#faction paradox protocols

[osfinexe]

Cousin Kresta ve Coglana Shuncucker

[catscancook]

I'm low-key sad the Faction Paradox Protocols can never be seen on screen. Don't get me wrong, I think the audios are great, but I feel like since they do so much fighting and action, it would actually be so unbelivably cool to be able to see it.

Especially with all of the concepts they are introducing. Like hello?? I wanna see shadow weapons, please. I know technically there's not that much to see, but then again, I think there would be more than enough ways to portray them interesting, even if it involves a lot of dramatic lighting.

[drleevezan]

For anyone looking for a suitably supernatural series to get into this October, the official Faction Paradox website is currently making the full scripts of the original Faction Paradox Protocols audios available to read online for free, starting with episode one, The Eleven-Day Empire!

“This is where it starts, pretty much. With poor little Justine, all on her own, sent out to the edge of the city where nobody ever goes. Nobody human, anyway. Because, let's not kid ourselves, there were things living in the Eleven-Day Empire even before the Faction settled down there…”

[wyrdvora]

Just started the Faction Paradox Protocols (spoilers ofc) and damn. I love this exchange:

Godfather Morlock: we're almost entirely certain this is a trap

Parliament:

Godfather Morlock: so we're gonna walk right into it!

Parliament: Woo!

[doctornolonger]

Jumping into Faction Paradox

Faction Paradox has a reputation as one of Doctor Who’s most obscure and high-quality spinoffs. Because of this, everyone’s been asking me: How do I get into Faction Paradox? Here’s my answer. (v3.4)

Faction Paradox and the War in Heaven first appeared in the BBC’s Eighth Doctor novels in the late 1990s. Since the Faction Paradox series is designed to be standalone from anything in Doctor Who, by no means do you need to read these novels, but if you want to know how the series fits into the Doctor’s larger universe, you should probably check out at least a few. Which ones you read depend on how into-it you want to get.

Want to dive straight into Faction Paradox? Read Alien Bodies, then Interference (parts one and two). And that’s it; you have all the background knowledge you need. Just skip straight to the next section. This is the track I usually recommend to Doctor Who fans interested in FP!

Want to take the leisurely route? See the sights? Spend a little more time with the Eighth Doctor and his companions? Your list is Vampire Science, Alien Bodies, The Scarlet Empress, The Infinity Doctors, Unnatural History, Dead Romance, Interference, The Blue Angel, The Taking of Planet 5, and The Shadows of Avalon.

Or just read them all in publication order to get all the character arcs and nuances. The last relevant novel is The Adventuress of Henrietta Street.

Once you’ve finished whatever path you started (or even if you decided to skip it), you’re ready for the Faction Paradox series!

Important note: Because FP has such a strong #aesthetic, the stories tend to use alternatives for a lot of familiar Doctor Who terms. (Maaaybe copyright also has something to do with it.) You’d probably be able to pick up on the connections via context clues, but just for clarity’s sake, here are the most important ones:

Time Lords are collectively called “the Great Houses”. (Individual Time Lords are “members of the Great Houses”.)

Gallifrey is called “the Homeworld”.

TARDISes are called “timeships”.

The Web of Time (and the part of the universe that it covers) is called the “Spiral Politic”.

The High Council of Gallifrey is called the “ruling Houses”.

If there’s anything else that’s throwing you off, look it up in my list of connections!

When it comes to starting Faction Paradox, I highly recommend beginning with The Book of the War. As it’s a sort of Bible for the rest of the series, it explains a lot of concepts that get carried into other stories, and checking back with it from time to time is basically guaranteed to always be rewarding. (Plus, Alien Bodies → Interference → The Book of the War is a really wonderful sequence for Doctor Who fans!) But it’s hard to find physical copies and some people struggle with the format, so feel free to skip it.

All the FP novels are completely standalone, so you can jump in anywhere. Some suggestions:

Do you like your end of the world as an emotionally devastating 1970s horror story, a bewildering occult urban fantasy, or a US Presidential Election gone wrong? If the first, read Dead Romance; if the second, read This Town Will Never Let Us Go; if the last, read Head of State.

Want your far-future human history to look like a culture-shocking techno-Heaven, or a classical scifi capitalism-vs-liberation setup? If the former, read Of the City of the Saved; if the latter, read Weapons Grade Snake Oil.

Would you rather your universe-spanning scifi epic to be Moby Dick with universes instead of whales, or I,Claudius with a war between all timelines where Rome never fell and all timelines where the Nazis won WWII? If the former, read The Brakespeare Voyage; if the latter, read Warlords of Utopia.

Would you prefer your staggeringly weird takes on the Great Houses to be contextualized by 16th century Mexico or 17th century England? If the former, read Against Nature; if the latter, read Newtons Sleep (legally free online!).

Another great way to start is through the audio stories, which are split between BBV’s Faction Paradox Protocols (scripts legally free online!) and Magic Bullet’s True History of Faction Paradox. I know a ton of fans who started with the audios, so this is definitely a great route! Both series are completely stand-alone from the books, although your enjoyment would probably be a little enhanced if you’ve read Alien Bodies and Dead Romance.

The final route I’ll suggest is the short story anthologies: in particular, A Romance in Twelve Parts is pretty great as a starting spot (even if its final story does spoil Of the City of the Saved). The Book of the Enemy has also been described as a “sampling platter” of the series’ Deepest Lore™, so check it out if you want to be tossed into the deep end. (Also I wrote a story for it yay!)

My last tip: At some point, go back and read The Adventuress of Henrietta Street and The Taking of Planet 5. They’re both Eighth Doctor novels, and they’re not at all prerequisites, but they both fit quite well into the FP series: the latter has strong ties to Simon Bucher-Jones’ stories, and the former explicitly shares a setting with the Protocols audios and the short-lived FP comic. Also be sure to read Alien Bodies and Interference, if you didn’t already!

In conclusion ... don’t worry too much about anything I just said. It’s the way that’ll probably give you the best understanding, but as I’ve said a billion times now, the Faction Paradox series is pretty beginner-friendly at almost every point! So feel free to start with either set of audios, or the first book you get your hands on. I started on Warlords of Utopia with zero context, and I did fine – and that was before Faction Paradox was even allowed on the Tardis Wiki!

If along the way you get confused by anything, just hit up r/factionparadox or my ask box and I’d love to help. Welcome to the Faction, and may the spirits guide you!

[wyrdvora]

Anyone know if there's a Danish translation of the Faction Paradox Protocols (or True History)? Highly doubt it, but my Danish friend wants to get into it but isn't good enough at English.

[doctornolonger]

The Faction Paradox Protocols get a lot more sinister when one considers the implications of Cousin Shuncucker’s existence. Justine wasn’t the first time Godfather Morlock had given someone the Grandfather’s shadow: just before the destruction of the Faction’s homeworld, he evidently pulled the exact same trick on Shuncucker so she could carry the Faction’s legacy as its “last scion”. Except that the shadow drove her completely insane.

When Morlock gave Justine the shadow, he knew what had happened to Shuncucker, so he knew he was probably ruining her life (or at least her sanity). He also knew that the destruction of the Eleven-Day Empire was on its way, and he did nothing to stop it. The Book of the War recounts the story of the first two Faction Paradox audios in the form of Mujun: the Ghost Kingdom, where we hear that Morlock and Godfather Sabbath made a bet over Justine, with Sabbath wagering a gold coin that Morlock would never be able to exploit the girl’s talent.

The scene has a brooding and fatalistic quality, the suggestion being that the [Faction] is about to be overtaken by history. There’s even a suggestion that [Morlock] himself may play a deliberate role in the [Faction]’s eventual downfall, perhaps a hint that he intends to use [Justine] as a mere conduit, a necromantic focus through which he plans to summon the [loa] and recapture the [Faction]’s past glories.

And in the end, Justine did restore House Paradox to its glory: The True History of Faction Paradox shows Justine and Horus dealing with the last of the Faction’s enemies, and in Head of State the future version of Richard Francis Burton mentions that Horus is “the reborn child from whose sacrifice our Faction owes its own rebirth”. So Morlock’s gamble eventually paid off. But Head of State also suggests there’s more to the story: it quotes the Mujun Kingdom stand-in for Morlock(!) saying that “When the Seventh Head speaks, the War shall end, and the true War shall begin…”