UNIT History: Fighting the unknown (short story)

UNIT History: Fighting the unknown
Main character(s):	UNIT
Main setting:	Earth, 20th century
Key crew
Publisher:	BBC
Writer:	BBC webteam
Release details
Genre:	Science fiction
Release date:	18 April 2005
Website:	U.N.I.T.
Format:	Online short story
U.N.I.T. website fiction
Next →	The Clocks Go Forward

You may be looking for the short story similarly called "UNIT History".

UNIT History: Fighting the unknown, alternatively titled UNIT History and About UNIT, was the first short story exclusively published on the U.N.I.T. website on 18 April 2005 by the BBC webteam to coincide with the 2005 revival of Doctor Who. It was framed as an in-universe history of UNIT, and it made light references to the original era of Doctor Who.

Notably, the second, third, and fourth paragraphs of this story are copied and used on the prop of the UNIT file on Sarah Jane Smith in The Lost Boy. Usage of this text incidentally meant that The Lost Boy became the first television story to reference the UNIT dating controversy.

Plot

A picture of a UNIT soldier.

The history of UNIT as revealed on the UNIT website.

Since 1968, formed in the wake of a series of incidents in the London Underground that same year, the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT) has been at the "forefront of intelligence-gathering and special operations outside operational norms". UNIT grew in a "golden period" of time, the sixties, seventies and, according to some, the eighties.

UNIT made a reputable name for themselves as a result of attending peace conferences, nuclear power stations, weapon disarmament programmes, and the UK's space expeditions to Mars. Over this two- or three-decade period, UNIT's knowledge on threats to humanity grew exponentially, although the number of threats did decrease during the late 20th century, barring certain incidents. Due to the lower amount of threats, the governments of the world cut back their armed forces, in particular UNIT, to a "core" of higher ranking personnel and "unconventional" R&D Corps, however their operations began to grew again as the number of threats also began to increase.

UNIT is ready to face any threat that comes their way, with over fifty years of experience. To protect humanity, no matter the cost.

Characters

• UNIT
• UNIT soldier

Worldbuilding

• One standout incident in the late 20th century was the 1995 Bonnybridge Cigar Confrontation.
• UNIT has the power to operate outside of regular geographical borders.

Notes

The VHS cover of Warriors.

• The image of the female soldier is actually taken from the 1999 BBC television series Warriors, set in 1993 in Vitez, Bosnia during the Lašva Valley ethnic cleansing. The series focused particularly on the psychological trauma inflicted upon the British UN peacekeepers, having to witness atrocities inflicted upon civilians while being mandated not to intervene.
  • The use of the image to illustrate a science-fiction short story does imply that the events depicted in Warriors takes place, in some form, in the DWU.
  • The female soldier pictured is Minka, a multilingual peacekeeper played by Sheyla Shehovich.

Continuity

• UNIT was formed in 1968 (PROSE: Downtime, Revolution Man, HOMEVID: Global Conspiracy?) after the London Event. (TV: The Web of Fear, The Invasion)
• Mention is made of UNIT's operations taking place in the 1970s or the 1980s. (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem, The Day of the Doctor, PROSE: Interference, Time Traveller's Diary, etc.)
• UNIT's activities in the late 1980s and 1990s were lessened. UNIT's American division was small in the mid 1990s. (PROSE: Vampire Science)
• The history of UNIT is later seen on the UNIT file on Sarah Jane Smith. (TV: The Lost Boy)

External links

• UNIT History: Fighting the unknown at U.N.I.T. via the Wayback Machine