Fictional Secret Histories
Secret history is sometimes used in a long-running science fiction or fantasy universe to preserve continuity with the present by reconciling paranormal, anachronistic, or otherwise notable but unrecorded events with what actually happened in known history; for instance, in the Star Trek universe, Greg Cox's novels The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh cast the devastating Eugenics Wars of the 1990s (still well into the future when first mentioned in an episode from 1967) as shadow wars most people never knew about, in which such real-life events from that era as the Smiling Buddha nuclear test, the Yugoslav Wars, and the 1992 Los Angeles riots were all part of one wider conflict.
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Famous quotes containing the words fictional, secret and/or histories:
“It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.... This, in turn, means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our everyman must take on a science fictional way of thinking.”
—Isaac Asimov (1920–1992)
“Euphemisms are not, as many young people think, useless verbiage for that which can and should be said bluntly; they are like secret agents on a delicate mission, they must airily pass by a stinking mess with barely so much as a nod of the head, make their point of constructive criticism and continue on in calm forbearance. Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne.”
—Quentin Crisp (b. 1908)
“I read, with a kind of hopeless envy, histories and legends of people of our craft who “do not write for money.” It must be a pleasant experience to be able to cultivate so delicate a class of motives for the privilege of doing one’s best to express one’s thoughts to people who care for them. Personally, I have yet to breathe the ether of such a transcendent sphere. I am proud to say that I have always been a working woman, and always had to be ...”
—Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844–1911)