The Master (The Destination Wars): Difference between revisions

Sometime after leaving [[Gallifrey]], '''[[the Master]]''' found himself stranded on [[Destination]], where he set himself up as '''the Inventor''' in order to trick the populace into building his means of escape until the [[First Doctor]] happened to arrive and he changed his plans to stealing [[the Doctor's TARDIS]] to escape. After he managed to leave Destination, the Master would run into the [[Seventh Doctor]] on [[Segonax]], the [[Fourth Doctor]] at [[the Repository]] and the [[Second Doctor]] on a human colony planet.

=== Origin ===

The Time Lord began to use the name of "the Master" for the first time since leaving the Academy in this incarnation, ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Destination Wars (audio story)|The Destination Wars]]'') which one account claimed the Master had done after regenerating into his seventh incarnation, who was more ruthless than his preceding incarnations. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[CIA File Extracts (novel)|CIA File Extracts]]'') However, according to the [[Fourth Doctor]]'s speculations, the "Inventor Master" was the product of the Master's second or third regeneration. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Blood of the Time Lords (audio story)|Blood of the Time Lords]]'')

In "much the same circumstances" as the Doctor, the Master stole [[The Master's TARDIS|a Type-45 TARDIS]] from [[Gallifrey]] before the [[Quadrigger]]s had the chance to "overhaul" it, which resulted in his TARDIS falling apart around him almost instantly. In "an experiment gone wrong", the Master crash-landed his ship on [[Destination (planet)|Destination]], a planet in "the farthest arm of the galaxy, in the earliest [[Segment of Time|Segments of Time]]", and was left with "the bare minimum of components."

The Master took charge of Destination, assuming the title of "the Inventor", and developed the planet's technology for his own ends. He pitted the human colonists against the [[Dalmari]], so that the colonists would develop the nuclear technology he planned to use to refuel his TARDIS's engines. When the [[First Doctor]] arrived, he changed his plans and tried to steal [[the Doctor's TARDIS]] to escape. He was able to trick [[Ian Chesterton]] and [[Barbara Wright]] into leading him to the ship, but they were able to overpower him and use the [[fast return switch]] to take the TARDIS back to Destination. The Master ultimately became trapped in his own laboratory after the Doctor had rerouted its power to help Destination to rebuild. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Destination Wars (audio story)|The Destination Wars]]'')

Deciding to revisit the construction of a [[Parenthesis Clock]] that would allow him to indiscriminately alter timelines without suffering the consequences, the Master infiltrated [[the Repository]], and convinced his former teacher, Eminent [[Sedanya]], as well as other residents, to help him, and they built the Clock near the library of the Repository in order to better gain access to [[the Matrix]] and use its power to fuel the Clock, with Master using the power of the Matrix to summon the fabled [[Mandlebrot]] to keep intruders away. When the Clock was completed, the Master began using a temporal extractor to rewind the timelines of some of the residents so that the Clock could be fuelled with their experiences in stellar engineering, only for the the [[Fourth Doctor]] to arrive at the Repository to bring back the ''[[Grimoire|Discord Grimoire]]''.

The Master tried to frame the Doctor for the murders by extracting from him a false confession under the [[Time Winds]], but when this failed, he instead tricked the Doctor and assistant librarian [[Elanora]] into becoming victims of the Mandelbroth, and then manipulated the following trial in order to have the blame for the murders placed on [[Ansillon (Blood of the Time Lords)|Ansillon]]. When the Doctor survived the Mandelbroth and discovered his identity, the Master was convinced by Sedanya not to kill him on the spot and to instead have the Doctor and Elanora dying in the explosion of his TARDIS, as the Master didn't think he needed it anymore. The Master finally managed to activate the Clock, but his miscalculations only resulted in the device malfunctioning, and, in desperation, the Master encouraged the Doctor to use the ''Discord Grimoire'' to deactivate the Clock, and disappeared before the Doctor used the Clock to undo his actions. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Blood of the Time Lords (audio story)|Blood of the Time Lords]]'')

After arriving on a planet where human colonists had settled in a fictional recreation of an [[English]] [[village]] during the [[Second World War]] to live in peace away from Earth, the Master took control of the environment, organised a [[home guard]] and armed the original population of the planet to entice a conflict and demonstrate that an outgunned and outnumbered group of people could resist against a much greater enemy when properly motivated. When the [[Second Doctor]] arrived with [[Ben Jackson]], [[Polly Wright]] and [[Jamie McCrimmon]], the Master hypnotised them into joining his experiment. The Doctor, however, immersed himself too deep in his role of commander of the home guard and made contact with the aliens to reach a peaceful solution, resulting in the aliens attacking earlier than the Master had anticipated. In the ensuing battle, the Master escaped in his TARDIS, with the intent of returning to look on the results of the conflict. However, when he returned, the Doctor had already set a trap for him after persuading the fighters into a peace. The Master was captured and put on trial for illegal use of [[mind control]], while his TARDIS was confiscated. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Home Guard (audio story)|The Home Guard]]'')

[[File:DreyfusMasterPsychicCircus.png|thumb|right|The Master on Segonax.([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Psychic Circus (audio story)|The Psychic Circus]]'')]]

While trapped somewhere, the Master managed to ally himself with the [[Gods of Ragnarok]] on [[Segonax]], and used a [[pendant]] they gave him to contact a street artist on [[Zamyatin]] named [[Kingpin]] and use Kingpin's free spirited energy to cause a [[psychic storm]], which caused a revolution on Zamyatin. The Master then persuaded Kingpin to organise a collective of various artists and bring them to Segonax to become the [[Psychic Circus]]. The Master then persuaded the [[Chief clown]] to organise a talent contest so that new energy could be acquired.  

When Kingpin managed to contact the [[Seventh Doctor]], the Master used his abilities to stop him from reaching the Circus, first creating an illusion of him landing on Zamyatin, and then one of him returning to [[Paradise Towers]]. When the Doctor eventually came to the Circus, he and the Master confronted each other on a [[psychic plane]], where the Doctor exploited the Gods' curiosity to buy time to steal the pendant from the Master and pass it to Kingpin. Kingpin then used the pendant to free the Circus from the Master and the Gods' influence, and the Master was left at the mercy of the Gods of Ragnarok. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Psychic Circus (audio story)|The Psychic Circus]]'')

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 [[regeneration|regenerate]] back into his Trakenite body. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Velvet Dark (short story)|The Velvet Dark]]'')

When he met the [[First Doctor]], [[Susan Foreman|Susan]], [[Ian Chesterton|Ian]] and [[Barbara Wright|Barbara]] on Destination, the Master had short hair and a [[beard]], both of which were almost completely [[grey]], save for some dark patches. His eyes were [[brown]] in colour. He wore an asymmetrical [[black]] [[overcoat]] with a large [[white]] lined collar on the left-hand side. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Destination Wars (audio story)|The Destination Wars]]'') He later adopted a black [[Nehru jacket]] by the time he met the [[Second Doctor]]. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Home Guard (audio story)|The Home Guard]]'')

The "Inventor" Master was a cold-hearted and self-centred individual, willing to influence a whole planet's development to refuel his craft, and equally willing to abandon his plans just to steal the Doctor's TARDIS. He found amusement in shaping a culture to his benefit and looked down on others as his inferiors, claiming to have "longed for a mind equal to [his] own" when confronting the Doctor on [[Destination (planet)|Destination]]. He particularly disregarded humans as "ape-descended primitives". ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Destination Wars (audio story)|The Destination Wars]]'')

The [[Fourth Doctor]] once observed that the Master was "unscrupulous", and a pragmatist who destroy anything in his way, but was also quick to make extreme reactions to offense. He would often kill his allies the the moment he no longer had any use for them just for the sake of doing it. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Blood of the Time Lords (audio story)|Blood of the Time Lords]]'')

* The "Inventor" Master was first created for ''[[Blood of the Time Lords (audio story)|Blood of the Time Lords]]'', where an uncertain [[Fourth Doctor]] asked him whether he was in his second or third "regeneration", but the Master, angered by the Doctor's forgetfulness, refused to confirm or deny his guesses. It was [[David Richardson]] who proposed they "introduce the First Master" during the production of ''[[The Destination Wars (audio story)|The Destination Wars]]'',<ref>https://www.bigfinish.com/vortex/v/106</ref> and, while Dreyfus was initially promoted by [[Big Finish Productions]] as portraying the "first [[incarnation]]" of the Master, or "the first Master", <ref>https://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/david-bradley-returns-to-the-tardis-in-doctor-who-the-first-doctor-adventures</ref><ref>https://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/the-big-finish-roundup1</ref> writer [[John Dorney]] has stated that none of that made it in any of the scripts, and that, if anything, it was contradicted.<ref>https://notthebigfinishforum.freeforums.net/thread/5101/names-masters-incarnations?page=2</ref> Dorney also noted that the name "First Master" could be interpreted multiple ways, as meaning either "first incarnation, first to call himself Master or first the Doctor meets in continuity."<ref>https://notthebigfinishforum.freeforums.net/post/226435</ref> When asked whether Dreyfus portrayed the Master as he originally was before he ever regenerated, [[Nicholas Briggs]] replied that that's intentionally left unanswered and open for interpretation.<ref>https://www.bigfinish.com/vortex/v/112</ref>  

* According to James Dreyfus, the "Inventor" Master was intended to appear in the anniversary audio story ''[[Masterful (audio story)|Masterful]]'',<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20210316130936/https://twitter.com/dreyfusjames/status/1371810604189679618 For context. I played the Master too. Erased, & never rehired. No explanation.]</ref> but was removed due to a series of remarks he made on [[Twitter]] that were interpreted by many to be transphobic. Dreyfus would later claim that he had "no idea" why Big Finish cut ties with him.<ref>[https://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/equality-and-diversity-at-big-finish Equality and diversity at Big Finish]</ref>

* James Dreyfus's credit was removed from the cover of ''[[The Psychic Circus (audio story)|The Psychic Circus]]'' following controversy over remarks he had posted on Twitter that many considered transphobic.

* As a result of the aforementioned controversy, a composite of [[George Pravda]] as [[Spandrell]] and [[Anthony Ainley]] as the [[Tremas Master]] was used to provide the likeness of the "Inventor Master" on the cover artwork of ''[[Solo (audio anthology)|Solo]]'', the anthology which ''[[Blood of the Time Lords (audio story)|Blood of the Time Lords]]'' was part of.<ref>[https://twitter.com/iamryanaplin/status/1617664307382321153 It was a comp between these two!! Just Spandrell with Ainley’s goatee! Wasn’t intentional to make him ACTUALLY look like you-know-who… just wound up that way!]</ref>