Torchwood Institute
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article is about the organisation within Doctor Who; for the spinoff programme, see Torchwood.
| Type | Intelligence agency, Private army |
|---|---|
| Founded | Scotland, 1879 by Queen Victoria |
| Location | Great Britain
<tr><th style="text-align:right;">Key people</th><td>Queen Victoria
|
The Torchwood Institute is a fictional organisation from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and its spin-off series, Torchwood. It was formed to research and combat paranormal threats to Great Britain, and use their findings to make the British Empire great again. To those ends, it acquires and reverse engineers alien technology by any means deemed necessary. According to its director Yvonne Hartman (played by Tracy-Ann Oberman), its nationalist attitude extends to refusing to use metric units.
While described as "beyond the United Nations", they are known to cooperate with UNIT to some extent. There appears at present to be some sort of rapport with the Prime Minister although historically this may not always have been the case. To those that have in come into contact with Torchwood, they are primarily believed to be a special forces team.
Contents |
[edit] History
[edit] 1879–2006
The Institute was founded by Queen Victoria in 1879, following the events of the Doctor Who episode Tooth and Claw. While staying at Torchwood House, the Scottish estate of Sir Robert MacLeish, the Queen was attacked by a werewolf, in reality an alien intelligence that planned to infect her with its consciousness by biting her. The werewolf was ultimately dispelled, thanks to the efforts of the Tenth Doctor and the sacrifice of Sir Robert.
Having discovered that Great Britain had enemies "beyond imagination", Victoria decided to establish the Torchwood Institute in memory of Sir Robert. She also decided that the Doctor was dangerous, and declared that if he ever returned, Torchwood would be waiting. The Doctor's name was written into the Torchwood Foundation's charter as an enemy of the Crown.
Not long after the foundation of the Institute, a spacetime Rift was identified in Cardiff and as a result, a smaller branch of the Institute was formed there to monitor and exploit the Rift.<ref name=Rift>Torchwood website: The Rift</ref>
The activities of the Torchwood Institute during the 20th century have not yet been revealed. It is known that the organisation "flourished down the decades, becoming stronger" and grew "more arrogant".<ref name=Welcome>Torchwood wesbite: Welcome to Torchwood</ref> Whilst the organisation was public enough in 1953 (The Idiot's Lantern), by 2006, the existence of Torchwood was apparently a secret known only to the British military and police, Torchwood was supposedly kept even from Prime Minister Harriet Jones and the United Nations. However, Jones did know about its existence anyway, and ordered Major Blake of UNIT to prepare Torchwood for the impending arrival of the Sycorax on Christmas Day.
In 1996 a "Jathar Sunglider" flew into British airspace and was shot down by Torchwood. From its remainds, an energy weapon was installed in London. On Jones's command, Torchwood used the weapon to destroy a Sycorax ship on Christmas Day. (The Christmas Invasion).
[edit] 2007
The Doctor discovered the existence of Torchwood in the 2006 series' two-part finale, Army of Ghosts and Doomsday set in 2007. At this time, Torchwood operated software which blocked access to Internet searches about UFO activity (School Reunion). The TARDISODE for Army of Ghosts showed Torchwood agents abducting a journalist who was investigating the Institute and arranging to admit him to a psychiatric institution.
While investigating the manifestation of "ghosts" on Earth, the Doctor traced their origin back to Torchwood Tower (known publicly as Canary Wharf), where Hartman placed the Doctor in custody and confiscated the TARDIS. To Torchwood, the Doctor was a source of vast information and familiarity with alien technology, who they could exploit to further the organisation's aims.
Torchwood Tower had been built to reach a spatial breach 660 feet above sea level. Unbeknownst to Torchwood, the breach had been caused by the entrance into the universe of a "void ship", a vessel designed to travel through the void between parallel universes. Torchwood had been conducting experiments on the breach, in an attempt to harness its energy and reduce Britain's reliance on Middle Eastern oil, but these experiments had caused the breach to widen. The "ghosts" turned out to be Cybermen from an alternate universe, which were using the widening breach to travel between universes.
A small advance force of Cybermen infiltrated Torchwood, upgrading or subverting Torchwood personnel, before eventually seizing control and opening the breach wide enough for "ghosts" around the world to manifest fully as millions of Cybermen.
However, the void ship was nothing to do with the Cybermen, and had in fact been created by the Daleks, four of whom had used it to escape the Time War. Caught between warring Daleks and Cybermen, many Torchwood workers were either killed, or "upgraded" by the Cybermen (including Hartman herself - although she retained some semblance of her identity). It is known that in the wake of these events, referred to as the "Battle of Canary Wharf", the Institute feels it must "learn by heart" a lesson about its own arrogance.<ref name=Welcome /> It was later revealed that the London branch of Torchwood, referred to as Torchwood One, lost 796 members of staff and was ultimately ordered to close by Queen Elizabeth.<ref name=t1fall>Torchwood website: Report: Closure of Torchwood One</ref>
[edit] The future
In 2012, Torchwood is public enough to be mentioned in a television broadcast during the London 2012 Olympics (Fear Her).
By the 2002nd century, the Great Cobalt Pyramid has been built on the ruins of the Torchwood Institute (Bad Wolf). Furthermore, a Big Brother contestant of that era is described as working at a "telephone salon", but his home is described as "Torchwood", implying that in the future it has also possibly become a city, state or nation of some sort.<ref>BBC - Doctor Who homepage - Bad Wolf - Big Brother theme</ref>
In the distant future, the Torchwood Archives sent a group of explorers to investigate a mysterious power source that kept a planet in stable orbit around a black hole (The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit).
[edit] Parallel universe
In Rise of the Cybermen, a parallel Earth Torchwood Institute is referred to. It is public enough for a survey carried out by it to be reported in a news item, and for someone to be publicly asked about their work there. Prior to Army of Ghosts, a group led by Pete Tyler (and including Jake Simmonds and Mickey Smith), which worked for the alternate world's People's Republic, took over the parallel Earth Torchwood.
In Doomsday, it is revealed that the parallel Earth Torchwood had also been conducting experiments on the spatial breach, which led (between The Age of Steel and Army of Ghosts) to it being infiltrated by the Cybermen, who used the breach to travel to the regular universe. Following the events of Doomsday, Rose Tyler, confined to the alternate world, goes on to work for the reformed organization.
[edit] Divisions
[edit] Torchwood One, London
Torchwood One, also known as Torchwood Tower was Torchwood's head office.<ref name=Ianto>Torchwood wesbite: Ianto Jones online counselling session</ref> It was destroyed during the events of "Doomsday". According to the Torchwood website, there were 823 members of staff. Only 27 were known to have survived. Her Majesty ordered its immediate closure.<ref name=t1fall /> It was located within One Canada Square, the tallest of the three Canary Wharf skyscrapers. Some notable employees include:
- Yvonne Hartman (director)†
- Adeola Oshodi (technician)†
- Dr. Rajesh Singh (scientist)†
- "Samuel" (scientist)*
- Lisa Hallett (Cyberwoman)†
- Ianto Jones (before relocating to Torchwood Three)
[edit] Torchwood Two, Glasgow
- A "very strange man"
[edit] Torchwood Three, Cardiff
Torchwood Three, also known as The Torchwood Hub, primarily serves as a monitoring station for the Cardiff spacetime Rift.<ref name=Ianto/> Whereas the London branch staffed hundreds of individuals, the Cardiff branch is considerably smaller and only staffs a small team of experts, hired by Captain Jack<ref name="buttons">BBC Press Office (2006-11-03). Torchwood pushes all the right buttons for Naoko. Press release. Retrieved on 2006-11-04.</ref> and described as a "renegade outpost".<ref name=Welcome /> It is located beneath Roald Dahl Plass.
- Captain Jack Harkness (leader)*
- Gwen Cooper
- Dr. Owen Harper (medic and psychologist<ref>Torchwood website: Gwen Cooper psychological evaluation</ref>)
- Dr. Toshiko Sato (computer specialist)*
- Ianto Jones (general support)
- Suzie Costello (weapons specialist)†
[edit] Torchwood Four, location unknown
- Missing
† denotes personnel confirmed as deceased.
* denotes personnel who have previously appeared in Doctor Who before being revealed as or joining as Torchwood personnel.
[edit] References in Doctor Who
[edit] References
<references />
| Torchwood | |
|---|---|
| Torchwood main pages | |
| Doctor Who • Whoniverse • Rift • Torchwood Institute • Weevils | |
| Related Doctor Who episodes | |
| "The Unquiet Dead" • "Boom Town" • "The Christmas Invasion" "Tooth and Claw" • "Army of Ghosts" • "Doomsday" | |
| Main characters | |
| Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) • Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) • Owen Harper (Burn Gorman) Toshiko Sato (Naoko Mori) • Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd) | |
| Torchwood lists | |
| Episodes • Monsters and aliens • Minor characters • Items | |
