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[[File:armour.jpg|link=Skeletons in
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 [[Doctor Who Expanded Universe]]. 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 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 [[Image Comics|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 Whoniverse, where we were born as particularly perverse, if you'll pardon the expression, "[[You Keep Using That Word|enemies]]" of the [[The Nth Doctor|Eighth Doctor]], but eventually we grew in number and power until we acquired our own universe to play with by our rules.
Our Faction [[Planet of Hats|delights]] in creating temporal paradoxes, all the while seeking to [[Take Over the World|tighten our hold over the]] [[Turned Up to Eleven|universe]] and drown it into anarchic chaos by pitting the main players in the current [[Forever War|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 [[Let's You and Him Fight|worsen the war]] until we end up being the sole remaining power.
This War is fought between those pompous asses, the [[Deadly Decadent Court|Great Houses]] and the nameless [[Eldritch Abomination|Enemy]], who, mind you, the Houses are too afraid to even ''name''. The Great Houses, for the uninformed, are essentially [[Time Lord|an aristocratic race who spent their time sleeping in their laurels]] until a ''certain'' stray former renegade returned home, [[Cassandra Truth|bringing news]] of a great danger. The Enemy, on the other hand isn't a specific army, or even a person... it's [[These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know|something far, war worse]]. And the battlefield is ''all of history''. And the battle prizes are the two most valuable territories: [[It Got Worse|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 [[Punny Name|Grandfather Paradox]] became disenchanted with their diseased [[A God Am I|pretensions to immortality]] and separated from them, and turned his House into a [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?|timetravelling, time-active]], [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made
Ever wondered what would it be like if God played dice with the universe? ''We provide the answer.''
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** 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.
* [[Apathetic Citizens]]: 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.}}
* [[Ascend to
* [[Author Tract]]: ''This Town Will Never Let Us Go''.
* [[Ax Crazy]]: The [[Large Ham|delightful]] [[Boisterous Bruiser|Cousin Shuncucker]]. And when a [[Living Shadow]] that functions as a [[Hyperspace Arsenal]] gets welded to an unstable whackjob, she has a ''lot'' of Axes to be Crazy with...
* [[Back
* [[Beethoven Was an Alien Spy]]: At various times, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, King George III, and Johann Sebastian Bach have gotten caught up in a [[Gambit Pileup]] involving the <s>Time Lords</s> Homeworld and our own schemes. [[Sherlock Holmes]]...well, for starters, was a real but otherwise perfectly normal human, but that Jack Moriarty was {{spoiler|a businessman from the 21st century using misappropriated Faction technology}}. Vlad Tepes (aka the man known as '''Dracula''') fought [[Our Monsters Are Different|Mal'akh]] and almost got snared into a [[Deal
* [[Big Bad]]: 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 [[Omnicidal Maniac|Sutekh]].}}
* [[Blood Knight]]: Cousin Justine, who keeps getting distracted from {{spoiler|rebuilding the Faction}}, by whatever fight comes her way.
* [[Canon Foreigner]]: Our Universe and the Whoniverse.
* [[Captain Ersatz]]: Almost every single one of the major players in the War. The Great Houses are most definitely not the race you call the Time Lords, 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 [[The Master (trope)|The Master]] and our timeships are ''certainly'' not TARDISes.
* [[City of Adventure]]: Both the [[Eldritch Location|Eleven-Day Empire]] and [[Genius Loci|the City of the Saved]].
* [[Clarke's Third Law]]: 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 [[Mind Screw|there's a truth to it all]]. Including us.
* [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe]]: The [[Weaksauce Weakness]] of the Celestis. They are [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]] with this knowledge, appearing as gods or demons when proposing their [[Deal
* [[Cloning Blues]]:
** As mentioned below, Little Brother Edward is a clone of [[Johnny Depp]], 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|Mind Screwiness]] of Faction training, his state of mind is, shall we say, a ''little'' fragmented?
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* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: 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.
* [[Deal
* [[Depending
* [[Downer Ending]]: ''This Town Will Never Let Us Go'' ends with {{spoiler|the total cultural stasis of humanity until the Earth's destruction.}}
* [[Eldritch Abomination]]:
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** And of course, our less fortunate neighbors: [[Our Vampires Are Different|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'}}.
* [[Eldritch Location]]:
** The Eleven-Day Empire. Depending on your views, the City of the Saved.
** [[Genius Loci|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...
* [[Expy]]:
** Little Brother [[Edward Scissorhands|Edward]] from ''Of The City of the Saved'' is essentially a clone of [[Johnny Depp]] 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.
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* [[Genius Loci]]: 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 [[Eighth Doctor Adventures]]}}.
* [[A God Am I]]:
** 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.
* [[Godwin's Law of Time Travel]]: ''Warlords of Utopia'' is about every single Earth where Hitler won versus every Earth where the Romans won. ''And it's awesome.''
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* [[Impossibly Cool Clothes]]: 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.
{{quote|
Our pattern, our flesh, and our one restoration.
Conception, completion, the will of the city.
Grandfather watch me, Spirits maintain me.'' }}
* [[Jumping Off the Slippery Slope]]: 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 on 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...
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* [[Omnicidal Maniac]]: 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.
* [[One-Winged Angel]]: 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''.
* [[Paradox Person]]: ''Every Faction member''.
* [[Playing
* [[Properly Paranoid]]: 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 [[Too Dumb to Live|a complete and utter moron]] would do.}}
* [[Powers
* [[Psycho Prototype]]: 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.
* [[Ra Ra Rasputin]]/[[Rasputinian Death]]: The result of an unfortunate [[Gambit Pileup]] involving the Faction, the Celestis, the Great Houses, a dash of [[Timey-Wimey Ball|timey-wimeyness]] and about a half-dozen genetic copies. Did we say unfortunate? Sorry, we meant ''[[Black Comedy|hilarious.]]''
* [[Recursive Reality]]: The Universe-in-a-bottle from ''Dead Romance''. Said novel is the source of the top quote. [[Mind Screw|Mind screwing]] at its finest.
{{quote|
* [[Red Sky, Take Warning]]: 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. [[Sarcasm Mode|Enjoy your stay...]]
* [[Redshirt Army]]: 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...
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* [[Scrapbook Story]]: Dead Romance.
* [[Self-Made Orphan]]: Related to Unperson below.
* [[Skeletons in
* [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien]]:
** Abso-freaking-lutely '''EVERYONE.''' If you aren't capable of [[Reality Warper|violating the basic structure of reality]] with a [[Invocation|few muttered words of power]] and a raised eyebrow, then the [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|War in Heaven]] might just be a ''teensy'' bit out of your league. I'm looking at you, Sontarans.
** We ''laugh'' at people who try to have a go at them with "mere" matter-based technology. ''[[Universe Compendium|The Book of the War]]'' lumps everything like this -- from the mightiest [[Cool Starship|starships]] to the most exotically vicious nanoprobe infection -- under the heading of "Burlesque Devices". After all, why bother [[Star Trek
* [[Temporal Paradox]]: Our goal is to burn the entire structure of time. Wanna join in?
* [[Timey-Wimey Ball]]: We want it to ''shatter'', and the causality chain to ''snap''.
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* [[That Man Is Dead]]: Entering the Faction means kissing all of your past goodbye. You simply will have never existed to start with.
* [[The Virus]]:
** The Faction's Biodata Virus. Shall we say '''''monstruous''''' doesn't even ''begin'' to describe it?
** The Yssgaroth taint. Interesting things, vampires. Didja know pure Yssgaroth taint can infest ''anything''? [[Oh Crap|I mean, up to and including timeships]]?
* [[Wham! Episode]]:
** ''Body Politic'', which ends with {{spoiler|the assassination of the War King ([[The Master (trope)|The Master]]) and a full-scale invasion of the Homeworld}}.
** ''Interference, Books 1 and 2'', where we ''really'' go to town on the Doctor's timeline by getting his Third self killed before his [[Doctor Who/Recap/S11
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