User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-24894325-20170121220436/@comment-28349479-20170123070639

Thefartydoctor wrote:

You haven't answered my question. If these are TARDISes, why aren't they called TARDISes? Legal reasons? I asked a simple question that seems to have been ignored. I'm asking for enlightenment on the subject.

Oh, there are a few reasons, really. Of course, legality is an issue: the Faction Paradox series authors just didn't have the rights to "Time Lords", just like the Bernice Summerfield series or the Iris Wildthyme series. However, Faction Paradox authors often use different names for characters and concepts even when they have the rights - for instance, see how Compassion is still referred to as "the female crewmember" in Toy Story. A major focus of the series is how it manipulates perspectives to subvert the "official" story of the Time Lords being the most important people in the universe. It adds a really fun and progressive dynamic to the series, but it's rather inhospitable to wiki editors!

(This is all explained in the original inclusion debate.)

You're quoting an affirmation from a Thread that hasn't been closed yet. Similarly the Timeships vs TARDIS Thread hasn't been closed yet. See why I'm concerned?

Ha, rightfully so! I meant to link to Thread:206566, which the admin-authored OP of Thread:208233 concerns.

As for me taking this too personally, and me taking the Bernice Summerfield thing as far too literal an example: you're completely correct. I'm sorry if I've seemed sharp; I've been a bit stressed lately. (I could list off all kinds of excuses involving relatives dying and exams and the fact that it's 2am, but instead I'll just finish writing this and head to bed.) Thank you for the clarifications, and thank you for your patience through my accidental irritability and rampant mistakes. :)

I repeat- the onus is not on me to disprove. The onus is on FP readers/listeners to prove. The best way to do that is to head on over to the Timeships vs TARDIS discussions and get it closed rather than ignoring it.

I think you'll find it's physically impossible to post in the Timeships vs TARDIS discussion right now, which is why I'm trying to address the issue right here. To restate the first (non-quoted) paragraph of my last comment, the fact that we agree that the Great Houses are the Time Lords should already be enough to qualify their timeships as TARDISes, per Time Lord#Transport. But even then, this isn't anything like the Mistress (The Choice), who is intended to be Romana but depends solely on the reader's background knowledge to make the identification, without any in-text bits of similarity or evidence to suggest the identification. In contrast, going off what is said about the timeships in The Book of the War alone, the Time Lords use these timeships practically exclusively for space and time travel; they are dimensionally transcendent and can shapeshift; they are distinguished by multiple generations, each one supposedly improving on the last; an early model is known to travel in the shape of a blue police box; the 102nd generation consisted solely of Compassion; the 103rd generation was first created during the War, and they were humanoid in appearance. Characters like Lord Ruthven, who appear with TARDISes in BBC novels, appear in Faction Paradox novels with "timeships" instead. This is my evidence.

@NateBumber, I've noted that in the thread discussing FP after CzechOut closed the original thread, you mention the adventure The Adventures of the Diogenes Damsel. This may be what hinges it for me. Whereabouts in this audio are the Great Houses and the Time Lords linked? And whereabouts in this audio are the Great Houses timeships and TARDISes compared? What is the context? I don't mind spoilers about the story.

In The Adventures of the Diogenes Damsel, the concept of the Cwejen (which first originated in Faction Paradox novel The Book of the War) appear in a non-FP story for the first time. In The Book of the War, they are listed as created and used by the Great Houses. However, Straxus, a Doctor Who Time Lord, also appears, and he specifically states that his people created and use the Cwejen. Furthermore, Bernice Summerfield states that the Cwejen are truly related to the Chris Cwej she knows, so they're not "different" Cwejen from the ones in Book of the War. The only interpretation is that Straxus' people (the Time Lords) are the Cwejen's creators (the Great Houses).

This is just one of multiple pieces of evidence: Ruthventracolixabaxil is a Time Lord in one book but a member of the Great Houses in another; the Celestis and Faction Paradox are renegades from the Time Lords in one book and the Great Houses in another; and, most conclusively in my opinion, Lungbarrow explicitly establishes the phrase "Great Houses" as another name for the collection of all Time Lords (eg "House Lungbarrow" is a collection of individuals, whereas "a member of House Lungbarrow" is a Time Lord). I freely admit that it doesn't say that the timeships of the Great Houses are TARDISes, nor does it state that the homeworld of the Great Houses is Gallifrey; however, per the identification of the Great Houses as Time Lords, I presumed that explicit statements of ownership transferred, per the transitive property of logic.