Faction Paradox

Faction Paradox, once known as House Paradox, was a time-active renegade Great House devoted to the promulgation of temporal paradoxes and opposed to the Time Lords' traditional philosophy of rationality and stability. Founded by Grandfather Paradox, they were based in the Eleven-Day Empire and notably inducted members of the lesser species into their ranks and even their bloodline. They played a neutral role in the War between the Time Lords and the enemy. (PROSE: Alien Bodies, The Book of the War, et al.)

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, (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet) seceded and created House Paradox about four hundred years before the War. The House was unpopular for their penchant for death fetishism (which mocked the Time Lords' pretension of immortality) and due to members' use of familial terms like "Grandfather" (disdainful, since the Great Houses had been made sterile by the anchoring of the thread). Most offensive, though, was the House's open interest in perverting the Web of Time. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

After the Grandfather founded the Eleven-Day Empire with the Gregorian Compact, (PROSE: Interference) he was arrested and imprisoned on the Time Lords' prison. However, he was released during the crisis surrounding the Carnival Queen (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet) and seceded House Paradox from the rest of Great House society, abandoning the Homeworld and adopting the mantle of "Faction". They began recruiting members from the lesser species, becoming a cult on many planets. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

Around fifty years before the War, the Faction became involved on Dronid, where it acted as a criminal organisation. By twelve years before the War, they were freely peddling time travel technology to the lesser species. They also chose a homeworld for themselves, (PROSE: The Book of the War) which (they believed) their blood rites protected from retaliation by the Time Lords. (PROSE: Interference) However, these colonies were wiped out. (PROSE: The Book of the War) 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)

Fifty years before the War,

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.

In 1834, the Star Chamber attacked the Eleven-Day Empire. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

By one account, the War was erased from time while the Eleven-Day Empire still existed, after the Faction, led by Grandfather Paradox, attacked Gallifrey and the Eighth Doctor stopped them. This appeared to eliminate the entire War from the Web of Time, and it destroyed the Faction and Gallifrey alike. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell) The Faction fleet disappeared from history shortly before Gallifrey exploded. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles)

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 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 attempted to reintroduce 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
A few members of the Faction, led by Mother Francesca, survived the end of the War 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 emphasised the worship of Death and Family, both of which the Time Lords had discarded to more closely resemble gods. 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 Brother, Little Sister, Cousin, Mother, Father, Godfather, and Godmother. The elder titles, naturally, were reserved for the senior or most experienced members. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

Inductees into the Faction from the lesser species renounced their former species for the sake of the family. (PROSE: Alien Bodies) The War King said that most members did not belong to the Homeworld by blood right, but they'd been adopted by House Paradox and given the inherent advantages of all members of the Great Houses, so they were equal to even the members of the War Council. (AUDIO: Words from Nine Divinities)