Forge (Doctor Who)
Encyclopedia
The Forge is a fictional black operation
Black operation
A black operation or black op is a covert operation typically involving activities that are highly clandestine and often outside of standard military protocol or even against the law.-Origins:...

s organisation from the Big Finish Productions
Big Finish Productions
Big Finish Productions is a British company that produces books and audio plays based, primarily, on cult British science fiction properties...

 audio plays
Radio drama
Radio drama is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance, broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story...

 based on the long-running British science fiction television
Science fiction on television
Science fiction first appeared on a television program during the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Special effects and other production techniques allow creators to present a living visual image of an imaginary world not limited by the constraints of reality; this makes television an excellent medium...

 series Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

. The canonicity
Canon (fiction)
In the context of a work of fiction, the term canon denotes the material accepted as "official" in a fictional universe's fan base. It is often contrasted with, or used as the basis for, works of fan fiction, which are not considered canonical...

 of the audio plays, like the other spin-off
Doctor Who spin-offs
Doctor Who spin-offs refers to material created outside of, but related to, the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who....

 media, is unclear.
The Forge, also known as Department C4, was founded at the turn of the 20th century to study and experiment with extraterrestrial
Extraterrestrial life in popular culture
In popular cultures, "extraterrestrials" are life forms — especially intelligent life forms— that are of extraterrestrial origin .-Historical ideas:-Pre-modern:...

 material and technology and apply it to the security interests of the United Kingdom. It first appeared in Project: Twilight
Project Twilight
Project: Twilight is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who...

, written by Cavan Scott
Cavan Scott
Cavan Scott is a freelance author, journalist and editor best known for his work on a variety of spin-offs from the BBC Television series Doctor Who...

 and Mark Wright. Its agents can sometimes be identified with the use of the code phrase or motto, "For King and Country."

It is similar to the Torchwood Institute
Torchwood Institute
The Torchwood Institute is a fictional secret organization from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and its spin-off series Torchwood. It was established in 1879 by Queen Victoria after the events of "Tooth and Claw". Its prime directive, is to defend the earth against...

 in the television series, though the Forge's introduction in the audio plays predates it.

History

In the Sixth Doctor
Sixth Doctor
The Sixth Doctor is the sixth incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by Colin Baker...

 audio play Cryptobiosis
Cryptobiosis (Doctor Who audio)
Cryptobiosis is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who.It was initially made available as an exclusive bonus to Big Finish series subscribers and was not sold commercially, although it is now avabile to...

, taking place in 1901, the Chief Mate of the cargo ship Lankester was transporting a captured mermaid
Mermaid
A mermaid is a mythological aquatic creature with a female human head, arms, and torso and the tail of a fish. A male version of a mermaid is known as a "merman" and in general both males and females are known as "merfolk"...

 to an unknown buyer. However, his use of the "King and Country" code phrase during a radio communication implies that the Forge was involved.

The Forge's first known operations were during World War I. Project: Twilight involved the infection of human subjects with the so-called Twilight Virus, which incorporated DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...

 from vampires to create human-vampire hybrids as super-soldiers. However, the test subjects escaped into the community in October 1915 and slaughtered the base personnel. The Forge's chief scientist, Dr William Abberton, was mortally wounded and injected himself with the virus to survive. He then assumed the code name of Nimrod
Nimrod (Doctor Who)
Nimrod is a character in the Big Finish Productions audio plays Project: Twilight, Project: Lazarus and Project: Destiny written by Cavan Scott and Mark Wright, which are based on the British science fiction television series Doctor Who...

 and dedicated himself to tracking down the escaped vampires. The Seventh Doctor
Seventh Doctor
The Seventh Doctor is the seventh incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by the actor Sylvester McCoy....

, Ace
Ace (Doctor Who)
Dorothy Gale McShane, better known by her nickname Ace, is a fictional character played by Sophie Aldred in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who...

 and Hex
Hex (Doctor Who)
Thomas Hector Schofield, nicknamed Hex, is a fictional character played by Philip Olivier in a series of audio plays produced by Big Finish Productions based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. A staff nurse working for St. Gart's Hospital in London in the year...

 encounter the Forge several times. In 1917, they find The Forge running a secret project at Charnage Hospital to brainwash British soldiers into becoming more aggressive, with a possible side effect of making several subjects time-sensitive (No Man's Land
No Man's Land (Doctor Who audio)
No Man's Land is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who.-Synopsis:The Seventh Doctor, Ace and Hex land in Northern France in 1917 during World War I...

). Then in 1945 they find The Forge in Postwar London, trying to recapture alien technology which was stolen after the van carrying it crashed in transit (Forty Five: Casualties of War).

Project: Dionysus was the next known operation, which took place during the early 1950s, when Dr Stone attempted to create a rift in spacetime
Spacetime
In physics, spacetime is any mathematical model that combines space and time into a single continuum. Spacetime is usually interpreted with space as being three-dimensional and time playing the role of a fourth dimension that is of a different sort from the spatial dimensions...

, which was almost used by a race known as the Divergence to break through into our reality (Zagreus). Although there was no explicit mention of the Forge in Zagreus, it was heavily implied that Stone was working for them, as she also uses the "King and Country" code phrase.

In the latter half of the twentieth century, the Forge secretly operated on behalf of British interests, while the international UNIT
United Nations Intelligence Taskforce
UNIT is a fictional military organisation from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures...

 (which the Forge viewed with contempt) dealt with more public alien threats.

In Project: Twilight
Project Twilight
Project: Twilight is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who...

, it is 1999, and Nimrod has tracked down the Twilight vampire ringleaders, Reggie Mead and Amelia Dooney, to the South-East London casino Dusk, established to hide their activities. The Sixth Doctor
Sixth Doctor
The Sixth Doctor is the sixth incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by Colin Baker...

 and Evelyn Smythe
Evelyn Smythe
Dr. Evelyn Smythe is a fictional character played by Maggie Stables in a series of audio plays produced by Big Finish Productions based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. A professor of history from the 20th century with a fondness for chocolate, she is a...

 befriend casino worker Cassie Schofield and with her help, they learn what they can about Dusk. This is also the point in the Doctor's life when he first learns about the Forge, as well as meeting Nimrod for the first time. Eventually, the vampires infect Cassie with a new and stronger from of the Twilight virus. The Forge's mission ended with the destruction of the casino and the deaths of most of the Twilight vampires. The Doctor offers to take Cassie with him while he tries to create a cure for her infection, but she chooses to stay on Earth. He drops her off in Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 and promises to return.

Following the conclusion of Project: Twilight, Nimrod captured Cassie and returned her to the Forge. Over a period of time, she was heavily brainwashed, trained to become a field agent and groomed into becoming Nimrod's replacement as primary northern-European field agent, code-named Artemis. Nimrod was put in charge of a new operation, Project: Valhalla, to scavenge alien technology from a crashed alien spaceship in Lapland. The mission turned into a disaster and the area had to be sterilised when the ship turned out to be a prison for a world-killing Lovecraftian
Cthulhu Mythos
The Cthulhu Mythos is a shared fictional universe, based on the work of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft.The term was first coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent of Lovecraft, who used the name of the creature Cthulhu - a central figure in Lovecraft literature and the focus...

 monster known as Nyathoggoth.

After this operation, Nimrod replaced former UNIT
UNIT
UNIT is a fictional military organisation from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures...

-head Colonel Crichton
The Five Doctors
The Five Doctors is a special feature-length episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, produced in celebration of the programme's twentieth anniversary. It had its world premiere in the United States, on the Chicago PBS station WTTW and various other PBS member stations...

 as Deputy Director of the Forge and began Project: Lazarus
Project Lazarus
Project: Lazarus is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It is a sequel to Project: Twilight and a predecessor to Project: Destiny.-Plot:...

. The Sixth Doctor creates a cure for the Twilight Virus, so he and Evelyn track down Cassie in 2004. Nimrod captures the Doctor and takes DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...

 samples from him. Evelyn manages to free Cassie from her brainwashing, mostly by reminding her of her child, Tommy, who she hasn't in years. The Doctor and Evelyn race to take Cassie back to the TARDIS to be cured, but Nimrod murders her with his crossbow. After the TARDIS escapes, Project: Lazarus commences. Using DNA gathered from the Doctor, they attempted to clone him in order to discover the secret of regeneration
Regeneration (Doctor Who)
Regeneration, in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, is a biological ability exhibited by Time Lords, a race of fictional humanoids originating on the planet Gallifrey. This process allows a Time Lord who is old or mortally wounded to undergo a transformation into a new...

. They manage to create dozens of clones, physically identical to the Sixth Doctor, but unable to regenerate, no matter how they're killed. Also, the clones don't live for very long. Nimrod dresses the clones like the Doctor and employees them, one at a time, convincing them that they are the real Doctor, reluctantly working with the Forge to stave off an alien invasion.

It was around this time that Nimrod himself recovered the fabled Spear of Destiny from a private collection in Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

 as part of Project: Longinus. At present there is no information of what became of the artifact. Artemis and Nimrod were also responsible for locating and abducting the last member of "the Gryphus clan", with Artemis using honeypot methods to accomplish this.

Meanwhile, the Seventh Doctor and Ace start traveling with Hex, a young nurse from 2021. While searching through his records, the Doctor realizes that Hex is actually Thomas Hector Schofield, Cassie's son, now a grown man. The Hospital he worked at, St Gart's, had direct connections to the Forge, particularly department C4, researching Cyber technology (The Harvest
The Harvest (Doctor Who audio)
The Harvest is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It introduces new companion Hex. It was retroactively made the final part of a trilogy with The Reaping and The Gathering, with all three sporting similar designs for...

). Their advanced computer network, called System, was obtained in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, in 2006, from future Cyber tech (The Gathering
The Gathering (Doctor Who audio)
The Gathering is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who.-Plot:...

).

Long after Ace and Hex stop traveling with him, the Seventh Doctor arrives at the Forge in 2007, during the provocation of an alien invasion. And assisting them is what looks like the Sixth Doctor. When the real Doctor shows his clone the truth about his origins, he turns on Nimrod, engaging the Hades Protocol, destroying the entire facility, including employees, clones and other living experiments. However, Nimrod and some of the staff survived and moved to a secondary facility with a new version of their supercomputer, Oracle, adapted from System. Although the clone actually destroyed the Forge, Nimrod and the other survivors believed it was the real Doctor's doing.

By 2026, the Forge had rebuilt and re-branded itself as the official public face of alien encounters, held accountable by the government. Even Nimrod had become a public figure. Once again going by his name William Abberton, he had even been knighted. But a careless mistake by a someone at the Forge released a deadly mutagen, forcing most of London to be evacuated. A younger Seventh Doctor (still traveling with Ace and Hex and unaware of his future self's connection to the destruction of the Forge decades in the past), arrived in the middle of this emergency. From Nimrod's perspective, this is the fourth meeting with the Doctor (but only the Doctor's third meeting with Nimrod). Nimrod knows who Hex is and tells him about the secrets the Doctor has been keeping. But what Nimrod really wants is the Doctor's Twilight Virus, which he re-engineers to kill all the mutants in London. The Forge's second in command, Captain Lysandra Aristedes, is soon convinced that her employers are evil. She overthrows Nimrod and engages Project: Destiny
Project Destiny (Doctor Who audio)
Project: Destiny is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It is a sequel to Project: Twilight and Project: Lazarus.-Plot:...

, the final destruction of the Forge. Nimrod himself is killed by a sort of zombie version of Cassie.

In A Death in the Family
A Death in the Family (Doctor Who audio)
A Death in the Family is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. -Plot:...

, the Doctor and UNIT pick over the remains of the Forge, looking for dangerous technology. And the Doctor in particular searches for a Time Lord
Time Lord
The Time Lords are an ancient extraterrestrial race and civilization of humanoids in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, of which the series' eponymous protagonist, the Doctor, is a member...

 casket that he had been told was somewhere in their archives. Inside it, he finds an older version of himself, not dead, but in a sort of trance. His future self was engaged in a complicated battle with a Word Lord named Nobody No-One
Nobody No-One
Nobody No-One is a character in the Big Finish Productions audio plays Forty-Five: The Word Lord and A Death in the Family written by Steven Hall, which are based on the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. He is an original character and does not appear in the television series...

, when the Forge obtained the casket. No-One meanwhile was hiding at the Forge for decades, disguising his wordship as their catch-phrase "For King and Country".

Years later, The Forge rose again, using the profits from their technology to break away from the government and build a new headquarters. Their new skyscraper was the most scientifically advanced building in the world. Once again, Oracle controlled the building, but now it was hardwired to the remains of Nimrod, kept in a sealed vault deep below the property. The Short Trips: Defining Patterns
Short Trips: Defining Patterns
Short Trips: Defining Patterns is a Big Finish original anthology edited by Ian Farrington and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who...

 book contains the short story Twilight's End, in which Nimrod subconsciously summons the Seventh Doctor. Oracle refuses him entry, recalling the destruction of their first two facilities. Nimrod overrides the decision, reuniting with the Doctor for the final time (but not the final time from the Doctor's perspective). The Doctor leaves a syringe contain the Twilight Cure, giving Nimrod the choice to use it.

Personnel

Forge personnel have included:
  • Nimrod — the Forge's main field agent and eventually Director.
  • The Director — the shadowy head of the Forge. At the time of Project: Twilight the Director is a man but by Project: Lazarus a woman has been promoted to the position.
  • Deputy-Director Crichton — The former head of the British contingent of UNIT somehow became the deputy director of the Forge around the time of Twilight and Valhalla. He was replaced by Nimrod at the end of Project: Valhalla, and found himself under a death warrant.
  • Sergeant Frith — the Forge's Security Chief.
  • Doctor Edith Crumpton — the Forge's Chief Science Officer.
  • Captain Aristedes — Sergeant Frith's right-hand woman and eventual head of security.
  • 'Lazarus' (Sixth Doctor clones) — the Forge's scientific advisor.
  • 'Artemis' (Cassie Schofield) — Nimrod's intended replacement as main Forge field agent.
  • Sergeant French — soldier who is seconded to I.C.I.S.
    ICIS (Doctor Who)
    The Internal Counter-Intelligence Service is a fictional military organization from the UNIT audio plays by Big Finish. A highly nationalistic and xenophobic organisation, they were originally intended to be a uniquely British replacement for the British contingent of UNIT in fighting...

     in UNIT: The Coup
    UNIT: The Coup
    UNIT: The Coup is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It stars Nicholas Courtney reprising his role as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, the former commander of UNIT...

    .
  • Lieutenant-Colonel Brook — an agent during World War One, heading the experiments at Charnage.
  • James Clarke - agent working in Australia in 2006, investigating the possible use of Cyber-technology
    Cyberman
    The Cybermen are a fictional race of cyborgs who are amongst the most persistent enemies of the Doctor in the British science fiction television series, Doctor Who. Cybermen were originally a wholly organic species of humanoids originating on Earth's twin planet Mondas that began to implant more...

    .

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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