Fun new idea for a Cyberman episode
A group of them decide to convert people the slow way. Instead of showing up guns blazing and shoving people into conversion chambers to be turned into unfeeling machine-people against their will…these Cybermen target the willing.
Look at this shiny new body, freed of human frailty. We offer multiple models to suit your aesthetic taste. It may not be worth feeling nothing, but what about just feeling…less? Make the emotional inhibitors adjustable beyond just on/off, and becoming a Cyberman gets a little more tempting.
They start with the terminally ill, offering them a chance at life. A life reduced in some ways - emotionally cut off from those you used to love, a body that’s increasingly foreign, but a life. You will be changed, but you will survive.
And after that, the chronically ill. Those who can’t afford treatment or whose treatment just isn’t enough. They don’t want to be a ‘burden’ on their family. Maybe the homeless and/or poor next. People who don’t think their prospects will improve, so desperate for a way out that they barely need convincing.
The real-world parallel here, if it’s not already overwhelmingly clear, should be physician-assisted suicide. Except in this case the patient gets to live, for a given value of living. But the people advocating for it should use the same language of compassion, of dignity, that glosses over what exactly is being done.
If you really want to beat the audience over the head with a political message, have a human collaborator note how much money this process saves. All those human drains on society’s resources are now able-bodied and able to contribute again. Maintenance on a Cyberman is far cheaper than medication for a human.
Show as much of the conversion process as the BBC will permit without upping the rating. This should not be an easy process. It should be nasty and brutal enough to weed out all but the genuinely willing. The Cybermen are very up-front about this because they can’t afford to be accused of deception if they want to succeed. But they still come off as well-intentioned even when they’re telling you they’re going to either jam bits of metal in you or jam bits of you into metal.
And then at the end of it, almost every willing new Cyberman genuinely believes that their quality of life has improved. They’re not happy, most can’t quite get there anymore, but content.
And this is when the Doctor realizes they can’t stop this threat. Blowing up a bunch of Cybermen hell-bent on ruthless conquest is one thing. But they can’t just kill a bunch of them who have become ingrained into society.
And even if they could, should they? The Cybermen are taking advantage of the desperate. But if no one else will help the desperate, what right does the Doctor have to deny them the only 'help’ they can get? They’re still people, and they’re killing or forcibly converting anyone. This is just the way they’ve chosen to live. The Doctor ends up having to leave them as they are. No easy kill-all-the-baddies ending this time.
The Cybermen, therefore, should not be the only source of the horror. The rest should come from a society that values its members so little that the Cybermen barely have to change to seem appealing.