The Forge

Department C4, more commonly known as  the Forge, was an English intelligence organisation formed at the turn of the 19th century.

History
The Forge was set up in an abandoned asylum in Dartmoor in the 1890s. (PROSE: Project: Valhalla)

The 20th century
In 1901, Chief Mate De Requin of the Lankester used the phrase "For King and Country" on radio while transporting a mermaid to an unknown buyer. (AUDIO: Cryptobiosis)

In 1911, the Forge commenced Project: Twilight, an attempt to create a vampire super-soldier. Dr William Abberton was the project coordinator. For the next four years, the Forge gathered soldiers and injected them with vampire DNA. (PROSE: Project: Valhalla)

On 4 October 1915, 57 vampires escaped from the Dartmoor facility, killing 20 Forge agents. Among those who were killed was Abberton, who survived by injected himself with the Twilight Virus. Abberton pledged to kill all of the escaped test subjects and began calling himself "Nimrod". (AUDIO: Project: Twilight, PROSE: Project: Valhalla)

Unknown to the Forge, their codephrase "for King and Country" was hijacked by the Word Lord: he disguised his CORDIS as the phrase so he could appear every time it was used. (AUDIO: A Death in the Family)

In the 1950s, the Forge launched Project: Dionysus with the purpose of creating a reality-warping superweapon. The Divergence almost used the dionysus machine to escape their universe, but were stopped when the machine was destroyed by a cuban spy. (AUDIO: Zagreus)

The 2000s
In 2000, after a Tregannon ship exploded in Earth's atmosphere, (AUDIO: The Spectre of Lanyon Moor) the Forge salvaged some of its propulsion technology. Lysandra Aristedes spent several months integrating it into Pegasus One, Two, and Three. (PROSE: Project: Valhalla)

By 2001, the Forge's Deputy Director was Colonel Charles Crichton, formerly of UNIT. (PROSE: Project: Valhalla) In this year, Nimrod tracked down the Twilight vampire ringleaders, Reggie Mead and Amelia Dooney, at the South-East London casino they used as a front operation. Alongside the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn Smythe, he destroyed the last creatures. In the process, casino worker Cassie Schofield (whom Nimrod had been blackmailing to help him) was turned into a vampire. (AUDIO: Project: Twilight)

The Forge went on several notable missions in the early 2000s: they fought zombies, hunted down a lone grey alien in the New Forest and harvested a Slarvian at a peace conference. (PROSE: Project: Valhalla)

When the Internal Counter-Intelligence Service was formed, many Forge soldiers were seconded to ICIS. Philip Kirby, one of the biggest supporters of ICIS, had close ties to the Forge. Colonel French was among the first group of soldiers to be transferred. (PROSE: Project: Valhalla, AUDIO: The Coup)

The Forge encountered the Sixth Doctor again in November 2004, while aggressively acquiring a Huldran spacecraft, and finally initiated Project Lazarus, an attempt to replicate his regenerations. While the Doctor escaped, they had enough DNA information to create a clone of him; it was unable to regenerate, but had enough of the Doctor's attributes to be hired as a scientific advisor. When the Huldrans began attacking the Forge in retaliation, Nimrod had the clone brainwashed to believe he truly was the Doctor, had been stranded on Earth, and was helping them to prevent the Huldrans destroying Earth. (AUDIO: Project: Lazarus)

As part of a long-term operation, an Australian Forge agent named James Clarke had been backing Katherine Chambers' Cyberman technology experiments since 1984. In September 2006, he had a usable product. (AUDIO: The Gathering, PROSE: Project: Valhalla)

Iris Wildthyme told Hilary Mercer to send a damaged time scanner to the Forge at Dartmoor. (PROSE: The Unhappy Medium)

By 2008, the constant Huldran attacks and the arrival of the Seventh Doctor caused several key Forge members to begin questioning their work and the clone to realise the truth of his existence. While the Doctor solved the Huldran situation, the clone of his sixth incarnation activated the Forge base's self destruct program. (AUDIO: Project: Lazarus)

The 2020s
By 2025, the Forge had gone public as it had become near-impossible to stay secret in the social media era. The organisation was headquartered in the Crichton Building, overlooking the Thames. Nimrod was a public figure, Sir William Abberton, pretending to have albinism. (AUDIO: Project Destiny)

In May 2025, Nimrod was vapourised by alien technology and the Forge's beta base was destroyed in an explosion. (AUDIO: Project Destiny) After Nimrod's supposed death, Lysandra Aristedes became the director. (AUDIO: Black and White) In 2026, the organisation was much diminished, Lysandra had departed, and UNIT were cleaning out the remains of the Crichton Building. (AUDIO: A Death in the Family)

Nimrod had managed to survive vaporisation, in a dessicated, near-dead state and had been connected to the main Forge computer, Oracle and was now the new leader of the Forge. The Doctor left a syringe containing the Twilight cure beside Nimrod, which would cure his vampirism. But the vampire DNA was the only thing that kept Nimrod alive, and taking the Twilight cure would cause his death. Depending upon his decision, the fate of Nimrod and the Forge was unknown. (PROSE: Twilight's End)

Equipment
In the 2000s, Forge soldiers fought with SA80 rifles. (PROSE: Project: Valhalla) By 2026, the SA80s were replaced by pulse rifles. (AUDIO: Project: Destiny) In the 22nd century, Forge Soldiers used handheld energy weapons. (PROSE: Twilight's End)

When transporting dangerous sentient beings, Forge soldiers used non-lethal weapons such as tranquilliser guns and cattle prods. (PROSE: Project: Valhalla)

Uniform
In the 2000s, Forge soldiers wore standard combat fatigues with the Forge's insignia on the arms. (PROSE: Project: Valhalla) In the 22nd century, Forge soldiers wore regulation black combat fatigues. The uniforms had a belt which held their weapons and communicators. (PROSE: Twilight's End)

Behind the scenes
The Forge (originally called Bedlam) was originally created by Mark Wright and Cavan Scott for the second draft of the audio story Project: Twilight after Gary Russell wanted to see more of the concept of government-approved vampires. It was renamed the Forge to avoid confusion with the audio story Minuet in Hell.