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Talk:Magnus

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Magnus is supposed to be The Master!

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/rec.arts.drwho/zR5mKB0Lqpg

Gary Russell

> >Jefferson Eng wrote: > >> > >> Great, now my enjoyment of the book has been ruined thanks to even yet > >> another AOL user...... > >> > >> You know who you are. > >> > > > >I agree with you in principal, but this spoiler was pretty > >insignificant, > >particularly since you pick up on that particular piece of information > >the instant that the character in question appears in the book. > > > >Everything else in the book relating to that character comes from an > >already-televised story. It isn't quite like the _Autumn Mist_ spoiler, > >which ruins one of the most effectinve scenes in the book and tips > >you off to the true nature of the antagonists far too early. > > > >deX! > > > > Very true. I was going to make a post (still will eventunately) about some of > the names in the Deca. The thought of spoiler space came to mind but then I > thought - what is it spoiling? - nothing really. > > I've seen the name Magnus used before (other than Magnus Greel from "Talons > of Weing Chang") He was a timelord in another story. Perhaps a novel. Anyone > remember which one?


He was in a strip I commissioned from Warwick Gray for the Time Lord special I did at Marvel. In Wick's original, he was called Magus and meant to be the Master but I cocked it up and called him Magnus. When Dave McIntee created Koschei, it struck me on re-reading Wick's strip that the character could just as easily, if not better, be the War Chief. Which he is in DL.

gee

So Mag(n)us is The Master. Russell retconned him to be The War Chief. However, that sequence in Divided Loyalties is unquestionably a dream. One could also argue(as many have), that Divided Loyalties is set in a non-existent gap between The Visitation and Black Orchid, that it contradicts both The Celestial Toymaker and The Nightmare Fair. that The Doctor had never heard the name Koschei before The Dark Path, or that Divided Loyalties claims that The Monk left Gallifrey BEFORE The Doctor. Clearly the Magnus here needs to be a redirect to The Master, as well as the Flashback article corrected. 41.133.0.18talk to me 16:31, November 1, 2012 (UTC)

Ah... I think I understand... Somewhat... But this will need discussion before change is done. The comic definitely seems like it was written for the Master, but the character looks like the War Chief. Greatly. And sense he retconned the character later into the War Chief, we can't change him to the Master now... Was he suggesting that the Master and the War Chief were the same person? At most, I think this needs a behind the scenes notice, nothing more. OS25 (talk to me, baby.) 19:03, November 1, 2012 (UTC)

But the point is that when Warwick "Scott" Gray wrote Flashback(comic) the two major characters were The Doctor(Thete) and The Master(Magnus). If someone can find an interview with Gray or a review of the comic story Flashback, it will identify that Time Lord as an early incarnation of The Master. Other sites refer to it as a "Master origin" story. Whatever Russell later did or didn't do is irrelevant. The point is that Gray wrote that character as The Master, everyone who read it identified it as The Master. and other wikis/websites etc. describe it as a Doctor/Master story.Of course, Divided Loyalties doesn't specifically state that "Deca member x grew up to be the name Time Lord known as y". The rationale that most people use is that "Koschei" was identified as The Master in The Dark Path, and Magnus talks about The War Lords. However, again a)Divided Loyalties could be used as a game of "Spot The Continuity Error" for the obsessive fan and, more importantly, b)the entire Deca sequence is a dream. We already know that other elements in the dream are incorrect, eg. Mortimus leaving Gallifrey before The Doctor/The Doctor knowing the name "Koschei" here when he doesn't even hear it until The Dark Path etc. We can thus surmise that this entire dream sequence contains "factual errors" as nobody's dreams are 100 per cent accurate representations of true events. Everyone's dreams get people/places/times muddled up. Especially if The Celestial Toymaker is involved! Thus, the only TRUE representation of Magnus is in Flashback(comic), and its author unambiguously stated that it's The Master. 41.133.0.18talk to me 12:19, November 2, 2012 (UTC)

Also interesting that you made the The War Chief=The Master deduction there. Going by real-world interviews with Malcolm Hulke(writer of The War Games, Colony in Space, The Sea Devils and Frontier in Space among many others) and Robert Holmes(writer of Terror of the Autons, The Deadly Assassin, The Ultimate Foe among many many others), the implications are very very strong that it's the same guy. The Target Books novelisations of, in particular, The War Games, Terror of the Autons and Doctor Who and the The Doomsday Weapon make that case seem a no-brainer. And the Autons novelisation was by none other than Terrance Dicks, who also edited the other books. Certainly, the only evidence AGAINST them being different incarnations of the same Time Lord is...Divided Loyalties! Which, as we illustrated, is only in a hopelessly jumbled-up Toymaker-induced dream sequence, where various "facts" are known beyond any doubt to be wrong. Thus there is nothing that really prevents The War Chief and The Master being the same Time Lord. Only the Russell-written factually-impaired Toymaker-induced dream sequence in a novel that exists in a "narrative gap" that never existed in the first place! 41.133.0.18talk to me 12:26, November 2, 2012 (UTC)

You may be able to make a case their. First off I would suggest you make an account so people will take you more seriously and so you can get easy updates. Next I would suggest you find sources in the novelisations to prove your point. Then I suggest you make a forum discussion on the subject. I think you have a good point and I intend to back you un on this subject. Yes, I completely agree with you. Why don't we work together to get this done? You make an account and get back to me and I'll look for novelisation info on the subject. OS25 (talk to me, baby.) 16:19, November 2, 2012 (UTC)

Beginnings

Malcolm Hulke(co-writer of War Games, sole writer of Colony in Space, The Sea Devils, and Frontier in Space)

Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon (Colony in Space) (both by Malcolm Hulke, writer of The War Games TV Story) (long one, Chapter 1):

1 A Missing Secret The young Time Lord sat at the side of the old Keeper of the Time Lords’ Files at the control console. The old Keeper of the Files played his spindly fingers across the console’s warmth-buttons: by touching the right combination of buttons he could project onto the screen before them any of the Time Lords’ most secret files and records. ‘These are the working-papers for the very first TARDIS,’ the old Keeper said. He touched some warmthbuttons and the picture of a small square box showed on the screen. ‘I often like to look at that, and to remember back into time.’ ‘Time has no meaning for us,’ said the young Time Lord. ‘It is neither forwards nor backwards.’ ‘For us as a species, no,’ said the old Keeper. ‘But for us as individuals there is a beginning, and, I regret, an end.’ He spoke with feeling. He was now well over 2,000 years old. Soon this young Time Lord, a mere 573 years of age, would become the new Keeper of the Files. The young Time Lord quickly changed the subject. ‘The first TARDIS was very small,’ he said. ‘On the outside, yes,’ said the old Keeper. ‘Inside it could carry up to three persons, four with a squeeze. Later we built much bigger ones. There have been two stolen, you know.’ The young Time Lord didn’t know. ‘By our enemies?’ he asked. ‘No. By Time Lords. They both became bored with this place. It was too peaceful for them, not enough happening.’ The old Keeper smiled to himself, as though remembering with some glee all the fuss when two TARDISes were stolen. ‘One of them nowadays calls himself “the Doctor”. The other says he is “the Master”. The TARDIS stolen by the Doctor has a serious defect. Two defects, to be correct.’ ‘Then how was he able to get away with it?’ ‘Oh, it flew all right,’ said the old Keeper. ‘It could fly through Time and Space, through Matter and anti-Matter. But he can’t direct it.’ ‘So he’s lost in Time and Space?’ asked the young Time Lord. ‘Hardly.’ The old Keeper was silent for a moment, and seemed almost about to drop off to sleep. The young Time Lord had become used to this and waited patiently. Suddenly the old Keeper’s failing energies returned. ‘Still, even if he cannot control it, others sometimes can.’ ‘I don’t understand,’ said the young Time Lord, ‘what others? Who?’ ‘Who? No, Who can’t control it... not always.’ The old Keeper dropped his voice, and there was a faint smile on his 2,000-years-old lips. ‘But others sometimes can.’ Obviously the question was not going to be answered. The young Time Lord hoped that eventually, perhaps in another thousand years, he would learn everything about the files and their secrets. For the time being though he had to be content with what the old Keeper cared to tell him. ‘The other defect,’ said the old Keeper, ‘was that that particular TARDIS had lost its chameleon-like quality. It was in for repairs, you see—that’s how the Doctor got his hands on it.’ ‘I don’t understand about the chameleon quality,’ said the young Time Lord, wishing he had taken over the job of the Files a few hundred years ago when the present Keeper was more lucid and awake and better able to explain things. ‘It’s a term we borrowed from a small, low-grade species of life on the planet Earth,’ said the old Keeper, as though addressing a classroom. ‘If a chameleon stands on the branch of a tree, it turns brown like the bark; but if it stands on a leaf, it turns green.’ ‘You mean TARDISes can change colour?’ ‘When they are working properly,’ said the old Keeper, ‘they change colour, shape, everything. From the beginning it was decided that a TARDIS must always look like something at home in its immediate background. You’ve never travelled, have you?’ ‘No, not yet.’ The young Time Lord was a little ashamed to admit it. ‘Pity. It broadens the mind.’ The old Keeper seemed to drop off to sleep again for a moment, then he suddenly woke up with a start. ‘I had to travel once. There were tens of thousands of humans from the planet Earth, stranded on another planet where they thought they were re-fighting all the wars of Earth’s terrible history. The Doctor’—even if he cannot control it, others sometimes can.’ ‘I don’t understand,’ said the young Time Lord, ‘what others? Who?’ ‘Who? No, Who can’t control it... not always.’ The old Keeper dropped his voice, and there was a faint smile on his 2,000-years-old lips. ‘But others sometimes can.’ Obviously the question was not going to be answered. The young Time Lord hoped that eventually, perhaps in another thousand years, he would learn everything about the files and their secrets. For the time being though he had to be content with what the old Keeper cared to tell him. ‘The other defect,’ said the old Keeper, ‘was that that particular TARDIS had lost its chameleon-like quality. It was in for repairs, you see—that’s how the Doctor got his hands on it.’ ‘I don’t understand about the chameleon quality,’ said the young Time Lord, wishing he had taken over the job of the Files a few hundred years ago when the present Keeper was more lucid and awake and better able to explain things. ‘It’s a term we borrowed from a small, low-grade species of life on the planet Earth,’ said the old Keeper, as though addressing a classroom. ‘If a chameleon stands on the branch of a tree, it turns brown like the bark; but if it stands on a leaf, it turns green.’ ‘You mean TARDISes can change colour?’ ‘When they are working properly,’ said the old Keeper, ‘they change colour, shape, everything. From the beginning it was decided that a TARDIS must always look like something at home in its immediate background. You’ve never travelled, have you?’ ‘No, not yet.’ The young Time Lord was a little ashamed to admit it. ‘Pity. It broadens the mind.’ The old Keeper seemed to drop off to sleep again for a moment, then he suddenly woke up with a start. ‘I had to travel once. There were tens of thousands of humans from the planet Earth, stranded on another planet where they thought they were re-fighting all the wars of Earth’s terrible history. The Doctor’—he interrupted himself—‘l told you about him, didn’t I?’ ‘Yes,’ said the young Time Lord, now used to the old Keeper forgetting what he had already said. ‘You mentioned the Doctor and the Master.’ ‘No, it wasn’t the Master,’ said the old Keeper in his confused way. ‘The Master never does anything good for anyone. He’s thoroughly evil. Now what was I saying?’ The Young Time Lord reminded him. ‘Humans on a planet refighting the wars of Earth’s history.’ ‘Oh, yes. Well, the Doctor had done the best he could to stop it all. But in the end we had to step in and get all those poor soldiers back to Earth, and to all the right times in Earth’s history.’ ‘And is that when you travelled?’ ‘That’s right,’ said the old Keeper, his eyes bright now with the memory of his one and only trip away from the planet of the Time Lords. ‘I and many others. When it landed, my TARDIS turned into a machine-gun post.’ ‘What’s that?’ The old Keeper glanced at the young Time Lord. ‘Oh, dear, you have a lot to learn.’ He seemed to forget the question, and went on: ‘Anyway, TARDISes are supposed to change colour and shape, but the one stolen by the Doctor stays all the time looking like a London police box.’ Before the young Time Lord could speak, the old Keeper added quickly ‘And don’t ask me what that is because I have no idea, not what they are for. Where were we?’ The young Time Lord indicated the small box on the screen. ‘The working-papers for the original TARDIS.’ ‘Then that’s enough of that,’ said the old Keeper, taking his finger from the ‘hold’ button. Instantly, the picture on the screen vanished. ‘It’s time we had a break now, don’t you think? I don’t want to overwork you.’ ‘We’ve only just started this session of tuition,’ said the young Time Lord. ‘But if you’re tired...’ The old Keeper sat up straight. ‘Not at all!’ He thrust a slender white hand into a pocket of his robe, fumbled about and brought out a scrap of paper. On it were mathematical symbols. ‘I made some notes here of things you ought to know about. Let me see...’ The young Time Lord watched as the old Keeper screwed up his watery eyes to read the symbols. ‘Ah, yes,’ said the old Keeper, ‘theDoomsday Weapon. You must know about the Doomsday Weapon.’ He put the scrap of paper back into his pocket, then spread both hands across the warmth-buttons. The young Time Lord asked, ‘I take it we have this weapon in safe keeping?’ ‘No,’ said the old Keeper. ‘It’s not necessary. It is hidden on a distant and remote planet, a hiding-place known only to us.’ He poised his fingers over a new combination of warmth-buttons. ‘Why is it called Doomsday?’ ‘Because,’ said the old Keeper, ‘that is its name. Anybody controlling that terrible weapon could bring instant doom to large sections of the Universe. It radiates anti-Matter at a million times the speed of light.’ He nodded his head at a button in the top left-hand corner of theconsole. ‘Could you put your finger over that button, please. It’s a safety measure, so that no one person with only two hands can activate the combination to produce the file on the Doomsday Weapon.’ The young Time Lord poised an index finger over the button. ‘Now lower your finger,’ said the old Keeper, ‘as I lower mine.’ The old Keeper lowered his fingers onto a pattern of buttons, and the young Time Lord brought his index finger down gently onto the one remote button. Then they looked up at the screen. Printing appeared and it read: ‘TOP SECRET. EXACT WHEREABOUTS OF THE DOOMSDAY WEAPON, AND INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE.’ ‘That’s just the title-page of the file,’ said the old Keeper. ‘Move your finger to the next button on the right’ The young Time Lord moved his index finger along to the adjacent button. Instantly, the printing disappeared and the screen went blank. ‘All right,’ said the old Keeper. ‘Now touch the button.’ The young Time Lord touched the button. One line of bold handwriting appeared on the screen from the first inside page of the secret file. It said: ‘Thank you for letting me know where to find the Doomsday Weapon. —The Master.’

Notes: a) Why in the first ever Target novelisation to feature The Master does the first chapter go into detail about the War Chief's plot in the War Games, unless the Master and the War Chief are the same? b) There have been two stolen, and They both became bored with this place. It was too peaceful for them, not enough happening.’ The old Keeper smiled to himself, as though remembering with some glee all the fuss when two TARDISes were stolen. ‘One of them nowadays calls himself “the Doctor”. The other says he is “the Master” Yes, two.

The War Games(The War Games, er right...) (Malcolm Hulke novel, Malcolm Hulke/Taerrance Dicks original tv serial)(from Chapter 9)

The War Chief took the Doctor into his private office just off the war room and told his bodyguards to leave. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘a traveller in a time-space machine. There is only one person you can be.’ ‘I had every right to leave,’ said the Doctor. ‘And to steal a TARDIS?’ The War Chief smiled. ‘Not that I am criticising you. I left our people too. We are two of a kind.’ ‘We most certainly are not!’ the Doctor protested. The War Chief shrugged. ‘Well, we were both Time Lords. Tell me, why did you decide to desert our kin?’ ‘I had reasons of my own. Rather different from yours, I imagine.’ ‘Probably they were. Why don’t you sit down?’

There is only one person The Doctor can be. The Doctor and The Master stole their TARDISes and left. If the War Chief had left later, then there are two people the Doctor could be.

Another quote(Chapter 6) The War Chief’s eyes came to rest on the Doctor. Zoe thought she detected a moment of mutual recognition between the Doctor and the War Chief, as though they had once known each other.

The Sea Devils(The Sea Devils)(both by Malcolm Hulke)(Chapter 2)

The Master stroked his beard thoughtfully. Then, slowly, he shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Doctor, it’s too much to ask.’ ‘But what use is your TARDIS to you while you’re in here?’ Jo asked: ‘It would be difficult for you to understand,’ said the Master, ‘but my TARDIS is my proudest possession.’ The Doctor laughed. ‘You don’t even own it! You stole it from the Time Lords!’ ‘As you stole yours!’ retorted the Master. ‘Now please, let’s not start to get all moral. I’m not going to render up my TARDIS to anyone

and

Jo said, ‘Did you really think the Master would tell you where his TARDIS is?’ ‘Not really,’ said the Doctor without turning. ‘He’s defeated, and knowledge of its location is the only thing he’s got to cling on to.’ ‘Then why,’ she asked, ‘did we come all the way down here?’ The Doctor was evasive. ‘I thought a trip to the seaside might do us both good.’ ‘You’re really sorry for him, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘You wanted to be sure he was being treated properly.’ ‘We used to be great friends,’ said the Doctor. ‘Hundreds of years ago, when we were both young Time Lords, we were inseparable. After all, we had a lot in common.’ ‘What, for instance?’ He turned to her. ‘You know the Golden Rule of the Time Lords—just to sit and watch, but never actually do anything? He and I are different. We wanted to get out into the Universe, to meet other species, to explore.’ ‘One for good and the other for evil?’ said Jo. ‘Yes, you could say that.’

And here's an extract from an interview. Unsure of original date, but it's republished in Doctor Who Magazine issue 91(page 28)

There was a peculiar relationship between the Master and the Doctor; one felt that the Master wouldn't really have liked to have eliminated the Doctor...you see the Doctor was the only person like him, at the time, in the whole universe, a renegade Time Lord and in a gunny sort of way they were partners in crime."

(Does the scene in the TV of Frontier in Space where the Doctor tells Jo about the War Games, and the eavesdropping Master looks like he knows it count?)

Hulke also apparently told a fanzine in the 70's that The War Chief and The master are different incarnations of the same Time lord. Can anyone find it?

Terrance Dicks(co-writer War Games, Script Editor from partway through Season 6 to partway through Season 11. Dicks was also the Editor of all the Target books mentioned here, and would have removed major continuity points he disagreed with)

Terror of the Autons(Terror of the Autons)(book by Terrance Dicks, original TV serial by Robert Holmes)(*the story that introduces the Master, or is it?)(Chapter 2)

He spun round and saw a distinguished-looking elderly gentleman in the full rigout of a city businessman, dark suit, rolled umbrella and bowler hat. The peculiar thing was that the stranger was nonchalantly standing in thin air, hundreds of feet above the ground. The Doctor showed no particular surprise at this. Nor did the new arrival as he became aware of it. ‘Dear me, my co-ordinates must have slipped a bit.’ He blurred, shimmered out of existence and reappeared, standing next to the Doctor on the little platform. The Doctor looked at him grimly. He’d recognised him at once, of course. One of the High Council of the Time Lords. Last time they had met was at the Doctor’s trial. After many years of happily wandering around the universe in his ‘borrowed’ TARDIS, the Doctor had been captured at last by his own people, and condemned to exile on the planet Earth for an indefinite period. But why had a Time Lord materialised himself here now? To give himself time to recover the Doctor said, ‘May I say you look quite ridiculous in those clothes?’ The Time Lord gave a complacent smile. ‘Merely merging with the natives, old chap. We Time Lords don’t care to be conspicuous.’ He shot a quick glance at the Doctor’s usual flamboyant outfit of narrow trousers, smoking jacket, frilled shirt and swirling cloak. ‘Most of us, that is,’ he added pointedly. A hope flashed into the Doctor’s mind. ‘You’ve come to tell me the exile is over...’ The Time Lord shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not, Doctor. As a matter of fact, I’ve come to bring you a warning, An old friend of yours has arrived on Earth.’ ‘One of our people? Who is it?’ The Time Lord pronounced a string of mellifluous syllables—one of the strange Time Lord names that are never disclosed to outsiders. Then he added, ‘These days he calls himself the Master.’ The Doctor was silent for a moment. The Master was a rogue Time Lord. So too was the Doctor, in a way. But all his interventions in the course of history were on the side of good. The Master intervened only to cause death and suffering, usually in the pursuit of some scheme to seize power for himself. More than that, he seemed to delight in chaos and destruction for its own sake, and liked nothing more than to make a bad situation worse, Already he had been behind several Interplanetary Wars, always disappearing from the scene before he could be brought to justice. If ever he were caught, his fate would I be far worse than the Doctor’s exile. Once captured by the Time Lords, the Master’s life-stream would be thrown into reverse. Not only would he no longer exist, he would never have existed. It was the severest punishment in the Time Lords’ power. The Doctor knew that the Master’s presence on earth made matters far worse than he had feared. ‘You’re sure he’s here?’ he asked. The Time Lord nodded gravely. ‘We tracked him on the Monitor. Then there was some kind of alien interference and we lost contact.’ ‘Is his TARDIS still working?’ ‘I’m afraid so. He got away before it could be deenergised.’ ‘Then he was luckier than I,’ said the Doctor sadly. He had never really got used to his exile. ‘Don’t be bitter, Doctor. Your punishment was comparatively light.’ The Doctor rounded on him angrily. ‘Whatever I’ve done, I too am still a Time Lord. Do you know what! it’s like to be restricted to one tiny planet, one limited era of time?’ The Time Lord shrugged. ‘It is your favourite planet after all!’ For moment the Doctor gazed up at the summer sky without speaking. Then he said, ‘Why did you take the trouble to warn me?’ ‘The Master knows you’re on this planet, Doctor. You have interfered with his evil schemes in the past, and he has sworn your destruction. The Council felt you should be warned of your danger.’ The Doctor looked at him suspiciously. ‘There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?’ The Time Lord paused, choosing his words carefully. ‘You and the Master will inevitably come into conffict. If in the proven he should be captured or destroyed...’ ‘I see. You want me to do your dirty work for you?’ The Time Lord twirled his umbrella. ‘Your sentence will come up for review one day, Doctor. Any service you have rendered the Council will be—considered.’ The Doctor knew he was trapped, but perversely refused to admit it. ‘I’m not going to worry about a renegade like the Master. The fellow’s an unimaginative plodder.’ The Time Lord chuckled. ‘You graduated at the same time, did you not? I believe his degree in Cosmic Science was in a higher category than yours?’ ‘I was a late developer,’ said the Doctor defensively. ‘Besides,’ the Time Lord went on, ‘would you call that little surprise unimaginative?’ He pointed towards the door of the control cabin. The Doctor peered through the crack. At first he saw only a deserted control room. Then he noticed an elaborate arrangement of thin twine leading from the inside handle of the door to a small metal canister perched precariously on the edge of a tall computer cabinet. The Doctor peered at the canister. ‘It’s a Volataliser,’ he said incredulously. ‘The Xanthoids use them for mining operations. If that thing falls—’ The Time Lord nodded. ‘It will destroy this tower, the Research Centre and about one square mile of the surrounding countryside. You will observe, Doctor, that the door opens outwards. The tension on the twine is such that the slighest touch on the door will cause the cylinder to fall. An amusing idea.’ The Doctor looked at him grimly. ‘Then you’d better think up some witty way of dealing with it.’ ‘I’m sorry, Doctor,’ said the Time Lord. He shimmered and vanished, leaving a faint ‘good luck’ floating on the air. The Doctor turned back to the door and considered the problem. He could try to untie the twine at the doorhandle end. But the door was open the merest crack. He’d never get his fingers through. He could climb on top of the cabin and get through the skylight—but the vibration he would cause might make the cylinder roll off. No, there was only one thing for it. The Doctor paused for a moment, calculating tension, angle velocities, and the effects of gravity on the estimated weight of the cylinder. He took a pace back, braced a foot against the guard rail, and gripped the door handle. Then he yanked the door open and catapaulted himself head first into the cabin.

Notes: a)the only time anyone has ever had their "life stream thrown into reverse" was the War Games. The Master(a new alias) escapes because of alien interference. But when was the only time prior to Season 8 when aliens interfered with the Time Lords and Gallifrey? Why is the Doctor suprised to find out that the Master had a working TARDIS? The phrasing "then he was luckier than I" suggests they were at the same place at the same time when the Doctor was caught by the Time Lords. And of course, why don't the Time Lords just "reverse the Master's life stream" now they know exactly where he is? What is the "dirty work" the Doctor speaks of? Makes no sense...unless the Time Lords have already formally pronounced the Master "killed", only for him to escape to their surprise(because they were unaware he had a working TARDIS).


(Today Dicks tells us how he created The Master, but can anyone find anything from the time stating that? Of course they can't.)


Robert Holmes(writer of more Doctor Who than anyone else. Ever. Also Script Editor from partway through Season 11 to partway through Season 15. He wrote episode 1 of The Ultimate Foe and all of The Deadly Assassin. But more importantly he wrote Terror of the Autons)

Looking for interviews

a)Holmes states that the Deadly Assassin was a sequel to the War Games

b)Holmes gives a list of ALL the renegade Time Lords to appear on the show up to that point...The Doctor, The Meddling Monk, The Master, Omega, Morbius.

c)(not interview) apparently one book states that Dicks' original idea for the Master was a new character. Holmes was brought in to write the script, but it underran and was lousy. Holmes suggested he rewrite it where the Master was the returning vengeful War Chief. Dicks loved the idea, and the rest is history.


......Why Timewyrm:Exodus doesn't disprove any of the above......

The Second Doctor was "about 400, 450 years old" in Tomb of the Cybermen. The gap from Tomb of the Cybermen to the War games was at most a couple of years, probably less. In Time and the Rani the Seventh Doctor was 953 years old. The gap from Time and the Rani to Timewyrm:Exodus is at least a few years. So from the Doctor's perspective it's more than 500 years. From the War Chief's perspective, though, he went straight from the "aliens' planet" to 20th century Germany. Thus the two Time Lords are meeting out of sequence. This concept has been "canonised" by the tv show where the Eleventh Doctor and River Song aka Mels aka Melody Pond meet out of sequence. In fact River has multiple names, each of which is correct. And I think the Eighth Doctor met the Delgado Master in a novel as well.

Anyway, the point here is that the War Chief has remaining regenerations, but the events of Episode 9 of the War Games resulted in a failed regeneration, where he is deformed and thus looking for vengeance. In fact the War Chief in Timewyrm:Exodus behaves remarkably like The Master. However the War Chief's army in killed in the blast near the end of the novel(Chapter 14? need to find the book) The last mention of the character himself is:

Ace saw, just for a second, a young man, tall, dark, and satanically handsome, reaching up to her... The door closed, the TARDIS dematerialized, and they were gone.

So, the blast triggers a regeneration. Dicks himself shows that Time lords can meet out of sequence. the War Chief has regenerated. He still wants vengeance against the Doctor. The Doctor has interfered with his evil scheme once again. And then? "Tall, dark and satanically handsome" is an excellent description of Roger Delgado. But, "young"? Maybe he needed time to plot his next move, get his Tissue Decompresser etc.

Or maybe: http://www.doctorwhoreviews.co.uk/MA33.htm Okay, it's an unofficial book, but it has a Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time's_Champion, which I doubt any other unlicensed Doctor Who fiction book has. 41.133.0.18talk to me 17:25, November 2, 2012 (UTC)

Hm... That's all very good, but at most this all looks like "Behind the scenes" info. Do you have any more solid evidence? OS25 (talk to me, baby.) 18:38, November 2, 2012 (UTC)

What would that be? Could you be more specific? 41.133.0.18talk to me 11:55, November 3, 2012 (UTC)

More stuff

Apparently, the spin-off media adds to this idea. Since this wiki has counts all officially licensed material as equal, that could help. Sadly, the only such item I possess is the 1974 World Distributors Annual. The Master appears in two text stories, and one comic story. The text stories are not relevant to this discussion, but the comic The Time Thief may be....The Master timescoops soldiers from various eras to create an army, with which he plans to conquer. 41.133.0.18talk to me 18:26, November 2, 2012 (UTC)

Further, I have found some links done by fans who know their stuff:

http://www.thevervoid.com/columns/sihunt/sihunt50.htm

http://davidrestal.blogspot.com/2007/09/is-master-war-chief.html

http://www.dwad.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=151&start=10

http://www.dwad.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=151&sid=186f472cc80537a63fbf34f5c3c4c861&start=20

(this chap says that Robert Holmes "stated outright" that the Master is the War Chief. Someone should contact this fellow and/or find said quote)

http://www.historyvortex.org/SixFaces.html

{in another discussion someone mentioned the Special Features on the Terror of the Autons DVD, and how this proves the Master isn't the War Chief. Which of course it doesn't. But I remember an interesting quote from Barry Letts which implies tat they were tweaking an existing character, rather than creating a new one. I'll have to watch that again soon)

Oh, here's a link to the Magnus comic online(of course it's The Master):

http://davidrestal.blogspot.de/2008/08/smug-overload.html

Lastly, for the sake of continuity. How would this all fit together? The next link must be pointed out as being Fan Fiction. I am not counting this as canon or part of the DWU or anything like that. I am(well the person who actually wrote it is) merely showing how a simple, short story can easily show all the Master and War Chief stories as being a single continuity for a single character. This author has also worked alongside licensed authors. Anyway, it's a pity this story never made it into a Short Trips or Telos Novella or anything like that... http://www.doctorwhoreviews.co.uk/Veiled%20Memories.htm 41.133.0.18talk to me 18:26, November 2, 2012 (UTC)

Non-narrative

The sources you've provided don't prove anything, you've interpreted them to lead to questions, but I can't see any proof.

Contradictions exist in the DWU, they are not open invitations to insert questions or to back fill answers into them. Please see Howling:The Howling for that.

Novelisations are good for providing background information, they are used up until they conflict with the TV version of the story.

As OttselSpy25 has said a lot of this could go in the behind the scenes sections. Though none of the "links done by fans who know their stuff", online message board forums that discuss anything Doctor Who related are going to have similar discussions like that.

As far as Time's Champion (the book), just because Wikipedia has an article for it doesn't mean we cover it.

From looking through all your information provided I can't really see anything that proves your information. It's a nice collection of theories what could be, what might be. But very little clear in-narrative information. --Tangerineduel / talk 16:25, November 3, 2012 (UTC)

None of these mean anything to you?

" There have been two stolen, you know.’ The young Time Lord didn’t know. ‘By our enemies?’ he asked. ‘No. By Time Lords. They both became bored with this place. It was too peaceful for them, not enough happening.’ The old Keeper smiled to himself, as though remembering with some glee all the fuss when two TARDISes were stolen. ‘One of them nowadays calls himself “the Doctor”. The other says he is “the Master”. "

The War Chief took the Doctor into his private office just off the war room and told his bodyguards to leave. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘a traveller in a time-space machine. There is only one person you can be.’ ‘I had every right to leave,’ said the Doctor. ‘And to steal a TARDIS?’ The War Chief smiled. ‘Not that I am criticising you. I left our people too. We are two of a kind.’ ‘We most certainly are not!’ the Doctor protested. The War Chief shrugged. ‘Well, we were both Time Lords. Tell me, why did you decide to desert our kin?’ ‘I had reasons of my own. Rather different from yours, I imagine.’ ‘Probably they were. Why don’t you sit down?’

There was a peculiar relationship between the Master and the Doctor; one felt that the Master wouldn't really have liked to have eliminated the Doctor...you see the Doctor was the only person like him, at the time, in the whole universe, a renegade Time Lord and in a gunny sort of way they were partners in crime."

NONE of these contradict anything. As, you say they provide background information. I am still looking for the interview Robert Holmes did where he listed every renegade Time Lord that had appeared in the tv series up until c1976, namely the Doctor, The Meddling Monk, The Master, Omega and Morbius.

(oh, and those fanlinks were just other people who came to the same conclusion making their own cases. Which i didn't think worthy cut-and-pasting the totality of those pages here. A readthrough makes a very strong case though.)

Even if, for some reason, you think that this doesn't prove that the War Chief is the Master, the facts remain that:

a)Magnus from Flashback(comic) is clearly and unambiguously The Master. Even Russell admitted as much

b)There is nothing in Timewyrm:Exodus that makes it impossible for the Master and the War Chief to be the same Time Lord. Of course the novel does not state that they are the same Time Lord. But neither does it state, or even imply, that they aren't.

c)Considering the fact that the Koschei/Magnus scene from Divided Loyalties is a dream, and considering that we already know various aspects of that dream do not gel with continuity, the fact that Koschei and Magnus both appear in the same dream sequence is no more proof that the Master and the War Chief are different people than any other surreal, nonliteral events in any dream the Doctor or anyone else has ever had is proof of anything.

So, to summarise... all references to Magnus(from Flashback) should be redirected to The Master. And any reference stating that there is "evidence in novels clearly stating/proving/whatever that the War Chief and the Master are separate characters" should be removed. because there is NO such evidence. Regardless whether anyone agrees with listing the War Chief and the Master as the same Time Lord, they will still have to admit that there's nothing that proves they aren't the same Time Lord. 41.133.0.18talk to me 17:16, November 3, 2012 (UTC)


  • Further, your argument is that some of the listed stuff is "non-narrative". But a LOT of stuff on this wiki is written the way it is as a result of common sense. As an example, nowhere in the books does it state that The Man With The Rosette is The Master. Yet this wiki has an article for such, and lists the man with the rosette as an incarnation of The Master. Because someone apparently thought that someone's else's intention was that the man with the rosette is the Master! So, that is a supposed non-narrative source that is now taken as 100% truth. And in this case the man with the rosette actually contradicts Utopia. However, we have Russell himself stating that Magnus is the Master. And we have narrative evidence that doesn't contradict anything else that makes it far clearer that the War Chief is the Master, than those books make clear that the man with the rosette is the Master. 41.133.0.18talk to me 17:41, November 3, 2012 (UTC)
I don't know how long you've been editing here, but you may not be aware of the forums we have for discussing changes in policies. Many of the decisions made about what is and isn't narrative come from these discussions. I suggest you take some time to browse the forum archives, and you might find some clarification on why this issue has been decided the way it is. (As an added bonus, you can learn a lot about this wiki just by browsing the archives.) Shambala108 18:16, November 3, 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I would also suggest a forum discussion. If you need help starting one, then just ask. All I have to say at this point is that your argument is... Somewhat weak. It's all basically based on suggestions and such. That isn't bad, if a suggested idea is strong enough, we often will end up using it... So with what you have, I think that it might get through discussion... Might. Let's see what happens. OS25 (talk to me, baby.) 21:48, November 3, 2012 (UTC)

I am unsure where in the archives this "discussion" is. The larger discussion here is perhaps best done somewhere else. But the original point, that is relevant to this specific page, that Magnus is The Master seems to have been ignored. 41.133.0.18talk to me 06:37, November 4, 2012 (UTC)

There is this discussion Forum:How to handle the Deca where (I believe it's still you 41.133) put forward your dream/flashback hypothesis for Divided Loyalties. --Tangerineduel / talk 07:37, November 4, 2012 (UTC)

There is no page there. 41.133.0.18talk to me 07:45, November 4, 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I mistyped, now fixed. --Tangerineduel / talk 15:23, November 4, 2012 (UTC)

What was the conclusion of that discussion? Was there even a conclusion? As I noted earlier, various aspects of that sequence are mixed up, split, or just plain wrong. As noted on that page, Tegan had a dream in Snakedance, which was metaphorical, not literal. There are of course loads of other dreams, premonitions, hallucinations in Doctor Who that contain a mixture of fact and metaphor. We already know that significant parts of this dream can not possibly be literal. So why fixate on one aspect, especially when the person who wrote it made the quote at the beginning? 41.133.0.18talk to me 15:36, November 4, 2012 (UTC)

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