Name:
Ashad
Species:
Human
Place of Origin:
Earth
First Seen In:
Appearances:
Main Actor:
Patrick O’Kane
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ORIGIN
Originally human, (Ascension of the Cybermen) Ashad had multiple children before undergoing cyber-conversion, transforming him into a Cyberman. He did not have an emotional inhibitor, stating he “[did] not need to be stabilised”. As he recalled to the Thirteenth Doctor and Mary Shelley, his children joined the resistance and so he slit their throats. (The Haunting of Villa Diodati)
Ashad offered himself up to join the ranks of the Cybermen, but they rejected him. Regarding himself as a “believer”, however, he stayed committed to the cause. After the Cyber-Army was all but lost, he took it upon himself to revive the Empire, as their champion. (Ascension of the Cybermen)
FOREWARNING
Captain Jack Harkness once tried to contact The Doctor to warn him and “beware of the Lone Cyberman “and to not give it what it wants. However, he got hold of Ryan Sinclair, Yasmin Khan and Graham O’Brien instead, initially believing them to be the new Doctor. When he was told that he was she, he told them to warn her instead and tell her about a fallen empire. (Fugitive of the Judoon)
SEARCHING FOR THE CYBERIUM
Ashad travelled back in time to 1816 to attempt to extract the Cyberium, the database of Cyberman history, from Percy Shelley. The Thirteenth Doctor absorbed it herself, knowing Shelley’s death would alter the future. However when Ashad threatened to tear reality by summoning his ship, she relinquished the Cyberium to him, knowingly ignoring Captain Jack’s warning but deciding she would rather confront the Cybermen in the future than change the course of history by having the Earth destroyed in 1816. After taking the Cyberium, Ashad disappeared. (The Haunting of Villa Diodati)
PERSONALITY
Due to his lack of an emotional inhibitor, Ashad was able to express and understand emotions and even tended towards anger. Despite this, he lacked mercy or remorse, being completely loyal to the Cybermen and revealing he killed his own children for joining the resistance. He also knew how to manipulate emotions, as shown when he taunted Mary Shelley about sparing her son not out of pity, but because he was unsuitable for conversion, and when he blackmailed The Doctor into handing over the Cyberium or he’d tear reality by summoning the ship. (The Haunting of Villa Diodati)
APPEARANCE
Having undergone a partial cyber-conversion, Ashad’s human body was housed in an incomplete, weathered Cyber-suit resembling those associated with the Cyberiad, (Nightmare in Silver) but with an unique Cyber-helmet with an incomplete faceplate that exposed the left side of his face. He wielded a functional Cyber wrist blaster, though its energy could be drained by time hopping.
Most notably, Ashad lacked an emotional inhibitor. Being a willing recruit to the Cyber-Empire, he mostly retained control of himself, claiming to the Thirteenth Doctor that he did not need to be stabilised, though he was prone to emotional outbursts. (The Haunting of Villa Diodati, Ascension of the Cybermen)
POST-MORTEM
The Master, though dismayed that Ashad’s death didn’t detonate the death particle, was able to convince the Cyberium to take him as its new host and left Ashad’s shrunken remains on the floorof the carrier.
Ashad’s shrunken body was found by The Doctor as she and her companions destroyed the Cybercarrier and the Cyber-Army aboard it, foiling Ashad’s plan to rekindle the Cyber-Empire. Contacted by The Master who had created an army of CyberMasters instead, The Doctor attached Ashad to an explosive in order to sacrifice herself to detonate the death particle and end The Master and his army. However, Ko Sharmus decided to sacrifice himself instead to make up for causing the problem in the first place by sending the Cyberium somewhere that Ashad could eventually find it. In his last moments, Ko Sharmus detonated the bomb, obliterating Ashad’s remains and detonating the death particle which wiped out all organic life on Gallifrey, The Master and his army presumably included. (The Timeless Children)
The Doctor also used memories of Ashad and many, many other memories to overload the Matrix on Gallifrey. (The Timeless Children)
After breaking The Doctorout of prison, Jack asked if her friends had given her his message about the Lone Cyberman. Jack was dismayed to learn that The Doctor had given Ashad the Cyberium but she reassured him that she had “fixed it… eventually. Just about. Sort of.” (Revolution of the Daleks)
The Master later cloned Ashad and sent him to attack UNIT headquarters in Naples as part of his plan to turn Earth into a Cyber-conversion facility. Ashad slaughtered most of the operatives stationed there and successfully established a conversion pod in the basement, which he used to convert the remaining UNIT soldiers. Ashad later accepted Kate Stewart’s surrender in return for her knowledge of Earth’s defences, falsely promising to let her men go. He oversaw Kate’s attempted conversion, only for Tegan Jovanka to sabotage the conversion unit’s power source, electrocuting Ashad and the other Cybermen. (The Power of the Doctor)
BEHIND THE SCENES
Ashad’s Cyber-body being a combination of several Cyberman variants evokes the monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
According to Know Your Enemy, a TARDIS data extract suggested that Ashad had a supercomputer fused to his cerebral cortex.