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The Master, near-death and still possessing some of the Keeper of Traken's powers, merged with the body of Consul Tremas of the Traken Union (causing his body and his clothing to undergo a slight regeneration, making him more youthful), creating a fourteenth incarnation for himself.
Biography
Origins
Circa 1981, On the planet Traken, the centre of the Traken Union, still in his crippled and degenerating form, the Master plotted to take over the Source, the power behind the Union, by becoming the new Keeper of Traken. The Doctor and Adric arrived in response to the Keeper's request and with Tremas' and his daughter Nyssa's help, removed the Master from the Source and allowed Luvic to become the new Keeper. With some of the Keeper's powers lingering, the Master was able to merge with Tremas. In his new form, he looked like Tremas, but with younger, subtle differences. (DW: The Keeper of Traken, Logopolis)
Exploits
The Master then travelled to Earth where he ensnared the Doctor's TARDIS in a gravity bubble, in the meantime killing Tegan Jovanka's aunt Vanessa and a police constable with his Tissue Compression Eliminator. He deliberately perverted the Block Transfer Computations carried out on the planet Logopolis and, simply held Logopolis for ransom until its secret was revealed, unintentionally caused the causal nexus to unravel and release an unstoppable wave of entropy that would destroy the universe. By stopping Logopolis, he also stopped their blockade of the entropy, allowing it to swallow several galaxies, including the entire Traken Union.
He realized that the entropy wave presented such a threat that he agreed to work with the Doctor to stop it and traveled with him to the Pharos Project on Earth to do so. His true plan was revealed however, when he sent a message to the peoples of the universe that he could stop the entropy, but only if they were to lead a continued existence under his rule. Effectively stopping the Master's signal to shut down the CVE that would stop the entropy, the Doctor fell off the Pharos Project's radio telescope and regenerated, allowing the Master to escape. (DW: Logopolis)
After the Doctor's regeneration the Master kidnapped Adric and held him in a hadron web to make him a part of the Master's TARDIS. Using a projection of Adric on board the TARDIS, the Master sent the Doctor hurling towards Event One to be destroyed, but the Doctor saved the TARDIS through the Architectural Configuration. The Master then used Adric's block transfer computations to create Castrovalva in the Andromeda Galaxy where the Doctor would recover from his regeneration. Escaping from the recursion trap, attempting to kill the Doctor, he was attacked by the enraged citizens with the city itself due to collapse. (DW: Castrovalava)
The Master was able to escape Castrovalva to Earth in 140 million BC were he disguised himself as the magician Kalid, sparingly using the Xeraphin gestalt as a power source to create Plasmatons and transport two Concordes to his Citadel via a time contour, the second having the Doctor and his TARDIS and companions aboard. He originally planned to use the captured passengers as slaves to break into the Sanctum and take control of the Xeraphin, adding them to his TARDIS, but then he acquired the Doctor's TARDIS, the Doctor finding him after, and the Xeraphin contacted Nyssa and allowed her and Tegan to enter the Citadel, where he revealed his true form. Holding the passengers hostage as a trade off for parts from the Doctor's TARDIS, the second Concorde was returned to its own time and the Master ended up on Xeriphas with the freed and angry Xeraphin. (DW: Time-Flight)
There, he found Kamelion, a shape-changing android. Having escaped, the Master traveled to 1215 England where he disguised himself as the French knight Sir Giles and used Kamelion to impersonate John of England so that he could prevent the signing of Magna Carta. The Doctor stopped this plan. (DW: The King's Demons)
Directly following the events of in 1215 England, the High Council of the Time Lords discovered that the previous incarnations of the Doctor had been taken into the Death Zone on Gallifrey, they found and asked the Master for help and offered him a new cycle of regenerations if he complied. He agreed to do so and was given a copy of the Seal of the High Council by the Castellan. The Doctor's third incarnation did not believe him and saw this a plot by the Master.
He made a temporary alliance with the Cybermen and offered himself as a guide to the Dark Tower. After overhearing the true rewards that were offered, the Doctors' and their companions knocked him unconscious and bound him. The conclusion of this adventure, Rassilon then sent him back to his own time after he had been captured by the companions. (DW: The Five Doctors)
The Master arrived to Camelot just after the coronation of King Arthur where he became the next Merlin after the death of the old one. There his plan was after the birth of Mordred to make sure King Arthur thought he was dead so Mordred would grow up and then kill Arthur at the battle of Camlan. When the Doctor and Tegan arrived, met Arthur and told them about the Master, Arthur had the Merlin come before him to see if what the Doctor and Tegan said were true. When the Master saw the Doctor and Tegan, he told Arthur that he no intention in harming him although once he left the court, the Master quickly hurried to his TARDIS which disguised itself as the turret room of Arthur's castle. To stop the threat that was to come caused by the Master, the Doctor suggested to Arthur to create the Knights of the Round so when Mordred comes they were ready. (DWA: The Creation of Camelot)
Developing a more powerful version of the Tissue Compression Eliminator, he accidentally shrunk himself and used Kamelion as his physical proxy and took over his body in the Master's own shape and took the Doctor's TARDIS to the planet Sarn. He commanded Kamelion from a small box. Sarn had nusmaton gas, which he hoped could restore him. Eventually, with Kamelion unable to control himself, he begged for the Doctor to kill him, out of mercy. The Doctor complied and, with the Master standing in a gas vent, turned the gas to flames to burn him (apparently) to death. (DW: Planet of Fire) The Master did not die on Sarn but was left badly disfigured, he then went in search the fountain of youth in order to return to his healed self. (ST: A Town Called Eternity)
Next, he allied with the Rani (who both he and the Doctor knew as a member of the Deca on Gallifrey) in Killingworth, an early 19th century English mining village, against the Doctor and Peri Brown They found out about their plan to enrage local miners, but the Doctor trapped him and the Rani inside the Master's Tissue Compressor and they escaped. But he and the Rani were trapped inside the Rani's TARDIS, which the Doctor had sabotaged. (DW: The Mark of the Rani) The Master managed to escape this trap by separating the Rani's console room from the rest of her TARDIS, leaving her to drift aimlessly through the vortex while he resumed his travels.
Now in the Matrix, the Master observed the Doctor's trial on Space Station Zenobia. He considered the Valeyard a rival in his own attempt to destroy the Doctor and actually rescued the Doctor rather than have the Valeyard win against him, seeing the Valeyard as a greater threat. He used Sabalom Glitz, always ready to work with anyone for a quick grotzit, as a temporary ally. With the particle disseminator set off within the Matrix, the Master seemed doomed again, but again survived. (DW: The Ultimate Foe)
- After escaping from the Matrix, the Master was able to regenerate damage to his body due to the Source still existing within him from Traken. (PDA: The Quantum Archangel)
The Master came to the Cheetah World, where he took control of the Cheetah People and the kitlings. He allowed them to go to Ace's hometown, the London suburb of Perivale, where he went hunting for Human recruits. If the enslaved Human changed enough into a Cheetah Person who could teleport, the Master could escape the planet. At the same time, exposure to the planet had caused him to get himself infected with change into a Cheetah Person. He found a pliable young man called Midge and used him to escape. The Doctor and Ace found him and tried to stop him. The Master killed Midge and then teleported the Doctor to the planet, which had begun to break up. The Doctor escaped but the Master remained trapped on the dying world. (DW: Survival)
- By the time he next encountered the Doctor and Ace, he had managed to regenerate artificially, as he could not have done so on his own. (NA: First Frontier)
Other accounts however tell of the Master escaping the Cheetah World still being infected by the Cheetah Virus. Arriving on Earth, he then tried to cure the virus by extracting nutrients from dying humans. However the Doctor managed to kill the plants as they had escaped from the Master's control and began killing locals. (ST: Stop the Pigeon) The Master later attempted to gain a new body from aliens of legend known as the Fleshsmiths. The Master's plan was stopped by the Doctor, who ejected the new body from the Fleshsmith vessel into space. (PDA: Prime Time)
Personality
This incarnation of the Master was charismatic, deadly and sophisticated but decidedly more flamboyantly evil and bombastic than his predecessors. He was prone to laughing maniacally and reciting lengthy and verbose speeches accompanied by melodramatic gestures and poses. None the less, this incarnation of the Master was dangerous in the true sense of the world. He destroyed a large portion of the universe alone, a feat nearly impossible even for an entire Dalek fleet. He is also fanatically devoted to killing the Doctor, setting elaborate traps for him and his TARDIS. However, his tendency to over plan his schemes could sometimes be his undoing. The Rani comments that he would get dizzy if he walked in a straight line. He was tall and thin with black hair and a goatee beard. This incarnation of the Master had a particular fondness for the Tissue Compression Eliminator.
Aliases
He also tended to adopt disguises and aliases:
- The Portreeve (DW: Castrovalva)
- Kalid (DW: Time-Flight)
- Giles d'Estram (DW: The King's Demons)
- The Merlin (DWA: The Creation of Camelot)
- A scarecrow (DW: The Mark of the Rani)
- The Sheriff (ST: A Town Called Eternity)
- For more details, see Aliases of the Master.
Other information
- A hallucination of this incarnation of the Master appeared to the Doctor as he lay dying of spectrox toxaemia in the TARDIS. (DW: The Caves of Androzani)