The Master's early life
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In his younger years, the Master was the Doctor's friend and schoolmate at the Academy on Gallifrey, until a falling out occurred between them. After some time working in the authority and politics of his homeworld, the Master would leave Gallifrey in a stolen TARDIS of his own.
Biography[[edit] | [edit source]]
Early life[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Master grew up on Gallifrey in the House of Oakdown, (PROSE: Divided Loyalties) though he would later comment to Wilfred Mott that growing up on Gallifrey was not something one could call childhood, but "more a life of duty". (TV: The End of Time) The name he was born with consisted of thirty-two letters (PROSE: Lords and Masters) and, as per the Gallifreyan custom, could never be revealed to a non-Time Lord. The Master thought his real name was "mellifluous". (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons)
Like all Time Lords, the Master was taken from his family at the age of eight for the selection process. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords) During the ceremony, in which he gazed into the Time Vortex through the Untempered Schism, he went mad (TV: The Sound of Drums) due to a rhythm of four beats being implanted into his head by Rassilon during the Last Great Time War. (TV: The End of Time) This malady manifested itself as the constant drumming he heard ever after, worsening with time. (TV: Utopia, The Sound of Drums, Last of the Time Lords)
Academic career[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Master and the First Doctor became friends on their first day at the Academy, (TV: World Enough and Time) with both being tutored by Borusa, (AUDIO: Masterplan) and the Doctor quickly developing a crush on his new friend, (TV: World Enough and Time) which the Master was partially aware of. (AUDIO: The Bekdel Test) The duo also made a friend in Magnus on their first day at the Academy. (PROSE: Divided Loyalties)
Sharing the same heritage and upbringing, (AUDIO: Dominion) the Master developed a strong bond with the Doctor, (TV: The Sea Devils, The Sound of Drums, World Enough and Time) with UNIT scientist Petronella Osgood even describing the Master as the Doctor's "childhood friend". (TV: Death in Heaven) The Second Doctor recalled that he and the Master had everything in common, except that the Master enjoyed being scared of the dark "a little too much", (PROSE: The Menagerie) while the Third Doctor told Jo Grant that the two were "inseparable" due to their shared interests, such as a desire to break the non-interference policy. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Sea Devils) The Twelfth Doctor recalled how he and the Master had a pact to explore every star in the universe together, (TV: World Enough and Time) though the War Master remembered wanting to own the stars as a child. (AUDIO: The Walls of Absence)
The two youths 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) They would also sneak out of the Capitol and drink with the Shobogans, (PROSE: The Eight Doctors) with the Master picking a fight with six drunken Shobogans during one of these outings. (PROSE: UNIT Christmas Parties: Christmas Truce) They also once encountered trouble on Machasma, (AUDIO: Darkness and Light) and enjoyed building "time flow analogues" to disrupt each other's experiments. (TV: The Time Monster)
The Master also taught his friend hypnotism, and would often hypnotise people as a joke, (PROSE: The Dark Path) but would go unpunished for it, as well as other misdemeanours, always finding a way to avoid his comeuppance. (PROSE: First Frontier)
During their childhood, the Master and the Doctor were mercilessly and viciously bullied by a boy called Torvic; the Doctor was eventually forced to kill the bully to save his friend's life. The Doctor was later confronted by the personification of Death, who insisted he become her disciple, but the Doctor refused and suggested Death make the Master her champion instead. Death agreed, and the Doctor subsequently forgot about their deal. (AUDIO: Master)
The Master went by the name "Koschei" at the Academy and, along with Magnus and the Doctor, belonged to a clique of ten young Time Lords with the collective name of the Deca. (PROSE: Divided Loyalties) He was also part of the "Gallifrey Academy Hot Five" band, in which he played the drums. (PROSE: Deadly Reunion) The Master was in charge of organising end of term parties, although the Eighth Doctor later noted that they weren't very good. (COMIC: The Glorious Dead)
The Master chose his title while he was beginning to "hone his talents" at the Academy. (AUDIO: The Destination Wars) The Doctor chose his around the same time. The Master felt that the name "the Doctor" was "sanctimonious", (TV: The Sound of Drums) while the Doctor thought the Master's new name was a sign of his ambition and arrogance. (AUDIO: The Destination Wars) The Tenth Doctor once stated that it would be a "psychologist's field day" understanding why he chose to call himself "the Master", (TV: The Sound of Drums) with one account claiming he gained the nickname of "the Master" in his Academy days because he was a bully to less domineering students than himself. (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey)
Whilst at the Academy, the Doctor and the Master travelled into Gallifrey's past in search of Valdemar. They found nothing of the Old Ones except for warnings. The Master was fascinated by the power that Valdemar represented, while the Doctor was horrified. (PROSE: Tomb of Valdemar) The Master also showed a fascination with the Necronomicon. (PROSE: The Nameless City)
While a "rubbish schoolboy", (TV: The Power of the Doctor) the Master was a "teacher's pet" at the Academy and won gold stars, while the Doctor was the class dunce, (PROSE: Time and Relative) though the Doctor was Borusa's favourite. (AUDIO: Masterplan) Ultimately, the Master did not perform well at the Academy, (AUDIO: Masterplan) as he was not skilled in practical matters, (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey) though he did earn a higher degree in cosmic science than the Doctor. (TV: Terror of the Autons) However, the Doctor's grades were overall better, and he received the prizes and praise that the Master so desperately wanted. The Seventh Doctor theorised that this may have been the cause of the Master's hatred towards him, (PROSE: Survival) with Eighth Doctor believing that his jealousy over Borusa was the cause of the Master's hatred towards him. (AUDIO: Masterplan)
When the Time Lords created the Consolidator to conceal various dangerous historical secrets from the rest of the universe, unwilling to destroy the items or races in the ship in case they proved useful later, the Doctor and the Master were assigned to come up with a solution where their peers had failed. The Master had the idea of using a black hole to tear a rift in time and send the Consolidator into the distant future, where the future Time Lords could deal with it, but the Doctor declined to have his name put down on the calculations as he questioned the ethics of the assignment. However, when the experiment was actually attempted, the Consolidator was apparently destroyed by a mistake in the calculations when it struck the edge of the black hole, leaving the Time Lords to hush the matter up. (PROSE: Harvest of Time)
As the Doctor grew up, he came to understand that he and the Master were not the same. (TV: Death in Heaven) Following an incident at the Academy in which the Master did not keep his word, he and the Doctor had a falling out, (PROSE: Last of the Gaderene) eventually leading the Doctor to realise that the Master stood against everything he believed in. (AUDIO: The Destination Wars)
The Master was on an Academy research project when the Doctor was expelled from the Academy. (PROSE: Divided Loyalties)
In one of his earliest schemes at the Academy, the Master befriended one of his professors, Salyavin, to gain access to Gallifrey's most restricted libraries and find The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey. The Master himself failed to find the book, and ended up letting the innocent Salyavin bear the consequences of his breach of Gallifrey's laws; Salyavin ended up stealing the book anyway, reasoning he might as well if he was to be blamed for it, (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey) and was imprisoned on Shada, from which he later escaped, renaming himself "Professor Chronotis". (TV: Shada)
After leaving the Academy, the Master stopped using the title of "the Master", (AUDIO: The Destination Wars) with one account claiming he took on the name "Magnus". (COMIC: Flashback) Because of this, he was often confused for his old Academy friend of the same name, (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey, A Brief History of Time Lords) with even the Fifth Doctor being unable to completely differentiate them in a dream. (PROSE: Divided Loyalties)
Seeing the universe[[edit] | [edit source]]
After graduating, the Master was involved in "field work" studying historical interplay and temporal structures, though he was reprimanded for various minor breaches of the non-interference policy. (PROSE: CIA File Extracts) While on Earth, the Master regenerated for the first time, and his second incarnation found himself at the Scoundrels Club during the Great Fire of London. Becoming a member of the club so that he could recover from the regeneration in comfort, the Master organised fireworks on the roof to celebrate the occasion. He would visit the Scoundrels Club after each of his following regenerations to recover as a tradition. (PROSE: Dismemberment)
The Master met Harry Houdini, who taught him some escapology. (AUDIO: The Destination Wars)
Career on Gallifrey[[edit] | [edit source]]
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Following the Morbius crisis, the Master was recalled to Gallifrey and assigned to the Prydonian Academy as a teacher of mathematics and computer science. (PROSE: CIA File Extracts)
Still maintaining a "friend[ship] of sorts", the Master and the Doctor were pioneers and inventors among their people, (AUDIO: The Destination Wars) agreeing that Gallifrey should be more interventionist, although the Master's views were seen as "excessive" by the Doctor. (PROSE: CIA File Extracts) Missy claimed she had a daughter and that, while still on Gallifrey, the Doctor gifted the Master a dark star alloy brooch after an event which involved his daughter occurred. (TV: The Witch's Familiar)
One day, the Master attempted to drain power from a conglomerate of Artron energy retrieved from the Time Vortex. However, the Doctor realised the "ball of energy" was actually a sentient energy being and stopped the Master; while the Doctor was commended for his actions, the Master, who wished for the experiment to bring him fame equal to Omega and Rassilon, never forgave the Doctor for ruining his plans that day, becoming a bitter enemy of his. (COMIC: Flashback)
Working for Chapter 9 of the Time Lord police force, (AUDIO: The Black Hole) the Master gained the job of truant officer, and performed his duties with punctuality, self-discipline, and meritorious conduct, (PROSE: Time and Relative) under the name "Pavo". While he was pursuing the Monk, the Master caught up with him at a research station, where the Monk shot him with his own baton, and stole the Master's perception-altering ring in order to impersonate him. The Monk thought that he had killed the Master, but, with the help of the Second Doctor and Jamie McCrimmon, he was able to regenerate into a female incarnation, who assumed the alias of "Commander Melanie Flail". After the Doctor helped her defeat the Monk and a Seeth invasion, the Master decided to let him go, after hypnotically wiping the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria's memories of the event, "officially" claiming that this would help her escape the taint of requiring the aid of a Renegade Time Lord to resolve this crisis. (AUDIO: The Black Hole)
Later life on Gallifrey[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Master once attended a ritual in Arcadia, where he gave the Doctor's granddaughter, Susan, a toy that was actually a disguised communication node that would locate the Doctor if he ever left Gallifrey. (AUDIO: The Toy)
The Master soon began to rise rapidly in the Time Lord hierarchy, (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) becoming a member of the High Council. (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey) His social climbing caused Cardinal Borusa to see him as a threat to his own position of power, so he persuaded the Celestial Intervention Agency to manufacture evidence of treason against him. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
Fleeing Gallifrey[[edit] | [edit source]]
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On the day that the Doctor left Gallifrey, (PROSE: Celestial Intervention — A Gallifreyan Noir) the Master was in line for a promotion to Head Truant Officer, but his career depended on catching the Doctor and Susan and preventing any violations of the non-interference policy. (PROSE: Time and Relative) He used the node he gave Susan to locate the Doctor, but found that the node had established a connection with Nyssa, a companion of the Fifth Doctor. The Master tried to take control of Nyssa, but was stopped by the intervention of the Doctor. (AUDIO: The Toy) When retired CIA agent Maris was hired to find the Doctor, the Master, helped by the First Rani, used a chronal mine to kidnap her. They interrogated Maris on the whereabouts of the Doctor, and were displeased when she told them she didn't know. They were about to kill her when her employer extracted her from the area. (PROSE: Celestial Intervention — A Gallifreyan Noir)
The Master ultimately left Gallifrey on the same day the Doctor did, (COMIC: The Glorious Dead) in a Type-45 TARDIS, (PROSE: The Dark Path) that he had also stolen, (COMIC: The Glorious Dead) as he was believed to be a criminal due to Borusa's actions. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) However, one Time Lord believed that the Master left Gallifrey because, like the Doctor, it was "too peaceful for [him], [with] not enough happening", (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon) while the Fifth Doctor believed that the Master had left Gallifrey because he had also left. (AUDIO: The Toy)
According to another source, during a period of civil unrest on Gallifrey, the Master led many students of the Time Lord Academy in a revolt against the corrupt Lord President, Pundat the Third, and attempted to recruit the Doctor and convince him to take the position as President, but he decided not to interfere with the current constitution. When Pundat died of stress soon after the revolt, his chosen successor was the evil Chancellor Slann. The students had found the last of Lord Rassilon's descendants, Lady Larn, a seven-year old child adopted by Councillor Brolin, who was being groomed as a future president. They decided on a second coup, but were overheard by the authorities when trying to convert the Doctor again, and bloody reprisals against the students followed. The Doctor and Larn escaped from Gallifrey after this. Believing the students ready for another coup, the Master assassinated Lord President Slann. However, the students weren't ready and he took this opportunity to steal a TARDIS and flee Gallifrey as a renegade. (PROSE: Birth of a Renegade)
After escaping Gallifrey[[edit] | [edit source]]
Now a Renegade Time Lord, the Master decided to begin experimenting with temporal nexuses in the hope of manipulating them to take control of all history, altering it for the better so as to favour civilisation. However, he did not commit these acts under the name "the Master".
According to the Celestial Intervention Agency's research, the Master's sixth incarnation was involved in altering the events of the Battle of Hastings and partaking in the Daleks' master plan on the planet Tigus, but was foiled by the First Doctor both times. (PROSE: CIA File Extracts) However, different accounts placed another Renegade Time Lord called the Monk as the perpetrator of these endeavours, (TV: The Time Meddler, The Daleks' Master Plan; PROSE: No Future; AUDIO: Too Many Masters) though it should be noted that both the Sixth Master and the First Monk bore a strong resemblance. (PROSE: CIA File Extracts, The Mutation of Time)
The Master eventually regenerated into an incarnation who was more ruthless, and began to use the name of "the Master" (PROSE: CIA File Extracts) on a permanent basis for the first time since leaving the Academy. (AUDIO: The Destination Wars)
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)
Alternate timelines[[edit] | [edit source]]
As punishment for "a silly prank gone wrong", the Superiors locked "Koschei" and the Doctor in the bathroom of a bar on an underlevel of the Tower. After an argument, the Doctor escaped, leaving "Koschei" behind. The Tower eventually came under the control of the leader of the Cwejen Uprising, the Healer, though he never discovered "Koschei". When Chris Cwej and Frey became lost in the underlevels, they encountered "Koschei". Frey was dying because, as an Ephem, she needed regular infusions of Superior biodata to survive. "Koschei" offered to give her his own biodata and lead them out of the dungeon, on the condition that Cwej promise to listen to "Koschei's" words on a future date. Sensing that Cwej was "a friend of [his] friend", "Koschei" hypnotised him. Later, when Cwej was using the Tree of Life to undo the Uprising, "Koschei" spoke through Frey telepathically, distracting Cwej; as a result, only half the events of the Uprising were undone, resulting in an unstable new status quo. (PROSE: Rebel Rebel)
In an aborted timeline, the "Young" Master was brought to the ruins of Kiameth with four of his other incarnations, as well as Kamelion and Jo Grant by accident, by the Saxon Master, who intended to use the Attornium to take their lives in a desperate bid for his own survival after he had unleashed a sentient entropy wave. Despite his protests, the other Masters decided to sacrifice Jo for fun, but were interrupted by Missy, who used the time scoop to scatter the Masters along the timeline of Kiameth, to see if any of them would find a chance of redemption by either stopping the wave or salvaging something from its aftermath. The "Young" Master found himself on a spaceship carrying immigrants of a catastrophe on a sixty-five year journey, where he killed the crew in order to take over the ship, believing the voyage would be more successful with himself in charge. However, he was overthrown by the Reborn Master, who began killing rebellious refugees to use their bodies as engine fuel, disgusting the "Young" Master, so he left with Kamelion. When he joined forces with the Bruce and Saxon Masters against Missy, the "Young" Master was killed when Kamelion, who had been working with Missy, exploded, though the Saxon Master managed to escape. However, the actions of the War Master caused a paradox that erased the Saxon Master's arrival on Kiameth, bringing the universe back to normal. (AUDIO: Masterful)
Psychological profile[[edit] | [edit source]]
Personality[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Master was unconcerned about using up regenerations and never listened to the Doctor when he advised him not to waste them, (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat-People) even mocking the First Doctor for "still hobbling about in [his] old body". (COMIC: Flashback)
The Master was good friends with the Doctor at the Time Lord Academy, and the two bonded over a mutual promise to someday explore the universe together. The Twelfth Doctor later recalled that he was "always so brilliant" from the first day at the Academy. The Doctor developed a "man-crush" on him during this time. (TV: World Enough and Time) While he thought of rebeling against the Time Lords, the Master had the ambition of "looking out into the universe" with a "grand plan". (AUDIO: Masterful)
In his youth, the Master was disturbed by the concept of killing for amusement, believing that killing should only be done when necessary. (AUDIO, Masterful) He admired Magnus' ability to command people, and wished that he could one day learn to do the same. (PROSE: Divided Loyalties) He reacted with annoyance when Jo Grant called him and his later incarnations "sweet". (AUDIO: Masterful)
Susan Foreman remembered the Master as a highly regarded man, as a "stickler for the rules" with "meritorious conduct". (PROSE: Time and Relative) The Fifth Doctor believed that his obsession with him was the driving force for him leaving Gallifrey. (AUDIO: The Toy)
Appearance and clothing[[edit] | [edit source]]
As an eight-year-old boy, the Master had dark hair and bright blue eyes. (TV: The Sound of Drums)
While imprisoned beneath the Tower, "Koschei" had a long dark beard and "piercing" green eyes. He gave off an aura of menace to all who came near him, and, in his emaciated state, came across as a "creature" more than a man. (PROSE: Rebel Rebel)
The Master who was killed by the Monk was described as a bald man. (AUDIO: The Black Hole)
During his later years on Gallifrey, the Master swept his black hair back, and also grew a greying beard. (AUDIO: The Toy)
According to the Celestial Intervention Agency's research, the Master's sixth incarnation was a short, clean-shaven man, (PROSE: CIA File Extracts) who Maris described as "pewter, [having] washed-out skin, and the beginnings of a goatee". (PROSE: Celestial Intervention — A Gallifreyan Noir)
Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Doctor Who Fun Book[[edit] | [edit source]]
A glimpse into the Master's life on Gallifrey is provided by the short story NOTVALID: TARDIS Stolen! from 1987's The Doctor Who Fun Book, which is not considered a valid source by this Wiki due to its parodical nature, such as revealing that the Master's true name is "Cuthbert Windbottom", though he is already going by "the Master", a choice of identity the author of the Gallifreyan Gazette article finds unsurprising.
Following the First Doctor's theft of the TARDIS and flight from Gallifrey, the Master is interviewed by the Gallifrey Gazette to give his opinion on the probable motives of his old classmate's crimes; the Master claims that the Doctor had been very excited in the last month over a phone call from "the BB Corporation" and attempts to convince the interviewer that these were surely some of Gallifrey's oldest enemies in whose league the Doctor had entered.
Is "Koschei" his true name?[[edit] | [edit source]]
The 1997 novel The Dark Path shows the Second Doctor in one of his first encounters with the Master since leaving Gallifrey. Throughout the story, the Master is only called by the pseudonym "Koschei". In Russian folklore, Koschei (rus.Коще́й or Коще́й Бессме́ртный, "Koschei The Deathless") is a villain who hides his soul in an obscure location under many layers of protection so that he can never die.
The Second Doctor recognises Koschei's name in The Dark Path when Ailla mentions it, although the narration also suggests that it is an alias rather than the Master's birth name, with The Face of the Enemy, by the same writer, featuring a parallel version of the Master for whom The Dark Path had not happened, who still called himself "Koschei". However, Divided Loyalties showed flashbacks to the Doctor's childhood in "the Deca", which showed the future Master calling himself "Koschei" at the Time Lord Academy, although it is no clear if this is his birth name or a school nickname like "Theta Sigma". Although the flashbacks themselves come in the form of dreams the Doctor has under the influence of the Celestial Toymaker, and are explicitly inaccurate in some respects, the epilogue confirms that "Koschei" eventually became obsessed with "becoming the Doctor's Master".
The comic Flashback was written with the intent that Magnus, an old friend of Theta Sigma who seems to be growing more and more corrupted, was an early incarnation of the Master. However, the comic did not explicitly confirm Magnus's identity, and later sources went on to use "Magnus" as a name for the War Chief, although the Master and War Chief are sometimes thought to be one and the same. Interestingly, in the original script, the name was not "Magnus" but "Magus", the Latin word for "sorcerer" or "wise man"; it was incorrectly "fixed" to Magnus by the letterer, who assumed Magus was a typo.
However, several accounts suggest the Master's true name was something altogether more alien in pronunciation and spelling. In Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons, Adelphi speaks the Master's birth name to the Doctor when warning him about the Master's arrival on Earth. It is described "a string of mellifluous syllables — one of the strange Time Lord names that are never disclosed to outsiders". This was echoed by the 2018 short story Lords and Masters, which had Missy stating that her real name contained thirty-two letters. However, this does not foreclose the possibility that though any one of the spelled-out, shorter names given in other sources might be nicknames, they could be formed by shortening the Master's true name, similar to Romanadvoratrelundar usually going by "Romana".
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