The War Chief
The War Chief, known at the Time Lord Academy as Magnus, was a former friend of the Doctor. He became a renegade Time Lord who assisted the War Lords. After the failure of the War Lords, he regenerated, although he was deformed by the experience. He travelled back in time to use the Nazis as his agents. He was finally stopped by the Seventh Doctor.
Biography
Life on Gallifrey
Once called Magnus, he belonged to the Deca, the same Academy clique as the First Doctor. (PROSE: Divided Loyalties) The Doctor once advised Magnus to reserve his regenerations, but Magnus did not listen as he was not concerned. (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat-People)
Magnus became an ambitious and arrogant Time Lord with little time for "Theta Sigma". He took part in a scheme to provide Gallifrey with a new power source derived from a sphere of artron energy. He hoped to revitalise the decadent Gallifreyan society. The Doctor made himself an unwelcome observer of the experiment. He realised the sphere was a living being and that Magnus' actions were killing it. He sabotaged Magnus' equipment and freed the creature, for which the Time Lords commended him. This angered Magnus even more. The Doctor and Magnus were bitter enemies from that day on. (COMIC: Flashback)
Magnus soon began to rise rapidly in the Time Lord hierarchy. So much so, that Cardinal Borusa saw him as a threat to his own position of power, and persuaded the Celestial Intervention Agency to manufacture evidence of treason against him. Believed to be a criminal, Magnus fled from Gallifrey, became a renegade and swore revenge on the Time Lords. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
Ally of the War Lords
Now calling himself the War Chief, he worked with the War Lords. They abducted soldiers from wars spread across Earth's history for simulated versions of the wars from which they came. Thinking humans the most vicious species in the galaxy, the aliens hoped to pit the survivors against each other and use them to conquer Mutter's Spiral.
The War Chief aided the War Lords by helping them build SIDRATs, TARDIS-like space-time machines. They used them to kidnap the human soldiers and travel between era-specific zones which they had created. The War Chief and the Second Doctor met and recognised each other. The War Chief solicited the Doctor's help to double-cross the War Lords and seize power for themselves. The Doctor pretended to accept the War Chief's offer. (TV: The War Games)
The Security Chief of the operation distrusted the War Chief, believing he meant to call in the Time Lords. The two engaged in a series of machinations against each other which ended with the War Chief disgraced. He shot his rival dead. Unable to resolve matters nor return the soldiers to their own times, the Doctor summoned the Time Lords for aid, while the War Lords uncovered the War Chief's plans and executed him. (TV: The War Games) Unknown at the time, the War Chief did not die but, rather, underwent a faulty regeneration. His new form looked like two bodies fused together. He took to wearing cloaks and hoods to disguise the fact. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
Aftermath
The War Chief served as an occult advisor to Adolf Hitler under the name "Doktor Felix Kriegslieter", hoping to change history with the Nazis as his agents. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) One time, concerned with Hitler's health, Martin Bormann telephoned him. (PROSE: Players) The Seventh Doctor later confronted the War Chief, prompting him to try to take the Doctor's healthy body and his six remaining regenerations. However, his efforts to replace Hitler with Heinrich Himmler was thwarted by Himmler's devotion to his Führer. This allowed the Doctor to alert Hermann Goering to "Kriegslieter's" betrayal and destroy the War Chief's base by overloading its nuclear reactors. In the final moments before Drachensburg castle collapsed, Ace looked down and saw the War Chief engulfed in flames, no longer malformed but appearing as his "young, tall, dark and satanically handsome" self. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
Personality
The War Chief was an ambitious and arrogant individual, cunning, and with great tactical abilities. He pretended to serve the War Lords loyally, while plotting to take control of them. (TV: The War Games) He was unconcerned about using up regenerations and never listened to the Doctor, who advised him not to waste them. Behind the War Chief's actions lay real idealism, tainted with power lust. (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat-People)
Behind the scenes
- FASA's The Doctor Who Role Playing Game identified the War Chief, the Monk and the Master as different incarnations of the same renegade Time Lord. However in the module Legions of Death he appears as a Renegade Time Lord who is a former ally of the Master, and having survived his apparent execution, later attempts to take over the Roman Empire.
- The necklace prop the War Chief wears in The War Games is the same prop previously worn by Zephon in The Daleks' Master Plan.
- In 1992, the comic strip Flashback depicted the First Doctor and Magnus back on Gallifrey, and ending their friendship when Magnus callously used a sphere of Artron energy that was actually a harmless lifeform as a fuel source for his experiments. Magnus was immediately identified by most readers as a younger version of the Master, or by some as the War Chief. However, Both the DWM Editor Gary Russell and the author of the Flashback strip Warwick Gray confirmed that "Magnus" was The Master. In a later online posting, Russell confirmed that "Magnus" was also The War Chief(obviously).
