Tardis

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Tardis
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Tardis

The Borad, formerly Megelen, took over the planet Karfel and created the Timelash before his eventual defeat by the Sixth Doctor.

Biography

Scientific career

The Karfelons used "Borad" as a title, like President, rather than a name. Yet when Megelen took power he referred to himself only by his title. A scientist, he had been exposed by the Third Doctor to the ruling Council for unethical experiments on Morloxes, large reptiles indigenous to Karfel, and the chemical Mustakozene-80, which fused different tissue as one creature.

After the Doctor left Karfel, Megelen was apparently able to continue his experiments, but was accidentally fused with one of the Morloxes via Mustakozene-80, becoming half Morlox and half Karfelon. He believed that his intelligence and longevity had increased. (TV: Timelash)

As the Borad

Megelen also experimented with cloning and created at least one duplicate of himself after the accident. He was able to install himself as the sadistic and despotic ruler of Karfel under the title of the Borad. He never revealed himself in person, only via security monitors which gave him the appearance of a dignified old man. Mirrors throughout Karfel were banned as a result. Fear was enforced rigidly through the policing of androids; and all rebels were dealt with either by summary execution or despatch and death via the Timelash to 1179 Scotland, near Loch Ness. The Borad also ordered that all references to The Doctor were erased from the Karfelon history books.

Under the Borad's rule, the Karfelon people became disillusioned and rebellious. Relations broke down with their former allies, the Bandrils, who threatened war after the Borad rescinded the grain supply treaty which had underpinned the relationship between the two civilisations.

A war with the Bandrils would have resulted in their use of bendalypse warheads. This would have wiped out all the Karfelons but left the Morloxes and the Borad alive.

The Borad had started to re-create the Mustakozene-80 experiment using the Doctor's companion Peri Brown and a Morlox to create a second hybrid to mate with, with the intention to re-populate Karfel with their offspring.

The Sixth Doctor was able to trick a clone of the Borad into killing himself by manipulating the Borad through the use of Kontron crystals, leading to the Borad firing an energy weapon that was reflected back at himself, ageing him to death. The Borad then confronted the Doctor following the death of his clone and the prevention of war with the Bandrils but became unbalanced after viewing a reflection of himself in a boarded-up mirror, revealing the reason he hid himself away. In this state, he was thrown into the Timelash by the Doctor. The Doctor speculated that the Borad would become the Loch Ness Monster. (TV: Timelash) However, the Borad died shortly after his arrival at Loch Ness, after he was disintegrated by Time Lord temporal investigators in order to prevent him from disrupting the events surrounding the Zygons and their Skarasen. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5)

Behind the scenes

  • "Megelen" is an anagram of Mengele, the last name of the notorious Josef Mengele.
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