Cyberman Conversion

Cyberman Conversion

Sarah Mowat (Karen Brett), Mark McDonnell (Liam Barnaby/Nash), Nicholas Briggs (Cybermen/Cyber Planner/Control/Guard/Reporter), Ian Brooker (Heliton/Hendry/Glaust/Karen’s Father/Protester), Barnaby Edwards (Paul Hunt/Comms/Security), Toby Longworth (Duncan Levinson/Pilot/Public Address/Security/Captain), Samantha Sanns (SSC Control/Comp/Helm/Operations officer), Hannah Smith (Samantha Thorn/Computer)

Before:

The Scorpius project has gone horribly wrong. A panic-stricken Paul Hunt manages to break out of his processing unit and get to the communications centre, where he sends a desperate message to the White House begging President Levinson to cancel the project and delete all records that it ever existed. He is then recaptured, and to his horror, the Cyber-Planner reveals that his escape was arranged. Knowing that Levinson would oppose full implementation of the Scorpius project, the Cybermen allowed Hunt to send his warning, now, Levinson will believe that the project has been terminated, and once the time is right, he will be replaced by a new President who will be more amenable to what Scorpius has to offer. Hunt is returned to the processing chambers, and this time, the Cybermen overcome his resistance and convert him into a hybrid: half Cyberman and half human, capable of acting as an undercover agent but wholly committed to the Cyber-conversion of the human race…

Later:

Levinson’s successor, Karen Brett, gives in to temptation and uses the teleport supplied by Paul Hunt to travel to Scorpius Base. There, Hunt shows her the Cybermen and explains that they could be the future of humanity, if humanity is willing to surrender the uncontrollable emotions that have held it back for so long. The Cyber-Planner has already “helped” Hunt to overcome his own fear at the prospect. If Brett agrees to their terms, they can begin converting the traitors and political dissidents currently held in the Isle of Wight penal colony into crack cybernetic troops capable of wiping out the androids inOrion. Brett is hesitant at first, but Hunt reveals that he understands the root of her fear: she knows how badly she made the traitor Helliton suffer, and if she’d backed down on Orius Beta VIII and lost the battle instead of torturing him to death for the information she needed, maybe the war would have ended then… and maybe her parents would still be alive. But they aren’t, and she’ll never know whether they suffered as badly as Helliton did. Brett is overcome with grief, loss and despair — exactly the emotions that Hunt now offers to remove from her…

Now:

The refugees from the Isle of Wight have been injected with neural dampening fluid to keep them docile While they’re transported elsewhere for full conversion. However, since Samantha Thorne is an android double-agent, the fluid has had little effect on her. Once the transport ship launches, she emerges from her chamber and tracks down Liam Barnaby, but the fluid has left him unable to process what she’s telling him. Desperate, she pulls him into a deep, arousing kiss, one that wakes his most basic human instincts and gets him thinking again. Still dazed, he vaguely recalls that he’s supposed to hate her for being an android, but he can’t deny that he finds her physically attractive. Sam keeps him aroused long enough to get him to the ship’s computer core, and despite his difficulty concentrating, he manages to reset the hyperdrive co-ordinates just in time. Once beyond Jupiter’s orbital path, the ship jumps through hyperspace, but it doesn’t end up where the Cybermen were expecting it to…

coming soon

• Conversion was the third release in the first series of Big Finish Productions’ Cyberman audio series.
  
• After being captured by the Cybermen, Paul Hunt was partially converted on the orders of the Cyber-Planner.
  
• Samantha Thorn is aware that Liam Barnaby is attracted to her.
  
• President Karen Brett has ordered Cybermen to be deployed among the Earth Empire’s internal security forces. She has assigned cybernetic commando units to keep the peace in all major population centres on Earth, supposedly in order to protect the people from retaliation by the increasingly desperate androids
  
• The Cybermen’s Master Hibernation Vault is located on Telos. (The Tomb of the Cybermen)
  
• The Cyberman saga concludes in the next instalment, Telos.