[649] K9: The Korven. The Korven are a threat and possibly even continue to control areas of the Earth at least until 2618.
[650] “Three cycles” (presumably years) before The Game.
[651] Dating The Game (BF #66) - Lord Carlisle was born 2414 and started his career as a peacemaker around age 20 (so, circa 2434). On Disc 1, Track 70, he says he has been working as a mediator for “fifty years”.
[652] Dating “Junkyard Demon” (DWM #58-59) - No date is specified, and it’s hard to place it with any certainty because we don’t know how long the Cybernauts have been deactivated on A54. The sequel, however, places it in the same period as The Tomb of the Cybermen. The Cyberman resembles - with modifications - the ones from The Tenth Planet, and says they will “once again rule time and space”. Zogron is “one of the pioneers of our interstellar empire”. A54 orbits Arcturus.
[653] Dating “Junkyard Demon II” (DWM Yearbook 1996) - It’s “four months” since “Junkyard Demon”. Joylove is working for Eric Klieg and the Brotherhood of Logicians, setting this story shortly before The Tomb of the Cybermen.
[654] Dating Leviathan (BF LS #1.3) - One of the salvagers says that it’s now the twenty-fifth century. The Leviathan left Earth in the twenty-second century and was to spend some “centuries” in transit.
[655] Dating The Tomb of the Cybermen (5.1) - The story is set “five hundred years” after the Cybermen mysteriously died out according to Parry, although the Cybermen don’t indicate how long they’ve been in their tombs. No reference is made to the Cyber War [q.v.], so we might presume it is before that time (the disappearance of the Cybermen after the Cyber War wasn’t a mystery). The Cybermen’s history computer recognises the Doctor from “the lunar surface”, so the Cybermen went into hibernation (shortly?) after The Moonbase. This would make it at least 2570, but we know that Earthshock is set in 2526. The Cybermen in Earthshock refer to the events of The Tomb of the Cybermen, so The Tomb of the Cybermen must be set before 2526 (although they also refer to Revenge of the Cybermen, which there’s reason to believe is set later). Either Parry is rounding up or he doesn’t know about the events of The Moonbase. As ever, no-one refers to stories made after this one, such as Silver Nemesis and The Wheel in Space.
Another option is that the Cybermen in Earthshock are time travellers. There’s some circumstantial evidence for this - it explains how their scanner can show a scene from Revenge of the Cybermen, which is almost certainly set after 2526, and it may go some way to explaining how the freighter travels in time at the end - but there’s nothing in the script that supports this, and if they have a time machine capable of transporting a huge army of Cybermen, then it’s hard to believe that the best plan they can come up with is the one that they’re implementing. Then again, even without a time machine, their plan makes no apparent sense.
Radio Times didn’t give a year for Tomb, but specified that the month the story is set is “September”. The draft script for serial 4D (at that point called Return of the Cybermen), suggested a date of “24/10/2248” for the story. Cybermen sets the story in “2486”, The Terrestrial Index at “the beginning of the 26th century”. “A History of the Cybermen” in DWM #83 preferred “2431”, whereas The Discontinuity Guide settles on “2570”. Timelink says “2526”, About Time “early 2500s”.
[656] Attack of the Cybermen
[657] This is the native time of the first Doctor’s companion Vicki, who joins the TARDIS in The Rescue. We learn about her clothing and schooling in The Web Planet, and her visit to the Beatles Museum and familiarity with Venderman in The Chase. In that story we also learn that Vicki used to live close to a medieval castle.
[658] Byzantium!
[659] The Plotters
[660] Frostfire. The “alien invasion” presumably refers to the Dalek invasion of the twenty-second century.
[661] The Eleventh Tiger
[662] Dating Judgement of the Judoon (NSA #31) - The year is given. A couple of Draconians are seen at Terminal 13, even though “first contact” (at least, officially) between Earth and Draconia doesn’t happen until around 2520 (Frontier in Space).
[663] The IMC armoury attached to the gardens has gone unused for “twenty years or more” (p88) before The Taking of Chelsea 426, so it’s been at least that long since the oxygen gardens were established.
[664] Dating The Rescue (2.3) - Vicki states that the year her spaceship left Earth was “2493, of course”. The draft script suggested that Vicki and her fellow space traveller, Bennett, have been on Dido “for a year”, but there is no such indication in the final programme. Ian Marter’s novelisation is set in 2501. The Making of Doctor Who, the various editions of Lofficier and The Doctor Who File set the date of “2493”. The TARDIS Special “c.2500”. Peel’s novelisation of The Chase says that Vicki is from “the twenty-fourth century”.
[665] Superior Beings
[666] About a century before Benny: Down.
[667] Peacemaker
[668] Dating Set Piece (NA #35) - The Ants kidnap the Doctor, Benny and Ace in “the twenty-fifth century” (p33).
[669] “Eight years” before Sword of Orion.
[670] Dating Attack of the Cybermen (22.1) - No date is given on screen, but the story takes place after The Tomb of the Cybermen as the Controller remembers surviving that story. Although the Cybermen know of Lytton’s people, and he is fully aware of the situation on Telos, it doesn’t appear that Resurrection of the Daleks is set in this period... in that story, Stien says that the Daleks captured people from many different periods (while never really explaining why), so this could well be Lytton’s native time (Lytton talks of humans as his “ancestors”, so his home planet - Vita 15, in star system 690, with the satellite of Riftan V - is a human colony).
The previous edition of Ahistory dated Attack to circa 2530, but Big Finish’s Cyberman mini-series (set circa 2515) occurs after an asteroid strike obliterates Telos an estimated five to ten years beforehand, and so Attack must take place prior to that point. There is little room to navigate around this, as the lead characters in Cyberman not only go to Telos’ fragmented remains, they find its Cyberman-filled tomb floating about in space. Strangely enough, Attack has no direct interaction between the Telos Cybermen and the Earth of the future, so it’s entirely possible that the Telos Cybermen were re-frozen in The Tomb of the Cybermen, then awoke some years afterwards and upgraded themselves (and their electrocuted Controller), and then were re-entombed in Attack prior to Telos’ annihilation.
All previous versions of Ahistory took into account Lytton’s comment in Attack that the Cybermen are the “undisputed masters of space” (odd in itself, as Attack has them in an extremely weak position). However, er, no such comment actually appears in the TV story. Eric Saward’s novelisation of Attack has Lytton tell Griffiths that the Cybermen are the “Undisputed masters of the galaxy!”, but that’s it. Sorry!
[671] At least ten years, if not more, before The Taking of Chelsea 426 (p37).
[672] “Over seven hundred years” (p117) before Death Riders. The participants in this conflict are identified as being nonhuman.
[673] Frontier in Space
[674] Earthshock
[675] Colony in Space, Earthshock. The freighter in Earthshock starts off in Sector 16, in “deep space”.
[676] Warriors’ Gate
[677] Robot, The Janus Conjunction. The Mars-Venus cruise is mentioned in Frontier in Space, although presumably such flights take place from the twenty-first century until the far future.
[678] The Highest Science (p48).
[679] “More than a century” before Benny: Parallel Lives.
[680] Benny: The Judas Gift. In fact, this century will see humanity in major conflicts with the Cyberman, the Draconians and the Daleks.
[681] Dating Army of Death (BF #155) - The humans on Draxine are “tenth generation” settlers, which has a ring to it of their originating from Earth in the third millennium.
[682] Dating The Mo
nsters Inside (NSA #2) - Dennel tells Rose it is “2501”. Boom Town refers to this story. The Colony of Lies, however, contradicts this book by suggesting a start date for the Earth Empire of circa 2534.
[683] Dating “Throwback: The Soul of a Cyberman” (DWW #5-7) - No date is given. The story provides the impression of being set in the future of The Tomb of the Cybermen, as Telos is now serving as the Cybermen’s strategic and military command centre, complete with a sprawling Cyberman city that has a monorail and space-field. This is very difficult to reconcile, however, against the comparatively shoddy state of the Cybermen seen in both The Tomb of the Cybermen and Attack of the Cybermen, and the evidence in the Cybermen audio series that Telos is destroyed perhaps eight years after Attack (which gives the Cybermen precious little time to recover from the setback in that story and to create the relatively formidable settlement seen in “Throwback”). If we’re taking the design of the Cybermen into account, though, they most resemble the model seen in The Invasion or Revenge of the Cybermen (although with unique modifications, particularly their rank insignia), which again (via Revenge) fits a date around the twenty-sixth century.
[684] The project is formally named in Cyberman, but such an undertaking was first seen in Sword of Orion.
[685] Dating Sword of Orion (BF #17) - It’s during the Orion War as featured in the Cyberman audios (also written, in part, by Nicholas Briggs), and “a very long time” after the Cyber Wars. The Doctor says the Cybermen are “safely tucked away in their tombs on Telos” (The Tomb of the Cybermen); humans assume the Cybermen are extinct. The only date given here is that the original Jansen died on “three zero zero five zero seven”. However, Neverland gives a firm date of 2503.
[686] “At least ten years” before Cyberman Series 1.
[687] Dating To the Slaughter (EDA #72) - The dating of this story is inconsistent. It’s “almost four hundred years” since 1938, according to Halcyon (p17, so before 2338), but Trix thinks it’s “over five hundred years” since her time (p86, so after around 2503). The story is set before Revenge of the Cybermen, and explains why Jupiter only has twelve natural moons in that story. When Revenge was broadcast, astronomers thought Jupiter had twelve moons, but dozens more have been discovered in the years since, and Jupiter at present is known to have sixty-six (nineteen were discovered in 2003 alone; three more were discovered since the second edition of Ahistory saw print). Earth in this era has a President, the beginning of an Empire and there’s a mention of the Draconians, supporting (strangely, perhaps) Trix over Halcyon.
[688] Enough time prior to Benny: Parallel Lives: “The Serpent’s Tooth” that the Atwallans have lost their scientific know-how.
[689] “A hundred years” before Benny: The Crystal of Cantus, as implied by Jason Kane’s narration.
[690] “A century” prior to Benny: Freedom of Information. This seems to contradict Shadowmind (set in 2673), which occurs during the reign of the twenty-fourth Emperor - unless the numbering system was reset, for some reason.
[691] The timeframe is a little unclear, but it’s repeatedly said that Jake and Vienna Carstairs - children belonging to the family in charge of Chelsea 426 - relocate there from Earth “two years” before The Taking of Chelsea 426.
[692] Benny: The Empire State
[693] Dating The Taking of Chelsea 426 (NSA #34) - The Doctor says it is “the beginning of the twenty-sixth century” (p54), roughly “five hundred years” (p37) after the twenty-first century. The day is given (p8).
[694] Benny: Another Girl, Another Planet
[695] Benny: Tears of the Oracle
[696] Dating Kingdom of Silver (BF #112a) - The story occurs during the Orion War. Both the Orion androids and the Earth military have dispatched agents to scour the galaxy to salvage Cyber-technology - as is the case in Sword of Orion, perhaps suggesting that Kingdom of Silver happens about the same time. But in truth, Kingdom of Silver could occur at any pretty much point between here and Cyberman, set in 2515. The Tasak Cybermen here want to send out a reactivation signal to the thousands of dormant Cyber-tombs, somewhat contradicting Cyberman’s claim that the tomb on Telos was the “master vault” given the special status of sending out such a signal.
[697] Dating “Keepsake” (BF #112b) - The Orion War is still ongoing, and although the Orion androids still view Cyber-technology as a potential resource, there’s no mention of the Cybermen having overrun Earth or encroaching into Orion territory (as occurs in Cyberman). Writer James Swallow intended Keepsake as a prelude to Cyberman 2, which is set in 2515.
[698] Cyberman 2: Machines
[699] The background detail to Cyberman Series 1.
[700] Cyberman 2: Terror
[701] Cyberman 2: Outsiders
[702] Cyberman 2: Terror
[703] Dating Cyberman Series 1 and 2 (BF mini-series) - The evidence is abundant, but placement requires juggling Cyberman in relation to other stories.
Telos has been fragmented for as much as ten years, so it’s at least that long since Attack of the Cybermen. Likewise, events in Sword of Orion (set in 2503) lead into these audio series. Samantha isn’t surprised that Barnaby - one of the highest-ranking officers in Earth’s military - has never heard of the Cybermen (though a couple of minor characters in Cyberman 2 have heard vague rumours about them), so it’s definitely before the Cyber War and Earth’s involvement in the alliance against the Cybermen in Earthshock (set in 2526). There’s no mention of the Draconians, so Cyberman almost certainly happens before the Draconian War occurs circa 2520.
Brett’s victory against the Android Eighth Fleet is said to make the public on Earth the happiest it’s been “in twenty years”. If this denotes the current duration of the Orion War (said to start in 2495, according to statements made in Sword of Orion and Neverland), Cyberman Series 1 by logical extension would occur around 2515. It’s repeatedly said that Series 2 opens “six months” after that, and the remainder of the story seems to take a few days, or at most a few weeks.
Presumably, the Cybermen’s retreat into space - and the survivors on Earth becoming all-too-horrifyingly aware of the Cybermen’s existence - is the event that seeds humanity’s future conflicts with the Cybermen, i.e. both the proposed alliance against the Cybermen in Earthshock and the Cyber War itself. In fact, the final installment of Cyberman 2 entails the emergence of a “more advanced design of Cybermen” that’s been made from “harvested human materials”, which - although we can’t see the Cybermen in question for confirmation - is probably meant to denote the Earthshock-style models. (Even so, this doesn’t expressly rule out the sometimes-floated theory - not adopted by this chronology - that the Cybermen in Earthshock are time travellers.) Given the need to place Attack of the Cybermen before Telos’ destruction, it’s possible that the “more advanced” models in the mini-series are an improvement of the eminently killable versions first developed on Telos and seen in Attack.
Earth’s current political structure bears some similarities to that in Frontier in Space, set in 2540: there’s a global Senate, and in Cyberman 2: Extinction, Hunt is referred to as the “executive-in-chief of the Earth Empire”. A feature of Cyberman that isn’t mentioned in Frontier in Space is that the Earth president is based in the White House - either the current building in Washington, D.C., or one of the same name. It’s entirely possible that in the interim between Cyberman and Frontier in Space, the White House was discontinued as the chief executive’s residence - possibly to get a fresh start after Hunt’s disastrous tenure, or possibly to eliminate the stigma of President Levison having been assassinated there.
[704] Real Time, possibly denoting the Orion-Cyber conflict that breaks out at the end of Cyberman 2, and perhaps a prelude conflict to the greater Cyber War.
[705] Dating Parasite (NA #33) - The dating of this story is problematic. Mark Bannen is the son of Alex Bannen, who died in Lucifer Rising “more than two centuries” ago (p165), so the story is set after 2357. 1706 “was more than seven hundred years ago
” (p140), so it is after 2406. Mark Bannen was a baby during the Mexico riots of 2146 and has been kept alive by the Artifact since the founding of the colony “three hundred sixty-seven” years ago (p73), so the story must be set after 2513. This last date is supported in that Earth now has “Empire” (p136-137).
[706] “Twenty years” before Frontier in Space. General Williams claims that his ship was “damaged and helpless” and well as “unarmed”, but it managed to destroy a Draconian battlecruiser anyway. A scene cut from episode three explained that Williams used his “exhaust rockets” to destroy the other ship.
[707] Head Games (p165-166).
[708] Love and War (p10).
[709] Frontier in Space
[710] Forty years before Prisoner of the Daleks.
[711] Benny: Walking to Babylon, p173. Benny: Tears of the Oracle verifies that publication occurred posthumously, as Watkinson died in 2515.
[712] Inferred from The Tomb of the Cybermen.
The Cyber War
The “Cyber Wars” feature in much fan fiction and are referred to in a number of the books and audios. On television, though, the term “the Cyber War” is only used once, by the Doctor in Revenge of the Cybermen - everyone else refers to it simply as “the war”.
We are told that this war took place “centuries” beforehand, and that the human race won when they discovered that Cybermen were vulnerable to gold and invented the “glittergun”. Following their total defeat, the Cybermen launched a revenge attack on Voga, after which the Cybermen completely disappeared.
From the on-screen information, it seems that we can precisely position the date of this “Cyber War”: it can’t be before 2486, because in The Tomb of the Cybermen, the Cyber Race is thought to have been extinct for five hundred years after Mondas’ destruction. In that story, the Controller is ready to create a “new race” of Cybermen. We learn in Attack of the Cybermen that the Controller wasn’t destroyed at the end of The Tomb of the Cybermen, so we might presume that this new race emerged soon afterwards and began its conquests. A new type of Cyberman - possibly the Earthshock models - is created in Cyberman 2.
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