THE MASTER

The Master is in many ways the antithesis of the Doctor.  Where the Doctor cares about other beings and cultures, the Master lives only to gratify his own desires.   He views the Doctor's compassion as his "fatal weakness", and he shares none of it.  As a result, he is perhaps the greatest mass murderer of all time and space.  Among the victims of his schemes are the inhabitants of Atlantis and several entire worlds, he wiped from being.  To him, individual lives (provided they belonged to others) are worthless, and he ruthlessly kills and enslaves to achieve his own ends.

The Master is a skilled mathematician, and a graduate of the Prydon Academy.  He has a degree in Cosmic Science that is better than the Doctor's own.  His one failing, according to the Rani and others, is a thirst for revenge that knows no rational boundaries.  "Vanity is his weakness", the Doctor claims.  One aspect of this vanity is that the identities he selects to hide behind are variation on his name--he posed as Magister and Thascales--both of which are classical versions of the word "master".

Both the Master and the Doctor attended the Academy at the same time, and both formed ideas about leaving Gallifrey.  Susan didn't recognize him, so we may assume that they were not well acquainted in those days.  This soon changed.  Somehow, the Doctor ran afoul of the Master, who then vowed to kill him.  Since the Master had been imprisoned on Gallifrey, it seems logical that in some manner the Doctor had been responsible for his capture.

Unlike the Doctor, the Master's passion was for power.  Delighting  in deviousness and trickery, he stole most of his ideas from other people and beings.   When the Doctor took a TARDIS and left Gallifrey, he inspired the Master to make his own ambitions plain.  He, too, stole a TARDIS, and began to create trouble in the Universe.  Knowing that the Doctor had been exiled on the Earth, the Master followed him there and when his escape was detected by the Time Lords, they easily deduced that he had headed for the Earth.  The Tribunal that had sentenced the Doctor to exile on the Earth now sent one of their members to warn the Doctor.  Though the Doctor characterized the Master as "an unimaginative plodder", the Master was far more than this.  As the Time Lord informed the Doctor: "He's learned a lot since you last met him."

The Master had indeed.  Along with a more sophisticated TARDIS, the Master also possessed a portable matter compactor, the Tissue Compression Eliminator, which can shrink living beings in size and kill them.  Over the years, this characteristic method of killing has become something of a calling card for him.  Like so much else, this presumably was stolen from some alien race.  The Master had somehow linked with the Nestene Consciousness, and learned of its past failure to invade the Earth successfully.   Liking the idea of wiping out the Doctor's favorite race, the Master agreed to help the Nestene in another attempt to conquer the Earth.

Using his powers of hypnosis, the Master seized control of Farrel Plastics.  With the aid of mesmerized minions, he stole the last remaining Nestene Energy Unit and revitalized it.  With reconstructed Autons--plastic forms animated by a Nestene--he sought to bring the Nestene Consciousness to the Earth using a radio telescope.   However, in assuming that the Nestenes would be grateful the Master had badly miscalculated.  The Doctor made him realize that the Nestenes would kill him also, and the two adversaries worked together to send the Consciousness back into the depths of space and end the invasion.

This inability of the Master's to realize when he had gone too far in his plans would continue to plague him down the years.  He often aided the wrong side in a struggle simply out of a desire for revenge against either the Doctor or the human race.

The Master's other great ability--creating flawless disguises--now helped him to escape the Doctor and the forces of UNIT.  Rex Farrel died in the Master's place, while the renegade Time Lord escaped to fight again.  However, the Doctor had removed the dematerialization circuit from the Master's TARDIS, trapping him on the Earth.   Though an international dragnet was set up, the Master managed to avoid it.

When he turned up again, he was diguised as the scientist behind the Keller Machine, supposedly designed to extract the evil from within a man's mind.  In fact, the Keller Machine housed an alien parasite that the Master had stumbled on during one of his trips.  At the same time, the Master used the inmates of Stangmoor Prison to help in his attempts to sabotage a peace conference vital to the world.  Once again, the Doctor managed to interfere with the Master's plans, and destroyed the alien parasite before it could grow uncontrollable.

Attempting to escape from the Earth, the Master then arrived on the living ship/being known as Axos, a shape-shifting energy vampire.  Attempting to regain his own freedom, the Master led Axos to the Earth.  Posing as a benevolent being, Axos managed to fool the political powers into accepting it, but the Doctor had reservations about the aims of the creature.  Infiltrating the ship, he met with the Master, and discovered the truth about the intentions of Axos.  The Master agreed to help the Doctor to defeat Axos, since it was the only way that he could regain his own freedom.   The two Time Lords trapped Axos forever in a time loop.  The Doctor managed to escape from this in his TARDIS, and suspected that the Master may have managed the same feat.  Sadly, he proved to be correct.

The Time Lords discovered the loss of the file on the Doomsday Weapon, and realized that only the Master could have taken it.  They were forced to use the Doctor in an attempt to recover it, and the Doctor and Jo found themselve on an Earth colony planet in the year AD 2472.  The colonists were locked in a war of wits and nerve with the Interplanetary Mining Corporation.  IMC wanted the planet for its mineral wealth, and was framing a non-existent monster and the native race for murdering various colonists.   An arbitrator from Earth was called in, but it proved to be the Master in another of his diguises.

As ever, the Master convinced everybody--except the Doctor, of course--and charmed them into aiding his own plans to recover the hidden Doomsday Weapon.  The Doctor, however, managed to help the colonists in their struggle for freedom.  He also persuaded the alien Priest guarding the Doomsday Weapon that it should never be allowed to fall into the wrong hands.  The Priest destroyed the Weapon, but once again the Master made his getaway.

Back on Earth, the Master posed as a new clergyman of the church in Devil's End--a small, rural village where local barrow hid the site of the Daemons, a spacefaring race whose biological experiments include the mutation of the human race.  Azal, the Daemon left on the Earth, was to judge the human race as either worthy of receiving the tremendous powers of the Daemons, or as a flawed experiment to be destroyed.  The Master tried to convince Azal to hand him the promised powers, but even Azal could see through the Master's greed, and offered the power to the Doctor instead..  The Doctor refused him, annoying the Daemon, who was destroyed by a selfless act of bravery by Jo.   The Master was captured by the forces of UNIT, and held in a special prison under the charge of Colonel Trenchard.

Trenchard was an old-school type, and suseptible to the Master's ingratiating charm.   In the local area, several ships had been lost at sea, and the Master convinced the gullible Trenchard that he could help locate the cause, and make Trenchard a hero.   The Master deduced that the Sea Devils, creatures that had once ruled the Earth in the age of the dinosaurs, were responsible for the sinking of the ships, and the Master convinced then that he wanted to help them to get their old planet back from the human race.  The Doctor managed to intervene again, showing the Master's true nature to the Sea Devils.  When the Sea Devils were once again sealed in their tombs by an attack force, the Doctor and the Master both escaped to the surface.  Once again, the Master's powers of disguise helped him to escape capture.

Along with his skills as a physical mimic, the Master is also adept at vocal mimicry.   He does a very good impression of Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart.  The Master has an almost complete disregard for the end results of his plans.  More than once he has placed the entire Universe in jeopardy.  One point he planned to control Kronos, the most dangerous of the Chronovores--creatures that normally exist outside of time, and who can devour particles of time.  If loosed within time, such a creature might break down the boundaries of reality and cause everything to dissolve into absolute chaos.   In his insane quest for power, the Master was more than willing to risk this happening.  Another example of this callous disregard for consequences was in his attempt to seize control of the Universe through the Block Transfer Computations of the Logopolitans, resulting in the annihilation of that and several other worlds before the Doctor could stop the breakdown of the physical Universe.

The Master's final confrontation with the Doctor while in his first incarnation was over the "Frontier in Spcae".  In the near future, both Earth and Draconia have expanded their Empires into space, and stand at an uneasy peace.  It would have taken very little to provoke war between the two powers, and a series of border incidents inflamed both sides.  Each assumed that the other was attempting to begin a war of conquest--when in fact the true instigator of the problems was the Master.  He had been hired by the Daleks to start a war between Earth and Draconia, in order to weaken both empires and leave the Daleks in complete mastery of known space.  This plan appealed to the Master's sense of humour (he even read H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds" as he worked), and he readily undertook the task.  Needing help with the plan--and soldiers to risk their lives--he reluctantly accepted the help of the Ogrons for this task.  His arrogance didn't make their relationship an easy one, and in the end the Doctor managed to confuse and defeat the simple-minded Ogrons.  The Master fled   the scene as his plan became unworkable.

His schemes had caused the Master to work through his regeneration cycle very quickly indeed.  His final regeneration proved very short-lived, and his body began to suffer the effects of the stresses he had placed it under.  He began to decay physically, but never mentally.  Determined to renew  his regeneration cycle, he plotted and schemed.  Like the Doctor, he was well acquainted with the myths of Old Gallifrey, and he pieced together the truth about the Sash of Rassilon, realizing that with it in his grasp, he could suffuse his body with the power he needed to regenerate once again.

It was almost too late for the Master, who was dying.  He arrived on the planet Tersurus, where he met and suborned Goth.  Goth agreed to help the Master in order to get back at the President of the Time Lords.  Goth, an ambitious man, was already the Chancellor of the Prydonian Chapter, and one of the most powerful men on Gallifrey.   He wanted to become the President, but the retiring President saw through Goth's facade, and realized that he would be the wrong man for the post.  Unwisely, he mentioned this to Goth.  When the Master offered his aid, Goth was willing to accept.

Together, they planned the death of the President before he could name his chosen successor, so that an election would have to be held to fill the post--an election Goth was certian to win.  In order to provide a culprit, the Master intended to frame the Doctor for the assassination of the President.  It would be a stroke of beautiful irony,a nd would get the Doctor into lethal trouble.  Then when Goth assumed the office of President, the Master would have access to the Sash of Rassilon and the Great Key--both of which he would need to control the Eye of Harmony.

The Master was unwittingly helped in his plans by the Celestial Intervention Agency.   They had hidden the Doctor's records from the public, and managed to bury them away from the current elite.  Since they were so frequently cross-referenced to the Doctor's, the Master's own records were also hidden.  Goth, as a member of the High Council, had access to the Data Extracts, and helped the Master to destroy his records, and to subvert the Doctor's.

Using his mathematical skills, the Master covered their tracks, and then tapped into the APC Net, gaining access to the Matrix for Goth.  Using the Matrix--basically a vast single mind--he sent a mental summons and a prediction of the impending assassination of the President to the Doctor.  Naturally, the Doctor fell for the bait and came to Gallifrey.  The Master then set up a decoy staser that would look like the murder weapon, and arranged for the Doctor to be holding it when Goth actually shot the President.  The Doctor was arrested, as planned, and Goth insisted on a quick trial and execution for him.

The plan began to unravel, however, when the Doctor invoked Article 17 of the Constitution, claiming for himself the right to run for the Presidency.  The Doctor then deduced the Master's subversion of the Matrix, and entered it mentally to try and track down the interference.  The Master had his pawn, Goth, mentally fight the Doctor inside the Matrix.  The Doctor proved to be the stronger, and the Master deliberately allowed Goth to perish when the Doctor won.  Faking his own death, the Master managed to be placed in the Morgue next to the dead President.  He then took the Sash of Rassilon and attempted to gain control of the Eye of Harmony.  The Doctor managed to defeat him, but the Master did gain enough energy from his exposure to the Eye to keep his life force going.  He escaped Gallifrey, still seeking the additional regenerations that he needed.

He attempted to recover a new body to use--along with the energy he needed--by taking over the Keepership of Traken.  Since only a person of Traken descent could hold the office, he had to work carefully.  In addition, Traken was such a peaceful world that its influence actually trapped and calcified any evil being who landed there--such a trapped entity became known as a Melkur.  The Master survived this problem by landing his TARDIS on Traken, but never venturing outside.  He used its chameleon circuits to make it look like a calcified living being.

The tender-hearted Trakenites took pity even on the doomed evil beings, and one, Kassia,k was assigned to tend to the new Melkur.  Instead of calcifying and decaying quickly, this one seemed set to last many years. (Presumably, though, the Master didn't sit about all that time.  Using his TARDIS' abilities, he could simply have jumped forward in time inside his ship to the point when he had to act.)  The Master had made his selection wisely.  Kassia was corrupted by him to act as his agent when her husband, Tremas, was named as the Keeper-elect.  Wanting to save him from the honour--or fate--of the Keepership, she fell in with the Master's plans.

The Keeper was a being who lived as extended lifetime in communion with the Source, a field of power drawn from all living beings in the Traken Union.  He was also trapped by it in a chair, confined within the field of operation of the Source.  In keeping with the Master's plans, the old Keeper managed to solicit the help of the Doctor and Adric and brought them to Traken.  Kassia was forced to assume the Keepership, and through his link with her, the Master murdered her and, still within his TARDIS, took over the powers of the Keeper.  The Doctor he kidnapped, aiming to pick his knowledge for his own records and to steal his body in order to regain his mobility.  Adric and Nyssa sabotaged the Source, severing the Master's power, and the Doctor managed to escape his clutches and establish a new Keeper.

The Master survived the ordeal, however, and had gained enough energy from his contact with the source to steal a new body.  He took over the form of Tremas, one of the Consuls, and was now endowed with fresh vitality, though not with a new cycle of regenerations.

In his contact with the Doctor, the Master discovered that the Doctor planned to go on to Logopolis.  The Master realized that this would suit his own plans, and anticipated the Doctor's moves.  The Doctor was aiming to reconfigure the TARDIS' chameleon circuits using the Block Transfer Computations of the Logopolitan mathematicians.  This is a system of changing reality through the advanced application of pure mathematics.  First, though, the Doctor aimed to measure the exterior dimensions of a real police box.

Knowing this, the Master materialized his own TARDIS about the target police box, so that when the Doctor did the same thing, he brought the Master's TARDIS inside his own.   In order to avoid discovery, the Master killed a policeman, and also Tegan's Aunt Vanessa, and when the Doctor took off for Logopolis, the Master's TARDIS was carried along, arriving undetected by the Logopolitans.  He slew one of the mathematicians of Logopolis, and injected incorrect figures into their computations.  This resulted in the TARDIS' exterior dimensions shrinking, almost killing the Docotr before correctings could be made.

This, however, was mostly a sideline of the Masters.  His real aim was to steal the results of some very secretive research carried out by the Logopolitans.  Blindly unaware of what he was doing, he nullified the calculations of Logopolis.  The entire planet began to crumble, and the Monitor--leader of the Logopolitans--revealed that it was only the mathematicians of Logopolis that had held back entropy.  According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, in a closed system, chaos will increase and eventually the Universe will end in what is termed Heat Death--all will be uniformity, and chaos will have won.

The Logopolitans had deduced that the Universe had passed this critical point a long time before, and they had staved off the inevitable by creating the CVEs (Charged Vacuum Emboitments).  These were gateways to other Universes, through which entropy had been bled from our own Universe.  The Master's foolish actions had closed the CVEs, and now entropy had begun to ravage everything, condemning the Universe to doom.

Reluctantly, the Doctor had been left no choice, but to join forces with the Master to combat this.  The Logopolitans had almost perfected a programme that would allow the CVEs to stabilize and thus keep the Universe whole, but it had to be run through the Pharos Project computers on Earth.  The Doctor and the Master together managed this, though the Master made one last attempt to blackmail the peoples of the Universe into accepting him as their ruler first.  The Doctor put a stop to this, but in so doing fell to his death and was forced to regenerate.

As the Doctor regenerated, the Master seized his chance and captured Adric,  Using the boy's genius for mathematics, the Master set two traps for the Doctor.  First, he had a projection of Adric programme the TARDIS to return in time to Event One, the creation of the Galaxy from an inrush of hydrogen--an explosion powerful enough to destroy even a TARDIS.  The Doctor managed to avoid this fate by jettisoning parts of the TARDIS and using the mass as a power boost to break free.  Then the Master sprang his second, more ingenious trap.

He had adapted the possibilities of Block Transfer Computation and allied them with Adric's powers to create an imaginary city, the dwellings of Simplicity--Castrovalva.   This became real through the powers of the mathematics involved, although it needed to be sustained by the power coming from Hadron power lines, in the midst of which Adric was kept suspended and tortured.  the Master then peopled his city with citizens, possessing both individuality, charm, and goodness--not exactly his trademarks.  It is astounding, in many ways, that the Master could have created such gentle, sympathetic people, and seems to prove that somewhere inside, he does understand something of the better side of human and Time Lord natures.  Along Shardovan the librarian, Mergrave the physician, and Ruther, the Master had a role for himself as the Portreeve, the kindly old man who ruled Castrovalva.

The Doctor managed to regain his strength, and began to realize that the place was not what it seemed.  It was actually space folded in upon itself, and when the Doctor began to grasp this, he discovered that Castrovalva's dimensions were very bizarre indeed.   Shardovan gave his life to free Adric from the web oof Hadron power lines, and this precipitated the collapse of Castrovalva.  The Doctor and his friends escaped, but Mergrave and his fellow citizens held the Master back as the dimensions collapsed about him.

Somhow, though, the Master managed to survive this, and escaped once again in her TARDIS which, low on power, stranded him in the prehistoric past of the Earth, one hundred and forty million years ago.  Here, in a strange pyramid, he discovered the remains of the Xeraphin, an alien race possessed of amazing powers to change matter.   Attempting to break into the pyramid in order to seize the power source he needed, the Master cannibalized his TARDIS to make a time tunnel into the future and to bring back slaves he could hypnotize into doing manual labour for him.  He succeeded in capturing two Concordes in flight, and in bringing them into the past.  On the second, however, were the Doctor and his friends, who were investigating the vanishing of the first.

The Master had disguised himself as the ugly Kalid, but was eventually unmasked.   He attempted to power up his TARDIS again by stealing parts from the Dostor's TARDIS, but without a great deal of success.  The Doctor managed to return the stolen people to their correct time, and he sent the Master's TARDIS to Xeriphas, where the imprisoned Xeraphin would finally be able to free themselves.  The Doctor rather hoped that the Master would be stuck there, but insteaad he managed yet again to power up his TARDIS and to escape--this time taking with him Kamelion.

Kamelion was the tool of a former invader of Xeriphas, a sophisticated robot capable of assuming infinate forms and personalities.  Though Kamelion possessed a mind of its own, this true personality was submerged while it was under the control of another being.   The Master planned to use Kamelion's powers to create chaos throughout the Universe.  He began by arriving on Earth in March of AD 1215.  There he had Kamelion take the shape of King John, and he himself assumed the guise of Sir Gilles, a French knight and champion to the King.  He planned on stirring up sufficient trouble between the nobility and King John that the Magna Carta would never be signed.  His plan was in no manner derailed by the arrival of the Doctor.  He simply made allowances, and planned to make the Doctor into the scapegoat for the plot.

However, the Doctor managed to wrest control of Kamelion's mind from the Master and took off in the TARDIS with the shape-shifting robot.  He had also managed to sabotage the Master's TARDIS, so that the Master was unable to go where he wished; however, the Master managed to fix the problem and since his scheme to overthrow the Magna Carta was only a minor conceit, he didn't feel that this defeat was really significant.

When the five Doctors were attacked by an unknown foe, the Inner Council on Gallifrey made contact with the Master, offering him both a pardon and a complete new regeneration cycle in exchange for his helping the Doctor.  The master, somewhat reluctantly, agreed to this--the possible prize outweighing the ignominy of helping his worst enemy--although he felt no need of the pardon of his fellow Time Lords.   Unfortunately, the Doctor refused to accept the Master's protestations of help, and the Master teamed with the Cybermen within the Death Zone to achieve his own goals.   Defeated once again when he tried to gain the ring of Rassilon, the Master was returned by Rassilon to his own TARDIS.  Rassilon assured the Doctor that the Master's many sins would one day find him out.

Something of the sort indeed did happen.  While experimenting on increasing the power of his Tissue Compression Eliminator, the Master accidently shrank himself.   Unlike other victims of the weapon, the Master was not killed.  But he was effectively trapped at six inches in height unless he could restore himself again.   He knew of the supply of numismaton gas on the planet Sarn, which has incredible restorative powers.  Accordingly, he moved there in his TARDIS, but volcanic activity on the planet resulted in his ship being buried, trapping him aboard.

The Master still retained his mental link with Kamelion, and he forced the unfortunate robot to assume the identity of Professor Howard Foster, guardian of Peri Brown.   Coincidentally, Howard had discovered a Trion beacon on the Earth, and Sarn was a Trion penal planet, where Turlough's brother had been sent in exile from his home planet.   The Doctor, Turlough, and Peri went to Sarn, where Kamelion was completely taken over by the Master.  Posing as the promised Outsider, the Master/Kamelion won the trust of Timanov, the high priest, and the Sarn natives freed the Master's TARDIS.   The Master managed to make it to the restoring flames of the numismaton gas, but was apparently destroyed when the flames reversed their effects.  Despite this setback the Master somehow survived the ordeal, and was restored to his full size once again.

Determined to gain his revenge over the Doctor, the Master set a trap for him in 18th-century England.  Attempting to harness the creative genius of the minds behind the Industrial Revolution, the Master ran into another renegade, the Rani.  He forced her to help him, and the pair of them attempted several times to kill the Doctor, but without any success.  The Master's plan of using the Rani's special mind-controlling parasitic worms to harness the great minds of the day failed, and together they fled in her TARDIS.  The Doctor had reset the controls, however, and the Master and the Rani were left stranded in the out of control TARDIS, menaced by a growing Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The Master managed to survive.  When the Valeyard invaded the Matrix, the Master saw his own chance for a little revenge and profit.  Presumably when he had fled Gallifrey, he had taken with him knowledge of how to invade the Matrix, because he managed to tune into it and to discover the Valeyard's plans.  He learned that the Sleepers from Andromeda had culled secrets out of the Matrix, and hidden the data on Ravalox.   The Master hired Sabalom Glitz to regain this information.  Glitz struck out on his own, but the data was lost in the fighting when the Immortal was overthrown.

Undisturbed by the loss, the Master then used his access to the Matrix to stir matters up at the Doctor's mock trial.  He tracked down Mel and Glitz and transported them to testify on the Doctor's behalf.  This was not done out of kindness to the Doctor, but because the Master was worried about the possible competition in evil that he would face from the Valeyard.  Besides this, he enjoyed stirring up trouble for the sanctimonious High Council.  He hoped that while the Doctor and the Valeyard fought one another--during which confrontation perhaps one or both might perish--he would be able to gain full control of the Matrix and to take over Gallifrey when the High Council was deposed.

His plans failed because he underestimated both the Valeyard and the Doctor.  The Valyard turned the tables on the Master, defeating his attempts to wrest control of the Matrix out of his hands.  The Doctor then used his own ingenuity to cause a temporary breakdown in the Matrix, trapping the Master within until it could be repaired.   Though the Master was apparently captured by the Time Lords, he clearly managed somehow to escape them yet again.

Naturally, he returned to solo operations.  Somehow he lost his TARDIS in his travels, and was trapped on the planet of the Cheetah people.  Through the planet's baleful influence he was beginning to turn into one of them; seeking an escape, he used the Doctor as a sort of mental channel to enable himself to escape back to Earth.   Using hypnotized youths to attack the Doctor, the Master managed to escape once again. 

The Master was finally captured by the Daleks. He was placed on trial and sentenced to death for his crimes. Before the Master's extermination, his last request was to have his bitter enemy, the Doctor, transport his remains back to Gallifrey. "It was a request they never should have granted!"

The End?

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