UNIT HQ, City of London
Perhaps this should be UNIT HQ (The Star Beast), since UNIT HQ (The Power of the Doctor) was also located in the City Of London. Unless this is a combined page for both, we need some way of differentiating between the two.
Talk about it here.
By late 2023, the branch of UNIT that operated in the United Kingdom had its headquarters (TV: The Star Beast [+]Loading...{"timestamp":"00:49:15","1":"The Star Beast (TV story)"}) located in the City of London, near the Gherkin. (PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac [+]Loading...{"chaptname":"Everything Changes","page":"71","chaptnum":"3","1":"The Time Traveller's Almanac (reference book)"}) It had a helipad. (TV: The Star Beast [+]Loading...{"timestamp":"00:49:15","1":"The Star Beast (TV story)"})
It was sometimes referred to as the UNIT tower, (PROSE: The Church on Ruby Road [+]Loading...{"name":"\"TCoRR\"","page":"116","chaptnum":"Fifteen","1":"The Church on Ruby Road (novelisation)"}) although it was also given the nickname Nitwit Tower, (PROSE: The Church on Ruby Road [+]Loading...{"name":"\"TCoRR\"","page":"116","chaptnum":"Fifteen","1":"The Church on Ruby Road (novelisation)"}, TV: The Legend of Ruby Sunday [+]Loading...["The Legend of Ruby Sunday (TV story)"]) as well as the Big Penguin by Londoners. (PROSE: 73 Yards [+]Loading...{"page":"78","1":"73 Yards (novelisation)"}) It was likened to something out of the Avengers, (PROSE: I'm So Normal I'm So Normal I'm So [+]Loading...["I'm So Normal I'm So Normal I'm So (short story)"]) and seen as a symbol in the heart of the city and possible attractor of alien menaces. (PROSE: 73 Yards [+]Loading...{"page":"77","1":"73 Yards (novelisation)"})
History[[edit] | [edit source]]
Information from TV: The Giggle [+]Loading...["The Giggle (TV story)"] and PROSE: The Giggle [+]Loading...["The Giggle (novelisation)"] needs to be added.
The previous headquarters was destroyed during the Master's Dalek Plan when Tegan Jovanka and Kate Stewart initiated the structural termination system to implode the building and entomb the Cybermen led by a cloned Ashad. (TV: The Power of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Power of the Doctor (TV story)"])
Kate Stewart proposed the construction of a new tower to the King, stating to him that if one needed to justify the expense of the organisation, one may as well have something significant to show for it. (PROSE: 73 Yards [+]Loading...{"page":"77","1":"73 Yards (novelisation)"}) The UNIT HQ was among London's skyline (TV: The Star Beast [+]Loading...{"timestamp":"00:49:15","1":"The Star Beast (TV story)"}) by the November 2023 UFO incident. (PROSE: The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (novelisation)"])
After the timeline was cracked by the Goblins on 24 December 2023, resulting in a literal crack running through 3 Minto Road, the Fifteenth Doctor pointed in the director of the UNIT tower through the window, telling Carla Sunday to contact Shirley and she'd ensure Carla and her family would be compensated. However, Carla considered UNIT's operations to be a waste of taxes as they chased, in her opinion, monsters and aliens that did not exist; she mockingly referred to them as "Nitwit Tower". (PROSE: The Church on Ruby Road [+]Loading...{"name":"\"TCoRR\"","page":"116","chaptnum":"Fifteen","1":"The Church on Ruby Road (novelisation)"})
At some point after 2023, (TV: The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (TV story)"]) the Fifteenth Doctor welcomed an individual into the TARDIS in London, with UNIT HQ visible as part of the skyline. (EXHIBIT: Travel Through Time and Space [+]Loading...["Travel Through Time and Space (exhibit)"])
Aoife Fitzgerald, a SIGNET member in York, once thought about the "imperious nearly-Avengers tower in the middle of London." (PROSE: I'm So Normal I'm So Normal I'm So [+]Loading...["I'm So Normal I'm So Normal I'm So (short story)"])
The Vlinx broadcast to the Royal Albert Hall from its usual spot in UNIT HQ during Operation Maestro. (AUDIO: Pantheon of Discord [+]Loading...["Pantheon of Discord (audio story)"])
Other realities[[edit] | [edit source]]
In a timeline where a fairy circle was broken by the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday and the Doctor disappeared, Ruby went to visit the tower after her life had settled back into a sense of normality, despite the presence of a mysterious woman and absence of her mother Carla. A young man, Jordan, was working at its reception, and allowed Ace to meet with her to discuss her issue and refer her to Kate Stewart. (PROSE: 73 Yards [+]Loading...{"page":"78","1":"73 Yards (novelisation)"}) UNIT would later abandon Ruby due to the woman's influence. (PROSE: 73 Yards [+]Loading...{"page":"90-91","1":"73 Yards (novelisation)"})
As a result of the fairy circle being broken, time became "suspended" along that event, meaning that there were no further extraterrestrial threats to the human race. As a result, by 2046 what remained of UNIT Tower had been abandoned, and then redeveloped into The Unit, a complex with numerous restaurants and cafés on its lower levels, shopping arcades above them, and highly expensive housing from there up to the top, including a penthouse apartment on the floor with the helipad. It also featured a gymnasium to which residents had free access. Resolving to never give up on the Doctor, the tower's concierge, Osgood, was the only employee there that knew the building's previous status, but had signed the Official Secrets Act. Ruby could see the tower from her flat on the Powell Estate. (PROSE: 73 Yards [+]Loading...{"page":"145-146","1":"73 Yards (novelisation)"})
Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]
This UNIT HQ, going off the on-screen geography seen in The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (TV story)"], appears to be located the financial district of the City of London. However, upon analysing the position further, it makes less sense as it can be seen that the Scalpel and 40 Leadenhall Street are located to the immediate area east, the Leadenhall Building north, the Lloyd's building and Willis Building to the south, and the construction site of 1 Leadenhall Street to the west, thus placing the skyscraper in the middle of Leadenhall Street.
Furthermore, the UNIT HQ seen in The Power of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Power of the Doctor (TV story)"] is located where the Leadenhall Building is in real life; the road Ace parachutes down towards is Leadenhall Street. The Star Beast (set in late 2023) creates a minor continuity issue by showing that the Leadenhall Building is among London's skyline, despite that tower being non-existent during The Power of the Doctor (set in 2022). The Star Beast also posits that UNIT was able to clear the site of their imploded HQ, deal with the Cyber-Warriors entombed within, and construct their new tower all in the space of a year.
Additionally, the mini-episode The Promise [+]Loading...["The Promise (webcast)"] — released in 2019 and set approximately around that time — showed the City of London as it exists in the real world, including the Leadenhall Building, not the building occupied by UNIT in The Power of the Doctor.
Prior to the airing of The Giggle, the images of both the newly bigenerated Fifteenth Doctor, first seen in the trailer following The Power of the Doctor, and the Fourteenth Doctor preparing to "regenerate", as seen in the trailer following Wild Blue Yonder [+]Loading...["Wild Blue Yonder (TV story)"], were modified to remove the appearance of UNIT HQ.
Location information
Though it's possible that a real world location doesn't exist in the same geographic space in the Doctor Who universe, such cases are few and far between. Thus, the map to the right is probably a good indicator of the DWU location of UNIT HQ, City of London.
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