Eighteenth Master

The **nineteenth incarnation of the Master**.

## Biography

### Post-regeneration

With his new body, the Master left the Doctor, Martha and Jack on the planet Malcassairo with Futurekind about to burst in the laboratory door. The Master now had the TARDIS and the Doctor's DNA template via the Doctor's hand, which Jack Harkness had taken with him to Malcassairo. (TV: *Utopia*)

Because of the Doctor's last-minute intervention, the TARDIS would only take the Master to Earth in the 2000s. He took on the alias "Harold Saxon" and set about fabricating Saxon's past to gain political support. He made his first public appearance shortly after the downfall of Harriet Jones. (TV: *The Sound of Drums*)

### Life on Earth

"Harold Saxon" released his autobiography, *Kiss Me, Kill Me*, and, while writing the book, met the Honourable Lucy Cole, who was working in publishing; they were married in 2007. He also cannibalised and converted the Doctor's TARDIS into a paradox machine to change history, and took Lucy to see the Universe. (TV: *The Sound of Drums*)

Travelling back to the end of the universe, the Master contacted the Toclafane, the childlike, vicious cyborg remnants of the humans who had never found Utopia. He made an agreement to allow the Toclafane to escape extinction and live anew in the past, with the paradox machine preventing them from changing their own history. (TV: *The Sound of Drums*, *Last of the Time Lords*)

The Master designed the *Valiant*, UNIT's air carrier, and a laser screwdriver, which he reserved for his own use. The Master then started the Archangel Network, which was hailed as a telecommunications breakthrough. This telecommunications network, tied to mobile phones, carried a mind control signal which made humans trust him. The network affected the Doctor so he had no suspicions as to the Master's presence as "Harold Saxon", as he would have normally noticed the presence of another Time Lord. To those few humans conscious of it, the signal was a persistent drumbeat, the constant drumbeat the Master always heard, that only they could hear. (TV: *The Sound of Drums*)

### Political career

By 2007, "Saxon" had become Minister of Defence of Great Britain, (TV: *The Sound of Drums*) and campaigned for the general election as Prime Minister of Great Britain (TV: *Love & Monsters*) with the slogan "Vote Saxon". (TV: *Captain Jack Harkness*) On Christmas Eve, he gave orders for British Army tanks to destroy the Empress of the Racnoss's webstar. (TV: *The Runaway Bride*)

The Master visited "Saxon's" old high school during the campaign, using the Archangel Network to brainwash the staff into having false memories of "Saxon" to gain political support. One teacher, James Curtis, was resistant to the Network, so the Master used his laser screwdriver to implant the appropriate memories into his mind. (PROSE: *Speech Day*)

"Saxon" asserted that extraterrestrial life did exist and Britain must do something about it. This made him popular in early 2008, after the Judoon had taken the Royal Hope Hospital to the Moon. (TV: *Smith and Jones*)

"Saxon" also funded the rejuvenation experiments of Richard Lazarus, presumably revealing at least in part the biological processes involved in a Time Lord's physical regeneration; its similarities were noted by the Doctor on observing the process. (TV: *The Lazarus Experiment*) With the results from this and the Doctor's DNA, the Master could use the laser screwdriver to age the Doctor. (TV: *The Sound of Drums*)

After Martha had left with the Doctor, "Saxon" had a mysterious man meet with Martha's mother, Francine, (TV: *The Lazarus Experiment*) and then had an agent tap into a conversation between Francine and Martha through the superphone. (TV: *42*)

Before the Doctor, Martha and Captain Jack arrived back from the end of the universe, the Master had sent Torchwood Three on a wild-goose chase to the Himalayas, (TV: *The Sound of Drums*) and, along with all other incarnations of the Master, was kidnapped by the Sild. (PROSE: *Harvest of Time*)

With his election a sure thing, politicians from other parties flocked to his side. Harold Saxon was elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in May 2008, and visited Buckingham Palace soon after to give a victory speech. (TV: *The Sound of Drums*)

### Prime Minister Saxon

He gathered his Cabinet for a meeting in the re-built 10 Downing Street, and accused them of being traitors for abandoning their political parties to jump on his political ticket. He rigged the desk phone speakers on the Cabinet Room table to release a lethal gas that killed the Cabinet ministers, while using a gas mask to protect himself and mock his victims. He later unleashed the Toclafane on *Sunday Mirror* reporter Vivien Rook, who threatened to expose his fabricated past to the public.

"Saxon" told the public that the Cabinet had gone into seclusion, and soon afterward announced first contact with the "friendly" Toclafane who could protect Earth against alien threats. The Master then had Francine, Tish and Clive Jones arrested and taken to the *Valiant*; Leo Jones, however, had received a warning from Martha and gotten away in time. After a telephone conversation with the Doctor, the Master had the Doctor, Martha and Jack framed as terrorists responsible for the Cabinet's murder and forced them into hiding.

The Master moved to the *Valiant*, which the governments of Earth considered neutral territory and therefore fitting for formal first contact with alien life. The Master had the Toclafane murder the American President Arthur Coleman Winters, and captured the Doctor, Martha and Jack, who had come to the *Valiant* earlier that day. Using the results from Professor Lazarus's experiment, along with the DNA in the Doctor's hand, the Master used his laser screwdriver to age the Doctor into an old man, and then ordered the Toclafane to kill one tenth of humanity and commence their invasion as Martha escaped. (TV: *The Sound of Drums*)

### Master of all

While ruling the world for a year, the Master discovered that the Drast had secretly invaded before he arrived. Furious, he ordered the Toclafane to burn Japan, where the Drast were situated. (PROSE: *The Story of Martha*) By 2009, the Master had converted Earth into a slave camp which he ruled from the *Valiant*. The Master aged the Doctor even further and planned to expand his New Time Lord Empire into space. He built an army of warships to take his war across the universe.

Martha used the legend of the Doctor, which she had spread, and the thoughts of Earth thinking "Doctor" at the same time. Their psychic energy was channelled through the Archangel Network, which the Doctor had spent the year infiltrating telepathically. The psychic energy restored the Doctor and gave him telekinetic powers. After cowering from the Doctor's forgiveness, the Master used Jack's vortex manipulator to teleport him and the Doctor to Earth, where he threatened to use the Black hole converter to detonate the rockets, but was foiled by the Doctor's knowledge that the Master could not kill himself.

Jack destroyed the Paradox Machine and reversed time one year, although this did not affect anyone aboard the *Valiant*. Lucy shot the Master. Defeated, he refused to regenerate to spite the Doctor, and died in his arms. The Doctor burned the Master's body on a pyre, (TV: *Last of the Time Lords*) but, long after he had left, Miss Trefusis, one of the warders of Broadfell Prison, (TV: *The End of Time*) retrieved the Master's ring from his funeral pyre. (TV: *Last of the Time Lords*)

As far as the general public were aware, Harold Saxon "went mad" and disappeared, along with President Winters. (TV: *The End of Time*) Among all ex-Prime Ministers, Saxon was on file by UNIT, who noted him as one of the Master's incarnations. This was revealed to the Twelfth Doctor by Osgood when the Master returned as "Missy", commenting that "she wasn't even the worst." (TV: *Death in Heaven*) By the year 2119, Saxon was well-remembered enough that Alice O'Donnell, though admittedly a follower of the Doctor's exploits, referred to 1980 as "pre-Harold Saxon" when brought back to that year by the Twelfth Doctor. (TV: *Before the Flood*)

### Resurrection

On Christmas Eve 2009, the prison governor of Broadfell Prison brought Lucy Saxon to a chamber where most of the staff were members of the Disciples of Saxon, who had been working ever since his apparent death to bring about his resurrection.

With the help of the ring and a biometric imprint taken from Lucy, the nude Master reappeared in a swirl of energy, but Lucy and one other warder had prepared for this. To stop his resurrection, Lucy hurled a Potion of Death at the Master. His followers and Lucy were killed in the resulting explosion, but the Master survived. (TV: *The End of Time*)

### Survival

The Master survived the blast, but his physical form was flawed: his once brown hair was now bleached blond, and he was unshaven and unkempt. Also, his life force was left in a state of constant depletion. He consumed huge quantities of food and drained the vitality of humans to stay alive. As a side effect of the failed resurrection, he could expend his life force for enhanced agility and send bolts of energy from his hands. The Master's body would even fluctuate between a fleshy form and a half-skeletal state.

The Master led the Doctor on a wild goose chase after banging the beat of the drums in his mind to lure the Doctor to him and escaped when Wilfred Mott interrupted the chase. (TV: *The End of Time*)

At some point after his resurrection, the Master was greeted by a female incarnation of himself known as "Missy," who had developed a plan to form a band to hypnotise viewers of *The Battle of the Bands Beyond the Stars*. His decaying thirteenth incarnation, the incarnation possessing the body of Tremas and the incarnation possessing the body of "Bruce" all joined in the plan, and the team spent "decades" practising. (COMIC: *The Five Masters*) Much to this Master's appreciation, he was allowed to play the drums. After unveiling their presence to the Twelfth Doctor and Clara Oswald, (COMIC: *The Abominable Showmen*) the Masters prepared for their performance. However, the "Tremas" Master began to fight with Missy over the control of her device, believing that he alone could hold the universe in his grasp. The other Masters soon joined in the fight for power as well, while the "Saxon" Master joined seemingly for the fun of it. The five were quickly disqualified, seemingly destroying them. (COMIC: *The Five Masters*)

Encountering the Tenth Doctor soon after, the Master and the Doctor discovered the drumming in the Master's head was real, not just a symptom of insanity. The Doctor also told him of the prophecy told to him by the Ood, but the Master quickly dismissed it, assuming that it was referring to him. Billionaire Joshua Naismith then captured the Master and enlisted his assistance to mend the malfunctioning Vinvocci medical machine, which he had christened the "Immortality Gate". The Master co-operated for his own purposes. He broke out of a straitjacket and flew into the gateway, which he had working a billion fold on the human template. The gateway sent out an energy pulse that transformed every human on Earth, except Wilf, whom the Doctor protected with a radiation shield, and his granddaughter, Donna Noble, who was unaffected due to her part-Time Lord physiology, into the Master Race — identical copies of the Master subservient to him. (TV: *The End of Time*)

### Rassilon's Final Solution

After the Doctor and Wilf were rescued from the Master by two Vinvocci, the Master used the combined mental powers of the Master Race and a White-Point Star that had fallen on Earth to trace the origin of the drum beat in his head. Receiving contact from the Time Lord High Council on the last day of the Time War, the Master tore open the time lock on the war, bringing back the Time Lords.

As the Lord President Rassilon and his council arrived through the Immortality Gate, the Master announced he intended to transplant himself into the entire Time Lord race, just as he had done to the human race. Rassilon, using his gauntlet, reversed the effects of the Master's transplantation, and watched as Gallifrey returned to the universe on a collision course with Earth. The Doctor berated the Master for breaking the time lock, warning him that it wouldn't just be the Time Lords and the Daleks, and that he had just opened up Hell; although the Master called it "my kind of world", the Doctor told him even the Time Lords couldn't survive what he had just unleashed.
Rassilon revealed his plans for the Ultimate Sanction; the Master asked if he could also "ascend into glory", but Rassilon rebuffed him, calling him "diseased" and revealed that he was responsible for the drumming that the Master had experienced all of his life, and prepared to execute him, but the Doctor stepped in with Wilfred's pistol. After some hesitation on whether to shoot Rassilon or the Master, he shot the White-Point Star, destroying the link. Enraged, Rassilon prepared to kill the Doctor, but the Master unleashed his bio-electric blasts at the President, roaring that the Time Lords had manipulated him and made him the monster he had become, counting the beat of the rhythm that had resounded in his head and tormenting him all his life. The Time Lords, Gallifrey, and the Master then vanished in a burst of white light, and were sent "back into [the] hell" of the final day of the Time War. (TV: *The End of Time*)