User talk:BananaClownMan/Sandbox/Missy (The Master)

Regarding Missy's 'number'

Hello, I'm really enjoying your hard work into trying to piece together the Master's sometimes quite complicated life. I just wanted to know how you came to Missy being the 'Twentieth Master'? In Girl Power, she is stated to be the Nineteenth Master, as her book shows Eighteen previous deaths. Furthermore, (spoilers if you haven't listened to Ravenous), aren't the degenerated, "body swap" Masters all the Thirteenth Master? Tremas/Tzun/Bruce would all be the same, regardless of whether you counted UNIT Enemy as Twelfth or Thirteenth. If you count the Twelfth Doctor comic as your counting method, then UNIT Enemy is the Twelfth Master and Crispy/Tremas/Tzun/Bruce are Thirteenth. If you count Susan crisping the UNIT Enemy Master into the Crispy Master as your counting Enemy then all Masters from UNIT Enemy to the Bruce are all Thirteen. The Master that's truly missing is the Fifteenth Master.

We know in Ravenous that they gave the degenerated Bruce/Morphant Master (Thirteenth) a new regeneration cycle, hence Baldy is Fourteenth. If we take Girl Power as our only true numbering system, then we can count backwards, right? Saxon is Eighteen. War Doctor is Seventeen. War Child is Sixteen. So we're only missing Fifteen. It's always alluded me and I can't seem to find an explanation other than the Crispy Master was a failed attempt at a fourteenth body. Hence, the Crispy Master is Time Lord 'citizen' to have successfully gained a fourteenth body despite his many disabilities. What's your take on this? I'd be fascinated to hear it, and sorry for bombarding your sandbox with such a lengthy question haha. TheFartyDoctor ^Talk 00:13, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm mostly going with the assumption that Big Finish Productions will ignore the Titan Publishing Group's Master from Year 2 of the Eleventh Doctor's run, and applying the confirmed amnesia as the Master completely forgetting his "Child incarnation". Following that, from the Fifth Doctor calling the theft of Tremas's body as a regeneration in The Light at the End, I interpret that as meaning the "Tremas" Master is a fourteenth incarnation, with the "Tzun" body he regenerated into during First Frontier being the fifteenth incarnation. Since what follows after that is a bunch of body altercations and possessions, there is nothing to suggest that the "Tzun" Master was the Master of the Wilderness Years. Thus, when he gets rejuvenated in Day of the Master, it would make Macqueen the 16th, Titan the 17th, Jacobi the 18th, Simm the 19th and Gomez the 20th. But, sibce she forget her "Child" incarnation, she thinks she is the 19th.BananaClownMan 00:22, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

I've never really known how to handle the Tzun Master. I suppose if the novel specifies that the Tremas Master "regenerates" into the Tzun Master, then I suppose that does indeed find the missing Master. We assume that the whole Deathworm Morphant incident, as you say, just body altercations and not regeneration. Hence Bruce/Morphant would still be the Tzun Master. However, if we go back to the idea that Crispy is Thirteenth... I'm stuck with Tremas being Fourteenth. Despite one throwaway line during an audio, I don't see how a bodyswap is a regeneration. But what doesn't make sense is why the Tzun/Bruce incarnation is classified as 'first cycle'. Wouldn't he be the first in the 'second cycle'? I suppose Ravenous muddies the water with their own regeneration reboot at the Bald Master... how confusing. TheFartyDoctor ^Talk 00:40, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't see why perennial stolen bodies shouldn't count. Masterful and other multi-Master stories treat Roberts and Crispy as different incarnations in-universe; insofar as the Master care about numbering in-universe I don't see why they wouldn't count their series of stolen bodies as different selves in their own right. Ainley in The Keeper of Traken may not be the Master's thirteenth regeneration — but he is the Master's fourteenth incarnation by any sane metric.

(It's worth noting, also, The Velvet Dark, where the Master, having lost the Tremas body and been reduced to a phantom-like existence, uses a complex ritual to properly regenerate back into a body that happens to still look like Ainley.) Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 01:33, 9 March 2021 (UTC)