User:NoNotTheMemes/Man with the Rosette
The man with the rosette was one of the four surviving elementals who survived the destruction of Gallifrey, and the Doctor's oldest friend. The same individual was influential in the early days of the War in Heaven, bringing the Lord President Umbaste crucial foreknowledge about the nature of the Enemy and succeeding him after his death, becoming the War King.
Biography[[edit] | [edit source]]
Early life[[edit] | [edit source]]
He was born into House Dvora. (PROSE: The Book of the War) He went to the Time Lord Academy with the Doctor, becoming close friends. The two sometimes journeyed to Low Town, leading to at least one "ribald incident". (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)
At an early age, the renegade left the Homeworld for unclear reasons. He became an amoral outlaw, dedicated to his own desires above all else. (PROSE: The Book of the War) He broke every Law of the Spiral Politic, (PROSE: Judy's War) often interfering with the affairs of lesser species for his own gratification or amusement. He regularly hired or manipulated the more mercenary and megalomaniac species. At some point, this brought him into contact with Carmen Yeh, although she later forgot the encounter.
Over his criminal career, his crimes filled two whole datacoils, and he was considered the second-most wanted criminal among the Great Houses. They captured him a number of times, but despite their attempts to imprison him, he always eventually escaped. (PROSE: The Book of the War) While journeying through the timegate, the Magistrate saw a vision of the criminal period of his life which showed himself with six faces cruelly laughing as the universe turned to darkness. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)
The mysterious visitor[[edit] | [edit source]]
The man with the rosette knew the Doctor before he had lost his memories. The man was known to have tried to destroy the universe while the Doctor tried to save it. The man and the Doctor "had all of time and space as [their] battlefield", and had many duels upon it. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)
Having survived the destruction of War Queen Romana's Gallifrey by the Eighth Doctor, the man travelled to Earth in the 18th century and sat with Scarlette in a pub during a brawl. He wore a blue Whig rosette and spoke with her about politics. He left before the Eighth Doctor arrived.
He later met Scarlette at the London docks, where he gave her a pair of rings for the Doctor's wedding. At the Doctor's wedding he sat in the seat reserved for the Doctor's family. He did not interact with the other guests but simply sat quietly and helped himself to the wine.
The man left a wedding present for Scarlette: a fake rose of blue and white satin, resembling no flower on Earth.
The man later met the Doctor in the Kingdom of Beasts. As they stood on a hill, they talked about the state of the universe without Gallifrey in it. The man told the Doctor that he would not fight him because there were only four of their kind left in existence. He told the Doctor that Sabbath and his people were now the future of the universe before he quietly left.
The man was present at the fall of the house on Henrietta Street, where he told Lisa-Beth that he was leaving and that, if he couldn't find something to alleviate his boredom, he would go to sleep until the universe was ready for him again, even if it took a million years. He then walked away from the house on Henrietta Street.
Over the next centuries, many individuals impersonating the Doctor claimed that the man had returned in an "unexpected capacity". However, the meaning of this was never revealed. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)
In a vision of the four surviving elementals, the Eighth Doctor and Marnal saw the man wearing his blue rosette. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles) During the War in Heaven, Mother and Father were shown a vision by a loa where, in the post-War future, the Magistrate toyed absently with his rosette while he and the other Ministers waited for their Elemental Emperor who wandered aimlessly in an "exile's century". (PROSE: The Story So Far...)
The man and the other elementals were rumoured to have died sometime during the Emperor's rule, the Emperor having outlived them all. (PROSE: Father Time)
As Yardley James[[edit] | [edit source]]
When Judy Collins was seventeen, she met "Yardley James", and he convinced her to rob a bank so he could buy yellowcake. She then became his travelling cohort on trips around the universe. He was recognised everywhere as a dangerous criminal; Collins spent three weeks in jail on Altos III just for associating with him. However, Yardley, having discovered a terrible truth about the history of the universe, ultimately returned Judy to Earth so he could "warn his people". (PROSE: Judy's War)
Return to the Homeworld[[edit] | [edit source]]
Eighty years before the War in Heaven, the future War King broke into the presidential chambers on the Homeworld and killed three guards so he could speak with the Head of the Presidency. For fifteen minutes he told the President about the coming War, but this warning failed to convince the President to take any preventative action.
Five years later, the renegade surrendered himself to the Homeworld. He was sentenced to retro-annulment but first requested to address the ruling Houses in a Closed Session. Despite the President's dissent, this request was granted, and the renegade informed them about the enemy. In return, the ruling Houses granted him a pardon. He charged them with the mission of pursuing diplomatic negotiations with the enemy, while he himself would research and develop new defensive and offensive technologies to aid the Homeworld if it came to War.
When the renegade returned to the Homeworld four decades later to present his plans, he was immediately arrested by the Presidency, who had stonewalled any attempts at diplomatic negotiation in the renegade's absence. The head of the Presidency organised a public trial that resulted in the Faraway Declaration and, through the First Message from the Enemy, validation of the renegade's warnings. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
During the interim[[edit] | [edit source]]
When Judy Collins was seventeen, she met "Yardley James", and he convinced her to rob a bank so he could buy yellowcake. She then became his travelling cohort on trips around the universe. By this time, he was recognised everywhere as a dangerous criminal; Collins spent three weeks in jail on Altos III just for associating with him. However, when Yardley discovered a terrible truth about the history of the universe, he returned her to Earth so he could warn his people. (PROSE: Judy's War)
Magistrate of the Citadel[[edit] | [edit source]]
Missing info from The Infinity Doctors.
The renegade became an important and highly-trusted adviser to the new President Umbaste. (PROSE: The Book of the War) As the most senior member of the Prydonian Chapter, (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors) he was given the title Magistrate of the Citadel. (PROSE: A Farewell to Arms, The Infinity Doctors, The Taking of Planet 5)
In preparation for the War, he created the Academicians for Game Logic and laid the groundwork for the House Military and the first Ships of War. (PROSE: The Book of the War) He worked with the Infinity Chambers every day. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)
During this time, the ruling Houses tried several times to replace Umbaste and install the renegade as their new leader, but each time the renegade himself blocked the efforts, citing his chequered past. House Dvora tried to solve this by expunging his records without his permission, but they were stopped before the process completed, leading to only fragmentary records of his criminal past. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
The Magistrate was, at this time, the Doctor's oldest friend; though they'd had their differences in the past, Larna saw that they clearly loved each other. They were the only members of the High Council less than two thousand years old.
When Omega threatened Gallifrey with the Effect, the Magistrate was among those who journeyed to the Needle in the far future. After giving his Tissue Compression Eliminator to Larna for her safety, the Magistrate confronted the Doctor's body possessed by Omega. Omega tried to force the Magistrate to serve him, saying, "I have seen all your lives. I know what you have been and what you will be. You do not deserve an end like this." When the Magistrate resolutely refused, Omega waved his hands and vanished the Magistrate "out of harm's way". After the crisis ended, the Doctor was certain the Magistrate was not dead but merely lost. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)
The renegade was again present on the Homeworld at the time of Umbaste's death six years before the War, when he accepted the presidential responsibilities and announced himself War King. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
Appearance[[edit] | [edit source]]
The man with the rosette was a saturnine individual, with dark-hair that greyed at the temples , which he kept slicked neatly back with oil, and a sallow face. (PROSE: The Slow Empire, The Adventuress of Henrietta Street) His most remarkable physical feature was his dark, burning eyes. While the Eighth Doctor had a beard, the man was clean-shaven; (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street) after the Doctor shaved, the man grew a pointed black beard. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles, The Infinity Doctors)
He spoke with an English accent. Considered to be handsome in some respects, he was noted to resemble a distinguished middle-aged man with a slim build, medium height, and "well-manicured hands." (PROSE: The Slow Empire, The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, The Infinity Doctors)
Clothing[[edit] | [edit source]]
Consistently well-dressed, he always wore tight, prim, black outfits. During his time on Henrietta Street, he pinned a blue and white rosette upon his lapel, which signified the colours of the Whig party. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)
After returning to the Homeworld, his clothing continued to be severe and neat. He dressed in a high-collared black jacket with dark buttons, which hid a crisp white shirt beneath, and leather gloves. His official robes were thick and black. His face was sallow, with a small, pointed beard, and dark, burning eyes. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)
Personality[[edit] | [edit source]]
The man with the rosette was quite gracious and civil, possessing a pleasant disposition and a fine wit. The residents of Henrietta Street saw him as 'swarthy and difficult to place', with some detecting 'a little Latin in his features'. Now being one of only four survivors of the destruction of Gallifrey, he found that he must "offer the universe" whatever the Doctor did not. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)
Undisturbed by violence, the man with the rosette longed for the days where he could duel the Doctor across the whole of space time and hoped that the universe would one day be ready for their game to begin once more. Despite this, he believed that such games would be inappropriate in a universe where Sabbath and "his kind" were in charge. He seemed to enjoy being mysterious about his true identity, simply bowing his head to those who asked about him. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)
Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- In Lance Parkin's AHistory, Parkin acknowledges that creator Lawrence Miles intended the man with the rosette to be the Master.
- In The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, the Doctor recognises the man with the rosette despite amnesia. In Lance Parkin's The School of Doom, published in Myth Makers 12 and set during the interim of Father Time, the Eighth Doctor and Miranda Dawkins meet an incarnation of the Master who is one of the four surviving elementals.
- There is some measure of ambiguity over whether the Man with the Rosette as encountered by the Eighth Doctor in The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, and who later assisted the Emperor on the Needle, was the new fate of the Time Lord who would have become the Magistrate and the War King if not for the Doctor averting the War in Heaven in The Ancestor Cell, or if, as the Man's dialogue in The Adventuress of Henrietta Street and the Magistrate's mysterious knowledge in The Book of the War suggests, the Man with the Rosette travelled back to the beginning of the War after his time on the Needle, and attempted to alter the course of the War to prevent Gallifrey's fall.
