taken over by the People's Republic when the full scale of its activities were discovered; (TV: Doomsday) Rose Tyler later joined it. They later went on to work at creating other ways of dimensional travel. (TV: Journey's End) Due to said mass dimensional travel, ambient temperatures began to rise on Earth; three years on, the ice caps were melting. (TV: Doomsday)

The war against the Cybermen even became global war, who were successfully sealed in their factories. However, debate raged about whether or not the Cybermen (as former humans) could be saved, and this gave the Cyber-race time to cross realities. (TV: Doomsday)By 2010, as a result of the war, at least five million humans from Pete's World were converted into Cybermen. (TV: Doomsday)

Technological

Pete's World had a higher level of technological advancement in general. Such advancements included moving and speaking advertisements, and the EarPod devices which downloaded information straight into human brains. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel)

Zeppelins served as a common means of transportation, one soldier implying the richest of the city tended to own them. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel)

Scientists developed medallions with the power to enable the wearer to cross universes. Later, they invented a dimension cannon for the same purpose. (TV: Doomsday) Even the Cyberman technology itself was created by humans, without any apparent use of Mondas technology. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel)

People

Peter Tyler, unlike his counterpart, had not died in 1987. Both versions had married Jackie, though this couple did not have children; instead they had a dog named Rose. This version of Pete had made a fortune from his company, Vitex, a health drink company which Cybus owned and for which Pete himself acted as spokesman. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen) This version of Jackie underwent cyber-conversion and died. (TV: The Age of Steel) Pete later met and fell in love with the Jackie Tyler of the Doctor's universe. (TV: Doomsday)

Ricky, Mickey Smith's counterpart, led the anti-Cybus Industries activists the Preachers with Jake Simmonds, another Preacher. After he died, Mickey decided to stay behind and take his place. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel)

Deleted scenes from those episodes imply that Ricky and Jake had a romantic relationship.

Also, Rita-Anne Smith, Ricky's grandmother, did not die of an accident in this world, whereas Mickey's grandmother had. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen)

Harriet Jones, like her counterpart, had a political career, and her rule as President was referred to as a "golden age". (TV: Doomsday)

History

In 2001, Cybus Industries' profits reached $78 billion. In 2004, South American state reported 265,000 people missing. (WC: Tardisode 5)

In February 2007, the Doctor's TARDIS was catapulted into Pete's World while travelling through the Time Vortex. The TARDIS was critically drained of energy by the journey and unable to replenish itself due to the incompatibility of the ambient energy of the alternate universe. The Tenth Doctor gave away 10 years of his life to recharge a still-function artron crystal which was then used to restore the TARDIS long enough to enable it to travel back to N-Space. The first Cybermen were created by John Lumic (TV: Rise of the Cybermen) and attacked Great Britain. The Doctor and his allies eventually teamed-up and destroyed the Cybermen. The Cybermen leader, their Controller (with John Lumic's brain), perished in the destruction of his cyber-factory. After meeting his parallel counterpart Ricky Smith and being inspired by his example, Mickey Smith decided to stay in the alternate universe to take the late Ricky's place and help fight the Cybermen. (TV: The Age of Steel)

In 2010, Mickey returned to his original world in N-Space and, disguised as a lab technician, investigated the Void Ship kept in Torchwood 1's headquarters. (TV: Army of Ghosts)

Jake Simmonds and Peter Tyler crossed over into N-Space to stop the Cyberman invasion. That universe's Jackie Tyler met the other version of Pete Tyler for the first time and decided to stay with him. Mickey Smith, Pete, and Jake returned to the other world, taking Jackie and her daughter Rose with them, stranding them after the breach closed. Rose joined the parallel version of the Torchwood Institute. Jackie and Pete conceived a child and Mickey apparently took up residence with the Tylers.

Soon after joining Torchwood and several months after Jackie became pregnant, Rose began receiving what appeared to be a message from the Tenth Doctor. With the support of her family, she travelled to a remote fjord in Norway, Dålig Ulv Stranden, where she was able to briefly make contact with the Doctor so they could say goodbye to each other. (TV: Doomsday)

When Davros' reality bomb, (TV: Journey's End) also known as "the Darkness", (TV: Turn Left) was detonated, dimensions in "the whole of reality" started to collapse. (TV: Journey's End) Rose subsequently returned to the Doctor's universe. (TV: The Stolen Earth) After defeating the Daleks and preventing the reality bomb from detonating, the Tenth Doctor returned Rose and Jackie to the parallel Earth. Also left behind was the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor. Due to the disarming of the Reality Bomb by Donna Noble, the Darkness never occurred at all and this universe was saved from destruction. (TV: Journey's End)

Jackie mentioned that Pete was on the "nursery run"; the child being at nursery school would place this at least 3 years after the birth, either 2013 or 2014. However, Pete's World being 3 years ahead of the Doctor's would place the date at 2012.

This universe, and indeed every universe, was, as the Cyber-Leader put it, "deleted" as a result of total event collapse. (TV: The Pandorica Opens) It was later restored by the Pandorica's restoration field. (TV: The Big Bang)

References

Facing the Cybermen on a Mondasian colony ship, the Twelfth Doctor recalled Earth as one of the worlds where they rose. (TV: The Doctor Falls)

Behind the scenes

Creatures and Demons

REF: Doctor Who: Creatures and Demons, a non-narrative source, theorised that Pete's World split from the universe occupying N-Space when Queen Victoria still went to Torchwood House in 1879. The Werewolf attacked the house and Queen Victoria was killed in this event.

Cybus Industries website

Cybus Industries had a tie-in website, no longer hosted by the BBC as of July 2013.

The website had a collection of the CEO of Cybus Industries, John Lumic's, thoughts. He mentioned that living in an airship had its "disadvantages", such as if a dissident Cybus executive "accidentally" fell into the Grand Canyon, which in Pete's World was in the United States of Mexico, then they couldn't vote against Lumic again. Lumic corrected himself by saying, "I'm sorry, did I say disadvantages? I meant to say advantages."

The article also mentioned Lumic's dismissal of "unimportant" pressure group like the Preachers in Great Britain, or the Free Information Collectives in New Germany and "Czechoslovenia™", saying that such groups "should simply be ignored".

The website featured an interview with Lumic. When asked what the "best" decision he made was, Lumic answered with, "Assassinating the Prime Minister of the United States of Mexico". When asked the "best" and "worst" things about the BBC, Lumic simply responded that he abolished the BBC after Cybusnet became the sole global information provider.