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, AUDIO: The Eleven Day Empire, 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 losing 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 occurred temporally concurrent with the War while still staying mostly separated 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)

Lead-up to the War
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. (PROSE: Alien Bodies) Last Contact was known by Larna to be the event in which the identity of the Enemy would become known. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles) The Enemy's identity was actually constantly shifting. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell)

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)

1152 years before the War, irregularities in the Great Houses' 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) Around the beginning of this generation's era, Avus discovered a remnant of reality from before the anchoring of the thread and encountered the enemy in the form of Cernunnos. (PROSE: Cobweb and Ivory)

About 860 years before 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)

About 400 years before the War, (PROSE: The Book of the War) Greyjan the Sane served as Lord President of Gallifrey for three days which coincided with part of the domain of the Eleven-Day Empire. In that time, he forsaw the War and made plans for the Nine Gallifreys to be created through crypto-forming. After predicting that the Enemy would be ancestor cells, he committed suicide. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell)

396 years before the War, (PROSE: The Book of the War) the newly formed House Paradox negotiated with the British government in 1752 to obtain the 11 days lost when the British converted to the Gregorian calendar. These days formed the Eleven-Day Empire. (PROSE: Interference - Book One, The Book of the War, et al) The Gazetteer considered the negotiations to be humanity's first official involvement in the War in Heaven. (COMIC: Political Animals) At the time of the calendar changeover, the Eleven-Day Empire was witnessed by many Londoners, including Sabbath Dei, (COMIC: Bêtes Noires & Dark Horses) a future War-time participant. (AUDIO: Sabbath Dei)

392 years before the War, (PROSE: The Book of the War) Cardinal Thorac attempted to establish a powerbase on Dronid to overthrow the High Council. The Council responded with an attack of ignorance and Thorac was dragged back to Gallifrey, leaving behind Time Lord technology on Dronid. (PROSE: Alien Bodies, The Book of the War, Shada) In the aftermath of the Dronid event, other potentially dangerous renegades were imprisoned, including Grandfather Paradox. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

380 years before the War, Thessalia interrogated War-time members of Faction Paradox on Zo la Domini but was caught in a Violent Unknown Event before she could relay the information she gained to her people. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

About 155 years before the War, the idea of hybridisation began to emerge on the Homeworld. The Great Houses' timeships began changing in a manner similar to evolution. (PROSE: The Book of the War) One timeship, Lolita, had her owner modify her so that she could become humanoid. At a time closer to the War's beginning, Lolita met with her sister on Foreman's World and tried to convince the sister to join her in preparing for the War (PROSE: Toy Story) "The war's coming, and nothing's going to stop it. Us against them, our pilots against their pilots. Even Mother isn't going to come out of this without a few bruises. This isn't a historical war. You do realise that, don't you? This isn't about territory, or power, or anything like that. It's a war of fundamentals. The enemy's going to change everything, if it can. Even if the Homeworld wins, there'll be... oh, huge amounts of disruption. Disruption at every level."

- Lolita

Around 150 years before the War, (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell, The Book of the War) the rationality of the universe was briefly threatened by the Carnival Queen, a pre-universe being (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet) with a goal identical to the Enemy's: (PROSE: Cobweb and Ivory) to return reality to as it was before the Time Lords imposed history onto it. The Carnival Queen was stopped by the Seventh Doctor, Chris Cwej, and Roz Forrester, but not before Gallifrey was momentarily plunged into chaos. (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet) In that time, the recently-elected (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell) Lady President Romana had an epileptic fit and released 300 prisoners from Shada; one of these prisoners was Grandfather Paradox, (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet) who went on to make Faction Paradox a major power in time for the War. (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)

36 years before the War, the War King returned to the Homeworld with knowledge of the Enemy. Four decades previously, he had warned his people of the Enemy and been ignored, but this time he was listened to, largely because the President tried to prove that the Enemy didn't exist and became the First Message from the Enemy. Umbaste then became the Lord President. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

20 years before the War, (PROSE: The Book of the War) the Celestial Intervention Agency removed themselves from history and became the Celestis to avoid the coming conflict. (PROSE: Alien Bodies, The Taking of Planet 5)

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)

6 years before the War, Umbaste died and the War King became the official head of his Homeworld. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

About 2 years before the start of the War, (PROSE: The Book of the War) the Eighth Doctor, already aware of the coming War from being involved with it a couple times in his past, (PROSE: Alien Bodies, Unnatural History) took on Compassion, a Remote from Anathema, as a companion. (PROSE: Interference - Book Two) While travelling with the Doctor, Compassion absorbed signals from the Doctor's TARDIS and was transformed into the only Type 102 TARDIS. The Time Lords sought to capture Compassion so that she could be the mother of a new generation of Type 103 TARDISes for the War; (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon, The Book of the War) the War King's Homeworld was unsuccessful in doing so, (PROSE: The Book of the War) but a Gallifrey ruled by Romana III and already heavily affected by future events of the War was. Before this Gallifrey could be devastated by the Enemy at the start of the War, it was erased from history in an incident involving forces from near the end of the War. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell)

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. They would later take over a Dalek ship in order to attend Qixotl's auction in the Daleks' place. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)

Riots occurred on one Homeworld at the start of the War. (PROSE: The Short Briefing Sergeant's Tale)

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)

Goralschai of the First Wave was involved in many early battles of the War: the Ganda Mnemma campaigns, in which Godfather Shuck was captured; the rout of the Raithaduine cultists; the Llammas IV campaign; and the Spike, a conflict against the Enemy over the Vault of Heaven. Soldiers of the Great Houses also fought a campaign on Aloophoa. (PROSE: Against Nature)

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. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

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

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)

On the Infernal Sphere, Baphomet obtained information on Thaumoctopus memeticus' origins, leading to him being murdered by a T.memeticus in the form of Thelema. (PROSE: T.memeticus: A Morphology) The Dæmons faced a "private Götterdämmerung", with many of them dying in gigantic battle mode. The Faction unearthed a Dæmon skeleton from Dæmos and converted it into a warship. (PROSE: Interference - Book Two)

In the 6th year of the War, Devonire attempted to make peace between the Great Houses and Faction Paradox by finding Grandfather Paradox's missing arm. After a dealing with the Immaculata Formosii on Kaiwar resulted in Devonire aquiring his own severed arm from the future, he was stricken with a severe case of paradox anxiety and imprisoned. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

Later 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. (PROSE: Interference - Book One, Interference - Book Two)

Circa the 6th year of the War, (AUDIO: In the Year of the Cat) 46 years before the major breakout at the Great Houses prison-planet, the Blood Coteries illegally manipulated the biodata of Demetra Kine and four shadow-weapon-proof warriors, resulting in all five being imprisoned by the Great Houses. This was so they could get revenge against Shuncucker when the prison inevitably had a breakout. (AUDIO: A Labyrinth of Histories)

Sometime in the Early War Era, House Arpexia experimented with jungle children. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

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) On Anathema, Mathara took Fitz Kreiner back with her to the Eleven-Day Empire, though he left behind a remembranced version of himself. Kreiner quickly rose to the rank of Father before being put in charge of one of the last Remote colonies, shortly before it was cut off from the Empire. (PROSE: Interference - Book Two)

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)

After several generations had passed on Anathema, it arrived near Earth in 1997. The Eighth Doctor, Sam Jones, and Sarah Jane Smith became involved with it and and stopped it from fulfilling its purpose. The Doctor then took on Kode and Compassion — remembrances of Fitz and Tobin — as companions. While most of the Remote stayed on Anathema, (PROSE: Interference - Book One, Interference - Book Two) some migrated to Earth, becoming a small cult in 21st century California. (PROSE: De Umbris Idearum)

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) Despite being involved in a "cultural exchange" with Theo Possible, (PROSE: Party Kill Accelerator!) 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)

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)

Influenced by the Celestis and weary of the changes going through Homeworld society, Goralschai put into a motion a complicated plan to destroy the universe. He assembled a Quincunx out of Primo de la Vega, Todd Calavero, Gedarra, Emiousha, and Momacani, all made from the loom of House Meddhoran but scattered apart in history so as to not alert the Great Houses. He used Faction technology to place House Meddhoran in the Netherweald, its connection to the Caldera temporarily rewriting the laws of the universe along Mexica beliefs. The Immaculata tried to disrupt Goralschai's plans but was killed. By Goralschai's design, the Quincunx gathered at Huixachtepetl in 1506 to be forced into the New Fire Ceremony. Goralschai was at the centre of the Ceremony, pulling out Momacani's heart to become a living embodiment of Xiuhtecuhtli. Goralschai was unable to use his newfound godhood to destroy reality; confined by the purpose of the Ceremony, all he could do was sacrifice himself to cause the cyclical renewal of the universe. (PROSE: Against Nature)

In the 18th year of the War, Mantissa led the Timebeast Assault, a failed invasion of the City of the Saved involving the assistance of the City's mayor. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

Robert Scarratt quickly became a notable member of the Fourth Wave. His earliest victory was preventing an uprising at a posthuman world which provided House Xianthellipse with Praxis. At another early point in Scarratt's military career, (PROSE: The Book of the War) he met the Enemy in open parley on Utterlost. (PROSE: The Brakespeare Voyage)

In the 20th year of the War, the Eighth Retro War occurred. Scarratt was sent to Delphi in 279 BC 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)

Sergeant-instructor Littlejohn once gave a speech to a young batch of Fourth Wave soldiers, telling them that Tardigrades were connected to the Enemy. (PROSE: The Short Briefing Sergeant's Tale)

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)

Chris Cwej in the War
Hiding from the gods of Dellah, (PROSE: Dead Romance) one of the Great Houses (AUDIO: The Eleven Day Empire) led an invasion of the version of 1970 Earth in the Sphinxs' bottle universe. Chris Cwej, a brainwashed former companion of the "Evil Renegade", helped in securing the Earth and dealing with the Horror. 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 was later found and recruited by Faction Paradox. (AUDIO: The Eleven Day Empire)

Cwej was exposed to fatal levels of radiation in the final stage of the bottle universe invasion. (PROSE: Dead Romance) His masters were initially fine with leaving him to die, but Irving Braxiatel heard about the situation and requested they save Cwej. With the help of a Great Houses monk, Cwej regenerated into a new body (PROSE: Tears of the Oracle) which was remotely shaped by House Military strategists to be suitable for a mission into Remote territory. (PROSE: The Book of the War) The first thing Cwej did in his new body was going on a mission to Paracletes in 2596 to recover data from Edward Watkinson's expedition to the planet. (PROSE: Tears of the Oracle)

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. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

In his new body, Cwej returned to 2596 to help defeat a Dellan God which merged with Absolam Sleed. (PROSE: Return to the Fractured Planet)

On the 30th anniversary of the War, Entarodora gave the "Monsters" Coda to the Fifth Wave. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

Fearing reality would be re-formed by the Ferutu who escaped their dying universe and became All-High Gods, Cwej's masters in the bottle universe allied with the People of the Worldsphere. Cwej partnered with Clarence, then met with with Irving Braxiatel, Bernice Summerfield, and Jason Kane at KS-159 in 2596. On Dellah, fighting broke out among the Gods and Tehke (PROSE: Twilight of the Gods) — a god favoured by the Lord Celestial Smoked Mirror (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5) — rose to dominance. Tehke betrayed the other Ferutu by either killing them or keeping them trapped in the dying universe. Cwej, Clarence, Summerfield, and Kane went to Dellah, banished Tehke back to the Ferutu's universe, and prevented the rest of the Ferutu from evacuating; in the process, Cwej was physically regressed back to his original body, albeit at age 13. Even after the Ferutu danger was over, Cwej's masters remained in the bottle universe and the People stayed locked in their Worldsphere. (PROSE: Twilight of the Gods)

In the 31st year of the War, Cwej — now in a mature version of his original body — went on a mission 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, which was filmed with a Celestis meme-mine. After Cwej dueled with Brookhaven at the climax of the film, the Enemy manifested as an Ainu God and caused Brookhaven's apparent demise. Before leaving, the God said, "All the six need re-costuming, and then the story can begin and end as scripted." (PROSE: The Book of the War) The plot of Mujun: The Ghost Kingdom greatly resembled the future destruction of the Eleven-Day Empire (which occurred about 20 War Era years later), with its six main characters being very similar to six key individuals involved in the Empire's fall. (PROSE: The Book of the War, AUDIO: The Eleven Day Empire, The Shadow Play)

Nearing the entrenchment phase
As the War progressed through its fourth decade, direct combat began being dropped by the Great Houses for more psychological tactics based upon principles of subversion and "cultural impregnation". (PROSE: The Book of the War)

By the 32nd year of the War, the Eight Day Week had occurred and battles had been fought at Pentralaxia and Cuchailan's Rift. (PROSE: The Brakespeare Voyage) In this year, the Fourth Wave fought an ideological crusade against the Remote of Fallahal using the Jallama Reed and New Young Gods transmissions, creating the Broken Remote. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

Also in the 32nd year, three House Arpexia timeships were destroyed while investigating the Grandfather's Maw. Jendrickenses, Minkosa, and Philetes were sent to investigate the disastrous investigation. In one iteration of history, the severed head of Robert Scarratt from a future point in the War was discovered at the Maw. To prevent the timeline seen in the memories of the future Scarratt, the Great Houses imprisoned Scarratt until after the time when he would have lost his head. (PROSE: The Brakespeare Voyage)

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

Having acquired KS-159 during the All-High God crisis, (PROSE: Tears of the Oracle) Irving Braxiatel founded the Braxiatel Collection. (PROSE: The Doomsday Manuscript, et al) Based in the 2600s, Braxiatel began severely manipulating local history with the end goal of resurrecting his people and giving them a new Homeworld. (AUDIO: Resurrecting the Past) The War-Time Great Houses were aware of Braxiatel's actions; when Bernice Summerfield asked Straxus if his people had any plans to stop Braxiatel, he said, "I'm afraid I can't comment. If something needs to be done, it will be done." (AUDIO: The Adventure of the Diogenes Damsel)

X-12 was assigned to a posting in 1880s Germany, a crucial War nexus. He was captured by an Enemy representative and exposed to a Wilhelm Liebnecht story about an ambitious king becoming a puppet to a legion of spiders, a metaphor for the Great Houses being overthrown from within by the Enemy. X-12 was rescued by a regen-inf. (PROSE: The Map and the Spider)

In the 35th year of the War, Robert Scarratt gave a speech to Fifth Wave trainees at the Gauntlet. (PROSE: The Brakespeare Voyage) Around this time, Scarratt conducted a series of apportation exercises on pre-time-aware Earth, including one with Elizabeth Canning in 1753. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

Predicting that Tagonique would become the hub of an advanced galactic empire allied with the Enemy, House Arpexia sent three artificial agents, Dephresis, Anhedra, and Jarks, to interfere with the technological development of the Tagoniqui. The agents manipulated Mesquividas into building a device which killed the planet's Prime Minister and brought genuine magic to Tagonique. Mired in superstition and magic, the Tagoniqui never allied with the Enemy and were erased from existence several decades later due to the universe imposing rationality onto them. (PROSE: Alchemy)

In the 38th year of the War, the Seventh Wave was created. After the Seventh Retro War, the War entered a period of entrenchment. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

Sherlock Holmes in the War
A number of events involving Sherlock Holmes occurred in the War, all at least before the conflict's 48th year. (PROSE: The Book of the Enemy, Of the City of the Saved...)

Not too long before the War's 41st year, (PROSE: Warring States, Erasing Sherlock) the Celestis provided 21st century scientific genius Jimmy Moriarty with a method of ritualistic time travel, which he tested by sending Gillian Petra and Thomas Corkle to 1882. Both participants were interested in Sherlock Holmes: Petra became a maid at 221B Baker Street to discretely study the detective for her criminology thesis while Corkle — on instructions from Moriarty — tried to experiment with history by preventing Holmes from becoming successful. Petra entered a romantic relationship with Holmes, accidentally changing history herself. After learning of Corkle's plan, Petra prevented him from severely damaging Holmes' timeline. She then returned to her home era by harnessing the power of Krakatoa's eruption. (PROSE: Erasing Sherlock)

Gillian Petra was recruited by the Celestis to be an Investigator. She briefly returned to Sherlock Holmes in 1890 to return a pair of his shoes she had taken during her previous visit. (PROSE: Erasing Sherlock Prologue)

Due to a Time Ring malfunction, Straxus became stranded in 1888 Ceylon with a Cwej named Septimus. They became involved with Ludwig Cooray, manipulating him to create the God Machine partially using one of Straxus' combat chips. After completing the God Machine, Cooray vanished and his conciousness was stored in the chip; Sherlock Holmes and John Watson thought he was murdered by Straxus, but were unable to find sufficent evidence. (AUDIO: The Adventure of the Diogenes Damsel, PROSE: A Gallery of Pigeons)

Straxus and Septimus continued to live on Victorian Earth. In an effort to catch the attention of the Great Houses, they founded Straxus Imperial, an auction company which they used to circulate artefacts not supposed to have been discovered until later points in history.

In 1893, while Sherlock was pretending to be dead, an emergency setting of Straxus' Time Ring overrode Bernice Summerfield's Time Ring and brought her to London, where she found refuge with Mycroft Holmes. With Mycroft exposed to a time traveller, Septimus committed a series of murders all relating to the number seven in the hopes that it would cause Mycroft to think so intensely about the concept of "seven" as to summon the Seventh Doctor through quantum mnemonics. When Bernice and Mycroft confronted Straxus and Septimus, the ripples in time caught the attention of Straxus at an earlier point in his timeline. The older Straxus was imprisoned for changing history and Septimus was taken for dissection. The younger Straxus then briefly met with Bernice in the Time Vortex. (AUDIO: The Adventure of the Diogenes Damsel)

Circa the mid-1910s, Sherlock Holmes investigated The Book of the Enemy and was erased from history by it, his entire life becoming fiction written by Arthur Conan Doyle. (PROSE: The Book of the Enemy) War-time individuals would go on to think of Holmes as a purely fictional character, (PROSE: The Book of the War, This Town Will Never Let Us Go, Of the City of the Saved...) but scant evidence of his original existence survived. (PROSE: The Book of the Enemy, The Taking of Planet 5) Also around this time, the Enemy fictionalised Ruritania, a gentlemen's club, and the Martians and their invasion of Earth. (PROSE: The Book of the Enemy)

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 Faction was recruiting new members from planets as varied as Salostopus and Lurma. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)

A member of the Faction named Jamie became stranded in 1990 Stevenage and attempted to get back to the Eleven-Day Empire by creating and sacrificing a Matryoska Gestalt. (PROSE: Office Politics) Another member of Faction Paradox known as the "Blood Witch" was stuck in England at an earlier point in Earth's history; she erased from time thirteen people — including Drostan — to make a portal back to the Empire. (PROSE: Storyteller)

Piloting her ship to Earth in the mid-third millennium BCE, Triphis used the chronomasticon with Tefen to play with the planet's history and make dozens of alternate timelines where Earth was ruled by different types of aliens, including mermaids, mutant pigeons, intelligent cosmic rays, gods from parallel dimensions, (PROSE: Playing for Time) Gorgons, (PROSE: Dreamer in the Dark) shades, (PROSE: Annie's Arms) Kyalites, (PROSE: The Mountains are Higher at Home) Jalaxians, (PROSE: Judy's War) Medusae, Krykkani, (PROSE: Red Rover Red Rover) Víkingrs, (PROSE: The Víkingr Mystique) and the Nova. (PROSE: Life of Julia) The final timeline to be created was one where the War-time manipulation of Native American tribes resulted in Yellow Bird using Faction techniques to summon an army of ghost warriors at Wounded Knee in 1890, beginning a new era of North America being taken back by its indigenous peoples. (PROSE: Project Thunderbird) The changes in history were noticed by the War King and Enigma Tree, (PROSE: Judy's War) along with some time sensitives (PROSE: Red Rover Red Rover) and many former companions of the "Evil Renegade". (PROSE: Judy's War) An angelic being unwound time so that Triphis never obtained her ship and none of the history-warping events surrounding the chronomasticon happened. (PROSE: Playing for Time)

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)

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

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 at Serendipity Keep 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)

At the behest of Godfather Stendec, Cousins Mace and Braquemard came to The Presidency's Head to psychometrically examine eight artefacts: the thermal projector used by Kotdel during an Enemy encounter on Cretaceous Earth, George Stillsome's hat, Philemon Smallcoate's glasses, the DVD case of the Collection of Necessary Secrets' copy of Monsters of the Deep, the wooden bell used by Thelema during the Enemy incursion at the Infernal Sphere, a burnt mangrove twig from the Enemy's attack on the Greenworld, Bobby's cellphone, and the Venusian translator used by Héloïse d'Argenteuil. Through this, they learned of Thaumoctopus memeticus, an aspect of the Enemy. Their understanding allowed a memeticus to manifest, taking over Mace's body and killing Braquemard. Thus, the Enemy had full access to the Stacks and the Faction technically had their first Enemy specimen. (PROSE: T.memeticus: A Morphology)

Trna, Martayne, and Zeller of Faction Paradox worked together to put Hitchbot in 2010s Philadelphia as a lure for the Compound, an aspect of the Enemy. Six of the Compound went on a mission to decapitate Hitchbot to "allow the disorderly incorrect timeline to proceed". All but one were captured by Trna and Martayne. The survivor, alone and confused, returned to the Compound lair in a hidden sector of space-time at One Liberty Place, revealing the lair's location to the Faction. Some of the data gained by the Faction was given to the Great Houses and the captured Compound creatures were given to Godfather Stendec. (PROSE: Houses of Cards)

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)

The Faction were involved in "an incident" with Iris Wildthyme and the Shopkeeper. (PROSE: Wildthyme and the Wolf)

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)

The War began severely intersecting with Earth's timeline in 1999, with nightly "rocket attacks" erasing things from history and Faction Paradox becoming a fashionable household name. In 2001, on a day when a controversial Tiffany Korta interview caused outrage across the world, (PROSE: This Town Will Never Let Us Go) the Universal Machine (PROSE: Of the City of the Saved...) nearly manifested as a timeship which crashed in a field near a British town and rooted itself to human culture. Manipulated by the War-time powers (including an agent of the Celestis), Valentine Bregman constructed a Red Uranium atomic bomb. Bregman journeyed into the crashed timeship with Inangela Marrero and Horror and planted the bomb. The bomb detonated, preventing the manifestation and creating the Ghost Point by damaging human culture. (PROSE: This Town Will Never Let Us Go)

Cousins Jezebella, Darius, and Fen visited the post-apocalyptic ruins of Kent after it was ravaged by a battle of the War involving the army of the Seventh Son of the Seventh Sun. They encountered Vermis Superior collecting bodies for young Vermis Superior to feed on. Jezebella and Darius were killed and added to the food pile. Fen then witnessed the Were-Crows feeding on the adult Vermis Superior and becoming the final aspect of the Enemy. (PROSE: Life-Cycle)

Almost 50 years into the War, (PROSE: Alien Bodies) Sabbath was appointed Godfather of Faction Paradox's military wing. He and Morlock went to 1899 England to kill Fiora Venn 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 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 to represent the Faction and re-obtain the Relic; they failed. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)

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 changing because of 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 Obverse. The Eighth Doctor, Compassion, and Fitz Kreiner briefly became involved with the beginning of this conflict, but they were pushed away by Iris Wildthyme. Participants in ensuing war included the Galactic Federation, Daleks, the Glass Men of Valcea, Cybermen, Steigertrudes, Draconians, Ghillighasts, Sontarans, Sahmbekarts, Ice Warriors, and, according to many sources, several incarnations of the Doctor from the Eighth Doctor's future. (PROSE: The Blue Angel) Meercock refuges from the Obverse conflict attempted to settle on Earth in 1973, where they encountered the Third Doctor before his altered death, along with Iris Wildthyme, Jo Grant, and Tom. (PROSE: Verdigris)

The pre-War-era Time Lords of a Gallifrey led by Romana II were made aware of the War through monitoring of the Obverse conflict. 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)

The Brakespeare fiasco
At a time around the 50th year of the War, when House Lolita was still 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 in the 32nd year of the War, who learned of the entire debacle through the head's memories and prevented it from ever happening. (PROSE: The Brakespeare Voyage)

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. It contained a small entry on House Lolita: an "obscure" Newblood House which had then recently allied with House Tracolix. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

Around the 52nd year of the War, (AUDIO: In the Year of the Cat) Lolita came to the Eleven-Day Empire with Ruthventracolixabaxil claiming to want to reinstate Faction Paradox as a proper Great House. Before arriving, she hired the Seventy-Ninth Sontaran Assault Corps to attack the Empire and steal material she 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, who escaped in Ruthven's timeship. (AUDIO: The Eleven Day Empire, The Shadow Play)

Its main powerbase lost, Faction Paradox was left fractured. As Iris Wildthyme put it, "The ashes [of the Faction] were scattered across the universe, the scant surviving members crawling into untraceable holes, biding their intangible blades until the pointless War [had] concluded." (PROSE: Panda and the Airship) Multiple individuals wrongly believed themselves to be the last vestiges of the Faction. (AUDIO: Sabbath Dei, Movers, PROSE: Spinning Jenny) Three separate Faction Paradox groups — all unaware of each other — survived in 21st century America, (PROSE: Head of State) including Faction Hollywood. (PROSE: Remake/Remodel) The Boulevard of Alternate Brutalities continued to operate near the end of the universe. (PROSE: Library Pictures)

With the Faction out of the picture, the Great Houses began threatening the Osirian Court. In response, Sutekh brought his armies of Mal'akh to the area around the Mediterranean Sea in the 15th century, a crucial point in history. The Great Houses sent Merytra Ellainya to influence the humans into destroying the Mal'akh, but she was captured. The Houses were forced to agree to a peace treaty to keep history intact. In the treaty, the Houses rededicated the Faction Paradox shrine in Civita to Sutekh. (AUDIO: Coming to Dust)

Most of the other Great Houses wanted to ally with Lolita after she consumed the Eleven-Day Empire. With the Homeworld practically under her control, she began trying to expand her influence throughout the Spiral Politic. (AUDIO: Sabbath Dei) She planned to occupy millions of bodies in powerful positions on every important planet in every time-zone, controlling the history "like one great big nervous system". (AUDIO: In the Year of the Cat)

Lolita began with Earth in 1762: overlaying her identity over Queen Charlotte's mind, putting George III in a natural-time envelope so that he wouldn't notice the changes in his wife, and importing from the 51st century an army of Peking Homunculi keyed to her central processor. Cousins Justine and Eliza came to 1762 and encountered Mary Culver, who was used by Compassion to inform them of Lolita's presence. With the help of Lord Sandwich and the Sieur d'Eon, Eliza destroyed the homunculus army, loosening Lolita's hold on the era. (AUDIO: Sabbath Dei, In the Year of the Cat)

Justine's actions in 1762 inspired Sabbath Dei to perform a Supplication ritual which transformed him into an agent of the Great Houses. Sabbath put Justine on trial for the crimes of Grandfather Paradox, sentencing her to finish the Grandfather's sentence at the Great Houses' prison planet, (AUDIO: In the Year of the Cat) Shada. (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet) Six months after Justine arrived, Compassion possessed a guard and released Demetra Kine of the Blood Coteries to cause chaos through which Justine could escape. Kine took control of the prison and attempted to take revenge on Shuncucker, another surviving member of Faction Paradox. After teaming up with Shuncucker to kill Kine, Justine escaped in a timeship just before House Military arrived to disband the riot. (AUDIO: Movers, A Labyrinth of Histories)

In the time that Justine was imprisoned, "a lot" happened back on Earth in the 1760s. (AUDIO: A Labyrinth of Histories) Before Justine left, Compassion had been convinced that a great fight would be needed to stop Lolita from taking over Earth. (AUDIO: In the Year of the Cat) Justine returned in 1763; (AUDIO: A Labyrinth of Histories) by the end of that year she and Eliza were no longer in contact with Compassion and no longer worried about Lolita taking over 18th century Earth. (AUDIO: Coming to Dust, Body Politic) However, Compassion remained an active force in the War, in the 58th year bringing an end to the City of the Saved Civil War. (PROSE: God Encompasses)

In 1763, a group of Mal'akh left-over from Sutekh's activity in the 15th century came to Italy to use an Osirian lodestone to summon Upuat. (AUDIO: Coming to Dust, The Ship of a Billion Years)

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 time 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) After a Gallifrey was lost in the battle of Mutter's Cluster, the remaining Gallifreys (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5) — previously self-segregated (PROSE: The Book of the War) — banded together and became numbered. Gallifrey Eight was covered in loomstacks and chronoforges which provided fodder for the War, Gallifrey Nine was used to store weapons such as D-Mat guns, (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5) and Gallifrey XII was used to train soldiers. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)

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 the 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 both she (PROSE: The Book of the War, Of the City of the Saved..., Warring States, The Brakespeare Voyage, et al) and a later incarnation of the Doctor would go on to have further involvement in the War. (PROSE: The Blue Angel) However, after the Eighth 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)

At an earlier point in his timeline, the Eighth Doctor found himself in the War-era and tried to send a hypercube to his Gallifrey for help with a member of Faction Paradox in 2002 San Francisco. While the Doctor believed that hypercubes were impossible to intercept, the Faction Paradox member did just that. When asked how he did it, the Faction Paradox member replied, "Maybe there's no one home on Gallifrey... Or maybe the whole planet's being destroyed, and undestroyed, and destroyed, and you just caught them at the wrong moment." (PROSE: Unnatural History)

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 invaded by the Gods was the same one in which the War occurred. (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
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)

Gallifrey was believed to be entirely destroyed, but the Capitol survived in the Kingdom of Beasts, where it had been taken by the Mal'akh. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)

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, Bêtes Noires & Dark Horses)

The Mayakai, a culture created in the War, survived into the post-War universe. (COMIC: Political Animals, PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)

Michael Drake became a hero to the people of Samhain when he repelled a War-time battle from the village in 1643. (PROSE: Michael Drake) After his death, he was commemerated with a monument at the Samhain elder church which read, "In memory of Michael Drake who kept the war from Samhain". (PROSE: Death of the Author, The Opera of Samhain, Michael Drake, Self Possessed)

Sabbath Dei, an agent of the Service who briefly became a servant of the Great Houses in the War, (AUDIO: In the Year of the Cat) worked to fill the void left by the absence of Time Lords in the post-War universe. Sabbath stole the Eighth Doctor's second heart and gained some Time Lord abilities. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)

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

Parallel universe
In a parallel universe created by the Quantum Archangel wherein the Doctor was never exiled to Earth by the Time Lords, the War began when the Sixth Doctor convinced his people to abandon the non-interference policy to launch a jihad against the Enemy. The Enemy in this reality were an old enemy of the Doctor, who used flying saucers, had metallic voices and "tin minds", and knew the Doctor by the name "Ka Faraq Gatri".

The Time Lords created a series of time dreadnoughts armed with Time Destructors: Sacred Might of Gallifrey, Righteous Fist of Rassilon, Glorious Aspect of Omega, Arcane Mystery of the Other, and Blind Visage of Pythia. Thousands of War TARDISes were put into use. Many renegade Time Lords returned to aid in the War; and Morbius were put in charge of military units and Mortimus became an elite executive of the CIA.

The War quickly spread across the universe, with the Time Lords becoming greatly allied with the Cyberlords. The Time Lords' superior temporal technology initially allowed them a string of victories against the Enemy. Success seemingly assured, the Doctor left the frontline to hold the rank of Lord President on Gallifrey. The Master then defected to the Enemy's side, turning the tides of the War by providing them with Gallifreyan technology.

Now equal technologically, the Enemy's vastly superior numbers allowed them to quickly become the winning side of the War. After Andred was killed in battle with Enemy forces, Lord President Admiral Doctor decided to destroy the universe using the Armageddon Sapphire before the Enemy could win the War. (PROSE: The Quantum Archangel)

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". "The War" is by far the most common title for the conflict in the Faction Paradox series -- which makes sense, since most stories in the series are set during it.
 * War in Heaven: Alien Bodies introduced this alternate title for the War, saying, "The off-worlders liked to think of it as a War in Heaven, all hellfire and thunder." This title would later be used in This Town Will Never Let Us Go, Of the City of the Saved..., Warlords of Utopia, Warring States, and Newtons Sleep, as well as the publisher's summary for The Eleven Day Empire, a note in the comic Political Animals, and the standard preface in every Mad Norwegian Press Faction Paradox novel before Erasing Sherlock. Though the title has been used less frequently in the Obverse Books' Faction Paradox stories, it did appear in The Brakespeare Voyage, T.memeticus: A Morphology and Life-Cycle from The Book of the Enemy, and Michael Drake from Obverse's Iris Wildthyme series.
 * Second War in Heaven: The Book of the War used the phrase "War in Heaven" to describe the War, but it also suggested that the war against the Yssgaroth could be seen as "the first great War in Heaven" and that some Homeworlders speculated that "only some kind of outside corruption could result in a Second War in Heaven". However, the title "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).