Faction Paradox


 * For the book and audio series, see Faction Paradox (series).

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 is located in the Eleven-Day Empire. They delighted in creating time paradoxes and played a neutral role in The War between the Time Lords and the Enemy.

Origins
Grandfather Paradox, a member of the House of Lungbarrow, ceceded from Lungbarrow and created House Paradox about four hundred years before the First War in Heaven. (NA: Christmas on a Rational Planet) The House was quite unpopular due to the House's penchant for death fetishism (which mocked the Time Lords' pretension of immortality), and due to Grandfather Paradox's use of the title "Grandfather" (an offensive term 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.

Around two thousand years before the Second War in Heaven House Paradox had a homeworld to itself, where they became a corrupted society, getting involved in several sordid criminal activities including peddling time travel technology to other races. They believed that their use of various blood rites would protect them from any retaliatory actions of the Time Lords. These protections were inadequate, though, and the Time Lords wiped out the inhabitants of the Paradox homeworld. However, a few members survived and continued their activity of sharing advanced technology with the natives on various colonies. During their recovery, they built up a number of cults and secret societies throughout the universe, including the Order of the Rectangle, the Cult of the Black Sun and Luminus. (EDA: Interference - Book One) The Grandfather also founded the Eleven-Day Empire during this time, but was arrested and imprisoned on Shada before the House had Loomed its first generation. (FP: The Book of the War)

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

The Second War in Heaven
Near the start of the Second War in Heaven, the War King hired House Lolita to destroy the Eleven-Day Empire. Doing so Lolita wiped out all members of Faction Paradox apart from Cousins Justine and Eliza. (BBV: The Eleven Day Empire)

Fifty years into the War, the Faction had managed to gain enough new members and technology to once again become a major force in the War. (FP: The Book of the War)

Members of the Faction led by Mother Francesca survived the Second War in Heaven and attempted to rebuild the Faction in London, 1774. (FP: Political Animals)

Erasure from the Timeline
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. (EDA: The Ancestor Cell)

One (possibly apocryphal) account claims that some members of the Faction survived the destruction of Gallifrey and hid away in selective areas of the Web of Time. (CP: Grandmother Clause)