Strong-Arm Tactics (short story)

	Project Rooftop, The Star Beast
	The Vlinx, UNIT
	The Sycorax
	United Kingdom
	Penguin Group
	Mike Tucker, Steve Cole
	Science fiction
	3
	19
	The Gold Archive
	31 October 2024
	Short story
The Gold Archive
← Previous	Recurring Threats: The Weeping Angels
Next →	Recurring Threats: The Zygons

Strong-Arm Tactics was the nineteenth part of The Gold Archive, published on 31 October 2024 by Penguin Group. Although the book's authorship was credited to solely Mike Tucker and Steve Cole, there was content recycled from Project Rooftop ^[+]Loading...["Project Rooftop (short story)"] and The Star Beast ^[+]Loading...["The Star Beast (novelisation)"], written by the BBC webteam (which included James Goss) and Gary Russell, respectively.

Plot

Case File: The Christmas Day Invasion

The Vlinx begins a data summary of File:UN/12/05/01, otherwise known as the Christmas Day Invasion. Daniel Llewellyn had supervised UK Rocket Project 9.2, a UK government-funded initiative to send a life-seeking probe to Mars. However, on its journey, it was intercepted by the Sycorax. The scavengers used the probe's video feed to transmit their ultimatum to Earth. They then used the A positive blood from inside the probe to exert control over a third of the population, threatening to force the hypnotised people to commit suicide by jumping from the tops of buildings if one half of the population of humanity weren't given to them by Earth authorities as slaves. The video broadcast was public so a cover story was impossible, so Major Richard Blake commanded UNIT to take control of the Guinevere project and important personnel were transferred to mission control centre underneath the Tower of London. The Sycorax ship entered the orbit of Earth and stationed itself above central London, then the Prime Minister, her aide, Major Blake and Mister Llewellyn were transported to the ship for negotiations. The latter two were killed by the Sycorax leader. The Sycorax, detecting the Doctor's TARDIS, teleported it their ship. The Tenth Doctor then deactivated the blood control device, defeated their leader in melee combat, and told them to leave. However, as they did so, they were destroyed by a weapon used by Torchwood.

A letter from Major Jenny McGuire to the Secretary of State for Defence is then seen. She wrote in protest against the actions of the Prime Minister, i.e., the involvement of Torchwood, as it undermined UNIT's rightful authority and responsibilities of handling such first contact incidents. Indeed, she wrote, they had already begun given the now-deceased Major Blake's takeover. McGuire, aware of Torchwood's activities and possession of alien technology, believed their usage was supposed to be a final resort and this not being the case, especially without UNIT or the Chief of Defence Staff's involvement set a dangerous precedent.

more to be added

A series of archived messages between UNIT personnel are then repeated. Sgt Catherine Petts had told everyone everything was back to normal... if they discounted the two billion lives in danger, a government in crisis, and the official existence of aliens. She told the other UNIT officers of reports she had received of the clean up, where the Armed Forces helped with the mass cleaning of broken glass, however she admitted that they overlooked that the lack of windows enabled people to loot shops for last minute Christmas presents, but at least the police who weren't helping people off rooves helped mitigate the damage. She concluded that the snow wasn't melting.

Major Jenny Maguire mournfully confirmed the death of Major Blake, and Sgt A Frederick informed them that the press situation was difficult as the only staff on duty had been a skeleton crew of office juniors trying to put out the "story of their lives" and their editors calling her in a state of "festive-spirit-fuelled rage". She told them that Blackberry devices have been temporarily disabled, and that they should only tell them "as much of the truth as they can handle".

Case File: Judoon Incursions

to be added

Case File: The Star Beast

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A letter sent by W Buckland of the Ministry of Defence to Ms P Carter is shown. As a response to the email she sent the MoD on 30 November on behalf of the science pages of The Observer, he treated her request for files concerning the November 2023 UFO incident at the Millson Wagner Steelworks (Camden) Ltd as that of a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Buckland explains that a search for such files in the MoD has been carried out, but doubts it fell under the scope of her request; the incident itself was public knowledge and the eyewitness testimonies were in the public domain, while the FOIA didn't cover the release of any document that may include sensitive information about exactly what struck the site and its current status. The Space Defence Centre and the military units that co-operate were not at liberty to divulge the nature of the object, and is therefore not under their jurisdiction to disclose. He continued, further explaining that the Government issued a Level 8 DSMA on their behalf, and so asked Carter and her newspaper to acknowledge that they were not allowed to request any further information for the next twenty five years, unless if the Government declared such information as accessible under the FOIA. He then concluded his response.

Characters

Gold Archive personnel

• The Vlinx

Appearing in compiled material

(In order of appearance)

• Daniel Llewellyn
• Major Richard Blake
• Prime Minister
• Prime Minister's aide
• Sycorax leader
• Tenth Doctor
• Queen Elizabeth II
• Sgt Catherine Petts
• Major Jenny Maguire/Jenny McGuire
• Sgt A Frederick

more to be added

• P Carter
• W Buckland

Worldbuilding

• UK Rocket Project 9.2 was codenamed Guinevere. It is also known as Guinevere One.
• The Sycorax are a scavenger species.
• Photographs of Daniel Llewellyn next to a British Rocket Group sign, the Prime Minister and her aide next to a pair of Sycorax, the PM during her emergency broadcast (with a framed portrait of Queen Elizabeth II), a bird's eye view of London, the Eiffel Tower, another building, Bucknall House, tba are seen.
• Frederick states that "most of Fleet Street are away in holiday cottages in the Cotswalds".
• Frederick notes that she has activated protocol "Delta-Exec" to disable Blackberry devices.
• Frederick doesn't think that telling the public the extent of UNIT's activities over the past forty-odd years would "win anything".

more to be added

• W Buckland is the Military Command Secretariat and director of the SDC. Buckland also has an OBE.
• The SDC is based in Devesham.
• The letter Buckland wrote in response to Carter has the reference number FOI2023/964128.
• The Observer is a periodical.
• The files searched in the MoD were both mechanical and electronic paperwork.
• Carter is a member of the NUJ.

Notes

• This story lifted material previously published as Project Rooftop ^[+]Loading...["Project Rooftop (short story)"] from the U.N.I.T. tie-in website and a part of the novelisation ^[+]Loading...{"noital":"1","1":"The Star Beast (novelisation)","2":"the novelisation"} of The Star Beast ^[+]Loading...["The Star Beast (TV story)"]. Interestingly, the material taken from Project Rooftop omits its final few in-character messages.

Continuity

• This stort contains an in-universe summary of the events of TV: The Christmas Invasion ^[+]Loading...["The Christmas Invasion (TV story)"]. The Vlinx is the one to retrieve this summary; he debuted in TV: The Giggle ^[+]Loading...["The Giggle (TV story)"].
• As well as reprinting much of the material from PROSE: Project Rooftop ^[+]Loading...["Project Rooftop (short story)"], the first part of this story also includes a newly written, in-universe letter from Jenny Maguire, albeit with a different spelling of her name — Jenny McGuire.
• This story also uses the name "Richard Blake", which has been used in many sources such as PROSE: Guinevere One ^[+]Loading...["Guinevere One (short story)"], Doctor Who: The Encyclopedia ^[+]Loading...["Doctor Who: The Encyclopedia (reference book)"], The Time Traveller's Almanac ^[+]Loading...["The Time Traveller's Almanac (reference book)"] and GAME: The Christmas Invasion ^[+]Loading...["The Christmas Invasion (game)"], instead of the name "Thomas Blake" from the novelisation ^[+]Loading...{"noital":"1","1":"The Christmas Invasion (novelisation)","2":"the novelisation"} of TV: The Christmas Invasion ^[+]Loading...["The Christmas Invasion (TV story)"].
• This story takes the events of PROSE: Project Rooftop ^[+]Loading...["Project Rooftop (short story)"], which upon release had been set during the events of TV: The Christmas Invasion ^[+]Loading...["The Christmas Invasion (TV story)"] and after those of PROSE: Guinevere One ^[+]Loading...["Guinevere One (short story)"], and now frames them as taken from within the archives of UNIT.
• P Carter is Penny Carter, who debuted in TV: Partners in Crime ^[+]Loading...["Partners in Crime (TV story)"], and W Buckland is Will Buckland, who debuted in PROSE: At Childhood's End ^[+]Loading...["At Childhood's End (novel)"].
• Devesham and the Space Defence Centre debuted in TV: The Android Invasion ^[+]Loading...["The Android Invasion (TV story)"].

Gallery

to be added

Footnotes