"Decayed" Master
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The thirteenth incarnation of the Master was the last in his original regeneration cycle. Following an incident that resulted in his body being badly disfigured, he began searching for a way to restore his Time Lord body, with only his intense hatred and burning anger keeping him alive.
After spending years on Traken manipulating events to gain the powers of the Source through the Keeper of Traken, the Master was able to regenerate into a new body after possessing Consul Tremas.
Biography[[edit] | [edit source]]
Post-regeneration[[edit] | [edit source]]
My... ship...
Following a final battle with the Twelfth Doctor in a time locked dimension, the "UNIT enemy" Master was hit by a wave of chronon energy mixed with the artron energy latent within the Doctor's allies, causing his body to rapidly decay. Managing to get back to his TARDIS, the Master regenerated, (COMIC: Doorway to Hell) but suffered an artron decay that left his new body emaciated, and crashed his TARDIS in 1890 Whitby. He was rescued from the sea by Bram Stoker, who he hypnotised into bringing him rats to absorb the life force from. However, when the Master tried to claim the life force a young human girl, Stoker fought him off, and their confrontation caused the TARDIS to dematerialise, with the Master trapped inside as Stoker made his escape with the girl. (PROSE: The Dead Travel Fast)
A healthy body[[edit] | [edit source]]
Having managed to absorb enough life force to heal his damaged body, (PROSE: The Dead Travel Fast) the Master used files he had uncovered from the Daleks during his alliance with them against the Draconians to go undercover on Earth following the 22nd century Dalek invasion, seeking a matter transmuter the Daleks had built during the course of the invasion in their base DA-17. As his scheme took a while to mature, the Master decided to stave off boredom by meddling in local politics under the name of "Estro". Making himself the trusted advisor of Lord Haldoran, he schemed to create a war between Haldoran's forces and Lord London's.
As he finally prepared to seize the matter transmuter, he found that Susan Foreman, who had been living on Earth for thirty years with her husband David Campbell, had gotten there before him and was trying to destroy the device. Though he failed to recognise her as the Doctor's granddaughter, he got the impression that she was at least one of the Doctor's former companions, and took her with him as a hostage back to his TARDIS. During a confrontation with the Eighth Doctor, who was foiling the Daleks' plan and discovered the Master's presence in the process, he shot at the Doctor, but instead hit David, who threw himself in front of the Doctor to save him and died. The matter transmuter still in hand, the Master fled in his TARDIS, and took Susan with him, still unaware of her Gallifreyan heritage. As his TARDIS materialised on Tersurus, Susan awoke from her shock-induced torpor and, with her mental abilities amplified by telepathic circuits of the Master's TARDIS, used her telepathy to focused all of her hatred and grief into a force that "burned away" at the Master's mind, chipping away at his personality until she revealed the "utterly unrepentant, inhuman core of it." Though reduced to a "trembling creature" by the experience, the Master did not lose his force of will nor his hatred for the Doctor, focusing the former on the latter and thereby hanging on to consciousness and a semblance of sanity.
Believing she had weakened him into harmlessness, Susan forced the Master out onto Tersurus's surface, planning to strand him there. Having seized the Tissue Compression Eliminator, she planned to use it to destroy the Daleks' matter transmuter. The Master furiously clung to the device, refusing to let go even when she warned him that she would shoot it whether or not he was still holding it, and ended up doing so. The blast that resulted from the TCE hitting the matter transmuter nearly killed the Master, (PROSE: Legacy of the Daleks) but he was able to survive unscathed, (AUDIO: The Two Masters) while Susan, believing him dead, Susan departed in his TARDIS, not knowing that her use of his TARDIS had alerted the Time Lord Chancellor Goth to the Master's presence on Tersurus, as Susan, in fear that the Master had programmed them to kill anyone other than him trying to pilot the ship, had switched off the TT capsule's defence systems. (PROSE: Legacy of the Daleks)
At war with his future[[edit] | [edit source]]
When the Master arrived on a Time Lord base on Tersurus with the intention of infiltrating their database, he encountered a future version of himself, who burned his body, leaving him a fraction above death. The future Master then signalled Gallifrey for Goth to arrive. Before Goth could arrive, the Cult of the Heretic switched the Master's mind with that of his future self. (AUDIO: The Two Masters) While he remembered being in great pain, the process left gaps in the Master's memory. He returned to a prison in the south of England, where a former incarnation had lured a Carmentine mind leech. He set up the Dominus Institute in order to lure the Doctor to him, planning to absorb his intellect. The Sixth Doctor made a deal with the mind leech, one which had the leech only take the Doctor's short term memory. This was enough to sustain the Master, but ruined his overall plans. The Master fled from the prison in his TARDIS. (AUDIO: Vampire of the Mind)
Regaining his memory of what had happened to him, the "Decayed" Master hired the Transhuman Sisters of the Unholy Protocol and the Dragonhunters to kill his future self. The act of having a Time Lord inhabiting the body of his past self led to the universe beginning to break down. Realising this, the Seventh Doctor encountered both of the Masters and persuaded them to return to their rightful bodies. Abandoning the Doctor on a ship that was set to crash into a hypergate, the two Masters stole his TARDIS, which helped them get back into their right bodies.
The two Masters then returned to the Cult's headquarters and killed all of the members. They then plotted to use the anomaly cage to remake reality in their image, but were stopped by the Doctor, who had escaped the crash in the Master's TARDIS. The Doctor then used the cage to restore the universe, leaving it practically unchanged by its regeneration, apart from erasing the Masters' memories of the events and sending them back to their proper points in history. After this, history was allowed to run its normal course. (AUDIO: The Two Masters) Investigating the materialisation of an unauthorised TARDIS, Goth arrived on Tersurus, where he found the "Decaying" Master, who sensed that Goth wished for power and offered it to him, whilst Goth, seeing the Master as a dying "creature", thought he could control the Master for his own means. (PROSE: Legacy of the Daleks)
Revenge on Gallifrey[[edit] | [edit source]]
After some time healing in a Zero Room on Gallifrey, (AUDIO: The Threshold) the Master made Goth, in line for the position of Lord President of the High Council of Time Lords, into his slave, continuing to promise him power until Goth could no longer fight his mental dominance. The Master also took over the Matrix, and realised that the Eye of Harmony resided beneath the Panopticon. He believed he could use the Sash of Rassilon to protect himself from the raw power of the Eye and channel that energy to renew himself. He planned to use the Doctor as a scapegoat in his plot, (TV: The Deadly Assassin) despite Goth's objections. (PROSE: The Secret Diary of the Master)
With a telepathic summons and a vision of the future created by the Matrix, the Master lured the Fourth Doctor to Gallifrey, seemingly to prevent the murder of the then-serving Lord President. The Doctor failed and ended up on trial for the President's murder. After Goth died, the Doctor defeated the Master in physical combat and, as a result, the Master fell into a crevice created by a localised earthquake. He gained access to his TARDIS in the confusion and escaped, (TV: The Deadly Assassin) having been able to convert the energy from the Eye of Harmony and partially heal himself. (AUDIO: Trail of the White Worm)
Targeting Jago and Litefoot[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Master followed the Doctor's TARDIS from Gallifrey, but was knocked off course passing through the transduction barrier and landed in London during the 1890s. (AUDIO: Masterpiece) He asked the locals if he could speak to someone in authority, and Inspector Percival Quick was the first on the scene. The Master wasted no time in hypnotising Quick for his goals, (AUDIO: The Museum of Curiosities) giving him several tasks to carry out on his behalf. (AUDIO: Jago & Son)
The Master walked the streets of London, concealing himself with a mask and walking with a cane. He spoke to Maurice Ravel, interested in a watch he carried with the Prydonian Seal on it. The Master later learned that Jago and Litefoot were the Doctor's contacts in the time period, and intended to visit them. (AUDIO: Maurice) The Master had Quick bring him a sample of Jago and Litefoot's DNA, planning to poison them so that they would summon the Doctor to help them. (AUDIO: The Woman in White)
As he became frailer, the Master planned to use the Doctor's artron energy in order to heal his body. He travelled to the Red Tavern and spoke to Ellie Higson, hypnotising her so that he could learn of Jago and Litefoot, and reverted her metabolism to its natural state, causing her to lose control of her vampiric hunger. Jago and Litefoot learned the location of the Master's lair with the help of Madame Sosostris and encountered the Master there. Sosostris' assistant revealed himself to be the Sixth Doctor. The Master activated a machine to drain the life energy of Jago and Litefoot, before absorbing the Doctor's artron energy. The Doctor reversed the flow of the machine and the Master's life began to be drained. After the Doctor smashed his equipment, the Master slipped into his TARDIS and escaped. (AUDIO: Masterpiece)
Surviving in the universe[[edit] | [edit source]]
{{section stub|Information from ''[[Legacy (video game)|Legacy]]'', & ''[[Sonic Adventure (video game)|Sonic Adventure]]'' needs to be added}}
With his TARDIS still in the form of a clock, the Master attempted to steal Iris Wildthyme's body, (PROSE: The Scarlet Shadow) and was captured by the Sild. (PROSE: Harvest of Time)
The "Decayed" Master was greeted by Missy, who had developed a plan to form a band to hypnotise viewers of The Battle of the Bands Beyond the Stars. His "Tremas", "Bruce" and "Saxon" incarnations all joined in the plan, and the team spent "decades" practicing. (COMIC: The Five Masters) After unveiling their presence to the Twelfth Doctor and Clara Oswald, (COMIC: The Abominable Showmen) the Masters prepared for their performance. However, the "Tremas" Master began to fight with Missy over the control of her device, believing that he alone could hold the universe in his grasp. The "Decayed" Master joined in the struggle, declaring that his future selves were idiots. The five were quickly disqualified, seemingly destroying them. (COMIC: The Five Masters)
Fighting the Doctor again[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Master plotted to capture the Z-battery that the Third Doctor left on Earth to repair his TARDIS during his exile. The Master's plan was to use the Z-radiation within the battery, combined with the O-radiation which permeated Oseidon, to create powerful ZO-radiation which the Master could use to renew himself. For his plot, the Master entered into an alliance with the Kraals, and created two robot duplicates; one to pose as Kraal Chief Scientist Tyngworg, (AUDIO: The Oseidon Adventure) and a second to search for genetically engineered alien worm in Derbyshire. In Derbyshire, he spent his time living underneath Hugh Spindleton's house. He offered Leela to the worm, but the worm didn't want to eat her. Knowing that the Doctor was near, he advanced his plans and wanted to capture him. He mused why the worm wanted the Doctor. He activated the worm by generating a lightning storm. (AUDIO: Trail of the White Worm) The Master was arrested by Grimnal, but rescued by Leela, and they both went to Oseidon. The duplicate that stayed on Oseidon destroyed the one from Earth. The Doctor defeated the Master by using a Master android duplicate that he had constructed to kidnap the real Master, and take him away in his own TARDIS before his plan could be fulfilled. (AUDIO: The Oseidon Adventure)
The Master posed as Inspector Efendi of the Intergalactic insurance agency so that he could find spaceships full of gold bullion. He then employed the Salonu to steal the gold, which attracted the attention of the Doctor and Leela to investigate. The Master then used the telepathic abilities of the Salonu to influence Leela into thinking that she was the Master's assassin and that he was the great Xoanon who desired the death of the Doctor. The Salonu Prime, with the help of the Doctor, noticed the Master's influence and undid the conditioning. (AUDIO: The Evil One)
Shandar of the Rocket Men invited the Master on his ship the Asteroid, where the Master saw the Doctor was Shandar's prisoner. When he confronted the Doctor, the Master used his Tissue Compression Eliminator on him, and apparently killed him, but he realised he had only destroyed a duplicate. The real Doctor was in fact pretending to be Oskin, and used that guise to bring down the force field around the ship, and used K9 Mark I to stall the Master's TARDIS once it had passed the force field so that the slaves on board the Asteroid could be freed. The Master overrode K9's tampering and kidnapped Leela after she had left the Doctor. (AUDIO: Requiem for the Rocket Men)
Charming the participants' owners with fine dining, the Master became the huntmaster of the Death Match, and used Leela as his champion. The Master said all that he was doing was reviving an old Gallifreyan past-time and sent the Doctor into the Game. He then set the endgame protocols which meant every contestant had an hour to live. Kastrella worked out that his plan was to wipe out the heads of major armies using his game to do this. He indulged her in killing all her rivals. After the Doctor reversed the command Matrix, the Master was to be killed as part of the endgame and would only live if he killed Kastrella. (AUDIO: Death Match)
Fighting in the Cloister Wars[[edit] | [edit source]]
After the Sontaran invasion of Gallifrey revealed the existence of the Matrix to the wider universe, various species attacked the Cloisters that held the Martix under the Capitol to claim the vast amount of knowledge within the system, leading to the Cloister Wars, (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) where the Master formed an alliance with the Doctor (TV: The Magician's Apprentice) to defend the Cloisters from the likes of the Daleks, Weeping Angels, Cybermen and Krillitane. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe)
Final gambits[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Master attempted to rend asunder the constellation of Mandus using a segment of the Key to Time, but was defeated by the Doctor. (PROSE: Cold Fusion) On Kendrax, he attempted to ally himself with the Daleks and the Cybermen, but his plan was foiled by Romana II. (PROSE: The Not-So-Sinister Sponge) The Master also entered a pact with the Embodiment of Gris, but found himself again bested by the Doctor. (PROSE: Cold Fusion)
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Posing as a Sun God, the Master forced the Therians to build a solar relais to prevent night from falling on Chasca Minor. After finding their worship boring, he ordered them to build him a tomb and seal him in it, as he entered a stasis chamber to await the Doctor. As he slept in the chamber, his tomb was removed from Chasca Minor and placed inside a museum on Chasca Major, where the Master was awakened by River Song and Luke Sullieman. Realising what had happened, the Master persuaded River to return him to Chasca Minor and retrieve his TARDIS in exchange for a chance to investigate the local ziqqurat.
Once they arrived on Chasca Minor, the Master began killing River's companions in order to both distract the Therians and pass the booby traps in the ziqqurat. Once the solar relais was deactivated, allowing night to fall, the Master still needed his solar capacitor to power his TARDIS, so agreed to help River escape from the planet in exchange for her help. However, River left the capacitor with the Therians, allowing them to revert their evolution and become people again, and abandoned the Master to their mercy. (AUDIO: Animal Instinct)
Acquiring a new body[[edit] | [edit source]]
So, a new body. At last.
The Master was drawn to, and became stranded, on the planet Traken, the centre of the Traken Union, with his TARDIS configured into the sculpture-shaped Melkur. He plotted to take over the Source also located on the planet Traken, the power behind the Traken Union, and use it to restore himself. To this end, over a period of years, (TV: The Keeper of Traken) which he mostly spent in "hibernation", (PROSE: A Master of Disguise) the Master won over Kassia, who later married Tremas and became a stepmother to Nyssa. His plans were thwarted by the Doctor and Adric when the Keeper of Traken summoned them, having sensed something of his machinations. With the help of Tremas and Nyssa, the Doctor removed the Master from the Source. However, with some of the Keeper's powers lingering, the Master was able to merge with Tremas, (TV: The Keeper of Traken) regenerating himself into a new body. (AUDIO: The Light at the End)
Post-mortem[[edit] | [edit source]]
When the "Tremas" Master was stripped of his Trakenite body by the Time Lords, and after his plot to steal the Fifth Doctor's regenerations failed, he found himself confronting mental projections of all his past incarnations, and was able to steal a bit of life energy from each of them, allowing him to regenerate back into his Trakenite body. (PROSE: The Velvet Dark)
Other realities[[edit] | [edit source]]
Alternate timelines[[edit] | [edit source]]
Discovering that the Celestial Intervention Agency were gathering illegal Vess weapons, the Master blackmailed their agent, Straxus, into handing over a conceptual bomb. The Master then visited Bob Dovie and, after killing his family, planted the device into his head. When Dovie saw the inside of the Doctor's TARDIS, his refusal to believe in it caused the Doctor's TARDIS to explode, causing its timeline to begin to collapse. With the Doctor's timeline collapsing along with the TARDIS's, the Doctor's first eight incarnations joined forces to avert the detonation of the bomb, before the First Doctor erased the events from history. (AUDIO: The Light at the End)
Psychological profile[[edit] | [edit source]]
Personality[[edit] | [edit source]]
While he originally approached a situation with youthful arrogance, (AUDIO: The Two Masters) the Decayed Master preoccupied his time with finding a way to regenerate following his disfigurement and the loss of his own ability to regenerate forcing him to face his imminent death. With his mobility and capabilities of camouflage decreased, he was often forced to hide his involvement in his plans until the very moment victory was within his grasp. (TV: The Deadly Assassin, The Keeper of Traken)
Blaming him for his predicament, (PROSE: The Dead Travel Fast) the Decayed Master felt a stronger hatred towards the Doctor than before, specifically guiding the Fourth Doctor back to Gallifrey so he could be framed for the President's assassination and executed in disgrace, (TV: The Deadly Assassin) wished to personally kill a companion of the Doctor, (AUDIO: The Two Masters) and once hatched a plan that would have destroyed all the Doctors and unraveled the Web of Time simply for his revenge against the Doctor. (AUDIO: The Light at the End) He also disliked being compared to the Doctor. (AUDIO: Animal Instinct) However, he often found himself unable to kill the Doctor, because that would rid him of the satisfaction of defeating him, (PROSE: Legacy of the Daleks) and was able to have a civil conversation with him when he deemed it suitable, (AUDIO: Death Match) and showed shades of bitterness when he learned River Song was the Doctor's wife. (AUDIO: Animal Instinct)
While he claimed that nothing he ever did "[was] ever pointless", (AUDIO: The Light at the End) and that he only killed for "power", (AUDIO: The Two Masters) the Decayed Master seemed more comfortable with killing people just for the sake of it, (AUDIO: The Light at the End) showing a sadistic pleasure when he resorted to killing, (TV: The Keeper of Traken) and even destroyed the planet Raskalar for amusement. (AUDIO: Death Match) However, the Seventh Doctor recalled how the "Decayed" Master was "generally a serious sort", remembering how he was "cold and cruel." (AUDIO: The Two Masters)
Leela claimed that the Decayed Master was "raw" and "honest", as he "did not seem to hide [himself] away" or "disguise [his] hate". (AUDIO: The Devil You Know)
Skills[[edit] | [edit source]]
In his degenerated state, the Master's telepathic capabilities and willpower grew stronger, with the Master proclaiming that "only [his] hate [kept him] alive". He was able to launch a telepathic message to the Doctor from Gallifrey to the Doctor's TARDIS, (TV: The Deadly Assassin) and, once he became the Keeper of Traken, the Master forced Tremas to kill Neman through sheer willpower, and also paralysed the Doctor to make him watch. (TV: The Keeper of Traken) However, he was unable to hypnotise the Proto-Time Lord River Song. (AUDIO: Animal Instinct)
Meticulous in his schemes, the Decayed Master planned for every imaginable obstacle and put in place a counter for it. (AUDIO: Trail of the White Worm, The Oseidon Adventure) He was willing to be patient with his plans, waiting inside his TARDIS for years to slowly seduce Kassia. (TV: The Keeper of Traken)
Despite his frail body, the Decayed Master was an admirable fighter, able to trade equal blows with the Fourth Doctor, (TV: The Deadly Assassin) stand his ground in a brawl with his other incarnations, (COMIC: The Five Masters) and face off with Bram Stoker while suffering Artron decay. (PROSE: The Dead Travel Fast)
Appearance[[edit] | [edit source]]
In his thirteenth incarnation, (TV: The Deadly Assassin) the Master had brown eyes. (TV: The Keeper of Traken) Due to suffering artron decay, the Master's thirteenth incarnation was initially emaciated, needing to absorb additional life force to be healed. (PROSE: The Dead Travel Fast)
After he was burnt in an energy net by the Reborn Master, (AUDIO: The Two Masters) as well as his attempt to regenerate past the twelve-regeneration limit, (PROSE: Meet Missy!) the Thirteenth Master came to resemble a deformed corpse. However, after absorbing some energy from the Eye of Harmony, (TV: The Deadly Assassin) he became less "putrescent". (AUDIO: Trail of the White Worm) With his decayed body, the Master would experience almost unendurable pain. (AUDIO: The Two Masters) To hide his disfigurement, the Master took to wearing a rotting hooded cloak. (TV: The Deadly Assassin) Whilst in Victorian London, he wore a mask in public to conceal his decaying appearance, and also used a cane to aid his frail body. (AUDIO: Maurice)
He was described by Spandrell as being "emaciated", (TV: The Deadly Assassin) with Bob Dovie describing him as looking "burned." (AUDIO: The Light at the End) The Fourth Doctor described him as "a cowled cadaver", (AUDIO: Requiem for the Rocket Men) while River Song described him as the "crispy-looking Master". (AUDIO: Animal Instinct) Missy remembered her wraith-like thirteenth incarnation as being "the Yucky One", (PROSE: Meet Missy!) and Mikey compared his appearance to E.T.. (AUDIO: And You Will Obey Me)
Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]
In The Deadly Assassin, writer Robert Holmes deliberately chose to show the Master in a "transitional" form, in case future production teams wanted to bring back the character. However, in the final shot of the Master in the serial, he is considerably less decayed than he was during the rest of the story. It was apparently the intention that, having received enough energy from the Eye of Harmony, the Master was beginning to regenerate. However, this scene was omitted from the novelisation and was thus forgotten by the time of the production of The Keeper of Traken. The Master's apparently healthier appearance in the latter would be explained in Trail of the White Worm, which establishes that, as the Doctor had theorised, the Master did partially healed himself in The Deadly Assassin.
The Master was the villain in the early drafts of the 1977 television story The Talons of Weng-Chiang, until he was replaced by Magnus Greel.[1]
Footnotes[[edit] | [edit source]]
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