User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-4028641-20151008023030/@comment-6032121-20191103134120

OttselSpy25 wrote: I think the claim that Delgado and Pratt/Beavers were the same even in that text is somewhat questionable. How so? Having recently reread it myself, I find the claim that it doesn't lead directly into The Deadly Assassin beyond belief. Or are you saying that while he does act generally like Delgado and have the beard, we don't technically know if it's really the same regeneration?

At any rate, I think this should all just be a matter of separate accounts. We consider the decayed Master(s) "different incarnations" as sections/templates go, but acknowledge that in terms of how they came to be, we don't know whether the Decayed Master was the result of the 12th or 13th incarnation of the Master being damaged. (Legacy of the Daleks is if nothing else clear that Delgado isn't the Master's last incarnation, the damage dealt to him by Susan is just so severe that it disables regeneration.)

Incidentally, I think not enough credit is given to the possibility that the Pratt Decayed Master is not the same as the Beevers Decayed Master. I find it plausible enough that the Pratt Decayed Master was post-Legacy of the Daleks Delgado, who then found a way to restore himself to normal, regenerated into non-decayed Beevers as per Big Finish, and was later reduced to a similar decayed form.