PI9090
Cousin
I was loomed this way.
Posts: 91
|
Post by PI9090 on Aug 30, 2022 23:26:41 GMT
Known heads
1.Head of The Presidency, (Book of the War). The enemy's: first message, anger, abilities, and knowledge of human culture.
2.Robert Sacratt, (The Brakespeare Voyage).
3.Shahrazad, (Head of State).
What could the other four heads be? Where should we look for them and why? Was this a hold over from the .M.N.P. or an Obverse addition?
"When the Seventh Head speaks the War will end and the True War will begin".
What could this mean? Has the phrase, "true war" been used elsehwere in Faction media?
|
|
|
|
Post by bumbles on Aug 31, 2022 1:15:06 GMT
One is Anthony Stewart Head.
|
|
|
|
Post by tichepotato on Aug 31, 2022 7:34:15 GMT
One is Max Headroom.
|
|
Anastasia
Cousin
Liberating the oppressed of the Houses and toppling regimes.
Posts: 154
Preferred Pronouns: She/They
|
Post by Anastasia on Aug 31, 2022 7:34:48 GMT
I believe True War has been referenced several times (I may be wrong) in that it will start after Last contact (in which the identity of the Enemy, should they have one, will be revealed)
|
|
|
|
Post by bumbles on Aug 31, 2022 20:34:31 GMT
Given the events on Dust, and their wider ramifications, could one of the heads be the third Doctor?
|
|
|
|
Post by Aristide Twain on Aug 31, 2022 21:53:43 GMT
My notion of what the True War is is simple: the Enemy as it stands is a coalition of different powers, united in thinking that the Great Houses need toppling and the Anchoring needs undoing, but they all have different ideas of what to do with the universe after that, from those who want to replace the Houses and rule the universe their own way to the cosmic anarchists who want to return to the world of Irrationality. The True War is the War between the different factions of the Enemy, predicted to start once the primary War to unseat the Homeworld is won. I'm not sure I have a solid idea of what the Seventh Head is. But I will tell you one thing: I like the idea that the Head of the Presidency actually doesn't count — it never actually spoke by itself, the note in its teeth was from somebody/something else! — but many people in-universe who know the prophecy do count it. And somewhere down the line this will cause a misunderstanding of cosmic proportion when the Sixth Head speaks and, by the mistaken count, is believed to be the Seventh Head by various factions who will thus believe the War's end and the coming of the True War to be at hand, when neither is coming just yet. Any rate: Given the events on Dust, and their wider ramifications, could one of the heads be the third Doctor? I doubt it, or else Miles would have had him die by beheading… While we're on the topic of Who-related speculation on the Heads, one thing I'm not sure I've seen discussed before is that it's tempting, aesthetically if not literally, to connect this whole business of Heads and prophecies to the Empress's prophetic heads-on-pikes on Hyspero in The Scarlet Empress, and the allegorical idea that the Doctor himself essentially has the severed heads of his past incarnations chattering away in his head in a similar fashion. |
|
|
|
Post by doctornolonger on Sept 1, 2022 2:21:36 GMT
I think the Seven Heads come from Obverse or perhaps Random Static, since Brakespeare was workshopped there for quite a while, and the editor at Random Static was very insistent on sticking to the timeline and adding links between books (you can still see this in Newtons Sleep and Against Nature).
Is Scheherazade really one of the heads, or was the author of the Thousand and Second Night making the whole thing up? Our narrator seems to reject it as propaganda, by the end.
I always thought the True War was "just" Compassion (and the War King) vs Lolita, since, well, The Book of the War spoilers I guess; and the stories where we get the most Prophesied Heads lore seem (to me) to point in that direction. But frankly Aristide's answer is much better. I'm going to start believing that instead now!
|
|
|
|
Post by bumbles on Sept 1, 2022 9:56:47 GMT
Any rate: Given the events on Dust, and their wider ramifications, could one of the heads be the third Doctor? the Doctor himself essentially has the severed heads of his past incarnations chattering away in his head in a similar fashion. Which, given that the Doctor* most associated with the War in Heaven is the eighth…. He has seven severed past selves. *not counting the third or final incarnations who are in all honesty only peripherally associated (one dies on Dust and the other on the day official war is declared). |
|
PI9090
Cousin
I was loomed this way.
Posts: 91
|
Post by PI9090 on Sept 1, 2022 10:35:44 GMT
I believe True War has been referenced several times (I may be wrong) in that it will start after Last contact (in which the identity of the Enemy, should they have one, will be revealed) I've been unable to find anything though I'm sure it was somewhere else, (a blurb to something maybe?). Another thing to keep an eye out for during the read throughs. Maybe we should draw up a list? My notion of what the True War is is simple: the Enemy as it stands is a coalition of different powers, united in thinking that the Great Houses need toppling and the Anchoring needs undoing, but they all have different ideas of what to do with the universe after that, from those who want to replace the Houses and rule the universe their own way to the cosmic anarchists who want to return to the world of Irrationality. The True War is the War between the different factions of the Enemy, predicted to start once the primary War to unseat the Homeworld is won. While an enemy win, (which we know doesn't happen) might lead to a war amongst the reps that survive the war and the intended restoration of the, "irrational" pre anchoring universe/reality we know the enemy proper is more then powerful enough to dispose of them so any such war wouldn't last ll that long. Though this does raise the question why does the enemy proper need reps at all. Maybe the attack on Gallifrey Prime/1 was their intended big war winning move which used up most of their power? (ala the Mysterons) which might explain why they don't directly get involved perhaps settling into the unseen leadership/coordination role? I prefer the, "When the Seventh Head speaks the Second War in Heaven will end and the Last Great Time War will begin" interpretation for the following reasons: 1.Baron Amatsumara, (Father Morlock) is a member of a lesser species saying it to other members, (the cast and audience) and as .T.B.o.T.W. says the War is one of ritual that lesser species have great difficulty understanding, (much like how most humans don't understand the posthumanity combat of singing and flowering viewing with glances in the city of the Saved) so it would follow that the more understandable and surprisingly physical time war against the Daleks would be considered byt hem to be a, "true war". Plus the lesser species would consider the Daleks to be a, "true/real enemy" then whatever the insubstantial thing enemy is, (ie: Who is more of an enemy to you? The bogeyman or the army of armed maniacs who have fought you several times with the expressed intent of genocide?). 2.The book was written and published long after the .L.G.T.W. reveal in 2005 so timewise it could be an intended reference, (and a welcome attempted bridge between .F.P. and NuWho). Plus neither maybe correct as we don't know who or what the enemy is or Mr Hickey's intentions, (if your reading this sir please feel free to join in) and whether anymore heads will turn up in future Obverse novels. But I will tell you one thing: I like the idea that the Head of the Presidency actually doesn't count — it never actually spoke by itself, the note in its teeth was from somebody/something else! — but many people in-universe who know the prophecy do count it. Personally I do because there's nothing to say that the head has to physically speak itself. As noted above it, "spoke" several things the enemy's: first message, anger, abilities, and knowledge of Earth culture. However stretching the definition any further then that would ruin the perhaps unintentional, "resonance" of the Head of the Presidency much like the humanoid form was intentional but another such, "resonance". (Maybe Grandfather Paradox as the Head of House Paradox that was severed by the Timelords but that still sounds like a stretch). I think the Seven Heads come from Obverse or perhaps Random Static, since Brakespeare was workshopped there for quite a while, and the editor at Random Static was very insistent on sticking to the timeline and adding links between books (you can still see this in Newtons Sleep and Against Nature). If nothing else that seems to narrow our search parameters to Obverse is where we need to look? that makes sense unless anyone can remember severed heads, "talking" in the .8.D.A.s and .P.D.A.s? |
|
|
|
Post by Aristide Twain on Sept 1, 2022 14:20:56 GMT
While an enemy win, (which we know doesn't happen) might lead to a war amongst the reps that survive the war and the intended restoration of the, "irrational" pre anchoring universe/reality we know the enemy proper is more then powerful enough to dispose of them so any such war wouldn't last ll that long. Though this does raise the question why does the enemy proper need reps at all. I don't think we “know” anything of the sort. I am not saying this is necessarily what I believe all the time, but just now, I was taking the view that there is no such thing as “the Enemy” proper that everyone else is just Reps for; that “the Enemy” is the coalition of disparate powers, from Mammoths to Spiders to T. memeticus to entities too mindbending to name; or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say, that the Enemy is the process of rebelling against the Great Houses itself, whoever happens to be implementing it. (i.e. there may have been one faction/entity who got the ball rolling first — perhaps the Spiders for production history's sake, perhaps One, who knows — but by the time the War is in full swing they are no more in charge/"the true Enemy" than everybody else, and if the Great Houses persist in thinking there is a specific entity with a specific masterplan that keeps evading their spycraft, that says more about the Houses' psychology than it does about the nature of the Enemy.) So I do not speak of a war between Reps, although that's certainly a possibility; I speak of Vampires vs. Mammoths vs. Incrementals, etc. etc. etc. We are dealing with Obverse lore here, as Nate mentioned, so slanting things towards Book of the Enemy's understanding of the Enemy seems fitting. As a Rep myself, I would also quibble with your certainty that the Enemy didn't win. If the only consensus purpose of the Enemy was that the Homeworld should fall, well, it did, didn't it. Granted, we don't seem to be living in the post-rational non-linear utopia we were initially rooting for, and Cernunnos seems to be slumming it in the 18th century instead of reigning ascendant, but a pyrrhic victory is still a victory. (This stands even if you decide to take developments in televised Doctor Who seriously; the eventual destruction of the last Gallifrey by the Spy Master is dependent, butterfly-style, on the previous temporal warfare that involved his resurrection in the first place!)I prefer the, "When the Seventh Head speaks the Second War in Heaven will end and the Last Great Time War will begin" interpretation for the following reasons: In any case, this is where I get off. I hold no excessive ill-will to people who try to construe the LGTW as happening after, and separately from, the WiH (after all, my good friend Hunter has an idea along those lines) — but me, my every aesthetic sense rebels against it. If we must accept the canonicity of NuWho at all, it's all one War to me, and in turn, one single destruction of Gallifrey Prime at the hand of Dr. Who ( The Eyeless had the right of it. The Ancestor Cell is Doctor Who and the Time War is The Day of the Doctor, we humans just can't quite wrap our brains around the details). Evidently the Time War eventually shown in NuWho is not very much like the War in Heaven shown in Faction Paradox, but they all fall under the umbrella of the War, the definitive article, the War that had been inevitable since the Anchoring and would necessarily conclude in the fall of the Great Houses. Davies' Time War, Moffat's Time War, Anghelides & Cole's War, Miles's War, Cornell's off-screen pre- Shalka War — are all facets, different overlapping timelines of the War. Going very differently, but all culminating in the same glorious result of the Fall of the Homeworld. Think of it like Douglas Adams's final Hitchhiker's book, all possible Earths' timelines being made to converge into a singular point in possibility-space where it is finally cleanly atomised by the Vogons. |
|
|
|
Post by bumbles on Sept 1, 2022 23:38:08 GMT
Maybe each “War” is the process leading to the destruction of one of each of the nine Homeworlds?
|
|
|
|
Post by miss//bearbrass on Sept 2, 2022 14:02:53 GMT
Going very differently, but all culminating in the same glorious result of the Fall of the Homeworld. Think of it like Douglas Adams's final Hitchhiker's book, all possible Earths' timelines being made to converge into a singular point in possibility-space where it is finally cleanly atomised by the Vogons. I love this analogy. It’s all about the result, really. Sometimes you can reach the right answer with a not-quite-right method, you know? I do think there’s potential fun to be had with the various accounts of the War’s result. Imagine that there’s only one post-War universe, regardless of how we got to it. If person A (who experienced and the Time War) described their experiences to person B (who experienced The Ancestor Cell), would person B hear it as the events of and the Time War or would their perceptions/worldview filter the story to sound like The Ancestor Cell? People can look at the same event and take away different things. People can experience the same event and remember different things. One person remembers the Edifice, another remembers Tannis, a third person swears it really was a Yartek, back from the dead and wielding one almighty stick. And maybe they’re all right in a way. Or maybe it’s a bit more Heisenberg-y than all that. Because we’ve collectively gone and measured the position (Homeworld ded), we now can’t also measure the momentum (how it ded). |
|
leahhh
Little Sibling
Posts: 36
|
Post by leahhh on Sept 2, 2022 19:25:27 GMT
The True War is the War between the different factions of the Enemy Could be both! I'm sure I've seen a theory that the LGTW is a version of events where the Daleks, being the only aspect of the Enemy with the stated goal of wiping out all other life, turned on all the other aspects and wiped them out to become the Time Lords' only opponent. |
|
|
|
Post by bumbles on Sept 2, 2022 21:46:36 GMT
Going very differently, but all culminating in the same glorious result of the Fall of the Homeworld. Think of it like Douglas Adams's final Hitchhiker's book, all possible Earths' timelines being made to converge into a singular point in possibility-space where it is finally cleanly atomised by the Vogons. I love this analogy. It’s all about the result, really. Sometimes you can reach the right answer with a not-quite-right method, you know? I do think there’s potential fun to be had with the various accounts of the War’s result. Imagine that there’s only one post-War universe, regardless of how we got to it. If person A (who experienced and the Time War) described their experiences to person B (who experienced The Ancestor Cell), would person B hear it as the events of and the Time War or would their perceptions/worldview filter the story to sound like The Ancestor Cell? People can look at the same event and take away different things. People can experience the same event and remember different things. One person remembers the Edifice, another remembers Tannis, a third person swears it really was a Yartek, back from the dead and wielding one almighty stick. And maybe they’re all right in a way. Or maybe it’s a bit more Heisenberg-y than all that. Because we’ve collectively gone and measured the position (Homeworld ded), we now can’t also measure the momentum (how it ded). Perhaps it depends on which of the Houseworlds you’re on? Houseworld one? The war is against Ancestor Cells, and you go boom during a Faction Paradox invasion orchestrated by the Doctor. Houseworld 2? Daleks. Houseworld 3? War King and the invasion by Babwyn. Houseworld 4? Bad sun juju. Somehow AGAIN the Doctor is involved. Houseworld 5? Like the fifth wave, we don’t talk about Houseworld 5. Houseworld 6? War ongoing (With The Enemy who turns out to be …) Houseworld 7:At war. Houseworld 8? Mad Norwegian World. Houseworld 9? Obverse World. |
|
|
|
Post by Aristide Twain on Sept 2, 2022 22:26:13 GMT
Perhaps it depends on which of the Houseworlds you’re on? Houseworld one? The war is against Ancestor Cells, and you go boom during a Faction Paradox invasion orchestrated by the Doctor. Houseworld 2? Daleks. Houseworld 3? War King and the invasion by Babwyn. Houseworld 4? Bad sun juju. Somehow AGAIN the Doctor is involved. Houseworld 5? Like the fifth wave, we don’t talk about Houseworld 5. Houseworld 6? War ongoing (With The Enemy who turns out to be …) Houseworld 7:At war. Houseworld 8? Mad Norwegian World. Houseworld 9? Obverse World. Friends I am forced to report that you are reinventing the bottle universes. You do not want to walk down that path! |
|
