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- This article is about the renegade Time Lord known as "The Master." For other uses of the term "Master" in the Doctor Who Universe, see Master (disambiguation).
The Master, once known as Koschei, and also by various temporary aliases and pseudonyms, is a renegade Time Lord, who the Doctor opposed many times. On at least one occasion, he threatened the existence of the universe itself. He was once called "one of the most evil and corrupt beings the Time Lord race ever produced" (DW: The Five Doctors).
Biography
Early life
Koschei, later known as the Master, grew up on Gallifrey, in the House of Oakdown. (PDA: Divided Loyalties)
In his seventh incarnation, the Doctor related a story which explained the Master's origins. He said that both he and the Master had both been mercilessly and viciously bullied as children. The youthful 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)
- This story of the Doctor's presents the Master as turning towards evil at an earlier stage of his life, which may contradict some other accounts.
At the Academy, Koschei belonged to a clique of six 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).
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 on as his companion on 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 revenge on him. (MA: The Dark Path).
Vendetta against the Doctor
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
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).
- Quite possibly the Master's exposure to the Eye of Harmony re-vitalized him and prevented his body from disintegrating completely. It has been argued the Master is visibly regenerating when he is seen just prior to his TARDIS dematerialising, while the Master's corpus on his next appearance was noticeably less putrescent than it appeared to be on Gallifrey. The motive of acquiring a new cycle of regenerations would occur again and again throughout the Master's later battles with the Doctor.
Usurpation
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. The Master did manage to steal the body of Tremas, the father of the Doctor's future companion, Nyssa. (DW: 'The Keeper of Traken)
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)
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 in return for which would the Doctor would kill him at the end of ten years. 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)
Resurrection
Eventually, he was tried and executed and physically destroyed by the Daleks on Skaro but he was able to take over the body of Bruce, an ambulance driver on Earth, in spite of having been reduced to a fluid-like essence.
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)
Accounts differ as to what happened to the Master next. One story tells of how he later escaped from the Eye and possessed the body of a Human native of 1906. (ST: The Forgotten)
Glory
Another story tells of how 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. (DWM: The Glorious Dead)
The Return at the End of the Universe
In the far future by the time of the end of the universe, the Master had used a Chameleon arc (Which was, somehow, the same one that the Doctor used in Human Nature and The Family of Blood) to become Human and remained in the guise of a Professor who was working to send the remains of Humanity to Utopia. Martha Jones however made the Professor suspicion of a watch in his hand and activated the device and thus returned to his true identity. He was injured by his assistant and was forced to regenerate and managed to commandeer the Tenth Doctor's TARDIS, leaving the Doctor and his companions trapped in the end of the universe with a rampaging horde of Futurekind. (DW: Utopia)
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 the 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)
Behind the Scenes
- When conceiving the character, the production team had originally considered the idea of the Doctor having a female, rather than male, arch-nemesis.
- The FASA Doctor Who Roleplaying Game identified the Monk and the War Chief as earlier incarnations of the Master, causing some fans to mis-identify this information as "official" or stated in the television series. Subsequent novels have completely disproved this theory.
- During Anthony Ainley's tenure as the Master, 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 "Castrovalva." Tremas is itself an anagram of Master.