Conversion
Subjected to the first stage of Cyber conversion - a deadening of the human nervous system - Commander Barnaby is on the verge of finding out for himself what the Scorpius plan entails, and what President Brett’s new allies would turn humanity into. Also captured, the android agent Samantha isn’t succumbing to the process, but she realizes she has very little time to act. Needing Barnaby’s knowledge of the Cyberman-commandeered Earth ship they’re on, Samantha has for force the human’s animal instincts to the surface as best she can, enabling him to resist the conversion process. On Earth, President Brett goes public with the latest stage of Scorpius, but sugar-coats the facts, claiming that the Cybermen now patrolling the streets of Earth’s cities are volunteers who underwent rigorous training to serve as a new breed of advanced troops. Barnaby and Samantha manage to change their ship’s course, sending it into android space and then launching themselves to safety in an escape pod. But even after Barnaby helps android troops try to retake the Earth ship (and hopefully capture a Cyberman prisoner), the head of the androids’ war effort comes to a chilling conclusion: to win the war, the androids must deprive the Cybermen of the raw material for their conversion process - and to do that, humanity must be destroyed.
written by Nicholas Briggs
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Nicholas BriggsCast: Sarah Mowat (President Karen Brett), Mark McDonnell (Commander Liam Barnaby), Nicholas Briggs (Cyberman / Cyberplanner / Reporter), Hannah Smith (Samantha), Barnaby Edwards (Paul Hunt)
Commander Liam Barnaby, the commander in chief of all Earth forces, doesn’t like being left out of the loop - but he discovers that Paul Hunt, a mysterious figure with ties to Scorpius who predicted Karen Brett’s rise to the presidency before her predecessor was assassinated, has edged him out as the President’s closest advisor. Worse yet, when Barnaby decides to dig deeper, he finds that Hunt has covered his tracks well, even ordering some of Barnaby’s own people in the military to make it difficult for anyone to investigate him. Barnaby traces Hunt’s residence to a woman named Samantha, but after he questions her about Hunt’s background, Barnaby is called to account for his investigation by President Brett herself. That confrontation leads him to the inevitable conclusion that his military career is about to be ended for him, but when Cybermen come after him, Barnaby’s life may become as short as his career. Samantha helps him, and then reveals the truth: she’s an enemy android on a deep-cover assignment, and her mission has changed. Instead of destroying humanity, she’s trying to find a way to keep humanity from destroying itself - but she and Barnaby find that it may be too late. The Cyber conversions have begun in earnest on Earth.
General Karen Brett is hailed as a hero on the return from her latest campaign in humanity’s war against its own android creations, but she only reluctantly accepts the accolades. She makes a public appearance with President Levinson, whose policies and war plan she disagrees with - she feels he isn’t taking an aggressive enough stance with the androids. During the meeting, a silver-clad figure teleports into the White House, assassinates the President, promises Brett that she will become the new President, and then vanishes again. She does indeed ascend to the Presidency, but she finds that once in office, even she can’t turn the tide of the war. She discovers a deeply buried secret project, code-named Scorpius, which Levinson made every attempt to erase from existence, even to conceal it from any successors to the presidency. She’s able to find out very little, but she finds out enough - Scorpius is somehow tied to the silver giant who gunned down Levinson in cold blood, and it could change humanity’s fortunes in the war. In fact, it could change humanity forever…
Professor Bernice Summerfield is contracted by a man named Lynton, claiming to be a representative of a mining consortium whose operations on Tysir IV have been brought to a screeching halt by an underground discovery that could be of great archaeological importance. That, and the fact that he’s a fan of Benny’s books, is what prompted him to secure her services to investigate the find. Benny warns Lynton that her appraisal can’t be bought for any price, but when she sees it for herself - with Lynton insisting that he must accompany her - she is stunned: a huge metallic structure with doors has been uncovered. Once she and Lynton figure out how to open the doors - which can only be unlocked by solving a logic puzzle - Benny realizes that the enormous chambers are a sleeping tomb of Cybermen. And only then does she realize that Lynton knew this all along. But why would he want to unleash the Cybermen?
Sarah leaves the country on assignment, ignoring frantic warnings from Natalie that a reporter from Sarah’s former employer, Planet 3, is tailing her. Even when those warnings become even more ominous ones that the Planet 3 reporter is not, in fact, a Planet 3 reporter, and even after Sarah has met the “reporter” and figured out that something doesn’t add up, she forges ahead with her story. Josh is at Sarah’s new home when the place is robbed, and even though the robbers rough Josh up, he sees them take the non-functional K-9. Natalie discovers more evidence about the “reporter” Sarah has befriended, discovering that she has a connection to a group whose former members could be out to destroy Sarah’s career, if not Sarah herself. But Sarah isn’t looking ahead for these signs anymore - only over her shoulder.