Shoreditch Incident
The Shoreditch Incident was an event in which Imperial and Renegade Dalek factions battled in the eponymous area of London in 1963. The area was evacuated to prevent civilian casualties. At that time, the Daleks were engaged in the Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War. Each side tried to procure the Hand of Omega.
The course of the conflicts
Preparations by both sides
A Renegade Dalek faction (from approximately the 30th century, according to the Seventh Doctor) and an Imperial Dalek faction arrived in Shoreditch in 1963. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) At least one Renegade Dalek had come to London to seek the Hand of Omega, which the First Doctor had concealed in a coffin and consigned to an undertaker in or shortly before November 1963. (COMIC: Time & Time Again; TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)
The Imperials set up a concealed transmat in the basement of Coal Hill School to transport themselves there. They enslaved the headmaster, H. Parson. The Renegade Daleks employed Ratcliffe and linked Judith Winters, a schoolgirl, to their Battle Computer so her young imagination could generate ingenious stratagems to defeat the Imperial Daleks. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)
These events went undetected by Time Lord Susan Foreman who was attending the school in the guise of a human teenager, her grandfather the First Doctor with whom she lived in his TARDIS at the nearby 76 Totter's Lane, and by the TARDIS' sensors. Susan's teachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright did not see any of the Daleks and presumably took little or no notice of Mr Parson's and Judith Winters' changes in behaviour. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks, An Unearthly Child, The Daleks)
The First Doctor departed to the distant past with Susan and an unwilling Ian and Barbara, one evening, on or shortly before 21 November 1963. (TV: An Unearthly Child, Remembrance of the Daleks)[1]
On 22 November 1963, the Doctor returned in his seventh incarnation with Ace McShane in tow. From his perspective, several hundred years had passed since his departure, although he had visited the village's 1985 future in the interim. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks, Attack of the Cybermen)
The course of the conflict
A human military force, the Intrusion Countermeasures Group, was led by Group Captain Ian 'Chunky' Gilmore. Dr. Rachel Jensen and her assistant Allison Williams were their scientific advisors. The troops had a brief battle with a Renegade Dalek at Totter's Yard. For the most part, however, the group ensured the evacuation of the area to minimise human casualties and allow the Doctor to put his plans into motion. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)
Aided by the Special Weapons Dalek, the Imperial Daleks won their battle on the streets of Shoreditch. An Imperial shuttlecraft landed in the yard of Coal Hill School. The Imperial Daleks took the Hand of Omega, as the Doctor had planned all along. Davros (as "Emperor" of the Imperials) plotted to make the sun of the Daleks' homeworld Skaro go supernova, giving the Daleks the power of unlimited time travel. In the Imperial Daleks' time zone, he did so. This action, however, destroyed the planet and the Imperial fleet. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)
The Dalek Prime later claimed that it was not Skaro, but another planet, Antalin, that was actually destroyed. (PROSE: War of the Daleks)
On Earth, the Doctor talked the last Renegade Dalek, the black Supreme Dalek, into self-destructing. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) However, Judith Winters, the young girl linked to his mind, was broken mentally for the rest of her life. (PROSE: In the Community)
Human reaction
From the viewpoint of many key scientific and military authorities in Great Britain, the conflict constituted undeniable evidence that aliens existed. The conflict was later named "the Shoreditch Incident" by these authorities. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy)
The Shoreditch Incident was also the title of a book on the incident written by ex-UNIT officer Hamlet Macbeth. (PROSE: The Left-Handed Hummingbird, Return of the Living Dad)
References
- ↑ Susan and Barbara indicated that they would be back in class the next day, setting An Unearthly Child on a Monday-Thursday. Barbara loaned Susan a book about the French Revolution in An Unearthly Child, which ws still on Susan's desk when Ace entered the classroom on the 23rd in Remembrance of the Daleks. The TARDIS had already departed the junk yard in An Unearthly Child when Ace and the Seventh Doctor arrived on the 22nd in Remembrance of the Daleks.
