History Franchise / FactionParadox

The Faction delights in creating temporal paradoxes, all the while seeking to [[TakeOverTheWorld tighten their hold over the universe]] and drown it into anarchic chaos, by pitting the main players in the [[ForeverWar Second War In Heaven]] against each other while remaining ambiguously neutral. On one side of this Time War are those pompous asses, the [[DeadlyDecadentCourt Great Houses]] of the Faction's twin sun Homeworld. The Great Houses are essentially [[JustForFun/TimeLord an aristocratic race who spent their time sleeping in their laurels]] until a certain bearded renegade returned home, [[CassandraTruth bringing news]] of a great danger. Opposing them are the [[EldritchAbomination enemy]], a force so intricate and vast, it is pointless to even ''name''. It's not a specific army, or even a person... it's [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow something far, war worse]]. The battlefield is ''all of history''. And the battle prizes are the two most valuable territories: cause and effect.

* 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 UsefulNotes/IsaacNewton.

* IdenticalLookingAsians: Played with. An Asian-accented automaton says King George III thinks they all look alike.

* UsefulNotes/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.

* MemeticsInFiction: The Celestis found a way to ''weaponize'' this and {{ascend|ToAHigherPlaneOfExistence}} [[AGodAmI to a sort of pseudo-godhood]].

* AuthorTract: ''This Town Will Never Let Us Go'' is all about the way its author sees the world, with such topics as TheWarOnTerror, the nature of magick, pop music, NewMedia, and the ever-present theme of "the evil of banality". Read at your own peril.

* 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.

* Conspiracy Kitchen Sink: Xenomorphs killed President Kennedy, forcing the Faction to intervene and save his life. (Only to kill him later on their own terms in 1967.)

* AncientAstronauts: {{Discussed|Trope}} 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.

* ''The Book Of The War''

* ''Of The City Of The Saved...''
* ''Warlords Of Utopia''

* ''The Book Of The Enemy''
* ''The Book Of The Peace''

[[AC:Obverse Books: The City Of The Saved]]
* ''Tales Of The City''

* ''Tales Of The Civil War''

* ''The Adventure Of The Diogenes Damsel''

** Many posthumans in the City Of The Saved belong to intersex categories, either by choice or by evolution; it is often impossible to tell their gender just by looking at them.

* AncientAstronauts: [[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.
* AndIMustScream: "Created me."

* 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.)

** ''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.

* {{Hermaphrodite}}: Marrane in ''Of The City Of The Saved...'' is both intersex and genderqueer.
* HiddenVillain: [[spoiler: Cousin Antipathy]] in ''Of The City Of The Saved...''

* ParodySue: Mesh Cos in ''Of The City Of The Saved...'' is ridiculously beautiful, intelligent, accomplished, talented, musical, elfin, politically savvy, charismatic, advanced, scientific, motherly, sexy and well-published, in addition to having created an AI that encompasses ''all of human technology''. She has casual nudist days.

[[AC:BBV: The Faction Paradox Protocols]]

* IncestIsRelative: Sutekh and his sister Nephthys have a very, shall we say, ancient Egyptian view on love.

** The Quell in the AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho story "The Warren Legacy" are of course most decidedly ''not'' a Faction Paradox cabal. Just a ''very unrelated'' group of time travelling aliens who wear bone armour and skull masks, try to kill people by erasing their ancestors, and get called "paradoxical" in the process.

** The Quell in the AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho story "The Warren Legacy" are of course most decidedly ''not'' a Faction Paradox cabal. Just a ''very unrelated'' group of time travelling aliens wear bone armour and skull masks, try to kill people by erasing their ancestors, and get called "paradoxical" in the process.

->''"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..."''

* ''Wallowing In Pessimism’s Mire'' [[note]]Published in 2015 as a companion piece to ''Burning with Optimism's Flame'', "Wallowing..." does not exist and has not existed since approximately two months after publication.[[/note]]

* 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.

* TheDreaded: ''Anything'' to do with the [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Yssgaroth]], the [[TimeLord Homeworld]] or the [[EldritchAbomination Enemy]].

* 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 [[ParadoxPerson living paradox]] and the {{Anthropomorphic Personification}} of [[FutureMeScaresMe all the potential evil and despair in the Universe]].

** In the Faction Paradox Protocols audios, [[HistoricalDomainCharacter the French spy]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevalier_d%27Eon Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée d'Éon de Beaumont]] is treated as male by her peers for simplicity's sake. There is some debate over how her life actually unfolded and what where she would have fallen on the gender spectrum, but as history would prove, she preferred life as a woman — which Cousin Justine [[DeliberateValuesDissonance is quick to take offense to]].

** In the Faction Paradox Protocols audios, [[HistoricalDomainCharacter the French spy]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevalier_d%27Eon Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée d'Éon de Beaumont]] is treated as male by her peers for simplicity's sake, but as history would prove, she much preferred life as a woman — which Cousin Justine [[DeliberateValuesDissonance is quick to take offense to]].
** Father-Mother Olympia uses dual gender titles. (He-she started life as a woman, and hopes to become one once more, but there was [[NoodleIncident a bit of a cock-up]] involving Godfather Morlock.)
** Cousin Cá Bảy Màu, a regular 21st century human, is sometimes he and sometimes she.

* {{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]].

* BodyHorror: The Great Houses modified their regeneration protocols for the War so their soldiers would become increasingly protected with each death. After a couple of regenerations, they lose all humanoid shape and basically become blocks of weapons and armor.