Wednesday, October 30, 2013

I am the Master, and you will obey me.

Here we are, down to the final two.  Like I said before, the order the top three or so are in could be in any order they are that close.  Here is the second best/worst/important Doctor Who enemy/villain of all time:

 
 


2. The Master

The Master was originally known as Koschei when he grew up on Gallifrey. Despite his childhood being more a life of duty, he had a friendship with the First Doctor. The two youths would play in the fields near Koschei's home which was his father's estates, with pastures of red grass near Mount Perdition. Like all Time Lords, Koschei was taken for his initiation at the age of eight. During the ceremony in which he gazed into the Time Vortex through the Untempered Schism, Koschei went mad. This manifested itself as the constant drumming he heard ever after, worsening with time. Unknown to Koschei, the drumming had been implanted retroactively into his mind by Rassilon as a link to later free the Time Lords from the time-lock imposed upon them. Years later The Master appeared at a circus, with his TARDIS in the form of a circus trailer or horse box. He hypnotized the circus troupe to obey his orders as part of his plan to assist the Nestenes in their latest bid to conquer Earth. A Time Lord emissary alerted the Doctor to his rival's presence on the planet. After the failure of his plan, the Master fled. The Doctor had already taken his de-materialization circuit, however, preventing the Master from leaving Earth in his TARDIS. The Master returned again, posing as the scientist Emil Keller who had "developed" the Keller Machine (in reality a living alien entity). He used prisoners as a plan to hijack a missile containing nerve gas and use it to cause a conflict that would trigger a nuclear war. The Doctor stopped him and destroyed the missile, but later discovered he had lost the Master's de-materialization circuit back. Shortly after, the Master telephoned to let it be known that he had found the circuit and was free now to come and go as he pleased, while the Doctor had to remain in exile. The Master eventually recovered full functionality of his TARDIS and brought Axos to Earth, hoping to ally himself with them. Instead, he became the prisoner of Axos, and only escaped by saying that he would help it. The Doctor tricked the Master into thinking he was going to betray Earth. Instead, he trapped the Master with Axos in a time loop. Utilising records stolen from the Time Lords, the Master, posing as an Adjudicator, travelled to a human colony on the planet Uxarieus in the year 2472. There the records indicated he would find the Doomsday Weapon created by a near-extinct native species. Once again the Doctor defeated his plans. In the Wiltshire village of Devil's End, the Master summoned the ancient Dæmon Azal, but he failed to understand the power and control that was necessary following summoning him. Following Azal's confrontation with Jo Grant's selflessness, he was captured by UNIT following a failed attempt to escape in the Doctor's car, Bessie. After a trial by human authorities, the Master was sentenced to life-long imprisonment on an island off of the coast of England, one designed especially to hold him. When he was finally sent to Fortress Island, the Master quickly gained control over his jailer, George Trenchard, and nearly caused a war between humans and Sea Devils, a species related to the Silurians. The Master travelled to ancient Atlantis and, confronting the Doctor there, brought forth Kronos, king of the Chronovores. Kronos captured him but allowed him to go free. He forged a short-lived alliance with the Daleks, acting as their agent to provoke warfare between the Earth Empire and the Draconian Empire in the 26th century. To achieve this, he employed a force of Ogrons who, through the use of hypnosound, made themselves appear human or Draconian, thus provoking the other side. When the Doctor revealed the true perpetrators, the plot was abandoned. Later, while investigating the materialization of an unauthorized TARDIS, the Time Lord Chancellor Goth arrived on Tersurus, where he found the Master in a wasted condition - that of a decaying animated corpse. The Master sensed that Goth wished for power and offered it to him, whilst Goth, thinking that the Master was a dying "creature," thought he could control the Master for his own means. The Master made Goth, in line for the position of Lord President of the High Council of Time Lords, into his slave, continuing to promise him power. Whilst on Gallifrey, he also took over the mind of Solis, one of the Chancellory Guard. With a telepathic summons and a vision of the future created by the Matrix, the Master lured the Fourth Doctor to Gallifrey, seemingly to prevent the murder of the then-serving Lord President. The Doctor failed and ended up on trial for the President's murder. Whilst the Doctor was on trial the Master killed others on Gallifrey through the use of his Tissue Compression Eliminator, leaving them to be found like a grisly calling card for the Doctor. Secretly, the Master had access to the Matrix. He also had guessed the secret of the Eye of Harmony and various artifacts left behind by Rassilon. He realized that the Eye of Harmony, a black hole, resided beneath the Panopticon and, realizing that it had immense power, believed he could use the Sash of Rassilon to protect himself from the raw power of the Eye and the destruction that unleashing it would cause. He thought that he could channel that energy to renew himself. The Doctor defeated the Master in physical combat, and as a result, the Master appeared to have fallen into a crevice created by a localized earthquake. In fact, he had gained access to his TARDIS, disguised as a grandfather clock, and escaped. The Master was drawn to and became stranded on the planet Traken, the center of the Traken Union, in a TARDIS configured into the sculpture-shaped Melkur. The Master plotted to take over the Source also located on the planet Traken, the power behind the Traken Union, and use it to restore himself. To this end, over a period of years, he won over Kassia, who later married Tremas and became a stepmother to Nyssa. His plans were thwarted when the Keeper summoned the Fourth Doctor and Adric, who had sensed something of his machinations. With the help of Tremas and Nyssa, the Doctor removed the Master from the Source. However, with some of the Keeper's powers lingering, the Master merged with Tremas, stealing his body. The Master, in his new Trakenite body, went to Earth, where he trapped the Doctor's TARDIS in a gravity bubble. He killed Tegan's aunt Vanessa and a police constable with his Tissue Compression Eliminator. He went to Logopolis, where he pretended to be Tremas to get Nyssa's cooperation, giving her a bracelet that allowed him to control her arm. Using her as a hostage, he perverted the Block Transfer Computations and held the planet for ransom until its secret was revealed. This made the causal nexus unravel and release an unstoppable wave of entropy to destroy the universe. He also broke the Logopolitans' blockade of entropy, allowing it to swallow several galaxies, including the entire Traken Union. The entropy wave was so threatening that the Master agreed to work with the Fourth Doctor to stop it. They travelled to the Pharos Project on Earth to do so, using the last theorem of Logopolis to reopen Charged Vacuum Emboitments, or CVEs. His true plan was revealed however, when he sent a message to the peoples of the universe that he would stop the entropy only if they submitted to his rule. While stopping the Master's signal to shut down the CVE that would halt the entropy wave, the Doctor fell off the Pharos Project's radio telescope and regenerated, allowing the Master to escape. The Master kidnapped Adric and held him in a hadron web to make him a part of his TARDIS. Using a projection of Adric on board the TARDIS, the Master sent the newly-regenerated Fifth Doctor hurtling to destruction at Event One, but the Doctor saved his TARDIS through the Architectural Configuration. The Master used Adric's block transfer computations to create Castrovalva in the Andromeda Galaxy, where the Doctor would recover from his regeneration. He escaped from the recursion trap and tried to kill the Doctor, but was attacked by the enraged citizens with the city itself due to collapse.

 

 



 

Afterwards The Master travelled to Earth in 140,000,000 BC, where he disguised himself as the magician Kalid, hoping to use the Xeraphin gestalt to replace his dynamorphic generators. He brought two Concordes to his Citadel via a time contour. The second held the Doctor, his TARDIS and companions. He originally planned to use the captured passengers to break into the Sanctum and take control of the Xeraphin and add him to his TARDIS, but then he acquired the Doctor's TARDIS in a trade with him for a part the Doctor needed for his own TARDIS. The Xeraphin contacted Nyssa and let Tegan and her enter the Citadel, where he revealed his true form. The Master held the passengers hostage for parts from the Doctor's TARDIS. The second Concorde was returned to its own time and the Master ended up on Xeriphas with the freed and angry Xeraphin. On Xeriphas, he found and acquired Kamelion, a shape-changing android that could be easily controlled by a strong mind. Managing to elude Xeraphin, the Master escaped to England in 1215. He disguised himself as the French knight Sir Giles and made Kamelion impersonate John of England to prevent the signing of the Magna Carta. However, the arrival of the Doctor caused interference with his plans. After the Doctor defeated him in a joust, the Master fled in his TARDIS after the still-disguised Kamelion offered the Doctor the choice of saving him or another captive. Directly following these events, the High Council of the Time Lords discovered that earlier incarnations of the Doctor had been taken into the Death Zone on Gallifrey. They asked the Master for help and offered him a new cycle of regenerations. He agreed and was given a copy of the Seal of the High Council by the Castellan. The Doctor's third incarnation did not believe him and took the seal from him. He made a temporary alliance with the Cybermen to guide them to the Dark Tower. He informed the First Doctor how to get past security, but then grew power-hungry at the mention of immortality. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart knocked him unconscious and Sarah Jane Smith and Tegan Jovanka bound him. After Borusa was encased in Rassilon's tomb, Rassilon sent the Master back to his own time. The Master developed a more powerful version of the Tissue Compression Eliminator and accidentally shrank himself and his lab, without the ill effect of death. Using a device to boast his telepathy, the Master made contact with Kamelion once more, directing him to use the Fifth Doctor's TARDIS to land on planet Sarn. With Kamelion acting as his physical proxy, the Master had him pretend to be the locals' god and order the Doctor's death. When this failed, he had Kamelion take the small box his lab had become and take it to the lab on Sarn that used Numismaton Gas, hoping it could restore him. As the Master stood in a gas vent and returned to normal size, the Doctor used the gas to burn him (apparently) to death.

 

 

Rumors of his demise were severely mistaken. The Master allied with the Rani (whom he knew as a member of the Deca on Gallifrey) in Killingworth, an early 19th century English mining village, against the Sixth Doctor and Peri Brown; he hoped to hasten the advancement of Earth's technology for his own nefarious reasons while the Rani wanted the brain chemical that induced sleep. The Doctor trapped the Master and the Rani in her TARDIS, which the Doctor had sabotaged; time spillage put them in danger of being eaten by a tyrannosaurus rex. Recovering his own TARDIS and learning of the Valeyard, the Master materialized in the Matrix and observed the Sixth Doctor's trial on Space Station Zenobia while examining the Matrix footage himself to see what was tampered with. He considered the Valeyard a rival and rescued the Doctor rather than have the Valeyard win as the darker version of his foe was someone he believed unbeatable. He used Sabalom Glitz, always ready to work with anyone for a quick grotzit, as a tool. He tried to steal secrets from the Matrix, but he was double-crossed by the Valeyard, and imprisoned in the Matrix with a limbo atrophier. Later, the Master went to the Cheetah World, where he took control of the Cheetah People and the kitlings. He sent them to Ace's home in the London suburb of Perivale and hunted for human recruits. At the same time, exposure to the planet had changed him into a Cheetah Person. He found a pliable young man called Midge and used him to escape. The Seventh Doctor and Ace found him. The Master killed Midge and teleported the Doctor to the Cheetah World, which had begun to break up. The Doctor escaped but the Master was trapped on the dying world.

 

 

The Master was used as a bargaining tool and played a part in a peace treaty between the Daleks and the Time Lords where he was to be handed over to the Daleks and executed for past war crimes. The Master's "last wish" was for his remains to be transported to Gallifrey but his essence survived in a fluid-like form that was known as a Deathworm Morphant. After The Doctor was nearly killed by a Chinese street gang the remains of The Master was able to inhabit the body of one of the responding paramedics named Bruce and played by Eric Roberts. The transformation into Bruce involved some complications. His eyes retained the "cat's eye" appearance, forcing him to wear sunglasses to remain inconspicuous. Also, Bruce's body began to decay rapidly. The Master befriended Chang Lee, a young gang member who had been present when the Doctor was shot, and who had stolen the TARDIS key. With Chang Lee's help, he entered the Doctor's TARDIS and regaled Chang Lee with stories of the Doctor's supposed villainy (claiming, among other things, the Doctor had stolen the Master's regenerations). As part of his plan to take the Doctor's lives, he intended to open the Eye of Harmony, destroying the Earth in the process. With Chang Lee's further help, he was able to open the Eye. He discovered that the Doctor had regenerated into a new form, and that the Doctor was half-human. This answered a few of the Master's longstanding questions about his foe. After fully regaining his memory, the Eighth Doctor and his companion, Dr. Grace Holloway, made their way back to the TARDIS where the Master, now dressed in Gallifreyan robes, greeted his enemy. In the ensuing battle, the Master used mind control on Grace. He also killed Lee by snapping his neck when Lee realized the truth about the Master after the Master accidentally revealed that he had wasted all of his lives in fighting the Doctor, rather than the Doctor having stolen them. Although the Master was able to initiate the transfer process that would give him access to the Doctor's remaining lives, Grace was able to prevent this by rerouting the TARDIS' power and sending the ship into a temporal orbit. With the Master's body dying as the Doctor's regenerations were returned to him, the two Time Lords fought near the Eye of Harmony, culminating in the Master falling into it when he leaped at the Doctor and misjudged the angle. The Doctor said the Master had been "eaten" by the TARDIS.

 

 

 

 

The Master was once again resurrected, this time by the Time Lords during the Last Great Time War. They believed that he would be a perfect warrior for the Time War, due to his savagery. He was present when the Dalek Emperor took control of the Cruciform. Frightened by the horror of the Time War, he ran away to the end of the universe. There, he used a chameleon arch to hide himself as a human, Professor Yana. Physically human, Yana believed that he was found on the coast of the Silver Devastation with only an "heirloom" fob watch. His memory of his past was that the watch could never keep time and was always late for things. He believed that he spent his life moving from one refugee ship to another and all his life he heard the sound of drums every waking hour as if they were getting closer. However, it was likely that none of what Yana believed about himself was any more true than that which, for example, John Smith gave to Joan Redfern. Yana retained the Master's brilliant intellect and ultimately became involved in the attempt to send the remnants of humanity to Utopia. He eventually became friends with another scientist, Chantho, who was thought to be the last of the Malmooth race. Together, they worked on the Utopia Project to convey the surviving humans from the planet Malcassairo to Utopia. Yana met the Tenth Doctor, Jack Harkness and Martha Jones, who spoke phrases curiously familiar to him, phrases such as Time Vortex, "extermination", Time War, Daleks and regeneration. Martha made the Professor aware of a watch in his possession. Hearing voices in his mind that commanded and entreated him, he opened it and returned to his true identity. He then attacked his assistant, angered that Chantho was too inept to return his memories after decades. He had also grown sick of her presence as he waited to be restored. Vengeful, he electrocuted her with a loose set of power cables, leaving Chantho for dead. However, Chantho used the last of her strength to pull a laser gun on the Master while his back was turned, and shot him in the chest before she succumbed to death. Fatally wounded, the Master regenerated into a younger incarnation and escaped to Earth in the Doctor's TARDIS.

 

 

 

With his new body, the Master left the Doctor on the planet Malcassairo with Futurekind about to burst in the laboratory door. The Master now had the TARDIS and the Doctor's hand (which Jack Harkness had taken with him to Malcassairo) that contained the Doctor's DNA. Because of the Doctor's last-minute intervention, the TARDIS would only take the Master to Earth in the 2000s. There, he began fabricating Harold Saxon's past to gain political support. He made his first public appearance about eighteen months before the Doctor reunited with his companion Jack Harkness, shortly after the downfall of Harriet Jones. The Master unveiled the Archangel Network, which was hailed as a telecommunications breakthrough. By this point he had taken the identity of Harold Saxon, complete with a fabricated past. By December 2007, he had become Minister of Defense of Great Britain. On Christmas Eve, he came to real prominence for the first time, ordering British Army tanks to destroy the Empress of the Racnoss' web star. In 2007, he campaigned for the general election as Prime Minister of Great Britain with the slogan "Vote Saxon". "Saxon" asserted that extraterrestrial life did exist and Britain must do something about it. With his election a sure thing, politicians from other parties flocked to his side. The Master started the Archangel Network. 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 "Saxon", though 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. He also designed the Valiant, UNIT's air carrier, and a laser screwdriver which he reserved for his own use. "Saxon" funded the rejuvenation experiments of Richard Lazarus. The Master contacted the Toclafane, the child-like, vicious cyborg remnants of the future humans who had never found Utopia. To allow the Toclafane to escape extinction and live anew in the past, he cannibalized and converted the Doctor's TARDIS into a paradox machine to change history. After Martha had left with the Doctor, he had an agent meet with Martha's mother, Francine, who tapped into a conversation between Francine and Martha via the super phone, which could contact Martha through space and time. Before the Doctor, Martha and Captain Jack arrived back from the end of the universe, the Master had sent Jack's Torchwood team on a wild-goose chase to the Himalayas. In 2008, he was elected Prime Minister. He announced first contact with the "friendly" Toclafane who could protect Earth against alien threats. Though he kept up appearances with the public, the Master began to deal with private matters severely. He gathered his Cabinet for a meeting and accused them of being traitors who abandoned 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. 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 President of the United States, Arthur Coleman Winters. He captured the Doctor, Jack, and Martha's family, 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, he used his laser screwdriver to age the Doctor one hundred years. The Master ordered the Toclafane to kill one tenth of humanity and commence their invasion. Martha escaped capture on the Valiant and travelled the world. One year later, in 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 channeled through the Archangel Network, which the Doctor had spent a year infiltrating telepathically. The psychic energy restored the Doctor and gave him telekinetic powers. 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 rather than receive the Doctor's mercy. He died in the Doctor's arms. As far as the general public knew, Harold Saxon "went crazy" and disappeared, along with President Winters.

 

 

The Master was resurrected when his wife Lucy Saxon was imprisoned at Broadfell Prison, London. One of the warders, Miss Trefusis, retrieved the Master's ring from his funeral pyre. On Christmas Eve 2009, the prison governor brought Lucy 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 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 all killed in the resulting explosion. he 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. At times when his life force dipped to near depletion or he expressed strong emotion, his outer skin would fade away and reveal the translucent blue life energy encasing his body. This exposed his skeleton and internal organs, and each fluctuation made an unsettling noise likened to an abominable, primal roar. He 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 Wilf interrupted the chase. Encountering the Master soon after, the Tenth Doctor discovered the drumming in his head was not a symptom of insanity, but real. Billionaire Joshua Naismith kidnapped the Master and enlisted his assistance to mend the malfunctioning Vinvocci medical machine, the Immortality Gate. The Master cooperated 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 Wilfred Mott and his granddaughter Donna, into the Master Race - identical copies of the Master subservient to him. The High Council of Time Lords made contact with the Master using the rhythm of the drumbeats in his head - the same rhythm as the Time Lord's heartbeat - and sent him a White-Point Star, found only on Gallifrey, to boost the signal. Fitting the diamond to a nuclear bolt to boost the signal, 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 President revealed his plans from the final days of the Time War, but the Doctor stepped in with Wilfred's pistol. After some hesitation, he shot the nuclear bolt holding the White-Point Star, destroying the link. Rassilon prepared to kill the Doctor, but the Master told the Doctor to step out of the way. He 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 according to the Tenth Doctor, Gallifrey and the Time Lords were sent "back into [the] hell" of the final day of the Time War. It is uncertain what happened to the Master himself, but it was believed that either he was sent with Gallifrey and the Time Lords into the last day of the Time War, or that he used up the last of his life energy in his attack on Rassilon and perished.

 

 

Unlike the Doctor, the Master usually worked and travelled alone. On rare occasion, he was seen with companions. Examples included Chang Lee, a young human whom the Master met in San Francisco, Chantho, a female assistant and companion to the Master in his Professor Yana identity, and Lucy Saxon, his wife, who was described as having travelled with the Master in the TARDIS in the same fashion as the Doctor and his companions. The Masters first appearance was in season 8 featuring the third Doctor in the story Terror of The Autons. He has appeared in a total of 26 stories facing many versions of The Doctor. He grew up with the first version, then met the third Doctor in his first appearance in the show. The only Doctors he has not faced off against are the second, ninth, and eleventh.

 

 

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

We have finally arrived at the Big 3.  When it comes to Doctor Who villains/enemies it really comes down to the three that have appeared in the most episodes/stories.  With that in mind I present to you:

 
 


3. Cybermen


Cybermen were originally a wholly organic species of humanoids who originated on Earth's former twin planet, Mondas. Mondas drifted into the outer solar system. To survive, the natives of that world adapted by turning themselves into cyborgs. Nearly all were silver save for one black variety (for stealth) surviving in the London sewers. They had exposed circuitry and tubing which may have contained hydraulic fluids for motion, covering a rubber or Mylar-like outer skin. The Mondans which the First Doctor met in 1986 had undergone a less radical conversion and still retained biological hands; it is possible these Cybermen were prototypes. All other Cybermen were entirely covered by their metallic suits. These Cybermen had several major weaknesses. The most notable was the element gold. Gold, being non-corrosive, choked their respiratory systems. 20th century guns barely fazed Cybermen, though explosives and bazooka shells could take them down. UNIT would develop gold-tipped rounds for Cybermen. In later centuries, the Cybermen would take hits from laser guns and energy weapons: at close range, this could destroy them. Another version of Cybermen originated in another universe, where they were created by John Lumic, the owner of Cybus Industries. His Cybermen believed that all of humanity must be "upgraded" to cyber-form so that information would never be lost and that the humans' physical and emotional weaknesses were abolished. The cyber-suit was constructed from bulletproof steel. A chest plate with the Cybus Industries logo housed a "heart of steel", the function of which is unclear, and the emotional inhibitor chip. The brain was contained within the head. Artificially grown nervous tissue was threaded throughout the body so the Cyberman responded like a fully biological organism. Without a brain inserted, the cyber-suit was a robot. Even when disembodied, the various parts of the suit – arm, head and torso – had sufficient processing capacity to pursue and attack a human target. Cyber-conversion usually involved removing the brain of the subject painfully and placing it within a suit of armor. Once complete, the new Cybermen had a special implant which prevented them from feeling emotions. If the implants were disrupted, the Cybermen entered into a traumatic state caused by the pain of the conversion. This inevitably resulted in an agonizing death from the overload of emotions. The Cyber Legions were a major power in space possessing at least twelve fleets in the 52nd century. Outwardly these Cybermen resemble the Cybermen of Cybus Industries but their chest logo features a simple circle instead of the Cybus logo. Their arsenal consists of large handheld weapons which are sometimes used in place of wrist blasters. In 2011, a group of Cybermen were encountered by the Eleventh Doctor and Craig Owens. They were based in a crashed ship which the Doctor claimed had been crashed for "centuries". The Cybermen were defeated when Craig's love for his son Alfie allowed him to resist Cyber-conversion and created a surge of emotion which destroyed the Cybermen. In the 52nd century, the Twelfth Cyber Legion was positioned 20,000 light years away from Demons Run when it was obliterated, the Eleventh Doctor and Rory Williams who were planning to assault the asteroid station to rescue Amy and Melody Pond. This gave the Cyber-Leader little choice but to give them the information on Demons Run they needed. The dead suit of one of the Cybermen was recovered after the Cyber-Wars and used as a chess-playing robot at Hedgewick's World of Wonders and was considered one of the 699 Wonders of the Universe. Some Cybermites waited inside the suit for a chance to wake three million other Cybermen left over from the Cyber-Wars from their tombs. The Cyber-suit was destroyed when Emperor Ludens Nimrod Kendrick Cord Longstaff XLI set off a bomb to kill the Cybermen emerging from hibernation, destroying the planet. Counting their first appearance in The Tenth Planet, the Cybermen (in one version or another) have faced off against the Doctor in 20 stories. In those 20 stories they have opposed every regeneration of the Doctor to date except for the eighth and ninth versions. The ninth Doctor did however, see a Cyberman head in a museum during the episode titled Dalek but was never seen fighting against them.




Saturday, October 19, 2013

 
 

4. Davros

Davros was born in the later part of the Thousand Year War between the Kaleds and the Thals on the planet Skaro. It was a time when mercy and nobility were all but non-existent on Skaro and life was harsh and grim. Shortly after his stepfather's death, Davros joined the Military Youth before joining the Military Corps in his final year of college. He was put in charge of developing new weapons and gadgets to help Kaled soldiers. After his mother killed his father, sister and aunt, Davros no longer had anyone to impress. In honour of Yarvell's death, he and his mother commissioned a statue to house her ashes. In reality, however, Davros used her body for his genetic research. One month after the death of his mother, Davros was grievously wounded by a Thal bombardment of his laboratory in the Kaled Dome which cost him his eyes, taste buds, left arm and entire lower body. As a result, he was forced to spend the rest of his life confined to a mobile life support system. Thirty seconds without his life support could have kill him. The life support system is controlled by a switch on the panel of buttons on his system. Davros had a sound mind early in his life, but the incident that crippled him and his overall experiences in the Thal-Kaled war left him a depraved and insane megalomaniac. He became tyrannical and ruthless, tolerating no opposition to his will and dismissing fairness and democracy as "the creeds of cowards". With his equally ruthless aide, Nyder, Davros ascended to a high rank in the Kaled Scientific Elite and ultimately presided over the creation of the Daleks. Intervention by the Time Lords began a chain of events. The Fourth Doctor was sent to Skaro when Davros first demonstrated the Daleks to the Kaled Scientific Elite. Davros imprisoned the Doctor. He used a lie detector to force the Doctor to reveal the details of the Daleks' future defeats, so that he could learn from them and so his creations, the Daleks, could avoid them. (The Doctor later had this record destroyed.) Davros refused to listen to the Doctor when he begged him to instead make the Daleks peaceful creatures of good, rather than the evil exterminators they would become. The Daleks eventually exterminated Nyder. Davros soon became their next victim, ironically because of the programming that he himself had given them: to exterminate all those who were not pure Dalek. He begged them to have pity on him but they stated that were incapable of doing so as he had not programmed them to feel pity. Davros' suspended body was eventually found in the underground remains of the crumbled bunker and he was revived. Davros opted to help the Daleks in their war against the Movellans. He devised a plan to destroy a Movellan ship. After this failed, he was captured by the Doctor and the escaped Dalek slaves, and imprisoned in a cryogenic freezer as "a block of ice". After ninety years, the Daleks, led by the Dalek Supreme, liberated Davros from his prison station in space, and revived him again. They believed he might help them to find a cure for the virus with which the Movellans defeated them, a virus that attacked only Dalek tissue. Davros released the Movellan virus onto the prison ship, killing all the Daleks on board. The virus began affecting Davros, who promptly fled in an escape pod. Davros survived and set himself up as "The Great Healer" on the planet Necros and lured the Sixth Doctor there. Using the bodies of the dead at Tranquil Repose, Davros created a new race of Daleks with white and gold livery. These would become "Imperial Daleks". The new faction was totally loyal to him. By the time of his attempt to recover the Hand of Omega from Earth in November 1963, Davros had proclaimed himself the Dalek Emperor. He was completely encased within an Imperial Dalek-like shell, though his head and upper body still appeared to be at least partially Kaled. He was nearly killed when his ship was destroyed by the Hand of Omega, but survived once again in an escape pod. Davros was a commander of the Daleks in the Last Great Time War, only to supposedly die during the first year of the conflict at the Gates of Elysium, when his command ship flew into the jaws of the Nightmare Child. However, Dalek Caan broke the time lock and saved him from death. Davros rebuilt the Dalek race by using his own cells, leaving his internal organs and skeleton exposed. Davros called these Daleks his "children". After Davros was rescued by Dalek Caan and had finished creating his new army of Daleks, he used a planet-sized ship known as the Crucible to "steal" planets from across space and time. They took the planets to the Medusa Cascade in a pocket of time one second out of sync with the rest of the universe. Davros had once again become a slave of the Daleks, who had placed him under guard within the Vault on the Crucible as part of a deal he made with the Supreme One. This arrangement required Davros to build a Reality bomb powered by the Crucible and the twenty-seven planets in the Medusa Cascade to destroy all of existence, leaving the Daleks the sole inhabitants of the universe. However, the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor and Donna intervened, destroying the new Daleks and leaving Davros on a burning Crucible. Before leaving in the TARDIS, the real Doctor offered to save Davros, but the creator of the Daleks refused, blaming the Doctor for what had happened and naming him "The Destroyer of Worlds". Davros's ultimate fate was never confirmed. The final words Davros ever spoke were to insult the Doctor as he screamed "You are the destroyer of worlds!". Davros first appeared in Genesis of the Daleks where he met the fourth Doctor. He would later go on to face the fifth, sixth, seventh, and tenth Doctors as well. Aside from the seven stories, Davros also appeared in three other episodes in flashback/archival footage.




Wednesday, October 16, 2013

We are down to the big 5.  The Top 5 Dr. Who villains/enemies in the history of the show.  So on we go with: 

 
 
 


5. The Time Lords

 


The Time Lords are the rulers of the planet Gallifrey. The Gallifreyans had one of the oldest and mightiest civilizations in the universe. As the Time Lords, they would hold absolute power for ten million years. The Last Great Time War nearly wiped out the race. Like humans, Gallifreyans can be male or female. Females are sometimes referred to as Time Ladies. Their sex can change due to regeneration. Their life cycle seemed to include a phase similar to human childhood. A Gallifreyan ninety years old might still be considered a "kid", but after the age of two hundred years they wouldn't be seen as young. They could live for hundreds of years before regenerating. When a Time Lord eventually dies, either through the exhaustion of their regenerations or through circumventing the regeneration process, it was considered necessary to destroy their corpse soon afterwards. In at least one case, the death of a Time lord eventually left behind no body, but a dangerous index of their 'time stream'. This could be entered into by anyone, scattering them along the Time Lord's timeline, with potentially disastrous results. The protection of the Time Lords was carried out by the Chancellery Guard. They protected the Capitol, investigated crimes and captured criminals. The punishments used for crimes varied in severity. For his breaking of the non-interference policy, the Second Doctor was forced to regenerate and was exiled to Earth with a non-functioning TARDIS. For the various crimes the Master committed, his punishment would have been the reversal of his time stream, such that he had never existed. A similar punishment was carried out on the War Lord for his interference in human history which led to the deaths of thousands; he (and several of his guards) were dematerialized out of existence. The War Lord world was then placed in a time loop. When the Doctor was framed for assassinating the Time Lord President, he would have been vaporized if found guilty. During a darker, more barbarous time in the planet's past, Time Lords enjoyed watching time-displaced individuals fight to the death in a dedicated area called the Death Zone, but that practice had been entirely abandoned by the Doctor's day. The Time Lords are superlatively advanced in mathematics, biology, xenobiology, chemistry, physics and technology. Despite being one of the most powerful species in the universe, the Time Lords had little in the way of defenses and their offensive technology was lagging behind many other civilizations. This may be due in part to the transduction barrier, which covered the planet and which was almost completely impenetrable by outside forces or their general policy of non-interference. As such, when they were invaded by the Sontarans, they were unable to defend themselves with their regular tasers and the Fourth Doctor needed to use an ancient Time Lord weapon called the De-mat Gun. During the Last Great Time War the Capitol was protected by a set of Dual Turrets set around it, they were used to destroy attacking ships. This lack of military knowledge may have been a factor in their inability to defeat the Daleks by force of arms during the Last Great Time War. The Lord President Rassilon had a metallic glove which was capable of destroying a person by shooting out electricity and it reverted the Master Race to its human form. The most characteristic technology used by the Time Lords is their time travel technology of the TARDISes. The TARDISes are one of the few types of technology that was updated, from the obsolete Type 40 (from Mark I to Mark IV) to the more advanced Type 57. The Time Lords have the capability to control and use the power of stars. The Tenth Doctor went so far as to claim that the Time Lords "invented" black holes. Using the Hand of Omega, the Time Lords could speed up the development of stars. One such star had been turned into a black hole and was kept under the Panopticon as the Eye of Harmony to power the civilization of the Time Lords. They first appeared in the second Doctors story The War Games where they forced his second regeneration to the third Doctor. Over the coarse of the years they would appear in fifteen more stories for a total of 16 appearances. They have confronted Doctors one through six and the tenth and eleventh Doctors.
 
We are getting so much closer to the 50th Anniversary special that the excitement is becoming overwhelming.  Before that happens though we still have Halloween happening and if you are a huge Halloween fanatic you should be visiting out old friend Cerpts (and I do mean old!!) over at his blog The Land of Cerpts and Honey.  He has something going on the entire month of October!  If you don't go over there than I'm just going to have to send out an Adipose and give it specific instructions to not stop eating until you are totally devoured!  Then after you do that you can come back here in a few days when I will have #4 posted as we head toward Halloween night ourselves when we will be revealing the #1 Doctor Who villain of all time.  Until then run you clever boy (or girl) and ... REMEMBER! 




Wednesday, October 9, 2013


Seeing as how it is nearly Halloween this would be a perfect time to continue with the top Doctor Who enemies of all time. Beginning with this one:

 
 
 

10. The Ice Warriors


A reptilian humanoid creature from Mars, the Ice Warriors are described as biomechanoid cyborgs by the eleventh Doctor. An adult fully armored Iced Warrior can stand up to seven feet tall. Without the armor they have flat faces with fangs and a green tongue. Ice Warriors consider it incredibly dishonorable to remove their armor, and thus only removed it under the most extreme circumstances. Sometimes they are seen with three claws and sometimes with five. The Ice Warriors speak in a slow drawn out hiss. This may or may not be effected by the difference of gravity on earth as that of Mars. The have a tendency to wheeze and move slowly possibly due to a lack of air. Ice Warriors have a strong sense of personal honor. After the Third Doctor saved the life of the Ice Lord Izlyr, he felt obligated to help the Doctor escape. Ice Warriors live in clans and have a hereditary caste system. Fathers pass on land to their adult sons. This feudal way of life continued until the era of the Galactic Federation. Ice Warriors have small sonic weapons in the wrist of their armor as a personal defense weapon. The Ice Warriors are capable of deploying seeds on a planet which alter the environment and make it an icy world. The Ice Warriors, led by Sloar, invaded the central T-Mat base on the Moon which regulated global T-Mat operations. He attempted to use a fungus, which would turn the Earth into a more hospitable planet for them. The Second Doctor and his companions stopped him. Accounts differ as to the downfall of the Ice Warriors, with some mentioning them being at their peak and active thousands of years BC. As Mars became colder, the Ice Warriors adapted to use what the Eleventh Doctor called "survival armor" to survive in the freezing cold temperates. Circa 3000 BC — by Professor Grisenko's reckoning — the Ice Warriors had a mighty empire and a fleet. The fleet was led by the Nix Tharsis and commanded by Grand Marshall Skaldak. In unknown circumstances, Skaldak was trapped under the ice of the North Pole on Earth and was frozen for thousands of years. In 1983, Grand Marshal Skaldak, who had been frozen in ice for over 5000 years, was brought aboard the Soviet submarine, the Firebird. A crew member decided to thaw the ice before they reached Moscow, and Skaldak was revived. After revealing himself, Skaldak was attacked by the crew and imprisoned. He used his armour to send a distress beacon. Managing to escape by leaving his suit, Skaldak noticed that his distress call hadn't been answered. Believing his race to be dead, Skaldak attempted to use the sub's nuclear arsenal to attack the humans on Earth, allowing the two superpowers to strike back in mutually assured destruction. The Eleventh Doctor and Clara Oswald attempted to talk him into showing mercy. Before he made a decision, Skaldak was rescued by his people. After being brought onto their ship, Skaldak remotely deactivated the launch procedure. By the late 40th century, the Ice Warriors (still in the Galactic Federation) had, for the most part, renounced their war-like ways. The Tenth Doctor believed that the Ice Warriors may have frozen their water to prevent the Flood from escaping and killing all Ice Warriors on Mars. The second Doctor was the first to meet the creatures in the self titled episode the Ice Warriors. Later they would meet the second Doctor again in season 6 episode The Seeds of Death. The third Doctor also met The Ice Warriors a few times. After appearing in the season eleven episode The Monster of Peladon they would not be seen again until the seventh season of the new series. They met the eleventh Doctor in Cold War.



 

9. The Autons

 

The Autons are artificial life forms, essentially life sized plastic dummies, animated by the Nestene Consciousness. Though they are not the only creations of the Nestene Consciousness, they are the most common and the most easily identifiable. The typical Auton does not look particularly lifelike. It resembles a mannequin, robotic in its movements and mute, although an Auton leader might speak in a robotic voice. Despite their solid appearance, Autons can change the shape of their features and limbs. More sophisticated Autons can be created. They look and act human except for a slight sheen to the skin and a flat-sounding voice. Autons can also copy specific individuals, though these copies were imperfect. When duplicated, the originals are kept alive to maintain the copy. Mickey Smith was copied by the Nestene to gather information on the Ninth Doctor. Even more accurate Autons can be made, identical in appearance and actions to their models. These Autons are implanted with false memories and actually believe themselves the subjects they duplicated. The models taken from a memory print of Amy Pond could mimic humans perfectly and were used as sleeper agents. The Nestene Consciousness later asserted its influence over them. Somehow, perhaps due to Amy's proximity to a time crack her entire life, one of the duplicate Autons, the copy of her fiancée Rory, partially resisted the control of the Nestene Consciousness. Autons are extremely long-"lived"; The Auton duplicate of Rory existed for almost two thousand years with no visible signs of wear, even with the link to the Consciousness broken by the latters erasure from the universe. They are vulnerable to intense heat, as this causes them to melt. Radio waves can also destroy them, as they interfere with the Nestene's mental control. Bullets have almost no effect on them. When the Nestene Consciousness joined the Alliance, they produced Autons disguised as Roman soldiers in 102. River Song once dated an Auton with a removable/replaceable head. Their first appearance was in Spearhead from Space where they were the first nemesis of the third Doctor. They have faced off against the ninth, tenth, and eleventh Doctor.

 
 



8. The Silurians/Sea Devils

 

The Silurians are a technologically advanced species of Earth reptile. They live along side their aquatic cousins the Sea Devils. The Silurians were the original masters of Earth. They were led by the Triad and used the Sea Devils as soldiers. The Silurians are a varied species, with different subspecies and appearances; there are at least ten or eleven Silurian variations. There are also clans or families with different physical characteristics, some suited for environments of extreme cold or high plateaus. They are basically humanoid reptilians with scaly crests on their head. Silurians are cold blooded and can only survive at warmer temperatures. They are sluggish and slow when cold. Some Silurians can live up to 300 years. Most Silurians possess a third eye on the forehead. The three eyes provide them with a triple-faceted form of vision. The top eye sees in infrared. The third eye is capable of harming organic beings, killing them or leaving them unconscious. They can also revive a human that has been rendered unconscious with the third eye. Energies emanating from it allows them to burn through walls and create tunnels. The Silurians also use their third eye to activate their technology, opening passageways or creating force fields to trap prisoners. Not all Silurians have these third eyes; a tribe found in Wales do not. The Silurians found in Wales used guns reminiscent of Sea Devil guns which could fire fatal energy beams. They also wore armor and used special masks that covered their faces and allowed them to scan objects. The Silurians are generally a peaceful race. Their highest laws forbade outright warfare except for defense. The Silurians are generally led by a Triad, three Silurians who rule jointly. These Silurians come from different backgrounds and control different professions, such as the military and the scientists. The majority of Silurian warriors appeared to be female, just as the females are the more aggressive in some species of lower reptile. The Silurians have advanced genetic capabilities. They brought species back from extinction, including many dinosaurs. They created a genetically engineered plague, which they used against early humans who invaded their crop settlements. This disease was highly virulent and was used as a form of "pest control". The Silurians can bio-program soil, causing it to react to certain events and respond, generally by dragging people underground. They are capable of advanced decontamination, removing diseases and poisons from the body. In 102, a number of Silurians were part of the Alliance of the Doctor's worst enemies that imprisoned the Eleventh Doctor in the Pandorica. Prior to 1888, a group of Silurians was awoken by the digging of the London Underground. This led to the death of several navvies. Vastra, a skilled Silurian warrior who had been awoken by their digging, wanted revenge. The Eleventh Doctor convinced her to live peacefully in London. In 1888 she resided with her human partner Jenny, although she fed on human criminals. Then, she and several of her soldiers were called up by the the Doctor to fight at the Battle of Demon's Run. In the late 20th century a group of Silurians were awakened from hibernation by the energy from the nearby nuclear power research centre. The Silurians tried to reclaim the planet from humanity by releasing a deadly virus. This plan was prevented by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart of UNIT and the Third Doctor. Despite the Doctor's best efforts to broker a peaceful solution, the Silurian base was bombed by UNIT by order of the Brigadier. Circa 2084, a group of Silurians allied themselves with the Sea Devils to invade Sea Base 4. They attempted to launch nuclear weapons to provoke a war between the two major power blocs. They were killed when the Fifth Doctor, perceiving no more peaceful option, flooded hex chromite gas in order to kill them. They made their first appearance in Doctor Who and the Silurians featuring the third Doctor. They also fought and worked with the fifth and the eleventh Doctor.




7. The Sontarans

 

The Sontarans are humanoids with large, bulbous heads and short stocky bodies. They have grey-brown skin and deep set features. Sontarans generally have three digits on each hand (two fingers and a thumb). Sontaran blood is green. The Sontarans reproduce by cloning, meaning each Sontaran is nearly identical to each other. There are some variations over time, such as the number of fingers or height. At least one Sontaran has been gene-spliced for nursing purposes to produce breast milk. Due to the high gravity of the moon of Sontar that they were first created on, the Sontarans have great strength and resilience in lower gravity environments like Earth or Gallifrey. They are vulnerable to Coronic acid, which burns, or in some cases disintegrates them. They absorb energy via the probic vent on the back of their necks. This vent is also their crucial weakness, as any sudden blow to the vent can stun them. The penetration of a sharp object into the vent will kill them. Tampering with the energy source can also lead to a reversal effect that could destroy a Sontaran from the inside out. They are a war-like race with the thought of taking care of the sick or wounded to be beneath them. Fighting for other species is an equally dishonorable fate. Sontarans do not fear death and they would rather be court martialed than show pain. They consider it honorable to face battle "open skinned", without a helmet on. Sontarans wear distinctive battle armor, which resembled a thick and bulky grey space suit. During a period in the early 17th and early 21st century Sontarans had blue, less flexible armor in a similar design. Due to their dedication to warfare and short lifespan, Strax considers a twelve year life to be a long one amongst his species. Sontarans generally have a chauvinistic attitude towards females, considering them unfit for warfare. They sometimes insult their enemies by comparing them to women. They also consider their reproductive systems inferior. Some Sontarans, however, have trouble figuring out which gender humans are. They refer to Earth-born children as "half forms". The Sontarans can use and make a wide variety of hand-held weapons, though they usually use the rheon carbine, a thin, metallic weapon, which was designed to optimally fit the Sontaran hand. The weapons are used for energy projection and hypnotism. The Sontarans also utilize laser rifle weapons, which fire bright beams of red light that can kill a human without any exterior damage. In 102, the Sontarans were among the races who joined the Alliance. They came to Stonehenge and helped imprison the Eleventh Doctor in the Pandorica in order to save the universe. In 1892, after the Eleventh Doctor was brought out of "retirement", Strax defended Captain Latimer's house from snowmen controlled by the Great Intelligence. He tried and failed to save the life of Clara Oswald after she fell off the Doctor's cloud. In 4037, eleven year old Commander Strax was demoted to Nurse for his failure, tending to the humans in the Battle of Zaruthstra. He was summoned by the Eleventh Doctor to Demons Run circa the 52nd century. Commander Strax died in the Battle of Demons Run at the hand of the Order of the Headless. Madame Vastra and Jenny Flint brought him back to life. The Doctor, in his third incarnation, meets the Sontarans for the first time in The Time Warrior, it was also Sara Jane's first episode as well. They also featured in episodes facing the fourth, sixth, second, tenth, and eleventh Doctors.


 

6. Weeping Angels

 

The Weeping Angels are a species of quantum-locked humanoids because their unique nature necessitates that they often covered their faces with their hands to prevent trapping each other in petrified form for eternity by looking at one another. This gives the Weeping Angels their distinct "weeping" appearance. The Weeping Angels evolved near the beginning of the universe. They were, in the Tenth Doctor's words, "the only psychopaths in the universe to kill you nicely," since their victims were otherwise uninjured and would live out the rest of their lives in the past. This, in turn, allows them to live off the remaining time energy of the victim's life. However, when this potential energy paled in comparison to an alternative power source to feed on, the Angels were known to kill by other means, such as snapping their victims' necks. Weeping Angels are converted from ordinary statues appeared as they did before being taken over, and other Angels resembled stone statues of winged, humanoid women. Baby Angels resemble cherubs; naked, infant sized versions of adult Angels. Baby angels possess the same traits as the others, but when they aren't seen, their footsteps and child-like giggles can be heard. When showing ferocity, Weeping Angels would bare their fangs and claws. When Weeping Angels become older or grow weaker by starvation, they wear away as a statue would over many years. This wearing could become so severe that they will not look like their original forms anymore, losing their wings and becoming more like a typical statue of great age. These older Weeping Angels do not have the same speed as their "healthy" counterparts, but are just as deadly. They can regain their appearance if re-energised (fed). A single hour is all it would take. River Song once indicated that the Weeping Angels have the ability to transform ordinary statues into Angels (or at least animate and control them, and give them the abilities of true Angels such as quantum-locking). When victims look an Angel in the eyes, the Angel can infect their visual centres, creating an image in their mind. The victim is then mentally influenced by the Angel until it becomes fully grown, at which point it escapes the persons body, killing them. This ability can only be stopped by shutting down the visual centre. The Angels can take the consciousness of someone who has died and speak through them to communicate, as they used the Cleric Bob, whom they killed, to talk with the Eleventh Doctor. Because of their defence mechanism, Weeping Angels are very hard to kill, being immune to all kinds of weapons. However they are capable of starving to death if left without time energy for too long. It is also possible to defeat Weeping Angels by forcing two Angels to look directly at each other, which causes them both to see and quantum-lock each other. The Angels first appeared in Blink meeting the tenth Doctor. They appeared seven more times battling both the tenth Doctor several more times as well as the eleventh Doctor.

 

  

Lisa Frankenstein (2024)

  On a snowy Fat Tuesday, the Horror Honey and I celebrated the 22nd anniversary of our first date by dragging our bodies out of the house a...