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'Excellent."


Michael Hopcroft

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Re: 'Excellent."

 

This is off the top of my head. Others should feel free to make suggestions.

 

This is based off of the Cybermen from the Baker Era onward. As I see it, these Cybermen had a few characteristics.

-Very slow. They lumber everwhere.

-Very tough. They never take defensive actions, relying on their armored bodies to withstand attacks.

-Able to withstand hits from both ballistic and energy based personal weapons, but vulnerable to heavy firepower.

-Skilled when they need to be, but rely on brute strength most of the time.

 

As tough as they are, they know they don't have the numbers or individual power to take on heavy military formations by themselves. Thus their endless "master plans" to destroy/convert a race or restore their long-lost homeworld.

 

How does my writeup look?

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Re: 'Excellent."

 

One of the Seventh Doctor and Ace novels (name escapes me at the moment) featured a rather sensible update of Cybermen. The cyber enhancements made them fast, extremely fast, and the integration of cyber technology on Earth led to a division between countries where it was allowed and those where it was not. So America actually ceased to be a first world country because cyber enhancements were outlawed.

 

Lumbering Cybermen always seemed to me to be a product of "children's telly scariness" (i.e. encroaching horror is fine as long as our heroes can run for it, and sudden brutal attacks are too frightening) and the limitations of telly and budget throughout the sixties and seventies. Mind you, in the seventies they had flares, which is scary enough. An updated Cyberman ought to be physically beyond human capabilities, including speed of movement and action, if they are to retain their menace, particularly in an RPG where a lumbering horror is a bit of a joke unless handled skillfully.

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Re: 'Excellent."

 

Yes.

 

And the primary terror that should be emphasised in a campaign including them is that they were once human. They stripped themselves of emotion to become inhuman.

 

The best audio dramas I've heard from Big Finish involved seeing known characters beforehand, getting to know them - and seeing what happens when partially or fully cyberconverted.

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Re: 'Excellent."

 

Yes.

 

And the primary terror that should be emphasised in a campaign including them is that they were once human.

 

That's a vital point, and probably beyond the scope of game mechanics. Cybermen have given up everything that made them human in order to become "better" than human. They represent a whole mess of questions and issues for PCs if handled well.

 

Edited to add: And please, ignore the ridiculous vulnerability to gold. In some of the shows it had reached the point where a Cyberman fell down if someone so much as flashed a gold-toothed smile at him.

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Re: 'Excellent."

 

I remember a troop of Cybermen being destroyed by a single Raston (sp?) robot in The Five Doctors. Of course' date=' that robot had Lightning Reflexes, a SPD of at least 8 (if not 12, which is possible), and an unlimited supply of darts (RKA with AP).[/quote']

The intent of that scene was to show that the people resonsible for bringing the Doctors to the Death Zone had access to anything they wanted -- even the deadliest killing machine in cosmos. The Raston Warrior Robot is a superweapon -- something nobody in ther right mind would want to face, and that nobody who attacked it could possibly stand up to.

 

It's almost a shame that it didn't appear again, in a similar role. Just imagine the damage the Master could do with one or two of these as personal bodyguards....

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Re: 'Excellent."

 

Some speculation, pardon the crossovers

 

What would happen if the Cybermen ran into the Borg? The Shadows? The Sith?

 

I doubt the Borg would be able to assimilate the Cybermen, so they would probably fight to the death. It would be possible that the Cybermen would try to turn the Borg they captured into Cybermen.

 

The Shadows would try to make a deal with the Cybermen: Wage war on other races in return for superior technology and firepower. Since the Cybermen routinely invade planets amyway, this would be a simple task, once the Shadows show their superiority to the Cybermen.

 

The Sith would also use them to further their own ends, especially against the Jedi. However, once Palpatine becomes Emperor, he would most likely betray and eliminate them.

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Re: 'Excellent."

 

I remember a troop of Cybermen being destroyed by a single Raston (sp?) robot in The Five Doctors. Of course' date=' that robot had Lightning Reflexes, a SPD of at least 8 (if not 12, which is possible), and an unlimited supply of darts (RKA with AP).[/quote']My impression was that the Cybermen there were doing the same job Whorf did in ST:TNG - showing how badass the bad guys were. I mean, nobody ever attacked Whorf whom he could actually beat.
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Re: 'Excellent."

 

My impression was that the Cybermen there were doing the same job Whorf did in ST:TNG - showing how badass the bad guys were. I mean' date=' nobody ever attacked Whorf whom he could actually beat.[/quote']

Still, there were a few times when Worf did get to show how good he really was. The duel with Duras in Season 3 comes to mind, when Worf, nearly insane with vengeful fury, slays the most powerful surviving figure in the Klingon Empire, the man who had destroyed everything he had ever valued and everyone he had ever loved.

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Re: 'Excellent."

 

The Borg are the big budget version of Cybermen. Then all chance of fear was gradually stripped from them until they became the scifi equivalent of orcs.

 

As to who assimilates whom - Both races used nanotechnology for conversion. However - Cybermen are only interested in converting humans. They view the conversion of Humans to be their gift to Humanity - to make them "evolve" into better beings. If you assume that both shows had the same budgets, then Cybermen would be more combat effective than Borg - as Borg retained more organic parts. But the Borg had a Hive Mind, whereas the Cybermen didn't - they worked at the unit level with Cyberleaders per unit. So strategy would favour the Borg - but tactics would favour the Cybermen.

 

I don't think the Shadows would work with Cybermen. Cybermen represent order - their society is very ordered. They have more in common with the Vorlons than the Shadows.

 

Sith appear to be even more chaotic and disorganised than the Shadows - more likely to kill each other than rule a galaxy.

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Guest WhammeWhamme

Re: 'Excellent."

 

The intent of that scene was to show that the people resonsible for bringing the Doctors to the Death Zone had access to anything they wanted -- even the deadliest killing machine in cosmos. The Raston Warrior Robot is a superweapon -- something nobody in ther right mind would want to face, and that nobody who attacked it could possibly stand up to.

 

It's almost a shame that it didn't appear again, in a similar role. Just imagine the damage the Master could do with one or two of these as personal bodyguards....

 

Actually, one novel I read encounters it for a second time. Not canon, of course (unfortuneately, really; I really liked the subseries).

 

("The Eight Doctors").

 

I liked it; the fifth and eighth (actually, not the eighth, since there's a different eighth one now...) managed to nullify it by confusing it since it was faced with two exactly equal targets - and couldn't prioritize one of them.

 

Then it got reawoken, and fought a squad of Sontarans - and lost. (Yes, it actually lost - sort of. The last one managed to break it in two before bleeding out. Then it repaired itself.)

 

Nasty contraption, that.

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Re: 'Excellent."

 

I just picked up a copy of Big Finish audios (new stories with old doctors and companions, including stories for Paul McGann).

 

If you're a cyberman fan, try to pick up "Spare Parts" (the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa land on pre-"Tenth Planet" Mondas during the genesis of the cybermen) at all costs. One of the best Who stories ever, in any medium. I was never a fan of pre-Earthshock cybermen; I found the electronc voices in "Tomb" hard to make out. Here they're *perfect* and Davison gives an incredible performance. I hope RTD adapts this one the way he adapted "Jubilee" as "Dalek".

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Re: 'Excellent."

 

Probably no Cybermen in it, but for tonight's "Children in Need" appeal the BBC will be showing a new Who short, featuring Rose and the Doctor. It's on BBC1 at nine tonight, but for those of you not blessed with access to the Beeb it will apparently be on-line at half past nine (British times, by the way):

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey/appealnight/doctor_who_special.shtml

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  • 2 weeks later...

Re: 'Excellent."

 

Probably no Cybermen in it, but for tonight's "Children in Need" appeal the BBC will be showing a new Who short, featuring Rose and the Doctor. It's on BBC1 at nine tonight, but for those of you not blessed with access to the Beeb it will apparently be on-line at half past nine (British times, by the way):

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey/appealnight/doctor_who_special.shtml

I think that may actually turn out to be the introductory sequence to "the Christmas Invasion", as it seems to set up that story perfectly and since not everyone will have seen the CIN special the stuff will have to be included in the episode.

 

Yet another initially-unstable regeneration, although they will probably have Tennant come out reasonbly well-adjusted in the end (as opposed to Colin Baker who frequently appeared mildly insane even given that he was a time traveler).

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Re: 'Excellent."

 

Peter Davidson also had a bad regeneration.

 

And a name that people for some unknown reason continue to misspell or mispronounce after all this time. It's Davison! Peter Davison!

 

Who is just as well-known in Britain as rougish veterenarian Tristan Farnon in the TV adaptation of All Creatures Great and Small as he is for Doctor Who.

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Re: 'Excellent."

 

Sorry - "Davidson" is more common as a surname, I guess.

He's the current Doctor on TV here - Peri has just turned up in "Planet of Fire".

The means that, fortunatetly for you, "The Caves of Androzani" -- one of the best episodes in the enitre series -- is next. Time to renew your acquaintance with Sharaz Jek and the incompably venal Morgus.

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