The Torchwood Archive (audio story)

 was a special release from Big Finish Productions celebrating the 10th anniversary of Torchwood. It explored the origins of the Committee and Object 1.

Publisher's summary
"Welcome, visitor. The Torchwood Archive provides a complete history of our Institute from its distant beginnings to the present day. When we founded our great enterprise in the year of our Lord 1879, we decreed that there should be a record of this achievement, stored at the very furthest limits of the British Empire. By visiting you are spreading that legacy, perhaps out through the skies. For now, I shall bid you a good day and welcome you to the Torchwood Archive. Do, please look around."

The Torchwood Archive is a forgotten asteroid in the centre of a great war. Jeremiah is its first visitor in many centuries. He's come to learn something very important. And the ghosts of Torchwood are waiting for him.

Part one
Jeremiah Bash Henderson enters the Torchwood Archive and is greeted by a hologram of Queen Victoria, but he says that he has come to shut the Archive down. Holograms of Jack and Ianto appear, with the latter leading Jeremiah to the library. Andy takes over, telling him that it is a Classic Torchwood theme week and asking what he wants information on. Jeremiah asks for the records on Object 1.

The first recording is of Queen Victoria making a speech in 1899 saluting Torchwood. Andy then brings up a recording from a café in Penarth in 2009, in which he tells a date about how he was Torchwood's official liaison with South Wales Police. He then tells Jeremiah about the Committee and shows him a recording of Mr Colchester from 2017. Mr Colchester recounts how he followed up a lead on the Committee and found them at a care home, but Roy only told him that they wanted Earth to reach its full potential.

As "something straightforward", Andy produces a recording of Jack. Jack says that he was given Object 1 by Queen Victoria and was told to throw it into the Rift, but instead decided to keep it and stay in Cardiff. In 1914, he encountered the Weevils and threw Object 1 into the Rift, believing that it was responsible, and burnt the Weevils alive with a proton flamethrower.

Jumping ahead to 2004, Suzie Costello called Yvonne Hartman from a bus stop and told her how she found Object 1 in an Ovid factory in Aberfair, offering it to her. She did so under Jack's orders, wanting to get it out of Wales. Yvonne calls Suresh and tells him to continue leading Ovid on as part of their investigation into the Committee.

The next recording is of Eve Trent at Aberdeen Airport leaving a message for Torchwood, telling them of her work for the Committee and how she built bodies for them. She visited one of the Committee's bunkers for the people chosen to survive the Reset and realised that the Committee would seal them in there and leave them to die. She is then shot dead.

As an example of people not realising that they work for the Committee, Andy shows a recording of Gwen Cooper and Rhys Williams. Rhys is called by Mandy from work, who tells him that Harwood's need to transport even more industrial refrigerators to Troed-y-Rhiw. The next is of Ivan Putin of the KVI, who is tasked by Maxim Ivanov with telling five of the richest men in Moscow that their girlfriends are members of the Committee and being manipulated into bidding for Galatine. He tells of how the KVI had dealings with the Committee.

Andy shows Jeremiah a recording of Toshiko Sato in a bar, having reverse-engineered Object 1 to bring good luck with a field inverter. She sends it into the Rift. Andy then shows a recording of Alex Hopkins on the day that he killed himself, meeting the little girl and being given Object 1. Andy asks Jeremiah why he is so interested in Object 1, prompting him to produce it from his pocket.

Part two
Andy is displeased with Jeremiah, who says that he has brought Object 1 to shut Torchwood down. He claims that he met with Jack at Space Station Cardiff before his wedding at the Great Cobalt Pyramid and was tasked by him with destroying the Torchwood Archive with Object 1 to keep it from falling into the hands of the Enemy, killing his possessed wife Delilah on the way after she was possessed.

To show Jeremiah that the system that the Archive was based on has always been erratic, Andy shows him a recording of Archie in Torchwood House, inspecting a "knowledge sponge" taken from a Senedial observation drone and processing Object 1. Andy then shows him the destruction of Torchwood Four due to a separate alien artefact.

Further recordings show Norton Folgate in 1953, tricking Madrake into swapping a Coberoid interface for Object 1 and handing it over to Mitford of the Committee, and Torchwood India in 1924 after Jack took their whole inventory bar Object 1, which they then sent. During the Battle of Canary Wharf, Ianto is given Object 1 by a dying Kieran Frost to give to Lisa Hallett.

Years later, he and Jack play with their dog, Untitled, watched by Roy. Gwen meets with Madeline and asks about the Committee. She believes that she has been possessed by the Committee in the past which caused her tumour. She collapses, having taken a number of pills.

Andy has disappeared, replaced with Rhys and Gwen. Both of them advise Jeremiah to take Object 1 and put it in the Archive. Jeremiah meets the Memory Core, which takes the form of Queen Victoria and plays him a recording of the real Queen relaying the story of the origins of the Committee and Object 1. She asks Jack to throw Object 1 into the Rift, thinking that that would be the end of it.

The Memory Core tells Jeremiah that Object 1 is a key to a pocket universe containing copies of the Committee. He places it in the Torchwood Archive, earning him the thanks of the Torchwood holograms, and leaves. The Memory Core, wanting to take the Committee's universe and leave N-Space to them, opens it whilst Jeremiah and Norton fly away. Jeremiah reveals that he had given the Memory Core a bomb disguised as Object 1 and that he and Norton would now open the real one to bring back the Committee.

In the 2000s, the Rift Manipulator goes wild and Object 1 returns. Jack, Gwen, Ianto and Tosh sigh.

Cast

 * Captain Jack Harkness - John Barrowman
 * Gwen Cooper - Eve Myles
 * Ianto Jones - Gareth David-Lloyd
 * Toshiko Sato - Naoko Mori
 * Suzie Costello - Indira Varma
 * Rhys Williams - Kai Owen
 * Andy Davidson - Tom Price
 * Yvonne Hartman - Tracy-Ann Oberman
 * Jeremiah Bash Henderson - Richie Campbell
 * Queen Victoria - Rowena Cooper
 * Alex Hopkins - Julian Lewis Jones
 * Norton Folgate - Samuel Barnett
 * The Committee - David Warner
 * Miss Trent - Emma Reeves
 * Maxim Ivanov - Krystian Godlewski
 * Archie - Guy Adams
 * Bartender - Geoffrey Breton
 * Miss Mitford - Lisa Bowerman
 * Delilah - Laura Doddington
 * Mandrake - Aaron Neil
 * Little Girl - Kerry Gooderson
 * Ivan Putin - Ryan Sampson
 * Kieran Frost - Damian Lynch
 * Mr Colchester - Paul Clayton

Worldbuilding

 * The Torchwood holograms are technically intuitive hard-light simulations.
 * Roy mentions Homes Under the Hammer.
 * Jack sings "What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor?" while talking about the sailors in Tiger Bay.
 * Edward VII did not believe in aliens. Jack got Torchwood funded by taking Edward to Paris.
 * Object 1 transformed sailors at Tiger Bay into Weevils.
 * Yvonne was once offered a sex doll of Brad Pitt.
 * Miss Trent mentions Facebook.
 * Miss Trent has a Springer Spaniel called Tavistock.
 * Miss Trent mentions Johnny Depp.
 * Rhys works for Harwood's Haulage, who are delivering fridges to Troed-y-Rhiw.
 * Rhys jokes about frozen Nazis.
 * The Committee manipulate rich Russians into bidding for Galatine, built by the late Neil Redmond.
 * Jack does not have an Ood when he sends Jeremiah to destroy the Archive.
 * Alex Hopkins mentions the Millennium Bug, which was actually a giant insect.
 * The Torchwood Archive's system was based on a computational, processing organic device taken from the wreckage of a Senedial observation drone seen hovering over Shadwell. Archie described it as a knowledge sponge.
 * Object 3019 and Object 3000512 are weapons.
 * Dwight is a gangster. Norton invites him back to his flat.
 * Torchwood retconned Dwayne Peters.
 * Madeline's doctor is Dr Rogers.
 * Madeline put weed killer in Gwen's tea.

Continuity

 * Queen Victoria founded Torchwood in 1879. (TV: Tooth and Claw)
 * The Committee is mentioned on a number of occasions. (AUDIO: The Conspiracy, etc.) They can be found in an old people's home. (AUDIO: Ghost Mission)
 * Tosh recovered Object 1 from Russia. (AUDIO: Zone 10) It was later recovered from a crashed spaceship by Andy Davidson. (AUDIO: Ghost Mission)
 * Suzie says "Torchwood One isn't going anywhere" to which Jack replies "more's the pity". (TV: Army of Ghosts / Doomsday)
 * Jack had Suzie pegged as a "daddy's girl". She shows disdain for her father. (TV: They Keep Killing Suzie)
 * Ivan Putin mentions the trade of weapons by Neil Redmond. (AUDIO: Uncanny Valley)
 * Tosh mentions that manipulating the world's fields could keep people from dying. (TV: The New World, etc.)
 * Object 1 is revealed to be the locket that showed Alex Hopkins the future. (TV: Fragments) Among others, he saw the 456 (TV: Children of Earth) and Miracle Day. (TV: The New World, etc.)
 * Ianto searched for Lisa during the destruction of Torchwood One. He told her to come into work that day. (TV: Army of Ghosts, TV: Doomsday)
 * Zachary Cross Flane, second-in-command of the Walker Expedition, previously stated that he represented the Torchwood Archive. (TV: The Satan Pit)
 * Jack notes that Cardiff's rift is a battery which "you know who" will pop by to refuel every now and then. (TV: Boom Town, End of Days, Utopia)
 * Madeline mentions the death of George Wilson. (AUDIO: The Conspiracy)
 * Mr Colchester is revealed to be a member of Torchwood in 2017 (AUDIO: Changes Everything) and is heard talking to Orr. (AUDIO: Orr, etc.)
 * The little girl says "You like guns, don't you?" to Alex. The Seventh Doctor once said the same thing. (TV: The Happiness Patrol)
 * Archie mentions being attacked by the Life-stealer. (AUDIO: The Victorian Age)