Editing The War Chief

{{ImageLink}}
{{Infobox Individual
|alias       = [[Magnus]]
|image       = War Chief looks left.jpg
|species     = Time Lord
|origin      = [[Gallifrey]]
|first       = The War Games (TV story)
|appearances = {{il|[[PROSE]]: ''[[The Legacy of Gallifrey (short story)|The Legacy of Gallifrey]]''|[[PROSE]]: ''[[Timewyrm: Exodus (novel)|Timewyrm: Exodus]]''|[[PROSE]]: ''[[Divided Loyalties (novel)|Divided Loyalties]]''|[[PROSE]]: ''[[War World (short story)|War World]]''}}
|actor       = Edward Brayshaw
|clip        = The Doctor Summons the Time Lords - The War Games - Doctor Who - BBC
|affiliation  = The War Lord
}}
{{War Chiefs}}
{{Mastertemplate}}
'''The War Chief''' was a [[renegade Time Lord]] of the [[High Council]] who assisted the [[War Lord]]s. 

After the failure of the War Lords, the War Chief suffered a failed [[regeneration]]. In a half-regenerated form, he adopted the name of [[Felix Kriegslieter]] and travelled back in time to use the [[Nazi]]s as his agents, only to be foiled once again, by the [[Seventh Doctor]].

The relationship between the War Chief and [[the Master]] was contentious even on Gallifrey: rumours that the Master had somehow been implicated in the "[[War Chief incident]]" reached the [[Celestial Intervention Agency]], although its [[Coordinator]] [[Rowellanuraven]] deemed them to be fanciful. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[CIA File Extracts (novel)|CIA File Extracts]]'') While some accounts merely depicted them as former schoolmates, ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Divided Loyalties (novel)|Divided Loyalties]]'') or depicted the War Chief as a "protégé to the Master, ([[GAME]]: {{cite source|The Legions of Death (game)}}) others suggested that only one other Time Lord than the Doctor had run away from Gallifrey in the events leading up to the [[Third Doctor]]'s [[exile on Earth]], first offering him an alliance as "the War Chief" ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Doctor Who and the War Games (novelisation)|Doctor Who and the War Games]]'', ''[[Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon (novelisation)|Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon]]'' ) before escaping Time Lord authorities and, in a {{Delgado|n=new body}}, adopting the name of "the Master" ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon (novelisation)|Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon]]'')

== Biography ==
=== Origins ===
According to some accounts, the War Chief was an incarnation of the Time Lord who would later adopt the title of [[the Master]], ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon (novelisation)|Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon]]'') whose [[The Master's early life|early life]] was documented in various contradictory sources. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Dark Path (novel)|The Dark Path]]'', [[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Home Guard (audio story)|The Home Guard]]'', etc.)

Other accounts claimed that the War Chief was an incarnation of a distinct Time Lord ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Timewyrm: Exodus (novel)|Timewyrm: Exodus]]'', ''[[Divided Loyalties (novel)|Divided Loyalties]]'', ''[[A Brief History of Time Lords (novel)|A Brief History of Time Lords]]'') called [[Magnus]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Divided Loyalties (novel)|Divided Loyalties]]'')

[[The War Lord]] encountered his future War Chief in a [[Trastevarian]] jail, where he was so close to death that he [[regenerated]]. He told the War Lord that the [[Sisterhood of Karn]]'s [[Elixir of Life]] was vital to his people's regeneration process. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Save Yourself (short story)|Save Yourself]]'')

=== Ally of the War Lords ===
Now calling himself "[[The War Chief (The War Games)|the War Chief]]", he worked with the [[War Lord]]s. They abducted soldiers from wars spread across [[Earth]]'s history, though they didn't go too far because of the risk of humans' technological knowledge, for [[War Game|simulated versions of the wars]] from which they came. Thinking [[human]]s the most vicious species in the galaxy, the aliens hoped to pit the survivors against each other and use them to conquer [[Mutter's Spiral]] once they had eliminated the weak and the cowards and were left with the hardier warriors.

[[File:War Chief Second Doctor War Games.jpg|thumb|The War Chief tries to convince the [[Second Doctor]] to join him. ([[TV]]: ''[[The War Games (TV story)|The War Games]]'')]]
The War Chief aided the War Lords by helping them build [[SIDRAT]]s, [[TARDIS]]-like space-time machines. They used them to kidnap the human soldiers and travel between era-specific zones which they had created. The War Chief and the [[Second Doctor]] met and recognised each other, with the War Chief acknowledging the Doctor's [[regeneration|change in appearance]]. The War Chief solicited the Doctor's help to double-cross the War Lords and seize power for themselves. The Doctor pretended to accept the War Chief's offer.

The [[Security Chief (The War Games)|Security Chief]] of the operation distrusted the War Chief, believing he meant to call in the Time Lords. While the Security Chief was willing to accept the War Chief had upheld his part of the bargain and had been afforded every need, he had still refused to tell them how to construct the SIDRATS.

The two engaged in a series of machinations against each other which ended with the War Chief disgraced when the Security Chief recorded a condemning conversation between the War Chief and the Doctor, and he took it to his leader. The War Chief got his revenge when he shot his rival dead. Unable to resolve matters, nor return the soldiers to their own times, the Doctor summoned the Time Lords for aid, while the War Lords uncovered the War Chief's plans and executed him, though he tried to talk his way around it, claiming those plans had been faked, but he wasn't believed. ([[TV]]: ''[[The War Games (TV story)|The War Games]]'') 

=== Later fate ===
==== Aborted regeneration ====
{{main|Felix Kriegslieter}}
When they examined the War Chief's "body" as they evacuated back to the [[War Lord homeworld]], the War Lords realised that his body was not quite dead, and they loaded him into one of the last ships to leave the planet for further study. There, he began to [[Regeneration|regenerate]], but because of the extent of his injuries and the inopportune circumstances, the regeneration [[Aborted regeneration|aborted]], leaving him trapped in an intermediary body, halfway between one form and the next.

Horribly deformed, this body looked like his past and would-be-future body conjoined together, with a misshapen dual [[skull]] and multiple stubby additional limbs growing out of the torso. Unable to regenerate again to fix the damage, he  took to wearing cloaks, hoods and cane sticks to disguise the fact, with white hair and a bushy white beard. Eventually convincing the original War Lord leader's [[The War Lord (Timewyrm: Exodus)|son and successor]] that his supposed "betrayal" was just a misunderstanding, he resumed his post as War Chief and helped the War Lords to break out of the [[time loop]] the [[Time Lord]]s had erected around their world. Travelling to [[Nazi]] [[Germany]], he continued to pursue the War Lords' agenda by posing as [[Felix Kriegslieter]] and trying to take over the Nazis from the inside.

Trapped in a burning building after the scheme was foiled by the [[Seventh Doctor]], Kriegslieter found that being violently killed again reset his regeneration, and [[Ace]] glimpsed him, "[[Regeneration energy|wreathed in flame]]", having reverted to his "young, dark and satanically handsome" appearance. She had to flee before she could see what then became of him. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Timewyrm: Exodus (novel)|Timewyrm: Exodus]]'')

==== Regeneration into another War Chief ====
{{main|The War Chief (The Legions of Death)}})
[[File:The War Chief and his chessboard.png|thumb|left|The War Chief after his [[regeneration]]. ([[GAME]]: {{cite source|The Legions of Death (game)}})]]According to one account, the War Chief had been a "protégé" of [[the Master]], who had helped him concoct the [[War Games]] scheme. After the scheme collapsed, the mortally-wounded War Chief escaped in a [[SIDRAT]], regenerated into a [[the War Chief (The Legions of Death)|new body]], and found [[the War Chief's TARDIS|his own TARDIS]]. However, because the Master blamed him for the scheme's failure — a feeling which was mutual —, he lay low for a while, before reemerging in a plot in [[Roman Empire|Roman]] [[Britain]], whose eventual downfall may have involved any of the [[Third Doctor]], [[the Colonel]] and [[Leora]] as well as their respective [[companion]]s. ([[GAME]]: {{cite source|The Legions of Death (game)}})

==== Regeneration into the Master ====
Some accounts depicted the Time Lord who had posed as the War Chief as having later become [[the Master]]. The Doctor and the Master were stated by [[Keeper (Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon)|the Keeper]] - who had been one of the [[Time Lord]]s sent to the [[Planet (The War Games)|War Lords' colony-planet]] to put an end to the War Chief's schemes after the Doctor called in the Time Lords - to have been the only two [[renegade Time Lord|renegades]] ever to escape Gallifrey, and fondly remembered the mess that these two TARDISes being stolen had caused back in the day. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon (novelisation)|Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon]]'') A short time after the [[Second Doctor]]'s sentence and forced [[regeneration]], [[Adelphi|a Time Lord messenger]] was sent ([[TV]]: ''[[Terror of the Autons (TV story)|Terror of the Autons]]'') by the [[High Council]] ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Legacy of Gallifrey]]'') to warn the Doctor about the Master, ([[TV]]: ''[[Terror of the Autons (TV story)|Terror of the Autons]]'') who was out for revenge for "past deeds". ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Legacy of Gallifrey (short story)|The Legacy of Gallifrey]]'')

However, at least one account conflicted with this notion, claiming that the Master, or "Koschei", and the War Chief, or "Magnus", had been two separate childhood friends of the Doctor's. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Divided Loyalties (novel)|Divided Loyalties]]'') [[Boy (Heaven Sent)|One Gallifreyan historian]]'s ''[[A Brief History of Time Lords]]'' accounted for the War Chief and the Master's experience with the [[Untempered Schism]] at the age of eight as two different events, though in both casing ending with the young Time Lord initiate being secretly driven mad by what he saw in the Schism. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[A Brief History of Time Lords (novel)|A Brief History of Time Lords]]'')

== Personality ==
The War Chief was an ambitious and arrogant individual, cunning, and with great tactical abilities. He pretended to serve the War Lords loyally, while plotting to take control of them after they succeeded in their plans. He also made feuds easily which made it easy for his allies to turn against him. ([[TV]]: ''[[The War Games (TV story)|The War Games]]'')

Magnus was unconcerned about using up regenerations and never listened to the Doctor, who advised him not to waste them. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Invasion of the Cat-People (novel)|Invasion of the Cat-People]]'') Behind the War Chief's actions lay real idealism, tainted with power lust.

While allied with the Nazis, the War Chief considered much of their racial beliefs, scientific works and belief in the occult to be nonsense. However, he was perfectly willing to play along with all of this to win favour with the Nazi leaders, especially Heinrich Himmler. He used a laser weapon disguised as a silver cane. During a sacrifice ceremony he wore a goat mask. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Timewyrm: Exodus (novel)|Timewyrm: Exodus]]'')

== Behind the scenes ==
* The [[necklace]] prop the War Chief wears in ''[[The War Games (TV story)|The War Games]]'' is the same prop previously worn by [[Zephon (The Daleks' Master Plan)|Zephon]] in ''[[The Daleks' Master Plan (TV story)|The Daleks' Master Plan]]''.

=== Connection with the Master ===
In [[1974 (releases)|1974]], the [[Target novelisation]] ''[[Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon (novelisation)|Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon]]'', written by [[Malcolm Hulke]], established that [[the Doctor]] and [[the Master]] were the only two renegades ever to have run away from Gallifrey, while also calling back to the events of the [[1969 (releases)|1969]] serial ''[[The War Games (TV story)|The War Games]]'', which was co-written by Hulke. Ever since then, the notion has been prevalent that the War Chief was an early [[incarnation]] of the Time Lord who, from his first [[Roger Delgado]] incarnation onwards, would call themselves the Master.

After all, although the character was never called anything but "War Chief" in his only televised story, there was no evidence that this was a regular moniker or modus operandi; during the story, the term "[[War Chief]]" was treated more as a title akin to "[[The War Lord|War Lord]]" and "[[Security Chief (The War Games)|Security Chief]]" instead of a name. Later, in the [[1997 (releases)|1997]] novel ''[[The Dark Path (novel)|The Dark Path]]'', incarnations of the Master before [[Roger Delgado]] were confirmed not to have used the "Master" title. Although the notion of the Master and the Doctor as the only two renegades in Gallifrey's history was soon abandoned with the introductions of [[Drax]] and [[the Rani]], the idea would continue to be referenced, discussed, and sometimes pointedly contradicted in many licensed and unlicensed works of ''Doctor Who'' fiction.

==== Origins ====
The [[Target novelisation]]s of ''Doctor Who'' TV stories were the main medium in which the idea of the War Chief eventually becoming the Master gained traction, principally under the pen of [[Malcolm Hulke]], and secondarily that of [[Terrance Dicks]], the two co-writers of ''[[The War Games (TV story)|The War Games]]'' and co-creators of the War Chief.

The novelisation ''[[Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon (novelisation)|Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon]]'' - written by [[Malcolm Hulke]] and edited by [[Terrance Dicks]] - established that the Doctor and the Master were the only two [[renegade Time Lord]]s who had ever left Gallifrey in stolen TARDISes, implying by process of elimination that the Master was the War Chief. Shortly after this assertion, the events of [[TV]]: ''[[The War Games (TV story)|The War Games]]'' were also recalled. Hulke's [[1979 (releases)|1979]] ''[[Doctor Who and the War Games (novelisation)|Doctor Who and the War Games]]'' called back to the notion by having the War Chief explicitly state that he and the Doctor were the only travellers in the galaxy with their own stolen TARDISes, a passage which directly echoed the lines in Hulke's earlier ''Doomsday Weapon''. The novelisation noted that the War Chief was declared dead by the Time Lords, but, as highlighted in [[1985 (releases)|1985]]'s ''[[CIA File Extracts (novel)|CIA File Extracts]]'', the Time Lords had never found a body.

<!--Terror of the Autons' novelisation acknowledging the Time Lords punish characters by erasing them from time and can disable TARDISes is not a link between the Master and the War Chief.-->

Finally, Dicks' [[1975 (releases)|1975]] novelisation of ''[[The Three Doctors (novelisation)|The Three Doctors]]'' stated that the Master and [[Omega]] were the only two Time Lords that the Doctor had ever fought. Notably, even should one accept the implied link between the Master and the War Chief, this would seem to overlook [[the Monk]], but, at the time ''The Three Doctors'' was novelised, neither of the [[First Doctor]] serials with the Monk had yet been novelised, meaning he did not necessarily need squaring away in terms of the perspective on the [[Doctor Who universe|''Doctor Who'' universe]] that a devoted reader of the novelisations could be expected to possess. Furthermore, the idea that the Monk was himself also an early form of the Master was also proposed on occasion, later making its way into licensed media in ''[[CIA File Extracts (novel)|CIA File Extracts]]''. However, ''The War Games'' itself was not novelised until some years after the three [[Third Doctor]] novelisations, which made no mention of the War Chief, so it is possible both earlier Renegade Time Lords were ignored to simplify the conflict between the Doctor and the Master.

==== Later developments ====
In [[1985 (releases)|1985]], [[Gary Russell]] penned ''[[The Legacy of Gallifrey]]'', a prose overview of [[Gallifrey]]'s history from the perspective of [[Rassilon]]. In that story, the Doctor's friends and fellow dissenters at the Time Lord Academy were a mere group of three future Renegades: the Doctor, the Master and [[the Rani]]. The War Chief was mentioned in the summary of the [[Second Doctor]]'s trial as having been a treacherous member of the [[High Council]],  and [[Adelphi|a Time Lord messenger]] later warning the [[Third Doctor]] about the Master (as seen in TV's ''[[Terror of the Autons (TV story)|Terror of the Autons]]'') was reframed as a direct consequence of [[Celestial Intervention Agency|CIA]]-loyal Time Lords being told to keep an eye on the Doctor after his trial, with the Master now being described as "seeking revenge for past deeds".

[[File:FASA9205WarChief(750yo).jpg|thumb|A [[The War Chief (The Legions of Death)|post-Brayshaw incarnation]] of the War Chief, distinct from the Master. ([[GAME]]: ''The Legions of Death'')]]The first licensed ''Doctor Who'' work to contradict Hulke's implications that the War Chief had gone on to become the Master came in ''[[The Legions of Death (game)|The Legions of Death]]'' in [[FASA]]'s ''[[The Doctor Who Role Playing Game]]''. There, the Master and [[the Monk]] were conflated, but the War Chief was distinct from, but a former ally of, the Master. 

[[Virgin Books]]' editorial policy for the ''[[Virgin New Adventures]]'' and ''[[Virgin Missing Adventures]]'' was that the Master and the War Chief were two distinct characters. In [[Terrance Dicks]]'s ''[[Timewyrm: Exodus (novel)| Exodus]]'', the Doctor encountered a version of the War Chief who had survived the events of ''[[The War Games (TV story)|The War Games]]'' in a crippled state. No mention of the Master was made, with the Doctor treating the War Chief as a foe he had not met since ''The War Games'', noting that he was aggrieved by his resurgence, thinking he had "dealt with him a long time ago".

A different encounter between the [[Second Doctor]] and a pre-''[[Terror of the Autons (TV story)|Terror of the Autons]]'' Master, known as Koschei, occurred in ''[[The Dark Path (novel)|The Dark Path]]''. This novel made no mention of the War Chief, but a deleted scene, later published in the charity anthology ''Perfect Timing'', had Koschei informing the Doctor that their mutual friend Magnus had stolen a supply of spare TARDIS parts and disappeared, indicating that Magnus was the War Chief and a different person from the Master. However, author [[David A. McIntee]] later noted that the novel as published left open the possibility that Koschei would regenerate into Brayshaw's War Chief before finally regenerating into Delgado's Master.<ref>https://originallonemagpie.tumblr.com/post/91272595232/tuppence-beresford-hipsterbrigadier</ref>

[[Craig Hinton]] and Chris McKeon's ultimately-unpublished Virgin novel ''[[Time's Champion (novel)|Time's Champion]]'', in its completed unlicenced charity version, treated the War Chief and the Master as the same person (also working in [[Magnus (Flashback)|Magnus]] from ''[[Flashback (comic story)|Flashback]]'').

{{quote|Pride of place was given to the Master - or rather the Masters: the familiar, music-hall villain in his velvet penguin suit had been captured in all of his melodramatic glory, but there was also a suave, older man, his eyes radiating a fierce, evil intelligence wrapped in charm, next to which was positioned the portrait of a young, satanically handsome man with long, sharp sideburns and a thin, beard length moustache, whose hand vainly clutched at a strange medallion hanging around his neck, as if clinging to the only power in his possession. And then there was an image of the cadaver, that rotting corpse that Mel knew was all that remained of the Doctor's oldest friend and oldest enemy, animated by nothing but pure malice and spite.|The charity version of ''Time's Champion''.}}

The [[DWMS Winter 1992|DWM Winter Special 1992]] included a feature named ''Everything You Wanted to Know About Gallifrey'', in which the War Chief is referenced as a separate character from the Master, who was explicitly described as "a new Time Lord enemy created by series producer [[Barry Letts]] and script editor [[Terrance Dicks]], with Dicks coming up with the character's name".

[[1992 (releases)|1992]] also saw the comic story ''[[Flashback (comic story)|Flashback]]'' published in ''[[Doctor Who Magazine]]''. The story introduced the character [[Magnus (Flashback)|Magnus]] as the First Doctor's close friend on Gallifrey who became his rival after a betrayal. The story hints that Magnus already had more than one body. The name "{{w|Magnus}}" means "great" and was popular among royal houses in the Middle Ages. Most readers immediately identified the character as a younger version of the Master, as the Master had previously been established to be the Doctor's Academy friend in [[TV]]: ''[[The Sea Devils (TV story)|The Sea Devils]]''; indeed, according to [[DWM]] editor [[Gary Russell]], this was the original intention.<ref name="RUSS">[https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.arts.drwho/zR5mKB0Lqpg/S-l-rL2exLIJ Gary Russell forum post about Magnus]</ref> Accordingly, ''[[Invasion of the Cat-People (novel)|Invasion of the Cat-People]]'' had the Doctor mentioning "Magnus" as someone whom the Second Doctor had once warned to be careful with his regenerations, tying into the fact that the Master had quickly used up all his regenerations, an important plot element in ''[[The Deadly Assassin (TV story)|The Deadly Assassin]]'' and ''[[The Keeper of Traken (TV story)|The Keeper of Traken]]''. In ''[[Goth Opera (novel)|Goth Opera]]'', [[Ruath]] lists the Doctor's fellow students at the Academy under [[Borusa]] to have later become "scoundrels": "[[Mortimus]], [[the Rani]], that idiot Magnus… and you, Doctor", implying that Magnus was the Master's original name, as it would be unlikely for such a list to omit the Master. 

In [[1995 (releases)|1995]], [[DWPM 6|Issue 6]] of ''[[Doctor Who Poster Magazine]]'' included a feature entitled ''The Time Lords of Gallifrey... and other Gallifreyans'', which included short illustrated profiles of all named [[Time Lord]] or [[Gallifreyan]] characters in televised ''[[Doctor Who]]''. This time, it included an entry for [[the Monk]] separate from [[the Master]], but none for the War Chief, implicitly supporting their conflation, although only the likenesses of [[Roger Delgado]], [[Peter Pratt]] and [[Anthony Ainley]]'s Masters were featured, omitting [[Edward Brayshaw]].

In [[1999 (releases)|1999]], while writing the [[Fifth Doctor]] novel ''[[Divided Loyalties (novel)|Divided Loyalties]]'', Russell chose to [[Retroactive continuity|retcon]] Magnus into being the War Chief so as not to conflict with McIntee's declaration that the Master's original name was "Koschei".<ref name="RUSS" /> The novel sees [[the Toymaker]] give the [[Fifth Doctor]] nightmares about his time in the Academy. In the dreams, "Magnus" (who plans to ally himself with the [[War Lord]]s) and "Koschei" (clearly the Master) are intentionally characterised as extremely similar; Magnus is obsessed with the [[War Lord]]s, and Koschei looks up to Magnus. Despite the execution of this separation, this novel did formally establish an in-universe distinction between the two characters, in a deeper sense than being two different incarnations of the same Time Lord.

The character of [[the War King]], who debuted in the 1999 [[Eighth Doctor]] novel ''[[The Taking of Planet 5 (novel)|The Taking of Planet 5]]'', was strongly implied to have once been the Master. [[2002 (releases)|2002]]'s ''[[The Book of the War (novel)|The Book of the War]]'', the launch of the ''[[Faction Paradox (series)|Faction Paradox]]'' in prose, added that he kept a disassembled [[hypercube]] in his chambers as a nostalgic keepsake, in a clear allusion to the denouement of ''The War Games'' — besides which there is the sheer parallelism in the monikers of "War Chief" and "War King". As quoted in ''[[Downtime – The Lost Years of Doctor Who]]'', [[Alan Stevens]], producer on ''[[The True History of Faction Paradox]]'' (where the character also appeared), asked if the War King was in fact the Master, answered "The laws of copyright infringement prevent me from answering that question, although it may also be the War Chief". 

The [[2017 (releases)|2017]] novel ''[[A Brief History of Time Lords (novel)|A Brief History of Time Lords]]''<nowiki>'s</nowiki> brief overview of how different Time Lords seen on television throughout the series had reacted to their initiation rites at the [[Untempered Schism]] listed the War Chief separately from the Master.

[[2019 (releases)|2019]] saw the release of ''[[The Home Guard (audio story)|The Home Guard]]'', a [[Big Finish Productions]] audio story written by [[Simon Guerrier]], which featured [[James Dreyfus]]'s [[The Master (The Destination Wars)|early Master]] opposite the [[Second Doctor]]. In [[2020 (releases)|2020]], on Twitter, Guerrier confirmed a fan's suspicions about "the Master's cryptic references to a grander plan that was being served by these events" being a hint that the story served as a "soft lead-in" to ''[[The War Games (TV story)|The War Games]]''. However, he admitted that he "couldn't quite remember" what he'd been thinking, and added: "Also, {{w|death of the author|it doesn't matter what I intended anyway}}. What do *you* think?".<ref>{{cite web
|url = https://twitter.com/0tralala/status/1227333760707891200
|title= Oh! Yes, I think that's what I was thinking of (…)
|author = [[Simon Guerrier]]
|website name=Simon Guerrier on Twitter
|date of source = 11 February 2020
|archiveurl=https://archive.ph/W0QDv
|archivedate= 20 January 2023
}}</ref>

In [[2023 (releases)|2023]], a fan-made infographic of the Master's incarnations which identified the War Chief as the "Eleventh Master", immediately preceding [[Roger Delgado]]'s {{Delgado|n="Twelfth Master"}}, was retweeted by the official [[Big Finish Productions]] Twitter account, who compared the character profiles to "new [[Weetabix]] cards".<ref>{{cite web
|url = https://twitter.com/bigfinish/status/1610629581442109451
|title=New Weetabix cards.
|author = [[Big Finish Productions]]
|website name=Big Finish Productions on Twitter
|date of source = 4 January 2023
|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20230108134212/https://twitter.com/bigfinish/status/1610629581442109451
|archivedate = 8 January 2023
}}</ref> The artist replied to the retweet, half-jokingly pointing out the apparent acknowledgement of "the truth of the Eleventh Master".<ref>{{cite web
|url = https://twitter.com/Tigfore/status/1610380232837500928
|title=Reply to Big Finish productions
|author= @Tigfore
|website name = Tigorello on Twitter
|date of source=4 January 2023
|archiveurl = https://archive.ph/3XJc1
|archivedate=8 January 2023
}}</ref>

==== Statements by writers ====
{{Section stub}}In [[2014 (releases)|2014]], [[David A. McIntee]], writer of ''[[The Dark Path (novel)|The Dark Path]]'', noted on his Tumblr blog<ref>https://originallonemagpie.tumblr.com/post/88466744837/favorite-doctor-who-episodes-the-second-doctor</ref>:
{{quote| I'm kind of pulled between two opposites on whether the War Chief is the Master. Personally I prefer to think he is — but professionally I wasn't allowed to!|[[David McIntee]]}}

Asked in [[2021 (releases)|2021]] whether he thought of "the Master and the War Chief to be the same character, or two, separate characters", writer of various anthologies [[Dave Rudden]], citing the wisdom of [[Malcolm Hulke]], answered<ref>https://old.reddit.com/r/doctorwho/comments/jcyscl/hi_im_dave_rudden_author_of_anthologies_the/g9bn3a8/</ref><ref>https://old.reddit.com/r/doctorwho/comments/jcyscl/hi_im_dave_rudden_author_of_anthologies_the/g94jtee/</ref>:
{{quote|I am of the House of Hulke in this matter... They're the same in my book - actually, maybe that's a book I should write... I'm kidding, what would people argue about if it was ever fully explained.|[[Dave Rudden]]}}

Asked in 2021 what he thought of "the old Malcolm Hulke and Terrance Dicks lore of the War Chief being the Master", prominent [[Big Finish]] writer [[John Dorney]] answered<ref>https://old.reddit.com/r/doctorwho/comments/oa3k48/john_dorney_big_finish_actorwriter_ama/h3plc2s/</ref>:
{{quote|Conflicted. Since I grew up feeling they were definitely different, my heart probably says no. But my head probably acknowledges that it’d make a good deal of sense.|[[John Dorney]]}}

In [[2023 (releases)|2023]], [[Big Finish]] ''Doctor Who'' writer and prolific documentary director [[Chris Chapman]] answered "Yes please." to the question "Is Edward Brayshaw the Master?".<ref>{{cite web
|url = https://twitter.com/ChrisChapman81/status/1613078063687897089
|title=Yes please.
|author = [[Chris Chapman]]
|website name=Chris Chapman on Twitter
|date of source = 11 January 2023
|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20230118230140/http://web.archive.org/screenshot/https://twitter.com/ChrisChapman81/status/1613078063687897089
|archivedate = 19 January 2023
}}</ref>

== External links ==
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== Footnotes ==
{{reflist}}
{{TitleSort}}
[[Category:Incarnations of the Master]]
[[Category:Incarnations of Magnus]]
[[Category:Murderers]]
[[Category:Military officers]]
[[Category:Prisoners]]