The Forge
Needs information from AUDIO: The Defectors
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Department C4, more commonly known as the Forge, was an English intelligence organisation formed at the turn of the 19th century. The Forge's logo was Leonardo da Vinci's vitruvian man surrounded by a circle which contained the phrase "For King and Country". (PROSE: Project: Valhalla)
Agents of the Forge often used the codephrase "For King and Country". (AUDIO: Project: Twilight et al) Unknown to the Forge, their codephrase was hijacked by the Word Lord: he disguised his CORDIS as the phrase so he could appear every time it was used. (AUDIO: A Death in the Family)
The Forge had extensive files on the Doctor (AUDIO: Project: Twilight) with information on over a dozen of his incarnations, including the Second, Third, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Doctors. (PROSE: Twilight's End)
History
From the very beginning, the Elder God Weyland manipulated the Forge as part of his game with Fenric. (AUDIO: Gods and Monsters)
In the 1890s, the Forge Alpha Facility was set up in an abandoned asylum in Dartmoor. (PROSE: Project: Valhalla)
20th century
In 1901, Chief Mate De Requin of the Lankester used the phrase "For King and Country" on radio while transporting a mermaid to an unknown buyer. (AUDIO: Cryptobiosis)
In 1911, the Forge commenced Project: Twilight, an attempt to create a vampire super-soldier using DNA harvested in South America. Dr William Abberton was the project coordinator. (PROSE: Project: Valhalla) For the next four years, the Forge gathered over a hundred individuals from prisons and off the street. These test subjects were injected with vampire DNA, subjected to radiation therapy, DNA manipulation, and numerous courses of drugs. (AUDIO: Project: Twilight)
On 4 October 1915, 57 vampires escaped from the Dartmoor facility, killing 20 Forge agents. Among those who were killed was Abberton, who survived by injected himself with the Twilight Virus. Abberton pledged to kill all of the escaped test subjects and began calling himself "Nimrod". (AUDIO: Project: Twilight, PROSE: Project: Valhalla)
In 1917, The Forge were behind Brook's experiments on wounded soldiers to create the ultimate killers at Charnage Hospital. (AUDIO: No Man's Land)
In 1945, the Forge were transporting alien equipment including a Truthsayer when it was stolen by Joey Carlisle and he was using it to his advantages. Forge Operative Miss Merchant went after him trying to get it back. (AUDIO: Casualties of War)
In the 1950s, the Forge launched Project: Dionysus with the purpose of creating a reality-warping superweapon. The Divergence almost used the dionysus machine to escape their universe, but were stopped when the machine was destroyed by a cuban spy. (AUDIO: Zagreus)
In November 1963, the Seventh Doctor and Ace fought Daleks in Shoreditch. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) The Forge kept a report on this incursion which included a description of the Doctor. (AUDIO: Project: Lazarus)
In 1965, after Anya Barkov told a British ambassador that her brother Shurik Barkov could read the thoughts of other people and predict every move they'd make, the Forge was one of the departments of the British government that was interested in bringing Shurik to England. The entire situation was actually a trap created by the Soviet Union. Counter-Measures brought the two siblings to London and learned that Anya was a psychic bomb. She was shot to save the people of London, leaving nobody for the Forge to experiment on and learn about psychic abilities from. (AUDIO: Peshka)
In 1997, the Seventh Doctor and Ace fought Morgaine in Carbury. (TV: Battlefield) The Forge kept a report on this conflict which included a description of the Doctor. (AUDIO: Project: Lazarus)
21st century
2000s
The Forge went on several notable missions in the early 2000s: they fought zombies, hunted down a lone grey alien in the New Forest and harvested a Slarvian at a peace conference. (PROSE: Project: Valhalla)
In 2000, after a Tregannon ship exploded in Earth's atmosphere, (AUDIO: The Spectre of Lanyon Moor) the Forge salvaged some of its propulsion technology. Lysandra Aristedes spent several months integrating it into Pegasus One, Two, and Three. (PROSE: Project: Valhalla)
By 2001, the Forge's Deputy Director was Colonel Charles Crichton, formerly of UNIT. (PROSE: Project: Valhalla) In November, Nimrod tracked down the Twilight vampire ringleaders, Reggie Mead and Amelia Doory, at the South-East London casino they used as a front operation. Alongside the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn Smythe, he destroyed them. In the process, casino worker Cassie Schofield (whom Nimrod had been blackmailing to help him) was turned into a vampire. The Doctor hid Cassie in Norway before she could be taken by Nimrod. (AUDIO: Project: Twilight) After dredging the River Thames for Amelia Doory's body, (PROSE: Twilight's End) Nimrod went to Bristol and killed William Moore, the last surviving Project: Twilight test subject. (PROSE: Project: Valhalla)
In 2002, Nimrod located Cassie Schofield in Norway and brought her back to Dartmoor. She briefly escaped and killed Mark Bradley before she was recaptured and brought into the depths of the Alpha Facility. She was then tortured and brainwashed into an agent of the Forge. (PROSE: Project: Valhalla)
When the Internal Counter-Intelligence Service was formed, many Forge soldiers were seconded to ICIS. Philip Kirby, one of the biggest supporters of ICIS, had close ties to the Forge. Colonel French was among the first group of soldiers to be transferred. (PROSE: Project: Valhalla, AUDIO: The Coup)
The Forge encountered the Sixth Doctor again in November 2004, while aggressively acquiring a Huldran spacecraft, and finally initiated Project Lazarus, an attempt to replicate his regenerations. While the Doctor escaped, they had enough DNA information to create a clone of him; it was unable to regenerate, but had enough of the Doctor's attributes to be hired as a scientific advisor. When the Huldrans began attacking the Forge in retaliation, Nimrod had the clone brainwashed to believe he truly was the Doctor, had been stranded on Earth, and was helping them to prevent the Huldrans destroying Earth. (AUDIO: Project: Lazarus)
As part of a long-term operation, an Australian Forge agent named James Clarke had been backing Katherine Chambers' Cyberman technology experiments since 1984. In September 2006, he had a usable product. (AUDIO: The Gathering, PROSE: Project: Valhalla)
Iris Wildthyme told Hilary Mercer to send a damaged time scanner to the Forge at Dartmoor. (PROSE: The Unhappy Medium)
By 2008, the constant Huldran attacks and the arrival of the Seventh Doctor caused several key Forge members to begin questioning their work and the clone to realise the truth of his existence. While the Doctor solved the Huldran situation, the clone of his sixth incarnation activated the Hades Protocol, the base's self destruct program. Almost all of the Forge personnel in the facility died. (AUDIO: Project: Lazarus) Some of their bodies were recovered through the facility's escape hatch. (PROSE: Twilight's End)
Just after the Alpha Facility's destruction, Oracle uploaded itself into the Forge Beta Facility (AUDIO: Project: Lazarus) another underground base beneath London. Nimrod remained unharmed by the disaster and began to rebuild the organisation. Luckily for the Forge, many of the soldiers had been seconded to ICIS at the time (AUDIO: Project: Destiny) and after the organisation was disbanded (AUDIO: The Wasting) they were able to return to the Forge. (AUDIO: Project: Destiny)
2010s
In 2015, the Forge was transporting Derleth from Ukraine back to the United Kingdom. Lysandra Aristedes was tasked with carrying out the mission but her mission failed when the Seventh Doctor, an older Lysandra and Sally Morgan trapped him Lysandra's mind. (AUDIO: Project: Nirvana)
In August 2016, Mickey Smith considered contacting the Forge after his wife was mutated by the Punchway, but decided against doing so due to the fact that they'd probably dissect her. (COMIC: The Transformed)
In 2017, the Forge salvaged distronic missiles from a crashed Arcadian spaceship. (AUDIO: Project Destiny)
2020s
Sometime after 2021, (AUDIO: The Harvest) the Forge were forced to go public as it had become near-impossible to stay secret in the social media era. The organisation became headquartered in the Crichton Building, overlooking the Thames. (AUDIO: Project Destiny)
After several encounters with the Forge, Iris Wildthyme decided to make the Forge stop trying to steal her DNA. She took Panda to Weston-super-Mare and placed an anonymous phone call to the Forge telling them that a living teddy bear was in the area. Within ten minutes the Forge found Panda and placed him in a quarantine unit. They established a temporary base around the unit and began scanning Panda to find how he was alive. When the Forge began to take Panda apart piece by piece with a molecular scrubber, Iris shut down the base's power. She rescued Panda and offered the scientific officer Patrick Matthewman a vial of her blood. Matthewman had the facility's Oracle scan the blood. Iris' blood hacked into Oracle and destroyed all technology in the temporary facility. Although most of the damage was localised, the main facility's Oracle spoke with a northern accent for a while. (PROSE: Project: Wildthyme)
In 2026, Nimrod was vapourised by alien technology and the Forge Beta Facility was destroyed in an explosion. (AUDIO: Project Destiny) After Nimrod's supposed death, Lysandra Aristedes became the director. (AUDIO: Black and White) The organisation was much diminished, Lysandra had departed, and UNIT were cleaning out the remains of the Crichton Building. (AUDIO: A Death in the Family)
Three months later, Kai'lizakia attacked the Forge's archive with its cult: the Sons of Kai. The Doctor's new companion Sally Morgan infiltrated Aristedes' troop as they defended their base from the cultists. Eventually, Aristedes' troop found themselves fighting Kai'lizakia. At this point, the Doctor intervened and killed the Elder God with a Cyber-Planner's neural cortex. Afterwards, he asked Aristedes if she wanted to travel with him and she agreed. Before leaving, the Doctor took some of the Forge's alien technology into his black TARDIS. (AUDIO: Black and White)
Becoming independent
Nimrod had managed to survive vaporisation. He was connected to the main Forge computer, Oracle. From within the basement of the Forge's new base, he guided the Forge through the 21st century. During this time a number of directors came and went, but Nimrod was always behind the scenes, turning the Forge into his vision.
Under Nimrod's control, the Forge gained enough power from salvaged xenotech to break away from the British government. The Forge became the most powerful and influential conglomerate on Earth.
In the 22nd century, Nimrod subconsciously grew tired of life and sent a telepathic signal to the Seventh Doctor. The Doctor came to Forge's base and left a syringe containing the cure for the Twilight Virus beside Nimrod. But the vampire DNA was the only thing that kept Nimrod alive, and taking the Twilight cure would cause his death. Depending upon his decision, the fate of Nimrod and the Forge was unknown. (PROSE: Twilight's End)
Undated events
Sometime before the artefacts from GeoComTex's Vault were sold in an auction circa 2012, Erik Ulfriksson paid the Forge for information on the Key of Horus. (COMIC: The Fountains of Forever)
By the time Lysandra Aristedes left the Forge, they had encountered Xybrox at least once. (AUDIO: Black and White)
Aborted timeline
In a timeline which was aborted when Ace, Hex, Lysandra Aristedes, and Sally Morgan took Weyland's shield from 5th century Denmark, (AUDIO: Black and White) the Forge found the shield and filed it as the "Higgs Killer". Nimrod brought it to CERN and had it tested. It was shot into a time field so that it was destroyed before it even existed. Nonetheless, the danger capabilities of the shield were confirmed and it was hidden "at the heart of the Forge".
Decades later, the Ministry of Defence salvaged the shield and kidnapped Lysandra Aristedes to get the codes to use it. Aristedes was killed in the process of her interrogation, but General Sally Morgan was able to get the codes out of her. The shield was fired at a dangerous alien invasion force. It destroyed both the aliens and the Earth. (AUDIO: Gods and Monsters)
Equipment and uniform
Equipment
In the 2000s, Forge soldiers fought with SA80 rifles. (PROSE: Project: Valhalla) After the Forge went public, the SA80s were replaced by pulse rifles. (AUDIO: Project: Destiny, PROSE: Project: Wildthyme) In the 22nd century, Forge soldiers used handheld energy weapons. (PROSE: Twilight's End)
When transporting dangerous sentient beings, Forge soldiers used non-lethal weapons such as tranquilliser guns and cattle prods. (PROSE: Project: Valhalla)
Uniform
In the 2000s, the standard Forge uniform was combat fatigues with the Forge's insignia on the arms. (PROSE: Project: Valhalla) In the 22nd century, Forge soldiers wore regulation black combat fatigues. The uniforms had a belt which held their weapons and communicators. (PROSE: Twilight's End)
For dangerous missions, Forge soldiers wore BAN suits. These suits were connected to Oracle. Variations of the BAN suits included those designed for cold weather (PROSE: Project: Valhalla) and those designed for flight. (AUDIO: Project: Nirvana)
Behind the scenes
The Forge - originally called "Bedlam" - was created by Mark Wright and Cavan Scott for a submission to a 1996 BBC contest for science fiction plays. While this proposed play was rejected, Wright and Scott chose to reuse Bedlam three years later when Gary Russell requested them to expand on the concept of government-approved vampires in their Big Finish Productions audio story Blood Money. Bedlam was renamed "the Forge" to avoid confusion with the insane asylum in Minuet in Hell and Blood Money was eventually renamed Project: Twilight.[1]
Footnotes
- ↑ Project: Valhalla afterword
