Forums → Archive index → Reference desk archives → Are the Cyberman factions REF-only?
How much of the Cybermen splitting into factions is actually supported by the DWU? Or are CyberMondasian, CyberFaction and the rest purely here due to REF: Doctor Who: Cybermen, material that only belongs in the Behind the scenes section of an article? I notice an admin not too long ago added a deletion template to at least one of them.
Now, if their divergence and factionalising is supported in story, even if the names aren't, I can sort of see why the Doctor Who: Cybermen terms have a place in the wiki. -- Tybort (talk page) 02:27, March 10, 2012 (UTC)
- I believe that David Banks, the creator of these ideas, also used them in the novel Iceberg. Doug86 talk to me 01:20, March 14, 2012 (UTC)
- Well, the immediate answer to the title is "no", which is a start. Not sure how best to word the followup, but I'll try: how many of the ideas and factions are alluded to in Iceberg? Is it just the CyberFaction split? -- Tybort (talk page) 01:54, March 14, 2012 (UTC)
- I don't think it's quite as simple as "yes" or "no". The true answer, at least insofar as Iceberg is concerned, is "sorta". The following terms do not appear in the novel at all:
- CyberFaction
- CyberMondasian
- the demonym Mondasian — it's Mondan
- I don't think it's quite as simple as "yes" or "no". The true answer, at least insofar as Iceberg is concerned, is "sorta". The following terms do not appear in the novel at all:
- The word Faction, however, does. And the Faction is defined as,
- "the Mondan sect who wanted to fully embrace the logic of the cybernetic way. As Mondas continued to drift to the edge of space, they had dared to leap across to the outermost world of the system, Planet14.
- "The Mondans they left behind had, like the Faction, augmented their failing bodies with mechanical devices. But they could not bring themselves to convert fully. They refused to divorce themselves entirely from their inefficient organic origins.
- "They turned their attention instead to speeding the Return.
- "Harnessing the power of the magnetic field, the Mondans steered their world back to its original orbit."
- The word Faction, however, does. And the Faction is defined as,
- The book then goes on to describe the events of The Tenth Planet and saysthat "Mondas was torn apart. The planet, its inhabitants and the invasion forces deployed on Earth, shrivelled, disintegrated, and were obliterated [while the Faction] observed the disaster from their hidden base.
- So basically, Mondans — not Mondasians — were the Cybermen in The Tenth Planet, and Banks gives a reason why the look so different to Cybermen we see later. "The Faction" were dissenters in Mondan society who went on to become the dominant form of Cyberman, because the Mondans were all wiped out.
- This means that, at least according to Iceberg, our entire system of categorising Cybermen as Cyberman (Mondas) is a bit misleading. Banks' theory is quite clearly that Tenth Planet — or Mondan — Cybermen are extinct throughout most of the history of Doctor Who. The dominant form of Cyberman actively turned their backs on Mondas, and would likely be offended at being called "Cyberman (Mondas)". Yeah, okay, technically true, as both sides of the argument arose on Mondas, but for most Cybermen, it's been a loooooong damn time, and a kind of non-shooting civil war, since Mondas.
- Again, this is just going off Iceberg.
czechout ☎ ✍ 08:07: Fri 16 Mar 2012- Oh, it appears that CyberMondan is used once to distinguish from Organic Mondan, basically meaning converted versus unconverted Mondans. Frustratingly Organic Mondan is also rendered as organic Mondan. But there are only two instances, so we don't even get the advantage of a tie-breaker.
- Again, this is just going off Iceberg.
- As Tybort mentions CyberNeomorph is prop deleted, over on its talk page is a discussion of where the info comes from. Probably The ArcHive Tapes, which are basically David Banks reading the in-universe sections of Doctor Who: Cybermen.
- It's been a very long time since I listened to them, but I don't recall it being a narrative, it's more David Banks reading a history than any sort of narrative performance.
- Give what's in Iceberg should we rename CyberFaction to The Faction and CyberMondasian to Mondan? Given at least these terms are from within a narrative, whilst CyberFaction/CyberMondasian are a bit more dubious. --Tangerineduel / talk 14:36, March 16, 2012 (UTC)
- It's never that simple, is it? Also, does a new topic in the Panopticon regarding action be taken?
- Anyway, I suppose that garners a move of Mondasian to Mondan or Organic Mondan? There's also Sea Devil (Mondasian), but I have a feeling that changing that to Sea Devil (Mondas) would lose absolutely nothing. Also, the category Category:Mondasian species.
Well, again, I was just reporting what was in Iceberg. Mondasian is such a weird demonym that it must come from somehwere other than the mind of the person that started the article. All that's happened thus far is to eliminate Iceberg' as a source, not eliminate it entirely from the DWU. I don't think we should take action until we do a bit more research.
czechout ☎ ✍ 16:27: Fri 16 Mar 2012
I'll try and rephrase this: are the Cybermen, who come from "our" universe, when it gets down to it, Mondans (the ones that remained on Mondas) and the Faction (everything else)? Is THAT what Banks' passages are saying? Because I'd really like to sort out categorisation of Cybermen factions whose leading source seems to be passages in a non-fiction book, which in some cases seems to would mean shoving the lead as well to the Behind the scenes section. (Note that this applies more to Nomads, Neomorphs and Telosians than Mondasians/Mondans and the (Cyber)Faction) -- Tybort (talk page) 20:29, March 24, 2012 (UTC)
- Why must you make me think of the Cybermen when the Borg are clearly better and the DWU will never be able to reinvent the Cybermen satisfactorily now that the STU beat them to it?
- I'll try and answer as precisely as I can. Based solely on Iceberg, my sense is this. Both Mondan and Faction Cybermen came from Mondas originally. Faction Cybermen were political dissidents who disagreed with the philosophy of the Mondans. The Mondans thought that they could retain some flesh, some level of emotion — a greater sense of humanity. The Faction disagreed, believing in moving to total logic, and in retaining relatively little of their organic nature. They eventually physically separated from the Mondan Cybermen, transferring their flag, as it were, to Planet 14.
- The Mondans then crashed and burned during The Tenth Planet. The only Cybermen left after their encounter with Hartnell were the Faction. For the rest of the classic series what you see are therefore Faction Cybermen.
- Now, like Banks says, originally the Faction Cybermen come from Mondas, too. So, is it wrong to call them Mondan Cybermen? I dunno.
- I can tell you this, though, greater research beyond Iceberg has revealed support for the name Mondasian. The Eighth Doctor says in COMIC: The Flood, "Cyber-conversion is a delicate process. It's specifically keyed to the genetic structure of Mondasians — or their closest cousins, humans." He then goes on to make the interesting observation that it never works on any other species, which is the only time I'm aware of that deals with Cyber-conversion of non-humans. But that's another matter. Thing is that we have the Doctor canonically using the term Mondasian — something which I'm positive that doesn't happen in The Tenth Planet or The Moonbase, and I'm pretty sure doesn't happen in Attack of the Cybermen (but I'll be damned if I'm watching that again just for a forum question). These are the only three televised stories I can think would logically have a reference to Mondas at all, much less the demonym (Moonbase and Planet give no demonym at all).
- That leaves us with Mondasian and Mondan as both correct, according to T:CAN sources. It's easier then to leave Mondasian in place. We also have the Eighth Doctor telling us that the version of Cybermen he encounters with Destrii being "Mondasian". This tallies with Iceberg in that the Faction are genetically "Mondan", but of a politically different viewpoint.
- So, yes, the Cybermen from "DWU prime" are from a species known variously as the Mondans or Mondasians. In every episode of the classic series featuring the Cybermen you are looking at a Monda(sia)n. In everything based on the classic series involving Cybermen, you are looking at a Monda(sia)n.
czechout ☎ ✍ 22:25: Mon 26 Mar 2012
- Now, that just answers your first sentence. The rest of your recent query involves Nomads, Neomorphs and Telosians. I dunno. Haven't looked at those words in any detail. They don't appear in Iceberg, The Flood or any televised episode.
- As a general rule of thumb, though, if you have to shove the lead of an article into the BTS section, you have no basis for an article. Rule 1 of any in-universe article is that the topic must be mentioned in a DWU narrative, as defined by T:CAN. So if an article is only based on a REF source, it must be deleted.
czechout ☎ ✍ 22:29: Mon 26 Mar 2012
- As a general rule of thumb, though, if you have to shove the lead of an article into the BTS section, you have no basis for an article. Rule 1 of any in-universe article is that the topic must be mentioned in a DWU narrative, as defined by T:CAN. So if an article is only based on a REF source, it must be deleted.
- Should we keep pages for the Iceberg terms, though? Or is there not really a proper demonym besides "the species the Cybermen were, biologically speaking" for the non-Faction Cybermen?
[edit conflict]
- Look, the CyberTelosian, CyberNeomorph and CyberNomad articles are all BS. They're all giving sources there that you gotta know don't use those terms. So those pages are now gone. However, it's gonna be a little tricky physically rippin' them from the wiki, because they, or at least CyberNeomorph, was in a lot of navboxes. So I gotta let the system catch up and show me the true links before I can begin to forumlate a deletion strategy.
- Here are the WhatLinksHere pages, since they'll be slightly harder to find after deletion:
[/edit conflict]
- To answer Tybort's most recent question, the demonym and species name is Mondan or Mondasian, as the article Mondasian now reflects. So we do not have to go with some longer description. Should the Iceberg terms persist? Sure, they're from a narrative source. But again, it's not CyberFaction, but Faction — or, really, the Faction.
czechout ☎ ✍ 00:22: Tue 27 Mar 2012
- To answer Tybort's most recent question, the demonym and species name is Mondan or Mondasian, as the article Mondasian now reflects. So we do not have to go with some longer description. Should the Iceberg terms persist? Sure, they're from a narrative source. But again, it's not CyberFaction, but Faction — or, really, the Faction.
- Basically, what I'm trying to get at is, is there any way of using a title to differentiate the Mondan faction from the native pre-upgrade species Mondan/Mondasian? -- Tybort (talk page) 00:30, March 27, 2012 (UTC)
- No. Not in the English language anyway. You're basically decrying the fact that English allows many proper nouns to be adjectives. "Human", "American" and "African" are all adjectives and nouns. Likewise, Mondan works as a noun and an adjective. Nothing canonically allows us to assume otherwise. That said, Mondan and Mondasian do link to slightly different places. I think that's the best I can give ya, considering that no one but David Banks give a damn about any of this Mondan business. While we do have two pages of coverage in Iceberg, basically that's it. Ain't nobody in the world outside of Banks and his one or two devotees who believe that the Cybermen of Silver Nemesis are different to those in The Tenth Planet. We all understand that the visual differences are simply down to different production eras. It has nothing to do with substantive, narrative differences. So, to the extent that you ever refer to the Tenth Planet guys specifically, sure, you can use the Mondan link. But there's nothing narratively that clearly gives us different definitions of Mondan and Mondasian.
czechout ☎ ✍ 02:42: Tue 27 Mar 2012- Oh and the other point to make is that Kingdom of Silver clearly uses Mondasian as a synonym for Cyberman, both as a noun and an adjective. Since it's part of the Orion War arc, I assume that's done throughout the Cyberman series, and is a "Nick Briggs-ism. So it's not accurate to say that "Mondasian" only means the original biologic species. It also means "Cyberman" and "things from Cyber culture" and "things from Mondas".
czechout ☎ ✍ 02:47: Tue 27 Mar 2012
- Oh and the other point to make is that Kingdom of Silver clearly uses Mondasian as a synonym for Cyberman, both as a noun and an adjective. Since it's part of the Orion War arc, I assume that's done throughout the Cyberman series, and is a "Nick Briggs-ism. So it's not accurate to say that "Mondasian" only means the original biologic species. It also means "Cyberman" and "things from Cyber culture" and "things from Mondas".
- No. Not in the English language anyway. You're basically decrying the fact that English allows many proper nouns to be adjectives. "Human", "American" and "African" are all adjectives and nouns. Likewise, Mondan works as a noun and an adjective. Nothing canonically allows us to assume otherwise. That said, Mondan and Mondasian do link to slightly different places. I think that's the best I can give ya, considering that no one but David Banks give a damn about any of this Mondan business. While we do have two pages of coverage in Iceberg, basically that's it. Ain't nobody in the world outside of Banks and his one or two devotees who believe that the Cybermen of Silver Nemesis are different to those in The Tenth Planet. We all understand that the visual differences are simply down to different production eras. It has nothing to do with substantive, narrative differences. So, to the extent that you ever refer to the Tenth Planet guys specifically, sure, you can use the Mondan link. But there's nothing narratively that clearly gives us different definitions of Mondan and Mondasian.
- I only made this topic to get rid of terms from secondary sources as part of a lead and title, and it got more complicated thanks to Iceberg. Thankfully, we seem to have succeeded. And thank you again.
- I also kind of dispute the "different production eras" thing as the sole reason for the variation in appearance. Innes Lloyd produced The Tenth Planet and The Moonbase, while Peter Bryant produced The Tomb of the Cybermen, The Wheel in Space and The Invasion (plus the fact that The Invasion is only two years after The Tenth Planet production-wise).
- But, yeah, I'm almost certain that the intent of all this wasn't Pedler or Davis.
- Thank you for the clarification on the use of "Mondasian". I don't think I said anywhere it only means the biological species. I think the nearest I got was saying that the etymology Mondan is indistiguishable from the biological species and the group of Cybermen, which there's nothing we can especially do with right now. -- Tybort (talk page) 11:54, March 27, 2012 (UTC)