Operation Mannequin

In March 2005, the Nestene Consciousness attempted to invade Earth. Soon, the invasion became known by many names: to UNIT, the attack and subsequent cover-up was internally called Operation Mannequin, (PROSE: Operation Mannequin) while it was publicly referred to as The London Incident; (PROSE: UNIT's Position on The London Incident, TV: The Runaway Bride) Mickey Smith referred to the attack as the Dummy Massacre and the London Attack interchangeably; (PROSE: Dummy Massacre, The Doctor Was Involved in the Dummy Massacre) and in the The Secret Lives of Monsters, it was called the "5 March 2005 incident". (PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters)
UNIT handled the immediate cover-up, where they spread numerous conflicting accounts and misinformation to the press and the public, (PROSE: Operation Mannequin) with the British government declaring the incident as an ill-judged prank played by students that led to civil unrest (PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters) and others declaring it as a terrorist attack. (AUDIO: One Rule) People seemed willing to forget the attack, given it was an uncomfortable reality that was only made worse by the fact that no news media was reporting on the event, (PROSE: The Doctor Was Involved in the Dummy Massacre) and the public's awareness of the incident may have been also affected by the phenomenon known as the Mandela Effect. (PROSE: The Mandela Effect, Or Monsters on the Streets of London)
The Ninth Doctor translated to Rose Tyler that the invasion was the Consciousness still fighting "the war" during their confrontation with it. (PROSE: Rose)
The invasion either took place on 4 March, (PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac) 5 March (TV: Aliens of London, AUDIO: One Rule, PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters, Time Traveller's Diary) or on 26 March. (PROSE: UNIT's Position on The London Incident, Operation Mannequin, The Doctor Was Involved in the Dummy Massacre, etc.)
From the perspective of Londoner Elton Pope, it marked the point where his "perfectly normal life" had all gone mad. (TV: Love & Monsters) Indeed, several more high-profile alien incursions would appear in London over the following years, threatening the Earth. (TV: Aliens of London, World War Three, The Christmas Invasion) Jackie Tyler also made note of this string of incidents, which began with the arrival of the Ninth Doctor in the life of herself and her daughter Rose. (AUDIO: Wednesdays For Beginners)
Donna Noble, however, was oblivious to the invasion as well as several other alien incidents which occurred over the following years. (PROSE: Rose, TV: The Runaway Bride, The End of Time)
Though most accounts held that the Doctor initially faced this invasion alone before meeting Rose Tyler, (TV: Rose, etc.) and that the two were eventually joined on their travels by Captain Jack Harkness, (TV: The Empty Child) one account of this invasion saw Rose meet the Doctor, already accompanied by Captain Jack. (PROSE: Dr. Ninth)
== History ==
=== Origins ===
Though they had been involved in the Last Great Time War, (PROSE: Decoy) the Nestene Consciousness chose to abandon its old ways and developed a rapport with the Embodiment of Gris on Nestenia, only for the planet to be ruined when it was caught in the edge of the Time War. Amongst the planets which had been duplicated and used as weapons against it, the Nestene recognised Earth from an "old campaign". (PROSE: Revenge of the Nestene) Indeed, it had invaded at least twice in the 20th century, but was thwarted on both occasions by the Third Doctor and UNIT. (TV: Spearhead from Space, Terror of the Autons) Reeling from its wounds, the Nestene deliberately chose that "ridiculous" planet as a target for a new invasion, (PROSE: Revenge of the Nestene) the Ninth Doctor being aware that its food stock had been destroyed "the war", with all its protein planets rotting, and that the Earth's smoke and oil, combined with toxins and dioxins in the air, would have made the perfect source of food for the Nestene. To achieve its purpose, the Nestene infiltrated Earth using warp shunt technology and based itself in London, concealed beneath the London Eye. (TV: Rose)
=== Invasion ===
On 4 March 2005, the Ninth Doctor was in London pursuing the Nestene Consciousness. His investigations took him to Henrik's department store. Though H.P. Wilson had already been killed by the Autons, the Doctor was able to save Rose Tyler. He then blew up the building. Rose returned home to 48 Bucknall House by 20:45pm, when BBC News 24 reported on the explosion. (TV: Rose, Aliens of London)
On the following day, Rose Tyler investigated the Doctor, talking to conspiracy theorist Clive Finch about his website, titled Doctor Who?, about the mystery of the Doctor. Rose's boyfriend, Mickey Smith, was abducted by the Autons and replaced with an Auton duplicate. Using the head of this Auton, the Doctor tracked the Nestene Consciousness's signal to the London Eye.
Addressing the Nestene Consciousness according to Convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation, the Doctor intended to resolve the situation peacefully, though he brought a vial of anti-plastic with him as a precaution. The Nestene Consciousness, however, detected the Doctor's anti-plastic as well as the presence of the Doctor's TARDIS, which terrified the Nestene to the point of commencing a full-scale invasion, activating the London Eye transmitter. (TV: Rose) As reported on the website Who is Doctor Who?, this took place at 7.08pm. At least one person on the Eye found their sight and ability to talk impaired by the brightness and blanked out by the noise, respectively; the appearance of the Eye at that time was comparable to fireworks and St. Elmo's fire. (PROSE: Dummy Massacre) While one account depicted the Eye collapsing into the River Thames, (PROSE: Rose) other accounts showed no indication the Eye was significantly damaged. (PROSE: Dummy Massacre, Operation Mannequin)
The signal allowed the Nestene to take control of all plastic objects from London, (TV: Rose) and then satellites above the Earth, allowing Autons to activate in a thousand cities including Beijing, Barcelona, Reykjavik, Rio, Sydney, San Francisco, (PROSE: Rose) and Cardiff. (AUDIO: One Rule) These areas, or at least London, were dubbed by one as the "Killing Grounds". (PROSE: The Doctor Was Involved in the Dummy Massacre) The signal also worked as a cross-frequency jamming wave, disrupting the functionality of global communication and cameras, which one UNIT lieutenant speculated was due to signals, such as radio signals, potentially causing harm to the Consciousness; (PROSE: Operation Mannequin) indeed, the Eleventh Doctor told an Auton duplicate of Rory Williams that Autons were weak to radio signals. (TV: The Big Bang) According to the Who is Doctor Who? website, the "dummies" began to move at 7.09PM (PROSE: Dummy Massacre) although according to another account, the Autons came to life at 7:40PM at the Queens Arcade in London, with Autons further out being activated when the signal reached them. (PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac) During this commotion, Cardiff's city centre was brought to its knees. (AUDIO: One Rule)
In London, Clive Finch was killed when he was shot in the head by an Auton. (TV: Rose, PROSE: Rose) Elton Pope was out shopping in the city centre at the time, and survived the incident. (TV: Love & Monsters) Jackie was also in the city centre at the time, survived the incident, and when Rose called to check on her after it was over, she warned Rose not to go out. (TV: Rose) Many readers of Who is Doctor Who? were also attacked. (PROSE: Dummy Massacre, The Doctor Was Involved in the Dummy Massacre) Footage of the Doctor wasn't captured on most CCTV cameras (PROSE: The Doctor Was Involved in the Dummy Massacre) but this was likely because of the widespread malfunctions of the majority of cameras. (PROSE: Operation London)
The Nestene Consciousness planned to absorb the Ninth Doctor, so it could gain knowledge on how to pilot the TARDIS in order to invade other planets. (PROSE: Rose) However, Rose Tyler managed to defeat the Nestene by knocking the anti-plastic solution that one of the Autons had confiscated from the Doctor into the vat of molten plastic, which housed the main bulk of the Consciousness, causing it to explode. (TV: Rose) As reported on Who is Doctor Who?, the Autons "died" at 7.16pm. (PROSE: Dummy Massacre)
=== Aftermath ===
==== Immediate aftermath ====
Surviving in an Auton, the last fragment of the Nestene merged itself with a blond haired politician, becoming one. (PROSE: Revenge of the Nestene) There were reports of mass burnings of dummies after the attack (PROSE: Dummy Massacre) and people vowed to boycott shops that used dummies but they soon began going back on their word, although shops did remove the hands of the dummies, a shred of acknowledgement of the attack. (PROSE: The Doctor Was Involved in the Dummy Massacre) One dummy was recovered from the Queens Arcade in London and, along with the wheelie bin on Victoria Street, ended up in the Leamington Spa Lifeboat Museum's collection of alien artefacts. (GAME: Security Bot)
Later on the night of 5 March, (TV: , etc.) Rose Tyler joined the Ninth Doctor in the TARDIS as his companion, travelling through time and space. (TV: ) She was considered one of many people who went missing after the invasion, though the fact that her disappearance was reported the following day was noted as being interesting. (PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters) The Doctor and Rose's first trip was to Platform One to witness Earth Death in the year 5,000,000,000. There, the Doctor converted Rose's mobile phone into a superphone, enabling her to call an oblivious Jackie Tyler from the future (TV: The End of the World) although a John Smith claimed Rose accidentally misdialled his number first. (PROSE: ) According to one account which placed the invasion on the night of 4 March, this call was received by Jackie on the morning of 3 March. (PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac) After witnessing the destruction of Earth, the Doctor and Rose made a brief trip back to London in 2005, where they got chips (TV: The End of the World, PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac) and were spotted by dalek, who reported the sighting online a year later. (PROSE: )
Within the week, Mickey Smith visited Clive's widow, Maggie, and after discussion with her she agreed to let him take on Clive's mantle by keeping his website running, which Mickey felt was an honour. He became determined to prove the truth to the world about the Doctor, even if it cost him his life, as he valued his undertaking above all. (PROSE: ) To reach this goal, he began anonymously posting on Clive's website. (PROSE: , , etc.) However, according to another account, Mickey had gone to Clive's home around three weeks later and, while he had taken many of Clive's belongings from his shed with permission of Clive's wife, he didn't go on to further on Clive's mission nor did he use the Doctor Who? website. (PROSE: )
After taking over the website, he anonymously shared the stories of the site's readers and provided a short timeline of events. (PROSE: )
==== Cover-up ====
Several UNIT officers coordinated clean-up efforts shortly after the attack: Staff Sergeant A. Frederick and Capt Panos Karpidas dealt with information-based clean-ups, both using misinformation other similar tactics, with Frederick focusing on the press and Karpidas on the public; Lt David Judd focused on preventing any footage captured being shared on the internet; and Sgt Catherine Petts and her personnel focused on physical clean-up to the damage caused by the "mannequins" and the Consciousness. Frederick tried seed a false theory to the press, that the mannequins only appeared to move due to the mannequins being made from faulty plastic with bubbles inside, leading the air inside to expand in reaction to a gas explosion, (PROSE: Operation Mannequin) and she also filed an embargoed press briefing to 28 March, which evasively ignored the allegations of the attack being mounted by terrorists or robots, and completely denied that it was in any way evidence of alien life existing. (PROSE: UNIT's Position on The London Incident, TV: The Runaway Bride)
While there were seventy-eight fatalities and three-hundred casualties reported on the Who is Doctor Who? website a week after the attack, (PROSE: The Doctor Was Involved in the Dummy Massacre) there seemed to be far more fatalities and casualties known to UNIT; just in Sgt Petts's clean-up area alone, she counted two hundred and forty-seven casualties from common issues such as shock, grief, and disorientation, five hundred and eighty-three people with conventional wounds such as glass cuts and burns, twenty-six people with unconventional wounds, and around four hundred and thirty fatalities, but as the fatalities discovered by Sgt Petts were caused by implosion, the exact number was hard to count. (PROSE: Operation Mannequin)
In the same update to Who is Doctor Who? that reported on the number of casualties and fatalities, the new webmaster wrote about how he suspected the Ninth Doctor of removing evidence given that virtually no CCTV cameras caught footage of the Doctor, except for one inside a restaurant where a duplicate of Mickey began attacking; the webmaster speculated about the Doctor's motives, whether he was there to prevent the attack or, more insidiously, was there to help it. The webmaster also wrote about how Rose Tyler hadn't been seen since that night, and in detail about the conspiracy that had been growing since: despite the fatalities and casualties, despite the video footage and the eyewitness accounts, information about the attack had began disappearing from the World Media, which the webmaster suspected was because people didn't want to face the uncomfortable and scary truth that something happened that even the media wasn't covering. The webmaster embraced his fear, clinging onto his memory lest it be forgotten, in the sea of distractions the media was putting out about home security, the terrorist threat, public order, and consumerism. The webmaster also spoke about the death of Clive and shared video footage of the attack. (PROSE: The Doctor Was Involved in the Dummy Massacre)
The official government response to the invasion, which claimed it occurred in London and other large parts of England, was that it had been an ill-judged prank played by students, given that April Fools' Day was coming in less than a month, that had gone out of control, resulting in the property damage, injuries, and deaths. Additionally, the prime minister stated there was collective misconception and mass hysteria surrounding the incident. Thus, the government stated there was no further need for public concern. Nevertheless, one national newspaper asked its readers to send in photos of the scariest window shop dummies they could. (PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters)
The invasion would also be covered up as a "terrorist attack". Barry Jackson used the attack to cover up his murder of the Lord Mayor of Cardiff, Roy Llewellyn. (AUDIO: One Rule)
Eventually, Rose stopped back at her home in the Powell Estate, where the Doctor told her she had only been gone for twelve hours. However, due to an error on the Doctor's part, she had actually been absent for twelve months, returning in March of 2006. Incidentally, they had returned on the day of the London UFO crash, leading the Doctor and Rose to thwart the Passameer-Day Slitheen's plot to start World War III. (TV: Aliens of London/World War Three) Her reappearance put a stop to her missing case. (PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters)
=== Legacy ===
Shortly following his regeneration, the Tenth Doctor reminded Rose Tyler of their first encounter "surrounded by shop window dummies" at Henrik's, correctly recalling that the first thing he said to her was one word: "run". It was from this that Rose realised that he was the same man as the Ninth Doctor. (TV: Born Again)
In late 2006, Mickey told his readers to remember the shop dummies and the aliens invading London. (PROSE: Mars)
On Christmas Eve 2007, the Tenth Doctor used his sonic screwdriver to speedily scroll past many websites whilst searching for H.C. Clements, and one of the websites he went past was the UNIT website; specifically the page that had the press briefing on the London Incident. (TV: The Runaway Bride)
In February 2021, Josh commented on a post on Into The Unknown suggesting this incident as an example of the Mandela Effect, as he could remember it despite no-one else appearing to. He claimed his father could recall a similar incident involving shop dummies from the 1970s. (PROSE: The Mandela Effect, Or Monsters on the Streets of London)
=== Parallel universe ===
In a parallel universe, Rose Tyler found that the invasion never occurred. As a result, that universe's Clive Finch was not killed. (AUDIO: The Endless Night) She later determined that the invasion did not occur in at least one other universe. (AUDIO: The Last Party on Earth)
== Behind the scenes ==
* In the video game K9: Deja Who, it is K9 who thwarts the Auton invasion instead of the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler. To that end, he fights through the Autons in London. After defeating the Auton Mickey Smith, K9 acquired the anti-plastic vial and used it to destroy the Nestene Consciousness.
* Absence of the Daleks, the draft for Dalek before the use of the Daleks had been secured, would have established the cause of this invasion being that the Nestenes were among the civilisations decimated along with the Daleks by mysterious spheres from the future, later revealed to be humans, who had attacked the Time Lords.The Dalek Handbook
* While giving no solid confirmation, The Rings of Akhaten reveals Ellie Oswald, the mother of Clara Oswald, died on 5 March 2005, raising the possibility that she was killed during the invasion.
== Footnotes ==
Category:21st century Earth-based conflicts
Category:Human conflicts
Category:Conflicts
Category:British conflicts
Category:Conflicts involving the Ninth Doctor
Category:Nestene conflicts
Category:Earth incidents documented by UNIT
Category:UNIT operations