Godfather Auteur was a skeletal Homeworlder. After joining Faction Paradox, he declared himself the Homeworld's "Observer Effect" wrought flesh and took the title "Author of the Spiral Politic", believing that everything they wrote really happened and that anything he hadn't written about which did happen was "not valid". (PROSE: A Bloody (And Public) Domaine, Going Once, Going Twice)
- You may wish to consult
Auteur (disambiguation)for other, similarly-named pages.
In a prior, female incarnation who had not actually joined the Faction yet, Auteur tricked the "death-cultists" into thinking she was already one of their own, and used this influence, as well as an artefact stolen from her people, to orchestrate an ambitious plan to end the war by siphoning off the "narrative power" of the 10,000 Dawns. This plan, which informed her posing as "the Emissary" in Spiral (PROSE: White Canvas) and "the Goddess" on the planet Gendar, (PROSE: The Gendar Conspiracy) was eventually foiled by Graelyn Scythes, (PROSE: White Canvas) whom Auteur nevertheless retained affection for, viewing her as an adopted daughter. (PROSE: Birthdays are Made for Memories)
Biography[[edit]]
Early life[[edit]]
Origins[[edit]]
- Main article: Auteur's first incarnation
Auteur once claimed to Graelyn Scythes that her original incarnation was a little girl, who grew up quite lonely because at this point in her Homeworld's history, even looming her as a child at all had been "something of an experiment". (PROSE: White Canvas)
According to rumours, Auteur was in fact a Mapper of early Great Houses history, one of the first product of the looms, who was driven insane following being forced to watch the outside Spiral Politic from an office on the Homeworld and map it via the observer effect. Before even sprouting a second heart, Auteur realised that he could abuse the Observer Effect to make anything real if he looked in the right place. Similar to the naming conventions used by other renegade Mappers, Auteur then took a name which was a variation on the word "astrolabe". (PROSE: Going Once, Going Twice) Notably, the Sixth Doctor repeatedly faced a Renegade Time Lord known as Astrolabus, who resided in a tall tower-like TARDIS, claimed to have mapped out the stars, (COMIC: Voyager) and had his skin ripped from him during his last face-off with the Doctor. (COMIC: Once Upon a Time-Lord)
However, Intrepid believed that this rumour had been started by Auteur himself and his "drinking buddies" in order to give his Observer Effect-based abilities "some more gravitas", and that he had later started believing it himself out of habit, whereupon it became valid history for him due to the Observer Effect. The official word from the Eleven-Day Empire had simply been that Auteur had been one of the Homeworlders drawn away from the Great Houses by Grandfather Paradox in the early days of the Faction. (PROSE: Going Once, Going Twice)
After twenty years studying under him at the Plume Coteries' Library, Roland got Auteur to admit that he wasn't really "him". Auteur admitted that the lie had been getting old by that point. However, he insisted that he was really an Archon; he briefly entertained the thought that he might have been l'Autre before correcting the notion to simply being "a bit of him". (PROSE: The Cactus and the Corpse [+]Loading...["The Cactus and the Corpse (short story)"]) Gideon seemed to remember growing up with Auteur on their shared homeworld. When Auteur recalled how she used to write prophecies, he corrected that she "wrote short stories about how people [she] didn’t like had bad things happen to them", which "annoyed everyone back home". On another occasion Auteur mentioned having written "a lot of fanfiction" when she was the same age as a then-preteened Graelyn Scythes. (PROSE: White Canvas)
Early adventures[[edit]]
When Auteur was banished from the Homeworld for his beliefs, he left with his House cousin Gideon. (PROSE: A Bloody (And Public) Domaine) However, the two grew apart; Gideon eventually left Auteur to join Faction Paradox. (PROSE: Going Once, Going Twice) Over the years, Auteur had various faces, genders, and "a lot of other things". She later claimed that she "didn’t even like" most of her past identities, but felt that to such an incredibly long-lived being as herself, "different can be enough". By the time of her twelfth incarnation, Auteur had "been a mother and a father before, and a parent". (PROSE: White Canvas)
Twelfth incarnation[[edit]]
- Main article: The Goddess of Gendar
The twelfth incarnation of the renegade Archon was a female incarnation: The Goddess of Gendar. (PROSE: The Two Auteurs [+]Loading...["The Two Auteurs (short story)"]) In this body, she tricked the "death-cultists" into thinking she was already one of their own, and used this influence, as well as an artefact stolen from her people, to orchestrate an ambitious plan to end the war by siphoning off the "narrative power" of the 10,000 Dawns. This plan, which informed her posing as the Emissary" in Spiral (PROSE: White Canvas [+]Loading...["White Canvas (novel)"]) and "the Goddess" on the planet Gendar, (PROSE: The Gendar Conspiracy [+]Loading...["The Gendar Conspiracy (short story)"]) was eventually foiled by Graelyn Scythes, (PROSE: White Canvas [+]Loading...["White Canvas (novel)"]) whom Auteur nevertheless retained affection for, viewing her as an adopted daughter. (PROSE: Birthdays are Made for Memories [+]Loading...["Birthdays are Made for Memories (short story)"])
Thirteenth incarnation[[edit]]
Auteur's final regeneration in their original allotted life cycle was a man, (PROSE: White Canvas) presumably the "wizened old man with a greasy beard and two clumps of white hair on either side of his bald head" (PROSE: Going Once, Going Twice) matching the appearance of Astrolabus as encountered by the Sixth Doctor (COMIC: Voyager, etc.) who was documented in another account as a having propensity for saying phrases in French and once scribbled into a grimoire by candlelight, notwithstanding Intrepid's suspicions that this entire aspect of Auteur's past was a fabrication which had only later become real due to the Observer Effect. (PROSE: Going Once, Going Twice) He was known as Papa Noël. (PROSE: The Two Auteurs)
Again matching the documented history of Astrolabus, (COMIC: Once Upon a Time-Lord) this story further asserted that in his final life, Auteur had attempted to cheat death by stealing star charts from an agent of Life, (PROSE: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing) leading to "Life itself" taking his skin from him. (PROSE: Going Once, Going Twice)
One way or the other, a flayed Auteur found himself at the end of his rope in a "crumbling reality bubble of his own making". (PROSE: Going Once, Going Twice, White Canvas) However, he was found by F.I.D.O and Graelyn Scythes, who had travelled forward in time from the day of the White Canvas's unmaking, based on F.I.D.O's intuition that his Mistress — now Master — would place himself in mortal peril in the future in an attempt to recapture the glory of the failed plan. With F.I.D.O helping to stabilise his condition, they took the dying man back to the White Canvas and then notified Gideon. Auteur noted that by this point, he couldn't even remember whether he had properly been initiated into the cult yet. (PROSE: White Canvas)
As a Godfather of Faction Paradox[[edit]]
- Main article: Godfather Auteur
The fourteenth incarnation of Auteur called himself "Godfather Auteur", (PROSE: The Two Auteurs [+]Loading...["The Two Auteurs (short story)"]), being a Godfather of Faction Paradox, (PROSE: A Bloody (And Public) Domaine [+]Loading...["A Bloody (And Public) Domaine (short story)"]) as well as one to Intrepid and Kifah and the Gendar. (PROSE: The Two Auteurs [+]Loading...["The Two Auteurs (short story)"]) He was eventually imprisoned by the Faction for his beliefs at the top of the Shadow Spire, where he stayed for a long time writing madly, (PROSE: A Bloody (And Public) Domaine [+]Loading...["A Bloody (And Public) Domaine (short story)"]) until the destruction of the Eleven-Day Empire, where it became a haven for surviving Faction members. He met his end when he attempted to bond his biodata with Apep, who was too powerful for him and consumed him. (PROSE: Going Once, Going Twice [+]Loading...["Going Once, Going Twice (short story)"])
Return in the post-War universe[[edit]]
During V-Time, Chris Cwej and his Superiors knew of Auteur. Although they knew him to be currently dead, they also knew that he would eventually be resurrected, and that at some point in this future life, he would find himself wandering beyond the Totality. (PROSE: And Today, You [+]Loading...["And Today, You (novel)"])
Indeed, Auteur resurfaced in weakened form. Without his shadow-skin, he had been reduced to a "tangle of blackened biodata" inhabiting his own battered, badly-repaired skeleton. Auteur put together a new plan and used a "Noble-woman" to alter the structure of history, creating a twisted parallel world. However, the woman rebelled, restoring the proper course of history despite Auteur's attempt to stop her by "vandalising a sad and ancient thing".
Because he'd physically followed the woman into the altered timeline, rather than simply projecting his mind backwards like she had, Auteur remained trapped in the parallel world even as it faded away, collapsing into an empty oxbow timeline. Although he was lost and dying, Auteur rejected this ending for his "story". He cried tears of ink and used them to write down a message on the pavement which would ensure his eventual survival: "This is only the beginning". (PROSE: Resurrection of the Author)
Trapped outside the universe[[edit]]
- Main article: Retconned Auteur
The incarnation of Auteur prior to his seventeenth, (PROSE: The Cactus and the Corpse [+]Loading...["The Cactus and the Corpse (short story)"]) the Retconned Auteur, (PROSE: The Two Auteurs [+]Loading...["The Two Auteurs (short story)"]) was resurrected by the Retconning Crocodiles and lived for many years trapped in an oxbow reality, the Sanctum of the Heretic, before managing to escape via the Cupid Homeworld, and become a traveller between universes. (POEM: Auteur and the Homeworld [+]Loading...["Auteur and the Homeworld (poem)"]) Whilst travelling the multiverse, he assisted Chris Cwej and Lady Aesculapius in rebooting Professor X in the Warsong to rescue Grant Markham (PROSE: And Today, You [+]Loading...["And Today, You (novel)"]) and spent twenty years in the Plume Coteries' Library mapping it. He met his end when Roland burnt the whole of Floor 899,167,435,042 to the ground, subsumed in the fiery inferno. (PROSE: The Cactus and the Corpse [+]Loading...["The Cactus and the Corpse (short story)"])
Seventeenth incarnation[[edit]]
- Main article: Monochrome Auteur
The Monochrome Auteur (PROSE: The Two Auteurs [+]Loading...["The Two Auteurs (short story)"]) was born when Naimon's blood was scattered over the ashes of his previous incarnation, allowing him to regenerate. He was eventually eaten by the Bookwyrm when the latter got tired of him. (PROSE: The Cactus and the Corpse [+]Loading...["The Cactus and the Corpse (short story)"])
Legacy[[edit]]
One of the landmarks on the planet Gendar, whose religion worshipped the Sun Builder as gods, was Auteur's Babbling Bibliothèque. During her time working as a tour guide on Gendar, Maxie Masters recalled giving guided tours of the Bibliothèque to various alien tourists, such as electromagnetic barnacles. (PROSE: Out of the Box)
Auteur appeared as a character in a BBC TV series whose title was made up of two words, beginning with F and P respectively. His skeletal "thirteenth reincarnation" was portrayed continuously from 2067 and 7898 by a single performer, (PROSE: Auteur's Abecedarium, Resurrection of the Author) except for the 200th Anniversary Special of 6267, where he was portrayed by the actor David Bradley wearing a rubber mask. (PROSE: Resurrection of the Author)
Undated events[[edit]]
At an unclear point in their personal timeline, Auteur received an invitation to Lady Aesculapius's funeral, but did not attend, instead sending a "lovely message" apologising for not being able to make it. This slightly wounded Aesculapius, who was in fact alive in a new body, and had organised the funeral herself as part of a plot to figure out who had been behind the "murder" of her previous incarnation. Reading the eulogy while posing as Aesc's imaginary cousin "Lady Raesculapius", she mentioned Auteur and his message, muttering under her breath "I mean, I was able to be with us here today and it's my funeral but whatever". (PROSE: Life After Death)
Behind the scenes[[edit]]
Auteur is as heavily implied to have once been Astrolabus, a recurring antagonist of Doctor Who Magazine's Sixth Doctor comics, as can be achieved without impeaching on the character's copyright. However, this was never explicit due to Obverse Books not having the license for the character of Astrolabus, which lies with Steve Parkhouse, writer of COMIC: Voyager.
Dee Dodebier's depiction of Auteur was largely based on the Skeksis from the film The Dark Crystal and also on an abstract self-portrait by Paul McCartney.[1]
Information from invalid sources[[edit]]
The character of Auteur, licensed from his creator Jayce Black, made a further appearances in Aristide Twain's A Better World, a short story released on the Doctor Who: Lockdown! website as part of the Lockdown Fan Gallery. While not mentioning any BBC concepts by name, it placed a post-Time War version of Auteur in the background of the events of Turn Left. Upon spotting the way the timelines seemed to be converging on a "Noble-woman", Auteur sensed an opportunity to create a world without "the Renegade", and was the one to advise the fortune teller to feed the woman to her beetle. His plan was successful, and a new timeline is created, with Auteur following the woman into it. However, the "Wolf-girl" stops Auteur from reaching out to the implied-Donna and convincing her to let this new history take its course.
This story formed the first part of a trilogy completed by Auteur's Abecedarium and Resurrection of the Author, the two crossover guest appearances of Auteur in The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids, with the latter also being written by Twain. However, unlike those two stories, it has not, to date, been released in a professional context, with the Lockdown Fan Gallery being an explicitly non-commercial medium of release. As a result, A Better World is not covered on this Wiki, unlike its two sequels.