The Master (The Destination Wars)

The Master
Main aliases:	The Inventor
Species:	Time Lord
Place of origin:	Gallifrey
First appearance:	The Destination Wars
Appearances:	AUDIO: The Home Guard, The Psychic Circus, Blood of the Time Lords
Main voice actor:	James Dreyfus

Incarnations of the Master+
Original regenerative cycle+
Interim+
Renewed regenerative cycle+
Ambiguous+
Other realities+

Sometime after leaving Gallifrey, the Master found himself being confronted by various incarnations of the Doctor on Destination (where he spent some time under the alias of the Inventor), on Segonax, and on a human colony planet.

Biography

Before his escape

The Master poses as "the Inventor". (AUDIO: The Destination Wars)

At some point during his tenure at the Academy, the Master chose his title as he had begun to "hone his talents". (AUDIO: The Destination Wars)

On the day that the Doctor left Gallifrey, the Master was desperate to know where he went. (PROSE: Celestial Intervention - A Gallifreyan Noir) He used the node he gave Susan to locate the Doctor, but found that the node had established a connection with Nyssa, a companion of the Fifth Doctor. The Master tried to take control of Nyssa but was stopped by the intervention of the Doctor. (AUDIO: The Toy) When retired CIA agent Maris was hired to find the Doctor, the Master, helped by the Rani, used a chronal mine to kidnap her. They interrogated Maris on the whereabouts of the Doctor, and were displeased when she told them she didn't know. They were about to kill her when her employer extracted her from the area. (PROSE: Celestial Intervention - A Gallifreyan Noir)

Leaving Gallifrey

The Master ultimately left Gallifrey on the same day the Doctor did, (COMIC: The Glorious Dead) in a Type-45 TARDIS, (PROSE: The Dark Path) that he had also stolen (COMIC: The Glorious Dead) when the Quadriggers were still working on it. (AUDIO: The Destination Wars) One Time Lord stated that the Master left Gallifrey because, like the Doctor, it was "too peaceful for [him], [with] not enough happening". (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon) The Fifth Doctor believed that the Master left Gallifrey because he was also leaving. (AUDIO: The Toy)

As his TARDIS was broken when he stole it, it fell apart around him almost instantly, stranding the Master on the furthest arm of a galaxy in the "earliest Segments of Time". He took charge of the planet Destination, assuming the title of "the Inventor", and developed the planet's technology for his own ends. He pitted the human colonists against the Dalmari, so that the colonists would develop the nuclear technology he planned to use to refuel his TARDIS's engines. When the First Doctor arrived, he changed his plans and tried to steal the Doctor's TARDIS to escape. He was able to trick Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright into leading him to the ship, but they were able to overpower him and use the fast return switch to take the TARDIS back to Destination. The Master ultimately became trapped in his own laboratory after the Doctor had rerouted its power to help Destination to rebuild. (AUDIO: The Destination Wars)

Early exploits

The Master during his "home guard" plot. (AUDIO: The Home Guard)

On arrival on a planet where human colonists had settled in a fictional recreation of an English village during the Second World War to live in peace away from Earth, the Master took control of the environment, organised a home guard and armed the original population of the planet to entice a conflict and demonstrate that an outgunned and outnumbered group of people could resist against a much greater enemy when properly motivated. When the Second Doctor arrived with Ben Jackson, Polly Wright and Jamie McCrimmon, the Master hypnotised them into joining his experiment. The Doctor, however, immersed himself too deep in his role of commander of the home guard and made contact with the aliens to reach a peaceful solution, resulting in the aliens attacking earlier than the Master had anticipated. In the ensuing battle, the Master escaped in his TARDIS, with the intent of returning to look on the results of the conflict. However, when he returned, the Doctor had already set a trap for him after persuading the fighters into a peace. The Master was captured and put on trial for illegal use of mind control, while his TARDIS was confiscated. (AUDIO: The Home Guard)

Crossing into the future

On Segonax, the Master allied himself with the Gods of Ragnarok, and used a pendant they gave him to contact a street artist on Zamyatin named Kingpin and use Kingpin's free spirited energy to cause a psychic storm, which caused a revolution on Zamyatin. The Master then persuaded Kingpin to organise a collective of various artists and bring them to Segonax to become the Psychic Circus. The Master then persuaded the Chief clown to organise a talent contest so that new energy could be acquired. When Kingpin managed to contact the Seventh Doctor, the Master used his abilities to stop him from reaching the Circus, first creating an illusion of him landing on Zamyatin, and then one of him returning to Paradise Towers. When the Doctor eventually came to the Circus, he and the Master confronted each other on a psychic plane, where the Doctor exploited the Gods' curiosity to buy time to steal the pendant from the Master and pass it to Kingpin. Kingpin then used the pendant to free the Circus from the Master and the Gods' influence, and the Master was left at the mercy of the Gods of Ragnarok. (AUDIO: The Psychic Circus)

Post-mortem

When the "Tremas" Master was stripped of his Trakenite body by the Time Lords, and after his plot to steal the Fifth Doctor's regenerations failed, he found himself confronting mental projections of all his past incarnations, and was able to steal a bit of life energy from each of them, allowing him to regenerate back into his Trakenite body. (PROSE: The Velvet Dark)

Appearance

When he met the First Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara on Destination, the Master had short hair and a beard, both of which were almost completely grey, save for some dark patches. His eyes were brown in colour. He wore an asymmetrical black coat with a large white lined collar on the left-hand side. (AUDIO: The Destination Wars) He later adopted a black Nehru jacket by the time he met the Second Doctor. (AUDIO: The Home Guard)

Psychological profile

Personality

This incarnation of the Master was very self-centred, willing to influence a whole planet's development to refuel his craft, and equally willing to abandon his plans just to steal the Doctor's ship. He found amusement in shaping a culture to his benefit. He looked down on others as his inferiors, claiming to have "longed for a mind equal to [his] own" when confronting the Doctor on Destination. He particularly disregarded humans as "ape-descended primitives".

Skills

By this point, the Master had already honed his hypnotic abilities, subjugating even adepts such as Susan Foreman with ease. (AUDIO: The Destination Wars)

Behind the scenes

• James Dreyfus had previously appeared in The Sarah Jane Adventures television story The Man Who Never Was as John Harrison.
• James Dreyfus was initially promoted by Big Finish Productions as portraying the "first incarnation" of the Master beginning in The Destination Wars. However, this was never stated in the narrative; though The Destination Wars does establish that he was the Master who originally left Gallifrey, Blood of the Time Lords had the Fourth Doctor recall that he was either the third or fourth incarnation.
• According to James Dreyfus, this incarnation of the Master was intended to appear in the anniversary story Masterful, but was removed due to a series of transphobic remarks made by Dreyfus being posted on Twitter. Dreyfus would later claim that he had "no idea" why Big Finish cut ties with him.
• James Dreyfus's credit was removed from the cover of The Psychic Circus following controversy over transphobic remarks he had posted on Twitter.