Siren's Pull App
Jan. 1st, 2012 03:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Player Information
Name: Ans
Age: 31
AIM SN: kindaxscary
email: kindaxscary at gmail
Have you played in an LJ based game before? Yes
Currently Played Characters: N/A
Conditional: Activity Check Link: N/A
Conditional: Official Reserve Link: Here
Character Information
General
Canon Source: Doctor Who
Canon Format: Television
Character's Name: The Master
Character's Age: 1000-ish (looks around mid-30's)
Conditional: If your character is 13 years of age or under, please clarify how they will be played.
What form will your character's NV take?
I think I will be especially cruel to the Master and have his NV be a white point star diamond. This is a gem from Gallifrey, the very same type used to forge a link from the Master to the Time Lords to pull Gallifrey out of the Time Lock. For the purposes of the NV interface it will be larger, about palm-sized, and will be activated by the Master's thoughts or voice. Text will be via voice dictation. The diamond can holographically project text and video from others on the Master's end, or can translate text to audio as needed. The entire diamond is comprised of a surface capable of projecting and recording sound, text or video, depending on which side is facing the Master (the side facing away from him will project, the side facing toward will record).
Now I just need to make sure he doesn't flush it down the toilet 'by accident'.
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities:
Physiological:
Psionic:
Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them? N/A
Weapons: None
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History:
Here, have a link. And also my executive summary:
The Master, like the Doctor, is a Time Lord raised and educated on the planet Gallifrey. Although not much is known about the Master's distant past, it's been mentioned in official canon that he and the Doctor were once friends, and widely theorized in fanon that they were in fact much more. His father was well off enough to have estates whose fields the Master and Doctor used to play in as children. At some point in their relationship, the two of them parted ways, probably due to rather fundamental differences in how each viewed the universe and how it should be run. After that point, their roles were fixed: the Master tried to rule the universe and the Doctor stopped him. Their relationship was so fixed, in fact, that even the Time Lords called it 'The Enmity of Ages'. In the new series, he and the Doctor are thought to be the only remaining Time Lords in existence.
Although one of his lifelong goals has been immortality, the Master has gone through many more regenerations than the Doctor. It's unclear how many, but he's at least used up an entire cycle of regenerations (thirteen lives, as imposed by Time Lord Law), since he appeared as a decrepit, dying monster who had run out of lives in "The Deadly Assassin" and "The Keeper of Traken". Still, the Master always manages to come back from 'oblivion' in some form or another. After "The Keeper of Traken" he survived by possessing various individuals: first, Nyssa's father Tremas (Ainley!Master), and then following that body's destruction, Bruce, a human paramedic in San Francisco. After he was sucked into the TARDIS and supposedly killed, the Time Lords themselves resurrected him to help with the ongoing Time War. By his own admission he became frightened and ran to the end of the universe, disguising himself as a human with the help of the Chameleon Arch in his TARDIS.
Meanwhile, the Doctor effectively ended the Time War by trapping all participants, including the whole of Gallifrey, in a temporal lock. The High Council of the Time Lords plotted to get free, finally deciding to use the Master as a conduit to allow them to transcend the lock. They managed to insert the beat of a Time Lord's heart into his subconscious all the way back at the beginning of his timeline, when he was a small child staring into the Time Vortex. These became the Master's 'drums', the ones he imagined he'd heard his whole life.
The Chameleon Arch altered the Master's DNA and kept the memory of his true identity trapped in a fob watch, creating a false history and identity for him. Calling himself Professor Yana, he believed he was found on the shores of the Silver Devastation as a child, with only the watch in his possession. He worked for years on Messaline to build a functional rocket ship so that the last remaining humans on the planet's surface could escape and strike out for a place known only as 'Utopia'. It was hoped that whatever 'Utopia' was, it would give them the answer they needed to escape the universe's end and survive. The ship was just about ready when the Doctor, Martha Jones, and Jack Harkness arrived on Messaline. While the Doctor and Jack worked to finish the rocket ship, Martha inadvertently called attention to Yana's fob watch, causing him to open it and become the Master once again. As the rocket took off, carrying the humans to Utopia, the Master stole the Doctor's TARDIS, stranding him on Messaline.
Before the Master left Messaline, the Doctor managed to fuse the TARDIS' coordinates so that it could only travel between two points: the end of the universe and modern-day Earth. Because of the TARDIS' famously imprecise nature, the Master arrived 18 months earlier than the Doctor initially left. He decided to use this stranding to his advantage and prime the Earth as his new base of operations, all the while shielding himself from the Doctor with a perception filter. He fabricated an identity for himself, becoming UK Minister of Defense Harold Saxon, and began a campaign for Prime Minister. He seduced and married a woman named Lucy Cole, bringing her into his confidence. As Minister of Defense he helped to design the Valiant, a government airship, and built the Archangel network, a series of satellites that were used to hypnotize the entire nation into voting for him. He was the intelligence behind LazLabs, a genetic research company. He even wrote a set of memoirs called Kiss Me Kill Me, although the contents are currently unknown. At some point during his takeover of Earth, he also set up a contingency plan in case of his demise: he formed the Cult of Saxon, a group of humans who were entrusted with the recipe for his resurrection, and stored his biodata in his ring and with his wife.
In between gaining the public's trust, he managed to travel to Utopia with Lucy, where he discovered that the last of the human race were so desperate to avoid extinction at the end of the universe that they were willing to mutilate themselves in body and spirit. They became what the Master called 'Toclafane', a race of silver balls equipped with deadly weapons, a shared consciousness, and a childlike lack of morals. It is entirely possible that the Master influenced their design, but regardless, he managed to strike an alliance with them, promising to rescue them from the end of the universe if they would help him to build an empire on Earth. He then returned to Earth and cannibalized the Doctor's TARDIS, converting it into a paradox machine so that the Toclafane could travel to modern-day Earth through a time rift and avoid a paradox from occurring.
The Doctor, Jack, and Martha made it back to London just in time to see 'Harold Saxon' win the election. Almost immediately after, he seized control of the entire Earth with the help of the Toclafane. Incredibly he was able to sustain this situation for a whole year, although he seemed to become more unhinged as time progressed, and very nearly declared war on the entire universe at the end of his reign. Luckily for Earth, the Doctor stopped him. Although the Master had kept him close and aged him to within an inch of his life, the Doctor managed to shield his mind enough from him to tap into the Archangel Network and connect with the consciousness of the human race. With the help of Martha Jones, the human race managed to revive the Doctor and elevate him to a near godlike status for a brief period of time. The Master retaliated by pulling out 'Plan B', a black hole converter system in every warship he'd built on Earth. He threatened to blow up the Earth by activating it, but the Doctor successfully called his bluff, telling him that the one thing he'd never do was destroy himself. The entire year was reverted when Jack Harkness destroyed the paradox machine, reversing the time rift, the Toclafane presence, the Master's empire, and the memories of everyone on Earth save those on the Valiant.
Even worse for the Master, the Doctor then revealed his plans to keep him in the TARDIS, the only safe place for him. And directly after this bomb was dropped, his trophy wife proceeded to shoot him. Rather than be the Doctor's prisoner, the Master consciously chose not to regenerate and instead died from the bullet wound. This made the Doctor cry, and the Master considered this a great success.
The Doctor burned the Master's body, but neglected to take the ring from his finger. Miss Trefusis, Lucy's warden at the Broadfell Prison and a member of the Cult of Saxon, stole it from the funeral pyre and used it to revive the Master. However, Lucy interfered with the process by adding a counter-agent that was designed to kill him. What it really ended up doing was blowing up the prison and ironically, killing everyone in the near vicinity except the Master... outright at least.
The Master escaped the wreckage, but not completely intact; his life-force had been altered in the resurrection process, causing an eternal state of dying. The drawbacks were extreme, continual hunger, and an apparent tendency to drift in and out of molecular cohesion (manifested by sometimes painful flashes of artron energy revealing his skeleton). On the plus side, he could now manipulate that leaking life force into blasts of artron, allowing him to propel himself into the air and attack others. In order to keep himself alive he ate whatever he could, skulked around in junkyards and construction sites, and sported shabby clothing and bleached hair, paranoid of being recognized by the Doctor. Not the best of moves, but to be fair the drums in his head had gotten even louder than before and his sanity was slowly eroding away.
It wasn't long before Joshua Naismith decided the Master was the perfect person to help fix the 'Immortality Gate', really a Vinvocci medical device designed to heal injuries by copying healthy genetic templates. Once the Master discovered this he was all too eager to help, turning it instead into a machine to mock the Doctor and wrest control of the planet by turning everyone on Earth into the Master.
The Master ended up figuring out what the drums really were and began the process of bringing the Time Lords back. Unfortunately this also meant that everything else from the Time War would be coming through the link, setting off a chain reaction that would end time itself. When the Time Lords declared their intention to destroy the Master in return for his service, the Doctor protected him and destroyed the link. When Rassilon attempted to kill the Doctor in retaliation, the Master, furious at having been used, ended up saving the Doctor by attacking Rassilon. He disappeared with the Time Lords (presumably into the Lock) and hasn't been seen since.
Point in Canon: Just after his disappearance in the End of Time specials
Conditional: Brief summary of previous RP history: N/A
Character Personality:
The Master shares the intelligence and inflated ego of most Time Lords, but also has a great desire to rule the universe and very flexible morals, and has been a renegade as long as we've known him. His character is meant to be a dark foil of the Doctor, and much of his time is split between actively antagonizing the Doctor and attempting to gain immortality and absolute power. The Master has a driven personality that is somewhat resistant to change; while the Doctor's personality and outward appearance vary greatly between regenerations, the Master's do not. He doesn't dwell long on his own desperation and failure; instead, he converts it to determination.
He has an intense connection with the Doctor. Beyond being a former friend and schoolmate, the Master is emotionally dependent on the Doctor and obsessively focused on him, resulting in their numerous and intense conflicts. In "The Five Doctors" he admits that “A cosmos without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about.” Although the Master is usually committed to his own survival, he chooses to not regenerate after being fatally shot in "Last of the Time Lords" because he knows it will crush the Doctor. He also tends to pick on humans, mostly because they are the Doctor's favorite species. In "The End of Time" he replaces the human race with copies of himself, which at first seems to be mainly an intentional perversion of every thing the Doctor loves about humans (their uniqueness, their ability to survive, their capacity for individual thought, and so on). The Master’s greatest fears include the Doctor laughing at him and looming larger than life above him. He also cannot stand the idea of the Doctor forgiving him. He wants to be taken seriously by the Doctor, because the Doctor's is the only opinion he respects beyond his own.
Like the Tenth Doctor, this Master has a bizarre sense of humor and often seems less refined and more manic than his previous selves. He broadcasts songs from Rogue Traders and the Scissor Sisters during his reign on Earth in "Last of the Time Lords", in one notable scene dancing and singing along. He also tends to act affably daft when interacting with the humans he despises so much; in "The Sound of Drums" he offers the President of the United States grits, and he gives the double thumbs-up to the Cabinet as he brutally gasses them. The Master enjoys trying to show up or mock the Doctor by imitating him. He’s seen offering jelly babies, a favorite snack of the Fourth Doctor, to his wife in "The Sound of Drums". In that same episode, he also shows off his laser screwdriver, a significant improvement upon the Doctor’s sonic version.
It is hard to deny that the Master has always been insane. However, his most recent incarnation seems even more unhinged than ever. He is plagued by an auditory hallucination in the form of a drumbeat, which he claims he acquired while looking into the Time Vortex as a child. He believes that these drums are calling him to war. So naturally, he has plans to declare war on the entire universe, as well as erect a new Time Lord empire. When his plans are once again foiled, he breaks down in tears while cowering from the Doctor, then attempts to escape and threatens to blow up the planet he’s currently standing on, just so the Doctor can’t have it. While on the surface this whole incident seems pretty characteristic of the Master’s grandiose schemes, his strange whims, violent mood swings and nonsensical back-up plan (blowing himself up and/or refusing to regenerate) make them seem much less cohesive than before. In "The End of Time" he complains that the drums are louder than ever, suggesting that, at least in his timeline, they may have steadily increased in volume over the centuries. This could account for his more recent instability.
The Master’s obsessive nature and desire for power lead him to be something of a control freak. Once he's brought the Earth under his control in "The Sound of Drums", he sets to work creating an almost Orwellian dystopia complete with invasive surveillance and tight control over civilian movement and media outlets. He keeps the Doctor, Jack Harkness, and Martha Jones’ family on board his airship as slaves and prisoners. To further the humiliation, the Doctor is aged dramatically and kept in a doghouse and later a cage, while the Jones women are forced to wear maid outfits.
The Master tends to underestimate the worth and ability of others. He sees other species, humans particularly, as inferior, primitive, and childlike, and has no compunction about slaughtering them if it will suit his purposes. In "Last of the Time Lords" the Master insists on keeping the Doctor close in order to lord over him, for all appearances fails to seriously pursue the escaped Martha Jones, and never considers the potential of human minds to subvert his psychic satellite network. But this oversight isn't just limited to humans. He nearly destroys the universe in "Logopolis" because he fails to understand or respect the function of the Logopolitan mathematicians. In "The End of Time" he shows off his 'Master Race' to Rassilon, threatens to do the same to the Time Lords, and seems shocked when Rassilon quite easily reverses what he's done.
He believes that he is the only one allowed or qualified to be in control. And really, who wouldn't? He (rightly) believes the drums 'chose' him, just as the Time Lords had chosen to resurrect him for the Time War. When he talks about looking in to the Time Vortex as a child in "The End of Time", or mentions the Time Lords at all, there is a sense of being insanely angry at the abuse he's suffered and at the same time strangely proud of his heritage and the fact that few others can claim it. The drums clearly hurt him, but he refuses to let the Doctor help because he wears that pain like a badge of honor. When the Doctor suggests that he wants to take the Master on as a companion in order to keep an eye on him in "Last of the Time Lords", the Master indignantly sputters, “You’re just going to keep me?” This reaction is quite interesting given that the Master 'kept' the Doctor for a year as little more than a pet or punching bag. The Master clearly gives himself privileges or passes he feels the rest of the universe should be denied— even if they are fellow Time Lords. He characteristically works alone and has taken on significantly fewer 'companions' than the Doctor.
Despite his superiority complex, the Master is ultimately a coward. After being resurrected by the Time Lords to fight in the Time War, he chooses to flee instead, going so far as to alter his DNA and become human. He’s often seen running away when his plans go awry. He's also an opportunist though. In several stories he's thrown into an environment where he starts out with almost nothing and has to improvise a plan to scramble back on top (successfully, at least until the Doctor shows up to stop him). His skill in improvisation is really showcased most effectively with his takeover of Naismith's 'Immortality Gate' in "The End of Time"; he's brought in as a prisoner to fix the device, and ends up co-opting it for his own use with hardly any effort at all. And near the end of the story, witness how he switches sides without shame- first attempting to ingratiate himself to Rassilon and steps away from begging for his acceptance... and then when the Doctor has the upper hand, hissing in his ear that he should destroy Rassilon and take over the universe. Since his allegiance to himself is the only unshakable one he possesses, the Master has no qualms about manipulating and lying to others to achieve his goals. He tends to run through a lot of pseudonyms, and though he will be charming when he needs to be, that tends to end once he gets what he wants and has control of the situation.
Since his botched resurrection he's become even more desperate due to the fragile, doomed state of his body. Gone are the fancy suits, frivolous luxuries and meticulous mannerisms-- the Master has to eat near-continuously to replenish his life force, and the simple act of survival takes up a great deal of his time. To disguise himself he badly bleaches his own hair and dons a grubby black hoodie and black trousers that are too big for him. He prowls construction sites and appears dirty and disheveled. It's as if his new, restructured priorities have broken him in some fundamental way: here's the most superior being in the universe forced to behave like a wild animal. He's more emotionally volatile, succumbing to fits of hysterical laughter, extreme rage, and wistful indulgence with a much higher frequency. Twice, right in the middle of a confrontation with the Doctor, he stops to reminisce about Gallifrey, and he actually tears up several times throughout the story: when the Doctor tells him he could be beautiful, when he's begging Rassilon to let him ascend with the Time Lords, and when the Doctor is threatening to kill him.
But through it all, the Master is still extremely proud. When he's in charge of the world again, he doesn't even bother to change his clothes. It's possible that he's putting on a new cloak, so to speak, coping with his disadvantages by pretending they are what make him superior. In other words, being king of the predators is still being king. When he talks about looking into the Untempered Schism or when he faces off against Rassilon, there is a similar sense of being insanely angry at the abuse he's suffered and at the same time strangely proud of his heritage and the fact that few others can claim it.
Conditional: Personality development in previous game: N/A
Character Plans:
Generally the Master has three goals in any jamjar situation: 1) get out; 2) barring that, get control; 3) antagonize the Doctor and/or his companions. I'm happy to see he will have some castmates in the game but am also looking forward to having him team up with non-castmates and to gain allies for however brief an amount of time. I am especially interested in the factions aspect of Siren's Pull; because the Master is a duplicitous character I think it would be fun for him to double-cross and play sides off one another for his own best interests.
I'm also hoping that one way or another he can stabilize himself so that more, um... refined plots can occur. Whether it's another character (e.g. the Doctor or someone with similar skill) or one of the factions, probably one of the first orders of business for me will be figuring out how to keep him from being so hungry all the time.
Appearance/PB: http://www.livejournal.com/allpics.bml?user=pawnofrassilon (in other words, John Simm with hideously bleached hair, in a hideous unwashed hoodie and oh god he's just hideous)
Writing Samples
First Person Sample
(Format: Voice--->Video)
[There's the sound of rustling far too close to a microphone, as if a thumb is being rubbed across it, mixed with ambient noise. The thudding of heavy footsteps and heavier breathing, the clatter of a glass bottle, the squeaking of some unholy thing in the dark. In fact, it sounds suspiciously like the Master is butt-dialing you.
Another thud, long and scraping, a weary sigh abruptly cut off-- and then everything becomes strangely muffled. Someone is laughing, a slow chuckle that grows louder and clearer as it goes on. After a long while of this the Master finally speaks, his voice a husky, urgent hiss. If he could actually spit venom, he would.]
Of course. Of course. As if I'd help you again. Lord Master, King of the Wastelands. The diseased. I still hear them, you know.
[He begins to tap, against something large and metallic and hollow. The raps become faster, louder, until they're loud incoherent bangs.]
One-two-three-four! One-two-three-four! One-two-three-four!
[There's a louder crash when whatever it is tips over, and then a strangled sob.]
Oh, of course you know. You put them there. Why would you ever take them away? You broke me. You used me. And now-- well, look at that. You need me again after all to fulfill your little prophecy.
[Another bitter chuckle, abruptly cut off by a strange electric, sizzling sound-- and then a whimper.]
No. No, you can rot there for eternity instead. In fact, I'll make sure of it.
[Another series of thuds and clacks that are near-deafening. The audio feed cuts out periodically from overload. Then the video feed also kicks in. Have a blurry, off-kilter view of a hooded figure some distance away, huddled in an alley. Suddenly his head perks up, the hood falling back to reveal a face streaked in dirt and blood and who knows what else as he sniffs the air. A twisted grin crawls across his face.]
Doctor.
Third Person Sample
He hits the ground, hard, the shock of it knocking the breath out of him. Not just the impact, no. The shock of still being alive. The Master lies there face-down on the ground looking for all the world like a dead thing, a dark lump with a shock of blond-white hair. The only thing to signal life at all to an outside observer is the fact that this lump flickers faintly, changing from a pile of cloth and bone to a pile of cloth and flesh and then back again. Flesh-to-bone-to-flesh-to-bone-to-flesh...
It's dusty here, and there's dirt up his nose with every ragged breath, but still the Master doesn't move. He's savoring this despite the familiar pangs-- the artron on the one hand, the drums on the other. Somehow he's survived. Somehow he's beaten all of them. Oh, the universe knows its true master!
The hunger is what gets him moving in the end. The Master makes a small, muffled noise, somewhere between a groan and a chuckle, and rolls onto his back. A dark sky stares back at him. It's with a growing sense of unease that the Master realizes it is nearly devoid of any stars. He pushes it down, struggling up to a seated position and scanning the area for signs of movement. Food comes first.
It isn't long before he spots something fluttering nearby, something small and easily taken down even in his weakened state. At first glance it's an Earth pigeon; at second... well, it's already on the way to his stomach by then but the Master can't help but notice the long, scaly tail sliding down his throat after it. Still, it's food. A little tough, but all right.
The Master scrambles to his feet, finally taking in the rest of his surroundings. The baseball diamond tells him this must be Earth gone horribly wrong-- or something that wants him to think it's Earth. His grin widens as he reads some of the signs decorating the chain link fence. You're fucked now, newmeat. Oh, he's going to like it here.
As if on cue, something else shuffles in the darkness behind him, and the Master whips his head around expectantly. He's already drooling, Pavlovian, even before he spots the shadowy figure making its way toward him. This thing is much larger, more humanoid, but that's all right too. The Master can feel the energy returning, sparking at his fingertips in anticipation. He's eaten plenty of humans before.
The figure shuffles into the weak moonlight and the Master stops cold. His eyes squint for a moment and then widen in alarm. Whatever this thing is, it's clearly not human any longer. Long loops of what smells like bile mixed with sulfur drip from a series of wounds in its chest, and from its grinning, stupid mouth. It doesn't seem to care that it's missing a foot and a large chunk of its midsection; it gamely limps along as fast as it can toward the Master.
He's not sure which disgusts him more: the state of the creature, or that he still wants to eat it, desperately. He's caught somewhere between the warring instincts in his body to both flee and fight.
In the end the Master wisely chooses to run.
Name: Ans
Age: 31
AIM SN: kindaxscary
email: kindaxscary at gmail
Have you played in an LJ based game before? Yes
Currently Played Characters: N/A
Conditional: Activity Check Link: N/A
Conditional: Official Reserve Link: Here
Character Information
General
Canon Source: Doctor Who
Canon Format: Television
Character's Name: The Master
Character's Age: 1000-ish (looks around mid-30's)
Conditional: If your character is 13 years of age or under, please clarify how they will be played.
What form will your character's NV take?
I think I will be especially cruel to the Master and have his NV be a white point star diamond. This is a gem from Gallifrey, the very same type used to forge a link from the Master to the Time Lords to pull Gallifrey out of the Time Lock. For the purposes of the NV interface it will be larger, about palm-sized, and will be activated by the Master's thoughts or voice. Text will be via voice dictation. The diamond can holographically project text and video from others on the Master's end, or can translate text to audio as needed. The entire diamond is comprised of a surface capable of projecting and recording sound, text or video, depending on which side is facing the Master (the side facing away from him will project, the side facing toward will record).
Now I just need to make sure he doesn't flush it down the toilet 'by accident'.
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities:
Physiological:
- Respiratory bypass system (meaning that it takes much longer to strangle or asphyxiate him)
- Ability to reverse the effect of certain toxins
- Superior senses/reflexes
- Time sensitivity (more aware of the passage of time, can see all possible futures, can tell whether a point in time is 'fixed' or susceptible to influence)
- Can undergo healing coma if severely damaged
- Probably figured out how to stop his hearts (if Romana could do it...)
- Can focus artron energy into a sort of... lightning attack or as propulsion ('flight')
- Can eat extremely fast, stripping flesh from bone in minutes. Not as fast as a Vashta Nerada swarm, but faster than you can run, let's just put it that way.
Psionic:
- Can sense/identify other Time Lords
- Telepathic abilities (sharing, witnessing or wreaking havoc with memories and communicating via 'mind meld'-type contact)
- Hypnotism (likely a learned skill augmented by telepathy)
Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them? N/A
Weapons: None
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History:
Here, have a link. And also my executive summary:
The Master, like the Doctor, is a Time Lord raised and educated on the planet Gallifrey. Although not much is known about the Master's distant past, it's been mentioned in official canon that he and the Doctor were once friends, and widely theorized in fanon that they were in fact much more. His father was well off enough to have estates whose fields the Master and Doctor used to play in as children. At some point in their relationship, the two of them parted ways, probably due to rather fundamental differences in how each viewed the universe and how it should be run. After that point, their roles were fixed: the Master tried to rule the universe and the Doctor stopped him. Their relationship was so fixed, in fact, that even the Time Lords called it 'The Enmity of Ages'. In the new series, he and the Doctor are thought to be the only remaining Time Lords in existence.
Although one of his lifelong goals has been immortality, the Master has gone through many more regenerations than the Doctor. It's unclear how many, but he's at least used up an entire cycle of regenerations (thirteen lives, as imposed by Time Lord Law), since he appeared as a decrepit, dying monster who had run out of lives in "The Deadly Assassin" and "The Keeper of Traken". Still, the Master always manages to come back from 'oblivion' in some form or another. After "The Keeper of Traken" he survived by possessing various individuals: first, Nyssa's father Tremas (Ainley!Master), and then following that body's destruction, Bruce, a human paramedic in San Francisco. After he was sucked into the TARDIS and supposedly killed, the Time Lords themselves resurrected him to help with the ongoing Time War. By his own admission he became frightened and ran to the end of the universe, disguising himself as a human with the help of the Chameleon Arch in his TARDIS.
Meanwhile, the Doctor effectively ended the Time War by trapping all participants, including the whole of Gallifrey, in a temporal lock. The High Council of the Time Lords plotted to get free, finally deciding to use the Master as a conduit to allow them to transcend the lock. They managed to insert the beat of a Time Lord's heart into his subconscious all the way back at the beginning of his timeline, when he was a small child staring into the Time Vortex. These became the Master's 'drums', the ones he imagined he'd heard his whole life.
The Chameleon Arch altered the Master's DNA and kept the memory of his true identity trapped in a fob watch, creating a false history and identity for him. Calling himself Professor Yana, he believed he was found on the shores of the Silver Devastation as a child, with only the watch in his possession. He worked for years on Messaline to build a functional rocket ship so that the last remaining humans on the planet's surface could escape and strike out for a place known only as 'Utopia'. It was hoped that whatever 'Utopia' was, it would give them the answer they needed to escape the universe's end and survive. The ship was just about ready when the Doctor, Martha Jones, and Jack Harkness arrived on Messaline. While the Doctor and Jack worked to finish the rocket ship, Martha inadvertently called attention to Yana's fob watch, causing him to open it and become the Master once again. As the rocket took off, carrying the humans to Utopia, the Master stole the Doctor's TARDIS, stranding him on Messaline.
Before the Master left Messaline, the Doctor managed to fuse the TARDIS' coordinates so that it could only travel between two points: the end of the universe and modern-day Earth. Because of the TARDIS' famously imprecise nature, the Master arrived 18 months earlier than the Doctor initially left. He decided to use this stranding to his advantage and prime the Earth as his new base of operations, all the while shielding himself from the Doctor with a perception filter. He fabricated an identity for himself, becoming UK Minister of Defense Harold Saxon, and began a campaign for Prime Minister. He seduced and married a woman named Lucy Cole, bringing her into his confidence. As Minister of Defense he helped to design the Valiant, a government airship, and built the Archangel network, a series of satellites that were used to hypnotize the entire nation into voting for him. He was the intelligence behind LazLabs, a genetic research company. He even wrote a set of memoirs called Kiss Me Kill Me, although the contents are currently unknown. At some point during his takeover of Earth, he also set up a contingency plan in case of his demise: he formed the Cult of Saxon, a group of humans who were entrusted with the recipe for his resurrection, and stored his biodata in his ring and with his wife.
In between gaining the public's trust, he managed to travel to Utopia with Lucy, where he discovered that the last of the human race were so desperate to avoid extinction at the end of the universe that they were willing to mutilate themselves in body and spirit. They became what the Master called 'Toclafane', a race of silver balls equipped with deadly weapons, a shared consciousness, and a childlike lack of morals. It is entirely possible that the Master influenced their design, but regardless, he managed to strike an alliance with them, promising to rescue them from the end of the universe if they would help him to build an empire on Earth. He then returned to Earth and cannibalized the Doctor's TARDIS, converting it into a paradox machine so that the Toclafane could travel to modern-day Earth through a time rift and avoid a paradox from occurring.
The Doctor, Jack, and Martha made it back to London just in time to see 'Harold Saxon' win the election. Almost immediately after, he seized control of the entire Earth with the help of the Toclafane. Incredibly he was able to sustain this situation for a whole year, although he seemed to become more unhinged as time progressed, and very nearly declared war on the entire universe at the end of his reign. Luckily for Earth, the Doctor stopped him. Although the Master had kept him close and aged him to within an inch of his life, the Doctor managed to shield his mind enough from him to tap into the Archangel Network and connect with the consciousness of the human race. With the help of Martha Jones, the human race managed to revive the Doctor and elevate him to a near godlike status for a brief period of time. The Master retaliated by pulling out 'Plan B', a black hole converter system in every warship he'd built on Earth. He threatened to blow up the Earth by activating it, but the Doctor successfully called his bluff, telling him that the one thing he'd never do was destroy himself. The entire year was reverted when Jack Harkness destroyed the paradox machine, reversing the time rift, the Toclafane presence, the Master's empire, and the memories of everyone on Earth save those on the Valiant.
Even worse for the Master, the Doctor then revealed his plans to keep him in the TARDIS, the only safe place for him. And directly after this bomb was dropped, his trophy wife proceeded to shoot him. Rather than be the Doctor's prisoner, the Master consciously chose not to regenerate and instead died from the bullet wound. This made the Doctor cry, and the Master considered this a great success.
The Doctor burned the Master's body, but neglected to take the ring from his finger. Miss Trefusis, Lucy's warden at the Broadfell Prison and a member of the Cult of Saxon, stole it from the funeral pyre and used it to revive the Master. However, Lucy interfered with the process by adding a counter-agent that was designed to kill him. What it really ended up doing was blowing up the prison and ironically, killing everyone in the near vicinity except the Master... outright at least.
The Master escaped the wreckage, but not completely intact; his life-force had been altered in the resurrection process, causing an eternal state of dying. The drawbacks were extreme, continual hunger, and an apparent tendency to drift in and out of molecular cohesion (manifested by sometimes painful flashes of artron energy revealing his skeleton). On the plus side, he could now manipulate that leaking life force into blasts of artron, allowing him to propel himself into the air and attack others. In order to keep himself alive he ate whatever he could, skulked around in junkyards and construction sites, and sported shabby clothing and bleached hair, paranoid of being recognized by the Doctor. Not the best of moves, but to be fair the drums in his head had gotten even louder than before and his sanity was slowly eroding away.
It wasn't long before Joshua Naismith decided the Master was the perfect person to help fix the 'Immortality Gate', really a Vinvocci medical device designed to heal injuries by copying healthy genetic templates. Once the Master discovered this he was all too eager to help, turning it instead into a machine to mock the Doctor and wrest control of the planet by turning everyone on Earth into the Master.
The Master ended up figuring out what the drums really were and began the process of bringing the Time Lords back. Unfortunately this also meant that everything else from the Time War would be coming through the link, setting off a chain reaction that would end time itself. When the Time Lords declared their intention to destroy the Master in return for his service, the Doctor protected him and destroyed the link. When Rassilon attempted to kill the Doctor in retaliation, the Master, furious at having been used, ended up saving the Doctor by attacking Rassilon. He disappeared with the Time Lords (presumably into the Lock) and hasn't been seen since.
Point in Canon: Just after his disappearance in the End of Time specials
Conditional: Brief summary of previous RP history: N/A
Character Personality:
The Master shares the intelligence and inflated ego of most Time Lords, but also has a great desire to rule the universe and very flexible morals, and has been a renegade as long as we've known him. His character is meant to be a dark foil of the Doctor, and much of his time is split between actively antagonizing the Doctor and attempting to gain immortality and absolute power. The Master has a driven personality that is somewhat resistant to change; while the Doctor's personality and outward appearance vary greatly between regenerations, the Master's do not. He doesn't dwell long on his own desperation and failure; instead, he converts it to determination.
He has an intense connection with the Doctor. Beyond being a former friend and schoolmate, the Master is emotionally dependent on the Doctor and obsessively focused on him, resulting in their numerous and intense conflicts. In "The Five Doctors" he admits that “A cosmos without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about.” Although the Master is usually committed to his own survival, he chooses to not regenerate after being fatally shot in "Last of the Time Lords" because he knows it will crush the Doctor. He also tends to pick on humans, mostly because they are the Doctor's favorite species. In "The End of Time" he replaces the human race with copies of himself, which at first seems to be mainly an intentional perversion of every thing the Doctor loves about humans (their uniqueness, their ability to survive, their capacity for individual thought, and so on). The Master’s greatest fears include the Doctor laughing at him and looming larger than life above him. He also cannot stand the idea of the Doctor forgiving him. He wants to be taken seriously by the Doctor, because the Doctor's is the only opinion he respects beyond his own.
Like the Tenth Doctor, this Master has a bizarre sense of humor and often seems less refined and more manic than his previous selves. He broadcasts songs from Rogue Traders and the Scissor Sisters during his reign on Earth in "Last of the Time Lords", in one notable scene dancing and singing along. He also tends to act affably daft when interacting with the humans he despises so much; in "The Sound of Drums" he offers the President of the United States grits, and he gives the double thumbs-up to the Cabinet as he brutally gasses them. The Master enjoys trying to show up or mock the Doctor by imitating him. He’s seen offering jelly babies, a favorite snack of the Fourth Doctor, to his wife in "The Sound of Drums". In that same episode, he also shows off his laser screwdriver, a significant improvement upon the Doctor’s sonic version.
It is hard to deny that the Master has always been insane. However, his most recent incarnation seems even more unhinged than ever. He is plagued by an auditory hallucination in the form of a drumbeat, which he claims he acquired while looking into the Time Vortex as a child. He believes that these drums are calling him to war. So naturally, he has plans to declare war on the entire universe, as well as erect a new Time Lord empire. When his plans are once again foiled, he breaks down in tears while cowering from the Doctor, then attempts to escape and threatens to blow up the planet he’s currently standing on, just so the Doctor can’t have it. While on the surface this whole incident seems pretty characteristic of the Master’s grandiose schemes, his strange whims, violent mood swings and nonsensical back-up plan (blowing himself up and/or refusing to regenerate) make them seem much less cohesive than before. In "The End of Time" he complains that the drums are louder than ever, suggesting that, at least in his timeline, they may have steadily increased in volume over the centuries. This could account for his more recent instability.
The Master’s obsessive nature and desire for power lead him to be something of a control freak. Once he's brought the Earth under his control in "The Sound of Drums", he sets to work creating an almost Orwellian dystopia complete with invasive surveillance and tight control over civilian movement and media outlets. He keeps the Doctor, Jack Harkness, and Martha Jones’ family on board his airship as slaves and prisoners. To further the humiliation, the Doctor is aged dramatically and kept in a doghouse and later a cage, while the Jones women are forced to wear maid outfits.
The Master tends to underestimate the worth and ability of others. He sees other species, humans particularly, as inferior, primitive, and childlike, and has no compunction about slaughtering them if it will suit his purposes. In "Last of the Time Lords" the Master insists on keeping the Doctor close in order to lord over him, for all appearances fails to seriously pursue the escaped Martha Jones, and never considers the potential of human minds to subvert his psychic satellite network. But this oversight isn't just limited to humans. He nearly destroys the universe in "Logopolis" because he fails to understand or respect the function of the Logopolitan mathematicians. In "The End of Time" he shows off his 'Master Race' to Rassilon, threatens to do the same to the Time Lords, and seems shocked when Rassilon quite easily reverses what he's done.
He believes that he is the only one allowed or qualified to be in control. And really, who wouldn't? He (rightly) believes the drums 'chose' him, just as the Time Lords had chosen to resurrect him for the Time War. When he talks about looking in to the Time Vortex as a child in "The End of Time", or mentions the Time Lords at all, there is a sense of being insanely angry at the abuse he's suffered and at the same time strangely proud of his heritage and the fact that few others can claim it. The drums clearly hurt him, but he refuses to let the Doctor help because he wears that pain like a badge of honor. When the Doctor suggests that he wants to take the Master on as a companion in order to keep an eye on him in "Last of the Time Lords", the Master indignantly sputters, “You’re just going to keep me?” This reaction is quite interesting given that the Master 'kept' the Doctor for a year as little more than a pet or punching bag. The Master clearly gives himself privileges or passes he feels the rest of the universe should be denied— even if they are fellow Time Lords. He characteristically works alone and has taken on significantly fewer 'companions' than the Doctor.
Despite his superiority complex, the Master is ultimately a coward. After being resurrected by the Time Lords to fight in the Time War, he chooses to flee instead, going so far as to alter his DNA and become human. He’s often seen running away when his plans go awry. He's also an opportunist though. In several stories he's thrown into an environment where he starts out with almost nothing and has to improvise a plan to scramble back on top (successfully, at least until the Doctor shows up to stop him). His skill in improvisation is really showcased most effectively with his takeover of Naismith's 'Immortality Gate' in "The End of Time"; he's brought in as a prisoner to fix the device, and ends up co-opting it for his own use with hardly any effort at all. And near the end of the story, witness how he switches sides without shame- first attempting to ingratiate himself to Rassilon and steps away from begging for his acceptance... and then when the Doctor has the upper hand, hissing in his ear that he should destroy Rassilon and take over the universe. Since his allegiance to himself is the only unshakable one he possesses, the Master has no qualms about manipulating and lying to others to achieve his goals. He tends to run through a lot of pseudonyms, and though he will be charming when he needs to be, that tends to end once he gets what he wants and has control of the situation.
Since his botched resurrection he's become even more desperate due to the fragile, doomed state of his body. Gone are the fancy suits, frivolous luxuries and meticulous mannerisms-- the Master has to eat near-continuously to replenish his life force, and the simple act of survival takes up a great deal of his time. To disguise himself he badly bleaches his own hair and dons a grubby black hoodie and black trousers that are too big for him. He prowls construction sites and appears dirty and disheveled. It's as if his new, restructured priorities have broken him in some fundamental way: here's the most superior being in the universe forced to behave like a wild animal. He's more emotionally volatile, succumbing to fits of hysterical laughter, extreme rage, and wistful indulgence with a much higher frequency. Twice, right in the middle of a confrontation with the Doctor, he stops to reminisce about Gallifrey, and he actually tears up several times throughout the story: when the Doctor tells him he could be beautiful, when he's begging Rassilon to let him ascend with the Time Lords, and when the Doctor is threatening to kill him.
But through it all, the Master is still extremely proud. When he's in charge of the world again, he doesn't even bother to change his clothes. It's possible that he's putting on a new cloak, so to speak, coping with his disadvantages by pretending they are what make him superior. In other words, being king of the predators is still being king. When he talks about looking into the Untempered Schism or when he faces off against Rassilon, there is a similar sense of being insanely angry at the abuse he's suffered and at the same time strangely proud of his heritage and the fact that few others can claim it.
Conditional: Personality development in previous game: N/A
Character Plans:
Generally the Master has three goals in any jamjar situation: 1) get out; 2) barring that, get control; 3) antagonize the Doctor and/or his companions. I'm happy to see he will have some castmates in the game but am also looking forward to having him team up with non-castmates and to gain allies for however brief an amount of time. I am especially interested in the factions aspect of Siren's Pull; because the Master is a duplicitous character I think it would be fun for him to double-cross and play sides off one another for his own best interests.
I'm also hoping that one way or another he can stabilize himself so that more, um... refined plots can occur. Whether it's another character (e.g. the Doctor or someone with similar skill) or one of the factions, probably one of the first orders of business for me will be figuring out how to keep him from being so hungry all the time.
Appearance/PB: http://www.livejournal.com/allpics.bml?user=pawnofrassilon (in other words, John Simm with hideously bleached hair, in a hideous unwashed hoodie and oh god he's just hideous)
Writing Samples
First Person Sample
(Format: Voice--->Video)
[There's the sound of rustling far too close to a microphone, as if a thumb is being rubbed across it, mixed with ambient noise. The thudding of heavy footsteps and heavier breathing, the clatter of a glass bottle, the squeaking of some unholy thing in the dark. In fact, it sounds suspiciously like the Master is butt-dialing you.
Another thud, long and scraping, a weary sigh abruptly cut off-- and then everything becomes strangely muffled. Someone is laughing, a slow chuckle that grows louder and clearer as it goes on. After a long while of this the Master finally speaks, his voice a husky, urgent hiss. If he could actually spit venom, he would.]
Of course. Of course. As if I'd help you again. Lord Master, King of the Wastelands. The diseased. I still hear them, you know.
[He begins to tap, against something large and metallic and hollow. The raps become faster, louder, until they're loud incoherent bangs.]
One-two-three-four! One-two-three-four! One-two-three-four!
[There's a louder crash when whatever it is tips over, and then a strangled sob.]
Oh, of course you know. You put them there. Why would you ever take them away? You broke me. You used me. And now-- well, look at that. You need me again after all to fulfill your little prophecy.
[Another bitter chuckle, abruptly cut off by a strange electric, sizzling sound-- and then a whimper.]
No. No, you can rot there for eternity instead. In fact, I'll make sure of it.
[Another series of thuds and clacks that are near-deafening. The audio feed cuts out periodically from overload. Then the video feed also kicks in. Have a blurry, off-kilter view of a hooded figure some distance away, huddled in an alley. Suddenly his head perks up, the hood falling back to reveal a face streaked in dirt and blood and who knows what else as he sniffs the air. A twisted grin crawls across his face.]
Doctor.
Third Person Sample
He hits the ground, hard, the shock of it knocking the breath out of him. Not just the impact, no. The shock of still being alive. The Master lies there face-down on the ground looking for all the world like a dead thing, a dark lump with a shock of blond-white hair. The only thing to signal life at all to an outside observer is the fact that this lump flickers faintly, changing from a pile of cloth and bone to a pile of cloth and flesh and then back again. Flesh-to-bone-to-flesh-to-bone-to-flesh...
It's dusty here, and there's dirt up his nose with every ragged breath, but still the Master doesn't move. He's savoring this despite the familiar pangs-- the artron on the one hand, the drums on the other. Somehow he's survived. Somehow he's beaten all of them. Oh, the universe knows its true master!
The hunger is what gets him moving in the end. The Master makes a small, muffled noise, somewhere between a groan and a chuckle, and rolls onto his back. A dark sky stares back at him. It's with a growing sense of unease that the Master realizes it is nearly devoid of any stars. He pushes it down, struggling up to a seated position and scanning the area for signs of movement. Food comes first.
It isn't long before he spots something fluttering nearby, something small and easily taken down even in his weakened state. At first glance it's an Earth pigeon; at second... well, it's already on the way to his stomach by then but the Master can't help but notice the long, scaly tail sliding down his throat after it. Still, it's food. A little tough, but all right.
The Master scrambles to his feet, finally taking in the rest of his surroundings. The baseball diamond tells him this must be Earth gone horribly wrong-- or something that wants him to think it's Earth. His grin widens as he reads some of the signs decorating the chain link fence. You're fucked now, newmeat. Oh, he's going to like it here.
As if on cue, something else shuffles in the darkness behind him, and the Master whips his head around expectantly. He's already drooling, Pavlovian, even before he spots the shadowy figure making its way toward him. This thing is much larger, more humanoid, but that's all right too. The Master can feel the energy returning, sparking at his fingertips in anticipation. He's eaten plenty of humans before.
The figure shuffles into the weak moonlight and the Master stops cold. His eyes squint for a moment and then widen in alarm. Whatever this thing is, it's clearly not human any longer. Long loops of what smells like bile mixed with sulfur drip from a series of wounds in its chest, and from its grinning, stupid mouth. It doesn't seem to care that it's missing a foot and a large chunk of its midsection; it gamely limps along as fast as it can toward the Master.
He's not sure which disgusts him more: the state of the creature, or that he still wants to eat it, desperately. He's caught somewhere between the warring instincts in his body to both flee and fight.
In the end the Master wisely chooses to run.