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Post by garyshots on Sept 14, 2022 21:36:09 GMT
Reviewing my notes before pressing on with the week's entries.
The quote by James Thomson III that prefaces The Eleven Day Empire is fictional I think, but it must surely be from a fictional grandson of the historical James Thomson who wrote The City of Dreadful Night. It's a bit of a coincidence otherwise.
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Post by garyshots on Sept 14, 2022 23:10:59 GMT
"When House Paradox was first founded its Grandfather experimented with various alternative-time structures, working them into the framework of history much as the Houses originally "programmed" the universe with their own protocols."
You know, this doesn't sound that easy. One does not simply hack the BIOS of history: not without meddling with the Caldera. All roads lead back there, don't they? Back to the ground zero of history, back to "Mother", back to the "womb".
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Post by bumbles on Sept 15, 2022 1:04:26 GMT
"When House Paradox was first founded its Grandfather experimented with various alternative-time structures, working them into the framework of history much as the Houses originally "programmed" the universe with their own protocols." You know, this doesn't sound that easy. One does not simply hack the BIOS of history: not without meddling with the Caldera. All roads lead back there, don't they? Back to the ground zero of history, back to "Mother", back to the "womb". That part always intrigued me, what else did HP create? We know of the Eleven Day Empire but what else? To refer to Doctor Who... the Land of Fiction? E-Space? The Clockworks? |
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Post by bumbles on Sept 15, 2022 1:08:28 GMT
Are the four lieutenants the Grandfather's equivalents of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? He does have an Infancy Gospel. Were they recruited from four different Great Houses and dispatched to evangelise to four different great powers on Earth: Britain, France, etc? Did the French lieutenant have a love interest? The Four Old Blood Houses perhaps? |
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Post by bumbles on Sept 15, 2022 1:11:15 GMT
And attacks on the Breeding Engines, producing corruption and "wrongness", is the means of attack by enemy agents witnessed by *ahem* that Homeworld Renegade in the Saragosa Manuscript. |
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ray
Little Sibling
We are not amused.
Posts: 5
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Post by ray on Sept 15, 2022 14:12:26 GMT
So the Imperator Presidency (he's often said to be Morbius; is he?) seems to have entangled the Homeworld with history and opened the door to interesting things happening, like House Paradox existing at all. The question of what led to the Imperator is left open; there's mention of flaws in the breeding engines and so on.
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Anastasia
Cousin
Liberating the oppressed of the Houses and toppling regimes.
Posts: 154
Preferred Pronouns: She/They
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Post by Anastasia on Sept 15, 2022 14:23:59 GMT
So the Imperator Presidency (he's often said to be Morbius; is he?) seems to have entangled the Homeworld with history and opened the door to interesting things happening, like House Paradox existing at all. The question of what led to the Imperator is left open; there's mention of flaws in the breeding engines and so on. I myself believe the House Paradox would have existed either due to the influence of the Grandfather (seeing as the book implies that they are to some degree contemporaries) and it is the flaws of the breeding engine which made the Grandfather Exist And we know Who the unnamed member of the Four Renegades is and we all know that at the time of writing one of their origins to do with looms was that they where a reincarnation of an Other founder of House society. Could that Other founder be the one to make the impurities? Or are their other people who have thrown themselves into the Looms of the other Houses? |
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Post by Aristide Twain on Sept 15, 2022 14:30:44 GMT
(he's often said to be Morbius; is he?) Definitely. The question of what led to the Imperator is left open; there's mention of flaws in the breeding engines and so on. contains the germs of the “Broken Generation” idea, but curiously seems to cast it as specific to House Lungbarrow. The language of the aside in Audience of the Ruling Houses seem to echo this passage: In the Lungbarrow-specific context of Crimes Against History, it is of course obvious that the “impurities in the birthing system” are the Other's errant biodata ghost, as per Marc Platt. In the Book of the War retelling, the flaws affect other Houses as well, such as House Dvora; they're responsible not just for the Doctor and Grandfather, but also the War King and the Imperator. Are we meant to infer that the Other's biodata brushed many looms before the brunt of it settled into the form of the Doctor, giving trace elements of free will to many more time-tots, and thus explaining the curious proliferation of Renegades in Dr Who's generation compared to the millions of years prior? I'd say so! |
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Post by garyshots on Sept 15, 2022 15:15:52 GMT
Maybe we should read Lungbarrow next. I know it's pre-Faction, but Miles takes so much of it for granted. But where would it end, delving back into the dark backwards abysm of time? I'd like to reread the Alan Moore comics that introduced the concept of time wars to Doctor Who, but I don't think there's a trade paperback.
Was the Doctor a contemporary of Morbius? I don't remember that, but then have I even seen it? I could be thinking of the Target novelisation. Maybe we should have a classic Doctor Who watching club as well. Miles takes it for granted that we're DW superfans who have a perfect recall of Morbius, State of Decay, Planet of the Spiders, even Frontios. But the FP audience has changed a lot since then, and his assumptions about us ain't necessarily so today.
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Post by Aristide Twain on Sept 15, 2022 15:50:29 GMT
Was the Doctor a contemporary of Morbius? I don't remember that, but then have I even seen it? I could be thinking of the Target novelisation. itself doesn't really address the issue one way or the other. It does suggest Morbius was a long time ago, but then, the Doctor is very old ( particularly in The Brain of Morbius), and there's a wonderful beat where the Doctor subconsciously picks up Morbius's brain's telepathic presence in the chamber next to the dining room, and talks blithely about having been sat at the table with Morbius until he realises how odd that sounds. Depending on how you think telepathic recognition between Homeworlders works, that could very well be read as a subtle hint that the Doctor is quite familiar with Morbius's mind-print, and there was a time when there would have been nothing odd to him about sitting around with Morbius around a dinner table… (Gary Russell's Legacy of Gallifrey depicts Morbius's Presidency as occurring almost immediately after Rassilon's death, but, obviously, Russell's take on Gallifrey lore is something Miles is generally keen to ignore as hard as he can. And as much as I don't think Holmes's script for Brain of Morbius necessarily placed the man in the Doctor's era, it certainly doesn't depict him as a figure from proper, Rassilonian Ancient Gallifrey either!) Miles takes it for granted that we're DW superfans who have a perfect recall of Morbius, State of Decay, Planet of the Spiders, even Frontios. But the FP audience has changed a lot since then, and his assumptions about us ain't necessarily so today. I don't think he does — not in Book of the War, that is; his approach in his Doctor Who book, and arguably Dead Romance, was another matter. There are lots of Who references in the Book (as well as references to other things e.g. Dune), but none that I think are necessary to enjoy the book; I think the writers of the Book eagerly anticipated the reactions of those who readers who construct their image of the Imperator based purely on the Book with no awareness of Morbius. Indeed, even explicitly-named concepts like the Yssgaroth are reintroduced: Miles's discussion of the use of the Yssgaroth makes it clear he wasn't primarily pitching it at people who read The Pit! |
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Post by darkspine10 on Sept 15, 2022 19:42:41 GMT
Having only read the Book of the War recently, I found it kind of surprising quite how much of the greater mythos surrounding the Faction itself is rooted in the 18th century style. Previous works like Alien Bodies and Interference had primed me to see them more in a Haitian voodoo light, as opposed to the more overtly occult aesthetic they present here (though as with any malleable concept, the Faction's later appearances in the first two of their bespoke book range don't go heavily on this 18th century vibe either).
I suppose though it makes sense given the whole concept of the Eleven Day Empire, not to mention The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, which in parallel with Book of the War seems almost like an alternate take on similar material, one with and one without the Faction itself in a primary role. Later parts of the Book, such as those regarding the Star Chamber, also fit neatly in this millieu, like a shadowy reflection of a shadowy reflection, but we'll come to them later.
The Sombras que Corta would make a great visual concept if the series were ever given a screen adaptation (or more comics). It's so brilliant for such a niche subculture organisation like the Faction to be at the point where even their weapons are hypothetical concepts that barely exist.
Also interesting how this section of the Book deals a lot with the early days of the Great Houses in how they dealt with the Yssgaroth and shaped history itself. Almost like the Book is inviting us to compare the rigidity of the orthodox dogma with the more anarchic ways of the Faction's operating methods.
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Post by doctornolonger on Sept 15, 2022 19:43:46 GMT
Miles takes it for granted that we're DW superfans who have a perfect recall of Morbius, State of Decay, Planet of the Spiders, even Frontios. But the FP audience has changed a lot since then, and his assumptions about us ain't necessarily so today. To echo Aristide Twain: I'm not so sure! The Book of the War was marketed heavily to audiences that had nothing to do with Who, like TTRPGers and casual scifi/fantasy fans. There are references to Who stuff, sure, but these borrowed concepts have been deliberately transformed into something new: for instance, the frontier of the Spiral Politic is totally different than how it's depicted in Frontios, even if the ideas share the same DNA. I wrote a super long article about this sort of thing if you're interested, but the short version is that I believe FP can and should stand separate from Dr Who. And attacks on the Breeding Engines, producing corruption and "wrongness", is the means of attack by enemy agents witnessed by *ahem* that Homeworld Renegade in the Saragosa Manuscript. Spoilers!  |
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Post by bumbles on Sept 15, 2022 20:53:12 GMT
Maybe we should read Lungbarrow next. I know it's pre-Faction, but Miles takes so much of it for granted. But where would it end, delving back into the dark backwards abysm of time? I'd like to reread the Alan Moore comics that introduced the concept of time wars to Doctor Who, but I don't think there's a trade paperback. Was the Doctor a contemporary of Morbius? I don't remember that, but then have I even seen it? I could be thinking of the Target novelisation. Maybe we should have a classic Doctor Who watching club as well. Miles takes it for granted that we're DW superfans who have a perfect recall of Morbius, State of Decay, Planet of the Spiders, even Frontios. But the FP audience has changed a lot since then, and his assumptions about us ain't necessarily so today. In my mind, *a* Doctor knew Morbius, it’s why during the mindbending contest things went all Timeless-y. Morbius states his status as President, and challenges the Doctor to state “who he is” and the Doctor HASN’T introduced himself yet. |
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Post by Aristide Twain on Sept 15, 2022 21:47:32 GMT
In my mind, *a* Doctor knew Morbius, it’s why during the mindbending contest things went all Timeless-y. (This is getting quite off-topic but I would not be myself if I did not cringe and boo and hiss. Tom Baker was the twelfth incarnation of ∂³Σx² and that is all there is to it. That's my personal little hill to haunt.) |
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Post by bumbles on Sept 15, 2022 22:00:42 GMT
In my mind, *a* Doctor knew Morbius, it’s why during the mindbending contest things went all Timeless-y. (This is getting quite off-topic but I would not be myself if I did not cringe and boo and hiss. Tom Baker was the twelfth incarnation of ∂³Σx² and that is all there is to it. That's my personal little hill to haunt.) Which is why they sent a Watcher when he regenerated - works for me. |
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