The Master's trial (The TV Movie)

The Master's trial
First appearance:	Doctor Who
Dates:	Rassilon Era
Location:	Skaro
Combatants
Prime Minister of the Daleks Parliament of the Daleks Dalek Prelature
Leaders
The Old Master
Dalek Emperor Dalek Litigator
Result
The Master's execution.

On the planet Skaro, an incarnation of the Master was put on trial, which ended in his apparent execution by the Daleks.

History

Capture

The Old Master, in a body with "saturnine features" which he had obtained as yet another way to extend his life, (PROSE: The Novel of the Film) eventually arrived in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt and was captured (AUDIO: Mastermind) by a Dalek scouting party. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe)

Another account claimed that the Master's trial by the Daleks took place immediately after his experience on the Cheetah World, with him still in his stolen Trakenite body and maddened by the cheetah virus, coming to the Daleks of his own accord after consuming a deathworm. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors)

Another account also had the Master in Tremas' body, visibly older with greying hair. He used the planet Siralos's psychic energy to capture the first seven incarnations of the Doctor and put them into a void called the Determinant. However, the Graak opposed him, and the Master engaged in a battle of wits with the creature. The Master captured several other species to battle the Graak, including the Cybermen, the Sea Devils, and the Daleks. The Graak successfully freed the Doctors. Afterwards, the Master was captured by one of the species he had used in his scheme, with him suggesting to the Doctor that "[the Doctor] knew what they [would] do to him" for his crimes against them (GAME: Destiny of the Doctors) seemingly leading to the Master being executed by the Daleks. (TV: Doctor Who)

The trial

At any rate, the Master was indeed tried in the presence of the Dalek Emperor (PROSE: The Novel of the Film) by the whole Parliament of the Daleks. (PROSE: The Runes of Fenric, Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) According to A Short Treatise on Dalek Justice, the Master was being tried for his failure in the plot behind the Human-Draconian War, (PROSE: The Runes of Fenric) crimes dating back to one of his previous incarnations, (TV: Frontier in Space) although the Emperor made it clear that the Daleks were more generally punishing him for his repeated attempts to destroy them and usurp their place as "the supreme creatures of the universe". (PROSE: The Novel of the Film) The Time Lords indicated on their time scale of Dalek activity that the Master's trial took place in the 26th century, following Operation Divide and Conquer and the Spiridon campaign, (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual) events which the Dalek Litigator held the Master responsible for.

It was the Dalek Litigator who oversaw the trial, judging the Master guilty of "crimes against the Dalek race" and sentencing him to death via extermination. (AUDIO: Vengeance) Accord to Benncuiq IV, the full transcript included only two words. (PROSE: The Runes of Fenric)

Exterminate! Exterminate!The full transcript of the Master's trial.

While the Emperor delivered his verdict, the Master was encased in a painful column of light which prevented him from moving; (PROSE: The Novel of the Film) it was "said" that he stayed oddly impassive as his long list of crimes was read out to him. In truth, this was all a ruse to get inside the Doctor's TARDIS and further extend his precarious existence. (TV: Doctor Who)

The Master's execution

Just before he was executed by the Dalek Prelature, (AUDIO: Mastermind) the Master made a final request: for the Seventh Doctor to transport his remains back to Gallifrey. (TV: Doctor Who) According to one account, he made this request via telepathic contact with the Seventh Doctor, even as he was about to be discorporated, and the Daleks never knew of his demands, which the Doctor fulfilled covertly by sneaking into the Dalek bastion. (PROSE: The Novel of the Film) According to other accounts, it was as part of a Time Lord-Dalek treaty (PROSE: Lungbarrow) called the "Act of Master Restitution" (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords, Meet the Doctor) that the Doctor was able to safely journey to and from Skaro to retrieve the Master's remains. (TV: Doctor Who) A third account held that Lord President Romana II had contacted the Doctor telepathically, passing along the Master's "Last Will and Testament." (PROSE: The TV Movie)

Yet another account had historians speculated that both the Daleks' giving the Master a fair trial in the first place and their carrying out his last will and testament were evidence that the Daleks harboured some amount of respect for their one-time ally. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe)

Legacy

The details of the trial and execution were documented in Time Lord scholar Benncuiq IV's essay, A Short Treatise on Dalek Justice. (PROSE: The Runes of Fenric) The Time Lords understood the Master's trial, as well as Davros' trial by the Daleks, to have been conducted for strategic reasons rather than to offer any genuine possibility of clemency. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual)

The Dalek Litigator later discovered the the Master's survival and used the 2223 Dalek invasion of Earth to attempt to enforce the death sentence. The Master repelled the Daleks and forced the Litigator to flee by temporal shift. (AUDIO: Vengeance)

Now living in the post-Time War universe, Missy, formerly the Master, had an outstanding death warrant in "the Dalek Empire". (AUDIO: The Bekdel Test)

Behind the scenes

Dalek Execution.

• An illustration of the Master's execution is depicted in the Flashbacks feature in the sixty-first issue of the Doctor Who DVD Files magazine. The Dalek executioners are depicted as hovering Imperial Daleks as originally seen in Remembrance of the Daleks.
• In The Dalek Handbook, the Master's trial on Skaro is indicated to take place on a restored Skaro, whilst the possibility is acknowledged that it took place prior to the Hand of Omega's destruction of Skaro. The Master's trial is said to have been eventually followed by the Tenth Dalek Occupation, after which the Daleks vanished from time and space to fight the Last Great Time War.