Doctor Who has unveiled the Warrior Class Cybermen, finally hinting at a reason there are so many different designs of Cybermen. The Cybermen are classic Doctor Who foes, introduced in the 1966 story “The Tenth Planet.” They’re one of the Doctor’s most fearsome enemies, a race of cybernetic beings who have abandoned humanity in order to embrace a twisted version of immortality.
The conversion process strips every victim of their individuality, a far more profound assimilation than even the Borg in Star Trek, who at least leave some visible organic components. The general assumption has been that Cybermen are uniform, all possessing the same capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses. There are occasional exceptions; dedicated Cyber-Planners such as those referenced in the Matt Smith story “Nightmare in Silver.” But these are simply converted beings who possessed a unique, distinctive brain the Cybermen didn’t want to waste.
The latest Doctor Who episode, “Ascension of the Cybermen,” has hinted the Cybermen may be a lot more complex than anyone had previously thought. In one key scene, several members of Team TARDIS are stranded on an old Cyber-ship that they realize was actually a troop carrier. It’s packed with legions of Cybermen, all currently in a state of stasis. Intriguingly, these Cybermen are described as “Warrior Class.” They are similar in design to classic Cybermen, but with distinctive attributes setting them apart; their armor is bulkier, sharper, and outfitted with spikes, while their heads have an additional light at the top, serving an unknown purpose.
“Ascension of the Cybermen” is set in the distant future, in the aftermath of the final Cyber War. It seems that, by this point in time, the Cybermen have essentially created a Cyber Society, with classes of Cybermen dedicated to specific tasks. No doubt the warrior class are the most numerous; the Cybermen are a warlike race, after all, and they’re well known for sending wave after wave of soldiers crashing up against their enemies’ defenses. Warrior Class Cybermen would be the ones with specific combat upgrades, and the Cybermen would have taken great care to ensure any of their traditional weaknesses had been removed from their programming. It’s reasonable to assume these are also Cybermen who are likely to be more resistant to neurological weapons that reactivate the human parts of their brains; perhaps they tend to be created out of the bodies of those with weaker wills.
This new detail serves as a smart retcon, explaining away the fact Doctor Who has continually redesigned the Cybermen. Until now, the show had been forced to continually rewrite the history of the Cybermen, to the extent the series has shown four different Cybermen origins. That’s no longer necessary; differences in design can be easily explained away, with the Doctor simply encountering a different class of Cyber Society. Rather than warriors, the Doctor can cross paths with Technician Class Cybermen, Explorer Class Cybermen, or any other variant a scriptwriter can come up with. This is probably one of the simplest, and yet most effective, retcons in the history of Doctor Who.
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