Gustave Lytton, (PROSE: Attack of the Cybermen) or Gustav Lytton, (PROSE: Resurrection of the Daleks) was a mercenary who worked for the Daleks and later for the Cryons. While on Earth in 1984, he and his two henchmen disguised themselves as police officers, Lytton wearing the uniform of a police inspector.
Biography[]
Lytton was born on the satellite Riften 5, orbiting the planet Vita 15. He knew of the Time Lords. (TV: Attack of the Cybermen)
During 1968, he was a Major in the British army and worked alongside Wilson in Saigon. During their time there, they were attacked by a suicide bomber driving a bus of explosives. Lytton survived the attack unharmed.
In 1975, he ran The Jazz Soiree Club in Soho. (COMIC: Down These Mean Streets A Man Must Go)
Lytton in his military uniform. (TV: Resurrection of the Daleks)
When the Fifth Doctor first encountered Lytton, he was leading a squad of Dalek Troopers in a plot to rescue Davros from imprisonment in stasis on a human prison space station. When Davros altered some of the Daleks to be loyal to him and attempted to seize control from the Supreme Dalek, Lytton was one of the few survivors of the ensuing battle and was left trapped in London in the year 1984. He and his henchmen slipped away from the scene, still wearing their police uniforms. (TV: Resurrection of the Daleks) He spent some time afterwards hiding from the police at the Scoundrels Club. (PROSE: Dismemberment)
Subsequently, Cryon resistance fighters contacted him. With the Cryon planet, Telos, occupied by Neomorph Cybermen, they sought help from him in freeing themselves. Lytton assembled underworld contacts in what appeared to be a plot to rob a diamond merchant. He actually planned on contacting the Cybermen living in the London sewers to win their trust, so that he could betray them on behalf of the Cryons.
Lytton at the East End pub. (PROSE: Mistaken Identity)
Lytton again met the Sixth Doctor, who recognised him from their previous encounter. The Doctor distrusted him immediately, even after the Cybermen took Lytton prisoner as well. The Cybermen transported Lytton, along with the Doctor and his companion, Peri Brown, to Telos, where it was revealed to the Doctor that Lytton was working for the Cryons and not for the Cybermen themselves.
A partially-converted Lytton dies. (TV: Attack of the Cybermen)
Once Lytton's treachery was conclusively proven to the Cybermen, the Cyber-Controller ordered that Lytton undergo the cyber-conversion process. As the Doctor tried to free him from his fate as a Cyberman, a partially-converted Lytton died fighting the Cyber-Controller. (TV: Attack of the Cybermen)
Legacy[]
The Doctor did not immediately accept that Lytton was dead and attempted to revive him, until Peri confirmed that it was too late to help him. Distraught, the Doctor questioned why Lytton hadn't told him about his allegiance with the Cryons; Peri responded by pointing out that the Doctor had made no attempt to hear him out and immediately assumed the worst about him. The Doctor and Peri subsequently departed in the TARDIS, leaving Lytton's body in Cyber-Control shortly before its destruction. The Doctor would later express regret at his having misjudged Lytton. (TV: Attack of the Cybermen)
In a 1991 article for The Metropolitan, Andrew Dylan wrote that in 1986, surveillance on terrorists such as "Gustav Litten" prompted a secret United Nations resolution to increase funding for UNIT. (PROSE: An Army of Shadows)
Personality[]
Lytton's people were mercenaries, rarely doing anything if there wasn't money attached. Lytton was no different. He berated his men and threatened potential mutineers with death. He constantly insulted the intelligence of those under him and was willing to sell them out to the Cybermen in exchange for his life. However, his decision to help the Cryons overthrow the Cybermen caused the Doctor to admit that he had badly misjudged Lytton and his intentions. (TV: Attack of the Cybermen)
Behind the scenes[]
- Lytton's full name was never given in his television appearances. His first name, Gustave, comes from the Target Books novelisation Attack of the Cybermen. It was reused in the Doctor Who Magazine story Mistaken Identity, and the Lytton comic series. The novelisation of Resurrection of the Daleks, however, spells the name "Gustav".
- Nicholas Ball, Steven Berkoff, Brian Blessed, Tom Chadbon, Kenneth Cope, Timothy Dalton, Paul Darrow, Michael Gothard, Don Henderson, Martin Jarvis, Michael Jayston, Alfred Lynch, Clive Merrison, Edward Peel, John Rhys-Davies, Maurice Roëves, George Sewell, Patrick Stewart, Anthony Valentine and David Warner were considered for the role before Maurice Colbourne was cast.
- The Dalek Handbook claims that Lytton, though not himself a Dalek duplicate, was conditioned to serve the Daleks only to override his conditioning, leading the Supreme Dalek to order his death.
