NationStates Jolt Archive

Which one of these two Doctor Who species is your favourite - the steel-hearted, regimented cybermen or the high-pitched, fascist daleks? It's a hard choice for me after watching Doctor Who yesterday but I probably closely prefer daleks because of their iconic catchphrase, 'EXTERMINATE!' :mp5:

The Daleks are an imaginative concept, while the cybermen are just downmarket borgs. Last season even dealt with how the daleks could go up stairs.

The Daleks are an imaginative concept, while the cybermen are just downmarket borgs. Last season even dealt with how the daleks could go up stairs.

Yeah, although it did look a bit like they had just attached them to strings and dragged them up. A short-ranged teleporter would have looked more effective.

I favour the Daleks, but I am a fan of the Cybermen to a lesser extent.

the Dalek was really a tragic figure, that was a sad episode

the Dalek was really a tragic figure, that was a sad episode

How d'you mean?

I like the daleks more than the cybermen but my favourite enemies were those gas-mask people from the last series. That boy was just creepy!

I like the daleks more than the cybermen but my favourite enemies were those gas-mask people from the last series. That boy was just creepy!

They weren't really enemies though, were they?

How d'you mean?

Because the Dalek was the last of his race, and his war was over, so he was all by himself, locked in that little basement, and then he found out that his war was over and that he had no mission anymore, when his only goal in life was to fight that war. And then that girl touched him and he soaked up her emotions and it made it even worse.

So yeah, he had a shitty life.

Because the Dalek was the last of his race, and his war was over, so he was all by himself, locked in that little basement, and then he found out that his war was over and that he had no mission anymore, when his only goal in life was to fight that war. And then that girl touched him and he soaked up her emotions and it made it even worse.

So yeah, he had a shitty life.
All things must pass. Guess you haven't seen the conclusion of the first series, though.

I like both but the daleks win by a slight degree. Both races a mega fucked up and overall screwed up real tight. I find both extremely funny, with again, the Daleks winning by a point or two.

I'll always have a soft spot for those histrionic salt-&-pepper shakers.

What happened to the humans, after all the dear Doctor is a homo sapiens...

They are both utterly ridiculous.

What happened to the humans, after all the dear Doctor is a homo sapiens...
...not even close. Try again.

They are both utterly ridiculous.
Maybe they seem ridiculous, but Daleks don't measure success in terms of conquering planets, planetary systems or galactic quadrants - they conquer entire galaxies, with an eye toward eventual domination of the whole Universe.

Them Borgs is penny-ante shit by comparison.

I've only ever seen a few episodes, and those all featured Daleks, so I guess I'lll give it to those guys. Who doesn't want to do battle with a squid in a can? Especially when that can has laser beams and sounds like one of the voices my old System 8 era mac used to read alert messages.
And, based on the quality of character/prop design, the cybermen are probably just naked body builders with blenders duct taped to their faces, so that counts against them.

I have to go against the trend and say Cybermen. The Daleks will just EXTERMINATE! you, but the Cybermen will make you one of them.

And with way cooler suits than any johnnie-come-lately Star Trek ripoffs, too.

They're both neat.

However, I'd give the terror advantage when it comes to invading and kicking ass to the Daleks.

After all, the Cybermen look humanoid and that's not so scary to most people.

Besides which, we all know a Dalek invasion force cannot be killed by bling-bling. :D

Cybermen are a bit rubbish, really. Just relentless.

But Daleks... Daleks are leap-behind-the-sofa material.

Daleks for now.
But until I see the next episode I will remain undecided

Which one of these two Doctor Who species is your favourite - the steel-hearted, regimented cybermen or the high-pitched, fascist daleks? It's a hard choice for me after watching Doctor Who yesterday but I probably closely prefer daleks because of their iconic catchphrase, 'EXTERMINATE!' :mp5:I have different feelings about each.

When I come up against a Dalek (when! ha!) my fate would be death. Death by extermination, my world going negative and (depending on the particular weapons) enduring a brief period of excrutiating pain then vapourising, or being choked by gas, or... or... But I'll be dead, dead, dead. The figth against Daleks is a fight for the continuation of the human race (and indeed every other race, uncountable warring systems have patched up their differences in an attempt, usually in vain, to combine their efforts against the Daleks).

Cybermen, however... Well, in the old days (Cybermen from this universe) anyone who they did not kill[1] would be entombed within a cyberconverter and gradually morphed into a Cyberman yourself... In the alternate universe (shown last night) there's a lot of pain as you are formally separated from your body and then who-knows-what as you have your emotion/feeling centres cauterised. You are still human. Well, of human origin. With Cybermen it isn't the extinction of Humans, but it is an extinction of Humanity.

[Addition: just remembered, the first stages of cyberconversion in some of the pre-present storylines was "looking human, acting like yourself but acting as a fifth column for the cybermen", up until the point when you had opened the airlock doors for your Cyberbrethren and they had time to convert you. Although an actual Whovian might, with their encyclopedic knowledge of the whole canon, have more information from some of the historic storylines and written material that I've not been privilidged to witness.]

So, what would you want to do, assuming all hope was lost. Die a (hopefully) heroic death whilst acting as interference for your colony ships to escape, or being overwhelmed and[2] stripped of your humanity, in the knowledge that because of your conversion there will eventually be one more Cyberman to pester your retreating loved ones?

It's possibly a philsophical dilemma.

[1] They appear to now have the competing catchphrase of "DELETE, DELETE, DELETE" ;)
[2] Assuming the alternate-universe rule about "not wanting to be cyberconverted means you're incompatible" doesn't apply, or you don't deliberately damage yourself to prevent same.

[Addition: ...]]Additional addition.

I may also be wrong about the Daleks, I'm going under the impression that the only creatures used to 'drive' the Travelling Machines (mark 1, on up) were the genetically engineered descendants of the Kaled race. While I suspect that the 'fascist' overtones of the Dalek race might eneavour to maintain racial purity in Dalek stock (those defeated and made 'servile' races being converted into such as the Robomen or manipulated into assisting the Daleks' plans up until their eventual extermination), I might be wrong.

Whereas it also occurs to me, while the alternate-Earth appears to be fascistly inspired[1], the Cybermen are arguably created on the principles of the opposing political wing... ;)


[1] Well, it's obviosuly a world where the concept of the Zeppelin/airship hasn't had the problems on this world, maybe no Hindenburg Disaster? I still need to rewatch it to catch any other references. [Apart from some use of the Art Deco stylings, which while reminiscent of Fritz Lang's Metropolis and the like are really just 'dressing', given that all possible styles come into and go out of fashion, and there's no reason to suggest that this one would stick around any more than any other, even with an alternate history. It might surplant other 'recurring themes', of course.]

Daleks, only the old type that couldn't fly though. Those damn new ones pissed me off so much.

cybermen do look rather fun though, i want to see the next episode. But daleks are always superior

Additional addition.

I may also be wrong about the Daleks, I'm going under the impression that the only creatures used to 'drive' the Travelling Machines (mark 1, on up) were the genetically engineered descendants of the Kaled race. While I suspect that the 'fascist' overtones of the Dalek race might eneavour to maintain racial purity in Dalek stock (those defeated and made 'servile' races being converted into such as the Robomen or manipulated into assisting the Daleks' plans up until their eventual extermination), I might be wrong.

Whereas it also occurs to me, while the alternate-Earth appears to be fascistly inspired[1], the Cybermen are arguably created on the principles of the opposing political wing... ;)


[1] Well, it's obviosuly a world where the concept of the Zeppelin/airship hasn't had the problems on this world, maybe no Hindenburg Disaster? I still need to rewatch it to catch any other references. [Apart from some use of the Art Deco stylings, which while reminiscent of Fritz Lang's Metropolis and the like are really just 'dressing', given that all possible styles come into and go out of fashion, and there's no reason to suggest that this one would stick around any more than any other, even with an alternate history. It might surplant other 'recurring themes', of course.]


You're almost right about the Daleks. During the second last Dalek episode of the old series (Remembrance of the Daleks IIRC), the Daleks were shown to have matured, having been stymied by the Movellans and lost several wars. They still weren't nice by any means, but weren't the monsters they had once been. Of course, this is VERY far down the timeline.

The thing about it was, they'd tracked down Davros (yeah, still around), who was making NEW Daleks out of mutated HUMANS, seeing as he now considered his original model "flawed"! The Daleks actually had the Doctor serve as their executioner, finally ending Davros' life (okay, so he was just a head...).

But the last scene of the last episode of that story showed one of the white, human - derived Daleks getting away...