Week Two: The History of Faction Paradox

Now we're getting to the good stuff!

The Anchoring reads as if the Yssgaroth are the fertility and creativity of the Great Houses, translated into violence and cruelty simply because they repressed it out of history. But the unclassifiably alien "things at work in the formative future" are also very cool. They sound more like our Enemy. Whack-an-Enemy. Black anemone. I dunno.

What if there is no Yssgaroth universe? It's just a shadow cast by the Great Houses when they formatted our universe. A twisted reflection of everything they didn't like about themselves. The return of the repressed. The Yssgaroth are their true genocidal faces, behind the mask of politeness and bureaucracy and politics.

"Most probably everyone involved in the process was destroyed." (Omega?)

I love the timeships collaborating in their own construction. The Caldera seems quite different from the Matrix: the "womb" clue is perhaps so we don't miss it. It was tainted from the nightmarish "birth" of its own creation, that's why it hates its creators. And if it's heavily defended, how did the four lieutenants get to the abomination's graveyard without its connivance? Who even are these lieutenants?

Gotta say when reading the entry on Armour, I only just remembered that the Faction's armor isn't just made out of any kind of bone but of a version of the Houses that lost to the Yssgaroth, which is meant to be one of the most offensive imagery to the Houses. Like this was also a thing that I remember reading in Alien Bodies so it's not the first time I've read about it.
But usually I tended to assume that the Faction just used whatever bones they could find to use as masks and armour (It also made for more interesting variety in designing Faction characters), so the purpose of the Armour as something that shouldn't exist and is fundamentally offensive to the universe of the Houses is a fun notion.
Although as the entry suggests later on the Faction could be just bullshitting all of it to make themselves look more edgy.

Note on the Caldera:
- It apparently has a role in the creation of Timeships, and is the only place where Timeships can be made, because they're so complex and non-linear in nature that it's impossible to create them without access to non-linear manipulation.

- Since non-linear manipulation can only be done by Timeships, its basically stated that they're active participants in their own construction, either implying that they already exist in one form or another prior to becoming 'timeships', or that they need to retroactively ensure their creation in order for their existence to be possible, kind of like the AI in Roko's Bassilisk.

-The Caldera is referred to on the Homeworld as a "womb", which is weird given the Homeworld's aversion to thinking of itself and its technology in a biological sense. Is this just how the reference is interpreted by lesser species outside of the Homeworld, or is something else on the Homeworld making that reference.

Anchoring the Thread
Alan Moore's Star Death?
The Timelord's motivation for the anchoring, which was a fear that the unknown species intelligences of future generations with their different biologies and meanings would influence the continual starta framework of the future in such a way that any interaction, (physical or cultural) would be catastrophic, a viewpoint reinforced by the fact there were, "things" in the formative future they could neither analyse or monitor.
The Timelord's, "rationalisation" of the universe, (using the anchoring of the thread to impose the complex metastructure known as, "History") acted as a highly sophisticated D-Mat weapon erasing from causality nearly everything that: didn't conform or, fit within, or be analysed by their predictable and controllable science based Protocols, but in the case of sentient beings only the four common dimensions, (space and time) biodata strand, "cursor" was removed leaving behind their, "intangible greater self", (mass of collapsed possibilities and transtemporal information or, "meaning mass") untouched. Like the D-Mat gun does the Eye of Harmony, "remember who and what it erased?
They stitched their biology into the substance of creation at the most fundamental level, (rooted themselves or at least their culture)into the continuum to form an understandable life framework.
They say it as a Faustian pact: A virtually indestructible society and mastery ogf time. Price= Infertility and cultural stasis. What about Pythia's curse?
Timelord society had to remain constant for the universe to do so.
The necessary machinery was the largest structure ever built on Gallifrey (1) not designed or constructed as a single device but is later described as such. Centralised versions of the proto timeships. Destroyed by the emergence of the Yssgaroth, (the King?) reducing the site to the, "Caldera" crater.
Proto timeships had already started to attach themselves to strategic points in the formative future. They became history's anchors.
Activation ceremony: Mechanisms locked into place and history's fragments connected. Elite reperesentives: House bonding at the machine heart. Field agents: In the proto timeships took positions at the other ends of the, "threads". Later Rassilon showed off the Great Key in the Panopticon the same as the Lord President did in, "Deadly Assassin")?
After the First War in Heaven it became a cultural cornerstone.
The only acknowledged physical reminder of the Yssgaroth's existance.
Prime enemy target and more fundamental part of the Timelord's existance then they'd ever imagined.


Caldera
The dead center center of history. Crucially the meeting point of all historical influence lines.
Gallifrey 1 regulates time. (So do the cloneworlds with their own calderas but no mention is made).
A prime place in the Timelord's consciousness.
One of the most heavily defended locations to ever exist, (surrounded by defences and timeships).
Covered over. The capitol? The chapter cities, (eg: Arcadia) have smaller similar citadels at their center.
Everything exerting an influence on the site will by definition effect the rest of history.
The focal point of both time and Timelord culture as the protocols are worked into history's nature, coded into every thread. The center point of all they know and are.
Could be used to manipulate every aspect of Timelord existance, (eg: Past, future, collective memory, and language) but no notable experiments have been carried out.
One Wartime abortive effort to introduce foreign material.
It's possible vulnerability is a constant worry and maybe a factor in the creation of the eight cloneworlds.
Data can be, "dragged along the threads" from any monitored locale, useful for causality manipulation effects prediction.
Can to an extent be used as an allpurpose communications network but not used as the data could rewrite the continuum as it passed through countless history points.
Used for timeship construction. The high order non linear manipulation of which only the ships are capable, (they collaborate in their own birth) can only be done there.
Timelord commonly refer to it as a kind of, "Womb".
It's destruction would be even more devastating then that of the Timelords as only non linear realms would survive it's destruction. Do the, "reps" know this?
In human terms is a, "cauldron" as it is the crucible of everything that is known.


History
The metastructure imposed on the continuum. It isn't physical it's the: perception, recording, remembering, and prediction of time. Processes involving it are as psychological as they are material.
The High Council considers protecting history to be one of it most important duties, (defending their understanding of time and the fact they are made out of pure history).
Certain parts of the fare future are beyond the Timelords reach. But are stil subject to history? Doesn't the book say it was because more time active cultures in the later universe, "mudding the waters"?
Gallifrey (1) had to be and was apart from history until the Imperator Presidency.
The deeper protocols are the infrastructure that suports the histories of other sentient species with certain key exceptions.
Some posthuman sects think it means the Timelords stopped being real being when they stop reproducing orgnaically and link their bodies to the continuum itself.
The Timelords v. Faction conflict is more of a class war.
No non linear culture has yet developed timetravel. The Timelords stopped humanity from becoming non linear time active culture in the mid 21st century by using Ghost Clusters.
The Protocols are designed to ensure their society moves forward in time in a straight line albeit set apart.


The Imperator Presidency
.B.T.W.= Before the War. (Book times not cross checked with Mr Bumber's timeline).
The Timelords have observed and maintained history for at least 10 million years. (Even if they haven't, it essentially is given both their control of the time through the Caldera and the Power of Creation through their intellengstia collective subconscious).
There WAS no: natural reproduction, death, argument, injustice, progress or culture.
1,000,000 years .B.T.W.: The looms malfunctioned creating tiny imperfections in the status quo of Timelord society that would eventually lead to the war.
1,200 years .B.T.W.: The first faults appeared. The created minor eccentricities were harmless and the timelords had no experience of admitting anything was wrong.
900 years .B.T.W.: House Dvora of the Prydionain chapter produced the Imperator. (Maybe they only acknowledge four the Deca's existence proves there were more).
Four mutations in the Imperator's generation that have significantly impacted the Spiral Politic: The Imperator, Grandfather Paradox, War King, and The Doctor. Similar to how there are 4 Elementals, coincidence or resonance?*
The crisis: triggered the rise of intervention groups, fueled Faction Paradox's creation, and maybe was a retroflection of the War.
400 years .B.T.W.: House society was changing rapidly, new factions and alliances developed by the decade, (a frighteningly short timespan in Timelord terms). By the time War was becoming visible and they began to understand the enemy's nature their traditions were intact but could be sacrificed at a moment's notice.
In the last Pre War years, (the Armament phase) the Timelord's paranioa had reached such a point that the elite would were prepared to secretly discuss culture erasure weapons, unthinkable 900 years ago.


The Imperator
Abrutal monomaniacal God Emperor who lead a realpolitik crusade on the outside universe.
Demanded: Involvement in the lesser species, preemptively reforming the Spiral Politic, the Protocols ripped from Gallifrey, history adapted to suit the Timelord's needs.
Recruited lesser species members to be extensions of his will using their Timelord god image expectations to greatest effect.
The fact he had a charismatic personality was more of a shock then his cult of personality.
The most ambitious of the four mutations, a true war criminal willing to burn the universe in the name of his crusade.
When unsurprisingly denounced by the Order of the Weal, he and his upporters simply left and caused havoc among hundreds upon hundreds of cultures claiming to be working for the greater good, (sometimes with justification) causing everyone else to look for and to Gallifrey.
The Timelords didn't know what to do panicked taking a ridiculously long time to make their move. In a desperate attempt to pacify everyone and prove they had a sense of justice he was publicly ceremonially executed, (vapourised?). It was supposed to quell any thoughts of invading Gallifrey, the attempts would fail but could adversely effect causality) it partially succeed but on the Gallifrey, (still in shock from the Imperator's rise and reign) it reintroduced the concept of a violent permanent death increasing their anxiety. His execution almost seemed to have prove him right.


Intervention
The Imperator crisis was a turning point. The lesser species now knew they existed and were considered, "lesser" by default.
The Imperator proved that they could be as: agressive, ruthless, and megolomaniacal as them.
Both of which caused the Timelords to develop an unprecedented paranoid streak.
The Protocols of Linearity the parts of the outer universe he had effected were now linked to Gallifrey in, "real time", (shared present) and the Spiral Politic was more political then ever before. Gallifrey now had a, "history" something previously only associated with lesser species.
The lesser, (newblood) houses began to think preemptive intervention was necessary, "We should intervene in the affairs of the lesser species before they intervene in ours".
The Timelords tried hard to surpress these new tendencies but had no idea how to deal with political factions as none had ever existed before: 1.Movements and protest elements some wanting diplomatic relations with the lesser species others wanting to completely control them. 2.The counter intervention the order of the Weal. 3.Faction Paradox.
This is the time of the ahort lived rival Presidency on Dronid.
Under this pressure the High Council began to adopt interventionalist tendencies inevitably making it worse.
Some outside force was working against the status quo there was a sense that something might be happening in the spiral politic they hasn't noticed.
Soon any species that came close to developing time active technology an agent would either be sent to observe or remove the technology and it's creators from the timeline.
Grandfather Paradox's imprisonment was not so much an attempt to suppress the, "revolutionary" element of the Faction Paradox but a sign it was prepared to be utterly pragmatic in their attempts to keep control, though they later left Gallifrey to become the Celestis. (Do we know for a fact .C.I.A.= Celestis?).


Protocols of the Geat Houses
A series of codes and regulations that define the Timelord's, "law".
Not statutes, they are hrdwired into the continuum's structure, (The Oldbloods consider the written and physical laws as being the same thing. The Newbloods consider the written laws and Oldbloods to be the same thing).
As the Universal Laws are notoriously hard to break only moral basis protocols might result in a trial, (although the Timelord's view of morality is questionable).
The Timelord's the preservation of history is a bigger issue then that of life, (Eg: Genocide is opposed because of the resulting massive timeline repercussions).
The extent that the Timelords can ignore and rewrite the unwritten Protocols is debated. Tradition states certain rules cannot be broken but some of the deep rooted Protocols might be overturned using high order technology but the Timelords have become so dependent on them that any alteration would completely collapse Timelord culture, catastrophically changing it that: Gallifrey would no longer be the homeworld, they never existed, and the enemy would win the war by default.
There is no clear lines between: the Protocols, history's structure, and the Timelord elder's bodies their reticence to changing them is understandable and analagous to the resistance to genetic engineering.
Suspiciously ways of bending but not breaking the protocols have been found, (Eg: Visiting Gallifrey's past is impossible but objects from the past have occasionally been, "fished". Meeting anyone from Gallifrey's future is impossible to meet anyone from Gallifrey's future but there are several recorded incidents of PreWar Timelords meeting their future counterparts and convenient gaps giving hints).
War necessity has changed some of the lesser Protocols, (eg: Timelord/Lesser Species breeding were removed immediately after the Head of the Presidency incident to allow regeninf creation).
Faction Paradox has not written Protocols of it's own but he unwritten Protocols effect it the same as the Timelords. It's chief aim maybe to, "break the chains" but that would require to either remove all Timelords: recruits, technnology, and culture from itself or rewrite the continuum from scratch.


Sombras que Corta
Name means, "Shadows that cut". The name was coined by 18th century humans watching a Faction delegationm, it applies to both the weapon and the bonding ritual.
Shadow based weapon.
The lesser species think it's either an optical illusion or witchcraft.
Done using alter-time methodology similar to that of the anchoring. When an object is removed from history it's memetic mass, (ie: The topography of quantum connections where the object was perceived and understood by the people who came into contact with it). The agent remembers that it existed due to the personal protocols used so it's memetic framework still exists with only a, (non existing) shadow of it remaining in the universe due to either the nature of their minds describing the difference between physical and memetic or the Grandfather Paradox programmed in a shadow because it was aesthetically useful).
The bonding ritual: The newly initiated Cousin is taken the Stacks where chose a weapon, (most are ordinary but more promising candidates are given the additional choses of relics and older more distinguished armour with with a greater totemetic value).The weapon is then removed from time and stripped of it's physical matter then the meaning matter, "shadow" is grafted on the candidate's shadow. The ritual's limits have not been tested, (weapons so far have ranged from a wodden stick to a parcel of plastic explosives).
The weapopn is permenantly lost if, "dropped".
Ensures Faction agents are armed at all times and bonded weapons are perfect for assassinatons.
Most choose a bladed weaponbecause they fee more comfortable having meelee weapons bound to them as extenstion of their own identities despite fire arms being a more efficient option.
Modern Cousins can only carry one weapon. Factiion lore states that Grandfather Paradox and his four godparent lieutenants carried several weapons and armour.
A side effect of the Faction's timetravel methods, (every dislocation removes a littlemof their identity or, "understanding") noted by many more experienced agents are described as being, "shadowless", witnesses saying their shadows are either missing or too dim to be useful. Though the Faction is far less supersitious then is widely thought, yunger emebers regard the lossof their shadow as being alot like losing their soul leaving them hollow and incomplete as the process of becoming a, "shadowless" is technically inevitable it says alot about faction life's fatalistic nature.


Anyone else starting to notice that fear and erasure is starting to crop up a bit?


What did we learn about the enemy?
14.They consider the Caldera to be a prime target, (the destruction of which would wipe out everything linear in existence).
15.They would win by default if the Timelords altered the Protocols erasing their own existence.
16.The Timelords started to understand it's nature 400 years before the war.

I really enjoyed this week's entries. I find it interesting that, despite the fact that they are in alphabetical order, the order still feels very natural with related entries grouped. This is probably just because of the limitation that each entry must link to the next, though.

I found Fashion Paradox quite interesting. Small little oddities like this are how I would expect the Faction to manifest themselves in other times.

I liked the entries related to history and time a lot. Faction Paradox presents a very unique and interesting view on it all in my opinion and I find it fascinating to read about. One small thing that stuck out for me was the concept of non-linear cultures. How would these operate? I would assume that they would use time travel so much that any concept of a linear order is meaningless but it is explicitly stated that these cultures often don't gain access to time travel. Perhaps some parallels could be drawn with the Divergent Universe from Big Finish's Eighth Doctor audio, a universe in which time is cyclic?

The Protocols of Linearity are also really interesting in my opinion, providing some logical reasons for how there is even able to be a war between 2 time travelling factions.

I also really enjoyed learning more about the Eleven-Day Empire. The Protocols, the first 2 of which are set in the Empire, were the first bits of Faction Paradox media that I properly consumed and I love the whole concept of the Empire. The idea of Britain giving the empire its eleven missing days is really cool in my opinion. Clearly, that is not how time works, but the fact that the Faction does it anyway shows their defiance of the houses and their protocols.

Beast of Hours…. Beast of HORUS perhaps?