[Story Idea]Introducing the Cybermen

[izlear]

Last night I was reading the Cybermen/Dalek Thread (http://dwaitas.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=seeds&action=display&thread=568) and I was thinking of new ways of using the Cybermen. One poster brought up a great point, that in the early days they were about Converting, not conquering and I wanted to take that a little further.

I thought about other things that convert and I thought about churches and religions. This got me thinking of the cybermen as a fanatical group. I can lone cybermen preaching the word of Conversion in a crowded alien city street. It is a different take on them, so I am playing with some ideas.

The cybermen are on a planet preaching conversion. They are a creepy mixture of the 10th planet and Tomb versions of them (with the sing song voice of the 10th planet). They are trying to convert people to their way of thinking.

while all of this is going down there are also people going missing. Homeless/ bums etc. . .

the Cybes are not getting much respect, and eventually something sets them off and they unleash the hoards - their army of cybes to wage A holy War to convert all people.

I suspect I could call this Jihad of the Cybermen.

any Ideas, suggestions. I know this is a pretty dramatic jump, bu I wanted to think of something a little different for the Cybermen.

Thanks.

[Craig Oxbrow]

Maybe Crusade Of The Cybermen? A differently loaded term which effectively means the same thing...

An example to look at: THE FLOOD, the last adventure for the Eighth Doctor in Doctor Who Magazine's comic strip and which at one point could have been his "on-screen" regeneration into the Ninth. Issue 1 of VWORP VWORP! ran a feature on it, describing it like so: "the brilliance of The Flood is to place their messianic resistance to the cult of emotion at the heart of the storytelling. They are here to save us from ourselves, and given the vox-pop montage of the horrors of Man at the end of part five, for once they almost have a point..."

"I know you are afraid. Fear has consumed your entire lives. It has enslaved you, blinded you, lied to you. The tyranny of your emotion has been absolute. But we can free you from this madness... Free you from fear. Free you from hatred. Free you from joy. We can give you truth and make you strong. But you must be willing to accept this gift. Salvation will be yours."
The Flood, chapter five.

Reading about it gave me a somewhat similar idea - the Cybermen appearing in a warzone, taking in the wounded and shellshocked survivors of the trenches and bombs. Using or engineering a terrible situation that the people would want to flee.

[knasser]

Apr 27, 2010 0:53:56 GMT Craig Oxbrow said:

Maybe Crusade Of The Cybermen? A differently loaded term which effectively means the same thing...

Sorry, no offense is meant, but I find this amusing in a way. It really depends on your audience. The term "Crusade" is a plenty loaded term for some Muslims. Though I agree, that counts as differently loaded.

In any case, the word jihad is misunderstood in the West. It can relate to a violence, but it can also relate to other things. It means utmost effort, I guess, with connotations of religious purpose or righteousness. The best equivalent I can think of is 'dedicated', but not in the devalued modern sense, but rather in a more archaic way, the way a knight would be dedicated to their liege or a saint dedicated to their cause. This doesn't need to be a violent cause and actually, more normally, wouldn't be.

So pick a term - Crusade or Jihad, both are loaded. But Crusade probably is better because it's more accurate. The Crusades were religious wars of aggression. Jihad is not.

By the way, this is a great and pretty creepy idea. Cybermen preaching and seeking voluntary converts. Here's a thought - why don't you have them visiting sick people in hospitals, terminally ill or chronic pain. I'm imagining them striding along with clipboards collecting signatures for their consent forms. Instead of organ donor cards, perhaps people have a "cyber" card.

In fact this goes even further... Cybermen must be great workers in so many ways. If they really wanted to take over the world, their best policy would not be stomping around the streets, but establishing themselves as a working class. Once society was dependent on the Cyberman labour-force, they'd have all the influence and power that they needed. Heh. Would you mind if I wrote that up as an adventure?

K.

[Craig Oxbrow]

May 1, 2010 12:36:14 GMT knasser said:

Sorry, no offense is meant, but I find this amusing in a way. It really depends on your audience. The term "Crusade" is a plenty loaded term for some Muslims. Though I agree, that counts as differently loaded.

None taken. That was what I meant by differently loaded - as a historian, I wince at the number of "crusades" launched against different issues. (And while non-militant meanings have come to the fore Jihad also means struggle and the Koran focused on combative examples, which is where I was going with the definition.)

Anyway, yes, Cybermen beng tricky is always a good idea. See also this adventure Actual Play by Emprint about a future where the Cybermen are working behind the scenes and this gag about the Borg from the 27th Century.

[izlear]

No I have no problem with you writing it up as an adventure. It would be interesting to see the cybermen collecting volunteers. I actually thought that the sick and down trodden would flock to their offer. I also like the idea of the work force. What I am having to deal with is finding the breaking point that switches them from religious fanatics to invading force. It is important for them to be the bad guy even when it doesn't appear that they are. Perhaps when the people of the world find out what they are actually doing to their people they will become agressive. . . any ideas?

[Craig Oxbrow]

Initially, the travellers are the only people who suspect the ruse, so they're the lone voices of reason in the wilderness, and have to find proof. The threat of discovery is the catalyst for the Cybermen to move up to The Final Phase and invade en masse.

[izlear]

Yes this si the way I as thinking, and going with it, but I wonder how you could stop such an invasion. How would you force the cybermen to quit/leave/die. Convince one of the newly converted who still has somke of his humanity left, convine a relative who's loved one was cyberconverted that he is no longer human and that the cybermen are evil.

What could stop them in this situation. There will be ALOT of Cybermen!