Early Masters

This page chronicles the adventures of **early incarnations of the Master** in the order in which they experienced them. Therefore the following timeline should not be seen as an accurate reading/listening order as some stories may have framing devices which take place later in another character's life.

The timeline is primarily derived from facts from within *Doctor Who* media, however authorial intent is taken into account as well. Occasionally, assumptions or speculations may be made where insufficient information is available, however these will always be marked as such for full transparency.

Most BBC licensed *Doctor Who* content is counted on this timeline, including but not limited to the TV series itself, Big Finish Productions, BBC Books and Virgin Books material. However, intentionally parodic content such as the Dr Men books, various Titan Comics backups and Doctor Whoah! should not be added to this particular chronology. Likewise, fanfiction and charity publications will also be avoided.

## Key

* **TV**: Television story
* **WC**: Online video story
* **AUDIO**: Audio drama, audio short story, or audio novel
* **COMIC**: Comic story
* **NOVEL**: Novel
* **NOVELLA**: Novella
* **SHORT**: Short written story
* **FEATURE**: A feature or featurette which doesn't explicitly tell a story

## Timeline

### On Gallifrey

* (FLASHBACK) - AUDIO: *Master*

As children, the Master and the Doctor are bullied by Torvic. After the Doctor kills Torvic, he makes a deal with Death. As a result, the Doctor loses his memory of the incident and the Master becomes Death's Champion.

* AUDIO: *Masterful*

A young Master, much more moral than his future counterparts, is recruited by the Saxon Master who wants to steal the lives of his past incarnations. This occurs in an alternate timeline which is subsequently reverted by a paradox.

* (FLASHBACK) - AUDIO: *The Toy*

At a ritual in Arcadia, the Master gives Susan a toy which is actually a communications node. The Master is described as having swept back dark hair with a greying, well-manicured beard.

* AUDIO: *The Toy*

Shortly after the Doctor leaves Gallifrey, the Master uses the communications node to try to locate the Doctor and Susan, but ends up contacting Nyssa, who found the node in the Fifth Doctor's TARDIS. His true appearance is not described, but he initially appears in the body of his grey-bearded self from the flashback above, and is later projected as the Tremas Master, Thirteenth Master and Roberts Master. The grey-bearded incarnation with swept-back black hair appears to be identical in appearance to the Twelfth Master as portrayed by Roger Delgado, who himself appears on the cover. It is possible that he revisited this face on several separate occasions, as suggested in the FASA books.

* SHORT - *Celestial Intervention: A Gallifreyan Noir*

a young man and woman, clearly the Master and the Rani, kidnap former CIA agent Maris, wanting to find out where the Doctor's gone with his TARDIS. They are described as "dark-eyed, milk-skinned, so alike they could be brother and sister." The Master is described as a "young man" and as having "pewter, washed-out skin, and the beginnings of a goatee".

### "The Inventor"

* AUDIO: *The Destination Wars*

The Master tells the First Doctor that he left Gallifrey under similar circumstances to him, but with a decrepit TARDIS which fell apart in the Time Vortex and stranded him on the planet Destination. There, he used the components of his TARDIS to build a temporal laboratory which allowed him to travel through time while the colony outside advanced, with the aim of progressing them to nuclear power, which he aimed to restart his TARDIS engines and escape. The Doctor recognises the Master's voice, suggesting that this was the last incarnation he saw on Gallifrey, but it seems to have been a while since the two last met ("how serendipitous to run into you after all this time"). While he goes by "The Inventor" to the people of Destination, his primary title is now "The Master", which he claimed to have previously used when he was "beginning to hone his talents". A name which the Doctor knows he uses. The Master ends up trapped and abandoned in his laboratory without any power.

* AUDIO: *The Home Guard*

The Master is revealed as 'not dead', although doesn't explain his survival. He has a TARDIS. The Master meets the Second Doctor, Polly Wright, Ben Jackson and Jamie McCrimmon on a human colony planet where he is pitting the colonists against the natives spider-like creatures in an experiment in war, which he considers very informative on the ability of a small town to band together against an aggressor. After he is defeated, the Master is to be put on trial by the Galactic authority.

Next known: Twelfth Master