Marnal

The Time Lord Marnal was the Master's father and the previous owner of the Doctor's TARDIS.

Biography[[edit] | [edit source]]

Life on Gallifrey[[edit] | [edit source]]

As children, the Doctor and Master would play in the fields near the Master's father's estates, with pastures of red grass near Mount Perdition. (TV: The End of Time (part one) ^[+]Loading...{"part":"one","1":"The End of Time (TV story)"}) In his childhood, the Doctor considered Marnal his hero.

Marnal was the Castellan on Gallifrey before the Doctor left the planet. Marnal was sent by the Time Lords to the Shoal to investigate the threat of the Vore to Gallifrey. He destroyed the Shoal after a meeting with Larna, a Time Lady from Gallifrey's future (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles ^[+]Loading...["The Gallifrey Chronicles (novel)"]) and companion of the Infinity Doctor. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Infinity Doctors (novel)"])

On Earth[[edit] | [edit source]]

Marnal threatened to expose Ulysses' secret of having a hybrid son, (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles ^[+]Loading...["The Gallifrey Chronicles (novel)"]) the Doctor. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Infinity Doctors (novel)"], et al.) Ulysses wiped Marnal's memory with his TARDIS' telepathic circuits and dumped him on Earth in England, 1883. He was placed in the care of Penelope Gate's Penelope Gate's mother.

Under the name "Marnal Gate", Marnal became a science fiction author. Although he did not remember that Gallifrey and the Time Lords were real, he wrote stories containing the entire history of Gallifrey. He wrote at least eleven works between 1983 and 2005, including The Giants, which was published alongside a Holmes story (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles ^[+]Loading...["The Gallifrey Chronicles (novel)"]) in 1893; (PROSE: The Bodysnatchers ^[+]Loading...["The Bodysnatchers (novel)"]) one published in 1938 with illustrations by Mervyn Peake; and The Monkey to Time saga, written November 2001. He also once wrote an episode of Star Trek, but it was subsequently altered so much that he removed his name from it.

In the 1970s, while "on the run" (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles ^[+]Loading...["The Gallifrey Chronicles (novel)"]) from UNIT, the Master, (TV: Colony in Space ^[+]Loading...["Colony in Space (TV story)"]) Marnal's son, visited him and told him about how the Doctor had become a renegade and stolen Marnal's TARDIS. Marnal also had four step-daughters on Earth from his wives' previous marriages, whom he described as parasites.

In 2005, he regenerated from his twelfth to his thirteenth and final incarnation. The surge of artron energy restored his synapses and returned his memory. He recruited his hospice nurse, Rachel Rowley, and used a bottle universe to learn about the destruction of Gallifrey and the history of the Eighth Doctor.

Enraged at the Doctor's actions, as well as the "theft" of his old TARDIS, he intended to make the Doctor pay for his crimes. However, the pair created an uneasy alliance when the Vore began to invade Earth. Marnal became convinced that he and the Doctor should restore Gallifrey, but he was killed by the Vore before any plan could be finalised. Before he died, the Doctor told him that he was his childhood hero, which seemed to surprise Marnal before passing. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles ^[+]Loading...["The Gallifrey Chronicles (novel)"])

Echo[[edit] | [edit source]]

Shortly after the Doctor and Susan's escape from Gallifrey, during which they stole the TARDIS from its hibernation, Susan found a mirror deep in its corridors. Upon looking at her reflection in the mirror, she saw the tall figure of a pale young man wearing long dark robes. He reached his hand through the surface of the mirror and kissed Susan's hand, then revealed that he had fangs, not teeth. He said to her in a language she didn't recognize, "You are not the one. This is not the time." He then disappeared.

The First Doctor explained this to Susan as a "time echo" from their people's past, dismissing its touch of Susan's hand as a trick of the mind. (PROSE: The Exiles ^[+]Loading...["The Exiles (short story)"]) When Ace later encountered "Dracula's cute son" in the same mirror, he explained to her that the TARDIS' corridors were so long that the reflected images and bouncing sounds could over time "coalesce". He told her that he was "the original–" but was cut off when a dodo crashed into the mirror. (PROSE: Echo ^[+]Loading...["Echo (short story)"])

According to another account, the TARDIS' previous owner was Marianna. (AUDIO: The Abandoned ^[+]Loading...["The Abandoned (audio story)"])

Legacy[[edit] | [edit source]]

Following his disappearance while investigating the Vore, (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles ^[+]Loading...["The Gallifrey Chronicles (novel)"]) Marnal was remembered on Gallifrey as a man who went on impossible crusades and fought battles without knowing his enemy. The latter became known as "Marnal's error". (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Infinity Doctors (novel)"])

The Master used to blame his frequent discontent and anger on his father and mother. (AUDIO: I Am The Master ^[+]Loading...["I Am The Master (audio story)"])

One of Marnal's step-grandsons believed that he had been a friend of H. G. Wells. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles ^[+]Loading...["The Gallifrey Chronicles (novel)"])

Appearance[[edit] | [edit source]]

In his twelfth incarnation, Marnal was an old man; after he regenerated, he was a young man with brown eyes. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles ^[+]Loading...["The Gallifrey Chronicles (novel)"])

Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]

• Many of Marnal's works are references to the working titles of classic Doctor Who television stories. They include The Witch Lords (State of Decay ^[+]Loading...["State of Decay (TV story)"]), The Giants ^[+]Loading...["The Giants (unproduced TV story)"], The Hand of Time (The Hand of Fear ^[+]Loading...["The Hand of Fear (TV story)"]), The Kraglon Inheritance (The Two Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Two Doctors (TV story)"]), Day of Wrath (Four to Doomsday ^[+]Loading...["Four to Doomsday (TV story)"]), The Time of Neman (Arc of Infinity ^[+]Loading...["Arc of Infinity (TV story)"]), and The Monkey to Time Saga (possibly the the "Key to Time" season).