History Main / EncyclopediaExposita

%%* The ''[[Literature/RealmOfTheElderlings Farseer]]'' and ''Tawny Man'' trilogies by Creator/RobinHobb.

* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': Every chapter of books in the ''Literature/RepublicCommando'' series is preceded by an excerpt from an in-universe document. One book even had a Mandalorian-to-English dictionary as an appendix.

* ''Literature/CityOfNoEnd'': Inspired by Literature/Dune, each chapter begins with an epigraph from some in-universe document, including a few histories and memoirs that hint at future plot developments.

* ''Literature/CityOfNoEnd'': Inspired by [[Literature/Dune Dune]], each chapter begins with an epigraph from some in-universe document, including a few histories and memoirs that hint at future plot developments.

* In ''Literature/StrayCatStrut'' at the beginning of many chapters, there are quotes from in-universe sources that provide small amounts of worldbuilding. They are often from fictional websites, government documents, or internal company memos.

* Creator/{{Carl Sagan}}'s ''Cosmos'' presents three extracts from the ''Encyclopedia Galactica'' about three intelligent species of the Milky Way, detailing among other things data on its home star and planet, biochemistry, mean mass and lifetime, and survival probability within a determinate amount of time [[spoiler: We're the third species detailed there and things look bleak for our future existence.]]

** Many Kamigawa block cards quoted extensively from fictional sources, as flavorwise the texts represent a retrospective historical view of the Kami War. The most common source to be quoted from is ''The History of Kamigawa'', including a [[https://scryfall.com/card/sok/142/reki-the-history-of-kamigawa card]] of the original [[HumanNotepad autho- err, tome]].

* The ''VideoGame/{{X}}-Universe'' games have an in-game encyclopedia of game objects, corporations, governments, trade goods, and the like. Almost everything in the game has a little bit of history behind it - viewing the info for the Dragon corvette will talk about the Dragon Incident that nearly destroyed the prototype and the station it was housed in, for example.
** The Encyclopedia returns in ''Videogame/XRebirth'', which seems to show it as being something like Wikipedia - Ren Otani modifies several entries (about the ''[[SuperPrototype Albion Skunk]]'') until he reaches one that has been locked by the [[MegaCorp Plutarch Corporation]] [[OneNationUnderCopyright government]].

** ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'' and ''VideoGame/XCOM2'', however, do not have an official in-game encyclopedia, meaning there's no information on the basic XCOM equipment like there is in the original games from the '90s. However, every time a research project is finished, you're given a report on the project, which usually includes information that is not specific to the game mechanics (for example, Cyberdisks are stated to include a small amount of conventional biological material, but mostly seem to somehow be a silicon-based lifeform), fleshing out the lore and providing some {{Foreshadowing}} on the motivations of the alien invaders. [[spoiler: The reports are lost in the destruction of XCOM headquarters at the canonical end of the first game, though XCOM rebuilds and improves on their knowledge in the second game.]]

These quotes are always apposite and often provide painless {{exposition}}, rather than relying on AsYouKnow -- style conversations. In SpeculativeFiction, fictitious encyclopedias are often used, such as Asimov's ''Encyclopedia Galactica''. Journal entries or biographies can also be used. Can be part of a ScrapBookStory. In VideoGames, these tend to be more-or-less random and [[FlavorText not immediately relevant to the story]] and can be used to give the player something to read on a LoadingScreen or in a LoreCodex.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'': One of Nol Lapp's revolutionary themed poems is used as the intro to an issue focusing on Franchise/WonderWoman leading a revolution against a slave-trading empire.

* ''Fanfic/TheLoneTraveler'': Starting partway through the second story, has each chapter start with an excerpt from ''Legends & Myths of the Wizarding World'' by Gertrude Yolanda as an OpeningNarration. The very end of the third story introduces a newly created excerpt from [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Rupert Giles' Watcher's Diaries]] that becomes the new OpeningNarration.
* ''Fanfic/MassEffectHumanRevolution'' leaves notes at the end of chapters for anything new that shows up in lieu of an InfoDump in story written like an entry in the codex (or in one instance, a report to the Shadow Broker.).

* ''Fanfic/XCOMSecondContact'' has articles in the style of ''VideoGame/XCom'' [=UFOpeadia=]. Like Turian autopsy report with plans to weaponize their skin as radiation shielding.

* ''Literature/ElementalLogic'': Each section of ''Fire Logic'' is prefaced by quotes from three imaginary books: Mackapee's ''Principles for Community'', Mabin's ''Warefare'', and Medric's ''History of My Father's People''. Mackapee was an ancient earth witch whose book became the basis of Shaftali culture and ideals. Mabin is a leader of LaResistance who is becoming very like the Sainnite invaders she so hates. And Medric, son of a Sainnite man and a Shaftali woman, is trying to make peace between both peoples because he realizes that the alternative is the destruction of both the Sainnites in Shaftal and much of Shaftali culture. Their views suggest the past, present, and future of the country, and the writing and distribution of Medric's book is a major plot in the sequel.

* The ''Literature/PriscillaHutchins'' series uses journal entries, newspaper clippings, and the like to give you some perspective on the story, with two unusual features: one, the entries appear at the ''end'' of a chapter, to give you some perspective on what you just read, and two, you occasionally get a whole list of newspaper headlines, which not only gives you a broader perspective on the setting, but lets you see how far up the list of top stories the story you're following has gotten.

** The prologue of ''So You Want to Be a Wizard'' quotes extensively from the [[GreatBigBookOfEverything wizard's manual]] in order establish what wizards are and how [[InsistentTerminology wizardry]] works.

* ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'' prefaces its episodes with quotes from all manner of things, including famous philosophers, poets and commanders (some real, some fictional), battle-hymns of some of the setting's militaries, and on one memorable occasion an Argosy Special Operations requisition form.

* The ''Van Richten's Guide'' series of ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' supplements use this device constantly, both as in-character 'citations' by in-character "author" Van Richten, and as flavor-text sidebars. Such references come from personal journals, ship's logs, letters, and other written testimony from individuals who have encountered dangerous monsters; hence, the UndeadAuthor trope often comes into play. Sometimes literally.

* The third edition ''TabletopGame/FreedomCity'' book opens with a draft copy of an in-universe guidebook to the city, extensively annnotated by Mayor Summers. Since this guidebook has to give an overview of what the ''players'' would find interesting about Freedom, many of these notes are Callie asking why the writers seem determined to tell the tourists how bad the crime is.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' has an expansive bestiary which holds theories and information about the various monsters, people, and Espers the party defeat in their travels. In addition, killing enough of the specific types of wild encounter uncovers additional information about the places in Ivalice, and sometimes about rare items that certain enemies randomly drop.

* Used in ''Literature/LookToTheWest'', which generally has the structure of an initial quote which may or may not be relevant to the rest of each chapter, and then the main text also supposedly extracted from in-timeline books. Occasionally inverted with the starting quote being taken from our own world's history.

* Go type about:mozilla in the URL box in any Mozilla browser from Netscape Navigator 1 all the way up to the current version of Firefox. (Original Web? Not exactly, but close enough.) You’ll find quotations from the [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Mozilla Book of Mozilla]], a book that doesn’t actually exist. The quotations describe a Beast that destroyed the unbelievers, and are written in the style of apocalyptic literature, with verses arranged in a way that imitates Literature/TheBible.

* Go type about:mozilla in the URL box in any Mozilla browser from Netscape Navigator 1 all the way up to the current version of Firefox. (Original Web? Not exactly, but close enough.) You’ll find quotations from the [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Mozilla Book of Mozilla]], a book that doesn’t actually exist. The quotations describe a Beast that destroyed the unbelievers, and are written in the style of apocalyptic literature, with verses arranged in a way that imitates the Literature/TheBible.

* Go type about:mozilla in the URL box in any Mozilla browser from Netscape Navigator 1 all the way up to the current version of Firefox. (Original Web? Not exactly, but close enough.) You’ll find quotations from the [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Mozilla Book of Mozilla]], a book that doesn’t actually exist. The quotations describe a Beast that destroyed the unbelievers, and are written in the style of apocalyptic literature, with verses arranged in a way that imitates the Literature/Bible.

* Go type about:mozilla in the URL box in any Mozilla browser from Netscape Navigator 1 all the way up to the current version of Firefox. (Original Web? Not exactly, but close enough.) Or just google "Book of Mozilla".

* During Paul Levite’s run on ''ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'', quotes from the ''Encyclopedia Galactica'' and other 30th-century publications were often used to set the scene.