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)"]) and 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)"])
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)"])
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)"])
In February 2024, Sergeant Darren, located in UNIT HQ, received a transmission across time from his friend and coworker Sasha, who had been stranded in the Dark Times by an encounter with the Entity. After they ascertained her coordinates, UNIT called the Doctor in as "reinforcements", and he managed to rescue her, bringing it back to the 21st century; Darren then proudly reported that she was "safe and sound in UNIT HQ" to his commander. (WC: Incoming Transmission - February Update Video [+]Loading...["Incoming Transmission - February Update Video (webcast)"])
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)"])
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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