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The Unified Intelligence Taskforce is recurring organization in the Doctor Who-universe, appearing often as an ally to The Doctor and the Torchwood Institute. They are a military and scientific organization tasked by the United Nations to defend the human race from extraterrestrial and other paranormal threats.
Founding[]
According to Survivors of the Flux, the United Nations was working on a taskforce for alien threats in 1958. General Farquhar was tasked with setting up UNIT's British end and asked for Prentis's assistance in setting it up.
An incident which led directly to the creation of UNIT was the takeover of London by the Great Intelligence, with robot Yetis and a deadly cobweb-like fungus in The Web of Fear. Assisted by the Second Doctor, another group of British infantrymen, led by then-Colonel Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, beat back the Yeti from the tunnels of the London Underground.
The United Nations were aware the world faced threats from extraterrestrial sources. As space programmes sent probes deeper and deeper into space, mankind was drawing attention to itself. The UN established UNIT with the mandate to investigate, monitor and combat such threats. Lethbridge-Stewart was put in charge of the British contingent.
History[]
The Invasion[]
UNIT investigated the prolific electronics company International Electromatics, as there were many mysterious events going on there, such as IE staff not leaving their workplaces, it's sudden domination of the market, and the disappearance of Professor Watkins. UNIT agents were killed and UNIT launched a helicopter raid to liberate prisoners at an Electromatics' facility. With the aid of the Second Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon, Zoe Heriot, and Watkins' niece Isabel, they discovered the company had allied with the Cybermen. UNIT was protected from the Cybermen's hypnotic signals and defeated the Cybermen in London, later allying with other countries to destroy the Cyber-Fleet.
Classic era[]
The Brigadier later recruited Liz Shaw to act as a scientific advisor around the time the newly regenerated Third Doctor was exiled to Earth. He would join Liz as UNIT's scientific adviser while battling the threat of the Nestene Consciousness' Autons. At the Auton's base, Auto Plastics, UNIT was briefly barred by General Scobie, but he was revealed to be an Auton copy. UNIT's soldiers kept the Autons at bay while the Doctor and Liz destroyed the Nestenes. After this the Doctor would remain as UNIT's unpaid scientific advisor, a position he technically never left. UNIT would later battle the Silurians, and blew up the Silurian base beneath Wenley Moor, against the Doctor's wishes. They investigated the Mars Probe 7, preventing a conspiracy to wage war with another species, and prevented a primordial disaster at the Inferno Project.
At some point, Liz Shaw returned to Cambridge, and the Doctor gain Jo Grant as an assistant. During this time, a new threat arrived on Earth in the form of the Time Lord The Master, who began returned the threat of the Autons. After foiling several of his schemes, including using the Keller Machine to disrupt a peace conference, and bringing the parasitic lifeform Axos to Earth, UNIT finally caught and imprisoned the Master after his attempt to awaken Azal in Devil's End. Afterwards, in Day of the Daleks, UNIT were put in charge of security of a Peace Conference at Auderly House, and found being attacked by time travelling guerilla fighters, and Ogrons. After the Doctor and Jo visited this future, UNIT held off a force of Daleks and Ogrons long enough so that the diplomats could be evacuated, and the force was destroyed when the house blew up.
Over the 20th and 21st Century UNIT has gone up against countless extraterrestrial threats such as the Autons, Silurians, Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, Zygons, the 456 and the Shoal of the Winter Harmony.
2st century[]
The UNIT of the 2000's took an approach of "homeworld security", becoming more ruthless, with both the Tenth Doctor and the retired Lethbridge-Stewart voicing their distaste. In Aliens of London, after a spaceship crash landed in London, UNIT sent a delegation to Downing Street, along with a batch of alien experts, but they were all electrocuted by the Slitheen. In The Christmas Invasion, from their command centre in the Tower of London, UNIT and Prime Minister Harriet Jones responded to the Sycorax. UNIT made contact with the Sycorax and they brought Harriet and Major Blake aboard, who was killed by the Sycorax leader.
Perhaps UNIT's most notable operation occurred in The Sontaran Stratagem, when they became suspicious of the carbon dioxide reducer ATMOS after a series of deaths. Led by Colonel Mace, UNIT seized the ATMOS factory, and Dr. Martha Jones recriuited the Tenth Doctor's aid. The Doctor and Private Jenkins discovered the Sontarans were behind ATMOS, and after avoiding being assassinated by ATMOS in a UNIT jeep he alerted Martha. However, she had been replaced with a Sontaran clone to compromise UNIT, and she delayed them in time for the Sontarasns to set off ATMOS to poison the atmosphere.
In The Poison Sky, UNIT attempted a nuclear strike against the Sontarans ship, which was foiled by the Martha clone, and the Sontarans retook the factory, with UNIT's guns that used copper bullets being disabled, thus leading to many casualties including Private Jenkins. While the Doctor began his own plan, UNIT used aircraft carrier The Valiant to clear the air around the factory, and staged retaliation against the Sontarans, with the Doctor later clearing the skies of ATMOS.
Kate Stewart era[]
Kate Stewart, the Brigadier's daughter, took over as UNIT's Chief Scientific Officer, and reformed the organisation to be more scientifically focussed, inspired by both her father, and the Doctor. In The Power of Three, Kate met the Eleventh Doctor for the first time when UNIT investigated the mysterious cubes that materialised on Earth. A year later, when the cubes activated and behaved unusually, several dozen were contained and examined in the Tower of London. Stewart called in the Doctor and Amy Pond on the Doctor's psychic paper to look into this, and discovered that the Shakri cubes were stopping human hearts. While Kate attempted to warn the governments of the world of the cubes when they started their countdown, and the Doctor managed to end the incursion.
Suspension[]
By 2018/2019 the organization was suspended and was pending review, due to international struggles. As revealed in Survivors of the Flux, in 2017 "Prentice" claimed that he fought UNIT's corner, while in fact he aided in it's dissolution. Kate had realised that he was an alien infiltrator, and threatened to expose him, which led to an assassination attempt and her going into hiding. In The Vanquishers, Kate and her resistance aided the Thirteenth Doctor in defeating the Grand Serpent and his allies, the Sontarans, giving UNIT the chance to be revived.
The Power of the Doctor[]
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