Talk:The Master (Tersurus)

Name

Wouldn't Thirteenth Master fit better? -- Noneofyourbusiness 19:15, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

No, cause there's no evidence of that number. There's no reason to think that he's actually a different incarnation than the Delgado version, nor any evidence to support that notion, either. This is why I think there shouldn't be separate Master pages at all, cause you can't definitively separated any of them, until Simm. As I see it, there's one single regeneration from Terror of the Autons to the TVM. I believe that Delgado had an accident that left him the scarred hulk we see in Assassin and Traken. Then he merges with Tremas to become the Ainley Master. But that's not regeneration. Then he's disintegrated and becomes the snakey thing in the TVM. But again it's the remains of what was originally Delgado. The Jacobi Master is the first indication we get of a new set of regenerations, and even he could technically still be the same guy, just "resurrected", not regenerated. Simm is the first unambiguous regeneration we see in the history of the programme. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 03:48, April 19, 2010 (UTC)

Merge

Though I still maintain that all the Masters prior to Jacobi/Simm are the same guy and should go on the saem page — since there is no evidence of any genuine regeneration until Utopia — we should at least now take the baby step of merging this article with the Master, based upon the following passages from PROSE: Legacy of the Daleks by John Peel:

The Master stepped forward, and Donna saw him clearly for the first time. He was dressed almost entirely in black, some odd sort of jacket that fastened right to his neck. He wore gloves, a slightly greying beard, and a rather unpleasant smile. She disliked him immediately. He just. . . seemed dangerous, more so than Downs, because he had a strength of purpose about him, and an air that suggested he would do whatever was required to meet his goals. She saw the intelligence burning in his eyes.

So, is this the Delgado Master? Certainly seems it by the description. Let's read on:

While the Master was occupied, the Eighth Doctor leaned forward to whisper quietly to Donna. ‘I seem to have done something naughty. My people usually have a law that we must meet each other in a linear progression along our relative time-streams. But I’ve slipped back in regards to the Master – I’ve met him in two and a half bodies since this one.’

Yep, that's Delgado. Couldn't be more explicit unless John Peel directly said, "Hey, guys: this is the Delgado Master!" So how does Delgado become so disfigured? Susan kicks his ass, that's how:

‘Merciful!’ Susan was still moving slowly forward, drawing closer to the controls now. ‘You’re a shallow, vicious, self-centred, evil little troll, with less decency than any of the people you’ve killed. You really think you deserve power?’

‘Power belongs to those who can claim it and hold it,' the Master responded, seemingly amused by her argument.

‘Then I’ll show you power,’ Susan snarled. She moved forward, touching both hands to the contacts for the telepathic circuits. ‘And I’m not a human – God help me, I’m one of you.’

The Master’s eyes widened slightly at this revelation, and he gave a sharp cry as he moved forward to knock her hands from the console.

But he was far, far too late.

Susan had known for a long time that she had greater latent telepathic powers even than most of her people. It was raw talent and normally unfocused. But working telepathic circuits could do what her own mind could not. The TARDIS caught up her will, and shaped it, like a weapon – aimed directly at the mind of the TARDIS’s controller.

The Master screamed and collapsed as the mental wave slammed into him. Susan had harnessed all of her rage, all of her grief, all of her loss, into one, rock-hard emotion of hatred. She sent this seething mass of fury deeply into the Master’s mind, burning at his exposed thoughts, slicing through his own desires, devastating every last thought in his mind. She fed her fury over David’s murder, her anguish about her grandfather, her sense of loss, promises broken, the horror of Daleks resurrected – every last agonising emotion was fed from her mind, amplified by the telepathic circuits and directed like a laser into his brain.

He rolled on the floor, howling in agony as his mind slowly fried. Susan glowered down at him, refusing to feel the slightest twinge of pity or remorse for what she was doing. She wouldn’t even allow herself the luxury of satisfaction, in case that weakened her rage. But she did feel some of the feedback from the Master’s mind, and she stared into the pit of his inhumanity. She saw a creature who never doubted that it was his right to do precisely what he wished, who spared no concern for any other living creature. His own will was all that mattered to him in the entire universe. He was self-consumed to the exclusion of any kind of gentleness or kindness.

Whispers of his knowledge, his thoughts and his deeds crossed Susan’s awareness. They sickened her, and fed her despair and fury. The Master writhed under the bombardment his mind being ravaged and consumed. Until, finally, she could keep going no longer. Weakened and shaking, she jerked her trembling hands from the contacts and stared down at the trembling creature at her feet. She knew what she had done to him, and didn’t have a single regret or doubt. And yet, even after all he had been through, such was his own strength of will that he managed to open his eyes and focus on her.

‘You’re. . . the Doctor’s whelp,’ he gasped. It was a terrible strain on him, but he was focusing solely on this one fact. ‘I shall. . . destroy you. . . have my revenge on him.’

‘You’ll destroy nobody ever again,’ Susan vowed. She showed him the TCE.

‘This time, I’m the one with the weapon, Master of nothing. Get to your feet, or I swear I’ll kill you where you grovel.’ She knew he could read the grim assurance that she meant what she said. She wasn’t even sure he could move after what he’d been through, but he amazed her again.

He staggered to his knees, and then to his feet. The transmuter was still locked in his arms, like a precious child in the embrace of a doting mother. His eyes showed madness, but his will was surmounting even that. He was incredible – and demonic.

‘Outside,’ Susan ordered, triggering the door control. She also shut down the defence systems totally. It wasn’t beyond his imagining to have sabotaged them in the event of necessity. She had no desire for the TARDIS to incapacitate her now because of some cunning scheme of his. ‘Outside,’ she repeated.

Trembling from his inner struggle, the Master obeyed.

Tersurus was a nothing planet – bare rock, a few struggling lichens Little greenery, and nothing animal at all in sight. Maybe she wasn’t seeing it at its best, but Susan hardly cared about that. She hadn’t been a tourist since she’d left Grandfather.

‘That’s far enough,’ she decided. The Master staggered to a halt. ‘Now, put that thing down and step away from it.’

‘What are you going to do?’ the Master demanded. He seemed to be recovering slowly but incrementally from the mental assault.

‘I’m going to destroy it so that neither you nor any other maniac can use it,’ she replied grimly.

‘No!’ he yelped. ‘It’s my tool to power! You can’t have it! You can’t!’ His mind was starting to crumble again from the stress. Susan glared at him coldly ‘I’m destroying it in five seconds,’ she stated. ‘If you’re still holding it then – so be it.’

‘It’s mine!’ he screamed, and he tried to run. But he’d overestimated his own strength, and instead crashed to the ground. Whimpering and snarling, he clutched the transmuter to his chest.

‘Five,’ Susan said, and aimed the TCE. There was neither pity nor mercy left in her. She triggered the device, knowing she was killing the Master, too – and discovered that she was glad of it. If any being deserved death, it was him. The energies of the TCE ravaged through the transmuter, and on into the Master’s body. There was no respite for him now, no way to regenerate from such a death. The transmuter exploded, energies flaring forth. Susan staggered back, shielding her eyes, and reentered the Master’s TARDIS. She closed the doors swiftly and hurried to the console. There she switched on the screen. She could see the energy wave licking futilely at the shell of the TARDIS.

It was over. The transmuter was destroyed, the Master dead.

Now what? What did she have left to her? She stared down at the console, lost and confused. She was free again, in all senses of the word. David’s death had severed her ties to Earth, and, now she had a TARDIS, everywhere was open to her.

So that's pretty clear. But are we sure that the Master isn't actually dead, and that he goes on to appear in The Deadly Assassin? Yes, yes we are:

At least now he had some explanations for it. Susan must have used the Master’s TARDIS to send the signal, distraught at the Master’s actions. All he needed to do now was to narrow down the point of transmission and then go to her rescue. Provided the TARDIS behaved herself and did as she was told. Long hours passed. The information started to come through, and as he read it, the Eighth Doctor paused.

Tersurus. . .

And then the track of an unshielded TARDIS, which then reshielded itself and left the dismal planet. . .

His fingers hovered over the controls, and didn’t descend.

Tersurus. . .

He aborted the sequence, with a mixture of relief and reluctance. Of course. . . He already knew that the Master had hidden on Tersurus when his final regeneration had been used up. Some devastating force had ravaged his body and left him a crippled wreck.

But his TARDIS had left the world.

That could only mean that Susan had been the one to trigger the Master’s grotesque change. And that she had taken his TARDIS and gone on alone. There was no need for him to go to her aid, then. She had acted swiftly and certainly, and solved the last remaining problem.

She had her freedom back.

And finally, just in case we didn't understand what just happened, Peel gives us an epilogue which ties the mangled Master to Goth. In otherwords, we get a Deadly Assassin prologue:

Goth glared distastefully around the bleak landscape of Tersurus. He clutched his staser and went in search of the spot where the trace had been registered. It had vanished a short while ago, he had been informed. That probably meant the renegade was gone, but he still had to check. At least it gave him something to do.

He caught sight of a slight movement in a nest of rocks. It looked as if some terrible force had twisted and melted the rocks recently. But what had moved? He walked forward cautiously, the staser at the ready. Then he stopped, appalled. There was some sort of living creature there, but horrendously mutilated. The skin was burnt and blackened, parts of the skeleton exposed. The face was blistered and warped, the eyes large and studying him unblinkingly. Goth shied back in revulsion as he realised that this thing was somehow alive, despite the horrendous damage it had suffered, and the pain it must be going through. Was this the renegade? Perhaps he should kill it, to put it out of its misery. . .

‘Are you. . . are you in pain?’ he asked the creature.

‘Pain,’ it agreed, a rasping, dying voice. ‘Can’t remember. . . everything.’ It looked up at him, and it seemed to gather itself. ‘I need. . . newness. And you need. . . power.’

‘What?’ Goth stared at the creature, repelled and confused. How could it know what he was desiring.

‘I can help you,’ the thing promised. ‘I can get you the power you desire. And you can help me get what I need.’

‘You need death,’ Goth said with revulsion.

‘No,’ the creature whispered. ‘I need life. And you will help me to get it. We can help one another. . . ’ It managed to sit up, grinning like a skull. ‘Do you agree?’

Goth stared at it. How could a burnt, dying thing like this possibly help him? And yet. . . If it was a renegade, it might have some skills that could prove useful And if it needed him, then it meant that he could control it.

‘Yes,’ he said softly. ‘Yes, I think I do. . . ’

So, the guy we're calling the "Tersurus Master" is explicitly the remains of the Delgado Master, meaning that this whole article should be a part of the Delgado Master article and not a page of its own.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 04:48:52 Fri 29 Jul 2011 

I completely agree that this should be merged. Eventually, I think Ainley could be merged in as well, but if were going to do it in stages, that's fine.--Skittles the hog - talk 09:44, July 29, 2011 (UTC)

This is really confusing. :/ 82.34.57.38 10:29, July 29, 2011 (UTC)

In a nutshell, they're the same person (Delgado and, well, dying Delgado).--Skittles the hog - talk 10:32, July 29, 2011 (UTC)