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.

Requesting Redesign of Out-of-Universe templates again
''''''

Sense the discussion on MacQueen has finally come to a close, I want to reopen discissions on the infoboxes which trail the side of the page. Rather than re-explain my position, I'll let me-from-the-past do it:


 * We could certainly find a way to link to a section which details the out-of-universe divergences with a correct tone. Just make a template that says something like "Confused? Check out this in-universe explanation!" and links to something in the Behind the scenes section that details the divergences. We can help readers understand the out-of-universe confusion without breaking our Article's focus and splitting the page in half. As a graphic designer, I must say that what we have set-up right now is nothing more than an eye-sore, and as multiple people have pointed out, it gets worse when you try and read the darn things. I cringe every time I read the "extra-crispy" joke, half because it's not funny and out of the tone we aim for, and half because I've read that book, and I'm not certain that analysis is entirely accurate. Looking at how the 2015 Wikia update effects the template and article makes it clear that what we are doing right now is simplynot acceptable by any means. It splits the reader's concentration, breaks the point of the site, and makes the set-up of that section a total mess, which is a big problem because Ainley is only on the most important Masters of all time, and the most interesting to read about. We should be filling that section with interesting details, treasure troves of images, and in-depth coverage, but we can't, because this ugly-box is blocking any of that from working.

I think that covers it. To me these boxes are a real eye-sore, more so when you actually try and read them. They remind me of the picture captions on that one Transformers wiki -- where they're trying to be funny but instead it feels really out-of-place. I think that, as suggested above, we can easily turn these into behind-the-scenes sections (without the eye-bleeding humour) and then have a template the suggests readers to check out individual sections. Quick box, easy idea, doesn't break our style. OS25 (talk to me, baby.) 11:38, September 1, 2015 (UTC)

Seb
Could Seb be counted as a companion of Missy? Because I think at he should be included in the Companions section. --Commander Awesome (AKA TheCrazyWeirdo) (Talk - Contribs) 21:49, September 28, 2015 (UTC)

Order of 'After Cheeta World'
It makes the most sense to order the subsections in 'After Cheeta World' as 'Tremas Persists' first, 'Finding new regenerations in the past' second, and 'Tremas Lost' third. This is because it makes a lot more sense to finish off the Tremas stories before we go into other incarnations. You wouldn't put 'Day of the Daleks' after 'Planet of the Spiders' on the Third Doctor's page, now would you? To people who do not realize this, this will not disrupt the Master templates. That would only happen if I changed the link. It's really frustrating to have so many revert this simple edit and to have to take it to the talk page, where no one will reply because no one ever replies to anything on this wiki anymore. OS25 (talk to me, baby.) 13:00, October 1, 2015 (UTC)
 * If there is not controversy by the end of the year, I will swap the sections accordingly. OS25 (talk to me, baby.) 06:28, December 3, 2015 (UTC)

Harvest of Time
I have removed many of the sections claiming that the Master was abducted out of time, because they seem to be based off of the asumption that all the Masters which we know of must be featured in The Harvest of Time. I'm currently searching through the book to find out which incarnations are directly refered to. I'm going to start listing them off, if anyone would like to help that would be grand.

"It was no version of the Master that the Doctor recognised. A young man in a business suit, beardless, with a mop of boyish hair. His face, what the Doctor could see of it, seemed friendly and plausible. The face of a politician, the kind of man people would find it easy to trust. ‘He could almost be you,’ the Master commented."

- Clearly meant to be Simm

"This was a female version of the Master: still alive, if this ghastly state counted as life. Like the corpse, she also wore a frilled black outfit. Her hair was black, veined in white, combed back from her forehead. Unlike the Doctor’s present companion, her face was beardless. The mask hid most of it. But he recognised something in her cheekbones and brow, a family likeness that was clearly intentional."

- Everyone's first intentions will be to claim that this is Missy. However, as the book predates Missy, this can not be confirmed.

These are the only two direct connections I could find. This, and another to a decaying Master who dies in captivity -- clearly not one we know so far. I'll continue my hunting later. OS25 (talk to me, baby.) 02:21, October 3, 2015 (UTC)

Norman Stanley
Would it be fair to say that Norman Stanley (the "Telephone Mechanic" which installs the telephone which strangles the Doctor) briefly plays the Master in Terror of the Autons episode three? After the scene in question, the mechanic enters the Autons' bus at about 17:30, and takes off a latex mask, revealing himself as the Master. This appears to be a similar situation to Anthony Ainley playing the Master under heavy make-up and a pseudonym (both in the credits and in-story) and Delgado briefly playing Farrel after the Master puts him in a mask at the end of episode four of Autons. -- Tybort (talk page) 14:41, October 17, 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh yea, it's plainly obvious that the repairman is the Master. I'm actually shocked that this hasn't been referenced on the site before. I figured the reason we left it off was that we had left off similar cases on the template (Paul McGann played the Master in the TV movie for a few shots for instance). In my opinion, we need to redesign these templates so that there can be multiple "main" actor variables while still keeping to the custom search tool that no one uses (seriously, anyone ever do that?). We clearly could do it with the "Other Actor(s)" section so I don't see why this isn't possible. I would say that Gordon Tipple, Paul McGann, and Norman Stanley are the only actors that deserve to go as "other actors." OS25 (talk to me, baby.) 15:26, October 17, 2015 (UTC)
 * But surely every disguise of the Master is actually a separate Time Lord?


 * Uhh.... OS25 (talk to me, baby.) 15:55, October 17, 2015 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I don't know either. But either way, my question can be summed up as "Does Stanley portray the Roger Delgado incarnation in Terror of the Autons as well as Delgado himself?" Anything involving redesigning infoboxes and the issue of Paul McGann is kind of out of my depth here, and I'm not sure how I feel either way, and I've seen the TV movie. -- Tybort (talk page) 15:59, October 17, 2015 (UTC)


 * Yeah, he does. I'm not sure if he should be added to the infobox tho, is the other issue. OS25 (talk to me, baby.) 16:24, October 17, 2015 (UTC)

Yana
Surely a seperate page should be made for the Professor Yana identity created by the Chameleon Arch? John Smith has one after all. --MrThermomanPreacher ☎  19:16, January 18, 2016 (UTC)

Yana
Surely a seperate page should be made for the Professor Yana identity created by the Chameleon Arch? John Smith has one after all. --MrThermomanPreacher ☎  19:19, January 18, 2016 (UTC)

I think it should stay in the same sense we haven't got individual master pages. DENCH-and-PALMER ☎  19:24, January 18, 2016 (UTC)

Eleventh Doctor Comics
The internet appears undecided on whether the version of the Master in Titan's 11th Doctor comics is the Roger Delgado incarnation or a (presumably) post-Macqueen and pre-Jacobi incarnation. I was wondering whether this point had been settled.109.145.16.227talk to me 18:16, June 11, 2016 (UTC)

The incarnation that has appeared so far has been the Delgado version, however the story has shown that the Master was also present during the "Cyclor event", hinting at a Time War incarnation. I have my theories on what will end up happening in the comic (and who the Master will be revealed as being), but until we have concrete proof in the comic, we can't add anything to the Master article. --Revan\Talk 18:31, June 11, 2016 (UTC)


 * Just to clarify to other readers: the Master featured in The Judas Goatee is indeed Delgado. We are seeing, in that comic, the repercussions of the Master's previous actions. Meanwhile, the Master seen in the rest of the comic is the Time War Master. OS25 (Talk) 16:39, April 22, 2017 (UTC)

Premiership
Do we know how long Harold Saxon served as Prime Minister? It seemed as if he got onto the Valiant pretty quickly after the election.

Delgado Master
Shouldn't the section on the Delgado Master be labelled something other than Thirteenth Master now that Big Finish has shown that Beevers was the Thirteenth Master before his accident?


 * We still can't confirm that Beeves wasn't playing Delgado at this point. Besides, what would we call the Delgado Master?BananaClownMan ☎  10:37, August 19, 2016 (UTC)


 * Actually, Beevers is most definitely not playing Delgado. The only reason Delgado is known as the 13th is because of Legacy of the Daleks. To say that Big Finish have secretly recast an incarnation of the Master just because of a novel which they themselves have contradicted many times is a bit reaching. In the scenes on Terserus, Beevers is not acting like Delgado, he's just being his usual Master with a dose of youthful naivety. I say that unless there is anything from Big Finish that actually says that Beevers is Delgado we shouldn't say that Big Finish say that Beevers is Delgado. CoT     ?  00:01, August 20, 2016 (UTC)

Just want to point out for new users that no headings are to be changed during this discussion. If it's determined that they need to be changed, only an admin can change them, as this article's headings are dependent on templates. Shambala108 ☎  02:36, August 20, 2016 (UTC)


 * While that may be true for some headings, no template links to the section titled "thirteenth incarnation". Nonetheless, no changes should be made concerning this matter while there is still a discussion going on.


 * Other headings in the "appearances" sections are named after the Master's aliases. The two aliases that encapsulate Delgado's master for me are "Emil Keller" and "Victor Magister". According to Mind of Evil, he spent several months going by Keller. According to Who Killed Kennedy, the general public knew him as Magister. Therefore, I would call the heading either "Emil Keller" incarnation or "Victor Magister" incarnation. CoT     ?  03:46, August 20, 2016 (UTC)


 * Those alias titles mostly ably because that Master (Tremas/John Smith/Yana/Harold Saxon) used it to define their time, expect Number Tremas, who used it once, but it was his stolen body. Delgado changed aliases like the seasons, so perhaps a title that reflects his appearance like Pratt and Gomez, or one that reflects his time like Roberts and Macqueen.BananaClownMan ☎  12:53, August 20, 2016 (UTC)

It stands to reason that each incarnation of the Master should have its own page, just like the Doctor does, since there are so many of them. It'll be easier for the readers, myself included, to pick on each given Master, and we also won't have to scroll down that much to get info for Missy.

Doesn't this make sense? Shouldn't this be the way it is supposed to be?
 * Considering that we used to have separate pages and went through a lot of work to merge them into one, we are not splitting them up. There is even an attempt to merge all the Romana pages into one. So on this wiki, we are tending toward one page for each Time Lord, with the Doctor the only exception. Shambala108 ☎  14:56, November 25, 2016 (UTC)

Fair enough. However, I have to let you know that it is a huge mistake, in my opinion. This character's history is suchh a detailed mess, it just can't make sense of the discrepancies and inconsistencies coherently.
 * That mess is exactly why we merged all the pages. It's not always easy to figure out which Master appears in some stories, and we don't know all of his numbered incarnations the way we do the Doctor's. Shambala108 ☎  15:12, November 25, 2016 (UTC)

How come the Master's page isn't set up like the Doctor's?
Where each incarnation has their own page with one large homepage. Xx-connor-xX ☎  23:32, January 2, 2017 (UTC)
 * T:MASTER is a good starting point if you want to know why we made this decision. Forum:The Master was the original discussion on this. 00:03, January 3, 2017 (UTC)

What political party was Saxon allied with? Was he labour or tory? Mc1934 ☎  12:07, March 26, 2017 (UTC)

Template:Masterpic
Currently the image listing for Template:Masterpic appears to have some errors in it. Would it not be more productive to list the Masters in chronological order as dictated by the article The Master? There seems to be no reason why Macqueen and Jacobi are out of sequence, nor Pratt, Ainley and Roberts repeated. The listing below removes repeats and includes all Masters regardless of medium (TV, AUDIO, COMIC) as the wiki recognises all officially licensed stories as equal value.

NickM98 ☎  06:08, July 8, 2017 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately any page which uses a template to cycle through several different images really isn't up for debate. This is because there are strict technical requirements for the images in order to make them cycle correctly various desktop browsers, and the solution we use behaves slightly differently on the browsers that FANDOM supports. Moreover, in several places -- on both desktop and mobile -- images are chosen by the software to represent the article. With our multiple-image changer, that image is the first one in the stack. As it is illogical for The Master to be represented by the child version -- who never even had a line, much less a minute's worth of screen time -- he was deliberately removed from the stack. This makes Delgado the representative image for The Master on mobile devices, which is sensible, since he originated the part.


 * Also, your listing of the current images doesn't take into account the point of the slideshow. The way the code is designed, it's meant to be kind of like the current incumbent having a dream about their past. The notion is that the incumbent actor be the most dominant, and different, former actors are cycled in between images of the incumbent. So they're going to be out of order, anyway.


 * This is easiest to illustrate with docpic, because the Doctor has easily-understood numbers for incarnations. In Safari, at least, the order goes something like this: 12 1 12 2 1 12 3 1 12 4 1 12 5 4 12 6 5 12 4 7 6 5 1 12 8 7 12 6 8 War 8 12 8 9 War 12 8 10 9 12 8 11 10 12 9 11 10 12 10 11 12 11 ... and then it continues repeating from 8 through 12 or a while, but gives overwhelming precedence to 10-12.


 * In other words, the effect is a halting progression, at best -- which gradually becomes more superimposition as the thing continues.  17:51: Mon 18 Sep 2017

Missy
I recently edited Missy's abilities with her actions in dodging a Dalek's laser and knocking down the Master and the Doctor in "The Doctor Falls when I saw that John Simm's Master was labelled a "decent brawler" after attacking the Twelfth Doctor. Out of interest, why was this changed? Himelover567 ☎  00:57, August 25, 2017 (UTC)

Abominable Showmen. That shouldn't be there.
Guys come on. Abominable Showmen is clearly drawn as a fun side-story, not to be taken seriously. It's obviously non-canon. Same for Doctor Twelfth. Don't mix it up with the main story, it's just confusing. Either include it in a different section or don't include it at all.
 * I strongly suggest you read the message left for you by User:Amorkuz on your talk page at User talk:David Kibasennin. You are new to this wiki and therefore you don't yet understand how we define what stories we count. Shambala108 ☎  05:23, October 30, 2017 (UTC)


 * Note for everyone's attention. The validity of Titan Back-ups, including The Abominable Showmen, was decided by the community at Thread:177099. The validity of the Dr. Men books, including Dr. Twelfth, was decided by the community at Thread:215070. Anyone interested in how validity is decided on the wiki is welcome to peruse the debates (the former is more extensive). However, based on these decisions, please refrain from removing information originating from these stories. Amorkuz ☎  09:53, October 30, 2017 (UTC)

Recent edits
One editor voiced their concerns regarding recent changes to the page, specifically requesting the in-universe information based on which things have been moved around. I additionally point out that these changes removed at least two important pieces of information: one regarding the duration of the Master's stay at a certain place, and the other regarding the Master being given a new regeneration cycle by the Time Lords. The latter is a bit of a biggy. So its removal cannot stand. The other editor requested the changes to be discussed here on the talk page first. I would appreciate it if the request is obliged. Amorkuz ☎  22:52, January 14, 2018 (UTC)
 * the master's execution as seen in the flashback in th emovie happens before Lungbarrow (novel). in lungbarrow the doctor is given his mission to get the master's remains leading into the movie. but Master (audio story) is set after the new adventures (death from the VNAs appears, chris,roz and bernice are referenced etc) yet is also set before the movie. which means that the doctor didn't complete his mission because otherwise the movie would have happened. and he wouldn't be the seventh doctor at all anymore. it shows that the doctor made the deal with death ten years ago to give the master a human life. so in a way master creates a ‘reprieve’ for both the doctor and the master, though in the end the doctor must get back on course with his mission of bringing the master's remains to galiifrey so that the movie can happen
 * even though Mastermind (audio story) and Eyes of the Master (audio story) are both made by big finish they contradict each other. in eyes of the master the master says the last time he encountered the doctor was in the movie. and they both know about the ‘predicament’ he was in which means it was him getting stuck in the eye of harmony.
 * in The Sound of Drums the master says that the time lords resurrected him to fight in the time war and in eyes of the master the time lords have resurrected him to fight the daleks but even he knows that they're trying to prepare him for something bigger. it's obvious that big finish was trying to link to the sound of drums when they made eyes ofthe master. the only other way it could be is if somehow offscreen he dies AGAIN before the time war and the time lords resurrect him AGAIN. seems to me that's really really unlikely and even the page for eotm mentions sound of drums under continuinty
 * i put the thing about the hatchling project clones from Interference - Book One (novel) before eyes of the master because theyre bothe with the 8th doctor and both are about the master being under the control of the time lords but really it could go anywhere if someone has a better idea as long as it goes somewhere intsead of being deleted
 * also i fixed some language issues like ‘due to the Time Lords' belief that he would be the perfect warrior due to’ and ‘given a new lease of life’ (which is nicely poetic but not actually specific and could just mean ‘the time lords showed the master that life was really worth living which made him a happier person’) and those keep getting revertedHomelessForsakenBetrayed&#38;Alone ☎


 * Thank you for engaging in a discussion, which is much preferred over edit reversal. I will let this discussion run its course until a mutually agreeable solution is found. I would like to point out just two things. It would be easier for us to understand your findings if proper grammar (capital letters at the beginning of sentences, apostrophes etc.) is used also on the talk page. Your fellow editors deserve the same courtesy as shown towards readers of the page. Secondly, "seems to me that's really really unlikely" is not an argument accepted on this wiki. Doctor Who universe is, unfortunately for those of us who care about continuity, significantly discontinuous. There are multiple contradicting accounts, alternative explanations, etc. of same events. Just the fact that you cannot reconcile the text (direct quote) of one story with the text of another story, does not mean one of them gets rejected. This is one of the reasons why timelines in general have been banned from the main namespace and relegated to a special sandbox. Amorkuz ☎  23:29, January 14, 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry about the grammar. I know about contradictions and all. That’s why i’m trying to get how eyes of the master contradicts mastermind etc in there instead of skipping over it to make it seem like it doesn’t contradict. What i mean about it being unlikely is not just that if doctor who was real it would be unlikely for the same thing to happen twice. But that it doesn’t make any sense for the big finish writers who have definitely seen the new series to write something about the master that matches what the new series says exactly without it being the same event.HomelessForsakenBetrayed&#38;Alone  ☎

The Doctor and the Master are both time travelers, and it has been proved by the likes of Doorway to Hell and Vampire of the Mind for them to meet out of sequence, not until the Doctor and River Song. So Master and Lungburrow don't need to flow into each other. I have listen to Eyes of the Master again, and find no such comment, the closet being that the Master remembers being in San Francisco. The predicament could also easily be the state he was left in at the end of Mastermind. And it is not clarified if he was indeed resurrect into Alex Macqueen; he only says he was "rescued".BananaClownMan ☎  23:49, January 14, 2018 (UTC)


 * Actually i think the word is 'plucked.' There is no 'predicament' at the end of Mastermind (audio story). Rather, the master is free and in possession of his tardis, and importantly the doctor knows nothing about his current whereabouts anyway. The doctor and the master are both time travellers, but more importantly they're both time lords. Which means that it's not normal for them to meet out of order. In Doorway to Hell (comic story) the master actually ASSUMES that the 12th doctor is the newly-regenerated 4th. Meeting out of order doesn't just happen randomly. If it did then the master also would have no way of knowing whether the 'predicament' was something the doctor was even aware of yet. I can't really double check eotm for whether he really does say that san francisco was specifically the last meeting but if not then it makes more sense. Still doesn't fit with mastermind of course but it would fit the DWM comic version. I know eotm doesn't say the word "resurrected" specifically. Using the exact same language as the sound of drums would be trite. However: the original series showed the master running out of regenerations. In the sound of drums he has a new regeneration cycle and says that it was given to him by the time lords after the original series so that he could fight the daleks in the time war. In eyes of the master (written by people who watch and generally try to follow the new series) he has a new regeneration cycle and says that it was given to him by the time lords so that he could fight the daleks, and that they are preparing him for something bigger. It is obviously a reference. HomelessForsakenBetrayed&#38;Alone ☎

Many Time Lords meet out of sync with the Doctor, take the Monk and the Rani for example. And even though Mastermind ends with him free, he is still stuck in a dying body. And there is no evidence to suggest that Eyes of the Master is referencing The Sound of Drums; its pure speculation to say that at this stage.BananaClownMan ☎  00:27, January 15, 2018 (UTC)


 * You're just repeating the same things that i have already addressed. I have already demonstrated that barring exceptional circumstances, the master and doctor meet in order. To call the connection between eyes of the master and the sound of drums "pure speculation" is patently false when i have already shown that the two accounts match exactly and the former cannot have been written without knowledge of the latter. My edit said,


 * ...a "predicament"...which he claimed the Time Lords had rescued him from. The Master believed that the Time Lords were "softening [him] up for something." (AUDIO: Eyes of the Master) The Master would later claim that they had only resurrected him because he would be a perfect warrior for a Time War. (TV: The Sound of Drums)


 * There is absolutely no speculation there. It relates precisely what the stories say, in the most logical order based on both what the writers probably intended AND the most obvious understanding of what the stories mean. The only other way to write the article without making it clunky and nonsensical would be to say that 'if the Time Lords really were softening him up for something, we have no idea what' and to speculate that 'the Master must have run out of regenerations a second time, only to be granted a new regeneration cycle by the Time Lords once again, who wanted him to fight the Daleks for them again. This would be the equivalent of making a page called Molly (The Night of the Doctor) because it's "speculation" to say that the Molly mentioned in that story is the same Molly as in Dark Eyes, and not some other companion who coincidentally shares the name. HomelessForsakenBetrayed&#38;Alone ☎

I am not repeating myself, I am mearly countering something you said: I say time travelers can meet in the wrong order, you say Time Lords cant, I bring up evidence to the contrary.

You're new here, arn't you? In that case, let me inform you of something I had to learn thd hard way: this wiki is very specific when it comes to wording. In fact, if memory serves, when Dark Eyes 2 came out, the ressurection was placed just above Macqueen, but when Dark Eyes 3 went into further detail about Macqueen's backstory, it was moved back to the Time War subsection due to the word choise of "rescued from a predicament" went against "Time Lord ressurection". Maybe if you should track down thd one who edited the pagd that day and get there 2 cents in this?BananaClownMan ☎  11:26, January 15, 2018 (UTC)


 * So you're just defending the current state of the page on the grounds that whoever made it that way must've had a good reason? It was this edit here. The reasoning that gives is that the previous version of the page implied that the Macqueen Master was actually the incarnation who fought in the war. Which was a legitimate issue with the page, and as we know now, it was the child Master and the Jacobi Master who fought in the war. In fact, later down the page Macqueen's Master is erroneously conflated with the Master who fought in the Time War some more. But my edit didn't say that Macqueen actually fought in the war. It just said that it was the reason the Master was resurrected (or rather, that the Master himself claims that).HomelessForsakenBetrayed&#38;Alone ☎


 * You've kind'a answered your own question there; we do not, at this stage, know if Macqueen was involved with the war, just that he is being "softened up" with the Eminence before he went rogue and started doing his own thing. Hence why the wiki only covers the "rescued from a predicament" part on his section and the "resurrected by the Time Lords" bit in the Time War section; because we simply don't have undeniable confirmation that it was Macqueen that was resurrected for the war, we only know that he was rescued to fight the Daleks. The Sound of Drums explicitly states that was resurrected for the war, hence why it is placed in that subsection, while Eyes of the Master is placed separate due to it lacking concrete proof the Master is talking about the Time War. Since it took the 50th anniversary for the Doctor's involvement in the war to be clarified, perhaps we'll find out in 2021, but until then to say which Master it was (Macqueen, Child, Jacobi) that was resurrected.BananaClownMan ☎  18:34, January 15, 2018 (UTC)