Talk:The Master

Please note that, due to the templates set up to connect to specific sections of The Master, headings should not be changed.

The following templates exist for the different incarnations of the Master: category=The Master templates columns=2 The way we'll now connect to this page is to write something like this:
 * The Fourth Doctor faced his final challenge: a confrontation with atop the radio telescope. (TV: Logopolis (TV story))

which yields:
 * The Fourth Doctor faced his final challenge: a confrontation with atop the radio telescope. (TV: Logopolis)

If you need to make the the capitalised, then type. These links, be they, or whoever will go directly to the section of this article dealing with that version of the character.

Scoundrels' Club clean-up?
I think that the Master going to the Scoundrels Club should only be recorded for the incarnations who are said within the text to have visited the Club. It'd just be more accurate to what the story says that way, given that we can't say for certain that every single Master story is in the same continuity as Dismemberment. For example, I think it's very misleading to mention the Club in conjunction with the regenerations of Masters like Macqueen or Jacobi. Without knowing off the top of my head if Dismemberment directly states the Simm Master visited the Club, I even think that (unless the story says so) the CLub shouldn't be mentioned with regards to Simm! It's a strong piece of information for incarnations of the Master which the story indicates did visit the Club, but just because the story says that the Master goes there after "every regeneration" doesn't mean we should put it after every regeneration. CoT    ?  15:31, November 6, 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, this would be a straightforward application of the precedent of not putting "and at some point the Doctor went to the Brig's funeral" on, say, The Doctor (The Cabinet of Light), or "and like every human who died before 2014 he was briefly turned into a Cyberman by Missy" on, for example, Jamie McCrimmon. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  16:06, November 6, 2020 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, having read Dismemberment relatively recently, the only incarnations that are outright confirmed to have visited the Scoundrels club are Missy and the Deathworm Morphant. Obviously other incarnations have visited too, but I don’t believe exactly which incarnations that visited are ever specified. SarahJaneFan ☎  17:15, November 6, 2020 (UTC)


 * I have a copy of the book in my hands right now, so I'll skim through for anything that will help us.
 * Quote #1: "The Master had a tradition: whenever he changed body, he headed for the Scoundrels."
 * Quote #2: "This is my chair. I've sat in it wearing several different bodies and once as a snake without a murmur."
 * Epsilon  📯 📂 17:35, November 6, 2020 (UTC)


 * Yeah, so these are the only relevant quotes I can find. I feel it's implied that every Master has attended, but that's not watertight. Epsilon  📯 📂 18:39, November 6, 2020 (UTC)

"Inventor" or "Renegade"?
Writing up the section of Early exploits about the infamous James Dreyfus's incarnation of the Master, I had titled the section "Inventor" incarnation. However, User:BananaClownMan changed it to "Renegade" incarnation instead with no rationale given in the edit summary. I'd like us to come to an agreement here on what name we're going to use.

I think the name "Inventor" is clearly superior: "the Inventor" is an alias this Master, specifically, has actually been known to use (thus fitting the same pattern as "the Lumiet", "Missy" or "the 'Spy' Master". Whereas "Renegade"… yeah, if you peer at the dialogue in his first story with a magnifying glass, you can view it as positing that Dreyfus was the first Master to be a Renegade Time Lord. But he's clearly not the only incarnation of the Master to have been a Renegade. Heck, is our page image for Renegade Time Lord as of this writing! Yet are we not accidentally implying that "Renegade" is a descriptor that only applies to Dreyfus's Master, in the same way only Gomez called herself "Missy" or Dhawan (albeit briefly) "the Spy Master"?

But rather than change it back again without due process, I would like to see the other side voice its reasons, and the community come to some kind of consensus. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  18:11, November 6, 2020 (UTC)


 * You actually hit the nail on the head with your opening statement in this debate there. When the Dreyfus!Master first appeared, "Inventor" was all that he could be called, like how "Yana" was what the Jacobi!Master could only be called due to his singular appearance, only being renamed the "War Master" after he got more stories. So, after the Dreyfus!Master made more appearance in the audios, I thought it appropriate to five his name an update. Since he was presented as the one who ran, and causing random mayhem is his shtick at the moment, I went with "Renegade Master".BananaClownMan ☎  18:23, November 6, 2020 (UTC)
 * The difference, here, though, is that Renegade Master isn't a phrase that has ever actually been used in official material to my knowledge. And as I said, "Renegade" doesn't especially convey "first one to become a Renegade" at first glance. You might perhaps have a stronger case with something like "Fugitive Master"/"Runaway Master", because he was the one who ran from Gallifrey, except that this runs into the issue that led me to split "Early exploits" the way I did, which is that other accounts describe a completely different fate for the Master following his flight from Gallifrey, depicting him as having been in a different incarnation at the time. --Scrooge MacDuck  ☎  19:38, November 6, 2020 (UTC)
 * "Renegade Master" is definitely too vague in my mind. -- Saxon (✉️) 20:03, November 6, 2020 (UTC)
 * To clarify, has Jacobi!Master been called "The War Master" diegetically? Or did you mean on packaging and suchlike? Najawin ☎  02:37, November 7, 2020 (UTC)
 * Not that I'm aware of, no. But he's certainly been credited and advertised as such in direct relation to valid stories, so I think it's a matter of time in the same way we didn't wait until The Name of the Doctor to acknowledge that Matt Smith's character was "the Eleventh Doctor".


 * Also like "the Eleventh Doctor", it's a moniker we could easily conjecture for ourselves, albeit spelling it "War" Master rather than the War Master. He's the Master from the Time War; implicitly the only Time War Master in some tellings, and, at any rate, certainly the incarnation most uniquely defined by his relationship to the War. Which is another point in favour of our usage of it being sheer common sense.


 * At any rate, howevermuch support "War" may or may not have, it's more support than "Renegade" has to show for itself --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  03:12, November 7, 2020 (UTC)

Adding a section for the War Chief in the biography
Tardis:Neutral point of view states that we should "give all media equal weight" and while the question of whether the War Chief and the Master are the same person is defintely contentious, this Wiki has decided on multiple occasions that the evidence presented was not enough to perform an outright merge of the pages. In other words, some valid sources agree that they are the same and some valid sources disagree. To merge them completely would be a violation of T:NPOV but I believe that Edward Brayshaw's War Chief not being acknowledged at all as a pre-Delgado Master in the biography is equally a violation of the policy for stories that treat The War Games as valid backstory to the character.

Luckily, a solution to this problem has existed for years now on pages for other Time Lords that have conflicting identities in certain stories. The Time Lord from Genesis of the Daleks is either Ferain or Valyes depending on if you believe Lungbarrow or Ascension and Bernard Horsfall's character in The War Games is either Goth or Pandad IV depending on if you believe The Legacy of Gallifrey or The Three Doctors. In all of these examples, we cover the disputed stories on both pages and merely note that according to other accounts the events mentioned were experienced by somebody else.

Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon pretty conclusively states that the Doctor and the Master were the only two Time Lords ever to steal a TARDIS while summarising the events of The War Games in the same breath. This is (or should be) enough to have a section on Brayshaw's character in the biography of this page, obviously with all neccesary "account" language with directing readers back to the main War Chief article. And of course, the "Behind the scenes" sections of both pages will still be there to explain the situation in greater detail. Borisashton ☎  23:52, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not familiar with Doomsday Weapon, but would this statement about only two Time Lords have any ramifications for the Monk? -- Saxon (✉️) 00:03, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah it’s also imply he’s the Master too. A better example really would’ve been the Terror of the Autons novelisation which refers back to the events of The War Games and implies the Master was a part of those events. SarahJaneFan ☎  00:09, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think the Terror of the Autons novelisation is what User:Borisashton was meaning to refer to, and it was a mere slip-of-the-keyboard that he mentioned Doomsday Weapon instead.


 * At any rate, as for the question of whether this implicates the Monk — not necessarily. Firstly because the Monk is not definitively a Time Lord in every account (see Talk:The Monk), but also and most importantly because the Terror of the Autons boo failing to mention the Monk could just as easily be read as "According to this account, The Time Meddler did not happen". Whereas when it goes out of its way to mention the events of The War Games, it explicitly makes "the War Chief was the Master" the only possible conclusion. This isn't a matter of implication, let alone speculation — it is sheer logic.


 * What to do about the Monk in light of abstract of mentions of "there were only two Renegade Time Lords" is a different question entirely from the very specific thing done by Terror of the Autons, and I think the evidence is so clear-cut when it comes to that, that I feel comfortable putting the burden of proof on the defence. Or in other words: Borisashton's proposal should henceforth be considered the default resolution, and new evidence/arguments would be needed to convince the Wiki to revert back to the current setup of not having a Brayshaw section.


 * Let's focus on Terror of the Autons and the War Chief for now, in that spirit. A second discussion/subdiscussion can, should, and will be opened about the other "only two Renegades ever" sources and what they mean for the Monk. But it's a different discussion and a lot murkier than this one, so let's get the clean War Chief business worked out first. Scrooge MacDuck ☎  00:15, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Okay, good. I was just making sure a huge can of worms wasn't being opened. I agree that this is a good idea. -- Saxon (✉️) 00:20, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

I think there is definitely enough to place evidence to add a section for the War Chief into the biography --but I think it's also of note that there are no valid sources that actually indicate they are different individuals. While the account within Divided Loyalties (novel) indicates that "Magnus" and "Koschei" are different individuals --that is an account WITHIN an account. A dream sequence within the narrative of the book. I think the fact that it took place within a narrative WITHIN a narrative means that it shouldn't be addressed with mere "accounts" language. While it can and should be noted that a dream influenced by the Celestial Toymaker suggested that the War Chief was in fact a separate individual who grew up alongside "Koschei" and "Theta Sigma", all of the valid sources that address the War Chief are either neutral to them being the same Time Lord or actively indicate they are the same Time Lord. . NoNotTheMemes ☎  00:42, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Actually, this was true up until a few years ago, but PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords also refers to the War Chief (albeit briefly) as distinct from the Master. Although of course, this is all within the framing device of an in-universe history book which could be wrong about things.


 * But I think the beauty of Borisashton's proposal is that it sidesteps the issue completely by highlighting that we already handle explicitly contradictory things like Ferain vs. Valyes in a much better-balanced way than Master vs. War Chief. Scrooge MacDuck ☎  00:57, 9 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Oooh yeah --the Ferain vs. Valyes is definitely a much better argument. If we're trying to make a new case for it's inclusion, that's the best route to go down. NoNotTheMemes ☎  01:24, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

There’s actually an epilogue to Divided Loyalties that takes place out of the dream sequence and reveals what ultimately happened to each member of the Deca. Obviously still treating Koschei and Magnus as separate characters. So the whole “it was just a dream sequence so doesn’t necessarily count” theory doesn’t entirely work. SarahJaneFan ☎  01:02, 9 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Damn Divided Loyalties contradicting pretty much all established continuity for laughs! One day Gary Russell will pay... NoNotTheMemes ☎  01:24, 9 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Politely, are we forgetting the very definitive thread that said we are very much not allowed to equate The Master and The War Chief and when I asked Shambala for permission for someone to reopen the issue at a later date sans new evidence I was pointedly ignored? These edits are in blatant violation of T:BOUND, regardless of whether we want to have a new discussion of this issue. Indeed, sans new evidence, this entire discussion could be construed as in violation of T:POINT. But certainly the edits should be put on hold for the time being, as there was actual policy made stating we're not to equate the two we're attempting to reverse. Najawin ☎  06:32, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * As you say, Shambala ignored that request, she did not deny it. But also and more to the point, the thread in question was polluted by the business of the Monk. This discussion was a much more restrained proposal, as well as bringing in somewhat different evidence. (And if it wasn't clear, this was one of those discussions which should probably have been threads if we still had a Forum, but were had as talk page discussions instead in the meantime by necessity.) Scrooge MacDuck ☎  12:18, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Scrooge, nothing here is new evidence, it's simply a new perspective on the same evidence. These exact excerpts were brought up in that same thread, it's simply a subtly different focus. And while I, again, do want to reopen this discussion, I'm both somewhat uncomfortable with something as major as this happening on the talk pages and not the forum, as I didn't notice it for a week, and deeply uncomfortable with someone going ahead and editing in the information as if this matter was decided. I again strongly urge people to agree that until this discussion comes to a close, there should be no mention of the War Chief on this page. There's already policy here, which it was improper to ignore until this discussion was resolved (though I'm sure whoever did so did so in good faith). Najawin ☎  18:13, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I suppose that depends on how you define "evidence" — but I would point to User:Borisashton bringing up the precedent of Ferain or Valyes as a new piece of exemplary evidence, as it were. If it needs to be spelled out, I'm giving this a stamp of T:BOUND approval as far as reopening this discussion goes.


 * The implementation, though, did overstep somewhat. When I said earlier that "Borisashton's proposal should henceforth be considered the default resolution, and new evidence/arguments would be needed to convince the Wiki to reverse it", I meant for this to only govern the direction of this discussion — not that the change itself should already be implemented. For this we can "thank" User:NoNotTheMemes, a well-meaning but fairly inactive user who can certainly be forgiven for misunderstanding how this works — but misunderstand he did.


 * That being said, now that the work has been done, I personally think it would be pointless legalism to reverse it only to de-reverse it later — similar to how the wrongful actions of User:BananaClownMan kinda brought a de facto end to the Mark Seven merge discussion in an irregular timeframe, but in accordance with what the consensus did in fact happen to be. It wouldn't be as difficult to simply remove the section from this page as it would have been to unmerge merged pages, but I still think it's more trouble than it's worth. Though feel free to try to pick at this reasoning if you disagree, I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise.


 * But also: this discussion is indeed not over, and if someone has a new reason to bring up for why we shouldn't have a Brayshaw section on here, they may still do so and then we'll reverse the changes. I'm not sure what would be a reasonable timeframe to leave this open, but I think three or four weeks at the very least, and I shall create an announcement in Discussions to remedy the "not seeing the discussion" problem that User:Najawin apparently ran into. I definitely want the opposition to have its say, so long as it's got more interesting things to bring up than "what about the Monk?".


 * (Oh, and Najawin… the thing about the Forums is that we're no closer to having them back than we were two months ago and haven't heard from User:CzechOut in ages, on this or anything else. We cannot indefinitely postpone all discussion when we no longer have a clear deadline to look forward to, the way we thought we did in November.) Scrooge MacDuck ☎  18:27, 16 January 2021 (UTC)


 * At the very least I left a message on Czech's message wall just yesterday, when nobody has before to my knowledge. So it's possible that we might hear something in the near future. Najawin ☎  18:40, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

…Did you really? The latest message I can see there is still User:Chubby Potato's about duplicate arguments in template calls. Scrooge MacDuck ☎  19:03, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Message Wall, so Community Central, not TARDIS. Najawin ☎  19:06, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Aaah, I see. Good thought. Not a terminological distinction I'd seen made before, though, between "message wall" and "user talk-page", so forgive me for the misunderstanding! Scrooge MacDuck ☎  19:12, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Here, by the way, is the announcement. Scrooge MacDuck ☎  19:26, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * To clarify, before I weigh in on the merits, does the Terror phrasing of the events in War Games state that there was a stolen TARDIS? Najawin ☎  20:06, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

I seem to remember that infobox material needs to be uncontested, which is (eg) why we've replaced Time Lord with The Doctor's species in all the incarnation infoboxes. It seems to me that the compromise position here would be retaining the current article but removing all War-Chief-related information from the infobox (eg/especially the first appearance variable)? – n8 (☎) 22:27, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It's also a minor fix, I believe, to remove Brayshaw from the image rotation until this is resolved. Even if we keep the main article body as is. Najawin ☎  22:37, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Very good points. Brayshaw's satanically handsome self has been removed from Masterpic from the time being, and I've blanked the "First appearance" field, noting that it is not to be refilled. Do you two think we should also removed Brayshaw from the |other_actor= variable, however? Scrooge MacDuck ☎  12:32, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It's very much still contested info, so yes. Najawin ☎  16:58, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. To elaborate on my vague, inarticulate scruple, it had to do with the fact that it's not really an in-universe variable; how things are in-universe is contested between accounts, but the fact that one account says X is, from a real-world perspective, not a matter of "conflicting accounts". But that's splitting hairs, and, anyway, would also implicate the debut variable, come to think of it. Scrooge MacDuck ☎  17:01, 19 January 2021 (UTC)


 * While I am fine with War Chief info being removed from the infobox while the discussion is ongoing, I would like to see its return when it is over. The Ferain vs Valyes and Pandad IV vs Goth precedents still exist but I think the best way to proceed can be found in Romana II's infobox.


 * The Lying Old Witch in the Wardrobe states that "Romana" in Destiny of the Daleks is actually the Doctor's TARDIS, which would make Romana II's true first appearance City of Death. Many sources dispute Romana's non-appearance in Destiny but if we religiously stuck to the standard of uncontested info in infoboxes which Nate reminds us about above, the "First appearance" field would have to be City. The talk page discussion on the subject was not technically concluded but the wishes of SOTO in their final comment, the only admin at the time participating in the discussion, is matched by the current structure of the page. That being, the "First appearance" field lists the earliest appearance of the characer according to any source (Destiny) with a footnote in the "Appearances" field stating that some sources say City is her first.


 * Replicating the same idea with The War Games as the Master's first appearance with a footnote stating that some sources say it was Terror of the Autons seems very viable to me. Borisashton ☎  21:01, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Could someone please give us some quotes from the Terror of the Autons novel that suggests the Master was present in The War Games? I saw the two on the War Chief's talk page, but, without much context anyway, they seem flimsy at best. All they tell me is that the Master would have the same punishment for similar crimes as the War Chief and that the Master escaped the Time Lords at one point. They don't mention the events of The War Games at all other than the Doctor reminiscing that he was not so lucky in escaping the Time Lords himself. I can see that there may be a possible connection there but I think I need a bit more context before I see it as anything other than speculation.

Also, I know we aren't focussing on Doomsday Weapon, but I thought I had better include more of the conversation in which the Keeper talks about The War Games and the Master "in the same breath". Bear in mind that the conversation is mainly about TARDISes not the Master and the Doctor, and the Keeper is recalling their one and only off-planet adventure.

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. The Doctor’—he interrupted himself—‘l told you about him, didn’t I?’

‘Yes,’ said the young Time Lord, now used to the old Keeper forgetting what he had already said. ‘You mentioned the Doctor and the Master.’

‘No, it wasn’t the Master,’ said the old Keeper in his confused way. ‘The Master never does anything good for anyone. He’s thoroughly evil. Now what was I saying?’

The Young Time Lord reminded him. ‘Humans on a planet refighting the wars of Earth’s history.’

To me, that suggests more that the Master wasn't involved in the events. LauraBatham ☎  02:05, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I second this. Can we investigate this a little further, and provide quotes? In the absence of a clear link, the only proof here seems to be omission, and thus discontinuity. 17:39, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I do also agree that if there is a clear conflicting account here which states the War Chief was the Master, in the way that Wardrobe says Romana was the TARDIS in Destiny, that a footnote would be a good way to go. But let's first have a look at the quotes provided above, and any other evidence that is claimed to prove this definitively within a valid source. 17:47, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I see nothing in the quote provided by Laura which "suggests the Master wasn't involved in the events"; looking closely at the extract, it is simply that the Master is not who the Keeper had begun his sentence about.


 * At any rate: @SOTO as I have said before, I think it would be an unreasonable burden of proof to want something more than a story which simultaneously says "The War Games happened" and "the Master was the only other Time Lord who ran away". The Monk is another thing, because you can take the text to say "According to this account, The Time Meddler never happened", but it would in IMHO be faintly bizarre, and more than speculative, to call this "discontinuity" — to construe Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon as trying to assert an alternative version of The War Games where there was no renegade Time Lord with Brayshaw's face.


 * As for the quotes in Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons, I have elaborated on that subject at Talk:The War Chief. The big smoking gun is this exchange:

"The Doctor: "Is [the Master's] TARDIS still working?" Adelphi: "I’m afraid so. He got away before it could be de- energised." The Doctor: "Then he was luckier than I.""

- DWatTotA


 * Which occurs after the narration states that the Master had a pattern of being responsible for starting interplanetary wars (which is, of course, what the War Chief was attempting to do in TV: The War Games). I don't think there is a non-counterintuitive reading of that quote other than that the Doctor and Master were both present on the occasion when the Doctor's TARDIS was "de-energised", but the Master got away quicker than the Doctor could.


 * Again as I stated at Talk:The War Chief: the relevant precedent is the Panopticon thread where we decided that we accepted "the Weapon" as an alternative to "the Moment" despite the contradictions and despite the lack of a singular, neatly-trimmed, quotable sentence saying "the Doctor used the Weapon to end the Time War". The weight of logical implication in PROSE: The Eyeless is inescapable. And likewise, absent the expectation for the use of the name "War Chief" (an expectation which I deconstructed on that talk page), these quotes couldn't be clearer about saying "Edward Brayshaw escaped and became the Delgado Master". Scrooge MacDuck ☎  17:56, 20 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I think at this point it's prudent to bring up the horrific, terrible discussion that was had at Talk:The Three Doctors (novelisation), both how some anonymous user thinks there are other books that are relevant, but most importantly Laura's insightful contribution at the bottom. It's nontrivial that these books would entail the same events happened as before. Najawin ☎  18:18, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It is insightful — but it's also exactly why the fact that both Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon and Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons go out of their way to reference the events of The War Games anyway is of such importance. Scrooge MacDuck ☎  18:26, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Respectfully, I personally don't believe a burden of proof of requiring an unequivocal statement is too high. The ending of Divided Loyalties (novel), which is not part of the dream sequence, clearly states they are separate characters, so expecting something equally clear to oppose it does not seem unreasonable to me.  I do not personally believe the quotes provided from these novelisations meet that burden of proof.Schreibenheimer  ☎  18:32, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Equally respectfully, Divided Loyalties is utterly irrelevant to this discussion. We judge accounts on their individual merits, conflicting or otherwise; it's not a matter of "weighing" accounts. Again, please investigate the Weapon/Moment precedent (although I'll grant that this is somewhat more difficult than it ought to be due to the Forums situation). Scrooge MacDuck ☎  18:38, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

But there's no reference to the person known as the War Chief (I agree such a thing is not likely), nor a description of them. It's not implausible that we simply have Delgado!Master "doing War Games" instead, contra your suggestion that such a thing is bizarre. Now, I'm not sure I'm convinced by the evidence here, but even if we cede it, I think it just gets us to the question of how we handle this issue, of a line of books we know has a somewhat distinct continuity up until this point with occasional different events referring to the events of War Games with the Master. Do we treat that as Master = War Chief, or War Games happened with Master. It is, again, non trivial that we choose the first. (Note here that I disagree with Schreibenheimer, obviously we can do the "According to one account" thing, though, that seems very odd to outright identify two individuals.) Najawin ☎  18:39, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Aaaah. "Maybe the Master did War Games instead of the War Chief" is not a position I had considered, and it does make a certain amount of sense. I thought you were proposing that maybe the "Target version" of War Games went completely differently and did not involve an evil Time Lord at all. That is what I deemed bizarre.


 * That being said, if we are positing a "Target continuity" for the purposes of this discussion, I would consider it mildly relevant that Target did in fact later put out a Doctor Who and the War Games which featured Brayshaw, not Delgado. (And, though this is circumstantial evidence at best, that book happened to be written by Malcolm Hulke, known behind the scenes to be a proponent of the idea of War Chief=Master.) Scrooge MacDuck ☎  18:44, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm very aware of this fact. However, if we have to consider books that had yet to be published, statements in The Three Doctors (novelisation) look very bad under the context of The Time Meddler (novelisation) and do require us to take seriously the Monk = Master connection, even if the selections from Auton Invasion and Doomsday Weapon do not. (And surely it's unreasonable to limit our discussion of "Target Novelizations' Wacky Antics" here to just the Master.) It's not implausible that a decision was made early on merely to introduce the Master in some way, give a bit of backstory, and four years later it was retconned when they decided they wanted to do a War Games novelization, or "retconned enough" that they didn't explicitly connect the two. Najawin ☎  19:04, 20 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Sorry to interrupt the new line of conversation (and do please continue), but I still need more context on the Terror of the Autons thing. You have merely repeated what was on the War Chief talk page. Can I get a quote from directly before "We tracked him on the Monitor"? Does it say why they are tracking the Master other than the interplanetary wars (which are a dime a dozen for the Master) or why they are even talking about the Master in the first place? The quote at the end is hardly enough to suggest that it was the War Games event. "He was luckier than I" could just as easily be the Doctor referencing his own separate run in with the Time Lords, in which he was not lucky enough to escape them. LauraBatham ☎  00:54, 21 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Also, where does it say the Doctor's TARDIS was "de-energised" at the end of the War Games? The War Games simply states that it would be "taken from him" and the Pertwee era TARDIS still worked in his exile episodes, it just didn't work for the Doctor. 01:05, 21 January 2021 (UTC)


 * You're going to have to wait for direct quotes, as I don't have my copy on hand right this minute, but: this is an expanded version of the "warning scene" in the TV version, so the reason they're "even talking about the Master" is that Adelphi is there to warn the Doctor about the Master being on Earth.


 * However, things play out somewhere differently from television in some key respects. Firstly, Adelphi has to mention the Master's true name to the Doctor for him to see who he's talking about, with it being stated that the Master has only just started calling himself that. The Doctor then immediately asks if the Master's TARDIS is "still active" (prompting the quoted exchange). Throughout that scene, the narration, and the Doctor & Adelphi in dialogue, are also recalling the Doctor's trialfrom The War Games, what with Adelphi having been one of the judges thereof.


 * There's really no way to come away from that passage without concluding that the Doctor and Master were both involved in the incident during which the Doctor lost his TARDIS, at which point the Master wasn't going by "Master" yet; that the Master escaped while the Doctor did not; and the Time Lords have since been tracking him on their monitor, learning of his new name and of his coming to Earth, but not being able to arrest him.


 * (Concerning "de-energised": …search me. Even on TV, the Pertwee era is kind of inconsistent as to why the Doctor can no longer fly the TARDIS, from the Time Lords having erased knowledge of time travel from the Doctor's mind to their having altered the physical dematerialisation circuit. But from the rest of the exchange there is no debate that the Third Doctor is here referring to whatever the Time Lords did which make him unable to fly the TARDIS during the UNIT years.)


 * Incidentally, I am answering your queries for transparency because they are evidently put forward in good faith, but you're kind of going against my stated instruction earlier on in this convo that the burden of proof would be on the opposition to the idea of Master=War Chief in this go-around. User:Najawin is closer to the mark in his proposition of the "Delgado in War Games" reading. Scrooge MacDuck ☎  01:12, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Scrooge, it seems to me to be a bit of a category error to say that the burden is on the opposition when people are just trying to fully understand the background of why the burden would be on the opposition. One could hardly argue against that contention if they don't fully understand it, for instance. Najawin ☎  01:18, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * A fair point, but I'd argue that in theory, personal questions about why an admin gave X instruction, which are not trying to undermine said instruction, ought to be directed to the admin's talk page, rather than added to the discussion itself. That's just in theory, though. As I said, I had no issue with expounding on the rationale here in the interest of transparency, and I'm not saying Laura has done anything wrong/needs to apologise for anything. I'm just trying to steer further developments back on track.


 * Speaking of which, come to think of it, the fact that Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons goes out of its way to show that the Doctor was familiar with the man, but not with the name "the Master," prior to its events, is fairly compelling evidence for the idea being "War Chief became Delgado!Master" over "Delgado!Master stood in for War Chief in the imaginary Target retelling". Scrooge MacDuck ☎  01:25, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Reasonable, but not to my mind conclusive. Unfortunately, since we're unable to see the thread about the Weapon and the Moment and the reasoning therein, I can only point out whether Ferain/Valyes is quite analogous. For Ferain/Valyes you have two individuals who have been portrayed as distinct in other instances aside from this action (not that they show up together, but that Ferain exists outside his doing the thing we care about), both apparently doing the same action. We then threat them as individuals, note that each did the action, and say on their pages "according to another account the other person did the action". This is not the current situation we have with the page, and I don't think it's what people are currently proposing. (Though I note, the relevant conditionals do seem to be satisfied, as we've got Divided Loyalties to suggest they're distinct individuals. So it seems to come down on how conclusive we find the novelization War Chief = Master vs Master does War Games issue at this point, if we cede the prior issues.) Najawin ☎  01:47, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, the wrinkle is that both Ferain and Valyes are purported to look like John Franklyn-Robbins. In the Ferain/Valyes case, what we see on-screen in Genesis of the Daleks is not questioned; the presence of a man who looked like Franklyn-Robbins is not queried; we are simply saying that this man who did [Thing X] may have been an incarnation of Ferain, or an incarnation of Valyes.


 * Thus, the justification for the current setup of the War Chief info on this page would be that we do not question that "a War Chief" who looked like Edward Brayshaw was present during the War Games, but are uncertain as to whether he was an incarnation of "the Master", or an incarnation of "The War Chief".


 * However, that is only one option, I will acknowledge. Scrooge MacDuck ☎  01:56, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I got myself a copy of the novel and I have read the "warning" scene, and I must disagree that it goes "out of its way" to show that the Doctor was familiar with the man, but not with the name "the Master" (unless of course there is evidence in another scene wihich suggests it).

"The Time Lord pronounced a string of mellifluous syllable - one of the strange Time Lord names that are never disclosed to outsiders. Then he added, "These days he calls himself the Master." The Doctor was silent for a moment. The Master was a rogue Time Lord."

- DWatTotA


 * here is no indication that the Doctor didn't recognise either name. All we have here is the Time Lord clarifying the identity without any prompting (which I believe would be more for the reader's benefit than the Doctor's) I admit that it would have been simpler just to say "the Master", but I would hardly call that evidence that the Doctor didn't recognise the name "the Master". LauraBatham ☎  02:42, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Hey! Please add new replies at the end of the page, not in-between existing replies. I've moved yours for legibility.


 * Anyway, while I may have slightly misremembered the extent of this beat, I stand by my reading of it. The "These days" is the important part — it highlights the Master as a recently-chosen pseudonym, and the fact that Adelphi first refers to the Master by his true name, and then adds "These days he's going by [X]", ought clearly to be understood to mean that Adelphi did not expect the Doctor to be familiar with the name of "The Master," and is imparting new information about [String of mellifluous syllables] to the Doctor. Where there is ambiguity is on whether Adelphi was right in his assumption that this was the first the Doctor heard of his friend having taken the name of "the Master", but it's clearly treated as a recent thing which the Doctor may not know about. Scrooge MacDuck ☎  02:51, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks both Najawin (for sticking up for me) and Scrooge (for explaining and for correcting my formatting mistakes) but I think I am going to bow out of this debate. I managed to find a copy of TotA and read the scene in question, and to be honest, I still don't see any evidence to support that the Master = the War Chief is anything but speculation (in TotA anyway). I can see how the lines can be drawn, but I don't think it is enough to warrant the decision to hand the burden of proof to the opposition or the inclusion of it to the Master's biography. But as I have already been warned against taking this route in the debate, I see no point in myself continuing. I will however leave some quotes here as SOTO was also interested in seeing more context and I feel they may help others (from both sides of the debate) provide context for their arguments:

Just after the Time Lord messenger appears:

"The Doctor looked at him grimly. He'd recognised him at once, of course. One of the high council of the Time Lords. Last Time they met was at the Doctor's trial."

- DWatTotA

Then there is a brief summary of the Doctor's trial and some witty rapport over clothing choices. Then:

"A hope flashed inside the Doctor's mind. 'You've come to tell me the exile is over..." The Time Lord shook his head. 'I'm afraid not Doctor. As a matter of fact, I've come to bring you a warning, an old friend of yours has arrived on Earth.' "One of our people? Who is it?""

- DWatTotA

Cue quote I mentioned in my earlier post about the Doctor recognising the Master's name. Then there is a brief summary of the Master, which includes the reference to "several interplanetary wars" that was quoted on the War Chief talk page. It also says that reversing the timestream is the severest punishment in the Time Lord's power (not sure if that is relevant at all, but I thought I had better mention it as it does indicate that it is not a unique punishment, just one that is saved for the worst of crimes).

Immediately after the summary: "The Doctor knew the Master's presence on Earth made matters far worse than he has feared. "You're sure he's here?' he asked The Time Lord nodded gravely. "We tracked him on the Monitor. 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 de-energised." "The he was luckier than I," said the Doctor, sadly. He had never really gotten used to his exile. "Don't be so bitter, Doctor. Your sentence was comparatively light"."

- DWatTotA

Then we have the Doctor complaining about his exile for a bit. After that:

"For a moment, the Doctor gazed up at the sky without speaking. Then he said, "Why did you take the trouble to warn me?" "The Master knows you are 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 the danger.""

- DWatTotA

After that, the discussion moves onto the Master's current plans and the Time Lords' wish for the Doctor to "do their dirty work" and capture or destroy the Master for them. Like I say, there are connections that can be made, but I don't believe that they must be made. Anyways, I hope this context helps in the continuation of the debate. LauraBatham ☎  03:45, 21 January 2021 (UTC)


 * As someone who has not read the novelisations so only has the context of the quotes and summaries presented here, I’d agree that, whilst it seems like a connection could be made, it would be speculative to say they definitively confirm the War Chief being the Master. SherlockTheII ☎  09:56, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

I know I said I was leaving, but after a quick chat with Scrooge, I am back with my interpretation of the "He was luckier than I" quote, which has already been said by the defence is their main point of "proof".

So, in this quote we have the Time Lords informing the Doctor that they tracked the Master to/on Earth, where they then lost him due to "alien interference". This is less an interpretation and more explicitly stated. Then the Doctor asks if the Master's TARDIS is still working. Why would the Doctor ask this unless he believed the Master had his TARDIS with him on Earth? And if he believed the Master's TRDIS was on Earth, then he believed it was working prior to the Master arriving. Ergo, what the Doctor is actually asking is if the Time Lords managed to deactivate it on Earth. To which the Time Lord replies in a negative, saying he "got away". The Doctor then says "He was luckier than I". Which, to me, is just him being bitter about his own failed escape from the Time Lords. There isn't any indication that the Master "was involved in the incident where the Doctor lost his TARDIS".

Basically, that is a in-depth way of me saying my interpretation of the scene is: The Time Lords tracked the Master to/on Earth, where they then lost him before they could deactivate his TARDIS. The Doctor is still not used to Exile and is bitter that the Master escaped punishment for his crimes while he hasn't. LauraBatham ☎  01:24, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * A stimulating and in-depth answer! I don't mean to be rude to that individual but good lord, these discussions are ever so much more civil without That Anonymous User around.


 * You ask: "Why would the Doctor ask this unless he believed the Master had his TARDIS with him on Earth?", and if that is how you interpret the question then I see where you're coming from. But I understood the line "Is his TARDIS still working?" to be an expression of surprise — Adelphi says something which necessarily implies the Master's TARDIS was active when he got to Earth; the Doctor is thus surprised and dismayed to learn that it wasn't deactivated back on the War Games planet.


 * In my view, the text points to two separate incidents of the Master slipping away from the Time Lords. The more recent is when they were watching him on the monitor, and detected his arrival to Earth, only to lose the signal due to alien interference (implicitly, the Nestene Consciousness's interference, if anybody isn't clocking on). Crucially, they were not present, merely observing; and there is no indication that the Master realised he was being watched. The quoted scene is the first the Doctor learns of that incident. Distinct from that is a past incident (of which the Doctor is already aware), during which the Time Lords were physically about to arrest him, only for him to "get away" before his ship could be de-energised.


 * Would this be conclusive on its own? I don't know. Probably not. If it were just these two lines, you could still make the argument that the Doctor is just drawing parallels between two separate incidents when he compares this to how he lost access to his own TARDIS. But it must be read in light of the other alterations made to the scene when compared to its TV counterpart: the idea that the Master has only started calling himself that "lately", the added line "You have interfered with his evil schemes in the past" (also absent from TV), the heavier emphasis on direct continuity with The War Games in any case (e.g. identifying the Messenger as himself one of the three Time Lords who judged the Doctor).


 * There is a fine line between in-depth analysis of a piece of prose, and speculation. However, it is really not in the Wiki's best interest for it to stray too far on the side of caution, only to end up pig-headedly refusing to take sources in the spirit in which they're intended, just because they don't have the courtesy to be written in . The "no speculation"/"authorial intent isn't a valid source" is about not saying the Woman is the Doctor's mother. What it is not about are things like questioning whether a "hat box" and a "hatbox" are the same thing. Or acting as though a 1975 book referring to the Doctor having foiled one of the Master's schemes a short time prior to the exile on Earth, and suggesting that the Master has only recently taken on that name, might be referencing the events of The Dark Path as opposed to the thing it's obviously meant to referencing.


 * One thing I have striven to do since I have become an administrator is to act as a living sanity-check for when the Wiki falls too far down its own rabbit-hole. I believe the Wiki's hitherto-refusal to acknowledge the plain meaning of the Target quotes, getting lost in nitpicking of potential alternative meanings for any given sentence, is one of those cases.


 * I also see the looming shadow of the Wiki's old bugbear, canon. People like to think that certain basic facts about core DWU concepts like The Master are Known, now and forever; for example, that they were first portrayed by Roger Delgado. On some deep, potentially subconscious level, it offends their sensibility to propose to cast our minds back to 1975 and take the 1970s text at face value. Over the past year, certain televised developments finally got the ball rolling for the Wiki to stop hiding its head in the sand on the subject of whether maybe the Doctor is human, or half-human, or Nyarlathotep; or of whether the William Hartnell Doctor really was the true "First Doctor".


 * In my view, no longer contorting the text of Doomsday Weapon and its bedfellows in strange shapes just to maintain the sanctity of Certain Inalienable Trivia Answers is part of the same effort of cleaning house. If we are to keep Brayshaw out of the "Biography" section of The Master, it must be because we have specific, articulate reasons to do so — not because it's "the obvious thing to do". And that is why I put the burden of proof on the opposition, to cut a long story short. Scrooge MacDuck ☎  04:47, 22 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I can see how you may see the Doctor's question as surprise or confusion, but I disagree that that was the obvious intent. If he were surprised or confused wouldn't the question be phrased: "The Master's TARDIS is still working?" Or at the very least, wouldn't the scene have some description of body language? A raised eyebrow perhaps? Also, this line of thinking is only possible if the reader has knowledge of the specific events of The War Games, a story which had yet to be released in the novelisations. I admit that it is clear that The War Games happened, but the references so far have only been to the Doctor's exile, which are easy to follow for readers who have not watched the TV show. More to the point, your interpretation of seeing the Doctor as surprised only really seems possible if the reader already believed the War Chief to be the Master.


 * Addressing the final paragraph in your reply, you mention Doomsday Weapon and "its bedfellows" but isn't this discussion about Terror of the Autons? If we are grouping stories together rather than discussing their individual merits, then doesn't nuetral point of view policy say that we can also cite Dived Loyalties and A Brief History of the Time Lords in the discussion, as one medium is not more important than the other? And if we are just grouping the novelisations, then doesn't the discussion become more a matter "x authors had this opinion" which is more a behind the scenes thing? LauraBatham ☎  05:56, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think anyone who is skeptical of the strength of TotA etc is arguing that there should be no mention of the War Chief on this page - though others can correct me if I'm wrong. It just strikes me like something that, allegedly, is not clear enough to be in the biography section and instead belongs in BTS along with "Is "Koschei" their true name?" etc. Najawin ☎  06:02, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * While I also can't speak for other people, but Najawin is correct - in my case, anyway. I have no problem at all with The War Chief having a section in the BTS. LauraBatham ☎  06:21, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh, I certainly think the BTS section is a certainty if this discussion decides to remove the WC elements from the Biography. But that's not coverage, any more than the BTS mentions that "some 1960s stories said the Doctor was human" were fair-minded coverage of the relevant 1960s stories so long as "Time Lord" sat unquestioned in the First Doctor's infobox.


 * "Doomsday Weapon and its bedfellows" was a rhetorical flourish — and I meant by that "Target novelisations which introduce weird ideas" more than anything specifically to do with the War Chief. To be quite frank, I mostly mentioned it because unlike TotA it doesn't (nearly) share a title with its TV story, so it would be more immediately obvious what I was referring to in the flow of the sentence. Don't read too much into it!


 * But my point is, we have two "trends" in accounts — some, unquestionably, were by authors who intended to treat the Master and War Chief as distinct; others were by authors who intended to depict them as the same man. Coincidentally, the former appeared to be written more explicitly than the latter — but that is not to say that the evidence for the latter is "weak", merely that it is less clear-cut at first glance and needs closer analysis to extract the intended meaning. "Malcolm Hulke and Terrance Dicks thought [X]" is not in itself reason to merge something. But "They wrote [Valid Story X] in light of [X] and implicitly refer to this fact at many points even though they never come out and say it in one concise sentence," in my opinion, is.


 * To put it another way, I contend that the spirit of T:NPOV would recommend we approach the 1970s War Chief=Master stories as we would in an EU vacuum. The thing is, without fifty years of it being drilled into fandom's head that "Roger Delgado Is The First Master", without Divided Loyalties and A Brief History of Time Lords — if there were no contradictory accounts, in short — then I am quite confident we wouldn't have seen much opposition to a War Chief/Master merge on the basis of the novelisations. Let me know if you disagree. But if you grant that premise, then in this discussion, we should mentally cast off the baggage of those 50 years, and cover the novelisations as we would have in 1975, without averting our gaze just because they posit something we now consider "strange" or "canon-defying".


 * To get back to the meat of the text: for the reasons I've stated above, I consider it to be explicit in the text that the occasion on which the Master "got away" from the Time Lords before his Ship could be deenergised is distinct from the recent event of their losing his signal on the monitor. This necessarily implicates that the Doctor's question is one of surprise. This much doesn't in itself confirm War Chief=Master; it's true either way and our coverage of Terror on The Master should reflect that in future.


 * Beyond which: when you write "your interpretation (…) only really seems possible if the reader already believed the War Chief to be the Master", you are skirting on the edge of what is indeed my actual position: that while authorial intent is not in itself valid, we should allow it to guide us in controversial split/merge moves when it comes to interpreting the text. For example, The Doctor (The Cabinet of Light) is described as similar to the Shalka Doctor in more detail than many Short Trip Doctors are identified; I don't think there's any doubt we'd have merged the pages if we'd just been working from the text with our usual standards. But we discovered evidence that the description was not intended to point at the Shalka Doctor by Daniel O'Mahony, so we didn't go forward with the merge.


 * Conversely, User:CzechOut ruled on Talk:Totem (short story) after much protracted drama that we should acknowledge the intent that it features the Eighth Doctor, even though the description actively gets some details wrong in its attempts to evoke McGann. He made the point that we should remember that during the actual McGann era "he had recurring amnesia" was a sort of dogwhistle that the Doctor was Eight, even though on a brute-force level many Doctors have been characterised by memory problems (not the least of whom the original).


 * So: many clues are seeded in Terror of the Autos and Doomsday Weapon, which, from a 1975 perspective, are unquestionably intended to allow the reader to conclude that the Master was involved in that "War Games" business where the Doctor lost access to his TARDIS. Through happenstance, those clues could hypothetically mean something else. But. That is not what they are meant to mean. And that is not how we (we the Wiki, to be clear) would force ourselves to interpret them, were we not subconsciously looking for excuses to keep Delgado in the #1 spot/to keep Divided Loyalties contradiction-free. So, we should blind ourselves to those bias-inducing intervening 50 years, and follow the thrust of the text in a non-robot-lawyer way, contradiction or not. Scrooge MacDuck ☎  12:06, 22 January 2021 (UTC)


 * The problem with looking at things from a 1975 perspective is that we then run into the dreaded Monk problem, which we all agree is something that we don't want to discuss again. From a 1975 perspective, there have been four regenerations of renegade Time Lords shown, yet only two stolen TARDISes, which, logically, means that some of those regenerations belong to the same Time Lord. So yes, we could conclude that the War Chief is the Master, but by the same logic, we must also conclude that the Monk is too (I don't think anybody is suggesting that any of them were incarnations of the Doctor). We can get around this by treating the novelisations as having a totally separate continuity from the TV show, which would get rid of the Monk equation all together, as The Time Meddler novelisation wasn't released until 1988. However, if we do take this road, then we don't have the benefit of The War Games novelisation for context (as that was not released until 1979). And while Doomsday Weapon and TotA do describe certain events from The War Games, they don't actually mention another Time Lord being present in those events at all (apart from the High Council of course). LauraBatham ☎  12:35, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Like we said much earlier: the Monk problem should be its own discussion. As you yourself acknowledged, it is clear that Terror of the Auton and Doomsday Weapon assume that War Games happened in some shape or form. I do not think it is unthinkable to propose that, precisely because there existed no novelisation, they can only be referring to the TV version and in the process, bringing it (as it were), wholesale, into the "Target continuity" — whereas they elide any contents of Time Meddler altogether. As well they should for the reason that Time Meddler was an incidental serial from two Doctors ago decade, whereas War Games was the recent bombastic finale of the last Doctor's era, on whose resolution the entire new status quo of the current era hinged.


 * This may not be the only potential reading, but again, it is clearly the intended reading, and we are simply doing those sources a disservice by trying to make them say strange things they never meant to say (like "maybe the 'Target version' of War Games did not involve an evil Time Lord at all", which Najawin and I considered earlier, seeming to agree that it was a rather bizarre proposition, even as we entertained the possibility of Delgado taking Brayshaw's place in "the 'Target version'"). We'll decide what to do with the Monk later, but the setup of the evidence in his case is very different; there is only cross-story logical implication from a single offhand line, rather than several lines specifically about the Master, delivered as part of a deliberate literary attempt to mire the Master's background in War Games imagery.


 * Again, lengthy as it is, I'd invite you to read over Talk:Totem (short story), archives included — for the sake of the victory of common sense that was its conclusion. What we have with the War Chief is similar — deliberate signifiers of identity, which at the time of release were unlikely to be misinterpreted, but which are in part, so to speak, "literary" rather than "logical" (things which allow a canny reader to make the intended connection, but would not be conclusive factual evidence in-universe). We are a Wiki about works of fiction, not about scientifically-accurate alt-history written in lojban; we should acknowledge that. Scrooge MacDuck ☎  12:56, 22 January 2021 (UTC)


 * You keep using words like "clearly", "obviously", and "unquestionably" to describe the connection between the War Chief and the Master, and yet, we have questioned it. And the fact that multiple people have expressed different interpretations and/or don't agree with the proposed line of reasoning means that it isn't obvious or clear. TotA is in no way "clear" by itself. There is no clear "imagery" of the Master in the War Games. The Master is wanted for starting several interplanetary wars and for that will be punished with the Time Lords' most severe punishment is merely an emphasis on how dangerous the Master is and is no clear reference to The War Games other than saying that he will receive the same punishment as the War Lord "and his associates" (in which we are reasonably assuming the War Chief is one of) as "it was the severest punishment in the Time Lords' power". The Doctor having foiled the Master's evil schemes in the past is also not a clear reference. There is no indication of how long ago these evil schemes were for either the Master or the Doctor. The implication that the Master has only recently started going by that name does not mean that the Doctor has had a recent run in with him.


 * In my opinion, it is Doomsday Weapon that is the basis for "the Master = the War Chief" argument. I concede that bringing The War Games into the "novelisation continuity" is not unreasonable. I do however disagree that The Time Meddler and The Daleks' Master Plan are "incidental" just because they are not recent, but that's neither here nor there.


 * So, we come to the Keeper's assertion that only two TARDISes were stolen: the Doctor's and the Master's. Now, I am willing to admit that this is an indication of author's intent in 1975 (or in 1974 in this case). But my question is, can we use the mention of there only being two stolen TARDISes as a valid source for author's intent for one thing and then condemn it as a continuity error for another (aka the Time Lord Who Must Not Be Named). Just to be clear, this question is merely about Wiki policy rather than the actual topic of the Time Lord Who Must Not Be Named. LauraBatham ☎  14:08, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Apologies if I have sounded dismissive of others' objections, that was not my intent!


 * Setting aside Autons to focus on Doomsday Weapon, and to answer your question: "can we use the mention of there only being two stolen TARDISes as a valid source for author's intent for one thing and then condemn it as a continuity error for another?": I do believe we can, again because we have a singular source both acknowledging the events of War Games in some detail and making this assertion. On The War Chief we can say of the summary of his actoins in The War Games, "According to one account which acknowledged these events, the Doctor and Master were the only two Time Lords who'd run away from Gallifrey in stolen TARDISes, thus identifying the War Chief as the Master", while on The Monk we would say "According to another account, which made no mention of the Doctor's prior encounters with the Monk, the Master and the Doctor were the only Time Lords ever to have stolen TARDISes from Gallifrey".


 * The strongest objection thus far raised, User:Najawin's, has been that perhaps we ought to limit ourselves to what is repeated of War Games in the two novelisations under discussion, rather than bring the TV version of War Games into it. But if you agree that we should acknowledge that both novelisations are treating the TV story as having properly happened, then yes, I do think this definitely allows us to draw the War Chief=Master link without necessarily implicating the Monk. Implicating the Monk is of course made a possibility, but not a certainty; and it is a possibility we shall discuss in its own right once this discussion wraps up. Scrooge MacDuck ☎  14:41, 22 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Scrooge, to be fair, the Monk issue has more than just one line, it comes up at least twice.


 * While we're proceeding down this line of discussion, let me note that I don't think it's obvious that a BTS reference in this, specific, niche instance is inferior to a biography section, and it's entirely plausible that a proponent of the WC = M view might prefer a BTS section, at least to start with. (Being how this isn't exactly a view that's super prominent in the community, it might be better to lay out the case first before immediately placing it in, I mean. Let me explain why.)


 * Let's suppose that any individual piece of evidence in favor of WC = M isn't particularly strong, doesn't move the needle that much, but together they move the needle in favor of WC = M up to our standard of evidence, whatever that is. In this scenario, since no one piece of text guarantees us success, communicating to the reader this nuance is important, else they might look at once citation and go "that's it?" Similarly, if only one source is strong enough to get us over the line on its own, and the others help, but not enough, the better scenario for the WC = M proponent, the reader might again still not be convinced (as Laura here is not, and I myself am skeptical, I admit) and come away thinking this is all there is.


 * Let me be frank for five seconds. I've heard the arguments, Laura's heard the arguments, Scrooge, you've heard the arguments, Boris has heard the arguments, I'm sure Epsilon and Nate have heard the arguments, given comments made elsewhere, Shambala had to rule on a thread dedicated to the arguments. Sure. We have. We're both wiki editors and wiki editors that engage in discussions on talk pages and forum threads. We're a special kind of fringe. The vast majority of visitors to our site will have no idea that this controversy even exists, will have no idea why you might identify them, and have no idea as to the strengths and weaknesses of doing so.


 * The Master page is massive it's so large that I doubt anyone reads the entire thing from top to bottom. Rather, people look at the sections they want to look at, that they came to look at, and then go on their merry way. On a page like this, I don't actually think that there's too much harm in placing something in the BTS sections. The main harm for placing things in BTS sections comes from large pages that people might actually read in their entirety and then skip the BTS. I highly doubt that will happen here.


 * If instead of a section in the biography we placed a section in the BTS, we could cover the argument in full. Not just the titles that allude to a connection, but explain the context behind the connection, how some writers in the Third Doctor era wanted to draw a duality between the Doctor and the Master as the only two renegades of their species, and ignored the Monk as something from an old serial nobody would remember, having only to account for the War Chief, fresh in people's minds. We can fill it out with quotes from the writers, explain the Faction Paradox connection, give the discussion its due on the page for everyone to see. Or, alternatively, instead of simply having a section in the Master's Biography for the War Chief, we have a section that says "The War Chief" and links to a new page, that notes the controversy and lists the evidence For as well as noting both Divided Loyalty and A Brief History of Time Lords explicitly refer to them as separate individuals.


 * There are ways to do this so that people come away with more understanding of the issue than just slapping a War Chief section in the biography, and I think it would behoove us to realize that most readers of the wiki have no idea about this controversy. (Indeed, we were being made fun of for the change on twitter, not that twitter particularly cares if we do anything right.) Najawin ☎  20:52, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. This is persuasive. Equally, however, I feel like there is still a pretty drastic difference between consigning something to the BTS section and considering it in-universe; if nothing else, the reasons not to bury Brayshaw, out of nowhere, in the middle of the monstrously huge The Master page do not apply to putting his possible identity as the Master in the in-universe section of The War Chief.


 * A thought occurs; something which has been discussed before but only in the context of the infobox. Unorthodox as it may seem, how do we feel about a footnote? We would include a barer statement to the effect of "Some accounts suggested that an earlier incarnation of the Master had been the War Chief encountered by the Second Doctor shortly prior to his trial" in the 'Early exploits' section of the Biography, but without giving it an ostentatious, puzzling section unto itself; this could be appended with a footnote that noted the existence of the controversy and highlighted the existence of the BTS section.


 * Meanwhile, The War Chief could stay in Category:The Master, but (as is currently the case) War Chief-related information would be kept out of the infobox. Scrooge MacDuck ☎  21:24, 22 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I personally am satisfied with that. I think it's unorthodox enough that I'd definitely want more input from everyone else, but it seems viable to me. Najawin ☎  22:25, 22 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I also see no harm in the barer in-universe statement (like the one Scrooge has suggested) with a footnote to a more detailed BTS analysis. I think it would be far less confusing for casual readers looking over the biography due to all very good points that Najawin has already listed. A footnote may be unorthadox but I have seen a similar thing on several of DWU Century pages in regards to Ashildr. The in-universe articles simply state that the century was one of the ones endured by Ashildr, but the footnote gives the explination of how we kow that. It's not a perfect precedent, as the footnote is a lot shorter and the information is not contreversial or subject to interpretation, but the principal is the same, I think. LauraBatham ☎  00:51, 23 January 2021 (UTC)


 * @User:Scrooge MacDuck not sure if I'm getting your above comment right, but footnotes are not allowed in infoboxes. Shambala108 ☎  03:53, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Clarification: Boris and SOTO had previously discussed a footnote in the infobox, Scrooge's current suggestion does not explicitly refer to the infobox and is about a footnote for a small bit of the biography section then referring people to look more in depth at a BTS section. If I understand him correctly. Najawin ☎  04:01, 23 January 2021 (UTC)


 * This is my understanding. The infobox footnote he is referencing is from further up in the conversation when they were discussing the precedent of Romana II and her first appearance. But now that I look at the edit history, that footnote was added by a non-admin. SOTO did express a desire for it in the talk page, but I'm not sure if an admin approval was ever officially made. LauraBatham ☎  04:06, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Wow, that took an age to read through. I had contemplated contributing much earlier, but I was put off due to how many replies this was getting. After Najawin invited me to join this discussion... I can't help but say it's left me conflicted. While the evidence for WC = M is vague and ambiguous, within the context, I would agree that WC = M, at least as far as these Target Novels are concerned.

While I have no new insights, no new evidence to contribute, I would like to see the pages remain similar to how it currently is, at the very lest. As for the footnote suggestion, might I suggest this? [The Master], instead of an actual footnote? Epsilon  📯 📂 13:44, 23 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm strongly against the current setup, no matter the resolution. We have more space dedicated to it than we do to the "child" Master, even though one of these is definitively the Master and the other is deeply contentious. Indeed, the current War Chief setup is largely just massive chunks of the War Chief's page copied and pasted onto the Master's page (arguably in violation of some rules, might I add, but I assume it was done in good faith). Does that serve anyone? Why on earth should we have the page for the Master completely restate the entire article for the War Chief? Keep the first two paragraphs, have a footnote to explain the nuances, or whatever we decide and be done with it. What we have now is absurdly over the top and completely against the point of the directive at the top of the page. Najawin ☎  18:29, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Eh, that's more an issue with the decision to keep all biographical information on the Master on one page than anything else. If the identification were less controversial but still contradicted by some accounts, I think the correct thing by policy to do would be for the biographical information relevant to the potential-but-contested-incarnation to appear on both pages. If that produces weird results, well, that's an argument for our eventual discussion on splitting incarnations off to their own pages.


 * That being said, I'm making an abstract point. I agree that a smaller in-universe note in "Early exploits" seems like the way to go in the specific weird case of the War Chief, as a consensus that all can more or less get behind.


 * In case anybody else wants to get involved (or one of us thinks of a new point), the discussion will still stay officially open a couple of weeks longer, as planned. But I think we've reached that a solid compromise solution as far as the people who have involved themselves in this conversation go. Scrooge MacDuck ☎  18:39, 23 January 2021 (UTC)