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- This article is about the renegade Time Lord known as "The Master." For other uses of the term "Master", see Master (disambiguation).
I am the Master and you will obey me.
The Master, once known as Koschei by various temporary aliases and pseudonyms, was a renegade Time Lord, who the Doctor opposed many times. On at least one occasion, he threatened the existence of the universe itself. Borusa call him, "one of the most evil and corrupt beings the Time Lord race ever produced." (DW: The Five Doctors)
Biography
Early life
Childhood
Ever since I was a child... I looked into the Vortex and that's when it chose me. The Drumming. The Call. To War.
Koschei, later known as the Master, grew up on Gallifrey, in the House of Oakdown. (PDA: Divided Loyalties)
- The Master's true name has yet to be uttered on screen; its introduction in spin-off works places it in a grey area in terms of canonicity.
In his seventh incarnation, the Doctor related a story which explained the Master's origins. He said that both he and the Master had been mercilessly and viciously bullied as children. The young Doctor found himself forced to kill the bully in order to save his friend's life. He was later confronted by the personification of Death who insisted he become her disciple. The Doctor refused and instead suggested Death make the Master her champion instead, to which she agreed. The Doctor said that, because of this, he always felt partly responsible for the carnage the Master would later cause. (BFA: Master)
- It's not clear whether this event occurred before or after the event described below.
Like most Gallifreyans taken as Time Lords, the Master would be taken at the age of eight for his training. During the ceremony where he gazed into the Time Vortex through the Untempered Schism, it is said that the Master went insane. (DW: The Sound of Drums) This manifested by the constant drumming he heard ever since the event, which appeared to worsen as time went on. (DW: Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords)
Youth
At the Academy, Koschei belonged to a clique of young Time Lords with the collective name of the Deca. The Doctor and other future rivals Ushas (later known as the Rani) and Magnus (later known as the War Chief) also belonged to the Deca. (PDA: Divided Loyalties)
First conflict with the Doctor
After the Doctor fled Gallifrey, Koschei was recruited to pursue and apprehend him. His unstable obsession with order however, prompted the Time Lords to plant the Time Lady Ailla as a spy to monitor Koschei's actions. Ailla posed as a Human so that Koschei would take her on as his companion during a stopover in the 28th century. Koschei caught up with the Doctor at the Darkheart colony in the early years of the Federation. The temptation posed by the Darkheart device proved too much for Koschei, and the revelation that Ailla had been a spy killed the last traces of good in him. After the Doctor trapped him in a black hole Koschei, the Master, swore to take revenge on him. (MA: The Dark Path)
Vendetta against the Doctor
Doctor, you're my intellectual equal. Almost. I have too few worthy opponents. When they've gone I always miss them.
The Master then sought to defeat the newly regenerated Doctor on Earth and in doing so came up against him, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and the rest of UNIT.
- For details on this period of his life, see separate article.
Degeneration
You do not understand hatred as I understand it. Only hate keeps me alive. Why else should I endure this pain?
Susan Foreman triggered an explosion when the Master attempted to kidnap her. He exhausted his regenerative cycle recovering from the injuries sustained in the explosion on the planet Tersurus (EDA: Legacy of the Daleks), where Chancellor Goth found the Master, in a wasted condition. The Master had by this time reached the end of his regeneration cycle and had turned into an animate though rotting corpse. The Master, with the collaboration of Goth, lured the Doctor to Gallifrey in order to have him framed for the assassination of the Lord President. The Master nearly succeeded in acquiring the Eye of Harmony and using its energy reserves to renew himself. (DW: The Deadly Assassin) On the planet Traken, the centre of the Traken Union, still in his degenerated form, the Master plotted to take over the Source, the power behind the Traken Union. (DW: The Keeper of Traken)
- For details on this incarnation, see separate article.
Usurpation
A new body at last.
The Master did manage to steal the body of Tremas, the father of the Doctor's future companion, Nyssa. (DW: The Keeper of Traken) He immediately set out on a new career of villainy in his new body. (DW: Logopolis) Eventually, he found himself taken over himself on the Cheetah World by a foreign influence and began to lose control. He ended up trapped there as it began to die. (DW: Survival)
- For more details on this incarnation, see separate article.
New Regenerative Cycle
The Master was able to teleport from the Cheetah World to 1953 Earth where he constructed himself an identity as Major Kreer. He made a deal with the Tzun to restore his corrupted Time Lord DNA, which his physical merger with the Trakenite, Tremas had caused to happen. This was a success, and he was able to regenerate into a new body. (NA: First Frontier)
The Master later attempted to seize control of a powerful artifact known as the Warp Core. This plan backfired and due to his exposure to the device the Master's body reverted to a state similar to his degenerated form. For a while he persisted in trying to acquire the Core. During that time he habitually wore a mask and adopted the alias Mr Seta. (BFA: Dust Breeding)
- From the perspective of the Doctor and Ace, this took place before, not after the Master's meeting with the Tzun.
Doctor John Smith
The Doctor related a story of how he made a deal with Death whereby the Master would have ten years of peace and sanity, at the end of which the Doctor must kill him. The still-scarred Master had become a physician with no memory of his past, and took the name Doctor John Smith. He was still somehow deeply aware of his dark nature and troubled by it. The Master had in the meantime become emotionally involved with a woman named Jaqueline Schaeffer during this time.
At the end of the ten years the Doctor duly arrived but strove to avoid fulfilling his side of the bargain. The Master became aware of the Doctor's role in pledging him to Death as her servant but forgave him for it. Death herself was present then, disguised as the Master's maid. She manipulated events so that it would appear inevitable that the John Smith persona would crumble and the true Master become dominant once more. (BFA: Master)
Glory
Life is wasted on the living!
Eventually, he was tried and executed and physically destroyed by the Daleks on Skaro as part of a Time Lord-Dalek treaty. However, his essence survived in a fluid-like form; his "last wish" was for the Doctor to transport his remains to Gallifrey, which allowed him the opportunity to escape during temporal transit and find a new body. He was able to take over the body of Bruce, an ambulance driver on Earth.
At the end of his battle with the recently regenerated Doctor, the Master fell into the Eye of Harmony, and he appeared to be destroyed. The Doctor claimed that he had been eaten by the TARDIS. (DW: Doctor Who: The TV Movie)
However, the Master was rescued from the Time Vortex by a being named Esterath, the then-controller of the Glory, the focal point of reality. It would soon be time for the Glory to gain another controller, but the power had to be fought for. Of course, the Master assumed the battle would be between himself and his greatest foe.
Given a new body, the Master trailed the Doctor for some time without his enemy suspecting - even after they had met face to face. He was present in London during the crisis resulting from Grace Holloway's attempt to merge Human and Time Lord DNA (the alien DNA was in fact that of a morphant from Skaro). He killed an MI6 agent with the TCE at this time, but fortunately the Doctor departed before the Master's trademark was discovered. (DWM: The Fallen)
The Master later made contact with Sato Katsura, a Japanese samurai unwillingly rendered immortal as a result of his involvement in the Doctor's adventures. The embittered warrior became the Master's follower. At his behest, Sato adopted the identity of Cardinal Morningstar and became leader of the Church of the Glorious Dead, instigator of a holy war that altered the history of Earth and led to it becoming known as Dhakan. Passing through the Eye had given the Master the ability to influence the flight of the TARDIS, which he used to send the craft to times and places which would weaken the Doctor's self-belief and confidence. This done, the two fought for the Glory, with the Master apparently triumphant.
However, the Master was mistaken: the true battle was between his companion, Sato, and the Doctor's, the Cyberman Kroton. Kroton was the ultimate winner of this contest, and amongst his first acts as controller of the Glory were to cleanse the TARDIS of the Master's influence, and to banish the Master himself to parts unknown. The Master declared he would survive and return. (DWM: The Glorious Dead)
One account tells of how he later escaped from the Eye and possessed the body of a Human native of 1906. (ST: The Forgotten)
Return
So it came to pass, that the human race fell... and the Earth was no more. And I looked down upon my new dominion, as Master of all, and I thought it... good.
In the Last Great Time War, the Time Lords themselves brought the Master back from oblivion and gave him a new set of regenerations, wanting to use him as a weapon in defence of Gallifrey. However, the sheer scale of the conflict frightened even the Master, and he deserted the instant the Dalek Emperor took control of the Cruciform. (DW: The Sound of Drums)
- The notion of the Master receiving a new set of regenerations is supported by the precedent of him being previously offered same by the High Council in exchange for his help (DW: The Five Doctors), and his ability to once more regenerate. It is not known whether any regenerations occurred between his resurrection and his later transformation into Yana.Niether has it been confirmed if he could have regenerated after being shot due to the chance that even with the new regenration which he may have used up in the last time war prior to utopia
He fled to the end of the universe and used a Chameleon Arch to become Human, remaining in the guise of the elderly Professor Yana, but he came back into his old identity. (DW: Utopia)
- For more information on Yana, see separate article.
Fatally wounded, though now aware of his identity, the Master regenerated and escaped to 2000s Earth. (DW: Utopia) Here, he called himself Harold Saxon and successfully ran for the position of Prime Minister. He then took over Earth, though he had most of the damage he had caused reversed, so that it had never happened. At the conclusion of this, the Master was shot at the hands of Lucy Saxon, and collapsed in the Doctor's arm. With the Doctor pleading for him to regenerate, the Master refused to regenerate as opposed to spend the rest of his life imprisoned within the Doctor's TARDIS. Refusing to regenerate gave the Master an unlikely victory over the Doctor as his death would mean the Doctor is truly the last of the Time Lords. A resurrection seems possible as an unknown person took the Master's ring and the Master's voice could be heard, suggesting his soul was inside the ring. (DW: The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords)
- For more details, see Harold Saxon.
Other information
Companions
I only need two things. Your submission and your obedience to my will!!
Unlike the Doctor, the Master is most often encountered working and travelling alone. On rare occasions, he has been seen with companions. Examples include Chang Lee, a young Human who the Master met in San Francisco (DW: Doctor Who: The TV Movie); Chantho, a female assistant and companion to the Master during his Professor Yana identity (although both of them were unaware of "Yana"'s true nature for most of that time) (DW: Utopia); and Lucy Saxon, his wife, who is described as having travelled with the Master in the TARDIS in the same fashion as the Doctor and his companions. (DW: The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords) The Rani may have also travelled with the Master for a time, when they got trapped together. DW: The Mark of the Rani)
Imitators
The Master has at least one (rather pathetic) imitator in the form of the Mentor. (DWM: Death to the Doctor!)
Other versions of the Master
- Following graduation from the Time Lord Academy, the Master, using the name Koschei, pursued a career as Magistrate for the High Council. In this capacity, his devotion to justice and discipline in time devolved into an obsession with order which marked the beginning of his descent into darkness (PDA: The Infinity Doctors)
- We do not know if this event occurred before the Master had left Gallifrey, in an alternative timeline or after he had reformed and returned to Gallifrey.
- While helping UNIT stop an invasion by a parallel Earth, the Master met that alternate reality's version of himself, still using the name Koschei, imprisoned and vivisected by order of that reality's version of the Doctor. The Master killed his other self, claiming this was an act of mercy. (PDA: The Face of the Enemy)
- In an apparent alternate timeline, a version of the Master exists as an android companion to the Alternative Ninth Doctor. (WC: Scream of the Shalka)
- In the reality created around Donna, it can be assumed that as a result of the deaths of the Doctor and Martha Jones, the Master never find out who he really was and never traveled back to Earth, as the Doctor never visited him, or at least there was no TARDIS at the end of the universe with which the Master could save himself. (DW: Turn Left)
Personality
You are one of the most evil and corrupt beings our Time Lord race has ever produced. Your crimes are without number and your villainy without end.
The Master is essentially the polar opposite of the Doctor in almost every respect. Though he retains a brilliant Time Lord mind and all of the Doctor's wit and cunning, he possesses two fatal character flaws - he is arrogant and exceptionally vain, which lead to his downfall on many occasions. By the time of his return on Utopia, he appears after his regeneration to have gone completely insane, regressing to an almost childlike state of spitefulness and ignorance. He instantaneously rejects a plea to listen by saying "No. It's my turn. Revenge." (DW: Last of the Time Lords) In this instance, the Doctor, out of necessity, takes on the role of a kind of mentor in an attempt to save the Master from himself "I'm not here to kill him. I'm here to save him". He pleads with him on numerous occasions (DW: Utopia, The Sound of Drums, Last of the Time Lords) to calm down, stop what he is doing, listen and look at himself.
The Master absolutely refuses to listen to the Doctor on either occasion. He revealed his vanity when the Doctor confronts him with the words "I forgive you", which he had been terrified of hearing because it would have significantly dented his pride. (DW: Last of the Time Lords)
He also has an exceptionally heightened sense of his own brilliance which is far more pronounced and blatant that the Doctor's being aware of his own brilliance. He refers to himself as "your Lord and Master" and in reciting a Bible-style verse of his own making to the Doctor "...and so it came to pass that the Human Race fell. And I looked down, upon my new dominion and I thought it good", reveals a penchant for fancying himself as a God. (DW: The Sound of Drums) He also holds Time Lords to be an absolutely superior race of life, automatically assuming the right to alter history, on principle of this. "I'm a Time Lord. I have that right." - Last of the Time Lords
He is able to match the Doctor's keen wit and sense of humour, particularly in his sixth incarnation. He remarks to the President of the United States when reprimanded for his shameful conduct contravening established first contact policy with regards to the Toclafane with a casual "Oh, you know what it's like, new job, all that paperwork....I think I left it down the back of the settee. I had a look...I found a pen, a sweet, a bus ticket...have you met the wife?" (DW: The Sound of Drums)
The Master also shares the Doctor's incredible technical know-how. He is able to construct his laser screwdriver from Earth components and miniaturize Professor Lazarus' genetic manipulation technology. He is also able to cannibalize the Doctor's TARDIS and turn it into the Paradox Machine both devices in and of themselves serving as marked and distinctive parallels of the Doctor's sonic screwdriver and ordinary TARDIS.
It should also be noted that both devices, in contrast to the Doctor's tools, have a hostile purpose; the laser screwdriver is a weapon specifically created to offensively attack and kill others, unlike the Sonic Screwdriver which "doesn't kill, wound, or maim". (DW: Doomsday)
The Master also has a crippling fear of a God-like Doctor (DW: The Mind of Evil), which came to fruition when the Doctor harnessed the psychic energy of all the planet Earth and effectively became a God. (DW: Last of the Time Lords)
Behind the Scenes
Conception and development of the character
When conceiving the character, the production team had originally considered the idea of the Doctor having a female, rather than male, arch-nemesis. Later, they thought of the Master as the evil half of a single personality. In the final Third Doctor, the Master would have redeemed himself and given his life to have saved the Doctor, after which the Doctor would have regenerated. The accidental death of Roger Delgado, who had played the original version of the Master made it so that this development never happened.
In The Deadly Assassin, writer (and then Script Editor) Robert Holmes deliberately chose to show the Master in a "transitional" form in case future production teams wanted to bring back the character.
Continuity
- The Doctor Who Role Playing Game from the American gaming company FASA identified the Monk and the War Chief as earlier incarnations of the Master, causing some fans to mistakenly believe that Doctor Who itself had stated a connection. Novels and comics (for example Timewyrm: Exodus by Terrance Dicks, in which the War Chief returns, No Future by Paul Cornell, the Doctor Who Monthly comic 4-Dimensional Vistas, written by Steve Parkhouse and other stories featuring the Monk, The Dark Path by David A. McIntee and Divided Loyalties by Gary Russell, among other works, establishes, provided you accept more than just the television series as canon, the Monk, the War Chief and the Master as three separate Time Lords. However, at least one novel has indicated otherwise (see below).
- The Big Finish Productions audio play Master and the television episode The Sound of Drums have the Doctor telling two different and apparently contradictory explanations for how the Master turned evil.
- The comics story Flashback shows a rift develop between the First Doctor and another Time Lord colleague known as "Magnus", who has a dark beard. The story implies that this shows the first major conflict between the Doctor and either the Master or the War Chief. Divided Loyalties makes it clear that the War Chief, not the Master, had used the name Magnus when he lived on Gallifrey. (The Dark Path had already revealed the Master's real name as Koschei.)
- In the novel Time's Champion, the Doctor refer to the Master by the name of Magnus and the text indicates that the Master and the War Chief are in fact the same Time Lord.
Anagrams
During Anthony Ainley's tenure as the Master, pseudonyms made from anagrams of the actor's name were often used in the credits for the Master's disguises, such as Neil Toynay for the Portreeve in DW: Castrovalva. Tremas is itself an anagram of Master. At the same time, in Series 3 (season 29), the Master takes on two new identities: Professor Yana in DW: Utopia, and Mr. Harold Saxon in DW: The Sound of Drums and DW: Last of the Time Lords (as it happens, "Mister Saxon" is a (possibly unintentional) anagram of "Master No. Six" as "Sam Tyler" is an anagram of "masterly").
External Links
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