Goth
- You may wish to consult
Goth (disambiguation)for other, similarly-named pages.
Gothaparduskerialldrapolatkh (or Goth for short) was a Time Lord politician and occasional agent of the Celestial Intervention Agency. As Lord Chancellor, he became a pawn of the Decayed Master.
Biography
Early life
Goth's full name was Gothaparduskerialldrapolatkh, (PROSE: War Crimes [+]Loading...["War Crimes (short story)"]) evidencing that he was a part of House Duskeriall. He was "constructed" rather than born, (PROSE: The Cactus and the Corpse [+]Loading...["The Cactus and the Corpse (short story)"]) like most Time Lords, who were created through looms in that era of Gallifreyan history due to the Pythia's Curse. (PROSE: Lungbarrow [+]Loading...["Lungbarrow (novel)"]) He was a member of the Prydonian Chapter, (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords [+]Loading...["A Brief History of Time Lords (novel)"]) and had a brother named Rath, who went on to sit on the High Council. (PROSE: Blood Harvest [+]Loading...["Blood Harvest (novel)"])
Like all Time Lords, Goth was taken from his family at the age of eight for the selection process in the Drylands. Staring into the Untempered Schism as part of the traditional Time Lord initiation rite, Goth was driven mad by what he saw in the Schism. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords [+]Loading...["A Brief History of Time Lords (novel)"]) According to the Bookwyrm, he desired the Presidency all his life, for no deeper reason than an all-consuming thirst for power. (PROSE: The Cactus and the Corpse [+]Loading...["The Cactus and the Corpse (short story)"])
Involvement in the Second Doctor's trial
- Main article: First Time Lord (The War Games)
By a number of sources, Goth was the same individual as the similar-looking Time Lord who presided over the court which put the Second Doctor on trial following the War Games affair, (PROSE: Future Imperfect [+]Loading...["Future Imperfect (short story)"], The Legacy of Gallifrey [+]Loading...["The Legacy of Gallifrey (short story)"]) although other accounts suggested the leader of the Court had instead been the President of the High Council. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion [+]Loading...["Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion (novelisation)"], The Three Doctors [+]Loading...["The Three Doctors (novelisation)"], World Game [+]Loading...["World Game (novel)"]) These miscellaneous accounts, however, differed on the details of how and why Goth purportedly came to fill this role.
As a high-ranking C.I.A. agent
By one of these accounts, Goth was a member of the Celestial Intervention Agency. While on Gallifrey, the First Doctor witnessed Goth give a C.I.A. sentencing; he was already in the incarnation the Doctor would encounter subsequently, which was his thirteenth. Later, on behalf of the CIA, Goth masqueraded as the fictional character Lemuel Gulliver in the Land of Fiction to monitor the Second Doctor and get his help in the First Omega Crisis. (PROSE: Future Imperfect [+]Loading...["Future Imperfect (short story)"])
As one of the Three
Another account indicated that as recorded in the Scrolls of Gallifrey, Goth was an ordinary Prydonian Councillor in the High Council of Pandad IV at the time of the trial. Pandad would partner Goth with fellow Councillor Adelphi and the Chancellor Socra to form a Tribunal known as "the Three". (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey [+]Loading...["The Legacy of Gallifrey (short story)"]) Goth continued to meet with the Three in secret at a vast desolate space station which was their base. With them, Goth was involved in the decision of sending the Third Doctor to Peladon. (PROSE: Legacy [+]Loading...["Legacy (novel)"])
According to the Scrolls, at the time of the trial, the position of Chancellor actually belonged to the Third Time Lord, Socra. According to that account, Goth was named Chancellor some time after the Third Doctor defeated Omega as a consequence of the Rani's giant mice having eaten preceding Chancellor Socra, on top of inducing the President's regeneration and also eating his cat. (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey [+]Loading...["The Legacy of Gallifrey (short story)"])
As High Chancellor
In contrast to the aforementioned account which suggested that Goth was not yet High Chancellor when he took part in the trial, (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey [+]Loading...["The Legacy of Gallifrey (short story)"]) one account, without naming him, claimed that the leader of the Doctor's trial was "the High Chancellor" by then. (PROSE: Save Yourself [+]Loading...["Save Yourself (short story)"])
As a Tribune
Some accounts suggested that Goth was involved in the Time Lords' deliberations on what to do with the War Lord's captured, mentally-programmed soldiers in the aftermath of the trial, holding the rank of Tribune, (PROSE: War Crimes [+]Loading...["War Crimes (short story)"]) a "lowly" position. An account which acknowledged this event suggested that the resemblance of the "Tribune from House Duskeriall" to his superior was a manifestation of the Tribune's lifelong desire for the job and the power the came with it; it caused much of an embarrassment to him but he could no longer change it by this point. (PROSE: The Cactus and the Corpse [+]Loading...["The Cactus and the Corpse (short story)"])
Tribune Gothaparduskerialldrapolatkh argued that some of the time-displaced specimens should simply be destroyed rather than returned to their own time; however, he was overruled. This decision wound up causing the death of Coloth when he was gruesomely murdered by Ossu, one of the returned soldiers, whose head was still full of mental programming urging him to kill. (PROSE: War Crimes [+]Loading...["War Crimes (short story)"]) This was a deviation from established history; when it became known, the Tribune's dissent began to look prescient, even though it had actually only been a manifestation of his "natural bloodlust" and he had not anticipated the alteration to history at all. Because he now seemed uncommonly intelligent, he quickly rose through the ranks in subsequent years, leading directly to his eventual promotion to Altissimus Cancellarius. (PROSE: The Cactus and the Corpse [+]Loading...["The Cactus and the Corpse (short story)"])
Deal with the Master
Travelling to the planet Tersurus, Chancellor Goth found the Decayed Master, who was now at the end of his regeneration cycle and physically little more than a corpse. (PROSE: Legacy of the Daleks [+]Loading...["Legacy of the Daleks (novel)"], AUDIO: The Two Masters [+]Loading...["The Two Masters (audio story)"]) According to one account, Goth had been alerted by the temporal trace of the Master's first TARDIS, which Susan Foreman had briefly allowed to become detectable to Gallifrey again so that the previous owner would be found. (PROSE: Legacy of the Daleks [+]Loading...["Legacy of the Daleks (novel)"]) By another account, the Chancellor picked up a signal sent to Gallifrey by a future incarnation of the Master who had deliberately attacked his younger self to an extent that the Cult of the Heretic would believe him dead. (AUDIO: The Two Masters [+]Loading...["The Two Masters (audio story)"]) In any case, Goth, having been told by the Lord President that he did not intend to name him as his successor, the Chancellor instead entered into an uneasy alliance with the Master, who promised him the presidency in exchange for helping to kill the Fourth Doctor. (TV: The Deadly Assassin [+]Loading...["The Deadly Assassin (TV story)"])
After learning the Master's plan, Goth begged him to alter it so as to make another Time Lord than the Doctor the scapegoat of the assassination, as he believed that the Doctor would find some way to derail the scheme even though it seemed foolproof in every other respect. However, the Master would not listen and the plan moved forward with the Doctor involved. (PROSE: The Secret Diary of the Master [+]Loading...["The Secret Diary of the Master (short story)"]) Goth subsequently assassinated the President before he could announce his successor, setting up the Doctor as an unwitting decoy assassin. The result should have been an unopposed election for the office. However, the Doctor announced his own candidacy to buy himself time to investigate.
Inside the Matrix, Goth fought the Doctor, initially using his knowledge of the Matrix's workings to his advantage. The Doctor soon gained the upper hand, however, and the infuriated Master tried to overload the Matrix by sending a massive energy spike through Goth's brain. The Doctor escaped from the Matrix in time, but the spike had fatally damaged Goth's brain. The Doctor found Goth and the seemingly dead (but actually self-sedated) Master not long after. The dying Chancellor told the Doctor how he and the Master had come to be allies, and why he wanted to kill the previous President.
Goth died shortly afterwards, and it was decided by Borusa to cover up the actual truth of his death. He decided on telling the population that "Chancellor Goth tracked [the Master] down and killed him, unfortunately perishing himself in the exchange of fire". (TV: The Deadly Assassin [+]Loading...["The Deadly Assassin (TV story)"])
Appearance
Goth was tall and handsome and looked especially impressive when in his ceremonial Prydonian robes. He had an impassive face that did not betray his thoughts or feelings; this face, the last he would bear before his death, (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Deadly Assassin [+]Loading...["Doctor Who and the Deadly Assassin (novelisation)"]) was, according to one account, subconsciously copied from his superior, the "Supreme Being", (PROSE: The Cactus and the Corpse [+]Loading...["The Cactus and the Corpse (short story)"]) otherwise known as the First Time Lord or President; (TV: The War Games [+]Loading...["The War Games (TV story)"], PROSE: Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion [+]Loading...["Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion (novelisation)"]) indeed, Goth as he appeared when he assassinated the President — by then in a different incarnation — bore a clear resemblance to (TV: The Deadly Assassin [+]Loading...["The Deadly Assassin (TV story)"]) the First Time Lord who presided over the Second Doctor's trial. (TV: The War Games [+]Loading...["The War Games (TV story)"])
Behind the scenes
- Prior to portraying the arch, treacherous Chancellor Goth in The Deadly Assassin [+]Loading...["The Deadly Assassin (TV story)"], Bernard Horsfall had played both Lemuel Gulliver in The Mind Robber [+]Loading...["The Mind Robber (TV story)","The Mind Robber"] and an unnamed Time Lord who presided over the Second Doctor's trial in The War Games. Future Imperfect [+]Loading...["Future Imperfect (short story)"] stated both these individuals to have been Goth himself, in the former case wearing a disguise as part of his CIA work. The Legacy of Gallifrey [+]Loading...["The Legacy of Gallifrey (short story)"] concurred on the Time Lord in The War Games having been Goth, though it made no mention of his having been a CIA agent; it is instead Socra, another member of the tribunal of three, who is the CIA connection as far as 1985 Gary Russell was concerned. Other sources have given different identities for the War Games Time Lord. In contrast, The Cactus and the Corpse [+]Loading...["The Cactus and the Corpse (short story)"], which referenced Goth indirectly via his role as Tribune during the War Chief incident as revealed in War Crimes [+]Loading...["War Crimes (short story)"], implied that he and the First Time Lord were indeed distinct beings, but Goth had regenerated into a face similar to his superior's out of jealously.
- According to a scene cut from The Dark Path [+]Loading...["The Dark Path (novel)"], and later published in the charity anthology Perfect Timing, Goth was the otherwise-unidentified Time Lord "politician" who sent Ailla to spy on Koschei, a betrayal which contributed to his turning renegade.
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