Cyberman ( Pete ' s World ) One type of Cyberman originated in another universe , where they were created by John Lumic , the owner of Cybus Industries and the original Cyber Controller of this breed . His Cybermen believed that all people must be " upgraded " to Cyber - form , so that information would never be lost and that the humans ' physical and emotional weaknesses would be abolished . Beyond this , it remains unknown what the cyber - race would do if they completed conversion of humanity . If there was such a goal , it perished with John Lumic . Most Cybermen escaped from their home dimension and into the Doctor ' s , beginning their goal anew , having been locked in the factories in their world . Characteristics . Conversion . Unlike the Cybermen of the Doctor ' s universe , these Cybermen were created by taking the brains of humans and placing them in robotic bodies . These exostructures were built from High Content Metal and were stauncher and more heavily built than the Cybermen of Mondas . Cyber - conversion involved painfully removing the brain of the subject and placing it within a suit of armour . The brain was preserved in a cradle of Cybus - copyrighted chemicals and welded to the exoskeleton , to which cyber - kinetic impulses were bonded . The remaining human body was simply incinerated . ( TV : " Rise of the Cybermen " ) Once complete , the newly developed Cyberman had a special implant placed within them . The implant prevented them from feeling their emotions , but , if the implants were disrupted , the Cybermen entered a traumatic state as they were overloaded by the pain of the conversion . This would make them die in agony or cause their heads to explode from the overload of emotions . ( TV : " The Age of Steel " ) In times of emergency , cyber - conversion consisted of only constructing a Cyber - suit around a living being with some internal modifications . ( TV : " Cyberwoman " ) Operation . The Cyber - suit was constructed from bulletproof steel . A chest plate with the Cybus Industries logo housed a " heart of steel " , the function of which is unclear , and the emotional inhibitor chip . The brain remained contained within the suit ' s head , though the skull was included in more hastily converted units . Artificially grown nervous tissue was threaded throughout the body so the Cyberman responded like a fully biological organism . ( TV : " The Age of Steel " ) Without a brain inserted , the Cyber - suit was a robot which apparently had sufficient processing capacity to pursue and attack a human target . ( TV : " The Age of Steel " ) Typically , Cybermen were led by a Cyber Leader during conversion missions . If the Cyber Leader was terminated then the Cybermen downloaded the shared files and nominated a new Cyber Leader . However , this would take time . ( TV : " Doomsday " ) Other leader variations are Cyber - Lords and Cyber - Kings . ( TV : " The Next Doctor " ) Weapons and technology . Originally , their only weapons were their electrified hands , ( TV : " Rise of the Cybermen " ) but they later gained a small wrist - mounted energy weapon . ( TV : " Army of Ghosts " / " Doomsday " ) These Cybermen also had a small poison dart to knock out victims . The Cyberman guard at the Pandorica used this dart on Amy Pond . ( TV : The Pandorica Opens ( TV story ) The Cybermen were capable of wirelessly communicating with each other , and when a Cyber - Leader was killed , their files were transferred to an appointed Cyberman , who would subsequently be upgraded to a new Cyber - Leader . ( TV : " Doomsday " ) They could wirelessly control electronics , such as John Lumic ' s wheelchair and the " Ghost Shift " control levers at Torchwood Tower ; this function was associated with a Cyberman bringing its closed fist to its chest . ( TV : " The Age of Steel " , " Army of Ghosts " ) They were also capable of using infostamp s , allowing them to communicate information to other Cybermen when they were low on power . They were also able to steal other technology from the Dalek s whilst inside the Void , such as a Dimension Vault . ( TV : " The Next Doctor " ) Voice . These Cybermen spoke in an electronic , monotone voice , far more emotionless and deeper than the Cybermen of the Doctor ' s universe . Because of their lack of emotions , the Cybermen used technical terms like " compatible " and their battle cry , " DELETE ! " . ( TV : " Rise of the Cybermen " ) The Cybermen were shown to misunderstand lower - level , spoken language terms , instead preferring higher - level language . For example , the Cyber - Lord couldn ' t understand the word ' best ' so Miss Hartigan had to say " I will operate at maximum efficiency " . ( TV : " The Next Doctor " ) Hierarchy . John Lumic / Cyber Controller , due to being founder of Cybus Industries and creator of the Cybermen , led the Cybermen upon his conversion , even having a throne like chair . He was their highest authority , so much so those who were captured were brought straight to him , like the Tenth Doctor , Rose and Pete . ( TV : " Rise of the Cybermen " / " The Age of Steel " ) Upon his death , a Cyber - Leader became the Cyber commander of the Cyber Army . The original had black handlebars on his headpiece though subsequent replacements did not have this . Cyber leaders had the power to call other lower ranked Cybermen for support during heavy conflicts and generally controlled all the other Cybermen . They also held talks with other species , proposing alliances and declaring war and / or surrender to them . ( TV : " Army of Ghosts " / " Doomsday " ) After the Battle of Canary Wharf , a Cyber - Lord became the Cyber commander . They were a seemingly higher rank of Cyber Leader , the only noticeable difference being that their purpose was to prepare for the creation of the CyberKing and that their brain was visible through their black face plate . ( TV : " The Next Doctor " ) The said CyberKing was the control unit of a Dreadnought ship , integrated into it , making it the CyberKing . They typically led the invasion and takeover of a planet , serving on the front lines , using their advanced weapons to lay waste to cities , and acted as a mass conversion unit . ( TV : " The Next Doctor " ) Then there was the typical Cyberman , a standard fighting unit of the Cyber Army . They were subservient to all except those beneath them . ( TV : " Rise of the Cybermen " et al . ) Such lower ranks were the Cyberdog s the search and guard units of converted dogs ( COMIC : " Enemy Mine " ) and the Cybershade s , primitive , beast - like worker unit , converted by using a brain of a dog or a cat . ( TV : " The Next Doctor " ) There were also Cyberdrone s , partially converted humans , worker units who were used for the slave labour . ( COMIC : " Enemy Mine " ) Lisa Hallett was a partially converted human who was sustained by life support system under the Torchwood base in Cardiff . ( TV : " Cyberwoman " ) Cyberslave s were humans converted by being infected with a nano - form . They could fire electricity from their hands and follow basic orders . If desired , a Cyber - leader could easily disable them . ( GAME : " Blood of the Cybermen " ) The lowest rank were human s controlled at the brain which were often only kept until fulfilling their required purpose , then killed . ( TV : " Rise of the Cybermen " / " The Age of Steel " , " Army of Ghosts " / " Doomsday " ) History . Creation and expansion . The Cybermen were created in a parallel universe by John Lumic , a terminally ill and insane genius . To find a way to survive , by 2007 he perfected a method to sustain the human brain indefinitely in a cradle of chemicals , bonding the synaptic impulses to a metal exoskeleton . Lumic began to trick and abduct homeless people and convert them into Cybermen . He assassinated the President of Great Britain after the President rejected his plans . ( TV : " Rise of the Cybermen " ) Using the EarPod s he designed and sold , Lumic took mental control of the people of London , marching thousands to be cyber - converted . After his life - support systems were damaged by his assistant , Mr . Crane in an act of betrayal that cost him his life , Lumic was converted into the Cyber - Controller by his own Cybermen against his own wishes to preserve his flesh form . By the Cybermen ' s cold logic , it was impractical to cling to an already dying body . Once converted and revitalised , Cyberman instinct merged with his megalomanical mind and he planned to convert all of the parallel Earth . However , the Tenth Doctor and his companions , having accidentally landed on the parallel Earth , managed to foil his plans . They freed London from mental control and disabled the Cybermen ' s emotional inhibitors , causing them to go insane and in some cases explode . Lumic himself fell to his apparent death into the burning remains of his factory . A human resistance group , the Preachers , then set about to clean up the remainder of Lumic ' s factories around the world . ( TV : " The Age of Steel " ) Following the destruction of the Cybus Factory and the Cyber Controller in Britain , the Preachers moved around the rest of the world to carry out assaults on the rest of the Cybus Factories . One of their earliest victories came in Paris , where a stolen Cybus airship under the command of Mickey Smith fought its way through the streets , saving civilians and destroying attacking Cybermen along the way with a new weapon attached to the ship . Once the airship reached the factory , it destroyed it using an EMP . After the Cyber threat in Paris was ended , Mickey sent a video message to those who were sent on the mission , congratulating and thanking them . ( GAME : " Save Paris " ) Eventually , the Preachers had Cyber resistance and bases set up all over the world , just as the Cybermen had factories . Soon they were ready to begin their assault on what remained of Lumic ' s legacy . The mission was commanded overall by Jake Simmonds . The Preachers managed to develop firearms which were effective against the Cybermen and sent troops into other countries , where they recruited others to aid them in their cause . Battles ensued when a squad moved into Cyber territory but successful battles ultimately gained them control of countries where a Cyber Factory was located . From there , the Preachers would surround the factory while a single commando unit entered the factory and fought their way to the emotion inhibitor and taking it out , thus destroying the factory and all the Cyber units converted there . However , the Cybermen also sought to do the same thing : expand , " recruit " , take over , and destroy the Preacher bases . The conflict was fought all over the planet . Ultimately though , the Preachers were victorious as they succeeded in sealing the Cybermen inside their factories . Jake congratulated the resistance , but it was known that the Cybermen were not completely defeated , they had only been delayed , as Jake seemed aware of when he gave his congratulations : " You did it ! The Cybermen are sealed up in their factories . We ' re safe for now . " ( GAME : " Cyber Assault " ) The Battle of Canary Wharf . Despite their defeat , at least five million Cybermen survived and were able to infiltrate their universe ' s Torchwood Institute . They found a crack in the universe , caused by the passage of the Void Ship . The Cybermen were able to travel from their dimension into the Doctor ' s , and infiltrated the planet in the guise of benign ghosts of deceased humans . They established a base inside the Torchwood Tower at Canary Wharf . While there , they started making new Cybermen , using what materials they could find . After two months ( three years in parallel Earth time ) , the Cybermen suddenly appeared in their true form , occupying every landmass on the planet before breaking into houses and promising to upgrade all humans , commanded by the new Cyber - Leader . ( TV : " Army of Ghosts " ) Simultaneously , the Cult of Skaro had exited the Void Ship with the Genesis Ark . The Cult , led by Dalek Sec communicated with the Cybermen via Dalek Thay and declared war , or in Dalek Sec ' s words , " pest control " . After a skirmish between humans , Cybermen and Dalek s , the Cult travelled to the main room in Torchwood ' s Canary Wharf , elevated outside above the roof , and opened the Genesis Ark , releasing millions of Daleks who , under Sec ' s command , started to " exterminate all life - forms below " , killing human and Cyberman alike . ( TV : " Doomsday " ) Towards the end of the Cybermen - Dalek battle , the Cybermen , desperate for more troops , began directly converting people rather than transplanting their brains into Cybershells . One victim of this process was Lisa Hallett , girlfriend of Ianto Jones . ( TV : " Cyberwoman " ) The Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler opened the Void and anything contaminated with void stuff was pulled in . This included the Cybermen . ( TV : " Doomsday " ) However , this was not the last of the Cybermen . The Cybermen that were made on Earth , like Lisa Hallett , had never passed through the Void , therefore they were not sucked in . Ianto took Lisa away from the battle and hid her in the basement of Cardiff ' s Torchwood Three facility , setting up a life - support system , planning to restore her humanity . He was unsuccessful . She killed Dr . Tanizaki , fought with Torchwood staff and eventually transplanted her brain into the body of a pizza delivery girl . Lisa was finally killed by the Torchwood team . Ianto had desperately tried to salvage what was left of his girlfriend ' s former identity , but could not succeed . He mourned Lisa ' s death , moved on , and eventually set his romantic attentions elsewhere . ( TV : " Cyberwoman " ) After the battle , two children , Harry and Sam , were working on a model train set when they found stuff from Harry ' s dad ' s previous job . Inside the box was a Cyberman , in all its individual pieces . Not knowing what it was , Sam decided to put it back together so it could watch them play . Eventually , it awoke , threatening to upgrade both Harry and Sam . It forced Sam to help build equipment intended to upgrade Sam and Harry into more Cybermen using the other left - over electronics from Harry ' s dad ' s job in the box . They , however , managed to knock the Cyberman into the equipment , causing the latter two to be destroyed . ( PROSE : " Going Off the Rails " ) Other humans were converted during the battle , but fully . These survivors stole teleportation technology from Torchwood Institute in order to gather technology to help them re - open the Void and free the trapped Cybermen . They did not know how to do this , however , and so they stole the Doctor ' s TARDIS , trying to lure the Tenth Doctor to them for aid . Some Cybermen were destroyed by the army but the Cyber - Leader and a few others escaped to the Millennium Dome and kept the army out with a forcefield . The Doctor and Martha , however , having recovered the TARDIS , were able to enter . The Doctor was able to trick the Cybermen , allowing them to link up their equipment with the TARDIS and giving them instructions . However , the Cybermen were instead sent back to the time of the dinosaur s where they were attacked and killed by a " Tyrannosaurus rex " . The Cyber - Leader was destroyed after Martha damaged the forcefield and the Doctor used an electrical cord from it to destroy the leader . ( PROSE : " Made of Steel " ) Escaping the Void . Due to the Daleks ' damaging the barriers between realities by using the Reality bomb ( TV : " The Stolen Earth " / " Journey ' s End " ) , a small number of Cybermen were able to escape the Void , assisted by technology stolen from the Void - trapped Daleks while the rest of the Cybermen , along with the Daleks trapped in the Void , perished . Landing accidentally in London , in the year 1851 , these Cybermen , under the leadership of a Cyber - Lord , made an alliance with the human Miss Hartigan , created a minion race known as Cybershade s and began construction of a dreadnought robot called the CyberKing with which they planned to conquer the Earth . They also came across Jackson Lake and his family , who in his fugue state absorbed knowledge of the Doctor from an infostamp . Lake and his new companion tried to defeat them , but were unsuccessful until the real , Tenth Doctor arrived . When Miss Hartigan was converted into the CyberKing and the ship became mobile , the Doctor showed Hartigan what she had done and in her anguish she destroyed herself and the Cybermen , with the CyberKing sent to be disintegrated in the Time Vortex before it fell on London . ( TV : " The Next Doctor " ) This event was then erased from history by the Time Field so that only the Doctor remembered it . ( TV : " Flesh and Stone " ) One Cyberman fell through the void into a universe where the Doctor was the main character in a television show called " Doctor Who " . The Eleventh Doctor sent the Cyberman back into the Void to " its own home " . ( COMIC : " The Girl Who Loved Doctor Who " ) Cybermen on Centuria . During the 41st century an interplanetary info - thief stole Cyberman blueprints from the Torchwood Archive and used them to build a new Cyber army on Centuria with the intent of auctioning them of as hi - tech soldiers . However they turned on him and made him a half - converted slave . They started to kidnap hundreds of tourists and convert them . However , the Doctor discovered this while on Centuria for a holiday and the beach he was on was attacked . He and the other beachgoers were thrown into a van . Jayne Kadett , who was tracking down interplanetary Info Theft when the Cybermen caught her , revealed to the Doctor what had happened . The Doctor and Jayne managed to escape the Cybermen and blow the restraint circuits ; the Cybermen factory ( Factory Zero One ) was destroyed . ( COMIC : " The Power of the Cybermen " ) The Doctor and Kadett followed the Cyberman ' s signal , taking a robot - run airship across the now - deserted continent of Azlon on the planet Centuria . Before arriving at the airbus terminal ( a Cyber - conversion factory ) , the conductor / law enforcer became influenced by the Cybermen ' s hypnotic signal , which was being used to subjugate the arriving humans . The Doctor , Kadett and a reprogrammed robot conductor pretended to be hypnotised and follow the other arrivals . Seizing the right moment , the Doctor disrupted the hypnotic signal and the conductor robot attacked the Cybermen . A stray shot from the conductor ruptured the fuel banks , causing a huge explosion which killed most of the newly converted Cyber - drones ( basic work units ) as their humanity started to become more dominant . As the Doctor and Kadett fled the explosion , they found a bit of a map in a Cyberman ' s hand . ( COMIC : " Drones of Doom " ) Using the TARDIS , the Doctor and Kadett followed the Cybermen ' s map to Centuria ' s arctic zone where the Cybermen planned to ship upgraded human drones . Homaj , a half human , half Cyber drone , escaped the Cybermen who forced him and others to mine Hargstones . A giant purple Ice Snake attacked , but Cybermen with Cyberdog s deleted it . Homaj ran off into the frozen wasteland but the Doctor and Kadett were captured and taken to a huge mine below the ice . Inside the mine , the Doctor created a distraction while Kadett stole some explosives . The distraction caused a Cyberman to split one of the cave walls , disturbing a nest of Ice Snakes which attacked them . Escaping the mine , the Doctor and Kadett saw the Cybership has already departed with its cargo . Homaj waited for them and informed them he had intercepted a message saying that the cargo was going to Centuria Central . He then took the explosives from Kadett and headed back to the mine . In an act of self - sacrifice , he permanently sealed it . The Doctor and Kadett left in the Tardis in pursuit of the Cybership . ( COMIC : " Enemy Mine " ) The TARDIS landed in Centuria Central in a temporal stasis field . Kadett was caught in the frozen moment but the Doctor , being a Time Lord , could resist the field . Cybermen in a patrol aircar spotted him moving around and pursued . The Doctor used his sonic screwdriver to bring the aircar crashing down , drawing the attention of other Cybermen , who arrived to salvage parts and take them back to base . The Doctor smuggled himself into the base with the salvage . The base was the Triplanetary base which the Doctor suspected had been robbed of its Hargstone reserves to enable the Cybermen to maintain a stasis machine . The Doctor learned from the Cybermen that they had built the stasis machine from Torchwood files and used the device to subdue opposition . Choosing the most secure place for the machine , the Doctor escaped and headed for the bank ' s vault , but it was made of titanium and was protected by laser - proof glass and destructor rays . When the Doctor couldn ' t get in he used the sonic screwdriver to turn the destructor rays inwards , destroying the stasis machine . The Cybermen had a mental link with the machine that enables them to move around inside the stasis field , so when the machine was destroyed the temporal feedback overloaded their circuits . However , a Cyber - helmet in the shadows glowed red , suggesting that the Cybermen presence on Centuria wasn ' t completely destroyed . ( COMIC : " Time of the Cybermen " )