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|image = File:The Enemy (The Book of the Enemy).jpg | |image = File:The Enemy (The Book of the Enemy).jpg | ||
|aka = The Adversary | |aka = The Adversary | ||
|leader = | |leader = | ||
|bases = | |bases = | ||
|members = | |members = | ||
|first | |first cs = Alien Bodies (novel) | ||
|appearances = | |appearances = | ||
}}{{dab page|enemy (disambiguation)}} | }}{{dab page|enemy (disambiguation)}} | ||
'''The Enemy''', also known as '''the Adversary''', ([[PROSE]]: | '''The Enemy''', also known as '''the Adversary''', ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Newtons Sleep (novel)}}, {{cs|And To Dust We Shall Return (short story)}}, et al.) was the opponent of the [[Time Lord]]s during the [[War in Heaven]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Alien Bodies (novel)}}) ''[[The Book of the War]]'' claimed that it was not a [[species]] or a political faction as much as a process. It had a name, but the [[Great House]]s were reluctant to use it. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=The Enemy|name=The Enemy}}) The form of the Enemy was constantly shifting. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Ancestor Cell (novel)}}) Some theorised that the real War was against "the archetypal concept of enmity itself" ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Of the City of the Saved... (novel)}}) and [[Godparent (rank)|Godfather]] [[Morlock]] of [[Faction Paradox]] once wrote of "the ‘Heavenly’ conflict between Houses and enemies", plural. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|A Bloody (And Public) Domaine (short story)}}) | ||
== Identity == | == Identity == | ||
=== Pre-War speculation === | === Pre-War speculation === | ||
Before the War, multiple parties [[War prediction|speculated]] about the enemy's identity. ([[PROSE]]: | Before the War, multiple parties [[War prediction|speculated]] about the enemy's identity. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=War Predictions|name=War Predictions}}) | ||
[[Rassilon]] foresaw that the [[Time Lord]]s were imperfect despite their knowledge, and after realising who the enemy really was, he charged [[the Watch]] with killing [[Four Names|four Time Lords]] when the time was right. ([[PROSE]]: | [[Rassilon]] foresaw that the [[Time Lord]]s were imperfect despite their knowledge, and after realising who the enemy really was, he charged [[the Watch]] with killing [[Four Names|four Time Lords]] when the time was right. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Infinity Doctors (novel)}}) | ||
Chatelaine [[Thessalia]] incorrectly predicted in ''[[The Little Book of Absolute Power]]'' that the enemy would be mainly motivated by survival or keeping its history intact. ([[PROSE]]: | Chatelaine [[Thessalia]] incorrectly predicted in ''[[The Little Book of Absolute Power]]'' that the enemy would be mainly motivated by survival or keeping its history intact. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|name=War Predictions}}) | ||
[[Greyjan the Sane]] hypothesized that the Enemy were [[ancestor cell]]s which had been irradiated by temporal interference and energised by a leaking [[bottle universe]]. ([[PROSE]]: | [[Greyjan the Sane]] hypothesized that the Enemy were [[ancestor cell]]s which had been irradiated by temporal interference and energised by a leaking [[bottle universe]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Ancestor Cell (novel)}}) | ||
The [[Rivera Manuscript]] described a [[Rivera Manuscript renegade|renegade]]'s [[praxis]]-induced vision of the enemy's [[the Event|devastation of the Homeworld]]. In that vision, enemy soldiers appeared to closely resemble [[posthuman]] [[Ashla shock-troop]]s. | The [[Rivera Manuscript]] described a [[Rivera Manuscript renegade|renegade]]'s [[praxis]]-induced vision of the enemy's [[the Event|devastation of the Homeworld]]. In that vision, enemy soldiers appeared to closely resemble [[posthuman]] [[Ashla shock-troop]]s. Also present during the vision was a being or concept that could only be translated into [[English (language)|English]] as "[[One (The Book of the War)|One]]". ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=Appendix IV|name=Appendix IV}}) | ||
[[File:Yartek.jpg|thumb|left|[[Yartek]], leader of the [[Voord]]. ([[TV]]: | [[File:Yartek.jpg|thumb|left|[[Yartek]], leader of the [[Voord]]. ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Keys of Marinus (TV story)}})]] | ||
During his first encounter with the War, the [[Eighth Doctor]] travelled to [[Mictlan]] with [[Kathleen Bregman]] and saw an alien agent of the [[Celestis]] who wore a parody of ceremonial [[Time Lord]] [[robe]]s. He later told Bregman that the robed alien was one of the enemy, saying, "Try to forget you ever saw it. I know ''I'' will." ([[PROSE]]: | During his first encounter with the War, the [[Eighth Doctor]] travelled to [[Mictlan]] with [[Kathleen Bregman]] and saw an alien agent of the [[Celestis]] who wore a parody of ceremonial [[Time Lord]] [[robe]]s. He later told Bregman that the robed alien was one of the enemy, saying, "Try to forget you ever saw it. I know ''I'' will." ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Alien Bodies (novel)}}) He went on to erase the enemy's identity from his memory. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Toy Story (short story)}}) At later times he joked that the enemy could be "[[Yartek]], leader of the alien [[Voord]], carrying a big stick" or "[[87th century|eighty-seventh-century]] [[Earth Reptile]]s with transforming [[Tyrannosaurus rex|T.rex]] [[time machine]]s. The whole of established [[human]] history could be a Time Lord attempt to eradicate their [[causal nexus]]." ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Taking of Planet 5 (novel)}}) [[Helios (The Infinity Doctors)|Helios]] said that [[Infinity Doctor|the Doctor]] had seen the enemy, and that going into [[Omega]]'s [[anti-matter universe]] would lock that future into place. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Infinity Doctors (novel)}}) | ||
In the [[Infancy Gospel of Grandfather Paradox]], [[Grandfather Paradox|the Grandfather]] suggested that [[spider]]s could be a good enemy for the [[Great | In the [[Infancy Gospel of Grandfather Paradox]], [[Grandfather Paradox|the Grandfather]] suggested that [[spider]]s could be a good enemy for the [[Great House]]s. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Pre-narrative Briefings (short story)|namedep=Briefing N & O}}) | ||
[[The Matrix]] predicted that the enemy destined to destroy Gallifrey would be unknown until [[Last Contact]]. The [[Lord President|president]] and members of the [[High Council|Supreme Council]] knew this prophecy, but they kept it hidden, fearing that Gallifrey would fall into chaos if it was widely known. ([[PROSE]]: | [[The Matrix]] predicted that the enemy destined to destroy Gallifrey would be unknown until [[Last Contact]]. The [[Lord President|president]] and members of the [[High Council|Supreme Council]] knew this prophecy, but they kept it hidden, fearing that Gallifrey would fall into chaos if it was widely known. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Gallifrey Chronicles (novel)}}) The [[Supreme Council]] was split on whether to tell [[the Matrix]] to look for threats matching the description since such action might inevitably lead to contact and conflict with the enemy. Deliberation on the topic took several millennia. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Infinity Doctors (novel)}}) At date index [[309456/4756.7RE/1213GRT/100447TL]], the Matrix projected that the [[Vore]] were a potential candidate for [[Last Contact]], so the council mandated that no Time Lord was to engage the Vore or come within one [[parsec]] or one century of any of their moons. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Gallifrey Chronicles (novel)}}) | ||
''[[The Book of the War]]'' speculated that increasing paranoia on [[the Homeworld]] may have itself caused the War, saying the idea "makes a certain sense, given the nature of the enemy." ([[PROSE]]: | ''[[The Book of the War]]'' speculated that increasing paranoia on [[the Homeworld]] may have itself caused the War, saying the idea "makes a certain sense, given the nature of the enemy." ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|name=War Predictions}}) The enemy was also believed to be a conceptual infection of imagination created from races destroyed in the [[anchoring of the thread]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Subjective Interlock (short story)|namedep=Subjective Injection Omega}}) | ||
=== Secrecy during the War === | === Secrecy during the War === | ||
In [[Monsters Coda|her speech]] to the [[Fifth Wave]] on the thirtieth anniversary of [[the Cataclysm]], [[House Military]] strategist [[Entarodora]] said the [[ruling Houses]] kept secret the identity of the enemy and its leadership because, if the Houses believed the true enemy was simply a rogue House or a species of time-active upstarts, they would "simply shrug and go back to sleep." Instead, the secrecy made the enemy into monsters, and the subsequent fear would keep the fight alive. | In [[Monsters Coda|her speech]] to the [[Fifth Wave]] on the thirtieth anniversary of [[the Cataclysm]], [[House Military]] strategist [[Entarodora]] said the [[ruling Houses]] kept secret the identity of the enemy and its leadership because, if the Houses believed the true enemy was simply a rogue House or a species of time-active upstarts, they would "simply shrug and go back to sleep." Instead, the secrecy made the enemy into monsters, and the subsequent fear would keep the fight alive. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=The 'Monsters' Coda}}) | ||
[[File:The Enemy Sigil.jpg|thumb|right|The empty sigil given for the Enemy in ''[[The Book of the War]]''. ([[PROSE]]: | [[File:The Enemy Sigil.jpg|thumb|right|The empty sigil given for the Enemy in ''[[The Book of the War]]''. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|name=The Enemy}})]] | ||
''The Book of the War'' posited that the name was kept secret because the "why" of the enemy was more important than the "what". It also speculated that the enemy might come from beyond the Great Houses' [[noosphere]], not because it came from [[parallel universe|another universe]] but because it operated on principles that the Houses weren't built to understand; it said that, unlike the [[Yssgaroth]], the enemy was "civilised, cultured, and intelligent enough to have an agenda beyond pure destruction." ([[PROSE]]: | ''The Book of the War'' posited that the name was kept secret because the "why" of the enemy was more important than the "what". ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=Causalities of War}}) It also speculated that the enemy might come from beyond the Great Houses' [[noosphere]], not because it came from [[parallel universe|another universe]] but because it operated on principles that the Houses weren't built to understand; ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=Noosphere}}) it said that, unlike the [[Yssgaroth]], the enemy was "civilised, cultured, and intelligent enough to have an agenda beyond pure destruction." ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=Yssgaroth}}) | ||
=== Post-War cultural memories === | === Post-War cultural memories === | ||
Long after the passing of the [[Sun Builder]]s, they and their history remained alive in the culture and mythology of the [[Gendar (species)|Gendar]]. With the Sun Builders cast as benevolent [[deity|gods]], some myths spoke of "[[Bogeyman|bogeymen]]" described "furred, fell things of [[Original Mammoth|tusks]] and [[Dracula|fangs]] and [[Cernunnos|antlers]]". ([[PROSE]]: | Long after the passing of the [[Sun Builder]]s, they and their history remained alive in the culture and mythology of the [[Gendar (species)|Gendar]]. With the Sun Builders cast as benevolent [[deity|gods]], some myths spoke of "[[Bogeyman|bogeymen]]" described "furred, fell things of [[Original Mammoth|tusks]] and [[Dracula|fangs]] and [[Cernunnos|antlers]]". ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Out of the Box (short story)}}) | ||
=== Possible identities === | === Possible identities === | ||
{{Section stub|A section on the [[Life-spore]]s, [[Tardigrade]]s, and [[ancestor cell]]s is needed}} | {{Section stub|A section on the [[Life-spore]]s, [[Tardigrade]]s, and [[ancestor cell]]s is needed}} | ||
==== Gods and Sphinxes ==== | ==== Gods and Sphinxes ==== | ||
As recounted by [[Christine Summerfield]] in [[Dead Romance|her memoirs]], when she came into contact with the [[Great House]]s' agent [[Chris Cwej]], they were on a war footing due to recently having discovered something terrible about the "[[All-High God|Gods]]", here referring to god-like beings in whose shadow "all the civilisations in the universe" had grown up, including both [[human]]ity and the houses. ([[PROSE]]: | As recounted by [[Christine Summerfield]] in [[Dead Romance|her memoirs]], when she came into contact with the [[Great House]]s' agent [[Chris Cwej]], they were on a war footing due to recently having discovered something terrible about the "[[All-High God|Gods]]", here referring to god-like beings in whose shadow "all the civilisations in the universe" had grown up, including both [[human]]ity and the houses. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Dead Romance (novel)}}) A deleted entry about "the [[Gods of the Ainu]]" was listed elsewhere in ''[[The Book of the War]]'' as containing enlightening information on the Enemy. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|name=The Enemy}}) The [[War prediction]]s known to the [[Celestial Intervention Agency|Interventionists]] who would later become the [[Celestis]] depicted the future enemy as "just as 'divine'" as the Houses themselves. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=The Celestis}}) | ||
Most active among the Gods were the [[Kings of Space]], a pair of Gods who created their own [[Sphinx-space]] on the edges of the established universe and created an army of [[Sphinx (Dead Romance)|sphinxes]] who clashed with the Great Houses' forces on several occasions, although the Kings were believed to be "renegades" relative to the orthodoxy of the Gods, and were not the ones the Houses were primarily worried about. Hearing it said that "nobody [had ever] ever come back alive" from Sphinx-space, Christine wondered if "the Gods kept sending back dead bodies, with little notes attached", ([[PROSE]]: | Most active among the Gods were the [[Kings of Space]], a pair of Gods who created their own [[Sphinx-space]] on the edges of the established universe and created an army of [[Sphinx (Dead Romance)|sphinxes]] who clashed with the Great Houses' forces on several occasions, although the Kings were believed to be "renegades" relative to the orthodoxy of the Gods, and were not the ones the Houses were primarily worried about. Hearing it said that "nobody [had ever] ever come back alive" from Sphinx-space, Christine wondered if "the Gods kept sending back dead bodies, with little notes attached", ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Dead Romance (novel)}}) closely paralleling the "[[Head of the Presidency (The Book of the War)|Head of the Presidency]]" incident which ''[[The Book of the War]]'' referred to as the first message from the Enemy to the Great Houses, where the [[President of the High Council|President of the Homeworld]] travelled to a [[Faraway|supposed Enemy base]] and returned as a severed head with a note clenched between its jaws: "We are not amused." ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=The First Message from the Enemy}}) As part of negotiations to salvage the [[bottle universe]], Cwej made a pact with the sphinxes, agreeing to give them access to proper [[time travel]], which they desired. | ||
Christine eventually speculated that Chris Cwej's universe was a [[bottle universe]], and the Gods had originated as the Great Houses' counterparts in the universe of the level "above", fleeing from yet another enemy. ([[PROSE]]: | Christine eventually speculated that Chris Cwej's universe was a [[bottle universe]], and the Gods had originated as the Great Houses' counterparts in the universe of the level "above", fleeing from yet another enemy. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Dead Romance (novel)}}) Indeed, one account suggested that the universe of [[I.M. Foreman]], in which the better part of the "true" War in Heaven was fought, was indeed a different universe from Cwej's universe, and that its [[Time Lord]]s were fleeing into the bottle universe to escape the War, becoming God-like. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Interference - Book Two (novel)}}) However, many other accounts depicted the universe Christine entered, and where Cwej was active as an agent of the Houses, as the same level of reality the War in Heaven was fought in. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=Christopher Rodonanté Cwej}}, [[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Eleven Day Empire (audio story)}}, et al.) Cwej believed that these Gods might be "parts of the universe‘s framework" and "might have been there since the beginning of time". ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Dead Romance (novel)}}) According to one account, Cwej later discovered that the group of so-called "All-High Gods" who had taken over [[Dellah]] were instead [[Ferutu]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Twilight of the Gods (BNA novel)}}) | ||
==== Posthumanity ==== | ==== Posthumanity ==== | ||
{{section stub}}The [[Rivera Manuscript renegade]]'s vision of [[the Event]], a possible devastating first attack on [[the Homeworld]] that [[the War King]] managed to avert, showed the Enemy employing what appeared to be [[Ashla shock-troop]]s as soldiers. The Ashla were [[cyborg]] [[posthuman]]s, created for the [[Blood | {{section stub}}The [[Rivera Manuscript renegade]]'s vision of [[the Event]], a possible devastating first attack on [[the Homeworld]] that [[the War King]] managed to avert, showed the Enemy employing what appeared to be [[Ashla shock-troop]]s as soldiers. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|name=Appendix IV}}) The Ashla were [[cyborg]] [[posthuman]]s, created for the [[Blood Coteries]] by the [[Silversmiths' Coterie]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=Siloportem}}) It was widely believed that the Enemy originated on [[Earth]], primarily known as [[human]]ity's home planet. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Interference - Book Two (novel)}}, {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=Secret Architects}}) | ||
Some accounts suggested [[Lolita]] was grooming humanity to become a threat to the Great Houses. In established history, a moment known as the [[Ghost Point]] occurred right before humanity could have found new ways to think, ways unpredictable to the Great Houses. ([[PROSE]]: | Some accounts suggested [[Lolita]] was grooming humanity to become a threat to the Great Houses. In established history, a moment known as the [[Ghost Point]] occurred right before humanity could have found new ways to think, ways unpredictable to the Great Houses. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=Humanity}}) However, in the early [[decade]]s of the [[21st century]], despite the Ghost Point, the history of Earth began to advance once more, with [[Shift (Head of State)|a shift]] claiming this curve towards advancement was caused by the campaign for the office of [[President of the United States]] run by [[Matt Nelson]]. This campaign was being manipulated behind the scenes by Lolita. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Head of State (novel)}}) Every Time Lord knew the enemy's home planet was [[Earth]], ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Ancestor Cell (novel)}}) leading the Time Lords to try to destroy the planet in the [[20th century]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Interference - Book Two (novel)}}) | ||
==== Timeships ==== | ==== Timeships ==== | ||
===== | ===== T. memeticus ===== | ||
One account of the Enemy held that a crashed timeship began infecting the local biology of the Earth, resulting in the [[Thaumoctopus memeticus]], a four dimensional mimic octopus that could take on any form, including that of ideas. ([[PROSE]]: | One account of the Enemy held that a crashed timeship began infecting the local biology of the Earth, resulting in the ''[[Thaumoctopus memeticus]]'', a four dimensional mimic octopus that could take on any form, including that of ideas. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|T. memeticus: A Morphology (short story)}}) The Enemy did field timeships during the War. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Eternal Escape (audio story)}}) | ||
===== Lolita ===== | ===== Lolita ===== | ||
Although, before the War, [[Lolita]] claimed to [[the Doctor's TARDIS|her sister]] that she was concerned about the Enemy — explaining the War would be "us versus them, our pilots against their pilots", that the enemy was going to "change everything, if it can", and that even [[the Matrix|their mother]] would likely be damaged — ([[PROSE]]: | Although, before the War, [[Lolita]] claimed to [[the Doctor's TARDIS|her sister]] that she was concerned about the Enemy — explaining the War would be "us versus them, our pilots against their pilots", that the enemy was going to "change everything, if it can", and that even [[the Matrix|their mother]] would likely be damaged — ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Toy Story (short story)}}) some legends indicated that the Enemy was descended from "a [[101-form]] timeship who was so indistinguishable from a human that it lived and died as one". ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Of the City of the Saved... (novel)}}) Indeed, the Egyptian god [[Horus]] described [[Lolita]] as a "process" and "a new kind of history", ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Judgment of Sutekh (audio story)}}) echoing ''[[The Book of the War]]''{{'}}s description of the enemy as a process and the War as "a struggle between one kind of history and another". ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=Appendix I|name=Appendix I}}) | ||
Still, Great House briefings insisted that the "progressive timeship" was not the Enemy, instead claiming she was just one of the many powers taking advantage of the War for her own goals. ([[PROSE]]: | Still, Great House briefings insisted that the "progressive timeship" was not the Enemy, instead claiming she was just one of the many powers taking advantage of the War for her own goals. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Pre-narrative Briefings (short story)}}) In fact, some accounts suggested that Lolita was not the Enemy as the Great Houses knew them, but was behind their rise and was puppeteering them for her own ends. According to [[Carmen Yeh]]'s heavily-fictionalised memoir ''[[Fantastical Travels in an Infinite Universe]]'', [[Compassion]] believed that "the enemy" as commonly understood was a meaningless distraction and the real threat to [[the Homeworld]] would come from within, specifically "[[House Lolita|House Lucia]]" or "family". ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=Compassion}}) | ||
When he was given visions of its past by the [[Yssgaroth]] consciousness, the human psychic [[Azacca Dixon|Az Dixon]] caught a glimpse of "a time where the Yssgaroth gazed upon a living time machine, granting it the strength to rise up against [[Great House|its masters]] and the potential to become the greatest Adversary they ever faced". ([[PROSE]]: | When he was given visions of its past by the [[Yssgaroth]] consciousness, the human psychic [[Azacca Dixon|Az Dixon]] caught a glimpse of "a time where the Yssgaroth gazed upon a living time machine, granting it the strength to rise up against [[Great House|its masters]] and the potential to become the greatest Adversary they ever faced". ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Preternatural Nights (short story)}}) Godfather [[Auteur]] asserted that the enemy was created by [[Lolita]] as the sires of a temporal and metafictional version of [[Count Dracula]]. According to Auteur, Lolita had primed Dracula to become the Enemy through a timeline in which he came to rule over the [[British Empire]] and led [[vampire]]s into space. Organic Enemy [[space-time vessel]]s kept the timeline hidden from outside view. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|A Bloody (And Public) Domaine (short story)}}) | ||
==== Spiders ==== | ==== Spiders ==== | ||
{{main|Eight Legs}}[[ | {{main|Eight Legs}} | ||
[[The Great One (Planet of the Spiders)|The Great One]] of the [[Eight Legs]] hoped to rule over [[The Doctor's universe|the universe]], wanting even the [[star]]s to bow before here. However, her subjects on the [[spider council]] were more focused on conquering their original homeworld of [[Earth]]; ([[TV]]: {{cs|Planet of the Spiders (TV story)}}) according to natural [[historian]]s who were allowed access to the [[Monster Vaults|monster data vaults]] of [[the Doctor's TARDIS]], the Eight Legs, intending to become rulers of Earth through the connection they established to the [[20th century]], were well aware of the fact that their victory would alter their own past. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Monster Vault (novel)}}) While the Great One would label her subjects as beings of limited vision, ([[TV]]: {{cs|Planet of the Spiders (TV story)}}) the historians concluded that the council were intending to use this historical change as the first step in "weaving a new [[Web of Time]]". ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Monster Vault (novel)}}) | |||
[[The Doctor]]'s later incarnations never stopped the Eight Legs' plan for universal domination. ([[PROSE]]: | [[File:Queen Spider.jpg|thumb|left|The [[Queen Spider]] on [[Metebelis III]]. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Planet of the Spiders (TV story)}})]] | ||
Due to the interference of [[Faction Paradox]] and its [[Remote]] soldiers, the [[Third Doctor]] [[regenerated]] on [[Dust (planet)|Dust]]. This was a revision of the original version of [[history]], ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Interference - Book Two (novel)}}) in which he regenerated after defeating the Eight Legs on [[Metebelis III]]. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Planet of the Spiders (TV story)}}) [[The Doctor]]'s later incarnations never stopped the Eight Legs' plan for universal domination. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Blue Angel (novel)}}, {{cs|The Ancestor Cell (novel)}}) | |||
The Enemy shared a connection with the Eight Legs. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Ancestor Cell (novel)}}, {{cs|The Map and the Spiders (short story)}}, et al.) Therapy filters applied to War-time agents of the [[Great House]]s recovering from [[OMEGA level event]]s deleted terminology relating to spiders. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Subjective Interlock (short story)}}, {{cs|The Short Briefing Sergeant's Tale (short story)}}, {{cs|Timeshare (FP short story)}}, {{cs|A Choice of Houses (short story)}}, {{cs|No Enemy But Despair (short story)}}) While investigating [[The Edifice (The Ancestor Cell)|the Edifice]] while still unaware of its true nature, the Doctor wondered if he would find "the spider at the centre of its web". | |||
Eventually, the [[Eighth Doctor]] restored history to its proper path, ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Ancestor Cell (novel)}}) with it being a known fact that the Third Doctor regenerated after defeating the Spiders ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Whoniverse (novel)}}, et al.) as he was supposed to. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Planet of the Spiders (TV story)}}) | |||
==== Original Mammoths ==== | ==== Original Mammoths ==== | ||
[[File:Isobel and mammoth.jpg|thumb|right|[[Cernunnos]], who may have been the leader of the Enemy, survived the War, trapped and enfeebled, on [[Earth]]. ([[COMIC]]: | [[File:Isobel and mammoth.jpg|thumb|right|[[Cernunnos]], who may have been the leader of the Enemy, survived the War, trapped and enfeebled, on [[Earth]]. ([[COMIC]]: {{cs|Political Animals (comic story)}})]]In the [[posthuman]] era, [[Cernunnos]], leader of the [[Original Mammoths]], was resurrected at [[Terra Primagenia]]. Returning to [[Alter-time realm (Cobweb and Ivory)|the remains of the pre-universe mammoth empire]] with the unwitting help of [[Avus]], Cernunnos began planning to undo the [[anchoring of the thread]] in [[War in Heaven|a War]] against the [[Great House]]s. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Cobweb and Ivory (short story)}}) Fur, tusks and antlers were among the attributes of the Sun Builders' enemies in the cultural memories of the [[Gendar (species)|Gendar]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Out of the Box (short story)}}) | ||
==== Great Houses ==== | |||
{{section stub}}There were occasional suggestions that the War was in fact a conflict between [[Great House]]s. ''[[The Book of the War]]''<nowiki>'s</nowiki> entry on the [[First Diaspora]] discussed "those fore-sighted few who predicted [[War in Heaven|the War]] centuries before the first battle" and "fear[ed] the enemy [would] eventually destroy the Homeworld", forcing the surviving Homeworlders into a Second Diaspora of massive scale. The ''Book'' then added, | |||
{{quote|It's even possible that the prophets of doom, consumed by the urge to be proved right, would give anything to see this happen.|[[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=The Diaspora}}}} | |||
==== Daleks ==== | ==== Daleks ==== | ||
In a parallel universe where the [[Second Doctor]] was pardoned instead of being exiled to [[Earth]], the [[Sixth Doctor]] was [[Lord President|Lord President Admiral]] of [[Gallifrey]] during the War. There, the Enemy had always had access to rudimentary [[time corridor]]s and [[Dalek time machine|travel machines]], but they gained temporal manipulation powers after [[the Master]] defected to their side. The Doctor described them as [[Dalek|an old foe]] with calculating tin minds and [[Dalek flying saucer|jet-black saucers]]. ([[PROSE]]: | In a parallel universe where the [[Second Doctor]] was pardoned instead of being exiled to [[Earth]], the [[Sixth Doctor]] was [[Lord President|Lord President Admiral]] of [[Gallifrey]] during the War. There, the Enemy had always had access to rudimentary [[time corridor]]s and [[Dalek time machine|travel machines]], but they gained temporal manipulation powers after [[the Master]] defected to their side. The Doctor described them as [[Dalek|an old foe]] with calculating tin minds and [[Dalek flying saucer|jet-black saucers]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Quantum Archangel (novel)}}) | ||
[[Iris Wildthyme]] owned a book entitled ''[[Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks]]''; ([[PROSE]]: | [[Iris Wildthyme]] owned a book entitled ''[[Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks (in-universe)|Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks]]''; ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Bafflement and Devotion (short story)}}) during the War, [[Ostrev]] remembered fellow Time Lord inductees sharing an illegal copy of the book, whose title had been redacted to ''Doctor ? in an Exciting Adventure With the Enemy'' because proper names in the titles of documents were automatically edited out by [[House Military]] software for "reasons of war security." ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Taking of Planet 5 (novel)}}) In the aftermath of the [[Second Dalek War|galactic war]] of the [[26th century]], the Daleks were referred to impersonally as "the enemy". ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Beige Planet Mars (novel)|Beige Planet Mars}}) | ||
[[File:Dalek Supreme & Bronze Dalek in the Time War.jpg|thumb|left|The Time Lords eventually fought the Daleks in the [[Last Great Time War]]. ([[COMIC]]: | [[File:Dalek Supreme & Bronze Dalek in the Time War.jpg|thumb|left|The Time Lords eventually fought the Daleks in the [[Last Great Time War]]. ([[COMIC]]: {{cs|Ambush (comic story)}})]] | ||
Gallifrey eventually fought the Daleks in a [[time war]] known widely as the [[Last Great Time War]], ([[TV]]: {{cs|Gridlock (TV story)}}) but which was occasionally called simply "the War". ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Meet the Doctor (DWAN 2006 short story)}}) Given that the Daleks were their opponent during this conflict, the Time Lords sometimes simply referred to the Daleks as "the enemy", ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Sphere of Influence (audio story)}}) and [[the Squire]] recalled the [[Dalek Empire]] as the "Great Enemy" the Time Lords faced. ([[COMIC]]: {{cs|Pull to Open (comic story)}}) In its section on the Last Great Time War, [[Book (The Whoniverse)|a history book]] about [[N-Space]] recounted that the [[Time Lord]]s had long prophesied a coming war that would bring about their destruction "at the hands of a mysterious enemy." ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Whoniverse (novel)}}) One history of the Daleks written after the Last Great Time War claimed that the Time Lords had first decided to take action against the Daleks because they believed the coming of the Daleks "represented the emergence of the enemy they had long [[prophecy|prophesied]]". ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe (short story)}}) | |||
Nevertheless, some accounts, while entertaining the possibility of the Enemy being the Daleks, dismissed the possibility. The [[Time Lord]] [[Homunculette]], passing through a ravaged [[Earth]] in the course of his quest for [[the Relic (Alien Bodies)|the Relic]], reflected that Earth was lucky compared to [[Gallifrey]]: it had been invaded, "but only by a bunch of mindless biomechanoids with speech impediments", whereas, in Homunculette's opinion, the Time Lords "were up against something ''really'' dangerous". ([[PROSE]]: | Nevertheless, some accounts, while entertaining the possibility of the Enemy being the Daleks, dismissed the possibility. The [[Time Lord]] [[Homunculette]], passing through a ravaged [[Earth]] in the course of his quest for [[the Relic (Alien Bodies)|the Relic]], reflected that Earth was lucky compared to [[Gallifrey]]: it had been invaded, "but only by a bunch of mindless biomechanoids with speech impediments", whereas, in Homunculette's opinion, the Time Lords "were up against something ''really'' dangerous". ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Alien Bodies (novel)}}) | ||
A [[briefing]] described "[[Dalek mutant|xenophobic mutants]] travelling in their own [[Dalek|personal war machines]]" as one of | A [[briefing]] described "[[Dalek mutant|xenophobic mutants]] travelling in their own [[Dalek|personal war machines]]" as one of several groups that some considered the Enemy but were in reality just trying to take advantage of the War in Heaven for their own ends. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Pre-narrative Briefings (short story)}}) [[Lawrence Burton (in-universe)|Lawrence Burton]] thought to himself that the enemy might be those [[Dalek|"outer space robot people"]] that appeared in "at least two films with [[Peter Cushing (in-universe)|Peter Cushing]]"; however, he dismissed the possibility as implausible. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|We Are the Enemy (short story)}}) | ||
==== Doctor Who ==== | ==== Doctor Who ==== | ||
[[File: | [[File:Eighth Doctor Flood.jpg|thumb|The [[Eighth Doctor]] ([[COMIC]]: {{cs|The Flood (comic story)}}) encountered evidence of a future version of himself who might one day become the Enemy. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Alien Bodies (novel)}}, {{cs|Father Time (novel)}})]] | ||
When asked who could fight a war against a [[Great House|race of gods]], [[Abschrift]] quickly replied, "[[Aliases of the Doctor#Doctor Who|Who]] indeed." ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Warlords of Utopia (novel)}}) [[The Doctor (Alien Bodies)|The Doctor]] said he wasn't working for the [[High Council]] and was only one of the enemy "depend[ing on] where you're standing." ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Alien Bodies (novel)}}) He was one of the [[Four Names]] that [[Rassilon]] instructed [[the Watch]] to [[assassination|assassinate]] after he realised the identity of the true enemy. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Infinity Doctors (novel)}}) The Doctor was fated to rule the [[post-War universe]] with an iron fist as [[the Emperor]], one of the "[[four surviving elementals]]", [[Time Lord]]s who had survived the destruction of their Homeworld in the War in Heaven. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Father Time (novel)}}) | |||
====Metafiction==== | ==== Metafiction ==== | ||
Multiple accounts of the Enemy involved varying levels of [[fiction]] and reality interacting. | Multiple accounts of the Enemy involved varying levels of [[fiction]] and reality interacting. | ||
Notably, [[Lawrence Burton ( | Notably, [[Lawrence Burton (in-universe)|Lawrence Burton]] considered the idea that as a writer of ''[[Faction Paradox (N-Space)|Faction Paradox]]'', he was the enemy; to him the Great Houses were no more real than a children's show. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|We Are the Enemy (short story)}}) One meeting with the Enemy had an agent of the Great Houses read backwards words in the air before gazing upwards at an aspect of the Enemy as reality flickered to the left, as if the enemy were reading a book containing the agent. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Life-Cycle (short story)}}) | ||
The [[Piebald Man]], while being persecuted by humans, speculated that one day the rejects of human society would live only as stories, and be "far more powerful" then. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|First Draft (short story)}}) The [[Sceneshifters]] guided three specific human writers who broke down the barrier between ideas and the physical world to success so as to accelerate their plans. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Enemy (short story)}}) One account held that a war was being fought not by ships, but by living ideas fighting amongst themselves, and that there was [[The Book of the Enemy|a book]] related to the enemy that when read would erase those written from reality and place them into fiction. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the Enemy (short story)}}) | |||
During the [[Mount Usu duel]], a deleted scene from ''[[Mujun: The Ghost Kingdom]]'' in which there was interference by wartime powers, a [[Gods of the Ainu|God of the Ainu]] stated that "all six need re-costuming". ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=The Mount Usu Duel}}) There were six main characters in ''Mujun'', ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=Hollow Spectaculars}}) and the events that transpired went on to be mirrored in the fall of the [[Eleven-Day Empire]]. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Eleven Day Empire (audio story)}}, et al.) | |||
=== The Friend === | === The Friend === | ||
{{Main|The Friend}} | {{Main|The Friend}} | ||
The Enemy was not actually a monolithic force, for it had within itself its own disagreements and political disputes between entities. Some among the Enemy's ranks became horrified by War and fell in love with [[Earth]] and the universe as it was under [[Superior]] rule, so they defected and became [[the Friend]]. Because they had a common Enemy, the Friend maintained neutrality with the Superiors. ([[PROSE]]: | The Enemy was not actually a monolithic force, for it had within itself its own disagreements and political disputes between entities. Some among the Enemy's ranks became horrified by War and fell in love with [[Earth]] and the universe as it was under [[Superior]] rule, so they defected and became [[the Friend]]. Because they had a common Enemy, the Friend maintained neutrality with the Superiors. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Vignettes of an Uprising (short story)}}, {{cs|Rebel Rebel (short story)}}) Within the [[Daylight Saving]], the Friend had a Board of Directors who were incompatible with reality because they were still members of the Enemy "metaphysically, if not politically." ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Vignettes of an Uprising (short story)}}) | ||
== Activities during the War == | == Activities during the War == | ||
{{Section stub}} | {{Section stub}} | ||
Although the Enemy's identity was shrouded in uncertainty, many of its activities in the course of the [[War in Heaven]] were relatively well-known. The Enemy once launched an "all-out assault on the [[14th century|14th]], [[11th century|11th]] and [[49th century|49th centuries]]". ([[PROSE]]: | Although the Enemy's identity was shrouded in uncertainty, many of its activities in the course of the [[War in Heaven]] were relatively well-known. | ||
=== Build-up to the War === | |||
Twelve years before the War's inception, the enemy embedded a criminal syndicate on the planet [[Dronid]], then controlled by [[Faction Paradox]], to act as "an intelligence-gathering arm, a 'feeler'". The enemy leadership themselves were never seen in public, acting only through their [[Gabrielidean]] agents, then an obscure species not previously known to possess time-travel technology. They called themselves "the Incorporate", ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Crimes Against History (short story)|namedpart=Modern Time|name=Modern Time}}) later simplified to [[InCorporate]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Alien Bodies (novel)}}) Seeing that the Faction's forces on Dronid were on the decline, within the first year of their presence on the planet, the Incorporate had the local Faction leader [[execution|executed]], sparking a "[[decade]]-long gang war". ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|name=Modern Time}}) Within just a few years, the group had amassed far more influence than anyone could have expected, and they began to spread their deep-rooted philosophy to both their allies and their enemies throughout the [[Spiral Underworld]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=Appendix I}}) | |||
Within two years of the organisation's arrival on Dronid, the [[Great House]]s realised it was the enemy's first front in the [[Spiral Politic]]. This sparked a long struggle between the Great Houses and the still-expanding organisation. As the enemy supplied its affiliates with greater and greater levels of [[time travel|time technology]], the Houses co-opted larger and larger military units from the [[lesser species]], ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|name=Appendix I}}) like the Gabrielidean battle fleets. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Alien Bodies (novel)}}) When one of these military units began attacking enemy powerbases on the planet, open fighting broke out and [[the Cataclysm]] began, officially sparking the War. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|name=Appendix I}}) | |||
=== Open hostilities === | |||
At some point, the enemy made alliances with several figures of the [[posthuman]] world, including the "War Goddess" known as the [[Immaculata]] [[Formosii]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=Lesser Species}}) | |||
The Enemy once launched an "all-out assault on the [[14th century|14th]], [[11th century|11th]] and [[49th century|49th centuries]]". ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Brakespeare Voyage (novel)}}) The Enemy attacked the [[nexus world]] of [[Golgalith]] to try to destabilise the Web of Time, beginning the [[Battle of Golgalith]] that ended in a victory for the Great Houses. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Eternal Escape (audio story)}}) A [[Boy (Unnatural History)|boy]] from [[Faction Paradox]] claimed to the [[Eighth Doctor]] that the Doctor had himself originally been a resident of the 49th century but had fled in [[the Doctor's TARDIS|the TARDIS]] from the Enemy after they "overran [[planet (An Unearthly Child)|his home]]". The Doctor's history had subsequently been rewritten over and over, sometimes by the Enemy, leading the Doctor to [[The Doctor's memories|forget]] their original origins and believe themselves to have always been a [[Time Lord]] from [[Gallifrey]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Unnatural History (novel)}}) | |||
== Powers == | == Powers == | ||
The enemy was seemingly bound by the same [[Protocols of Linearity]] as the Houses | The enemy was seemingly bound by the same [[Protocols of Linearity]] as the Houses; it was unable to attack vulnerable points in the Homeworld's history, instead encountering the Houses in the same order that it was encountered by the Houses. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=Protocols of Linearity}}) This was supported by the initial battle on [[Dronid]], in which the enemy's forces were as ill-prepared as the Houses' [[First Wave]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=The Spiral Politic}}) | ||
Many Great House academicians posited that the enemy was farther along in their ability to use high [[chaotic limiter]] settings. | Many Great House academicians posited that the enemy was farther along in their ability to use high [[chaotic limiter]] settings. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=Chaotic Limiter}}) | ||
''The Book of the War'' said the enemy "trie[d] not to" violate the laws of [[physics]]. ([[PROSE]]: | ''The Book of the War'' said the enemy "trie[d] not to" violate the laws of [[physics]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=Noosphere}}) | ||
[[Qixotl]] noted that the enemy could wipe out information just as quickly as they could destroy [[matter]]. ([[PROSE]]: | [[Qixotl]] noted that the enemy could wipe out information just as quickly as they could destroy [[matter]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Alien Bodies (novel)}}) In its entry for the enemy, ''[[The Book of the War]]'' referenced its articles on the [[Churchill Index]], [[Formosii|Immaculata Formosii]], the [[Gods of the Ainu]], "[[Miss Hiroshima]]", [[Mohandassa]], [[House Military|Sixth Wave Defections]], [[S'tanim]], and [[Violent Unknown Event]]s; however, none of these entries existed in the book, implying that the enemy had tampered with the text. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|name=The Enemy}}) | ||
== Representatives == | == Representatives == | ||
[[House Military]] soldiers used the colloquialism [[Rep (The Taking of Planet 5)|"Rep"]], an abbreviation of "representative", to refer to the enemy's agents. ([[PROSE]]: | [[House Military]] soldiers used the colloquialism [[Rep (The Taking of Planet 5)|"Rep"]], an abbreviation of "representative", to refer to the enemy's agents. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Taking of Planet 5 (novel)}}) [[Tonton Macoute]] once cooked the corpse of an enemy soldier. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Tonton Macoute (short story)}}) | ||
The enemy had a small automated outpost on [[Simia KK98]]; there, a [[Gabrielidean]] soldier working for the Time Lords was wounded by a combat [[satellite]]. As he died, [[the Doctor (Alien Bodies)|the Doctor]] visited him; later, the soldier was rescued and turned into a [[Shift]] by people dressed in flowing robes with high collars, designed as parodies of the costumes of the [[High Council]]. These agents sent him, now calling himself [[Shift (Alien Bodies)|Mr Shift]], to represent the enemy at [[Qixotl]]'s auction for [[the Relic (Alien Bodies)|the Relic]]. ([[PROSE]]: | The enemy had a small automated outpost on [[Simia KK98]]; there, a [[Gabrielidean]] soldier working for the Time Lords was wounded by a combat [[satellite]]. As he died, [[the Doctor (Alien Bodies)|the Doctor]] visited him; later, the soldier was rescued and turned into a [[Shift]] by people dressed in flowing robes with high collars, designed as parodies of the costumes of the [[High Council]]. These agents sent him, now calling himself [[Shift (Alien Bodies)|Mr Shift]], to represent the enemy at [[Qixotl]]'s auction for [[the Relic (Alien Bodies)|the Relic]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Alien Bodies (novel)}}) | ||
In the [[Mount Usu duel]] during the filming of ''[[Mujun: The Ghost Kingdom]]'', [[Chris Cwej]] and [[Michael Brookhaven]] encountered [[Gods of the Ainu|an enemy agent]] which apparently summarised its own mystique: "The Scourge. Harvey. Hermes. The coolest character is the one whose face we never get to see." It was represented by the total absence of anything on the recovered film, appearing not as blackness but instead as emptiness and background filmstock. ([[PROSE]]: | In the [[Mount Usu duel]] during the filming of ''[[Mujun: The Ghost Kingdom]]'', [[Chris Cwej]] and [[Michael Brookhaven]] encountered [[Gods of the Ainu|an enemy agent]] which apparently summarised its own mystique: "The Scourge. Harvey. Hermes. The coolest character is the one whose face we never get to see." It was represented by the total absence of anything on the recovered film, appearing not as blackness but instead as emptiness and background filmstock. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)|namedpart=The Mount Usu Duel}}) | ||
On [[Roma CLII]], [[Marcus Americanius Scriptor]] killed a [[creature (Warlords of Utopia)|creature]] that was hunting [[Old man (Warlords of Utopia)|a renegade]] who had escaped the War by jumping into a [[Roma I|parallel universe]]. The monster was implied to be working for the enemy. ([[PROSE]]: | On [[Roma CLII]], [[Marcus Americanius Scriptor]] killed a [[creature (Warlords of Utopia)|creature]] that was hunting [[Old man (Warlords of Utopia)|a renegade]] who had escaped the War by jumping into a [[Roma I|parallel universe]]. The monster was implied to be working for the enemy. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Warlords of Utopia (novel)}}) | ||
== Behind the scenes == | == Behind the scenes == | ||
* When they were first mentioned in | * When they were first mentioned in {{cs|Alien Bodies (novel)}}, the Time Lords' foe in the war was called just "the enemy", without any capitalisation; this format was followed in {{cs|The Book of the War (novel)}} and the rest of [[Mad Norwegian Press]]' ''[[Faction Paradox (series)|Faction Paradox]]'' books. However, following on a brief uppercase reference to "the Enemy" in {{cs|Unnatural History (novel)}}, the proper-noun title was employed in later [[BBC Books]] novels {{cs|The Taking of Planet 5 (novel)}}, {{cs|The Quantum Archangel (novel)}}, and {{cs|The Ancestor Cell (novel)}}, as well as the ''Faction Paradox'' books published by [[Obverse Books]], most notably including ''[[The Book of the Enemy (anthology)|The Book of the Enemy]]''. | ||
* Though [[Lawrence Miles]] originally intended the enemy to be an "unseen-and-unknowable factor", by the time he finished writing | * Though [[Lawrence Miles]] originally intended the enemy to be an "unseen-and-unknowable factor", by the time he finished writing {{cs|Alien Bodies (novel)}}, he'd "figured out exactly what was going on and why".<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20021209054050/http://www.menace.ndo.co.uk:80/loz/qanda/part1.htm The Ancestor Sell-Off]</ref> However, "moods changed", and he came up with a whole list of other possibilities. None of them were good enough to be the definitive answer, but eight were ''almost'' good enough,<ref name="sfl" /> including a [[infinity|literally infinite]] number of [[monkey]]s<ref>[https://mergist.tumblr.com/post/624366024628830208 Josephine, Please: My Interview with LM]</ref> and a "whale-king" fashioned after the {{w|rat king}} of European superstition. Miles intended to reveal the enemy's identity in his final ''Doctor Who'' novel, and he asked the BBC if they could publish a book where one single page had eight different versions, so the revealed enemy would depend on which book a person purchased.<ref name="sfl">[https://sci-fi-london.com/podcast/2013/12/420-lawrence-miles Sci-Fi London Interview]</ref> Range-editor [[Stephen Cole]] shot down the idea because he preferred to keep the enemy's identity a complete mystery.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.menace.ndo.co.uk/loz/inter/INTER00.TXT|title=The Potential Last Ever Doctor Who Interview with Lawrence Miles|accessdate=30th July 2012|date of source=2003|website name=Menace|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20030204002644/http://www.menace.ndo.co.uk/loz/inter/INTER00.TXT|archivedate=4 February 2003}}</ref> | ||
* | * In {{cs|Unnatural History (novel)}}, [[Boy (Unnatural History)|the boy]] suggests that before the Doctor's history was rewritten, his primary "origin story" was that he had run away from his home in the [[49th century]] after it was overrun by the Enemy. {{cs|The Brakespeare Voyage (novel)}} later confirmed that there had indeed been an Enemy assault on the 49th century, lending credence to this statement. This is a metafictional reference to the [[Dr. Who (memo)|original "Dr. Who" pitch document]] from [[1963 (production)|1963]], some drafts of which suggested that the Doctor and Susan "escaped their homeworld after it was invaded by the Palladin hordes who are still pursuing them": this reading thus identifies the Enemy with the rather mysterious "Palladin hordes". Although by all appearances not part of Lawrence Miles's design, this retconned, implied connection would make the Enemy technically go back to the very earliest form of ''Doctor Who'' lore ever committed to paper, right alongside the Doctor and TARDIS themselves. | ||
* When writing for ''[[The Book of the Enemy (anthology)|The Book of the Enemy]]'', authors were told that the enemy must originate through the agency of the Earth, must either be humanoid or have humanoid agents, and can't be the Daleks or anything else they can't get the rights to.<ref>[https://doctornolonger.tumblr.com/post/178717510910/references-in-my-book-of-the-enemy-story The Book of the Enemy Conditions]</ref> | * When writing for ''[[The Book of the Enemy (anthology)|The Book of the Enemy]]'', authors were told that the enemy must originate through the agency of the Earth, must either be humanoid or have humanoid agents, and can't be the Daleks or anything else they can't get the rights to.<ref>[https://doctornolonger.tumblr.com/post/178717510910/references-in-my-book-of-the-enemy-story The Book of the Enemy Conditions]</ref> | ||
* As revealed in ''[[The Dalek Handbook (reference book)|The Dalek Handbook]]'', draft scripts for [[Dalek]] stories in the new series identified them with the term "Enemy" to keep their appearances secret. | |||
== External links == | == External links == | ||
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{{TitleSort}} | {{TitleSort}} | ||
[[Category:The Enemy| ]] | [[Category:The Enemy| *]] | ||
[[Category:Time-active factions]] | [[Category:Time-active factions]] | ||
Latest revision as of 21:58, 4 November 2024
- You may wish to consult
enemy (disambiguation)for other, similarly-named pages.
The Enemy, also known as the Adversary, (PROSE: Newtons Sleep [+]Loading...["Newtons Sleep (novel)"], And To Dust We Shall Return [+]Loading...["And To Dust We Shall Return (short story)"], et al.) was the opponent of the Time Lords during the War in Heaven. (PROSE: Alien Bodies [+]Loading...["Alien Bodies (novel)"]) The Book of the War claimed that it was not a species or a political faction as much as a process. It had a name, but the Great Houses were reluctant to use it. (PROSE: "The Enemy" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"name":"The Enemy","namedpart":"The Enemy","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) The form of the Enemy was constantly shifting. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell [+]Loading...["The Ancestor Cell (novel)"]) Some theorised that the real War was against "the archetypal concept of enmity itself" (PROSE: Of the City of the Saved... [+]Loading...["Of the City of the Saved... (novel)"]) and Godfather Morlock of Faction Paradox once wrote of "the ‘Heavenly’ conflict between Houses and enemies", plural. (PROSE: A Bloody (And Public) Domaine [+]Loading...["A Bloody (And Public) Domaine (short story)"])
Identity[[edit] | [edit source]]
Pre-War speculation[[edit] | [edit source]]
Before the War, multiple parties speculated about the enemy's identity. (PROSE: "War Predictions" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"name":"War Predictions","namedpart":"War Predictions","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
Rassilon foresaw that the Time Lords were imperfect despite their knowledge, and after realising who the enemy really was, he charged the Watch with killing four Time Lords when the time was right. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors [+]Loading...["The Infinity Doctors (novel)"])
Chatelaine Thessalia incorrectly predicted in The Little Book of Absolute Power that the enemy would be mainly motivated by survival or keeping its history intact. (PROSE: "War Predictions" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"name":"War Predictions","namedpart":"War Predictions","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
Greyjan the Sane hypothesized that the Enemy were ancestor cells which had been irradiated by temporal interference and energised by a leaking bottle universe. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell [+]Loading...["The Ancestor Cell (novel)"])
The Rivera Manuscript described a renegade's praxis-induced vision of the enemy's devastation of the Homeworld. In that vision, enemy soldiers appeared to closely resemble posthuman Ashla shock-troops. Also present during the vision was a being or concept that could only be translated into English as "One". (PROSE: "Appendix IV" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"name":"Appendix IV","namedpart":"Appendix IV","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
During his first encounter with the War, the Eighth Doctor travelled to Mictlan with Kathleen Bregman and saw an alien agent of the Celestis who wore a parody of ceremonial Time Lord robes. He later told Bregman that the robed alien was one of the enemy, saying, "Try to forget you ever saw it. I know I will." (PROSE: Alien Bodies [+]Loading...["Alien Bodies (novel)"]) He went on to erase the enemy's identity from his memory. (PROSE: Toy Story [+]Loading...["Toy Story (short story)"]) At later times he joked that the enemy could be "Yartek, leader of the alien Voord, carrying a big stick" or "eighty-seventh-century Earth Reptiles with transforming T.rex time machines. The whole of established human history could be a Time Lord attempt to eradicate their causal nexus." (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5 [+]Loading...["The Taking of Planet 5 (novel)"]) Helios said that the Doctor had seen the enemy, and that going into Omega's anti-matter universe would lock that future into place. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors [+]Loading...["The Infinity Doctors (novel)"])
In the Infancy Gospel of Grandfather Paradox, the Grandfather suggested that spiders could be a good enemy for the Great Houses. (PROSE: "Briefing N & O" [+]Part of Pre-narrative Briefings, Loading...{"namedep":"Briefing N & O","1":"Pre-narrative Briefings (short story)"})
The Matrix predicted that the enemy destined to destroy Gallifrey would be unknown until Last Contact. The president and members of the Supreme Council knew this prophecy, but they kept it hidden, fearing that Gallifrey would fall into chaos if it was widely known. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles [+]Loading...["The Gallifrey Chronicles (novel)"]) The Supreme Council was split on whether to tell the Matrix to look for threats matching the description since such action might inevitably lead to contact and conflict with the enemy. Deliberation on the topic took several millennia. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors [+]Loading...["The Infinity Doctors (novel)"]) At date index 309456/4756.7RE/1213GRT/100447TL, the Matrix projected that the Vore were a potential candidate for Last Contact, so the council mandated that no Time Lord was to engage the Vore or come within one parsec or one century of any of their moons. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles [+]Loading...["The Gallifrey Chronicles (novel)"])
The Book of the War speculated that increasing paranoia on the Homeworld may have itself caused the War, saying the idea "makes a certain sense, given the nature of the enemy." (PROSE: "War Predictions" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"name":"War Predictions","namedpart":"War Predictions","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) The enemy was also believed to be a conceptual infection of imagination created from races destroyed in the anchoring of the thread. (PROSE: "Subjective Injection Omega" [+]Part of Subjective Interlock, Loading...{"namedep":"Subjective Injection Omega","1":"Subjective Interlock (short story)"})
Secrecy during the War[[edit] | [edit source]]
In her speech to the Fifth Wave on the thirtieth anniversary of the Cataclysm, House Military strategist Entarodora said the ruling Houses kept secret the identity of the enemy and its leadership because, if the Houses believed the true enemy was simply a rogue House or a species of time-active upstarts, they would "simply shrug and go back to sleep." Instead, the secrecy made the enemy into monsters, and the subsequent fear would keep the fight alive. (PROSE: "The 'Monsters' Coda" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"The 'Monsters' Coda","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
The Book of the War posited that the name was kept secret because the "why" of the enemy was more important than the "what". (PROSE: "Causalities of War" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"Causalities of War","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) It also speculated that the enemy might come from beyond the Great Houses' noosphere, not because it came from another universe but because it operated on principles that the Houses weren't built to understand; (PROSE: "Noosphere" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"Noosphere","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) it said that, unlike the Yssgaroth, the enemy was "civilised, cultured, and intelligent enough to have an agenda beyond pure destruction." (PROSE: "Yssgaroth" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"Yssgaroth","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
Post-War cultural memories[[edit] | [edit source]]
Long after the passing of the Sun Builders, they and their history remained alive in the culture and mythology of the Gendar. With the Sun Builders cast as benevolent gods, some myths spoke of "bogeymen" described "furred, fell things of tusks and fangs and antlers". (PROSE: Out of the Box [+]Loading...["Out of the Box (short story)"])
Possible identities[[edit] | [edit source]]
A section on the Life-spores, Tardigrades, and ancestor cells is needed
Gods and Sphinxes[[edit] | [edit source]]
As recounted by Christine Summerfield in her memoirs, when she came into contact with the Great Houses' agent Chris Cwej, they were on a war footing due to recently having discovered something terrible about the "Gods", here referring to god-like beings in whose shadow "all the civilisations in the universe" had grown up, including both humanity and the houses. (PROSE: Dead Romance [+]Loading...["Dead Romance (novel)"]) A deleted entry about "the Gods of the Ainu" was listed elsewhere in The Book of the War as containing enlightening information on the Enemy. (PROSE: "The Enemy" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"name":"The Enemy","namedpart":"The Enemy","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) The War predictions known to the Interventionists who would later become the Celestis depicted the future enemy as "just as 'divine'" as the Houses themselves. (PROSE: "The Celestis" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"The Celestis","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
Most active among the Gods were the Kings of Space, a pair of Gods who created their own Sphinx-space on the edges of the established universe and created an army of sphinxes who clashed with the Great Houses' forces on several occasions, although the Kings were believed to be "renegades" relative to the orthodoxy of the Gods, and were not the ones the Houses were primarily worried about. Hearing it said that "nobody [had ever] ever come back alive" from Sphinx-space, Christine wondered if "the Gods kept sending back dead bodies, with little notes attached", (PROSE: Dead Romance [+]Loading...["Dead Romance (novel)"]) closely paralleling the "Head of the Presidency" incident which The Book of the War referred to as the first message from the Enemy to the Great Houses, where the President of the Homeworld travelled to a supposed Enemy base and returned as a severed head with a note clenched between its jaws: "We are not amused." (PROSE: "The First Message from the Enemy" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"The First Message from the Enemy","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) As part of negotiations to salvage the bottle universe, Cwej made a pact with the sphinxes, agreeing to give them access to proper time travel, which they desired.
Christine eventually speculated that Chris Cwej's universe was a bottle universe, and the Gods had originated as the Great Houses' counterparts in the universe of the level "above", fleeing from yet another enemy. (PROSE: Dead Romance [+]Loading...["Dead Romance (novel)"]) Indeed, one account suggested that the universe of I.M. Foreman, in which the better part of the "true" War in Heaven was fought, was indeed a different universe from Cwej's universe, and that its Time Lords were fleeing into the bottle universe to escape the War, becoming God-like. (PROSE: Interference - Book Two [+]Loading...["Interference - Book Two (novel)"]) However, many other accounts depicted the universe Christine entered, and where Cwej was active as an agent of the Houses, as the same level of reality the War in Heaven was fought in. (PROSE: "Christopher Rodonanté Cwej" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"Christopher Rodonanté Cwej","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}, AUDIO: The Eleven Day Empire [+]Loading...["The Eleven Day Empire (audio story)"], et al.) Cwej believed that these Gods might be "parts of the universe‘s framework" and "might have been there since the beginning of time". (PROSE: Dead Romance [+]Loading...["Dead Romance (novel)"]) According to one account, Cwej later discovered that the group of so-called "All-High Gods" who had taken over Dellah were instead Ferutu. (PROSE: Twilight of the Gods [+]Loading...["Twilight of the Gods (BNA novel)"])
Posthumanity[[edit] | [edit source]]
Please help by adding some more information.
The Rivera Manuscript renegade's vision of the Event, a possible devastating first attack on the Homeworld that the War King managed to avert, showed the Enemy employing what appeared to be Ashla shock-troops as soldiers. (PROSE: "Appendix IV" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"name":"Appendix IV","namedpart":"Appendix IV","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) The Ashla were cyborg posthumans, created for the Blood Coteries by the Silversmiths' Coterie. (PROSE: "Siloportem" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"Siloportem","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) It was widely believed that the Enemy originated on Earth, primarily known as humanity's home planet. (PROSE: Interference - Book Two [+]Loading...["Interference - Book Two (novel)"], "Secret Architects" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"Secret Architects","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
Some accounts suggested Lolita was grooming humanity to become a threat to the Great Houses. In established history, a moment known as the Ghost Point occurred right before humanity could have found new ways to think, ways unpredictable to the Great Houses. (PROSE: "Humanity" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"Humanity","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) However, in the early decades of the 21st century, despite the Ghost Point, the history of Earth began to advance once more, with a shift claiming this curve towards advancement was caused by the campaign for the office of President of the United States run by Matt Nelson. This campaign was being manipulated behind the scenes by Lolita. (PROSE: Head of State [+]Loading...["Head of State (novel)"]) Every Time Lord knew the enemy's home planet was Earth, (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell [+]Loading...["The Ancestor Cell (novel)"]) leading the Time Lords to try to destroy the planet in the 20th century. (PROSE: Interference - Book Two [+]Loading...["Interference - Book Two (novel)"])
Timeships[[edit] | [edit source]]
T. memeticus[[edit] | [edit source]]
One account of the Enemy held that a crashed timeship began infecting the local biology of the Earth, resulting in the Thaumoctopus memeticus, a four dimensional mimic octopus that could take on any form, including that of ideas. (PROSE: T. memeticus: A Morphology [+]Loading...["T. memeticus: A Morphology (short story)"]) The Enemy did field timeships during the War. (AUDIO: Eternal Escape [+]Loading...["Eternal Escape (audio story)"])
Lolita[[edit] | [edit source]]
Although, before the War, Lolita claimed to her sister that she was concerned about the Enemy — explaining the War would be "us versus them, our pilots against their pilots", that the enemy was going to "change everything, if it can", and that even their mother would likely be damaged — (PROSE: Toy Story [+]Loading...["Toy Story (short story)"]) some legends indicated that the Enemy was descended from "a 101-form timeship who was so indistinguishable from a human that it lived and died as one". (PROSE: Of the City of the Saved... [+]Loading...["Of the City of the Saved... (novel)"]) Indeed, the Egyptian god Horus described Lolita as a "process" and "a new kind of history", (AUDIO: The Judgment of Sutekh [+]Loading...["The Judgment of Sutekh (audio story)"]) echoing The Book of the War's description of the enemy as a process and the War as "a struggle between one kind of history and another". (PROSE: "Appendix I" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"name":"Appendix I","namedpart":"Appendix I","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
Still, Great House briefings insisted that the "progressive timeship" was not the Enemy, instead claiming she was just one of the many powers taking advantage of the War for her own goals. (PROSE: Pre-narrative Briefings [+]Loading...["Pre-narrative Briefings (short story)"]) In fact, some accounts suggested that Lolita was not the Enemy as the Great Houses knew them, but was behind their rise and was puppeteering them for her own ends. According to Carmen Yeh's heavily-fictionalised memoir Fantastical Travels in an Infinite Universe, Compassion believed that "the enemy" as commonly understood was a meaningless distraction and the real threat to the Homeworld would come from within, specifically "House Lucia" or "family". (PROSE: "Compassion" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"Compassion","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
When he was given visions of its past by the Yssgaroth consciousness, the human psychic Az Dixon caught a glimpse of "a time where the Yssgaroth gazed upon a living time machine, granting it the strength to rise up against its masters and the potential to become the greatest Adversary they ever faced". (PROSE: Preternatural Nights [+]Loading...["Preternatural Nights (short story)"]) Godfather Auteur asserted that the enemy was created by Lolita as the sires of a temporal and metafictional version of Count Dracula. According to Auteur, Lolita had primed Dracula to become the Enemy through a timeline in which he came to rule over the British Empire and led vampires into space. Organic Enemy space-time vessels kept the timeline hidden from outside view. (PROSE: A Bloody (And Public) Domaine [+]Loading...["A Bloody (And Public) Domaine (short story)"])
Spiders[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Main article: Eight Legs
The Great One of the Eight Legs hoped to rule over the universe, wanting even the stars to bow before here. However, her subjects on the spider council were more focused on conquering their original homeworld of Earth; (TV: Planet of the Spiders [+]Loading...["Planet of the Spiders (TV story)"]) according to natural historians who were allowed access to the monster data vaults of the Doctor's TARDIS, the Eight Legs, intending to become rulers of Earth through the connection they established to the 20th century, were well aware of the fact that their victory would alter their own past. (PROSE: The Monster Vault [+]Loading...["The Monster Vault (novel)"]) While the Great One would label her subjects as beings of limited vision, (TV: Planet of the Spiders [+]Loading...["Planet of the Spiders (TV story)"]) the historians concluded that the council were intending to use this historical change as the first step in "weaving a new Web of Time". (PROSE: The Monster Vault [+]Loading...["The Monster Vault (novel)"])
Due to the interference of Faction Paradox and its Remote soldiers, the Third Doctor regenerated on Dust. This was a revision of the original version of history, (PROSE: Interference - Book Two [+]Loading...["Interference - Book Two (novel)"]) in which he regenerated after defeating the Eight Legs on Metebelis III. (TV: Planet of the Spiders [+]Loading...["Planet of the Spiders (TV story)"]) The Doctor's later incarnations never stopped the Eight Legs' plan for universal domination. (PROSE: The Blue Angel [+]Loading...["The Blue Angel (novel)"], The Ancestor Cell [+]Loading...["The Ancestor Cell (novel)"])
The Enemy shared a connection with the Eight Legs. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell [+]Loading...["The Ancestor Cell (novel)"], The Map and the Spiders [+]Loading...["The Map and the Spiders (short story)"], et al.) Therapy filters applied to War-time agents of the Great Houses recovering from OMEGA level events deleted terminology relating to spiders. (PROSE: Subjective Interlock [+]Loading...["Subjective Interlock (short story)"], The Short Briefing Sergeant's Tale [+]Loading...["The Short Briefing Sergeant's Tale (short story)"], Timeshare [+]Loading...["Timeshare (FP short story)"], A Choice of Houses [+]Loading...["A Choice of Houses (short story)"], No Enemy But Despair [+]Loading...["No Enemy But Despair (short story)"]) While investigating the Edifice while still unaware of its true nature, the Doctor wondered if he would find "the spider at the centre of its web".
Eventually, the Eighth Doctor restored history to its proper path, (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell [+]Loading...["The Ancestor Cell (novel)"]) with it being a known fact that the Third Doctor regenerated after defeating the Spiders (PROSE: The Whoniverse [+]Loading...["The Whoniverse (novel)"], et al.) as he was supposed to. (TV: Planet of the Spiders [+]Loading...["Planet of the Spiders (TV story)"])
Original Mammoths[[edit] | [edit source]]
In the posthuman era, Cernunnos, leader of the Original Mammoths, was resurrected at Terra Primagenia. Returning to the remains of the pre-universe mammoth empire with the unwitting help of Avus, Cernunnos began planning to undo the anchoring of the thread in a War against the Great Houses. (PROSE: Cobweb and Ivory [+]Loading...["Cobweb and Ivory (short story)"]) Fur, tusks and antlers were among the attributes of the Sun Builders' enemies in the cultural memories of the Gendar. (PROSE: Out of the Box [+]Loading...["Out of the Box (short story)"])
Great Houses[[edit] | [edit source]]
Please help by adding some more information.
There were occasional suggestions that the War was in fact a conflict between Great Houses. The Book of the War's entry on the First Diaspora discussed "those fore-sighted few who predicted the War centuries before the first battle" and "fear[ed] the enemy [would] eventually destroy the Homeworld", forcing the surviving Homeworlders into a Second Diaspora of massive scale. The Book then added,
It's even possible that the prophets of doom, consumed by the urge to be proved right, would give anything to see this happen.
Daleks[[edit] | [edit source]]
In a parallel universe where the Second Doctor was pardoned instead of being exiled to Earth, the Sixth Doctor was Lord President Admiral of Gallifrey during the War. There, the Enemy had always had access to rudimentary time corridors and travel machines, but they gained temporal manipulation powers after the Master defected to their side. The Doctor described them as an old foe with calculating tin minds and jet-black saucers. (PROSE: The Quantum Archangel [+]Loading...["The Quantum Archangel (novel)"])
Iris Wildthyme owned a book entitled Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks; (PROSE: Bafflement and Devotion [+]Loading...["Bafflement and Devotion (short story)"]) during the War, Ostrev remembered fellow Time Lord inductees sharing an illegal copy of the book, whose title had been redacted to Doctor ? in an Exciting Adventure With the Enemy because proper names in the titles of documents were automatically edited out by House Military software for "reasons of war security." (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5 [+]Loading...["The Taking of Planet 5 (novel)"]) In the aftermath of the galactic war of the 26th century, the Daleks were referred to impersonally as "the enemy". (PROSE: Beige Planet Mars [+]Loading...["Beige Planet Mars (novel)","Beige Planet Mars"])
Gallifrey eventually fought the Daleks in a time war known widely as the Last Great Time War, (TV: Gridlock [+]Loading...["Gridlock (TV story)"]) but which was occasionally called simply "the War". (PROSE: Meet the Doctor [+]Loading...["Meet the Doctor (DWAN 2006 short story)"]) Given that the Daleks were their opponent during this conflict, the Time Lords sometimes simply referred to the Daleks as "the enemy", (AUDIO: Sphere of Influence [+]Loading...["Sphere of Influence (audio story)"]) and the Squire recalled the Dalek Empire as the "Great Enemy" the Time Lords faced. (COMIC: Pull to Open [+]Loading...["Pull to Open (comic story)"]) In its section on the Last Great Time War, a history book about N-Space recounted that the Time Lords had long prophesied a coming war that would bring about their destruction "at the hands of a mysterious enemy." (PROSE: The Whoniverse [+]Loading...["The Whoniverse (novel)"]) One history of the Daleks written after the Last Great Time War claimed that the Time Lords had first decided to take action against the Daleks because they believed the coming of the Daleks "represented the emergence of the enemy they had long prophesied". (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe [+]Loading...["Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe (short story)"])
Nevertheless, some accounts, while entertaining the possibility of the Enemy being the Daleks, dismissed the possibility. The Time Lord Homunculette, passing through a ravaged Earth in the course of his quest for the Relic, reflected that Earth was lucky compared to Gallifrey: it had been invaded, "but only by a bunch of mindless biomechanoids with speech impediments", whereas, in Homunculette's opinion, the Time Lords "were up against something really dangerous". (PROSE: Alien Bodies [+]Loading...["Alien Bodies (novel)"])
A briefing described "xenophobic mutants travelling in their own personal war machines" as one of several groups that some considered the Enemy but were in reality just trying to take advantage of the War in Heaven for their own ends. (PROSE: Pre-narrative Briefings [+]Loading...["Pre-narrative Briefings (short story)"]) Lawrence Burton thought to himself that the enemy might be those "outer space robot people" that appeared in "at least two films with Peter Cushing"; however, he dismissed the possibility as implausible. (PROSE: We Are the Enemy [+]Loading...["We Are the Enemy (short story)"])
Doctor Who[[edit] | [edit source]]
When asked who could fight a war against a race of gods, Abschrift quickly replied, "Who indeed." (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia [+]Loading...["Warlords of Utopia (novel)"]) The Doctor said he wasn't working for the High Council and was only one of the enemy "depend[ing on] where you're standing." (PROSE: Alien Bodies [+]Loading...["Alien Bodies (novel)"]) He was one of the Four Names that Rassilon instructed the Watch to assassinate after he realised the identity of the true enemy. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors [+]Loading...["The Infinity Doctors (novel)"]) The Doctor was fated to rule the post-War universe with an iron fist as the Emperor, one of the "four surviving elementals", Time Lords who had survived the destruction of their Homeworld in the War in Heaven. (PROSE: Father Time [+]Loading...["Father Time (novel)"])
Metafiction[[edit] | [edit source]]
Multiple accounts of the Enemy involved varying levels of fiction and reality interacting.
Notably, Lawrence Burton considered the idea that as a writer of Faction Paradox, he was the enemy; to him the Great Houses were no more real than a children's show. (PROSE: We Are the Enemy [+]Loading...["We Are the Enemy (short story)"]) One meeting with the Enemy had an agent of the Great Houses read backwards words in the air before gazing upwards at an aspect of the Enemy as reality flickered to the left, as if the enemy were reading a book containing the agent. (PROSE: Life-Cycle [+]Loading...["Life-Cycle (short story)"])
The Piebald Man, while being persecuted by humans, speculated that one day the rejects of human society would live only as stories, and be "far more powerful" then. (PROSE: First Draft [+]Loading...["First Draft (short story)"]) The Sceneshifters guided three specific human writers who broke down the barrier between ideas and the physical world to success so as to accelerate their plans. (PROSE: The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Enemy [+]Loading...["The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Enemy (short story)"]) One account held that a war was being fought not by ships, but by living ideas fighting amongst themselves, and that there was a book related to the enemy that when read would erase those written from reality and place them into fiction. (PROSE: The Book of the Enemy [+]Loading...["The Book of the Enemy (short story)"])
During the Mount Usu duel, a deleted scene from Mujun: The Ghost Kingdom in which there was interference by wartime powers, a God of the Ainu stated that "all six need re-costuming". (PROSE: "The Mount Usu Duel" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"The Mount Usu Duel","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) There were six main characters in Mujun, (PROSE: "Hollow Spectaculars" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"Hollow Spectaculars","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) and the events that transpired went on to be mirrored in the fall of the Eleven-Day Empire. (AUDIO: The Eleven Day Empire [+]Loading...["The Eleven Day Empire (audio story)"], et al.)
The Friend[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Main article: The Friend
The Enemy was not actually a monolithic force, for it had within itself its own disagreements and political disputes between entities. Some among the Enemy's ranks became horrified by War and fell in love with Earth and the universe as it was under Superior rule, so they defected and became the Friend. Because they had a common Enemy, the Friend maintained neutrality with the Superiors. (PROSE: Vignettes of an Uprising [+]Loading...["Vignettes of an Uprising (short story)"], Rebel Rebel [+]Loading...["Rebel Rebel (short story)"]) Within the Daylight Saving, the Friend had a Board of Directors who were incompatible with reality because they were still members of the Enemy "metaphysically, if not politically." (PROSE: Vignettes of an Uprising [+]Loading...["Vignettes of an Uprising (short story)"])
Activities during the War[[edit] | [edit source]]
Please help by adding some more information.
Although the Enemy's identity was shrouded in uncertainty, many of its activities in the course of the War in Heaven were relatively well-known.
Build-up to the War[[edit] | [edit source]]
Twelve years before the War's inception, the enemy embedded a criminal syndicate on the planet Dronid, then controlled by Faction Paradox, to act as "an intelligence-gathering arm, a 'feeler'". The enemy leadership themselves were never seen in public, acting only through their Gabrielidean agents, then an obscure species not previously known to possess time-travel technology. They called themselves "the Incorporate", (PROSE: "Modern Time" [+]Part of Crimes Against History, Loading...{"name":"Modern Time","namedpart":"Modern Time","1":"Crimes Against History (short story)"}) later simplified to InCorporate. (PROSE: Alien Bodies [+]Loading...["Alien Bodies (novel)"]) Seeing that the Faction's forces on Dronid were on the decline, within the first year of their presence on the planet, the Incorporate had the local Faction leader executed, sparking a "decade-long gang war". (PROSE: "Modern Time" [+]Part of Crimes Against History, Loading...{"name":"Modern Time","namedpart":"Modern Time","1":"Crimes Against History (short story)"}) Within just a few years, the group had amassed far more influence than anyone could have expected, and they began to spread their deep-rooted philosophy to both their allies and their enemies throughout the Spiral Underworld. (PROSE: "Appendix I" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"Appendix I","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
Within two years of the organisation's arrival on Dronid, the Great Houses realised it was the enemy's first front in the Spiral Politic. This sparked a long struggle between the Great Houses and the still-expanding organisation. As the enemy supplied its affiliates with greater and greater levels of time technology, the Houses co-opted larger and larger military units from the lesser species, (PROSE: "Appendix I" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"name":"Appendix I","namedpart":"Appendix I","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) like the Gabrielidean battle fleets. (PROSE: Alien Bodies [+]Loading...["Alien Bodies (novel)"]) When one of these military units began attacking enemy powerbases on the planet, open fighting broke out and the Cataclysm began, officially sparking the War. (PROSE: "Appendix I" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"name":"Appendix I","namedpart":"Appendix I","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
Open hostilities[[edit] | [edit source]]
At some point, the enemy made alliances with several figures of the posthuman world, including the "War Goddess" known as the Immaculata Formosii. (PROSE: "Lesser Species" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"Lesser Species","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
The Enemy once launched an "all-out assault on the 14th, 11th and 49th centuries". (PROSE: The Brakespeare Voyage [+]Loading...["The Brakespeare Voyage (novel)"]) The Enemy attacked the nexus world of Golgalith to try to destabilise the Web of Time, beginning the Battle of Golgalith that ended in a victory for the Great Houses. (AUDIO: Eternal Escape [+]Loading...["Eternal Escape (audio story)"]) A boy from Faction Paradox claimed to the Eighth Doctor that the Doctor had himself originally been a resident of the 49th century but had fled in the TARDIS from the Enemy after they "overran his home". The Doctor's history had subsequently been rewritten over and over, sometimes by the Enemy, leading the Doctor to forget their original origins and believe themselves to have always been a Time Lord from Gallifrey. (PROSE: Unnatural History [+]Loading...["Unnatural History (novel)"])
Powers[[edit] | [edit source]]
The enemy was seemingly bound by the same Protocols of Linearity as the Houses; it was unable to attack vulnerable points in the Homeworld's history, instead encountering the Houses in the same order that it was encountered by the Houses. (PROSE: "Protocols of Linearity" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"Protocols of Linearity","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) This was supported by the initial battle on Dronid, in which the enemy's forces were as ill-prepared as the Houses' First Wave. (PROSE: "The Spiral Politic" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"The Spiral Politic","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
Many Great House academicians posited that the enemy was farther along in their ability to use high chaotic limiter settings. (PROSE: "Chaotic Limiter" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"Chaotic Limiter","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
The Book of the War said the enemy "trie[d] not to" violate the laws of physics. (PROSE: "Noosphere" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"Noosphere","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
Qixotl noted that the enemy could wipe out information just as quickly as they could destroy matter. (PROSE: Alien Bodies [+]Loading...["Alien Bodies (novel)"]) In its entry for the enemy, The Book of the War referenced its articles on the Churchill Index, Immaculata Formosii, the Gods of the Ainu, "Miss Hiroshima", Mohandassa, Sixth Wave Defections, S'tanim, and Violent Unknown Events; however, none of these entries existed in the book, implying that the enemy had tampered with the text. (PROSE: "The Enemy" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"name":"The Enemy","namedpart":"The Enemy","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
Representatives[[edit] | [edit source]]
House Military soldiers used the colloquialism "Rep", an abbreviation of "representative", to refer to the enemy's agents. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5 [+]Loading...["The Taking of Planet 5 (novel)"]) Tonton Macoute once cooked the corpse of an enemy soldier. (PROSE: Tonton Macoute [+]Loading...["Tonton Macoute (short story)"])
The enemy had a small automated outpost on Simia KK98; there, a Gabrielidean soldier working for the Time Lords was wounded by a combat satellite. As he died, the Doctor visited him; later, the soldier was rescued and turned into a Shift by people dressed in flowing robes with high collars, designed as parodies of the costumes of the High Council. These agents sent him, now calling himself Mr Shift, to represent the enemy at Qixotl's auction for the Relic. (PROSE: Alien Bodies [+]Loading...["Alien Bodies (novel)"])
In the Mount Usu duel during the filming of Mujun: The Ghost Kingdom, Chris Cwej and Michael Brookhaven encountered an enemy agent which apparently summarised its own mystique: "The Scourge. Harvey. Hermes. The coolest character is the one whose face we never get to see." It was represented by the total absence of anything on the recovered film, appearing not as blackness but instead as emptiness and background filmstock. (PROSE: "The Mount Usu Duel" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"The Mount Usu Duel","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
On Roma CLII, Marcus Americanius Scriptor killed a creature that was hunting a renegade who had escaped the War by jumping into a parallel universe. The monster was implied to be working for the enemy. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia [+]Loading...["Warlords of Utopia (novel)"])
Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- When they were first mentioned in Alien Bodies [+]Loading...["Alien Bodies (novel)"], the Time Lords' foe in the war was called just "the enemy", without any capitalisation; this format was followed in The Book of the War [+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"] and the rest of Mad Norwegian Press' Faction Paradox books. However, following on a brief uppercase reference to "the Enemy" in Unnatural History [+]Loading...["Unnatural History (novel)"], the proper-noun title was employed in later BBC Books novels The Taking of Planet 5 [+]Loading...["The Taking of Planet 5 (novel)"], The Quantum Archangel [+]Loading...["The Quantum Archangel (novel)"], and The Ancestor Cell [+]Loading...["The Ancestor Cell (novel)"], as well as the Faction Paradox books published by Obverse Books, most notably including The Book of the Enemy.
- Though Lawrence Miles originally intended the enemy to be an "unseen-and-unknowable factor", by the time he finished writing Alien Bodies [+]Loading...["Alien Bodies (novel)"], he'd "figured out exactly what was going on and why".[1] However, "moods changed", and he came up with a whole list of other possibilities. None of them were good enough to be the definitive answer, but eight were almost good enough,[2] including a literally infinite number of monkeys[3] and a "whale-king" fashioned after the rat king of European superstition. Miles intended to reveal the enemy's identity in his final Doctor Who novel, and he asked the BBC if they could publish a book where one single page had eight different versions, so the revealed enemy would depend on which book a person purchased.[2] Range-editor Stephen Cole shot down the idea because he preferred to keep the enemy's identity a complete mystery.[4]
- In Unnatural History [+]Loading...["Unnatural History (novel)"], the boy suggests that before the Doctor's history was rewritten, his primary "origin story" was that he had run away from his home in the 49th century after it was overrun by the Enemy. The Brakespeare Voyage [+]Loading...["The Brakespeare Voyage (novel)"] later confirmed that there had indeed been an Enemy assault on the 49th century, lending credence to this statement. This is a metafictional reference to the original "Dr. Who" pitch document from 1963, some drafts of which suggested that the Doctor and Susan "escaped their homeworld after it was invaded by the Palladin hordes who are still pursuing them": this reading thus identifies the Enemy with the rather mysterious "Palladin hordes". Although by all appearances not part of Lawrence Miles's design, this retconned, implied connection would make the Enemy technically go back to the very earliest form of Doctor Who lore ever committed to paper, right alongside the Doctor and TARDIS themselves.
- When writing for The Book of the Enemy, authors were told that the enemy must originate through the agency of the Earth, must either be humanoid or have humanoid agents, and can't be the Daleks or anything else they can't get the rights to.[5]
- As revealed in The Dalek Handbook, draft scripts for Dalek stories in the new series identified them with the term "Enemy" to keep their appearances secret.
External links[[edit] | [edit source]]
Footnotes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- ↑ The Ancestor Sell-Off
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Sci-Fi London Interview
- ↑ Josephine, Please: My Interview with LM
- ↑ The Potential Last Ever Doctor Who Interview with Lawrence Miles. Menace (2003). Archived from the original on 4 February 2003. Retrieved on 30th July 2012.
- ↑ The Book of the Enemy Conditions
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