The Torchwood Archive (spoilers on release)

{Spoiler}
1890s: The Tsar and Victoria create the Committee, from contacts of aliens caught on Earth, to act as a test on Torchwood and the KVI. The Committee go rogue, build up a power base on Erebus and start their own schemes of conquest and profit for their own ends. The Tsar tries to rein them in and they gift him a bad luck device, the Red Key.

1897: The Tsar gives the Red Key to Victoria, who has Archie place it as the first object in the Torchwood Archive.

1900: After years of study, Jack presents Victoria with a theory that the Red Key caused strife in Russia, affecting its infancy mortality rates, crop yields and political dissatisfaction. Victoria worries what effects it may have had on Britain’s empire and decides to have it disposed off, ordering Jack to throw it into the Cardiff Rift. Jack doesn’t, hoping to use the Key for his own gain.

1914: Jack discovers sailors have begun mutating into monsters that locals are calling Weevils. He attributes this to the Red Key and finally chucks it into the Rift as Victoria told him to. He also implies it may have had an influence on the start of World War I.

1924: After Jack shuts it down, Torchwood India sends Jack the Red Key, which is implied to be an act of revenge on the Duchess’ part.

1953: Norton, having recovered the Key with Andy in 2016 (Ghost Mission), gives it to a gangster, Mandrake. The Committee hope this will set Mandrake’s organisation and Torchwood One at odds, giving them an opening into the London black market.

1960s: Losing the alien tech race with rival powers, the KVI turn to the Committee for aid. The Committee takes full advantage and grows it’s influence over the KVI. This presumably culminates in the war that created Zone 10 in 1965 (Zone 10).

1999: The fortune teller gives Alex Hopkins the Red Key, telling him it will prove who he can trust in Torchwood Three and warning him the Committee is coming. Alex gives in to temptation and opens it, giving him visions of the 456, the Miracle and all manner of other terrible things. He kills his team out of mercy, earning himself a place on the Red List.

2004: Torchwood Three discover an Ovid Industries factory making duplicates of the population of a Welsh town. They blow up the factory, discovering the Red Key there. Jack has Suzie pass the Key onto Torchwood One. Yvonne gladly accepts it and sends a warning to Ovid that Torchwood Three is taking an interest in them.

2007: Ianto is given the Red Key by a dying colleague during the fall of Canary Wharf. Yvonne had ordered for it to be thrown into the Void.

2007: A week after the death of George Wilson (The Conspiracy), Gwen visits a conspiracy journalist, Madeline, who has a Committee member occasionally possessing her. The Committee member drives Madeline to over dose before she can give Gwen much information, but becomes trapped in her mind by a tumour and dies with her.

2007: After the death of Neil Redmond and his duplicate (Uncanny Valley) the KVI plot to deal with 5 girlfriends of Russian billionaires, who are actually Ovid dolls encouraging their spouses to buy Redmond’s AI weaponry. About the same time Eve Trent, a senior worker in Ovid, calls Jack to confess her involvement with the Committee after discovering the bunkers they offered their agents a place in were actually abandoned. Another Committee agent kills her.

2007: Weeks after retrieving the Red Key from Zone 10 (Zone 10) Tosh has managed to devise a way to have the Key produce good luck. After 2 days, she decides this power is too great and breaks her modifications and retcons her memories of the Key.

2008-09: The Red Key materialises from the Rift in the Hub in front of Tosh, Ianto, Jack and Gwen.

2009 (probably): A Committee member spies on Jack and Ianto playing with their dog, Untitled. The member reflects that the Committee has decided human civilisation is useless.

2009: Harwoods Haulage takes a series of deliveries of refrigerator parts, unknowingly on the Committee’s behalf.

2017: Mr Colchester decides to investigate the Committee and goes to the old people’s home that Andy previously spoke to them at (Ghost Mission). The Committee speaks to him, but tells him virtually no information.

Future: During the war between mankind and the enemy, Jeremiah Henderson visits the Torchwood Archive to learn how the Red Key works. He learns it actually is a key to a pocket universe where the Committee stored back-ups of themselves. He gives the Archive a fake key primed to destroy it should the computer attempt to open it and then rendezvouses with Norton, setting out to revive the Committee and obtain their money.