Faction Paradox

Faction Paradox, once known as House Paradox, were a time-active faction devoted to the promulgation of temporal paradoxes and opposed to the Time Lords and their philosophy of rationality and stability. Founded by Grandfather Paradox, their base was located in the Eleven-Day Empire. They played a neutral role in the War between the Time Lords and the Enemy.

Most Time Lords - including the Doctor - dreaded the Faction. (PROSE: Alien Bodies) Iris Wildthyme described the Faction as "insolent children playing at being cultists, messing about with their shadows, and tying their timelines into impractical knots" (PROSE: Panda and the Airship) and "paradox-inducing psychopaths from the far future". (PROSE: Bafflement and Devotion)

Origins
Grandfather Paradox, a member of the House of Lungbarrow, seceded from Lungbarrow and created House Paradox about four hundred years before the First War in Heaven. (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet) The House was unpopular for their penchant for death fetishism (which mocked the Time Lords' pretension of immortality) and due to Grandfather Paradox's use of the title "Grandfather" (a term offensive to the Time Lords, since they had been made sterile by the curse of the last Pythia). Most offensive, though, was the House's open interest in perverting the Web of Time. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

The Grandfather founded the Eleven-Day Empire at this time, but was arrested and imprisoned on Shada before the House had Loomed its first generation. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

The Grandfather escaped during the crisis surrounding the Carnival Queen, (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet) and surrendered Paradox's status as a House, transforming it into a Faction. The Grandfather left Gallifrey and started to recruit members from other species, completing the Faction's transition from Gallifreyan chapterhouse into a cult. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

Pre-War
Around two thousand years before the War, House Paradox had a homeworld to itself, where they became a corrupted society, getting involved in sordid criminal activities including peddling time travel technology to other races. They believed their use of blood rites would protect them from any retaliation by the Time Lords. These protections were inadequate and the Time Lords wiped out the inhabitants of the Paradox homeworld. (PROSE: Interference - Book One) Cousin Shuncucker was one of the few survivors, and she carried Grandfather Paradox's shadow. (AUDIO: A Labyrinth of Histories) A few other members survived and continued their activity of sharing advanced technology with the natives on colonies. During their recovery, they built up cults and secret societies throughout the universe, including the Order of the Rectangle, the Cult of the Black Sun and Luminus. (PROSE: Interference)

The Seventh Doctor encountered Faction Paradox near the end of his life. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)

Early activity in the War
The Faction were a major force during the first 50 years the War. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

Destruction of the Eleven-Day Empire
About 50 years after the start of the War, Lolita consumed the Eleven-Day Empire. In doing so, she wiped out all members of Faction Paradox apart from Justine, Eliza, (AUDIO: The Eleven-Day Empire, The Shadow Play) Kresta Ve Coglana Shuncucker, (AUDIO: Movers) and Belle. (PROSE: Panda and the Airship) The film Mujun: The Ghost Kingdom apparently foretold Lolita's consumption of the Empire and predicted that Godfather Sabbath would also survive. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

Justine and Eliza eventually forged an alliance with the Osirian Court to neutralise the threats of both the demented Sutekh and of House Lolita. Sutekh's and Lolita's fates were to be bound for eternity within an Osiran pyramid, never to be released. (AUDIO: The Judgment of Sutekh) During this process, the War King reintroduced the Faction to the High Council as House Paradox, (AUDIO: Words from Nine Divinities) and Cousin Eliza became Horus. (AUDIO: Body Politic) When inducting his earlier self into the Faction, Richard Francis Burton made himself swear by "Horus, the reborn child from whose sacrifice our Faction owes its own rebirth". (PROSE: Head of State)

After the War
Later events involving the Eighth Doctor and Grandfather Paradox allowed the central paradoxes of the War to be resolved, effectively eliminating the entire War from the Web of Time, and destroying Gallifrey along with the Faction themselves. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell) The Faction fleet disappeared from history shortly before Gallifrey exploded. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles)

However, members of the Faction led by Mother Francesca managed to survive this end to the War in Heaven and attempted to rebuild the Faction in London, 1774. (COMIC: Political Animals)

Undated events
Faction Paradox travelled back in time to participate in the Millennium War. (PROSE: The Quantum Archangel)

Iris Wildthyme and the Shopkeeper encountered the Faction during their travels. (PROSE: Wildthyme and the Wolf)

Technology
The Faction used a brand of technology which openly mocked the laws of reality, being apparently powered by a form of voodoo rather than any actual form of physics. They used a variety of travel technology, from time-travelling shrines mocking the basic structure of a TARDIS to massive warships converted from the skeletal remains of Daemons.

Incapable of reproducing themselves, the Faction tried to use a form of Loom to create new members. While they did use the technology, it was eventually eschewed in favour of Remembrance tanks and new converts rather than outright creating new acolytes. (PROSE: Interference - Book One)

Godfather Morlock, one of the Faction's scientists/thaumaturges, created devices such as the Tracking Knife, used to read the future in the entrails of animals, and the Biodata Virus, a repugnant creation designed to alter the timeline of the infectee so their biodata interpreted them as having been a Faction operative since before the infection.

The Faction also heavily invested in the Remote, a sterile faction of future humans, intending for them to become their shocktroopers in the War in Heaven, though the idea did not pan out exactly as they intended. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

Society
Faction Paradox heavily emphasises the worship of Death and Family, two important elements the Time Lords had rejected in order to more closely resemble the gods they presented themselves as. Paradoxes were created indiscriminately and only served to exacerbate the conflict between the Homeworld and the Faction.

One of their most blatant abuses of their time technology was a part of their induction rites, in which the inductee was sent in time to kill an ancestor before they had the chance to sire the descendant they came from. This created a living paradox out of the convert, making him or her harder to kill by time-based attacks.

As part of their "familial" structure, the titles in the Faction were related to family titles, such as Little Cousin, Cousin, Brother, Mother, Father, and Godfather. The elder titles, naturally, were reserved for the senior or most experienced members. (PROSE: The Book of the War)