Martyn Townsend

Martyn Townsend
Main aliases:	The Pale Man
Species:	Human
Affiliated with:	Tobias Vaughn, C19, SenéNet
Place of origin:	Earth
First appearance:	Who Killed Kennedy
Appearances:	PROSE: The Scales of Injustice PROSE: Business Unusual

The Pale Man was a C19 operative who had been modified with Cyberman technology.

Biography

Prior to joining C19, he worked for International Electromatix, where he lost his arm in an unspecified accident. He was promised a prosthetic replacement by Tobias Vaughn, but the actual procedure, a partial cyberconversion, replaced all his limbs and his internal organs, as well as heightening his strength and senses dramatically (with the exception of taste, which was removed). (PROSE: The Scales of Injustice)

After James Gore was pushed out as the head of the Vault, the Pale Man was sent in to replace him by Tobias Vaughn. (PROSE: Night of the Intelligence)

He functioned as the liaison between the side of C19's official operations (such as liaising with UNIT and running the Glasshouse) and its "darker" side. He also was the point of contact for operatives outside of C19. Unknown to his subordinates, however, he actually received orders from Tobias Vaughn, presumed by most to be dead. (PROSE: The Scales of Injustice)

In the December of 1969, he personally telephoned the journalist James Stevens to advise him against investigating C19 further, though it was the Master's agenda within the organisation that was more at risk and not his own. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy)

In the early 1970s, he killed Grant Traynor with the Stalker when Traynor threatened to expose the secrets within C19. Later, he sent a blond man to assassinate the Third Doctor, but this failed when the Doctor was taken to the Silurian shelter on the island of L'Ithe. When the Doctor was found and brought to the Vault, the Pale Man revealed he intended to use Silurian DNA to create a race of super soldiers to take over Earth, but was stopped when UNIT troops infiltrated the Vault. He escaped being captured. (PROSE: The Scales of Injustice)

Though the Pale Man no longer controlled the Vault, he continued building up a collection of alien artefacts. When his cybernetic body began to deteriorate, he became the managing director of SenéNet to help Ingrid Krafchin achieve her goals, in return for which she promised to transfer his mind to an Auton's body.

The Pale Man later manipulated one of the UNIT soldiers who survived the Axos invasion to capture the Brigadier, also revealing his real name to be Martyn Townsend. He attempted to complete the mind transfer using psychic energy from his captive Trey Korte, unaware that the Nestene Consciousness would actually use the energy to enter SenéNet's polymer cables around the world. However, the transfer attempt was stopped by the Sixth Doctor, and Townsend was seemingly killed in the explosion that destroyed SenéNet's headquarters. (PROSE: Business Unusual)

Appearance

He was pale, with a scar down the left side of his face, and hid the fact that his eyes had been replaced with microfilament discs behind silver-rimmed sunglasses. He invariably wore a light grey suit.

Due to his partial cyberconversion, he was approximately ten times stronger than a normal human. He was also superhumanly fast. As a byproduct of his conversion, he lacked a sense of taste. He had stopped ageing, but still required food and drink to keep his head and facial skin looking healthy. (PROSE: The Scales of Injustice)

Personality

The Pale Man spoke with a lisp. He was cold and ruthless, never hesitating to kill in order to accomplish his goals. Despite telling Tobias Vaughn that he "didn't have a sense of humour", the Pale Man sometimes contradicted this, occasionally displaying a morbid sense of humour, and deriving some amusement from killing Grant Traynor with the Stalker and torturing Sir Marmaduke Harrington Smythe. (PROSE: The Scales of Injustice)