Doctor Who

The Sword of Orion.

The Stones of Venice.

Okay, looking through Deception of the Cybermen again, I think it doesn't quite hold up as well. And, I mean, part of that is the Cybermen themselves, part of that is the way our lovely little group, including, (perhaps especially,) Ellie reacted to the Cybermen.

...Okay, basic premise with how Doctor Who usually works. It's all about messing with stories and structures and symbolism and things. You think you're in one story but actually you're in another. Doctor Who is about falling out of the world. Doctor Who is weird. The very first episode of An Unearthly Child is still one of the best in the series and demonstrates very well what the show is about. It starts off being about a girl, and her teachers, but then they end up in a different story entirely.

The thing is, Doctor Who can't really make sense as a coherent universe. "Canon" is defined primarily as "Whatever David Whitaker/Robert Holmes/Douglas Adams/Andrew Cartmel needed to get a script working on time that week". It's the problem with "whoniverse" logic.

See, the thing with Roleplaying games, and not just ours is that they presume a coherent universe. Maybe. I dunno. This is the only roleplaying game I've played like this.

...And, I mean. To get back to what I started off saying, I know too much about what's been done with the Cybermen over the years. All of the cliches that have, over time, become part of their iconography. When, really, their best outings have been The Tenth Planet and Spare Parts.

Wack'd listened to Spare Parts partway through the RP. Listening to it beforehand might have been a better idea. And, I mean. He said he read the Eruditorum entry on The Tenth Planet but frankly, they still seem a bit too much like Tomb or Moonbase Cybermen. Which, I mean, is somewhat of an improvement over Earthshock or Attack Cybermen, but I'm not sure it's still as interesting as The Tenth Planet or Spare Parts.

...I mean, I loved our meeting with that one Cyberman in that office. The statue of the potted plant was great. And the pair of recharging Cybermen we met was great as well. But I think things probably went downhill around when we got captured and brought back to the office.

I mean, I can't speak for much of our escape, I was sorta absent/unconscious for most of it.

EDIT: Also, Wack'd doesn't care about symbolism which makes him wrong.

...Actually, I don't think the Cybermen should be trying to convert people. In The Tenth Planet, the Cybermen wanted to survive, while Earth died. They offered to convert the people of Earth as a kindness to them, but it wasn't anything like a primary goal.

...I'm not sure the Cybermen can actually be saved anymore. I mean, Neil Gaiman gave it a try, and that didn't work. They have had two outings where I feel they actually, genuinely worked on their own merits, one of them has the last episode missing, and the other was an audio. The Cybermen have just built up too much damned baggage. Too much of their iconography from appearances that were so lacking compared to the original.

EDIT: Minuet in Hell.

edited 19th Apr '14 3:52:24 PM by unnoun

Back from the hospital now. Actually got back around noon, decided to sleep.

I can't say I'm entirely sure what you're objecting too beyond the use of the Cybermen generally. I mean, I liked Spare Parts fine but I didn't feel particularly invested in borrowing from it. And the idea of Cybermen offering conversion as a kindness and making some good points (albeit taken too far) are the main things I borrowed from Sandifer's interpretation of The Tenth Planet.

I haven't seen Wheel in Space but the comparison to Tomb wounds me. I mean, the scheme here actually made sense, and I don't think I included any racist caricatures.

I don't know what exactly you think went wrong with the capture. It was the next logical step. They were basically giving you free reign as a distraction and then once they had the TARDIS they realized oh, shit, we don't actually know how to open it, go get those guys.

As for trying to survive—hot damn if that hasn't become the bog-standard method of making monsters interesting these days. Hell, it's a trick that was tried more than a few times in the classic series as well. It's not something I find especially compelling. Whereas the idea of Cybermen that have a vaguely-religious-shaped idea of conversion-as-salvation and an interest in making everyone the same to level out the quality of life is not, I think, something that's been tried. I dunno if it worked especially well but the idea that it's main failing is not resembling your favorite Cybermen stories is the same sort of logic that gave us Attack.

Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.

The Sword of Orion. Made me think about the Cybermen again. My comparison to Tomb had nothing to do with plans or racism. It was not intended to wound.

It also gave Sword of Orion. And the thing is that The Tenth Planet version of the Cybermen is sort of fundamentally different from their next appearance and all the ones afterward. From the Moonbase on the Cybermen have been on a sort of evolutionary course that builds off or rejects, but is always in relation with the previous versions, except for the original. Whereas the Daleks can't seem to not go back to The Daleks, and the scene of Barbara being menaced by that plunger.

...The Daleks have a different problem, in that they seem to always go to what Terry Nation wanted them to be when left to his own devices, as opposed to what David Whitaker, Robert Holmes, or Andrew Cartmel did with them in their script editing or writing.

The point isn't that the details aren't the same, it's that it doesn't quite feel the same, tonally.

Also, someone beat you to the punch on that one. Sorry.

Meanwhile, this is a conception of the Cybermen I feel is more in line with a "progression" of the "Qlippothic" Cybermen, and one that seems more in line with the initial encounters in the RP. The one in the office. And the two recharging.

...I think the point where the Cybermen wanted the TARDIS is specifically the part where things came apart.

But not the enlightenment stuff, or the "dark mirrors of humanity" thing, or the stuff about prosthetics. Which was the point. That was what was interesting.

EDIT: And, I mean, I felt like you did a damned good job of it anyway. My only complaint is that you still ended up with the same mistakes as brilliant writers like Neil Gaiman. And I feel like you've gotten closer to anyone I've ever seen.

edited 19th Apr '14 4:38:25 PM by unnoun

Yeah, that person sure beat me to the punch with that one paragraph. Totally the same thing as actively building a narrative around the idea.

That the tone doesn't quite come off is a totally valid criticism, admittedly.

The idea of the villains taking an active interest in the TARDIS as something that can further their goals is an idea I'm legitimately shocked hasn't been used before, honestly, especially when so many villains seem to have some variation of universal conquer as an endgame. I mean, Davros tries to pump the Doctor for future information on the Dalek's defeats in Genesis and there's the business with the main Dalek having vital info in Jubilee, but beyond that everyone just kinda seems to forget that their main adversary is a time traveler. Hell, Winston friggin' Churchill is more cognizant of the TARDIS's capabilities than any of the motley of monsters over the course of the series.

The concept seemed especially well-suited to this version of the Cybermen who have a bit of a thing about knowledge integration, and with spreading their own influence throughout the cosmos. I mean, the Doctor uses the TARDIS to reduce sentient suffering all the damn time, the Cybermen totally want a shot at that.

The Daleks constantly reverting to their Nationian shape is why I'm fairly intent to never use them, because deviations from that are always still defined by Nation's work. I mean, Evil still depends on the "Dalek factor" basically being pure hatred, and Remembrance still falls back on the whole "ultimate form" thing what with all the racial purity. The idea of something basically being pure evil and hatred with no capacity for lasting change is not something I find compelling.

I feel like we got some "dark mirrors of humanity" in there, what with the Adamsian bureaucracy and the plant you admitted to liking so much. The idea that a race hell-bent on logic and shared information still has office workers amuses the hell out of me because it suggests they understand something about bureaucracy we don't, or at least they think they do.

edited 19th Apr '14 4:45:26 PM by Wackd

Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.

Sometimes I wish you would read more of my links. That all of you read more of my links.

This, this, this and this have the same flavour as what you ended up going with, and this reminds me of what it was that made me think it didn't work.

Excuse me, but I was just as active a participant in building that narrative as you were.

The Cybermen still felt more like the "Communist" Cybermen of the Troughton-era than anything. I mean, Communism meant well too.

But I think what I was hoping for was something where whether or not the Cybermen "meant well" was an irrelevant question to ask.

Apathetic Cybermen seems like the only direction left to go with them. Apathy is death. Worse than death. Because at least a rotting corpse feeds the beasts and insects.

I also liked the two Cyber-roomates at that one recharging station. So it's not so much that they were interesting in one session, so much as in the middle of a session.

Anyway. I read the Eruditorum entry for Sword of Orion. Helped me think of some of my Cybermen experiences. Like the audio drama in question. And even yours.

Again, you are a step up from a lot of the depictions of the Cybermen. But I think there's still issues there.

Remembrance is all about that. As is The Two Doctors.

...The Chase starts with the Daleks already having time travel.

And, I mean. There's the Time War as a thing.

Jubilee.

edited 19th Apr '14 5:07:01 PM by unnoun

I really don't understand that line of thought. Like, yeah, no it's not those things. It is a bit loony. So what? Why does it not being those things mean it doesn't work?

I think the main problem in that respect was the execution rather than the actual premise. I personally like it when villains have motives that make sense to them.

I don't think it redeems them or anything if that's what you're getting at.

The only real difference, I think, between what that link suggests and what I ultimately ended up doing with them is that the Cybermen only think they've found enlightenment. The idea that there's meaning to the universe and that the only thing to do once you've found it is either fart around and do nothing just strikes me as absurdly banal. And in any case I don't think that's the same thing as "apathy", which basically implies not giving enough of a damn about other folks one way or another to bother doing anything to or for them.

I mean, most of your issues seem to be "this does not line up 1:1 with my ideal version of the Cybermen", which is all well and good but not something I necessarily think the narrative can be faulted for. "This narrative is bad because it doesn't resemble another narrative" is quite possibly one of my least favorite critical tactics of all time. That my Cybermen are not the Tenth Planet Cybermen or the Spare Parts Cybermen is not in and of itself an issue.

Remembrance is about them trying to get their hands on a different weapon altogether. I don't really remember Two Doctors well enough to confirm or deny that, though.

The Chase doesn't seem to take itself especially seriously. And I mean the Daleks as a race with time travel just makes them come off as even thicker than they already are.

I liked your bit in "Memoriam" about how a War over infinite resources is inherently pointless.

"Oh, fuck, I've changed. Blow it up, blow it all up."

Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.

Okay, you still working on your papers? Otherwise, read the damned Jubilee article, because I'm sick of copy/pasting, and because it deserves the ad revenue, and because that paradox is actually a lot more subtle and thematically important than that.

So they could make their own Eye Of Harmony and develop time travel.

The Hand Of Omega was not, in fact, intended as a weapon. That was just a side-effect.

The Book Of The War has a lot on that subject.

...If I don't want to copy/paste TARDIS Eruditorum sections, typing out large portions of The Book Of The War is even less appealing to me.

And I think what was key to The Tenth Planet is the suggestion that they actually had found enlightenment.

Maybe they have. Maybe enlightenment is scary. Maybe, once you've found enlightenment, there's nothing else to do. Now what.

Maybe, just maybe, enlightenment actually is banal.

That's not what my issues are and I'm sorry if that's what I'm getting across.

I mean, right now I'm musing if it's even possible to get the Cybermen to actually work on their own merits. Because, I mean, at this point, The Tenth Planet and Spare Parts are about it.

Deception of the Cybermen got through it halfway, with the office, with the cubicles and recharging stations, with the way they just couldn't be bothered to change the old inefficient designs.

And I feel like that just doesn't work as well, or at least didn't come across, and I'm not sure it's that interesting a concept to begin with. Because, I mean. Having a big masterplan of that sort isn't the sort of thing that I feel works with the Cybermen. Not unless they were in a hurry. And they should have no reason to be.

edited 19th Apr '14 5:38:59 PM by unnoun

I have read it. I don't think it contradicts the idea that Jubilee, like Evil, ultimately concludes that the Daleks are evil and any deviation from that is unsustainable. I mean, the main Dalek takes his development of a conscious as a sign of insanity and ultimately concludes that the Daleks can never succeed and thus need to be destroyed.

But they have time travel! The fuck is the point of that?

I find that not only needlessly pessimistic but incredibly boring, to say nothing of the fact that it basically means the Cybermen shouldn't bother doing anything at all.

But every criticism you've made about them is basically "but this thing I really liked about The Tenth Planet or Spare Parts is missing, therefore you got it wrong." I mean, let's look at what problems you've given so far: I mean, all of these take issue with my versions only as they compare to other versions, specifically the two versions you're fond of. And all the links you've posted are basically extensions of those same ideas, that the problem with other depictions of the Cybermen is not that they're not compelling or suffer narrative issues or even that they don't work as symbols, merely that they're different from the Cybermen you like.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "their own merits".

Part of what makes these guys work is productivity and conservation of resources. Why waste time trying to figure people out when you can just hijack a machine that can basically tell you everything you need to know?

See, that's criticism I can take to heart. If these Cybermen don't work for you because what I intended to do with them didn't come across, that's an issue I can work on improving without losing what I want to do with the narrative. If you just don't find them interesting, that's not something I can fix but something I can understand and use to meet you halfway in the future. But if you don't like them because they're not what other people have done, than the only way I can fix them is by imitating other people, which just strikes me as a ludicrously poor excuse for a creative endeavor.

edited 19th Apr '14 5:43:15 PM by Wackd

Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.

CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!

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It definitely explains what can be compelling and interesting about that though.

Maybe The Chase is after Remembrance.

...And there's things about the Caldera in The Book Of The War that I'm not copy/pasting.

Maybe they shouldn't.

There are stories that I think are good that have the Cybermen in them, and there are even stories that use the Cybermen in interesting ways, but those stories have nothing to do with how interesting the Cybermen themselves are.

I mean, I like the bit in Doomsday where the Daleks and Cybermen fight each other. That can only happen because the Daleks and Cybermen are both as iconic as they are. But it's not because the Cybermen are interesting or unique in and of themselves.

The Daleks also have a tension with their iconography and history within the context of the series, but where the Cybermen are at odds with it, the Daleks embrace it. The Daleks are the height of genericness which is of course what makes them interesting. Because ultimately all the other monsters are just the Daleks again, but with some new trait added. But the Daleks themselves are the real deal.

What I want, to be clear, is Cybermen that are a progression of the Tenth Planet ideas. Not identical to the Tenth Planet or Spare Parts versions of Cybermen, but something that clearly develops from them and uses them as a baseline.

And it seemed for a while like our Cybermen were that. Then they seemed like they weren't.

And because, quite frankly, there have been dozens of stories using stompy Cybermen not unlike Saward's, and more Cybermen stories where they were lurky and creepy like the Troughton era, and the two different versions are, quite frankly, not all that dissimilar from each other. And a fair bit different from what The Tenth Planet actually did.

The Tenth Planet and Spare Parts versions are interesting both because they're good, and because they're unique. Because Spare Parts itself is the only anything that has even attempted to explore exactly what The Tenth Planet did that made its Cybermen so compelling. And nobody really followed through on it. And that's kinda dissappointing.

Because I don't think the productivity and conservation of resources stuff is that interesting. Making the Cybermen pure logic monsters is just making them the Borg, or the Vulcans, or any of a dime a dozen "logical" races.

Of course, it'd be imitating people that have only been imitated one other time.

edited 19th Apr '14 6:03:46 PM by unnoun

But I mean you're still insisting on imitation of a sort. Faulting me for coming up with different ideas instead of building on other people's, or reading into me building on people whose work you don't like. It's all comparative.

And I think there's an inherent contradiction in liking TTP and SP for being unique and then faulting me for not making them less so.

I mean, I don't fault Saward's take on the Cybermen for being different, though it clearly is. Again, even before I saw these supposedly ideal versions of the characters I hated basically everything else the Cybermen had been in. Even if the Cybermen had never appeared before I'd still find shit like Earthshock unsatisfying, and from my perspective they actually hadn't.

So yeah, you don't find the logic thing interesting. Fine. (I'd argue that there are actually substantial differences between my Cybermen and Trek-esque logic races, but it's not especially relevant.) It's the fact that you seem to be insistent that I sacrifice my creative vision and rewrite my ideals to make them more in line with other people's that ticks me off.

Especially that enlightenment bit. Trust me, you don't want to see how I'd handle that, so angry does it make me. You'd only end up with a warped, mocking parody of it.

Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.

Did Sandifer do the entire Eighth Doctor Adventures? Seems like the sort of thing that would normally get one article for the entire series.

Fresh-eyed movie blog

He did the highlights of them, basically.

I don't think it's a contradiction. Especially because the later versions were as shit as they are. I think that the TTP and SP are unique, and interesting, and I want to see more done with that, and less for the dull irritating and dumb ones I don't like. I sometimes think that good unique things with unrealized potential should be less unique and more universal than they currently are.

Fair enough.

...But being a warped, mocking parody is precisely the point! That's what made the Cybermen work!

The question is whether or not a warped, mocking parody of enlightenment is actually any different from actual enlightenment. And it's just that. A question.

edited 19th Apr '14 6:32:00 PM by unnoun

Seem to be a lot of highlights in EDA volume 1.

Fresh-eyed movie blog

...Not really.

I mean, after a few of the post-The Ancestor Cell ones, he switched to Big Finish. And a few more Eighth Doctor Adventures after that.

There were something like over 70 Eighth Doctor Adventures.

The Eighth Doctor schedule. He stuck to it pretty well.

edited 19th Apr '14 6:30:23 PM by unnoun

No, it'd be a warped mocking parody of the warped mocking parody. Like if someone wrote a satire of Candide.

Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.

...I think you hate cynicism a little too much.

I mean, Doctor Who has, oftentimes, been a profoundly cynical show. I mean, under Robert Holmes and Douglas Adams and Cartmel and Davies and sometimes Moffat. All of them were angry and upset and bitter about the failings of society and the way the world often works. Critical.

But, usually, the cynicism is tinged with optimism.

But The Tenth Planet is all about killing the Doctor. All the stuff about the "dark mirrors" and all the creepiness of it is what is meant to do him in. Because the First Doctor was never really meant to deal with that shit. Power Of The Daleks leaves us really uneasy with Troughton's Doctor, and presents him as untrustworthy, temperamental, and all the other things we usually associate with post-regenerative trauma except post-regenerative trauma and even the process of regeneration itself didn't really exist at that point yet. So the only thing it could have stemmed from is the warped, mocking parody of enlightenment last story, that killed him. That changed him into something new, and beautiful, and terrible.

I mean, our Cybermen apparently murdered our Doctor by dumping her in a black hole.

edited 19th Apr '14 6:46:21 PM by unnoun

Probably a more reliable method than dark mirroring at her. That certainly didn't stick.

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Well, I mean, it certainly worked and murdered the Doctor as he had been up to that point.

...I don't think it's an understatement that the first "regeneration" was a touch unexpected at the time.

I mean, the concept of regeneration didn't even actually exist until Planet Of The Spiders. The Third Doctor's regeneration story. The War Games only makes an oblique reference to the Doctor "changing his face" previously.

Trying to read The Tenth Planet in light of the future of the series is a bit of a mistake for precisely the reasons the Eruditorum entry of The Tenth Planet makes clear.

Cynicism with regards to people and man-made structures I'm fine with, it's the idea that the Universe is somehow an inherently awful place I can't stand.

Which is why I like Who so much. Yes, sometimes people suck, but sometimes they don't, and the universe allows room for both.

And, I mean, note the lower-case "u". The idea of a Universe is not one I'm especially fond of, especially one that apparently reduces all forms of life and experience to singular philosophical concepts.

edited 19th Apr '14 6:53:50 PM by Wackd

Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.

Yeah yeah context but it still didn't keep the bastard down. He Troughton'd up and was fighting daleks in no time.

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But the original Cybermen weren't about how the universe was awful. They were about how it was horrifying.

That was the entire thing with The Tenth Planet. The Cybermen weren't evil, but they were grotesque. They weren't "oh, Cybermen" they were "what is that!?"

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Which, again, still applying philosophy to the universe, and depicting the universe as consciously upholding it.

And I was more referring to the "enlightenment is meaningless" bit.

Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.

These guys from the upcoming Mandate game are interesting cyborgs.

They remind me a little bit of the Cybermen but y'know, less hating on transhumanism.

edited 19th Apr '14 7:02:32 PM by Bocaj

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