The Panopticon/The War Chief and the Master. Are they the same guy?

From Tardis Wiki, the free Doctor Who reference

Since its beginning, this wiki has clearly taken the stance that The War Chief and The Master are two separate individuals. The main reasoning appeared to be that novelisations were "secondary" to other media. As this wiki now appears to count novelisations (https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Thread:231243), there now appears to be a case that they are one and the same. While it is not stated outright that "The Master is the War Chief" in that exact phrase, common sense makes it obvious.

(Note that this differs from someone concluding that "Mondas is Marinus" by using the facts. As here, the same people who wrote The War Games (TV story) also either co-created or wrote extensively for The Master of the UNIT Years.

Let us begin with a real-world quote. Malcolm Hulke, who co-wrote The War Games, and also wrote(among others) Colony in Space (TV story), The Sea Devils (TV story) and Frontier in Space (TV story), said of the relationship between The Doctor and The Master(reprinted in DWM 91 (on page 28):

"There was a peculiar relationship between the Master and the Doctor: one felt that the Master wouldn't really have liked to eliminate the Doctor...you see the Doctor was the only person like him at the time in the whole universe, a renegade Time Lord and in a funny sort of way they were partners in crime."

This was right after he was talking about The War Games.

Now, using material from both the television story and the novelisations, we see something very clearly.

From Episode 8 of The War Games (TV story) :

  • WAR CHIEF: You may have changed your appearance, but I know who you are.
  • DOCTOR: Oh, do you? WAR CHIEF: Your machine is a Tardis. You’re too familiar with its controls to be a stranger.
  • DOCTOR: I had every right to leave.
  • WAR CHIEF: Stealing a TARDIS? Oh, I’m not criticising you. We are two of a kind.

(Thus, we can clearly see that both the Doctor and the War Chief have stolen a TARDIS)

By the way, the same scene played out in Doctor Who and the War Games (novelisation) like this(page 104):

  • The War Chief took the Doctor into his private office just off the war room and told his bodyguards to leave. “Now, ” he said “a traveller in a space time machine. There is only one person you can be”.

Back to those stolen TARDISes. Remember, the War Chief has stolen a TARDIS. The Doctor has stolen a TARDIS. Has anyone else stolen a TARDIS? Why, yes. From Doctor Who and the Sea-Devils (novelisation) (page 28):

  • ‘But what use is your TARDIS to you while you’re in here?’ Jo asked: ‘It would be difficult for you to understand,’ said the Master, ‘but my TARDIS is my proudest possession.’ The Doctor laughed. ‘You don’t even own it! You stole it from the Time Lords!’ ‘As you stole yours!’ retorted the Master.

So, again, the Doctor has stolen a TARDIS. But we now know that the Master has stolen his TARDIS too! So, that makes three stolen TARDISes, right? Well, the exact same person who wrote The War Games AND Doctor Who and The Sea Devils ALSO wrote this. From Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon (novelisation) (page 7):

  • ‘The first TARDIS was very small,’ he said. ‘On the outside, yes,’ said the old Keeper. ‘Inside it could carry up to three persons, four with a squeeze. Later we built much bigger ones. There have been two stolen, you know.’ The young Time Lord didn’t know. ‘By our enemies?’ he asked. ‘No. By Time Lords. They both became bored with this place. It was too peaceful for them, not enough happening.’ The old Keeper smiled to himself, as though remembering with some glee all the fuss when two TARDISes were stolen. ‘One of them nowadays calls himself “the Doctor”. The other says he is “the Master”.

So, the Doctor stole a TARDIS. The War Chief stole a TARDIS. The Master stole a TARDIS. But, by Season 8, a grand total of TWO TARDISes had been stolen. We know the Doctor is not the War Chief. We know the Doctor is not the Master.

Of course, one may say that that is Malcolm Hulke. yes, he co-wrote The War Games, he wrote throughout the Pertwee Era, including three Delgado Master stories. But, surely the man who is widely acknowledged as being the one who came up with the idea of the Master as a recurring villain in the Pertwee Era should have some say in the matter? What did Terrance Dicks have to say in the matter? From The Three Doctors (novelisation) (page 930:

  • In his various incarnations, the Doctor had found himself up against many terrifying enemies. With the exception of the Master, this was the first time he had found himself opposed by a fellow Time Lord. And in comparison to Omega, the Master shrank almost to a petty criminal.

Yes. In the words of Terrance Dicks, prior to Omega, the Doctor had only ever encountered ONE other renegade Time Lord...the Master. Had Dicks simply forgotten the War Chief by this point? No. As Dicks unofficially helped to finish off Hulke's "Doctor Who and the War Games", which was only published in 1979, a time when Roger Delgado was far better known than Edward Brayshaw to Who viewers. And Dicks felt no problem at all with including the excerpt quoted above. Again, it is this..

  • The War Chief took the Doctor into his private office just off the war room and told his bodyguards to leave. “Now, ” he said “a traveller in a space time machine. There is only one person you can be”.

Of course, Hulke and Dicks both 'fleshed out' their novelisations with material not included in the television show. As these novelisations were usually about 148 pages, every sentence was pretty special. Even so these two sections, first from Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon, followed by Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons (novelisation) speak volumes. The first is by Hulke(page 9 of Doctor Who and the DoomsdayWeapong), followed by Dicks (pages 25-26 of Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons) (And both were inserted to give a backstory to the history of the Doctor and the Master):

  • The old Keeper seemed to drop off to sleep again for a moment, then he suddenly woke up with a start. ‘I had to travel once. There were tens of thousands of humans from the planet Earth, stranded on another planet where they thought they were re-fighting all the wars of Earth’s terrible history.

and

  • The Young Time Lord reminded him. ‘Humans on a planet refighting the wars of Earth’s history.’ ‘Oh, yes. Well, the Doctor had done the best he could to stop it all. But in the end we had to step in and get all those poor soldiers back to Earth, and to all the right times in Earth’s history.’

(Which is very clearly The War Games (TV story). Why mention that for a history of the Doctor and the Master?)

Meanwhile from Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons:

  • The Master was a rogue Time Lord. So too was the Doctor, in a way. But all his interventions in the course of history were on the side of good. The Master intervened only to cause death and suffering, usually in the pursuit of some scheme to seize power for himself. More than that, he seemed to delight in chaos and destruction for its own sake, and liked nothing more than to make a bad situation worse, Already he had been behind several Interplanetary Wars, always disappearing from the scene before he could be brought to justice. If ever he were caught, his fate would I be far worse than the Doctor’s exile. Once captured by the Time Lords, the Master’s life-stream would be thrown into reverse. Not only would he no longer exist, he would never have existed. It was the severest punishment in the Time Lords’ power. The Doctor knew that the Master’s presence on earth made matters far worse than he had feared. ‘You’re sure he’s here?’ he asked. The Time Lord nodded gravely. ‘We tracked him on the Monitor. Then there was some kind of alien interference and we lost contact.’ ‘Is his TARDIS still working?’ ‘I’m afraid so. He got away before it could be deenergised.’ ‘Then he was luckier than I,’ said the Doctor sadly. He had never really got used to his exile. ‘Don’t be bitter, Doctor. Your punishment was comparatively light.’ The Doctor rounded on him angrily. ‘Whatever I’ve done, I too am still a Time Lord. Do you know what! it’s like to be restricted to one tiny planet, one limited era of time?’ The Time Lord shrugged. ‘It is your favourite planet after all!’ For moment the Doctor gazed up at the summer sky without speaking. Then he said, ‘Why did you take the trouble to warn me?’ ‘The Master knows you’re on this planet, Doctor. You have interfered with his evil schemes in the past, and he has sworn your destruction. The Council felt you should be warned of your danger.’

So, the Doctor was the one who interfered in the Master's schemes, which is why the Master is now coming to get him for revenge. It is also very strongly implied that it was at the Master's scheme where the Doctor interfered that the Doctor was captured by the Time Lords. The War Games (TV story) again. And the only time in the history of the Classic Series Doctor Who where someone was erased from ever having existed in this manner by the Time Lords was...The War Games. The Doctor also shows surprise that the Master has a working TARDIS. Which only makes sense if the Doctor had encountered a renegade Time Lord who the Doctor had been led to believe didn't have a functioning TARDIS. Of course, that's The War Chief in The War Games (TV story). Again.

So, very clearly, both Malcolm Hulke AND Terrance Dicks believed that the War Chief and the Master are one and the same. And Hulke clearly still believed it when he died in 1979, the same year Dicks helped finish off Doctor Who and the War Games (novelisation).

The following year, 1980, saw the release of the officially licensed board game Doctor Who: The Game of Time & Space. While this wiki may not regard that as a valid source, it is still worth pointing out that the character information says outright that the Master is the War Chief.

We could also note the Faction Paradox wiki, which has an entry for The War King here.. https://factionparadox.fandom.com/wiki/The_War_King . This states outright that the Master and the War Chief are one and the same. Of course, this is from information contained in The Book of the War (novel), which may not be considered fully valid according to this wiki, but is clearly seen as such by another Who-related wiki.

The only "Oh no he's not" pieces of story are seemingly Timewyrm: Exodus (novel), The Dark Path (novel) and Divided Loyalties (novel). except, of course, that that's not true.

if someone can show me where in either Timewyrm:Exodus or The Dark Path there is anything that makes it impossible for the Master and the War Chief to be the same individual, I would be very interested to see it.

Which leaves Divided Loyalties. The Deca. Magnus and Koschei. Right? Nope. The section is unambiguously called "Dreaming". Immediately before, the Doctor falls asleep. Immediately after, he wakes up. And there is so much in that sequence that completely contradicts what we know about Who lore. And, far worse, there are impossibilities, such as this gem (Page 96):

  • "All but three of the Deca were on their first regenerations and were forbidden to regenerate, should the whim take them, until after their five-hundredth birthdays. If Gallifreyans could be said to have birthdays. Vansell, Ushas and Rallon had already become junior Time Lords and were now in their final semesters, whereas the rest still had two to go before they received the Rassilon Imprimature - the genetic coding that gave them their regenerative powers, the ability to withstand time travel, the telepathic connection to TARDISes, time rings and all the other transtemporal feats of Gallifreyan engineering."

If that is a literal truthful flashback, then NOTHING from An Unearthly Child (TV story) onwards counts.

Now, some may say, "But there's a section at the back of the back, a sort of Where Are They Now? And that's not part of that drug-induced dream!"

Well, let's look at that. As just one example, there's this gem(page 247):

  • Mortimus also left Gallifrey, but more from boredom than anything else. Never really malevolent, he became fascinated with the planet Earth and headed there, intending to have fun playing around with time. Giving the Normans atomic bazookas in the eleventh century, putting money in a bank and nipping forward a few thousand years to claim millions in compound interest, that sort of thing. Harmless really.

Ignoring the stupidity of someone giving Mediaeval soldiers atomic bazookas, and noticing that it was "two hundred years", not "a few thousand years", the biggie is the "giving Normans atomic bazookas". The entire point of The Time Meddler (TV story) was The Monk trying to prevent the Norman conquest of England. He was planning on destroying the Vikings with one atomic warhead.. In that way, the Saxons would destroy the Normans at the Battle of Hastings, and King Harold would remain on the throne. How exactly would giving the Normans atomic warheads achieve that? That's not just a continuity error. It's not even just the exact opposite of what actually happened. It's as surreal, and as dreamlike, as the "Rassilon Imprimatur" comment in the DREAMING section, and should be treated with the same attitude.

The War Chief and The Master are the same person. "They" were clearly intended to be the same person. The novelisations, now valid sources on this wiki, make that clear beyond any reasonable doubt. The Faction Paradox Wiki has "them" as one person. As this wiki uses narrative/story for content, I very strongly suggest that The War Chief be added to The Master, and Edward Brayshaw be added to the list of actors to have played the Master. Roger Delgado mayalways be the definitive Master, but he wasn't the first actor to play that character. Likewise, Tom Baker is the definitive Doctor, even though William Hartnell may have been the first. You may have changed your appearance but I know who you are.

From Doctor Who and the Sea-Devils (novelisation) (pages 28-30)

  • ‘We used to be great friends,’ said the Doctor. ‘Hundreds of years ago, when we were both young Time Lords, we were inseparable. After all, we had a lot in common.’ ‘What, for instance?’ He turned to her. ‘You know the Golden Rule of the Time Lords—just to sit and watch, but never actually do anything? He and I are different. We wanted to get out into the Universe, to meet other species, to explore.’ ‘One for good and the other for evil?’ said Jo. ‘Yes, you could say that.’

One for good and one for evil. NOT "one for good and two for evil".

And, in case someone wants to suggest it(Though I can't for the life of my think why). From Doctor Who and The War Games(page 68):

  • The War Chief’s eyes came to rest on the Doctor. Zoe thought she detected a moment of mutual recognition between the Doctor and the War Chief, as though they had once known each other.