History Literature / FactionParadox

[[quoteright:250:[[SkeletonsInTheCoatCloset http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/armour.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:250: ''We aren't nice people''.]]

->''"Inevitably, there are those who have a morbid fascination with such evils. Just as the human race has spawned “Satan-worshippers”, at least one group exists which has dedicated itself to the study of Paradox, turning its back on traditional Time Lord values and instead embracing a form of dark shamanic spiritualism. Indeed, this group is not unlike one of the voodoo cults of Mutter’s Spiral, with its own pantheon of spirits and demons, and its own occult rituals. The group is known as Faction Paradox, and it’s hard to describe the dread this name conjures up in the minds of the Time Lord archons..."''
-> -- ''[[Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures Alien Bodies]]''

Good evening. Thank you for visiting this, our humble page. Allow me to explain who we are. Faction Paradox is a separate splinter from the continuum you may know as the ''Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse.'' We were created by Lawrence Miles, who depicted the little gallivantings of the Faction across this rather odd Universe of ours, which, we've been told, holds uncountable parallels to the mainstream Franchise/{{Whoniverse}}. As of now, our splinter universe has twelve audio dramas, six by BBV and six by Magic Bullet, two issues of a short-lived comic series published by [[ImageComics Image]], and seven novels, six published by Mad Norwegian Press and one by Random Static. Obverse Books has acquired the license to print an anthology of new Faction stories, which saw the light in April 2011. Our Faction has its roots in the Franchise/{{Whoniverse}}, where we were born as particularly perverse, if you'll pardon the expression, "[[YouKeepUsingThatWord enemies]]" of the [[TheNthDoctor Eighth]] [[Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures Doctor]], but eventually we grew in number and power until we acquired our own universe to play with by our rules.

Our Faction [[PlanetOfHats delights in creating]] temporal paradoxes, all the while seeking to [[TakeOverTheWorld tighten our hold over the]] [[TurnedUpToEleven universe]] and drown it into anarchic chaos by pitting the main players in the current [[ForeverWar Time War]] against each other while remaining... shall we describe our position as ambiguously neutral? As befits our rather contrived agenda, we are not above taking advantage and using every underhanded trick in our arsenal to [[LetsYouAndHimFight worsen the war]] until we end up being the sole remaining power.

This War is fought between those pompous asses, the [[DeadlyDecadentCourt Great Houses]] and the nameless [[EldritchAbomination Enemy]], who, mind you, the Houses are too afraid to even ''name''. The Great Houses, for the uninformed, are essentially [[TimeLord an aristocratic race who spent their time sleeping in their laurels]] until a ''certain'' stray former renegade returned home, [[CassandraTruth bringing news]] of a great danger. The Enemy, on the other hand isn't a specific army, or even a person... it's [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow something far, war worse]]. And the battlefield is ''all of history''. And the battle prizes are the two most valuable territories: cause and effect.

As you can imagine, the Faction stands to gain much.

The Faction was once one of the Homeworld's ruling Houses, until our illustrious leader [[PunnyName Grandfather Paradox]] became disenchanted with their diseased [[AGodAmI pretensions to immortality]] and separated from them, and turned his House into a timetravelling, time-active, [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs ritualistic cult]] based in part in the beliefs of voodoo, time travel with the marked interest in paradoxes and death fetishism that is now our trademark, both rejecting the immortality the Houses sought and ridiculing the Laws of Time they had laid down.

Ever wondered what would it be like if God played dice with the universe? ''We provide the answer.''

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!!Where we and our friends have been, in case you're curious...
[[index]]
[[AC:Virgin Publishing]]
* ''Christmas On A Rational Planet'' (Enemy propaganda)
* ''Dead Romance''

[[AC:BBC Books]]
* ''[[{{Recap/EighthDoctorAdventuresAlienBodies}} Alien Bodies]]''
* ''[[{{Recap/EighthDoctorAdventuresUnnaturalHistory}} Unnatural History]]'' (Homeworld propaganda)
* ''[[{{Recap/EighthDoctorAdventuresInterferenceBookOne}} Interf]][[{{Recap/EighthDoctorAdventuresInterferenceBookTwo}} erence]]''
* ''The Taking Of Planet 5''
* ''[[{{Recap/EighthDoctorAdventuresTheShadowsOfAvalon}} The Shadows Of Avalon]]'' (Enemy propaganda)
* ''[[{{Recap/EighthDoctorAdventuresTheAncestorCell}} The Ancestor Cell]]'' (Homeworld propaganda)
* ''[[{{Recap/EighthDoctorAdventuresTheAdventuressOfHenriettaStreet}} The Adventuress Of Henrietta Street]]''
* ''The Gallifrey Chronicles'' (Homeworld propaganda)

[[AC:Big Finish Productions]]
* ''The Adventure Of The Diogenes Damsel''

[[AC:Mad Norwegian Publishing]]
* ''Dead Romance'' ([[UpdatedRerelease Yes, again.]])
* ''The Book Of The War''
* ''This Town Will Never Let Us Go''
* ''Of The City Of The Saved...''
* ''Warlords Of Utopia''
* ''Warring States''
* ''Erasing Sherlock''

[[AC:Image Comics]]
* ''Faction Paradox #1 and #2''.

[[AC:BBV]]
* ''The Eleven-Day Empire''
* ''The Shadow Play''
* ''Sabbath Dei''
* ''In the Year of the Cat''
* ''Movers''
* ''A Labyrinth of Histories''

[[AC:Random Static]]
* ''[[http://randomstatic.net/newtonssleep.php Newtons Sleep]]'' (The publisher has, very kindly, put the ebook up for free.)

[[AC:Magic Bullet Productions]]
* ''Coming To Dust''
* ''The Ship of a Billion Years''
* ''Body Politic''
* ''Words from Nine Divinities''
* ''Ozymandias''
* ''The Judgment of Sutekh''

[[AC:Obverse Books]]
* ''A Romance In Twelve Parts''
* ''Burning With Optimism's Flames''
* ''Against Nature''
* ''The Brakespeare Voyage''
* '' Liberating Earth''
* ''Head Of State''

[[/index]]

----
!!Examples

* ActionSurvivor: From the audios, Cousins Justine and Eliza after the [[spoiler: destruction of the Eleven-Day Empire]].
* AncientAliens: [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] at multiple points, there are several comparisons between the Great Houses and the various pantheons of gods in human religions, as well as the "anakim", or "watchers", a type of biblical angel. These similarities, among other salient facts, inevitably draw (in-universe) speculation regarding the nature of influence the Houses have had on humanity through history.
* AntiHero: The Faction being the [[MindScrew sort of organization it is]], if you happen across a Faction protagonist that's at all likeable according to current Earth standards, odds are good that you're somewhere in this trope.
* AnotherDimension: The Yssgaroths' home Universe. It's also postulated that the Yssgaroth are in fact the result of the two universes interacting, or maybe even just a mental reaction to the interaction of matter and hostile anti-matter. As no-one's ever been near one and come back in one piece, no-one really knows.
* ApatheticCitizens: The Broken Remote. [[spoiler: They were a branch of our Remote colonists until they were brainwashed by the Homeworld into accepting a steady diet of reality TV, docudramas and the like. As a result, any potential worth in them was complete and utterly spoiled.]]
* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: The Celestis erased themselves from history in such a precise way that they ended up becoming concepts and memes as opposed to physical beings. Now they're a bunch of petty gods, watching the universe from above.
* AsianSpeekeeEngrish: The narrator of the intros for "Sabbath Dei" and "In the Year of the Cat."
* AuthorTract: ''This Town Will Never Let Us Go'' is all about the way its author sees the world, with such topics as the War On Terror, the nature of magick, pop music, NewMedia, and the ever-present theme of "the evil of banality". Read at your own peril.
* AxCrazy: The [[LargeHam delightful]] [[BoisterousBruiser Cousin Shuncucker]]. And when a LivingShadow that functions as a HyperspaceArsenal gets welded to an unstable whackjob, she has a ''lot'' of Axes to be Crazy with... Also, Cousin Antipathy.
* BackdoorPilot: Both ''Alien Bodies'' and ''The Adventuress Of Henrietta Street'' were, in some ways, this, for us. ''Of The City Of The Saved...'' was also this for the City Of The Saved series of short story collections. (Yes, we ''do'' actually have a spin-off of our own.)
* BackFromTheDead: This is what Anubis tried to do to Osiris. It... [[CameBackWrong didn't work]], creating Horus thorugh fusion of Osiris' timeline with Faction Paradox member Cousin Eliza.
* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: At various times, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, King George III, and Johann Sebastian Bach have gotten caught up in a GambitPileup involving the [[strike:Time Lords]] Homeworld and our own schemes. Literature/SherlockHolmes... well, for starters, was a real but otherwise perfectly normal human, but Jimmy Moriarty was [[spoiler: a scientist from the 21st century using stolen Faction technology given to him by the Celestis]]. Vlad Tepes (aka the man known as '''Dracula''') fought [[OurMonstersAreDifferent Mal'akh]] and almost got snared into a [[DealWithTheDevil deal with the Celestis]]. We don't talk about [[RasputinTheMadMonk Rasputin.]] Oh, and Queen Charlotte is secretly a [[SpaceshipGirl timeship]].
* BigBad: For the audios: [[spoiler: House Lolita]], who single-handedly [[spoiler: consumes the Eleven-Day Empire]], hunts [[spoiler:Cousins Justine and Eliza throughout time and space]], and, by the end, is considered to be an even greater threat to the universe than [[spoiler: Sutekh. Yes, that [[OmnicidalManiac Sutekh]].]]
* BloodKnight: Cousin Justine, who keeps getting distracted from [[spoiler: rebuilding the Faction]], by whatever fight comes her way.
* BloodMagic: Biodata magic, which can be drawn from blood or, in being lacking said substance, any other body part. Typically, the persons performing the rituals add some of their own blood to the ceremony as well.
* BreadEggsMilkSquick: Attaining the rank of Godfather - or Godmother - in the Faction requires you to earn three Ph.Ds - bastardry, [[DeadpanSnarker scathing remarks]], and [[RealityWarper reality bending]].
* CaptainErsatz: Almost every single one of the major players in the War. The Great Houses are [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial most definitely not]] the race you call the Time Lords, the Imperator is not Morbius, the Evil Renegade / Grandfather Halfling is definitely not the man you call the Doctor, the War King is certainly not the madman you know as TheMaster, the prison planet is not Shada and the Great Houses' timeships are ''certainly'' not [=TARDISes=].
* CardCarryingVillain: The "Evil Renegade" chose that name for ''himself''.
* CassandraTruth: The man who would be the War King reported the existence of the Enemy to the ruling council of the Homeworld. Unwilling to accept his warnings, the Council journeyed to the point in time and space where the Renegade had told them the capital of the Enemy was in the Presidential timeship, intending to found a Homeworld colony there to silence the rumors. Following a rather tense moment, only the head of the President materialized back, with a note jammed into the mouth - [[spoiler: ''"[[UsefulNotes/QueenVictoria We are not amused]]."'']]
* CasualDangerDialogue: Morlock in the opening scene.
* CityOfAdventure: Both the [[EldritchLocation Eleven-Day Empire]] and [[GeniusLoci the City of the Saved]].
* ClarkesThirdLaw: The main issue between the Homeworld and the Faction is that they cannot agree on exactly ''what'' in the name of the Grandfather Faction Paradox uses: tech or magic. We believe that the barriers protecting the Faction's home dimension are ''loa'', voodoo spirits, while the Homeworld ''thinks'' they are merely manifestations of the laws of the Universe at work. Quite honestly, many doubt [[MindScrew there's a truth to it all]]. Including us.
* ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve: The WeaksauceWeakness of the Celestis. They are DangerouslyGenreSavvy with this knowledge, appearing as gods or demons when proposing their [[DealWithTheDevil special deals]], so the incumbent will be less likely to doubt them.
* CloningBlues:
** As mentioned below, Little Brother Edward is a clone of JohnnyDepp, originally designed to be a boytoy for a rich old lady. Between that, the various Depp characters that keep clashing in his head, and the general {{Mind Screw}}iness of Faction training, his state of mind is, shall we say, a ''little'' fragmented?
** The various iterations of Compassion that end up in the City of the Saved. And that's not even including the [[spoiler:one who [[GeniusLoci BECAME the City]]]].
** The Remote get to have their own special reverse version of the ol' CloningBlues. Because their method of reproduction invariably results in a slightly more stereotypical version of themselves walking around afterwards, any Remote member that meets his future iterations invariably ends up wondering if he's really that damn unpleasant.
%% * ClusterFBomb: Fucking Antipathy.
* CoolGate: Our brand of these can be used to fold time and space in ways you would never guess...
* CoolMask: The Faction uses ''bone'' masks. From animals that ''never existed''. Add the full [[GorgeousPeriodDress gorgets and headdresses]]. Beat that. We ''dare'' you.
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Michael Brookhaven, head of Faction Hollywood, is an executive who basically personifies all the corruption in Hollywood.
* CosmicRetcon: The Biodata Virus is this trope weaponized and turned into TheVirus.
* CrapsackWorld: Best described as the Franchise/{{Whoniverse}} with the Doctor dead [[note]]or at least realistically unimportant and unable to magically fix everything[[/note]] and all hint of humanism and hope annihilated.
* CreativeSterility: The Remote, in a certain sense (see {{Flanderization}}) [[spoiler: and the combined culture of Earth in ''This Town Will Never Let Us Go''. Sort of.]]
* {{Crossover}}: Obverse books had been doing IrisWildthyme short story collections for a while, so she popped up at a few points in ''A Romance In Twelve Parts''. Probably to give us a little publicity boost. She's always so nice like that.
** ''The Adventure Of The Diogenes Damsel'' is a Big Finish Audio starring Bernice Summerfield, part of her line of audios, which features the Cwejen, time-duplicates of Cwej who were introduced and given that name in ''The Book Of The War''. There are references throughout the audio to "The War" and one of the Time Lord characters wonders whether Bernice is associated with "The Faction". And this was the Bernice audio released immediately after one written by our creator, Lawrence Miles.
* {{Cult}}: One fearsome and powerful enough to make Gallifrey itself kneel in fear.
* CultColony: The Remote. You can't deny the idea of a follower cult based on TV programs might be CrazyEnoughToWork!
* DarkActionGirl: Any female Faction operative. Notable individuals include Cousins Octavia, Shuncucker, Justine, and Eliza. Also, Lolita ([[spoiler:if she can be considered a 'she']]).
* DeadpanSnarker: Plenty to go around, the worst offenders being Lady Lolita and Godfathers Avatar and Morlock. The War King occasionally delves into this, to the point that it's extremely hard to imagine him without an eyebrow raised.
** Lawrence Miles' narrative voice tends to end up like this, too.
* DealWithTheDevil: Standard operating procedure for the Celestis. [[FateWorseThanDeath Don't fall for it. Just... don't.]]
* DependingOnTheWriter:
** We of the Faction have been characterized as monsters, AffablyEvil, or even downright {{Anti Hero}}ic protagonists, depending on which book you're reading. ''[[Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures The Ancestor Cell]]'', for instance, was our infamous appearance, changing us hugely from what Master Miles intended us to be in the first place, making us mutilate Gallifrey's history ForTheEvulz rather than gaining control of the Universe. On the other hand, [[ItAmusedMe it seems like a fun idea altogether]].
** The Great Houses too, of all people. The (logically extremely rare) pariahs of their society who secretly want to nurture the lesser races and rebel against the cold logical approach tend to show up with alarming regularity in the non-Miles books.
* DownerEnding: ''This Town Will Never Let Us Go'' ends with [[spoiler:the total cultural stasis of humanity until the Earth's destruction.]]
* DiscardAndDraw: When Cousin Shuncucker gets bored of her current shadow weapon, she drops it and grows a new one.
* TheDreaded: ''Anything'' to do with the [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Yssgaroth]], the [[TimeLord Homeworld]] or the [[EldritchAbomination Enemy]].
* EldritchAbomination:
** The Enemy (possibly; even ''we'' aren't sure). Most certain for the Unkindnesses. [[MindScrew Depends upon what you think the Enemy is, of course]].
** The ''loa'' spirits that protect the Eleven-Day Empire. Much like a certain gentleman, [[spoiler: Azathoth, for the curious]], they have been implied to be physical embodiments of the laws of the Universe.
** And of course, our less fortunate neighbors: [[OurVampiresAreDifferent the Yssgaroth]].
** Given various characters' reactions to her true face, [[spoiler: Lolita]], who might just also be [[spoiler:the Enemy, given that she is described as 'a new kind of history']].
* EldritchLocation:
** The Eleven-Day Empire. Depending on your views, the City of the Saved.
** [[GeniusLoci Antipathy]] invaded the City of the Saved, assimilating parts of it into him; these infected sectors changed from peaceful sections of City populated by happy invulnerable / immortals, to nightmare industrial wastelands full of terrified, ''highly killable'' people.
** The Yssgaroth Universe. Timeline's begun devouring itself there...
* EvilCounterpart: The Faction and the Homeworld, or, as some may know them, [[spoiler: the Time Lords.]]
* FieryRedhead: Justine is mentioned as having red hair at a few points, most notably when [[spoiler: Morlock, who actually wanted to recruit her (blond) cousin, is forced to recruit her instead.]] Laura Tobin is also red-haired, and prone to acts of violence and extra helpings of sarcasm and insults as the situation requires.
* FirstPersonSmartass: Narrator Christine snarks her way through ''Dead Romance''.
* {{Flanderization}}: [[spoiler: The Remote are, by design, sterile. This requires special equipment named Remembrance Tanks, in which a certain amount of biomass (a recently deceased person) is inserted, and the people who were closest in life to them linked to a device which scans them for memories and impressions of that person, cloning the remains and downloading the accrued data into them as their new personality. This, of course, means no Remote colonist will be ''exactly'' the same after dying, often losing huge chunks of their more private selves.]]
* ForegoneConclusion: The fate of Sutekh, given that he's based on [[{{Recap/DoctorWhoS13E3PyramidsOfMars}} that other story]] kinda has to end up stuck in that pyramid sooner or later.
* FreudianExcuse: The one known as Antipathy has... issues... with that Compassion woman.
* FutureMeScaresMe: Grandfather Paradox is ''everyone's'' evil future self. Possibly. Like the Enemy, the ''what'' of the Grandfather is never as important to the series as the how and the why.
* GambitPileup: You'd better believe it, sweetheart. A multitude of sufficiently advanced scheming cutthroat organizations, ''plus'' timey wimey tech and zero scruples about using it? This trope, [[UpToEleven if you're lucky.]]
* GeniusLoci: The City of the Saved, a galaxy-wide citadel containing every single human to ever exist and billions of fictional characters to boot, actually is [[spoiler: the incarnation of Compassion that became a TARDIS during the Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures]].
* AGodAmI:
** The Great Houses in general, but it's the Celestis that really buy into their own hype.
** The Osirians. It helps that countless civilisations worship them as gods.
* GodwinsLawOfTimeTravel: ''Warlords of Utopia'' is about every single Earth where Hitler won versus every Earth where the Romans won. ''And it's awesome.''
* GorgeousPeriodDress: Aside from the CoolMask, standard Faction wear usually involves something magnificent in [[http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/f/factionparadox1.jpg black velvet]].
* GrandfatherParadox: The leader of our Faction was once a perfectly normal [[TimeLord Homeworld]] agent who once decided to kill his grandfather. The results were not pretty, leading him to become a [[HumanoidAbomination living paradox]] and the {{Anthropomorphic Personification}} of [[FutureMeScaresMe all the potential evil and despair in the Universe]].
* HiddenVillain: Cousin Antipathy in ''Of The City Of The Saved...''
* HollywoodVoodoo: Quite literally, in the case of Michael Brookhaven and his Faction Hollywood cabal.
* HumanoidAbomination:
** Grandfather Paradox is implied to be one, though it's difficult to tell as he hasn't actually ever ''[[TimeyWimeyBall existed for at least two hundred years.]]''
** The newer-style [[LivingShip timeships]] like those of Lolita's ilk are a more straightforward, if relatively reasonable, example of this trope. It's also implied that the Great Houses, especially the ones who are [[BlueAndOrangeMorality less than sympathetic to humanity's problems]], are moving in this direction, being described more as "forces of history" than actual people.
* ICallItVera: The Remote are prone to becoming very... ''[[FreudWasRight attached]]'' to their weapons. [[ArmCannon Sometimes literally.]]
* IdenticalLookingAsians: Played with. An Asian-accented automaton says King George III thinks they all look alike.
* ImpossiblyCoolClothes: If you can't destroy timelines in ''style'', perhaps you ought not to do it at all.
* {{Invocation}}: How at least Cousin Justine controls her Sombra Que Corta.
-->''Bloodline to bloodline, in constant transition.\\
Our pattern, our flesh, and our one restoration.\\
Conception, completion, the will of the city.\\
Grandfather watch me, Spirits maintain me.''
* JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope: Compare the Faction Paradox of the earlier Eighth Doctor and stand-alone novels to the Gallifrey's history-rapists in ''The Ancestor Cell''. They barely seem like the same organisation. Our creator, Lawrence Miles, openly chewed out ''The Ancestor Cell'' for derailing his plans on the War in Heaven. Instead of accepting another author destroy his image of Faction Paradox, he wound up creating his own standalone universe. And thus we were born...
* LargeHam:
** We have freaking '''Sutekh''', the lord and master of this trope. With the original actor from "Pyramids of Mars", no less. Accept no imitations!
** Not to mention the delightful Godfather Morlock and [[AxCrazy Shuncucker]] from the audio play.
* LetsYouAndHimFight: The Homeworld and the Enemy's war is rather ''boring''. We prefer to sit in the backbenches and carefully scavenge what we want.
* LivingShadow:
** The Cousins of the Faction turn their shadows, or "sombras que cortan" into living beings by grafting weapons on them, making them capable of slicing through rooms of {{Mooks}} while the Cousin himself remains calmly sitting. The single two exceptions to this are Cousins Shuncucker and Justine, who independently acquired Grandfather Paradox's shadow, which is an infinite {{Hammerspace}} containing an endless arsenal. Give that kinda weaponry to a couple of {{Reality Warper}}s. Watch [[HilarityEnsues hilarity ensue]].
** On the other hand, we do not show it, and often appear to possess no shadow at all, as seen when a certain Doctor once was infected by the Faction's biodata virus, causing his shadow to fade.
* LivingShip: Compassion, [[MeaningfulName Antipathy]], and Lolita are living timeships.
* ALoadOfBull: Justine meets a Minotaur on the prison planet. However, he points out that only the mythical beast from Crete is the Minotaur. All similar creatures are just [[InsistentTerminology men with bull's heads]].
* MadScientist:
** Godfather Morlock. His inventions include the Tracking Knife (used to read the future from a corpse's entrails) and the Biodata Virus.
** Anubis. Also an example of why you ''don't'' want a bored MadScientist.
* MagicFromTechnology: Even ''we'' don't know whether our tech is true magic, or whether it's just ''very'' advanced.
* {{Magitek}}: The Homeworld loathes the Faction for the creation of technology that ignores physical laws and works alongside voodoo principles. Screw 'em.
* MindScrew:
** ''Doctor Who'' was bad enough. Now imagine a group of time travelers who worship paradoxes.
** ''This Town Will Never Let Us Go'' is one colossal MindScrew in novel form.
** ''The Judgment of Sutekh'' is a battle in time. Different characters experience the events in completely different orders, so that it is nigh impossible to work out their correct sequence until the very end.
** Why does the plot of Michael Brookhaven's last film [[spoiler:resemble so much the fall of the Eleven-Day Empire?]]
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast:
** Anyone who dubs themselves "Antipathy" as a TakeThat to their mother ([[spoiler:Compassion]]) is clearly not a good person. Add to that the fact that he's an AxCrazy, OmnicidalManiac [[LivingShip timeship]]... yeah.
** The "War in Heaven".
** ''Sutekh the Destroyer and Leveler of Worlds''.
* NightmareFetishist: Many of our members qualify. Incidentally, if you aren't one... may I ask what are you doing here?
* NinjaPirateZombieRobot: ''Warlords of Utopia'' starts with the blurb "Rome Never Fell. Hitler Won. Now They Are At War." Said war involves 21st century Roman Legions going toe-to-toe, [[spoiler: and, eventually, bitchslapping]] Nazi soldiers.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed:
** Little Brother [[Film/EdwardScissorhands Edward]] from ''Of The City of the Saved'' is a clone of JohnnyDepp whose personality keeps wobbling between different characters the original has played. Also a {{Woobie}}.
** Tiffany Korta from ''This Town Will Never Let Us Go'' is an amalgam of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and assorted other pop tarts.
* NoPeriodsPeriod: Eliza says she's been biologically modified to stop these.
* NotAsYouKnowThem: Chris Cwej. Former companion of the Doctor. In our little corner of the Cosmos, the Great Houses used him to serve as the template for their shocktroopers at various points in his life. This had ''very'' interesting effects on his personality and morality.
* OlderThanTheyLook: Godfather Morlock looks sixty-ish. He's actually ''much'' older.
* OmnicidalManiac: Sutekh, who, after spending millenia guarding the Osirian Court, has become so paranoid that he will never feel safe until he destroys everything in existence. A feat of which he is ''more'' than capable.
* OneWingedAngel: The more the Great Houses regenerate, the less humanoid and more "War-ready" their bodies become. The hardened veterans are basically massive blocks of weapons, armor, and defense mechanisms, like Khiste in ''Dead Romance''.
* OurVampiresAreDifferent[=/=]OurGeniesAreDifferent: The Mal'akh. They're described as "bloodthirsty" and "the undead" as well as the inspiration for stories about the Djinn.
* OurAngelsAreDifferent[=/=]FallenAngel[=/=]OurDemonsAreDifferent: Based on the references to [[http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/boe/index.htm The Book Of Enoch]] (and the fact that "Mal'akh" is actually a Hebrew word for "angel"), the Mal'akh, again. [[spoiler: (Based on a reference to the "s'Tanim", a Hebrew word for "accuser" or "adversary" this may also be true of the Enemy.)]]
* ParadoxPerson: Many Faction Godparents undergo a ritual where they hunt and eliminate their ancestors, starting with their opposite sex parent, then that parent's opposite sex parent, then that parent's opposite sex parent. This is meant to reduce the Godparent in question's vulnerability to time-based attacks, but it's very risky, and doing it wrong can wipe the Godparent in question from existence entirely. Oops.
* PlayingWithSyringes: Godfather Morlock is ''extremely'' adept at this.
* ProperlyParanoid: There's a ''reason'' the Great Houses won't name their Enemy... [[spoiler: see, the Enemy isn't a person, or a group, or a race. It's a whole new hostile history that threatens to destroy their version of History and replace it from the foundations. To name the Enemy would be diminishing the scope of its powers and reach. Something only [[TooDumbToLive a complete and utter moron]] would do.]]
* PowersAsPrograms: This is how rituals work, by reprogramming the universe through a "backdoor" in the "operating system" the Grandfather left behind. Makes as much sense as [[{{Recap/DoctorWhoS18E7Logopolis}} chanting a bunch of numbers]] anyway.
* PsychoPrototype: Imagine the power a sentient timeship has. Add some horrific issues and a lot of very detailed and uncomfortable backstory, name it Antipathy and realize what kind of situation it is.
* RasputinTheMadMonk[=/=]RasputinianDeath: Rasputin's infamously convoluted death is actually the result of an unfortunate GambitPileup involving the Faction, the Celestis, the Great Houses, a dash of [[TimeyWimeyBall timey-wimeyness]] and about a half-dozen genetic copies.
* RecursiveReality: The Universe-in-a-bottle from ''Dead Romance''. Said novel is the source of the top quote. [[MindScrew Mind screwing]] at its finest.
--> We are all in the bottle and one day ''the bottle will break''. Then all worlds will be one world. The inside will meet the outside...
* RedSkyTakeWarning: The Eleven-Day Empire is a shadow copy of London under a blood-red sky, as if something was endlessly burning just past the horizon. [[SarcasmMode Enjoy your stay...]]
* RedshirtArmy: The Cwejen. We ''were'' trying to remold the Remote into our version of this, but, umm, something went amiss in the road. Hopefully, we can still make it work...
* RetGone: Continuity Needles do this to whoever they are stuck into, allowing Time to fill in the cracks. However, it's not recommended to use them on important historical figures. We're still cleaning up from when one managed to hit a certain IsaacNewton.
* SapientShip: Timeships, lovely ships capable of time travel. Except when they happen to rebel. Or if they happen to be psychotic.
* ScrapbookStory: Dead Romance, a first-person account of the end of the world by the only person to have survived, with snarky commentary.
* SelfMadeOrphan: Several Faction Paradox members. Including possibly Grandfather Paradox himself. It's in the name.
* SkeletonsInTheCoatCloset: Aside from the masks, we often wear full bone battle armour. From Yssgaroth-tainted Homeworld agents' skeletons.
* SufficientlyAdvancedAlien:
** Abso-freaking-lutely '''EVERYONE.''' If you aren't capable of [[RealityWarper violating the basic structure of reality]] with a [[{{Invocation}} few muttered words of power]] and a raised eyebrow, then the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast War in Heaven]] might just be a ''teensy'' bit out of your league. We're looking at you, Sontarans.
** We ''laugh'' at people who try to have a go at them with "mere" matter-based technology. ''[[UniverseCompendium The Book of the War]]'' lumps everything like this -- from the mightiest [[CoolStarship starships]] to the most exotically vicious nanoprobe infection -- under the heading of "Burlesque Devices". After all, why bother [[Franchise/StarTrek replicating]] a fortification when you can just tweak the substrata of the universe to ensure that ''a base was always there to begin with?'' Or why fight an enemy when you can just dick with his biodata so that he has ''always'' lost this fight? [[SarcasmMode Aren't Time-Active wars fun?]]
* TemporalParadox: Our goal is to burn the entire structure of time. Wanna join in?
* TimeyWimeyBall: We want it to ''shatter'', and the causality chain to ''snap''.
* TwinThreesomeFantasy: Again, ''Warlords of Utopia''. The twins, or rather, [[spoiler: the two different versions of the same woman]] are the ones to suggest it.
* UniverseCompendium: ''The Book of the War''. It exists in-universe, with all the possible biases that implies.
* {{Unperson}}: A classic sport for initiates of the Faction. We like to amp it further by [[spoiler: killing our own ancestors before they're born, making our very existences more of a paradox than it is already]].
* UpTheRealRabbitHole: [[spoiler: It is the final goal of Christine Summerfield at the end of ''Dead Romance''.]]
* ThatManIsDead: Entering the Faction means kissing all of your past goodbye. You simply will have never existed to start with. In fact, the special membership ceremony in which you see your totem animal, an entity representing your life up to that point, and to join the Faction, you kill it and feed it to snakes, ritualistically casting all of your life away and embracing the name and title the Faction grants you.
* TheVirus:
** The Faction's Biodata Virus. For starters, a person's biodata is the sum of their temporal and physical self. An analyzable summary of everything you are throughout any point in your history. The Faction Virus corrupts that biodata and brainwashes you. Not so that you'll be working for the Faction. That'd be too easy. It makes it so you ''always have been'' and ''always will''. It takes your new loyalties and makes them into immutable, unchangeable ''fact''. There is no cure because, in his new reality, the corrupted individual has always been a Faction operative, with no way to change him back without changing the patient's biodata, which the Virus doesn't make easy to say the least.
** The Yssgaroth taint. Interesting things, vampires. Didja know pure Yssgaroth taint can infest ''anything''? I mean, up to and including timeships? [[spoiler:Like Lolita?]]
* WhamEpisode:
** ''Words From Nine Divinities'', which ends with [[spoiler:the assassination of the War King (TheMaster) by Lolita and a full-scale invasion of the Homeworld by the Mal'akh forces of Cousin Justine]].
*** Before that, in ''Shadow Play'', Lolita [[spoiler:devoured the Eleven Day Empire.]]
** ''Interference, Books 1 and 2'', where we ''really'' go to town on the Doctor's timeline by getting his Third self killed before his [[Recap/DoctorWhoS11E5PlanetOfTheSpiders appointment on Metebelis 3]].
** Then there's our last appearance in the Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures, ''The Ancestor Cell'', where Gallifrey [[EarthShatteringKaboom falls]], giving [[LastOfHisKind Eight]] a bad case of TraumaInducedAmnesia and causing him to [[WalkingTheEarth walk the earth]] for the next several books while his TARDIS regrows itself. Unfortunately, all this resulted from [[spoiler: Eight blowing up said TARDIS, which also [[{{Retcon}} undid the previous WHAM Episode]] and cleansed himself of our Paradox virus]].
* WhatWouldXDo: The tendency for 21st century humans to think this (where "X" can be any given celebrity or fictional or religious personage) is the reason the Faction first became interested in humanity, and started the Remote colonies.
* YouCannotKillAnIdea: The Celestis ''thought'' this gave them a way out of the War in Heaven. And then ''somebody'' [[SummonBiggerFish released the Fendahl Predator]]...
* YouFightLikeACow: A Chinese automaton that fights Eliza combines this with AffablyEvil, CasualDangerDialogue, and MajorInjuryUnderreaction.
----

* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Michael Brookhaven, head of Faction Hollywood, basically personifies all the corruption in Hollywood.

%% * CorruptCorporateExecutive: Michael Brookhaven, head of Faction Hollywood.

%% * ForegoneConclusion: The fate of Sutekh.

** ''Interference, Books 1 and 2'', where we ''really'' go to town on the Doctor's timeline by getting his Third self killed before his Recap/DoctorWhoS11E5PlanetOfTheSpiders appointment on Metebelis 3.

** ''Interference, Books 1 and 2'', where we ''really'' go to town on the Doctor's timeline by getting his Third self killed before his [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/DoctorWhoS11E5PlanetOfTheSpiders appointment on Metebelis 3]].

* CrapsackWorld: Best described as the Franchise/{{Whoniverse}} with the Doctor dead [[note]]Or at least realistically unimportant and unable to magically fix everything[[/note]] and all hint of humanism and hope annihilated.

* CassandraTruth: The man who would be the War King reported the existence of the Enemy to the ruling council of the Homeworld. Unwilling to accept his warnings, the Council journeyed to the point in time and space where the Renegade had told them the capital of the Enemy was in the Presidential timeship, intending to found a Homeworld colony there to silence the rumors. Following a rather tense moment, only the head of the President materialized back, with a note jammed into the mouth - [[spoiler: ''"We are not amused."'']]

-> Inevitably, there are those who have a morbid fascination with such evils. Just as the human race has spawned “Satan-worshippers”, at least one group exists which has dedicated itself to the study of Paradox, turning its back on traditional Time Lord values and instead embracing a form of dark shamanic spiritualism. Indeed, this group is not unlike one of the voodoo cults of Mutter’s Spiral, with its own pantheon of spirits and demons, and its own occult rituals. The group is known as Faction Paradox, and it’s hard to describe the dread this name conjures up in the minds of the Time Lord archons...

* CrapsackWorld: Best described as the Franchise/{{Whoniverse}} with the Doctor dead [[note]]Or at least realistically unimportant and unable to magically fix everything.[[/note]] and all hint of humanism and hope annihilated.

* BackFromTheDead: This is what Anubis tried to do to Osiris. It... [[CameBackWrong didn't work]], creating Horus thorugh fusion of Osiris' timeline with FactionParadox member Cousin Eliza.

* ClusterFBomb: Fucking Antipathy.

* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Michael Brookhaven, head of Faction Hollywood.

* SapientShip: Timeships, lovely ships capable of time travel. Except when they are sapient. Or they happen to rebel. Or if they happen to be psychotic.

* OurVampiresAreDifferent[=/=]OurGeniesAreDifferent: The Mal'akh. They're described as "bloodthirsty" and "the undead" as well as the inspiration for stories about the Djinn. Bram Stoker's novel Dracula in particular has a lot of similarities with them.

* AxCrazy: The [[LargeHam delightful]] [[BoisterousBruiser Cousin Shuncucker]]. And when a LivingShadow that functions as a HyperspaceArsenal gets welded to an unstable whackjob, she has a ''lot'' of Axes to be Crazy with...

** Why does the plot of Michael Brookhaven's last film [[spoiler:resemble so much the fall of the Eleven Day Empire?]]

** Why does Michael Brookhaven's last film [[spoiler:resemble so much the fall of the Eleven Day Empire?]]

** Why does Michael Brookhaven's last film [[spoiler:parallel so much the fall of the Eleven Day Empire?]]

** The Faction's Biodata Virus. For starters, a person's biodata is the sum of their temporal and physical self. An analyzable summary everything you are throughout any point in your history. The Faction Virus corrupts that biodata and brainwashes you. Not so that you'll be working for the Faction. That'd be too easy. It makes it so you ''always have been'' and ''always will''. It takes your new loyalties and makes them into immutable, unchangeable ''fact''. There is no cure because, in his new reality, the corrupted individual has always been a Faction operative, with no way to change him back without changing the patient's biodata, which the Virus doesn't make easy to say the least.
** The Yssgaroth taint. Interesting things, vampires. Didja know pure Yssgaroth taint can infest ''anything''? I mean, up to and including timeships?

* OurAngelsAreDifferent[=/=]FallenAngel[=/=]OurDemonsAreDifferent: Based on the references to [[http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/boe/index.htm The Book Of Enoch]] (and the fact that "Mal'akh" is actually a Hebrew word for "angel"), the Mal'akh, again. [[spoiler: (Based on a reference to the "s'Tanim", a Hebrew word for "accuser" or "adversary" this may also be true of the Enemy.]]

* CassandraTruth: The man who would be the War King reported the existence of the Enemy to the ruling council of the Homeworld. Unwilling to accept his warnings, the Council journeyed to the point in time and space where the Renegade had told them the capital of the Enemy was in the Presidential timeship, intending to found a Homeworld colony there to silence the rumors. Following a rather tense moment, only the head of the President materialized back, with a note jammed into the mounth - [[spoiler: ''"We are not amused."'']]

* {{Crossover}}: Obverse books had been doing IrisWildthyme short story collections for a while by that point, so she popped up at a few points in ''A Romance In Twelve Parts''. Probably to give us a little publicity boost. She's always so nice like that.

* {{Crossover}}: Obverse books had been doing IrisWildthyme short story collections for a while by that point, so she popped up in in a few points in ''A Romance In Twelve Parts''. Probably to give us a little publicity boost. She's always so nice like that.

* SapientShip: Timeships, lovely ships capable of time travel. Except when they are sapient. Or they happen to rebel. Or if they happen to be psychotic. * ScrapbookStory: Dead Romance, a first-person account of the end of the world by the only person to have survived, with snarky commentary.

* ''Christmas On A Rational Planet'' (Homeworld propaganda)