abstract
| - An early 20th century counterpart to UNIT was LONGBOW. This world security organisation was set up by the UN precursor, the League of Nations. LONGBOW dealt with the occasional extraterrestrial incident, but was disbanded after the League and it failed to prevent World War II. (PROSE: Just War) The roots of UNIT itself, however, lay in later alien encounters. The Intrusion Countermeasures Group headed by Group Captain Ian Gilmore, which got involved in the Shoreditch Incident, served as a specialised military force with scientific assistance would seem almost a trial run for UNIT, though not an international organisation. Though Gilmore did have two scientific advisors serving much as the third incarnation of the Doctor and Dr. Elizabeth "Liz" Shaw would later, the seventh incarnation of the Doctor did most of the work on the technical end. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks, PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy) An incident which led directly to the creation of UNIT was the takeover of London by the Great Intelligence, with robot Yetis and a deadly cobweb-like fungus. Assisted by the Second Doctor, another group of British infantrymen, led by then-Colonel Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, beat back the Yeti from the tunnels of the London Underground. (TV: The Web of Fear)
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