The Book of the War

The Book of the War is a novel edited by Lawrence Miles and written collaboratively by many authors (including Miles). Released in 2002, it is the first book in Mad Norwegian Press' Faction Paradox series and serves as an encylopediac introduction to the War in Heaven.

Characters[]

The Shift - a conceptual entity which actively manipulates the pages of the Book around it

The Great Houses and the House Military[]

The War King
Robert Scaratt
Entarodora
Thessalia
Christopher Rodonante Cwej

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Faction Paradox[]

Father Dyavol
George Gordon Byron
Richard Francis Burton
Cousin Belial
Cousin Anastasia

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The Celestis[]

Lord Smoking Mirror
Lord Foaming Sky
Investigator Ninety-Six

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The Remote[]

Pai'nyga
Michael Brookhaven

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The Lesser Species[]

Mrs. Foyle
Ada Byron
Charles Babbage

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Publisher's summary[]

The Great Houses: Immovable. Implacable. Unchanging. Old enough to pass themselves off as immortal, arrogant enough to claim ultimate authority over the Spiral Politic.

The Enemy: Not so much an army as a hostile new kind of history. So ambitious it can re-write worlds, so complex that even calling it by its name seems to underestimate it.

Faction Paradox: Renegades, ritualists, saboteurs and subterfugers, the criminal-cult to end all criminal-cults, happy to be caught in the crossfire and ready to take whatever's needed from the wreckage… assuming the other powers leave behind a universe that's habitable.

The War: A fifty-year-old dispute over the two most valuable territories in existence: "cause" and "effect."

Marking the first five decades of the conflict, THE BOOK OF THE WAR is an A to Z of a self-contained continuum and a complete guide to the Spiral Politic, from the beginning of recordable time to the fall of humanity. Part story, part history and part puzzle-box, this is a chronicle of protocol and paranoia in a War where the historians win as many battles as the soldiers and the greatest victory of all is to hold on to your own past…

Summary[]

For the major powers of the War, fighting has gone on for fifty years. Due to the temporal nature of the conflict, these fifty years span almost the entirety of the universe's history and has racked up countless deaths.

The Great Houses[]

An aristocratic people who see themselves as the controllers of the "Spiral Politic", the Great Houses view themselves as a part of the flow of history. Usually, they are uninterested in the universe they rule over but the fires of the War molded them into a war-ready force that has already committed numerous genocides.

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Academicians for Game Logic[]

Shortly before (specifically thirty years) before the breakout of the War, the culture of the Great Houses began to lurch forwards from its stagnant state by gaining self-awareness. This took the form of the Academicians for Game Logic - a group that rejected the view that everything is literal and instead began viewing behaviour in terms of game logic. Unfortunately, the War made this phase of deconstruction brief.

Anchoring of the Thread[]

Seeking to not have to fight over the span of history itself, the Great Houses decided to anchor the "thread" of reality - placing timeships at various points throughout time and building a massive machine for the express purpose of the anchoring of the thread. The anchoring finished in a single day, which also saw the beginning of the Great Houses' war against the Yssgaroth - as the Yssgaroth began their assault on the universe by destroying the machinery for the anchoring (forming the "caldera").

House Arpexia[]

House Arpexia are the most hyper-logical of the Great Houses. They view everything through the lens of scientific thought (to the point of fundamentalism). They are inimically opposed to House Xianthellipse, though the two Houses have never actually fought. A large chunk of the Great Houses' technical developments were made by Arpexia.

Babels[]

Some time before the outbreak of the War, the Great Houses (possibly during the Imperator Presidency) tried to engineer the casts into a more powerful weapon. This led to the breeding-engine of (the long dead) House Catherion being looted and remade into a factory to produce the "babels". Ultimately only eight (at most) babels were created - all of which were absolutely insane. One babel managed to escape, causing mass carnage on the Homeworld.

The Caldera[]

During the attack by the Yssgaroth that came immediately after the anchoring of the thread, a crater was left behind. This crater was the focal point of all the threads of history and (in theory) could be used to manipulate every single one of them. Due to the great danger that comes with this, the Great Houses flat out refuse to do this even during the War, though it is used by the timeships while they build themselves. It is theorized that the destruction of the caldera (and the planet around it) during the War would be extremely devastating, changing basically everything around it besides a few non-linear domains.

Casts[]

Before the outbreak of the War, the Great Houses had very little reason to use militant forces. One of the few forces at their command were the casts. These creatures were effectively non-corporeal wraiths (somewhat similar to the conceptual entities though less incorporeal and less intelligent) that were attached to the noosphere of the Homeworld and various timeships and that could be used in battle. Unfortunately for the Great Houses, the casts were singularly ineffective in combat against the Enemy and almost always died in combat or were reduced to howling wraiths. The only casts to see actual combat (beyond the initial assault on the Homeworld and the Lethean Campaign) were the so-called "second-generation of casts", otherwise known as the Babels.

House Catherion[]

An extinct house whose breeding-engine was used to develop the Babels. This caused mass chaos within the house, causing the death of all of its still-living residents (whose bodies were used as biomass by one of the Babels) and the destruction of House Catherion's breeding-engine in the direct aftermath of what became known as the "Catherion massacre".

Chaotic Limiter[]

A somewhat recent development in timeship technology is the chaotic limiter. This device actively alters the causal impact that timeships and their pilots have - thus making it so that a nuclear bomb can have the same impact as stepping on a butterfly and visa versa. In the War, limiters are used to make secretive reconnaisance missions extra secretive and to make temporal battles have actual impact. They can also be used to produce fluxes and (through jury-rigging) conceptual entities.

Closed Session of the Ruling Houses[]

A closed session of the Ruling Houses is presumably a meeting between the ruling forces of the Great Houses to discuss something of great importance and great secrecy. One such meeting was made by the future War King around seventy-five years before the War and detailed the possibility of the Enemy's existence. Though most of the figures within the closed session believed the War King's claims and made plans to make peace with the Enemy, the then-President vehemently refused to believe in the existence of the Enemy (possibly due to the influence of the future Celestis) and sabotaged all of these plans.

The Homeworld[]

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The Imperator Presidency[]

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The Spiral Politic[]

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Timeships[]

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Yssgaroth[]

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The House Military[]

Normally, the concept of a military would be antithetical to the Great Houses but due to the War, the Great Houses were forced into forming one and sending them into battle.

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Apportation[]

Apportation is a term for the use of duplicates to disturb the timeline. A notable usage of apportation was in the kidnapping of Elisabeth Canning, in which (through the machinations of Robert Scaratt) two different versions of a chief subject in the case were seen.

"Briefings"[]

A method used by the House Military to indoctrinae new recrits, "briefings" are a biological method of implanting information directly into the mind of the prospective soldier. These briefings serve two purposes - to recruit new soldiers and to make sure that these soldiers do not defect, with even the mere thought of defection causing a suicidal mental breakdown in the soldier. For advanced regen-inf soldiers, the self-destructive parts of the briefings are physical and have led to the soldiers gaining "rather alarming" mutations.

The Shift briefly buts into the entry on the briefings to voice his disbelief and disgust at the process.

Burlesque Devices[]

Though the Great Houses are largely without any "desire", some small amount of "desire" appears in their weaponry (most notably in the D-Mat weapons and 103-form time-ships). This is due to the machinations of Robert Scarratt, who claimed that these were due to the powerful repressed sexual tension within the society of the Great Houses.

Confusion[]

Though it is next to impossible to lose a battle within the War by conventional means (as forces can simply be temporally cloned and there is no such thing as "not enough planning" in a time war), it is somewhat easy to lose battles in a time war simply because the notion of anyone winning becomes uncertain. Thus, most battles are lost simply due to confusion.

Christopher Rodonanté Cwej[]

Originally a somewhat gullible (though not stupid) and childish human recruited by the Great Houses and made into one of their agents, Chris Cwej became one of the most notable forces within the War simply due to his ability to live no matter what. Presumably somewhat early in the War, Chris' body was hit with a blast of radiation and he regenerated for the first time. As the Great Houses needed a somewhat human operative to send into Remote-space, they manipulated this body into becoming a short, squat, humanoid form - unintenionally putting the seeds of rebellion into Chris' mind. Despite this, Chris offered to train in the rigorous academy known as the Gauntlet and it was here that he was unwittingly made into a prototype for the Army of One project - forming the Cwejen.

Cwejen[]

Due to the unreliability of conventional cloning, a more rigorous method was needed to produce a clone army. As a test of this, the Great Houses carefully duplicated Chris Cwej's timeline then shattered it - allowing these duplicates to exist at the same time as Cwej. These duplicates can (largely) be divided into three different branches: Cwej-Primes (based on Chris' original body and largely used for basic soldiering), Cwej-Pluses (based on Chris' post-regeneration body and used for tactical work), and Cwej-Magni (based on a possible timeline for Chris, used only for heavy artillery work, and extremely rare). Though the original Chris was slated to take command of these Cwejen, it was decided to use a Cwejen known as Damen to control the Cwejen army. Meanwhile, the original Chris became a somewhat dejected operative with very little notable under his belt after the split.

Forced Regen Missions[]

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The Ruling Houses[]

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Robert Scaratt[]

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Waves of the House Military[]

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The War King[]

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Faction Paradox[]

The only one of the Houses to purposefully unmoor themselves from the hegemony of the Great Houses and mingle with the lesser species, Faction Paradox has become something of a thorn in the side of the Great Houses. They largely engage in measures of subterfuge while hoping that the War will lead to the playing field of the Spiral Politic being cleansed and ripe for the picking.

Cousin-Thrice-Removed Anastasia[]

Originally one of the doomed Romanov family, Anastasia was saved from her death by Faction Paradox and recruited into her ranks. She befriended "Father Dyavol" and began to form a "career" within the Faction. This "career" crumbled with her formation of the Thirteen-Day Republic. As the Republic ran towards its catastrophic end, Anastasia began showing irrational and paranoid behaviours. After the fall of the Republic, Anastasia was forced to go through three separate deaths in different points in human history.

Faction Paradox Armour[]

The armour of the Faction is a skeletal construction built from the bones of a vampiritic being (possibly some form of Mal'akh, possibly the remnants of alternate timeline Yssgaroth-infested Houseworlders) which seemingly exists mainly to offend the Great Houses. It is unclear if they actually have any military use or if they only exist for totemic purposes. The only point in which the bones used for the armour are known come from is an "abomination's graveyard".

Audience of the Great Houses[]

Though in theory, the Audience of the Great Houses would have been used to judge Houses in violation of the laws of the Great Houses, this audience only took place twice before the outbreak of the War. In both cases, this was about House Paradox and their creator, Grandfather Paradox. The first Audience was over the creation of the House while the second was over House Paradox's experiments in alter-time structures. In the second Audience, Grandfather Paradox wore a version of the Faction Paradox armour and (due to the fact that the Houses simply didn't know how to reprimand any of their own member) managed to escape any retribution.

Cousin Belial[]

Originally a native of the 21st century and accomplished student named William "Billy" Crow Dog, Billy sought out Faction Paradox after being arrested for murder after stabbing a woman in a bar fight (an act extremely out of character for Billy). He was introduced to the "Path of the Black Medicine" by an incarcerated rapist named Pierre La Pierre and was brought to the late 18th century by Faction Paradox's Sabakash cell.

While in the 18th century, Billy was literally reborn as a way of breaking the Faction into the 1780s. Belial/Billy served as a researcher/observer of the customs of Remote parties active in that time period (such as the peyote dream runners).

Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton[]

Though largely remembered for his translations of works such as 1001 Nights and feud with explorer John Hanning Speke, Richard Francis Burton had a rather interesting life. Burton was born into the Grand Families and was recruited into the Star Chamber almost immediately after leaving Oxford. Burton's respect for the Star Chamber only lasted for a brief moment.

After an incident involving "grotesques", Burton was recruited by Faction Paradox (possibly being recruited by himself). Due to Burton's excellence at blending into foreign cultures, he began to climb the ranks of Faction Paradox. This record was marred by an incident in 1845 where Burton accidentally revealed his knowledge of the occult to the Star Chamber. He later made an expedition into Africa, ostensibly to find the Nile but actually to find the Mountains of the Moon (a colony of Mal'akh). This expedition was the source of Burton's feud with Speke and ultimately led to Speke's death at the hands of Lord Byron (whom Burton began a feud with).

George Gordon: Sixth Baron Byron of Rochdale[]

Lord Byron is one of the more enigmatic figures of the 18th and 19th century - a poet extraordinare who somewhat famously died in 1824 and his pickled corpse shipped to England.

Pressed into service for the Star Chamber at an early age, Byron's first appointment for the Chamber was a trip through Europe (given the appearance of a fashinable trek through the continent) to discover the truth of rumours that the Mal'akh were gaining a foothold in Eastern Europe and the border between Europe and Asia. During the journey, Byron encountered the Mal'akh (in an incident dubbed the "Maltese incident") and left the Chamber for Faction Paradox shortly afterwards. Six years later, Byron was exiled from England and forced to live in the Shelley Cabal until the Cabal was attacked by the Mal'akh seven years later.

Two years later, Byron supposedly died. This death was actually faked by Byron using a duplicate corpse and entered into the Eleven-Day Empire. Though he is an elder Cousin in all but name, Byron's tendencies towards the theatrical grates on the nerves of even the most theatrical of the other Faction members.

The Cult of Celebrity Death[]

Somewhat early into the War, the Faction began examining people who were largely remembered for their deaths and discovered that they were actually extremely compelling figures living within extremely influential moments. As such, they decided to start recruiting those figures. Unfortunately, the few they chose (which included Anastasia, Dyavol, and Lord Byron) were poor choices and scuppered any plans for further celebrity hires.

The Eleven-Day Empire[]

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Loa[]

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House Paradox[]

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The Thirteen-Day Republic[]

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The Celestis[]

Originally an elite party within the Great Houses, the Celestis removed themselves from history altogether to escape annihilation in the fires of the War. Now, they are essentially only ghosts that only flit into the Spiral Politic to terrorize their worshippers.

Originally, the Celestis were an interventionist faction within the Great Houses' society that managed to gain large amounts of support within the Houses - causing various genocides. Almost immediately after the War broke out, the Celestis removed themselves out of time (forming their homeland of Mictlan) due to the existential fear of being erased completely from reality and became conceptual beings with some control over life and death (which they use to lure in and control their servants). Though the Celestis view themselves as living Gods, most other beings involved in the War view them as sickly, diseased creatures. Indeed, the other Houses view the Celestis as betrayers and the House Military are told to destroy any Celestis they encounter - something which is somewhat difficult due to the Celestis' conceptual nature.

Anarchitects[]

The Anarachitects are a class of conceptual entity that burrow into architecture itself and warp the perception of its form - creating endless hallways, making bridges disappear, and other equally horrifying effects. When Anarchitects were unleashed onto posthumanity, they were at first thought to be a nanotechnological force rather than a conceptual force.

Conceptual Entities[]

Though conceptual entities are frequently thought to be thought-forms, they are closer to living ideas. These living ideas have the ability to influence other beings and manifest in media - such as in a book or, possibly, in a wiki article - subtly changing the text around it. They are used by both the Enemy and the Celestis, who are possibly the most adept at creating conceptual beings due to their conceptual nature.

Investigators[]

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Mark of Indenture[]

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Mictlan[]

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Tirgoviste[]

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The Remote[]

Descended from the fetishistic (in the religious sense) parts of Faction Paradox, the Remote are a barbarian-like and extremely reckless class of warriors. They are regarded by the Great Houses as a nuisance and by Faction Paradox as chaotic.

A'daltem Ano'nde[]

The rifle used by the Kiowa prophet Pai'nyga in his battles against the American settlers. It was stolen from a sergeant named James Rufus Daly by Pai'nyga after a dreamlike vision of a dakina (though inthe skirmish with Daly, Pai'nyga lost one of his fingers). Pai'nyga began to see himself as an extension of the rifle. Supposedly a few decades (specifically in 1890) after Pai'nyga's battles with the settlers, the "shadow-spirit" of the rifle fled - leading to its cartouche being erased.

Anchormen[]

Anchormen are a contemporary faction to the peyote dream runners - serving as a sort of anchor to the real world. Though the anchormen greatly helped the dream runners during the turbulent history they lived in, the anchormen began to show flaws as time went on - completely losing any focus or perspective on the world that they were supposed to anchor the dream runners to. By the 1900s, the anchormen were functionally extinct though the Remote used some form of anchormen.

The Broken Remote[]

Due to the Remote's need for information, it is possible to hijack the Remote by hijacking their source of information. This method was used by the Fourth Wave on their assault of the Remote colony of Fallahal - rewiring the Remote through degenerative media and making them into an example of the "Broken Remote".

Michael Brookhaven[]

In the year 1977, a director named Michael Brookhaven was hired by the Hollywood branch of Faction Paradox (which had long been languishing due to the fall of film and the rise of video). Brookhaven (taking the name Cousin Gable) strongarmed his way into essentially controlling Faction Hollywood (which became less and less relevant to the Faction proper) and using its methods of historical editing to make himself into the "Emperor of Excess". This reign lasted until 1999, when Brookhaven perished at the hands of Chris Cwej.

Brookhaven's Follies[]

Throughout his career within Faction Hollywood, Michael Brookhaven used his ritualistic powers to radically alter the lives of those around him - usually making them into presences in Hollywood at the cost of their lifespans. Even after Brookhaven's demise, evidence of Brookhaven's ritualism remained in Hollywood - with ritualistic circles of cocaine used to summon Brookhaven's loa being the most common example.

Compassion[]

Originally an agent of the Remote named Laura Tobin, Compassion was made into a humanoid timeship while travelling with an unnamed lone traveller. During this time, Compassion was pursued by the Great Houses in the hopes that they could use her to produce more of her kind - something Compassion vehemently disagreed with. Due to this, Compassion was briefly dubbed a "subversive influence" and hid for most of the early War. At some point during the War, the Great Houses (possibly) came to an agreement with Compassion - leading to her being involved in the creation of the 103-forms. Shortly after this, Compassion encountered another companion of the lone traveller named Carmen Yeh and began travelling for her. This lasted for three years and ended with Compasssion agreeing (on somewhat shaky terms) to become an agent of the Houses.

North American Warrior Tribes[]

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Remembrance Tanks[]

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Weaponstores[]

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The Lesser Species[]

"Lesser species" effectively means any species not connected with the major players, though the term largely applies to humanity and their posthuman descendants.

The Analytical Engine[]

In the 1800s, scientist Charles Babbage nearly built a device known as a "difference engine" - a precursor to the modern computer. This was followed by the "analytical engine", a device that was able to reprogram itself. Though the government of England dropped its funding of Babbage, the Star Chamber (using Ada Byron as a cats' paw) began funding the analytical engine in the hope that it could be used against Faction Paradox.

Beshielach[]

The Beshielach are a race engineered by the Great Houses into a weapon. This (somehow) went wrong, and the Beshielach became diplomats - helping with negotiations with forces in the Greater Autrobulan Cluster before being caught in an explosion and (mostly) caught into the gravity well of a brown dwarf.

This entry is the first (by spelling) appearance of the Shift, who interrupts the entry on the Beshielach due to how (in their opinion) boring it is.

The Book of Enoch[]

The Book of Enoch is a book within the Biblical Apocrypha which details the revolt of a group of anakim (led by Azazel) and their mating with humans, which leads to a race of beastly cannibalistic peoples. Due to their creation of these hideous monsters, the rest of the anakim fight and defeat the rebels. It is postulated that this Book of the Bible was inspired by the origins of the Mal'akh.

Ada Byron[]

The daughter of Lord Byron, Ada was spirited away from the company of her father by her mother. Ostensibly because she feared that young Ada would begin to emulate the more infamous tendencies of her father (though also due to the orders of the Star Chamber), Ada's mother repressed any fanciful influences (most notably poetry) in her young daughter and raised her as a mathematical prodigy.

From a young age, the Star Chamber recruited Ada and began to use her powers to decipher Bach's Musical Offering and breach into the Eleven-Day Kingdom. Unfortunately, Ada was unable to break the Musical Offering but soon discovered Charles Babbage's plans to create an "analytical engine" and inserted herself into the company of Babbage.

Shortly before she planned to use the analytical engine, Ada was accosted by her father while leaving Babbage's home. Ada (not knowing that her father was a member of Faction Paradox) unwittingly revealed the existence of the analytical engine. After the disastrous attempt to break into the Eleven-Day Kingdom, Lord Byron still remained in contact with his daughter (either out of fatherly love or so that the Faction could discover any future plans to use Charles Babbage's work to break into their Kingdom).

Canon per Tonos[]

Amongst the many musical canons which can be used to manipulate reality in a similar way to the multi-layered conceptual mathematics that sits at the heart of the Great Houses' society, one such canon is the Canon per Tonos. This canon (allegedly) serves as a skeleton key to access other universes and was part of J.S. Bach's Musical Offering. Indeed, it was the first canon to be solved by the Clockwork Ouroboros.

Catch-the-Bear's War Bonnet[]

One of the ceremonies of the North American warrior tribes (largely used by the Cheyenne) is an event known as the Sun Dance, in which young warriors remove a small piece of their skin in the belief that this skin serves as an organic recording device for visions encured during the ritual. While speaking with a Cheyenne warrior named Catch-the-Bear, Cousin Belial accidentally inspired the warrior to make a bonnet out of several skins. Though this possibly caused Catch-the-Bear's rise to fame, it also drove the warrior to insanity and possibly caused his death by freezing. In the aftermath of Catch-the-Bear's death, his war bonnet was buried with him.

The City of the Saved[]

Sitting at the end of the universe is a massive piece of timespace known as the City of the Saved. This galaxy-sized cityscape is home to the resurrected forms of every single human (and only humans, as animals and aliens are not resurrected and most likely can never be resurrected in the City) and their unique cultures, which all mesh together. The one thing keeping these cultures from killing each other is the fact that bloodshed in the City is (possibly) impossible, though many of the cultures within the City are vaguely totalitarian. Other time-active parties are allowed in the City, though only begrudgingly and without their timeships being present. The City is largely excluded from the War, though a few groups within the City have ties to War-powers and a few (failed) assaults have been made on the City.

The Clockwork Ouroboros[]

A prototype computer built by Ada Byron and Charles Babbage from 1829 to 1834, the Clockwork Ouroboros became essential to the Star Chamber's plans to pierce the Eleven-Day Empire's defences and invade it as it was the only machine at the time that was capable of decoding the Musical Offering. Once the Ouroboros was built and tested by agents of the Star Chamber, it was moved to the physical Star Chamber within the Houses of Parliament and used in the (ultimately failed) assault on the Eleven Day Empire.

Earth[]

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Mrs. Foyle[]

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Mal'akh[]

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Posthumanity[]

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The Star Chamber[]

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The Enemy[]

More of an all-consuming process than a single race or group, the scope of the explanations for the Enemy within The Book are more about why and how it exists, rather than what it is.

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Terminology[]

Biodata[]

Biodata is a record of how an individual consciousness fits into history - effectively serving as "time DNA" (in the words of R.B. Nevitz). Though Nevitz viewed it as nigh-impossible that biodata could be read, the Great Houses (largely due to how advanced their technology is) are able to read biodata (though they have a harder time reading future biodata than past biodata). Nevitz also postulated that only biological entities had biodata, but this is provably wrong.

Notes[]

Entries were Lance Parkin, David A. McIntee, and Eddie Robson but were not included in the finished product.

Sources[]

TARDIS Wiki

Title	Author	Release date	Significance
Dictionary of the Khazars	Milorad Pavić	1984	A novel with a similar format
World War Z	Max Brooks	2006	A novel with a similar format
Encyclopedia	Richard Horn	1969	A novella with a somewhat similar format
House of Leaves	Mark Z. Danielewski	2000	A novel with a somewhat similar format