Torchwood

Gerald Carter †

Alex Hopkins †

Yvonne Hartman †

Gwen Cooper

Ianto Jones

Gock

Cynro

Toshiko Sato †

Alice Guppy †

Emily Horlroyd †

Charles Gaskell †

Eliza Cooper †

Robert Lewis †

Harriet Derbyshire †

'The Duchess' †

Adeola Oshodi †

Torchwood Three (Cardiff)

Torchwood Four (Unknown)

Torchwood NYC (New York City)

Torchwood Los Angeles

Torchwood India

Cardiff

New York

Los Angeles

India

> *"The old regime was destroyed at Canary Wharf. I rebuilt it. I changed it. And when I did that I did it for you in your honour."*
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> *—Jack Harkness to The Doctor*
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**The Torchwood Institute,** commonly known as just **Torchwood** is a British institute founded by Queen Victoria in 1879 to stop alien threats from destroying the British Empire after the Queen had a run in with The Doctor and deemed him an enemy of Britain.

In 1999, Jack Harkness took over the institute after the previous leader went mad after seeing a vision, killing all of the other members including himself in Torchwood Three, other than Jack due to his immortality. This left Jack as the leader of Torchwood Three.

Later in 2006 after the London Cyberman/Dalek Invasion, all of the main branches of Torchwood were destroyed other than Torchwood Three, leaving Jack in charge of the entire institute, allowing Jack to change the regime of Torchwood and building the organization back up to its former glory.

However from the time of 2011 - 2021, in which Captain Jack Harkness had temporarily left the organisation in peruse of a different mission of his own leaving the organisation in the safe hands of Gwen Cooper, the organisation began to be investigated by the British Government and began to be broken down by them into separate organisations, meaning that the scale of the group was scaled down significantly, their main base of operations now being at the Torchwood 3 base.

When Jack returned to Torchwood, he reclaimed his Leadership of Torchwood and allowed Gwen to stay on as his second in command, surprisingly preferring the smaller scale of the 'new' Torchwood stating that "This way I can keep an eye on everyone better."

Currently the agency has been stationed in Cardiff at the Torchwood 3 base, however still having many locations around the world, protecting Earth from any and all alien threats that come its way. With Captain Jack Harkness as it's leader Torchwood has been on a steady pace helping the world with threats and even temporarily teaming up with S.H.I.E.L.D. and Rebirth on select occasions.

## History

### 19th Century

#### 1879

    The origins of Torchwood date back to an event in the mid-19th century involving The Doctor (In his 10th incarnation), Rose Tyler and Queen Victoria. A monastic community named the Brethren stored a werewolf at Torchwood House in Scotland, which attacked the countryside and the Queen. With the monarch's help, the werewolf was defeated by the Doctor and Rose. They were knighted for their service by Victoria, but exiled from the kingdom, declaring the Doctor a possible threat to the Empire in particular. Victoria, now aware of the existence of alien and supernatural life forms, ordered the formation of an agency to defend the British Empire from the Doctor and dangers like the werewolf. She named the organisation the Torchwood Institute, after the location of the werewolf encounter. On 31 December 1879, she issued a royal decree creating the Institute.

#### 1889

In 1889, after they learned he had been trapped in London, agents Eliza Cooper and Robert Lewis tried to apprehend the Tenth Doctor. They ran into H. G. Wells, then interrogated the doctor about him. Wells led them to the vanishing TARDIS, apparently leaving the Doctor behind to have them captured. When he was dissected, the man was revealed to not be the doctor.

#### 1890s

The Eighth Doctor found vague references to Torchwood in the Edinburgh Herald's files in the 1890s, however due to him not knowing of them yet, only learning about them once he is in his 10th incarnation, he took no notice and didn't look further into these clues.

The Torchwood Archive at Torchwood House was started in 1897 by Archie. The first entry in the Archive was Item 1, a present from the Committee to Tsar Alexander and then passed on to Victoria. This would later grow into a massive collection of Alien devices and equipment, used to protect Earth.

By 1899, a Torchwood branch had been formed in Cardiff, which was centred in space and time around a rift. In 1899, two of the operatives of this branch, Alice Guppy and Emily Holroyd, hired Jack Harkness as a freelance worker for the Institute after they interrogated immortal on the whereabouts of The Doctor, something Jack didn't know. His first mission was to capture a blowfish; he succeeded, but when Guppy summarily executed the creature before his eyes, he was deeply distressed. Having been told by a young woman who could see the future using tarot cards that he would have to wait more than a century before seeing the Doctor again, he continued working for Torchwood entirely against his will due to the fact he would not only be able to see the Doctor by staying, but also he needed money to survive, even if he was immortal. This is how Torchwood came across their number one agent. It is important to note that later that year Jack was seconded to Torchwood London.

The Life-stealer fled from the Torchwood London base at the National History Museum on 17 May 1899 and began to prey on the Londoners' youth, beginning with the director of Torchwood London, Archie, who was left permanently incapacitated when he was increasingly ageing. Around the same time, Queen Victoria visited Torchwood for her inspection process of the Institute, leading her to share an adventure with Jack Harkness as she chased the creature. After Victoria killed the beast by using its vulnerability towards the aged, both she and Jack refused to take charge of Torchwood London with their proposals to each other, with the Queen retired from public life while Jack returned to Cardiff's Torchwood. Archie would heal from the attack, but his features never came back and seemed to age no more. Later, Torchwood left London and formed Torchwood Two in Glasgow. At a similar time, in the British Raj, Victoria also formed Torchwood India to collect all alien things.

Torchwood suggested after years of analysis that Object 1 was a bad luck weapon that had triggered major conflict in Russia when it was owned by Alexander, adversely affecting infantry mortality, grain yields and political discontent. Victoria ordered him to dispose of it in the Cardiff Rift upon Jack's presentation of this evidence.

### 1900s

#### 1901

In 1901, a future version of Jack Harkness, taken from the 21st century and buried in 27 AD Cardiff, was dug up by Alice Guppy and Charles Gaskell. Jack ordered them to freeze him in the cryo-chambers so that he could defeat his brother Gray as well as avoid himself crossing his own timeline in the near future. Subsequently, even though his younger self kept working nearby, Jack's future self remained in the cryo-chambers.

#### 1906

In 1906, Eliza Cooper and Robert Lewis used a machine they commissioned Professor Alexander Hugh to build to travel to another planet thousands of years into the future. Neither Cooper nor Lewis returned; the former remained on the planet while the latter was killed. However, Professor Hugh was returned home by the Tenth Doctor.

#### 1909

Jack continued to work as an operative throughout the 20th century. In 1909, he was put in charge of a group of soldiers who were all killed by Fairies.

### 1910s

#### 1914

Initially, Torchwood planned on using alien technology during the First World War, however they opted to go against it as to not reveal what they had to the enemy forces and risk Torchwood being compromised.

#### 1918

Torchwood Three investigated phantom sightings in a Cardiff hospital in 1918. They caught glimpses of the 21st century as current and future merged, getting orders from future Torchwood to take shell-shocked soldier Tommy Brockless from the hospital to retain him in cryogenic suspension. They had a crew of five at the time, with the leader being a man named Gerald Carter. They had instruments already able to identify disruptions in time.

#### 1919

Circa 1919, Harriet Derbyshire, one of the investigators of the hospital sightings and only in her mid-twenties, died in action.

### 1920s

In the 1920s, Jack worked undercover with a travelling circus in pursuit of the Night Travellers, though he was unsuccessful.

#### 1923

In 1923, thanks to a Professor Livesy-Smythe, Torchwood found evidence that an alien race called the Pyroviles invaded Earth at Pompeii in 79 AD.

#### 1924

In 1924, prior to the fall of the Raj, Torchwood sent Jack Harkness to India to shut down the branch there, led by the Duchess. With the exception of Object 1, which the Duchess had given to him anyway, he negotiated the transport of all their alien artefacts back to Britain. By using a time store to avoid the passing of time in their former headquarters, Torchwood India will secretly persist for years.

#### 1927

In 1927, to foil a scheme by the Trickster Brigade to inject Franklin Delano Roosevelt with a Brainspawn and alter the course of history, Jack Harkness was sent on a mission to New York City. Jack managed to kill the parasite with the aid of his lover, Angelo Colasanto.

### 1940s

Torchwood agent LeDuc flew to occupied Paris with his lover Gabriel in the early 1940s to find the German equivalent of Torchwood, dubbed Project Hermod by then. In order to get the information, Oppenführer Hans Grau had himself kidnapped and interrogated himself, a task in which he succeeded. Berber was asked by him to attend Torchwood, which she agreed to.

### 1950s

According to Norton Folgate, as a consequence of the number of spacecraft shot down during World War II, Torchwood had to contend with a considerable volume of black market traffic in alien objects in the 1950s. They were mainly called out to the sites of unexploded explosives, though. Torchwood helped the development of the Good Thinking virus, however it began to spread out of control after being tested on death row inmates in the United States. Norton and Jack sought to remove all trace of the virus and devised contingencies should it resurface.

#### 1953

By 1953, the London branch was influential enough that London police feared its involvement when investigating the strange occurrences provoked by the activities of an alien entity known as the Wire. Torchwood One agent Lizbeth Hayhoe had ordered for the Wire’s victims to be kept in cages.

### 1960s

#### 1965

In 1965, in exchange for an anti-virus for a mutant strain of Indonesian influenza, the government ordered five highly ranking officials, including Jack, to send twelve children to the 456 as a present. It was determined that, since they would not be missed, the children would be removed from a Scottish orphanage. Clem McDonald managed to survive, despite eleven kids being carried away.

### 1970s

Torchwood Los Angeles and a trio of agents, Marlow Sweet, Gabriella Martinez and Charlotte Du Bujeau, settled a variety of known lawsuits in the 1970s. Valerie Fox joined the trio after Charley's death.

### 1980s

#### 1984

Torchwood acquired the London-based security company H.C. in around 1984. Clements. Clements.

#### 1987

In 1987, Torchwood sent Doctor James Greco, seeking to discover a solution in understanding the human spirit, to study Gabriel Tyler and his psychic abilities. The Seventh Doctor, who said he had never learned of Torchwood until Greco revealed the name of his employer, uncovered his experiments.

### 1990s

#### 1991

The Torchwood Tower, publicly known as Canary Wharf, was designed in 1991 to hit a radar blackspot that Torchwood started working on, and became Torchwood One's headquarters. The Institute investigated the Void Spacecraft, an apparently alien artefact that they failed to recognise that had come across the anomaly (although they didn't call it by that name). Tapping into the resonance surrounding the phenomenon was found to generate vast quantities of what appeared to be free energy, but Torchwood weakened the barriers between their world and another in so doing.

#### 1997

Circa 1997, Torchwood shot down a Jathaa sun-glider. It was taken by Torchwood One who reverse-engineered it for weaponry.

#### 1999

Jack became Torchwood Three's leader on New Year's Eve 1999 after his current leader, Alex Hopkins, murdered the rest of the squad and himself after being made crazy by an alien artefact that exposed the events of the years to come. He phoned Torchwood One after his spree, with Yvonne Hartman responding. Yvonne heard his murders and rambling about Torchwood not being ready, and she was encouraged by the experience to climb through the ranks to train Torchwood.

### 21st Century

Jack rebuilt the Torchwood Three team over the next couple of years, hiring Suzie Costello, Toshiko Sato, Sebastian Vaughan and Owen Harper. Disapproving of Torchwood One's principles, Jack advised Tosh of his intentions to add greater benevolence to the group.

#### Yvonne Hartman’s Leadership

Yvonne Hartman became Torchwood's Leader in 2003 and revived the Institute. Under Doctor Singh, investigation into the anomaly and sphere continued, with Yvonne directly travelling to Torchwood Three to procure a Drahvin scanner for use in the sphere. It was lost when Barry Jackson, on behalf of the Commission, burned down her hotel to embroil her in his plot to kill his rivals for Cardiff mayor.

Tosh, a member of Torchwood 3 under Captain Jack Harkness, was sent to London in March 2006 to study an alien life-form recovered from a wrecked spaceship. Unknown to her, at this time, she encountered the Ninth Doctor.

On Christmas 2006, using blood pressure and a ship constructed from an asteroid that hovered over London, the alien Sycorax conquered Earth. For just such a contingency, Torchwood created a weapon based on extra-terrestrial technology scavenged from a Jathaa sun glider. Prime Minister Harriet Jones directed them to fire down the Sycorax, after having been persuaded by the Doctor to retreat.

"In 2007, the presence of millions of "ghosts" all over the world was a side result of Torchwood's ongoing experimentation with the anomaly: humanoid beings that glowed with an unearthly light. These phenomena have been known as "ghost shifts." Atif, a journalist for The Examiner, started looking at Torchwood during that period. The Institute arranged for the abandoning of his storey and took away Atif.

##### The Fall of Canary Wharf

The Ghost Shifts were examined by the Tenth Doctor and tracked to Torchwood. He demonstrated to the then-administrator Yvonne that the barrier between worlds was broken by their tests, which would inevitably lead to dramatic problems in their own universe, possibly contributing to the destruction of their dimension. His warnings were too late, though, as the tests had already authorised an advance guard to penetrate Torchwood from a parallel world by Cybermen. They completely opened the breach, causing a vast invasion force to pass through the "hole" from another world and materialise across the globe.

The Void Ship opened at the same time, exposing a secret frame of four Daleks who were attempting to revive the Dalek race with a stolen piece of Time Lord technology called the Genisis Ark. When stealing his knowledge of current affairs, they immediately murdered a Torchwood technician. They saw the Cybermen as an obstacle to their own return and, despite the Cyber-Leader's to form an alliance, launched warfare against them. The Battle of Canary Wharf began, with the militia of Torchwood trapped in the middle. This turned a battlefield into the Torchwood Tower. Many of the employees of Torchwood One, including Yvonne herself, were either killed or cyber-converted.

The "hole" created by the Void Ship in space time also allowed a resistance army from the dimension of the Cybermen to cross over, initially with the goal of stopping the Cybermen, who joined forces with the Doctor to stop all attackers and close the breach. Before the Doctor found a way to undo Torchwood's power machinery and open the gap to drag the Daleks and Cybermen into the Void, the battle did not stop. The difference between N-Space and the parallel universe was sealed by the reversal.

#### The Independence of Torchwood 3

After the battle, Torchwood One was considered to have fallen. Jack wanted to restore Torchwood better in remembrance of the Doctor with the old regime gone. After a young man continued finding Jack's attention and proved himself by helping catch a pterodactyl, Jack hired Canary Wharf survivor Ianto Jones as the first new member of Torchwood. Jack went on from here to hire more members for Torchwood. Some time later, a member known as Sebastian was killed by a cortex leech and Suzie, the old Co Leader, shot herself after being exposed as a serial killer, after which Jack hired Gwen Cooper. By the time of Gwen's recruitment, Torchwood Four had now disappeared.

Sex gas, Fairies, Scorchies, cannibals, an Arcateenian, and the Saviour were encountered in Gwen's first months at Torchwood Three. "the Committee" was also prosecuted by them. They were tricked into momentarily resurrecting Suzie later in the year. They also have managed to help three briefly homeless persons adapt to the 21st century and close down a combat club in Weevil.

Bilis Manger manipulated Torchwood Three to open the Cardiff rift, resulting in massive temporal displacements and the demon Abaddon's release. By overloading him with his limitless lifetime, Jack stopped the ghost. Shortly after, team leader Captain Jack Harkness mysteriously disappeared. Subsequently, Prime Minister Harold Saxon (who was truly the Time Lord known as The Master in disguise) sent Torchwood Three on a "wild goose chase" mission away from Great Britain to the Himalayas. During this time when Jack was gone, Gwen was able to lead the team as the acting Leader.

After a few months had passed for Torchwood Three (and about a year for Jack, who had lived through the Year "That Never Was" which was 2007) Jack returned to Torchwood Three. Although Gwen had taken charge during his absence, Jack resumed command. (There is more information on the year "That Never Was" on the Jack Harkness page.)

About the same time, Jack's old Time Agent colleague, Captain John Hart, came to Cardiff, and involved Torchwood in a scheme. Torchwood Three found an alien sleeper cell under Jack's renewed leadership, helped Tommy Brockless serve his mission and journey back in time to 1918, shutdown Harries & Harries, briefly infiltrated Adam, and studied the Pharm with the aid of Martha Jones, a UNIT medical officer and former companion to The Doctor. It was director Aaron Copley who shot Owen dead when they shut down the Pharm, but he was revived using the second Resurrection Gauntlet. Owen became permanently undead and returned to service at Torchwood after fighting a representation of Death. Torchwood murdered a pair of Nostrovites when he was undead. They also investigated the Church of the Outsiders, and stopped the Night Travellers’ rampage. After they collaborated on Corpse Day, Owen worked with PC Andy Davidson on a series of investigations.

Torchwood Three was depleted by the final death of Owen and Tosh who were killed during Jack’s brother’s vengeful scheme in Cardiff. The three survivors resolved to keep Torchwood going. Not long after Owen and Tosh’s deaths, Jack served as surrogate parent for the next Ruler of the Yalnix and the trio were invited to CERN by Martha, who suspected at conspiracy at work there and couldn’t trust UNIT personnel at the site. During the Dalek invasion of Earth, Torchwood Three were contacted by Harriet Jones through the Sub-Wave Network and helped send a signal to the Doctor, with Jack rushing to his side to help fight the Daleks. After the Daleks’ defeat, Torchwood helped the Doctor restore the Earth to its original location.

The trio aided Freda in the following months, a half-alien asylum seeker sent back in time from 2069, uncovered the continuing presence of Torchwood India in Delhi and failed to use their time shop to reset the universe to 1926 and researched a string of phone calls leaving people in comas. They faced the epidemic of the Positive Thought virus in Cardiff after helping a Keranium rebuild its spacecraft, and avoided Heights Pharmaceuticals inoculating Provictus persons. At the same time as UNIT, Torchwood Three responded to a spacecraft accident and uncovered an object that UNIT had overlooked. At a UNIT victim-retrieval facility, Gwen took it to Martha and they found it was really a chameleon, and destroyed the base to kill it. The trio researched the remarkable survival of Joanna Carew and noticed that she was collaborating with an alien being, Fitzroy, and was working with UNIT to solve an underwater call emanating from the Mariana Trench.

##### Jack's Departure

    By the time of 2011, Captain Jack Harkness had been the leader of Torchwood for 4 years straight, totalling his time as leader to 9 entire years and his time with Torchwood as a whole was nearing 115 years. He had seen Torchwood fall from grace and was able to build it back up to its prior glory himself and seen many things. It was now when the 51st century man decided he would leave to go on his own adventure. He wasn't sure when he was going to be back, or even if he would ever be, but he had to leave. His 115 years with Torchwood had burdened him with a lot of guilt. He has let many people die, had to sacrifice so many including his own Grandson to save the world. As Jack put it, he still had "a lot of dirty to shake off my shoes". It was the 10th of July 2011 when Jack met up with his Co-Leader Gwen Cooper for one final goodbye before he teleported to a Cold Fusion Cruiser which was sitting at the corner of the Solar System. With that Gwen Cooper was crowned the new Leader of the Torchwood Institute.

#### Gwen Cooper's Leadership of Torchwood

Jack's departure from Torchwood was sudden an unexpected, leaving Gwen in a tricky situation. Gwen allowed Ianto Jones as well as a few other advisors from the organisation to help her lead, Ianto taking the position of Co Leader. It was at this time that the British Government began to look into Torchwood and began discovering their large amount of extra terrestrial technology and began to grow concerned. This is when the conflict between the British Government and Torchwood began.

***TO BE FINISHED/ALTERED***

## Facilities

### Current Facilities

* **Torchwood 1:** Unnamed Facility, London
* **Torchwood 2:** Torchwood House, Glasgow
* **Torchwood 3:** The Hub, Cardiff (Main Facility)
* **Torchwood NYC:** New York City
* **Torchwood LA:** Los Angeles

### Former/Lost Facilities

* **Torchwood 1 (Original):** Canary Wharf lost to the British Government
* **Torchwood 4:** Location Unknown
* **Torchwood India:** Shut down by Jack Harkness and "The Duchess"

## Equipment and Technology

### Vehicles

* **Torchwood SUV:** A converted large, black Range Rover Vogue with dark-tinted windows and blue lights running along the A pillars. The vehicle had a white-on-black non-standard typeface for the registration plate reading "CF06 FDU". The SUV was reinforced with bullet-proofing all over and could withstand many attacks.

### Misc.

* **Rift Manipulator:** The Rift Manipulator was one of two objects used by Torchwood Three which could control the Cardiff Space-Time Rift to a limited extent.
* **Resurrection Gauntlet:** A metal gauntlet that had the ability to revive the dead for a limited time (2 minutes exactly), though with unfortunate and usually deadly consequences.
	+ **Life Knife:** A three-bladed knife and was associated with the glove as they were made of the same metal, and those killed with the knife were easier for the glove to resurrect.
* **Singularity scalpel:** An alien device which is able to remove any item from the inside of something such as a body without even touching or damaging anything on the way though.
* **Bekaran deep-tissue scanner:** A hand-held medical device used for the comprehensive scanning of a subject's anatomy.
* **Laser Saw:** A piece of technology owned by Torchwood Three. It appeared to be for surgical purposes.
* **Last of Erebus:** Known as "Object 1" to Torchwood, this is a locket that had the power to select the worst possible future for those in its vicinity.
* **Quantum Transducer:** Also known as the the "Ghost Machine", this allowed humans a form of mental time travel be able to see the past or future.
* **Firestone:** A powerful telepathic recorder and transmitter which would be worn as a Necklace.
* **Rift Manipulator:** One of two objects used by Torchwood Three which could control the Cardiff Space-Time Rift to a limited extent.
* **Retcon:** Also known as, the amnesia pill, and occasionally by its more precise name, Compound B67, is a pill that induced amnesia in anyone that took it.

## Torchwood Codes

The following is a list of codes used by Torchwood.

(to be finished)

## Torchwood Projects

The following is a partial list of the projects under the Torchwood Institute.

* Torchwood Global (1879-2007)
	+ Torchwood Global II (2007-2017)
* Project Ghost Shift (2007)

## Torchwood Symbols

Symbol from 1879 - 1918Symbol from 1918 - 1940Symbol from 1940 - 1989 (est.)Symbol from 1989 - 2020Current Torchwood Symbol