A talented geneticist, astroengineer, cyberneticist, neural structuralist, moral theologian - and, according to the Doctor, "too clever by seven-eighths" - Doctor Skagra of the planet Dronid created a think tank on a station owned by the Institute for Advanced Science Studies', the Foundation for the Sudy of Advanced Sciences. He paid five of the greatest scientists of the time to take part. The think tank consisted of an electronic mind transference system that pooled the scientists' intellectual resources with the use of a specially-built sphere. Unbeknownst to the other scientsts, Skagra's sphere also possessed the useful talent of stealing minds. Leaving them bereft of all but their autonomic brain functions, Skagra abandoned the Foundation and headed for Earth.
Skagra planned to use the sphere to insert his own mind into the minds of everyone else in the universe, thus creating a godlike entity that would be himself. However, the sphere's abilities were limited only to extracting minds, not inserting them, and for that Skagra needed to obtain the mind of Salyavin, a notorious Time Lord criminal imprisoned in Shada who possessed this unique ability. The prison's location was long forgotten, but the key to its discovery lay in an ancient Gallifreyan book. Skagra set about to find the book, then Shada, then Salyavin, and then to put his ultimate plan into motion.
Skagra's sphere operates through psychoactive extraction - stealing part of the mind - and attempts to resist it can cause severe cerebral trauma. The voices of the minds it has taken create an audible babble. The sphere is able to float through the air and can pursue targets. Skagra appears to be able to access the information it drains from other people's minds simply by touching it. If destroyed, the bits of the sphere can re-form into smaller spheres, all having the same abilities as the larger one.
Besides being talented in time control and time transference, Skagra is a brilliant engineer, and built a ship equipped with intelligence and the ability to become invisible. He ordinarily wears a white-and-silver uniform with matching cape and a white top hat, but on Earth this was clearly not suitable, so Skagra had no qualms about stealing the mind and clothes of a native Earthling. He carried the sphere about in a carpet bag.
Skagra's servants are the Krargs, lumbering creatures made of black coal-like crystals. The crystals form around a basic skeleton in a vat within the generation room. Krargs' bodies absorb energy that is fired at them, causing them to glow red hot, and they carry weapons like electric prods. The left hand of a Krarg appears to end in a crystalline rod. They can be immobilized through the use of energy, or redissolved in the green gas used to create them.
