The Master and the Doctor apparently grew up together - they were quite good friends and even schoolmates. But somewhere, their relationship turned very sour. Like the Doctor, the Master is a renegade Time Lord. Unlike the Doctor, the Master does not fight for the side of good - his motivations are purely evil, and his goals usually have something to do with world domination. The Doctor, naturally, is his lifelong nemesis, and he longs to be rid of the Doctor once and for all. Still, he does consider the Doctor to be almost his intellectual equal, and thus a worthy opponent. Both of them seem to derive a certain enjoyment from their matches with one another.
Aside from being evil, the Master is also cunning and resourceful. He concocts elaborate plans to accomplish his ends, including employing other beings and even pretending to be employed by other beings - although of course he plans to betray them in the end. He managed to steal files from the Time Lords. The Master is a brilliant mathematician, and his degree in cosmic science was higher than the Doctor's. He considers himself quite superior to other beings. He is apparently quite strong, and favors a simple hand-chop to incapacitate people. He is also a talented fencer.
He has highly developed powers of ESP, can mimic voices, and is a formidable hypnotist. In fact, he can easily hypnotize almost anyone, simply through his eyes and his tone of voice, unless they have a very strong will, are warned about him in advance and are on their guard against such mind control, or have learned techniques to combat falling under a hypnotic influence. This hypnosis fades slowly when the subject is away from the Master, and they may be able to break free of his brainwashing, although usually the Master will use a posthypnotic block to prevent his victims from remembering what has happened to them. When the Master manages to harnass some of the Xeraphin power, he is able to subject people to perceptual induction, by which they mass-hallucinate whatever environment the Master wishes them to see, although this can be defeated by concentrating on every detail of a particular object until the hallucination vanishes. One of the Master's more remarkable talents is his astonishing ability to escape from what had seemed like certain death. The Doctor often remarks on this fact.
The Master is also exceedingly talented with disguises, fooling even the Doctor on a number of occasions. He has even been known to disguise other people as him, in order to escape unnoticed. He makes good use of pseudonyms to hide his presence: these include Emil Keller, Colonel Masters, Mr Magister, Professor Thascales, Kalid and Sir Gilles Estram.
Villians rarely come as charming and suave as the Master. Particularly during the third Doctor's era, he is quite the ladies' man, and barely seems as if he could be capable of the hard-hearted villainy he practices. His voice is deep and soothing and his manners impeccable. The veneer of politeness only slips when he is enraged by some imbecile, or when he is nearing his objectives and allows himself to gloat. Still, underneath it all is a core of cold-hearted evil, which is sometimes not difficult to spot.
The Master's weapon of choice is his Tissue Compression Eliminator, or TCE, which he uses to shrink objects down to tiny size. Live humans become dead, grotesque dolls. The TCE looks like a wand with a bulbous end which splits apart to emit a beam of light when it is fired. He has been known to carry a telepathic amplifier which can pick up impulses and project them through the mind of his servant, a kind of video-wristwatch which can intercept radio signals, and a hypnosound device which uses ultrasonics to stimulate the fear centers of the brain and cause people to see what they fear most. Instead of seeing the person in front of them, a bright light flares and they are replaced by whatever horrible apparition the person's mind is conjuring. Even after the device has been switched off, a posthypnotic command maintains the illusion for some time. This device also seems to have the ability to erase memories. Within his TARDIS, the Master keeps a store of protoplasm with which he can do anything he wants - and the protoplasm is apparently generated by subjecting human beings to molecular disintegration.
Another point of contention between the Doctor and the Master is that the Master's TARDIS actually works properly. The other major difference between the two time-ships is that the Master has, unsurprisingly, configured the inside of his to be black. The Doctor frequently steals parts from the Master's TARDIS to incapacitate him or use as hostage material, and of course the Master does likewise. The Master's TARDIS has, in the past, disguised itself as a horsebox, an Adjudicator's spaceship, a computer bank, a grandfather clock, a police box, a tree in a planter, an Ionic column, a fireplace, a Concorde, an Iron Maiden, a stone column, a beach shack and a statue.
In his earlier regenerations, the Master dresses as a well-bred gentleman would, in a nice suit of clothes, unless he is outfitted in a disguise. The later Master prefers to dress in solid black, and often wears gloves and a tunic with a high collar bearing a gold zigzag design. He sometimes alters his clothing, wearing a black suit or something similar, but generally likes to stick with the familiar. Vanity, apparently, is his weakness.
A brief summary of his televised exploits:
EEE - Arriving on Earth, the Master immediately forms an alliance with the Nestene Consciousness, stealing one of their energy units and using it to bring them back to the planet. He develops the plastic daffodils which they intend to use to create mass panic and chaos, giving them the opportunity to invade Earth unnoticed. However, just before the Master is about to succeed in bringing the Consciousness to Earth, the Doctor is able to persuade him to repel them back into space.
FFF - The Master poses as Swiss scientist Emil Keller, claiming to have invented a machine that can extract all of a person's violent impulses. Naturally the Keller Machine is hailed as a great tool for rehabilitating criminals, and the Master is soon able to infiltrate Stangmoor Prison in England, just in time to take control of it, ambush a passing chemical missile and use it to destroy a world peace conference. But the Keller Machine actually houses a mind parasite which feeds on evil, and soon the Master finds himself unable to control it. When the Machine begins teleporting itself around the prison and killing people at random, he is forced to turn to the Doctor for help.
GGG - The Master encounters the Axons, and offers to lead them to the planet Earth in exchange for their destroying the Doctor. When they learn that the Doctor is, in fact, a Time Lord, they continue holding the Master and his TARDIS prisoner. When the Master manages to escape them, he is forced to help the Doctor and UNIT combat Axos in order to regain his TARDIS and his freedom.
HHH - Posing as an Adjudicator from Earth sent to mediate the dispute between a group of colonists and the Interplanetary Mining Corporation, the Master actually travels to the planet Uxarieus in the hopes of finding a doomsday weapon developed by the original inhabitants of the planet, with which he can hold the universe to ransom. When he locates it, he offers the Doctor a half-share in the universe; but the Doctor declines, and the Guardian of the weapon requests that it be self-destructed.
JJJ - The vicar of the village of Devil's End mysteriously disappears, and is replaced by the Master, who assembles a satanic coven in an attempt to summon the Dæmon Azal. The Master hopes to control Azal and gain his knowledge and powers to control the humans, thus giving him total dominion over the Earth. Azal grants his wish, but is destroyed before he can confer his powers, and the Master is taken into custody.
LLL - Having established communication with the Sea Devils, the Master intends to help them repair their hibernation units and reactivation machines so that they can awaken their colonies around the world and retake the Earth. But once he has accomplished this, the Sea Devils turn on him, and the Master finds himself just as expendable as any other mammal. Fortunately for him, the Doctor has planned ahead for just such an occasion.
OOO - The Master poses as a university professor in order to run time experiments. He intends to release a chronovore, Kronos, from the quartz crystal in which it has been trapped since the days of Atlantis. The Master manages to release, and control, Kronos three times, finally loosing it on the city of Atlantis. The Doctor is forced to time-ram his TARDIS, freeing Kronos, who allows the Master to escape.
QQQ - While working for his own secretive masters, the Master uses the Ogrons and a special hypnotic device to make the Earth empire think that Draconians are attacking their ships. At the same time, he fools the Draconian empire into believing that Earth is attacking their ships. Through this, he hopes to provoke a war that will destroy the empires, allowing his masters to take over...at which point he will seize the power for himself.
4P - Having used up his last regeneration, the Master promises to give all of his knowledge to a Time Lord named Goth in exchange for bringing him to Gallifrey. When the Doctor learns of his presence, the Master poisons himself with a neural inhibitor to make him appear dead. Once free from suspicion, he obtains the Sash and Key of Rassilon and gets access to the Eye of Harmony, intending to have supreme control over the Universe. But his attempt to release the Eye causes chaos, and he falls into a crevice created in the Panopticon before the Doctor can shut down the Eye. The Doctor believes the Master dead, but in fact the power from the monolith, converted by the Sash, has replenished his energy.
5T - Having reached the end of his natural life as a Time Lord, the Master hopes to usurp the position of the Keeper of Traken. With access to the immensely powerful bioelectronic Source, he plans to prolong his life indefinitely. The Doctor is able to disconnect the Master from the Source, but the Master obtains a new body nevertheless - that of Consul Tremas of Traken.
5V - The Master follows the Doctor to Logopolis with the intent of controlling the Logopolitans and their block-transfer computations, but his interference only succeeds in disrupting the balance of the universe. With entropy slowly destroying whole galaxies, the Master forges an alliance with the Doctor to correct the problem - but secretly, he hopes to use the situation to his own advantage, by holding the universe ransom and insisting that they all obey him before he will save them. The Doctor is able to stop him, but only at the cost of his fourth regeneration.
5Z - The Master kidnaps Adric and uses him to send the TARDIS crew hurtling back through time towards Event One, the hydrogen inrush that created the universe. When they manage to escape, the Master springs his backup plan - using Adric's block-transfer skills to create a recursive space-time trap which he hopes will ensnare the Doctor and his companions forever. But the Master's creations learn of his scheme and destroy his power source, causing the block-transfer city of Castrovalva to collapse. The TARDIS crew manage to escape the city, but the Master is trapped inside.
6C - After escaping from Castrovalva, the Master's dynamorphic generators are exhausted, leaving him stranded on Jurassic Earth. He creates a time contour leading into the future, and when a Concorde from the twentieth century hits it, it is pulled back into Earth's past. Having found an unstable power source inside a sanctum, the Master wants to move it to the center of his TARDIS to replace his dynamorphic generators and, as a side effect, give him all the wisdom in the universe. As part of his scheme to gain control of the force, he disguises himself as a fat Oriental mystic, Kalid - and, claiming to have learned Arabian magic, he uses incantations which draw on psychic energy to manifest Plasmatons and allow him to view activity within his citadel. After being unmasked, he manages to ensnare the power source - but the Doctor causes his TARDIS to travel to the planet Xeraphas, where it becomes stranded.
6J - The Master is able to escape from Xeraphas with the help of a shape-changing android, which he realizes he can use for his own ends. He decides the android will be able to help him undermine the key civilizations of the universe, enabling him to be emperor over the resulting chaos. His first attempt is on Earth, using the android to pose as King John, ruining the king's good name and preventing the Magna Carta from being signed. When the Doctor uncovers his plan, he wrests control of the android from the Master and absconds with it, forcing the Master to abandon his plans.
6K - When five incarnations of the Doctor are timescooped to the Death Zone, the Time Lords ask the Master to help, promising him a new regenerative cycle if he succeeds. Amused, the Master accepts, but swiftly finds the Doctor suspicious of his motives. He is captured by the Cybermen, and leads them to Rassilon's Tower where he leads them into a trap, and then tries to claim Rassilon's gift of immortality himself; but he is attacked and tied up by the third Doctor and the Brigadier.
6Q - When experiments on the TCE go awry, the newly-miniaturized Master re-establishes his link with Kamelion. The android helps bring the Master to the planet Sarn, where he hopes to take advantage of the healing properties of numismaton gas to regain his proper size. But the Doctor sabotages the Master's rebirth, leading him to be apparently destroyed.
6R - An image of the Master appears to the regenerating fifth Doctor, encouraging him to die and laughing triumphantly. This seems to give the Doctor that extra push he needed to make it through the regeneration.
6X - A gathering of geniuses brings the Master to England in the 19th century, where he hopes to enslave them to his power. He has followed another renegade Time Lady - the Rani - who eventually agrees to help him dominate the Earth. But their plans are foiled with the Doctor tampers with the Rani's TARDIS, sending the two renegades on a nonstop superspeed trip to the edge of the universe.
7C - The Master appears at the Doctor's trial, having watched it through the Matrix, with the purpose of revealing the Valeyard's true identity and the crimes committed by the High Council. He hopes that in doing so, either the Doctor or the Valeyard will destroy the other, and the High Council will collapse under the chaos.
7P - Trapped on the planet of the Cheetah People, and slowly turning into a Cheetah Person himself, the Master lures the Doctor to the planet as well, hoping he will figure out a way to escape. While the Doctor succeeds at this, and the Master is able to get off the planet, his new animalistic nature stays with him...and compels him to continue his vendetta against the Doctor, to the death.
FOX TV-movie - The Daleks exterminate the Master's final regeneration, but part of him survives as a gelatinous snake-like creature. As the Doctor is taking his remains back to Gallifrey, the Master escapes and forces the TARDIS to crash-land on Earth. He takes over the body of a paramedic, and hopes to use the TARDIS' Eye of Harmony to steal the Doctor's remaining regenerations. However, during a fight with the Doctor, the Master is flung into the Eye of Harmony and disappears...never to be heard from again? Only time will tell...
