User:Epsilon the Eternal/UNIT United Kingdom

= Television stories with their events being documented in-universe =

Others
Probably won't complete this.

= UNIT rewrite =

The United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (British Section) (PROSE: The Ambassadors of Death) later known as UNIT UK (PROSE: Bullet Time, The Shadows of Avalon, Island of Death, Battlefield) was the British contingency (PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters) of the transnational paramilitary organisation known as UNIT, led by Brigadier Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart from its formation until the late 20th century.

Not unlike its parental body, the United Nations Intelligence taskforce, it was also forced to drop its association with the United Nations in the mid-2000s.

- in fact, the British division was often just referred to as UNIT, not unlike how other divisions across the globe were also referred to.

It

Since the beginning of UNIT, individual such as Brigadier Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart, who was the Commanding Officer of the British section, (PROSE: The Ambassadors of Death) had to report to UNIT Geneva. (TV: The Invasion, et al.)

U.N.I.T., or more simply, UNIT, was a transnational paramilitary organisation that was initially led by Brigadier Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart until the late 20th century, and operated under the auspices of the United Nations until the mid-2000s. UNIT's anacronym originally stood for the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, though after dissociation from the UN, the organisation became to be known as the Unified Intelligence Taskforce. Operations performed by UNIT were almost always classified, thus leaving the organisation to garner a secret, and even mysterious, reputation.

While technically there existed a distinction between the organisation as a whole and its contingency in the United Kingdom, which once known as UNIT-UK, the keystone of the organisation was the UK contingency; indeed, the operations from the UK were almost always the most pivotal, and any international divisions were entirely subsidiary to the UK operation.

Formation
According to one account

Most accounts agreed the Great Intelligence's use of Robot Yeti and web-like fungus to invade the London Underground (TV: The Web of Fear) was the catalystic incident that led to the formation of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce over the course of the next four years, with Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart being promoted from rank of Colonel to Brigadier, and being placed in charge of leading (TV: The Invasion) the British contingent of the taskforce. (PROSE: The Ambassadors of Death, The Secret Lives of Monsters, et al.) The "London Menace", as one alientologist noted, had been documented by UNIT, despite it taking place prior to their formation, however they had little information upon the Whisper Men. (PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters)

While Alastair was the Commanding Officer of the British Section, (PROSE: The Ambassadors of Death, et al.) but still had to report to his superior and longtime friend, Major-General (TV: The Invasion, PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters, et al.) William Routledge until he was convinced to shoot himself by Tobias Vaughn, (PROSE: The Invasion) and his replacement, Major-General Scobie. (TV: Spearhead from Space, PROSE: Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion, The Secret Lives of Monsters, et al.)

After Lethbridge-Stewart
After the period of time that was retroactively described as UNIT's "golden period", the late 1960s to the ealy 1980s, though some claimed that UNIT was still operating fully during the 1980s. From the mid-1980s to the early 2000s, UNIT's activities would gradually decline due to the smaller amount of threats to humanity at that time; UNIT's size also decreased, in part due to less personnel being available from world governments., reducing the taskforce to "a hard core of operationally experienced higher ranks and a still very active non-conventional R&D Corps." (PROSE: UNIT History: Fighting the unknown)

UNIT was involved in the 1995 Bonnybridge Cigar Confrontation, which was a larger incident in their relatively quieter period of operations. (PROSE: UNIT Hsitory: Fighting the unknown)

2000s
Despite UNIT's decrease in size over the course of the 1980s and 1990s, UNIT would begin to expand rapidly again in the early 2000s due to the sheeer increase in "extra-territorial threats." Following their re-expansion, (PROSE: UNIT History: Fighting the unknown) UNIT adopted a controversial attitude towards civil rights and civil liberties, (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem) all in the name of "Homeworld Security". According to Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart in the mid-2000s, he believed UNIT's focus on Homeworld Security "[was] the trouble with UNIT these days. Too many buzzwords, too many directives." (TV: Enemy of the Bane) UNIT even established a secret prison where detainees could be held without charges being pressed or without the usual rights of prisoners. (TV: Fragments)

At sometime prior to the 2009 Sontaran invasion, UNIT changed its name from United Nations Intelligence Taskforce to Unified Intelligence Taskforce. UNIT retained its traditional logos, even though they displayed the now-technically incorrect initialisation "U.N.I.T." (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem) The UN had come to publicly deny any connection with UNIT, forcing the secretive military organisation to alter its name. (PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters)

Prior to late January 2005, a fifty-strong squad of UNIT troops, all equiped with standard DL/3 class X-hazard chemical survival suits, were stationed in the Russian Steppes for a five day period for an investigation of reports of extreme chemical pollution. Thirteen personnel would die, protecting the local population. Captain Martin Berry would later spoke out about the tragic loss of those soldiers in a press briefing embargoed until 31 January 2005, filed by Corp M Osborne. (PROSE: UNIT's Position on the Skaniska Incident)

The 2005 Auton invasion of Earth, (TV: Rose) an attack known to high-ranking UNIT officers as Operation Mannequin (PROSE: Operation Mannequin) but referred to as The London Incident by UNIT to the public, (PROSE: UNIT's Position on The London Incident) took place on 5 March (TV: Aliens of London, AUDIO: One Rule, PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters, et al.) or 26 March (