Doctor Who is famous not just for the adventures of its titular Time Lord, their companions and their TARDIS, but also for the villains they encounter. The popular BBC sci-fi series has had many recurring villains throughout the decades, including the Master, the Sontarans and the Weeping Angels. While these villains are all iconic in their own right, none of them get quite as much attention as the Daleks and Cybermen. At the center of the Daleks vs Cybermen discourse: which is the strongest?
The answer to this question may seem obvious, especially considering how the fight between the Daleks and Cybermen went down in Doctor Who‘s Season 2 finale, “Doomsday.” While there’s no denying the Daleks are the deadliest villains between the two, it’s also important to note that the Daleks in “Doomsday” were members of the Cult of Skaro, which are higher ranking Daleks.
Another important detail to note is that the Cult of Skaro fought the first generation of Cybermen from a parallel Earth and these Cybermen hadn’t undergone the various evolutionary developments of their mainstream counterparts. As such, the “Doomsday” battle can hardly be called a fair fight considering the Cult of Skaro is comprised of more seasoned Daleks compared to the mostly green parallel Earth Cybermen. Taking that into account, it’s worth examining the origins, strengths, weaknesses and abilities of the mainstream Cybermen and Daleks.
The Origin of the Cybermen
In the main Doctor Who Universe, the Cybermen originated on Earth’s twin planet, Mondas, which originally occupied the same orbit as Earth. At some point, Mondas drifted off into space, which forced its human residents to resort to other means of survival. This entailed replacing body parts with mechanical parts, essentially turning themselves into cyborgs.
In their new form, the Mondasian Cybermen managed to pilot their planet back into Earth’s orbit, where they attempted to drain the Earth of its energy. The First Doctor intervened and foiled the Cybermen’s deadly plans, but at the loss of their own planet. After losing Mondas, the Cybermen colonized other planets like Telos and continued developing new ways to upgrade their bodies. This meant developing new methods of cyber-conversion, which in many cases entailed encasing an entire human body in a cybernetic suit.
On the parallel Earth that became known as “Pete’s World,” the Cybermen originated on Earth and were the passion project of a genius inventor named John Lumic. Originally, Lumic developed the Cybermen as a means of preserving his own life. Since Lumic prioritized saving his brain by carving it out of his skull and transplanting it into a metal body, that became his default method of cyber-conversion. Lumic then forced other people to cyber-convert against their will by hijacking the EarPods he invented and mind-controlling them into cyber-converting.
The Origin of the Daleks
Doctor Who‘s Daleks have a similar origin to the Cybermen with one key difference: they were created to be a superior race of Kaleds that could easily defeat their rivals, the Thals. Originally from the planet Skaro, a scientist named Davros oversaw the Daleks’ creation by altering Kaled DNA, resulting in an octopus-looking creature that was a radical departure from the more human-looking Kaleds. These creatures were then encased within an armored shell and provided with deadly weapons.
When the first-generation Daleks were summoned for duty, they recognized they were being used as tools of war by Davros and refused his orders. They proceeded to murder their creator and went on to fulfill their own mission of conquering the universe by exterminating every non-Dalek lifeform. Their reasoning was as simple as deeming every non-Dalek race inferior and that only the Dalek race should reign supreme.
Expanding outside of Skaro allowed the Daleks to evolve in deadly ways by developing deadlier technology and even forming empires. This actually highlights another major difference between the Daleks and Cybermen: whereas Cybermen were created as a way of keeping Mondasians alive and thus prioritize survival at all costs, the Daleks prioritize being the only race in existence.
The Cybermen Are Constantly Evolving
With the Cybermen being built to survive, they are typically humanoid bodies encased in metal shells that help protect them against harsh environments and deadly weapons. Even when they’re dismembered, they can typically keep going without the sensation of pain to limit them, thanks to a neurological inhibitor that also inhibits their emotions. Cybermen can also reassemble themselves and replace their missing parts. Their metal casings also protect them against disease and aging, which increases their lifespan. When they need to conserve energy, they typically go into cryogenic sleep.
Another major strength of the Cybermen is their adaptability, which gives them an evolutionary advantage and prevents their extinction. Because they don’t prioritize genetic purity, they can mix with other humanoid races, which allows them to increase their numbers and gain access to other technologies that can increase their likelihood of survival. This is one major reason their appearance has consistently changed over the decades and why they consistently acquire more superhuman abilities like super speed and built-in weaponry.
Access to other technologies allows the Cybermen to develop technologies of their own such as Cybermats, spaceships and an AI known as the Cyberium, which contains their entire history and blueprints for making more Cybermen. New technologies also allow the Cybermen to animate and cyber-convert corpses since they are still organic matter. In fact, the Master has used that strength to their advantage on multiple occasions, which highlights some major weaknesses for the Cybermen: what happens when they encounter humans and other aliens?
The Cybermen’s Weaknesses
Throughout Doctor Who, the Cybermen’s encounters with humans and aliens facilitate two major weaknesses: weaponization by others as a means to their own ends and being killed by other powerful enemies like the Daleks. As mentioned earlier, the Cybermen’s adaptability has been exploited multiple times by the Master: once by Michelle Gomez’s Missy to cyber-convert every corpse on Earth and start an invasion and again by John Simm’s Master to cyber-convert a fatally injured companion of the Doctor. This strength was also exploited by Sacha Dhawan’s Master to cyber-convert the corpses of newly massacred Time Lords into a new CyberMaster race.
The Doctor and Daleks have also exploited weaknesses in their encounters with the Cybermen, especially in their least evolved forms, which was also when they were at their most vulnerable. Earlier incarnations of the Cybermen were easily taken down with house-cleaning chemicals by the Second Doctor’s companions. At one point they were allergic to gold, which the Doctor exploited to his advantage. When the first iteration of parallel Earth Cybermen encountered the Daleks, they were easily outclassed.
The Daleks’ Have Stronger Weapons
As lifeforms built for war, the Daleks are equipped with a metal casing and deadly weapons that allow them to destroy entire worlds with ease and exterminate multiple enemies with rapid succession. This is mostly due to Davros, who was skilled at making weapons of mass destruction, one of which included a reality bomb. This weapon was capable of destroying matter by disrupting the chemical bonds that held atoms together as macromolecules, eventually causing them to break down into simpler forms. With their electrical charges neutralized, this prevented the atoms from forming new bonds.
When venturing out on their own, the Daleks are also capable of developing new technologies as needed for achieving their goals. This includes building spaceships and teleportation devices. Higher-ranking Daleks are also capable of time travel, which was how Dalek Caan was able to retrieve Davros to kickstart a new race of pure Daleks. The Daleks are also known to use nanogenes to partially convert humans and other lifeforms into Dalek puppets to carry out menial tasks. Outside of their metal casings, they are capable of attaching themselves to human bodies and taking control of their human hosts.
The Daleks’ Weakness
When the Daleks are short in their numbers and need to repopulate themselves, they also develop technologies to achieve this, which is also where they run into conflicts with each other. This brings out one of the Daleks’ major weaknesses, and that is their penchant for genetic purity. Because they do not like mixing with non-Dalek lifeforms, this significantly limits their ability to increase their numbers. When they are inevitably forced to mix with other alien races to supplement their numbers, this draws out their second major weakness: their goal of exterminating non-Dalek lifeforms.
The moment pure-bred Daleks encounter Daleks of mixed origin, their impulse is to exterminate their “impure” varieties to avoid spreading what they decide are imperfections. They also extend this policy to exterminating Daleks that have gone insane, as was the case when they decided to destroy the planet that served as their asylum. Since the extermination of all non-Dalek life is their singular goal, this draws out a third weakness for the Daleks: succeeding in that goal would quickly render them without a purpose. Once they’re the only race left, they’ll have nothing to reign supreme over, which will cause them to eventually turn on themselves.
Verdict: It’s A Tie
While the Daleks are physically stronger than the Cybermen in terms of having world-destroying technology, they are also strategically weaker. They are ultimately limited by their own goals and priorities, which is easily their undoing. Because the Cybermen do not prioritize genetic purity, they have an evolutionary advantage over the Daleks. Their main weakness, however, is that they are easily exploited by others and are especially vulnerable in their least evolved forms.
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