War in Heaven

The War was a temporal conflict between the Great Houses of the Time Lords and their Enemy. (PROSE: Alien Bodies, et al) It did not have enough activity in one specific region or era to be given a more specific title than "the War", (PROSE: The Book of the War) but it was known as the War in Heaven by some of the lesser species caught in the conflict. (PROSE: Alien Bodies, Newtons Sleep, COMIC: Political Animals, et al)

Several other major parties became involved in the War in a shifting configuration of alliances, notably including Faction Paradox, the Celestis, (PROSE: Alien Bodies, et al) the Remote, (PROSE: Interference - Book One, et al) the Osirians, (AUDIO: Coming to Dust, et al) the Mal'akh, and posthumanity. (PROSE: The Book of the War, et al)

As the War progressed, the Protocols of Linearity began wearing down and elements of the conflict seeped into the pre-War era of Gallifreyan history. (PROSE: Alien Bodies, The Shadows of Avalon) The Eighth Doctor had numerous encounters with the "future War", (PROSE: Alien Bodies, Unnatural History, Toy Story, The Taking of Planet 5, et al) even taking on companions originating from the War era. (PROSE: Interference - Book Two) The War also affected some of the Doctor's earlier incarnations, (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5, Verdigris, AUDIO: The Judgment of Sutekh, TV: Pyramids of Mars) most drastically the Third Doctor. (PROSE: Interference - Book Two) The Doctor's involvement in the War culminated in his eight incarnation choosing to destroy Romana III's Gallifrey on the eve of the War's outbreak, (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell) leading to him loosing all his memories and being deposited on 19th century Earth by Compassion to spend a century recovering. (PROSE: The Burning, Escape Velocity, Wolfsbane, et al)

Some events occured temporally concurrent with the War while still staying mostly seperated from the conflict: the final 56 years of the City of the Saved's existence, (PROSE: The Book of the War, Of the City of the Saved..., A Hundred Words from a Civil War) Bernice Summerfield's life in the late 26th and early 27th centuries, (AUDIO: The Adventure of the Diogenes Damsel, PROSE: Dead Romance, A Gallery of Pigeons, Predating the Predators) and some periods of Iris Wildthyme's transtemporal adventures. (PROSE: Library Pictures, The Shape of Things, Michael Drake, Panda and the Airship, Weapons Grade Snake Oil)

Before the War
The Homeworld existed in cultural stasis for millions of years before irregularities in the breeding-engines caused four "mutations", including the Imperator, Grandfather Paradox, and a renegade who would later become the War King. These mutations brought about the first changes on the Homeworld since its start. (PROSE: The Book of the War) Kellen cited the Etra Prime incident as the event which first foreshadowed the War, signalling that the Time Lords would need to abandon non-interference and fight to keep control of the cosmos. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell)

Some Time Lords foresaw a conflict in Gallifrey's future: (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell, The Return of the King, The Book of the War) the Imperator attempted to prepare the Homeworld by creating the babels and the Order of the Weal; (PROSE: The Book of the War) Greyjan the Sane made plans for the Nine Gallifreys to be created through crypto-forming as a precaution. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell)

The Matrix predicted that Gallifrey would survive many attacks before falling in a war against an implacable enemy, (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles, The Infinity Doctors) but due to the enemy's time-active nature, it couldn't make any concrete predictions about the War or the enemy's identity. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)

The enemy initially blocked off chunks of history to prevent War-era Gallifrey from contacting pre-War era Gallifrey to prepare them for the War, but as the War progressed the walls between the pre-War era and the War era thinned. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)

The War King returned to the Homeworld with knowledge of the enemy, and he was appointed as Lord President of the Great Houses. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

When it became clear that War was inevitable, Greyjan the Sane's plan for the Nine Gallifreys was implemented. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon, The Ancestor Cell, The Book of the War) Each of these duplicates thought that it was the original, and all of them had the ability to make even more copies of themselves. (PROSE: The Book of the War, The Taking of Planet 5)

Fearing the coming War, the Celestial Intervention Agency removed themselves from history and became the Celestis. (PROSE: Alien Bodies, The Taking of Planet 5)

Outbreak of the War
On Dronid, tensions between agents of the enemy and the Great Houses gradually escalated until a member of the Great Houses went there to try to find an agreement with an enemy contact. This diplomat was killed, and the first battle of the War began. (PROSE: Alien Bodies, The Book of the War)

The Krotons managed to intercept a Time Lord relaying information from Dronid to the High Council. They interrogated him, learning of the War. The Krotons decided to try to gain technology from the War to aid in their own war against the Metatraxi. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)

Immediately after the battle on Dronid, the enemy and the Great Houses attacked each other at many points of space-time. The first conflicts were the Thousand-Year Battles, fought on Utterlost, Kaiwar and Mohandassa. Then the enemy attempted a direct attack against the Homeworld itself, (PROSE: The Book of the War) which caught the Time Lords by surprise (PROSE: Alien Bodies) and destroyed many Homeworld technologies, (PROSE: The Book of the War) including the Sash of Rassilon, the De-mat Gun, and the Hand of Omega. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)

The War quickly became a four-dimensional series of strikes and counterstrikes which Mr Qixotl described as a "temporal stalemate". (PROSE: Alien Bodies)

Early conflicts & downfall of Faction Paradox
In the 2nd year of the War, the Faction took advantage of the confusion caused by the War and sent its Remote shock-troops to attack planets significant to the Great Houses, including Simia KK98. The Faction hoped that the Houses wouldn't see any connection between them and the Remote, but the Houses very easily deduced that the Faction were behind the Remote. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

The armies of the Great Houses, the Enemy, and Faction Paradox fought great battles across the surface of Mercy, killing the 150 human colonists already living there. This came to an end when one of the powers changed history so that, twenty generations before the fighting on Mercy, the Arbiturm bombed the planet with blacklight warheads, rendering it an inhospitable wasteland. (PROSE: Holding Pattern)

In the 4th year of the War, the Houses began experiments in biological technologies, creating regen-inf. The Houses also became aware of the Remonstration Bureau.

In the 5th year of the War, the major powers attempted to negotiate peace with the Venue Accords. The Accords lasted one picosecond and concluded that peace was an impossibility. The Book of the War summarised them as "an agreement to disagree". In response to the failure of the Accords, the Second Wave was created. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

The enemy began using anarchitects as weapons early in the War. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)

In the 6th year of the War, Devonire suffered from a severe case of paradox anxiety.

Also in the 6th year of the War, the Second Wave underwent a successful campaign of sterilisation against all of the planets where the Faction had begun propagating the Remote. (PROSE: The Book of the War) The first planet to be sterilised was Ordifica in 2596. (PROSE: Interference - Book One, The Book of the War) Mathara led an evacuation of Ordifica in the Justinian; Fitz Kreiner and Laura Tobin were among those onboard. Mathara deposited the evacuees on the Time Lord super-weapon Anathema in 1799, which was on route to destroy Earth in 1997. The Eighth Doctor, Sam Jones, and Sarah Jane Smith became involved with Anathema when it came to Earth and stopped it from fulfilling its purpose. The Doctor then took on Kode and Compassion — remembrances of Fitz and Tobin — as companions. (PROSE: Interference - Book One, Interference - Book Two)

In the 8th year of the War, the breakaway Thirteen-Day Republic was founded by Anastasia Romanov, but then quickly lost in the Battle of Valentine's Day. (PROSE: The Book of the War, Warring States)

A War veteran found asylum in the Eleven-Day Empire for a while, but they were eventually evicted as part of a Faction initiation competition led by Starch. Ceol won said competition and became a Cousin. (PROSE: Now or Thereabouts) Ceol quickly tired of the Faction and smuggled her biodata and consciousness into a new body, leaving her original to sign up for a Faction mission to Mohandassa and be wiped from history. Ceol managed to evade the Faction in her new body for a considerable period. (PROSE: Weapons Grade Snake Oil)

In the 10th year of the War, Compassion met with the War King to enter an alliance that entailed opening a "second front" against the enemy. Carmen Yeh was present for this meeting, which she novelised in Fantastical Travels in an Infinite Universe. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

In the 11th year of the War, the Third Wave was created and the Lethean Campaign was fought, (PROSE: The Book of the War) temporally ravaging the planet Lethe. (PROSE: The Parliament of Rats)

In the 14th year of the War, the Faction's Eleven-Day Empire was breached by the Clockwork Ouroboros of the Star Chamber and severely damaged, driving the Faction underground while it rebuilt the Empire and re-evaluated itself. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

The Great Houses embrace bio-diversity
"We of the Great Houses used to think of ourselves as virtually celestial; things of pure intellect and reason. But this War has made us rather more... carnal."

- The War King

As the War progressed, the Time Lords began severely altering their biology to combat the Enemy, (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5, The Book of the War) some becoming what both Justine McManus (AUDIO: In the Year of the Cat) and the Eighth Doctor described as "monsters". (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell) While they had been experimenting with non-humanoid soldiers with the Third Wave, it was only in the 17th year of the War that the Great Houses began splicing their people with biodata from "lesser species", creating the Fourth Wave. (PROSE: The Book of the War) Robert Scarratt was a notable member of the Fourth Wave. (PROSE: The Book of the War, The Brakespeare Voyage)

In the 20th year of the War, the Eighth Retro War occurred. Scarratt was sent to Delphi shortly after the Battle of Thermopylae to make a sacrifice that strengthened the Eighth Earth Front. (PROSE: The Brakespeare Voyage) The timeline of the Eighth Retro War was later manipulated by One. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5)

In the 24th year of the War, Jendrickenses gave a speech on the Grandfather's Maw. (PROSE: The Brakespeare Voyage)

In the 25th year of the War, the Fifth Wave was created. The Gauntlet was also founded around this time. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

Fearing the gods of Dellah, (PROSE: Dead Romance) one of the Great Houses (AUDIO: The Eleven Day Empire) led an invasion of the version of Earth in the bottle universe. Chris Cwej helped in securing the Earth and dealing with the Horror; however, he received a fatal dose of radiation and — due to augmentations received while serving the Houses — regenerated into a new body (PROSE: Dead Romance) which was remotely shaped by House Military strategists to be suitable for a mission into Remote territory. (PROSE: The Book of the War) Christine Summerfield was the only native of the Earth to escape; she journeyed to the empty ruins of the Homeworld abandoned by the House who invaded her world (PROSE: Dead Romance) and she was later found and recruited by Faction Paradox. (AUDIO: The Eleven Day Empire)

In the 29th year of the War, while Cwej was recovering from his regeneration during his stay at the Gauntlet, the Great Houses decided to use him in their Army of One project without his knowledge. The Cwejen were created from Chris' timeline.

In the 31st year of the War, Cwej was sent to 1999 Los Angeles to intervene with the activities of Faction Hollywood. Cwej faced off against Michael Brookhaven at the shooting of Mujun: The Ghost Kingdom. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

The Chanticleer and the Hornheads came into conflict in Samhain in 1643, but were repelled by Michael Drake (with a bit of help from Iris Wildthyme). (PROSE: Michael Drake)

In the 32nd year of the War, three House Arpexia timeships were destroyed while investigating the Grandfather's Maw. (PROSE: The Brakespeare Voyage) Also in this year, the Fourth Wave fought an ideological crusade against the Remote, creating the Broken Remote. Mantissa led the Timebeast Assault, an attempted invasion of the City of the Saved. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

In the 35th year of the War, Robert Scarratt gave a speech to Fifth Wave trainees at the Gauntlet. (PROSE: The Brakespeare Voyage)

In the 38th year of the War, the Seventh Wave was created. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

Entrenchment & return of Faction Paradox
Around its 40th year, the War entered a phase of entrenchment. Faction Paradox returned to being a major power in the War, albeit a far subtler one than they were before. The Remote were completely independent by this time. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

The Time Lords accepted many renegades back into their society to further War efforts. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5, The Brakespeare Voyage) The Rani and Borusa became tutors to newly loomed soldiers. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5) As part of their hatchling projects, the High Council created clones of several renegades, including the Master and the Rani. In a period spanning between the 22nd and 38th centuries, Father Kreiner roamed the universe hunting for renegade Time Lords and collecting their severed heads. (PROSE: Interference - Book One)

At the edges of the War, the Hussar — a renegade of the Great Houses — was permitted to travel through inconsequential areas of history. The Hussar got caught in the schemes of Father Christèmas and was killed in order to create a loa. His timeship, the Kraken, joined Christèmas' Bankside division of the Faction, which, with the newborn loa, went independent from the rest of the Eleven-Day Empire. (PROSE: Weapons Grade Snake Oil)

Cousins Bertold and Ernest joined the nautical expedition of Sir George Dimchurch in 1810 in order to pervert it to delay the formulation of the theory of evolution by decades, negatively affecting the Great Houses. They created living pterodactyls for Dimchurch to discover on New Guinea and bring back to Europe, but Dimchurch overheard them discussing their plans on the return voyage and destroyed all evidence of the pterodactyls on the ship. (PROSE: Wing Finger)

House Dvora attempted to alter Earth's history by inspiring 16th century philosopher Giordano Bruno to become Pope and and lead Europe into an early age of rationalism and science. Father Self subverted all of Dvora's efforts and integrated Bruno into the Remote of Anathema. (PROSE: De Umbris Idearum)

In the 44th year of the War, the Eighth Wave was created. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

When the War-time powers began using weapons which put the spirits of history in danger, the Faction sent Cousin Andraiz to Tonton Macoute's prison in Cyclone Tracy to find a solution, a "cure-all to time". After gathering the necessary ingredients (two timeships, Demi and Medea; the reflection of an Enemy agent; the ground bones of House Military soldiers; and the shadow of a Faction soldier), Macoute made a "cure-all" which attracted loa. However, the "cure-all" was nothing but bait, and Macoute consumed the loa to attain their god-like aspects. Before leaving Andraiz, Macoute explained that, in a way, he would be fixing the Faction's problem: "There's only one way to significantly change an ecosystem: introduce a predator." (PROSE: Tonton Macoute) However, despite having the powers of a god, Macoute somehow died. (PROSE: A Hundred Words from a Civil War)

In the 46th year of the War, a group of thirteen Great Houses renegades tried to escape the War by using Time Rings to journey into a cluster of parallel universes where the Roman Empire never fell. The renegades created links between the universes, allowing them to unite into the Empire of Empires. House Mirraflex sent a Cwej to contain the situation; he united all the universes where the Nazis won World War II into the Greater German Reich and got them to go to war with the Romans. After several decades of warfare, the Romans won. In the end, a member of House Mirraflex came in and reinstated the boundaries between worlds. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia)

When Sabbath was appointed Godfather of Faction Paradox's military wing, he and Morlock went to 1899 England as part of a ritual and encountered Justine McManus. Morlock decided to let Justine join the Faction (AUDIO: Movers, A Labyrinth of Histories) and she was sent to Dronid to learn the ways of the Faction under Sanjira. During Justine's stay, the Celestis manipulated Sanjira into discovering the Relic — the Doctor's corpse — and he decided to respectfully send it into the Time Vortex, unaware of its significance. (PROSE: Alien Bodies) Justine was then summoned back to the Eleven-Day Empire (PROSE: The Book of the War) and sent on a mission with Manjuele to Qixotl's auction in the East Indies ReVit Zone to represent the Faction and re-obtain the Relic; they failed. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)

A member of the Faction named Jamie became stranded in 1990 Stevenage. (PROSE: Office Politics)

Perversion of history on Dust
Nearing the 50th year of the War, Morlock of Faction Paradox developed a biodata virus which could infect the histories of individuals and transform them into members of the Faction. (PROSE: The Book of the War) The Faction elders met in the Houses of Parliament of the Eleven-Day Empire and decided to try to infect I.M. Foreman with the virus at the moment when Foreman became the biosphere of the planet Dust in the 38th century, effectively turning Dust into a new sentient homeworld for the Faction. However, the Faction didn't account for the Third Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith coming to Dust; instead of infecting Foreman, the virus was attracted to the Doctor after he was shot by a local. The Doctor regenerated and the virus took hold in his body. (PROSE: Interference - Book One, Interference - Book Two)

With history was changed by the Third Doctor regenerating on Dust instead of in the UNIT HQ laboratory, the timelines became much more uncertain and malleable. Some regions of space-time degenerated into a series of realities which formed the Obverse. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell) A cataclysmic war began between the inhabitants of the main universe and the inhabitants of the newly formed Obverse. The Eighth Doctor, Compassion, and Fitz Kreiner briefly became involving with the beginning of this battle, but they were pushed away by Iris Wildthyme. (PROSE: The Blue Angel)

The pre-War-era Time Lords of a Gallifrey led by Romana II were made aware of the War through monitoring of the conflict involving the Obverse. Romana regenerated into a body more suitable for war (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon) and made herself War Queen and mistress of the Nine Gallifreys. She began stockpiling weapons in the Slaughterhouse, a secret arsenal protected by a time eddy. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell) She planned to use Bull-TARDISes to mate with Compassion to create a new Type 103 TARDIS.

Romana dispatched two of her most trusted agents, Gandar and Cavis, to capture Compassion while she transformed into a Type 102 TARDIS in Avalon. While the agents managed to almost start a nuclear war between humans and avalonians, they did not capture Compassion, who escaped with the Eighth Doctor and Fitz Kreiner. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon)

After the Doctor installed a randomiser inside her, Compassion managed to elude the Time Lords for a considerable time, (PROSE: The Fall of Yquatine, Coldheart, The Space Age) but she was eventually found by an operative in the 19th century. (PROSE: The Banquo Legacy) Compassion and her two companions were forced to go to Romana's Gallifrey, where they came into contact with forces from a later point in the War. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell)

Rise of House Lolita
"With only one member it seems unlikely that House Lolita will be making a great impact on Homeworld politics in the immediate future."

- The Book of the War

In the 50th year of the War, The Book of the War, a guide to the first half century of the War, was published. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

In one version of history, at a time after the period covered by The Book of the War but while House Lolita was still relatively obscure, House Lineacrux secretly organised a voyage into the Grandfather's Maw to retrieve Leviathan biodata for research. Entarodora was chosen to captain The San Grael; she betrayed Lineacrux after going into the Maw by abandoning the mission and trying to instead found a new universe free of the War. Lineacrux recruited Robert Scarratt to captain The Brakespeare into the Maw, punish Entarodora, and finish her mission. Compassion witnessed a potential future where Scarratt's voyage was successful and the biodata research led to the Great Houses harnessing the power of the Maw to obliterate Earth from history, so she contacted Scarratt before he got on The Brakespeare and showed him the consequences of success. The Brakespeare was infiltrated by agents of the Celestis, the Enemy, Faction Paradox, and Entarodora. The Brakespeare's voyage ended in a disastrous meeting with The San Grael. A timeship containing the severed head of Scarratt escaped The Brakespeare and gravitated back towards the edges of the Maw, where it was found by the Great Houses at an earlier point in the War, who learned of the entire debacle through the head's memories and prevented it from ever happening. (PROSE: The Brakespeare Voyage)

Still in the 50th year of the War, (AUDIO: In the Year of the Cat) the newly-allied Houses Tracolix and Lolita (PROSE: The Book of the War) sent Lord Ruthven and Lady Lolita to negotiate with Faction Paradox in the Eleven-Day Empire. First, they hired the Seventy-Ninth Sontaran Assault Corps to attack the Empire and steal material Lolita needed to reach an agreement with the loa protecting the Empire. After communing with the loa, Lolita turned on her allies and swallowed Ruthven, the Sontarans, and the Empire itself; the only survivors were Cousin Eliza and Cousin Justine. (AUDIO: The Eleven Day Empire, The Shadow Play)

The Houses later tried Justine, who, by bearing Grandfather Paradox's shadow, was culpable to his crimes; they sentenced her to an imprisonment in their prison-planet. (AUDIO: In the Year of the Cat)

With the Empire destroyed, the Homeworld began an attack on the Osirian Court. Sutekh forced a peace treaty by threatening to flood a crucial point in history with his Mal'akh. In the treaty, the Houses rededicated the Faction Paradox shrine in Civita to Sutekh. (AUDIO: Coming to Dust)

The Celestis took control of one of the major governments on early 21st century Earth. (PROSE: Head of State)

Homunculette's era
Homunculette came from an era of the War when the Time Lords had been fighting the War for "half a millennium". (PROSE: Alien Bodies) The Shift casually described this era as being "years in the future" of the period covered by The Book of the War. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

By this time, the original Gallifrey was known to have been wiped from existence along with most of its population. (PROSE: Alien Bodies) The incident where a Gallifrey was first lost was called the battle of Mutter's Cluster. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5)

The loomstacks of Gallifrey Eight produced soldiers all day and night to provide the Time Lords with fodder for the War. House Military was on its Last Wave. (PROSE: Alien Bodies) Faction Paradox still had some presence in the War. The hermit was beginning to plan the complete destruction of Mictlan and the Celestis. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5)

Homunculette and Marie were sent on a mission by the High Council to obtain the Relic — the Doctor's corpse — so that its biodata could be examined to further the War effort. Homunculette saw the Relic as the final chance to win the War. After first encountering an agent of the Celestis in 2169 London, they went to Qixotl's auction in the East Indies ReVit Zone. Also attending the auction were Trask, representing the Celestis; a Shift, representing the enemy; and several other minor players from earlier points in the timeline, including the Eighth Doctor and Sam Jones. The Celestis almost gained the Relic, but the Doctor tricked them into trading the Relic to him in return for the Shift. The Doctor took the Relic to Quiescia and destroyed it. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)

Sometime later, Homunculette was involved in a "disastrous" mission on Delphon where he desperately used his eyebrows to try to get the locals to attack the Enemy.

A team of twelve Time Lords — including Xenaria, Holsred, and Allopta — were sent to Antarctica in 12,000,000 BC to prepare an assault Planet 5 and capture the Fendahl so that it could be re-engineered into a "final assault weapon" for the War. Because the Celestis had used a fictional generator to bring to life the Elder Things from H. P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, the Time Lords regenerated into bodies which resembled Elder Things to blend in. The Eighth Doctor, Compassion, and Fitz Kreiner came to the Time Lord base to investigate the Elder Things. The Time Lords were about to break through the temporal barrier around Planet 5 by barraging it with kamikaze War TARDISes, but Compassion's presence inspired the TARDISes to try to break free of their servitude. Tachon tried to restrain the TARDISes with a D-Mat Gun and was forced to shoot the lead TARDIS, rupturing it.

The damaged TARDIS spread into a time fissure stretching from 12,000,000 BC to 1999. In the 1970s, Professor Fendelman used the energy of this time fissure to reanimate the final fragment of the Fendahl. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5) The Fourth Doctor and Leela arrived at Fendelman's lab and prevented the Fendahl from fully manifesting. (TV: Image of the Fendahl) On a mission from the Lord President, Homunculette stationed himself in 1999 under the alias "Nathaniel Hume" to investigate the fissure and other remnants of what was going on in 12,000,000 BC. Compassion and Holsred followed the TARDIS to 1999, where they encountered "Hume" and fought Two.

Back in the past, the Eighth Doctor convinced all of TARDISes to not break the shield around Planet 5, but one TARDIS accidentally did, unleashing the Fendahl Predator. Just as the hermit planned, the Predator was attracted to Mictlan, home of the Celestis. The Predator feasted on the Celestis, utterly destroying them. The Doctor coordinated the TARDISes into working together to push Mictlan away from the main universe so that the Predator wouldn't be able to return. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5) The Shift managed to escape the dying Mictlan with several other Celestis servants by hijacking one of the timeships. They landed on a world at the beginning of the Spiral Politic. The Shift eventually found its way into a copy of The Book of the War. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

The Faction invasion of Gallifrey
By a time "towards the end of the War", when the War had been going on for about 292 years (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles) and the Celestis were "long dead", (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell) a militaristic Faction Paradox army had developed, (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles) based in the Eleven-Day Empire and led by Grandfather Paradox — to be precise, a version of the Eighth Doctor completely changed by the biodata virus, who took on the title of Grandfather Paradox. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell)

The Time Lords of this era were losing the War. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles) On one Gallifrey, misinformation camps and carefully detonated reality bombs were used to obscure certain truths from the majority of Gallifreyans. Biological defences created in ancient Gallifreyan history to combat the Great Vampires and the Charon were augmented to have devastating capabilities against the enemy. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell) Faction Paradox's warfleet (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles) travelled to Romana III's Gallifrey just before the start of the War, at the same time that Compassion was forcibly taken to the planet with the Eighth Doctor and Fitz Kreiner inside of her. The pre-War-era Eighth Doctor was on the verge of being overtaken by the Faction biodata virus at that time. The Faction successfully took the Capitol by force. They resurrected Greyjan the Sane using a remembrance tank and had him take Romana's place as Lord President; the nature of Greyjan's previous Presidency meant that Gallifrey began merging with the Eleven-Day Empire. Using their newfound control over the Web of Time, the Faction began altering the history of Romana's Gallifrey, erasing five of the six founders of Time Lord society and undoing the creation of the eight copies of Romana's Gallifrey.

But there was one variable that the Faction did not account for. The Doctor's original TARDIS — previously devastated in the events that led to him starting to travel in Compassion — contained within it the potentiality of the timeline where the Third Doctor regenerated due to radiation from Metebelis III and was never infected with a biodata virus. The stress of containing this timeline warped the TARDIS, turning it into the vast Edifice which loomed in the sky above Gallifrey. The Eighth Doctor journeyed into the heart of the Edifice, where he had a confrontation with Grandfather Paradox. The Doctor chose to use the unstable power of the Edifice to restore the Metebelis timeline and erase Romana's Gallifrey from history to spare its inhabitants from the rule of Faction Paradox and the horrors of the War. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell) The ensuing explosion eradicated the entire sector of space containing Kasterborous, and with it the Faction Paradox warfleet. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles)

Compassion rescued the Eighth Doctor, Fitz, and Nivet from the destruction of Gallifrey. Compassion believed that the destruction of Romana's Gallifrey meant that the War was over, (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell) but she would go on to have further involvement in the War (PROSE: The Book of the War, Of the City of the Saved..., Warring States, The Brakespeare Voyage, et al) — however, after the Doctor lived through a century on Earth, he and Fitz did find themselves in a post-War universe. (PROSE: Father Time, The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, Sometime Never..., et al)

Mutually assured destruction of history
With no other options, the Time Lords adopted a strategy of mutually assured destruction. They created Anathema, a planetary warship with the Cold at its centre designed to destroy Earth — the Enemy's planet of origin — in the late 20th century and therefore destabilise the causal nexus of the universe. In order to get past Enemy defences, Ananthema was sent to Earth not with time travel, but with sub-light speed space travel along a three-billion-year route from a Time Lord base.

The Time Lords then evacuated the universe; Compassion heard rumours involving "something about a universe in a bottle". In fact, the Time Lords stole I.M. Foreman's bottle universe while the Eighth Doctor was visiting her. (PROSE: Interference - Book Two) There were already Time Lords in Foreman's bottle universe, (PROSE: Interference - Book One, Dead Romance) who evacuated into their own bottle universe when the Gods of Dellah began taking over their universe. Christine Summerfield theorised that the Gods were actually the Time Lords from the universe outside Foreman's bottle universe. (PROSE: Dead Romance) However, other sources indicated that the Gods were actually the Ferutu (PROSE: Twilight of the Gods) and that the universe home to the Gods was the same one that the War occurred in. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon, The Book of the War, AUDIO: The Adventure of the Diogenes Damsel, The Eleven Day Empire, et al)

As the warship began nearing the end of its three-billion year journey, Faction Paradox of an earlier period of the War established a Remote colony on the warship. When Anathema did finally reach Earth, it was disarmed by the Eighth Doctor. (PROSE: Interference - Book Two)

The end of the War
Entarodora believed that the War would be ended by either the entire War's retroactive annulment, or a victory for one side so complete that it would become history. (PROSE: The Book of the War) By one account, the War was retroactively annulled by the Eighth Doctor's destruction of Gallifrey. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles)

Some members of the Great Houses believed that the War would end after the Seven Prophesied Heads of Severance spoke. (PROSE: The Brakespeare Voyage) In a deleted scene of Mujun: The Ghost Kingdom, Baron Amatsumara said, "When the Seventh Head speaks, the War will end, and the true War will begin." (PROSE: Head of State)

In The Book of the Truce, Godfather Morlock wrote that the War could be ended by placing all its participants in oxbow realities. Some optimistic thinkers thought that the War would resolve itself if only a few key figures were trapped in oxbow realities. (PROSE: Weapons Grade Snake Oil)

Aftermath
A few members of Faction Paradox survived the end of the War. They fought American Freemasons for control of history at King George III's mammoth hunt. (COMIC: Political Animals)

While several Time Lords survived the War, (PROSE: The Galifrey Chronicles, Timeless) the universe at large was only aware of four surviving elementals. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, Trading Futures) These were blamed for causing the mysterious disaster that led drained the universe of energy, (COMIC: Miranda) led to whole galaxies being evacuated, and erased whole sections of the timeline. (PROSE: Father Time) They reigned over all of time and space as the Imperial Family. (PROSE: Father Time)

The Tenth Doctor remembered (PROSE: The Eyeless) the Eighth Doctor's destruction of Gallifrey. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles, The Eyeless)

Participants
It was suggested that the War was allowed to escalate out of all proportion and the real threat to Gallifrey came from within. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia) Indeed, the Houses of Gallifey were not above in-fighting, especially the ruling six: Mirraflex, Xianthellipse, Arpexia, Dvora, Tracolix and Lineacrux. (PROSE: The Book of the War) It was House Lolita, though, which most ruthlessly pursued its own interests. (AUDIO: The Shadow Play, In the Year of the Cat)

Although the conflict was primarily between the Time Lords and the enemy, other powers became heavily involved as they sought to either evade or exploit the War.

Faction Paradox's stance proved the most opportunistic and changeable. At times they over-ambitiously launched direct attacks on the Time Lords (PROSE: The Book of the War), at times attempted more subtle subversion of their activities (PROSE: Interference - Book One) and eventually found themselves negotiating to be reinstated as a House of Gallifrey. (AUDIO: The Shadow Play)

The Remote were perhaps even more unpredictable; their anarchistic nature utterly committed them to the overthrow of whichever the dominant power was at any given time. They were also unbound from linearity, resulting in Remote members like Compassion interacting with people from before the start of the War.

Various posthuman groups allied themselves with the enemy.

Grandfather Halfling often left the City of the Saved to participate in the War.

From what they assumed was the safe vantage point of non-existence, the Celestis treated the War as a game, sometimes interfering on the Homeworld's behalf and sometimes supplying the enemy with weaponry. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

Technology and development
Time Lords from a later stage of the war did not have humanoid form. Only the 'Generals' had totally humanoid forms.

Type 102 TARDISes and War TARDISes were in full use by the War. 102s were used by Time Lord agents whilst War TARDISes were utilised by Time Lords on missions. (PROSE: Alien Bodies, The Taking of Planet 5)

The Book of the War purported to be an encyclopedia of the War's first fifty years, (PROSE: The Book of the War) but others held that history books were anachronisms, since the forces that shaped the universe were inconceivable. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia)

Naming

 * The War: In Alien Bodies, the conflict between the Time Lords and their enemy was introduced as just "the war", without any capitalisation. This lowercase improper title was used until The Ancestor Cell, which first called it "the War"; this title was later used heavily in the Faction Paradox series.
 * The War in Heaven: Alien Bodies introduced an alternate title for the War, saying, "The off-worlders liked to think of it as a War in Heaven, all hellfire and thunder." This was echoed by a brief mention of the phrase in The Book of the War and in several later novels, as well as the publisher's summary for The Eleven Day Empire and a note in the comic Bêtes Noires & Dark Horses. Indeed, all later Mad Norwegian Press Faction Paradox novels included a preface identifying "The War" as "A conflict so primal that for most of the population of history, it can only be thought of as a 'War in Heaven'," a sentiment which was echoed in the background information given in Political Animals. However, with the exception of a single uncapitalised mention in PROSE: The Brakespeare Voyage, the Obverse-published Faction Paradox stories have referred to the conflict as only "the War". (That said, the title was referenced in Obverse's Iris Wildthyme short story Michael Drake, where Iris Wildthyme drunkenly tried to clarify which War she's talking about by saying that it's either in Devon or in Heaven.)
 * The Second War in Heaven: The Book of the War used the phrase "War in Heaven" to describe the War, but it also stated that the Eternal War was "the first great War in Heaven." Later, the book mentioned that some Homeworlders speculated that "only some kind of outside corruption could result in a Second War in Heaven". However, the title "the Second War in Heaven" was specifically never applied to the Houses' current war, and the next sentences immediately discredited the Homeworlders' theory and, with it, the "Second War in Heaven" appellate.