UNIT
The United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (also known as UNIT) is a fictional military organization from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Operating under the auspices of the United Nations, its purpose is to investigate and combat paranormal and extraterrestrial threats to the Earth.
History
Template:Spoiler The roots of the organisation in the history of the Doctor Who universe lie in two such extraterrestrial incursions. The first was related in the Seventh Doctor serial Remembrance of the Daleks (1988). In that incident, two Dalek factions fought a battle in London over the Time Lord artifact known as the Hand of Omega in late 1963. They were defeated by a company of infantrymen from the RAF Regiment, commanded by Group Captain "Chunky" Gilmore, along with help from the mysterious time traveller known as the Doctor. Gilmore also had the assistance of a Scientific Advisor, Dr. Rachel Jensen. The model of a specialised military force with scientific assistance would form the basis of the future UNIT.
The second incursion, as seen in the Second Doctor serial The Web of Fear (1968), was an attempt to take over London by a disembodied entity known as the Great Intelligence, using robotic Yetis and a deadly cobweb-like fungus. Another small group of British infantrymen, led this time by Colonel Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart of the Scots Guards (assisted by the Doctor) beat back the attempted conquest in the tunnels of the London Underground.
Following the Yeti Incident, the United Nations became aware that the world faced threats from extraterrestrial sources, and that with the space program sending probes deeper and deeper into space, mankind had drawn attention to itself. Consequently, the United Nations established UNIT with the mandate to investigate, monitor and combat such threats. Lethbridge-Stewart was promoted to the rank of Brigadier and put in charge of the British contingent, which was apparently under the purview of the British government's Department C19. Department C19 was first mentioned in the serial Time-Flight, being the department at whose behest the Fifth Doctor investigated the mystery of a Concorde aeroplane that had disappeared. Several of the spin-off novels explore the idea that C19 gathers up alien technology for their own ends.
The newly formed UNIT's baptism of fire was an invasion by the Cybermen, in the The Invasion (1968). UNIT repulsed this, once again with the Second Doctor's help. Following this, Lethbridge-Stewart became convinced of the necessity of scientific advice in battling extraterrestrial threats, and recruited Dr Elizabeth Shaw from Cambridge. Coincidentally, the Third Doctor had been exiled to Earth by the Time Lords, and he agreed to join UNIT as its Scientific Advisor just in time to help defeat the Autons (Spearhead from Space).
UNIT first operated out of an office building in London and subsequently moved to a headquarters in the country that had been built over the ruins of a priory (Pyramids of Mars). Its main headquarters, mentioned but never seen in the television series, is with the United Nations in Geneva.
When the Third Doctor's exile was lifted, his association with UNIT became more sporadic, especially after his regeneration into his fourth incarnation. The last appearance of UNIT in the series for many years was in The Seeds of Doom (1976); however, the organisation continued to execute its mandate to investigate and combat alien activity.
Lethbridge-Stewart retired in 1976 (Mawdryn Undead, 1983), and was succeeded by Colonel Crichton (The Five Doctors). UNIT did not appear again in force until the Seventh Doctor serial, Battlefield (1989), where the British contingent was commanded by Brigadier Winifred Bambera, and Lethbridge-Stewart was called out of retirement to help defeat an other-dimensional invasion of armoured knights led by Morgaine.
UNIT was referenced in the 2005 series episodes Aliens of London and World War Three, where it sent a delegation to a gathering of experts at 10 Downing Street in response to a spaceship crashing in the River Thames. All of the experts were electrocuted by the alien Slitheen. None of the members of UNIT seen were from the original series, although one of them may have been the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip character Muriel Frost.
Following the broadcast of the 2005 series, in his regular column in Doctor Who Magazine #360 (August 2005), new series executive producer Russell T. Davies explained that the United Nations were no longer happy to be associated with the organisation, and its full name could not now be used. However, the "UNIT" and "UN" abbreviations can be used, as long as it is not explained what the letters stand for. It is unclear how this affects UNIT appearances in the various spin-off media.
In The Christmas Invasion, Prime Minister Harriet Jones visited a UNIT facility in the Tower of London. In conversation with Major Blake, who appeared to be in charge of the facility, Jones discussed Torchwood. Torchwood was a secret group she should not have known about and of which the United Nations was also supposed to be unaware, but which Blake had certainly heard of and contacted at Jones's request. This may indicate that although the British contingent of UNIT are still affiliated with the United Nations, there are still things that it keeps from its parent organisation.
Organisation and equipment
UNIT's status is supported by enabling legislation that allows it to assume emergency powers when necessary. Although it operates under the authority of the United Nations, its members are seconded from the host country's military and are still bound to obey that chain of command. Lethbridge-Stewart, for example, reported to the Ministry of Defence and the Prime Minister. However, where such orders conflict, appeals can be made to Geneva. Due to the international nature of the organisation, it is sometimes viewed with suspicion by local military and national security agencies, who feel that it might impinge on their sovereignty. UNIT's existence is known to the public, but mainly as a security organisation; its actual agenda is classified, some believing it to be some kind of covert counter-terrorist unit.
Its personnel have a wide range of weaponry to call on, some custom-made to combat specific threats. Among these are armour-piercing munitions for use against robots and Daleks, explosive rounds for Yetis, silver-tipped rounds for werewolves and vampires, and gold-tipped rounds for use against the Cybermen.
In The Invasion, UNIT had a command centre established in the cargo hold of a C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft. The Dæmons featured the UNIT Mobile HQ, a large bus-like vehicle that could be driven to the site of an incident.
Prominent members of the British contingent of UNIT included Liz Shaw, Sergeant Benton, Captain Mike Yates, Jo Grant and later, Harry Sullivan. Civilians who have worked with UNIT include the journalist Sarah Jane Smith. In The Claws of Axos (1971) an American agent named Bill Filer was sent from Washington to assist in the hunt for the Master.
In The Christmas Invasion, UNIT is shown to have translation software which can decipher alien languages with great accuracy. The software can also be loaded on a hand-held device.
Other appearances
UNIT has also featured in many Doctor Who spin-offs. The canonical status of these with respect to each other and to the original series is unclear. Different spin-offs have made varying attempts to be consistent with other stories.
In 1984, a stage comedy titled Recall UNIT: The Great Tea-Bag Mystery was produced, written by Richard Franklin (Captain Yates) who also reprised his character in the play. The cast included Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier and John Levene as Benton and was performed between August 20 and August 24 as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
The novelisation of Remembrance of the Daleks by Ben Aaronovitch mentioned that the troops that Gilmour commanded were from the "Intrusion Counter-Measures Group". UNIT Exposed, the 1991 Doctor Who Magazine Winter Special, suggested that the ICMG was a forerunner of UNIT. This was picked up on and expanded in the spin-off novel Who Killed Kennedy by David Bishop, which provides a fictional history of UNIT from an investigative journalist's perspective.
Both Virgin Publishing's Missing Adventures and BBC Books' Past Doctor Adventures have set stories in the UNIT era and have revealed new information about UNIT's past, present and future. The New Adventures novel Just War by Lance Parkin mentions LONGBOW, a world security organisation set up by the League of Nations that encountered the occasional extraterrestrial incident but was disbanded after it and the League failed to prevent World War II.
The Dying Days, also by Parkin, named the French division of UNIT as NUIT (Nations Unies Intelligence Taskforce), and the Eighth Doctor Adventure Emotional Chemistry by Simon A. Forward named the Russian division ОГРОН (OGRON) (Оперативная Группа Разведкой Объединённых Наций, or, Operativnaya Gruppa Rasvedkoy Obyedinyonnih Natsiy, which roughly translates as "United Nations Reconnaissance Operations Group"). The Southeast Asian contingent was identified in David A. McIntee's Bullet Time as UNIT-SEA.
The Devil Goblins from Neptune by Keith Topping and Martin Day introduced a division within the Central Intelligence Agency headed by a man known only as Control, which has featured as a rival to UNIT in several subsequent novels. Alien Bodies by Lawrence Miles introduced a more ruthless UN division called UNISYC (United Nations Intelligence Security Yard Corps), which by the 2040s has replaced UNIT. By the 26th century, UNIT has transformed into a secret society called the Unitatus, pledged to defend the Earth against alien threats, first seen in Parkin's Cold Fusion. The Unitatus last at least until the 30th century (So Vile a Sin by Ben Aaronovitch and Kate Orman).
The Bernice Summerfield stories (both in prose and audio play form) are set in the 26th century and feature an organisation called the Knights of Jeneve. The Knights may or may not be connected with UNIT, given that "Jeneve" appears to be a corruption of "Geneva". The Knights were founded in the 23rd century and it is unclear what their connection with the Unitatus is, or even if the two exist in the same continuity.
The Doctor Who Magazine comic strip also frequently featured UNIT, and in the 1980s introduced a new UNIT officer, Muriel Frost. One story, Final Genesis, was set in a parallel universe in which humanity has made peace with the Silurians, and UNIT has become the United Races Intelligence Command.
BBV have made a trilogy of UNIT videos featuring the Autons, although they feature none of the original members. An alternate universe version of UNIT and the Brigadier (played once again by Courtney) appeared in the Doctor Who Unbound audio play, Sympathy For The Devil, produced by Big Finish Productions. In this story, UNIT was commanded by the abrasive Colonel Brimmicombe-Wood, played by David Tennant (later to be cast as the Tenth Doctor in the revived television programme).
In December 2004 Big Finish released UNIT: Time Heals, the first of a new series of UNIT audio plays, featuring a retired General Sir Lethbridge-Stewart as an advisor to a new generation of officers. A preview episode, UNIT: The Coup, had Lethbridge-Stewart finally breaking decades of secrecy by informing a press conference of UNIT's true purpose as humanity's first line of defence against the unknown (although, as it turned out, the general public believed this to be a hoax). The series also introduced another rival division, this time within the British government, the Internal Counter-Intelligence Service, or ICIS. The protagonists for most of this series were Colonel Emily Chaudhry (a public-relations specialist played by Siri O'Neal) and Colonel Robert Dalton (a veteran of the British Army temporarily assigned to UNIT, played by Nicholas Deal). Dalton was killed in the third instalment, UNIT: The Longest Night. In the fourth and so far final play, UNIT: The Wasting, Brimmicombe-Wood returned (again played by Tennant) and was revealed to be working with ICIS.
For the new television series, BBC created a faux website for UNIT at www.unit.org.uk, complete with "easter eggs" that can be accessed by the reader with the passwords "bison" and "buffalo" (the latter mentioned on screen in World War Three). "Bison" (now changed to "badwolf") uncovers a section which provides UNIT point-of-view reports about various events in the 2005 series, although its canonical status, like the spin-off media, is debatable. Due to the objections by the United Nations as noted above, the letters "UN" are no longer expanded to "United Nations" on the website.
UNIT dating
see also List of UNIT military officers
The original 1963-1989 series presented conflicting evidence about when the stories featuring UNIT were meant to take place, and there has been much confusion and continuing fan debate on this subject. Although there is strong evidence that at least some of the production team intended for the UNIT stories to take place in the "near future", this policy was not consistently applied. Whether the stories take place contemporaneously with the broadcast dates or a few years in the future is therefore highly debatable.
External links
- UNIT website
- The U.N.I.T. Files - fan-written website