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* In ''Literature/ThePhantomOfTheOpera'', when the Persian and Raoul are searching the Opera House' cellars, the Persian orders Raoul to hide, and they're passed by a shadowy figure in a cloak and felt hat. The Persian explains he's encountered this figure before, and has taken him to the manager's office before, but is "much worse" than the theatre police, and seemingly not connected to the Phantom. There's a footnote in which the author "explains" that he ''does'' know what that was about, but isn't going to tell us. If anything, he just makes it more mysterious:
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* In ''Literature/ThePhantomOfTheOpera'', when the Persian and Raoul are searching the Opera House' cellars, the Persian orders Raoul to hide, and they're passed by a shadowy figure in a cloak and felt hat. The Persian explains he's encountered this figure before, and has twice been taken him to the manager's office before, by him, but is it's someone "much worse" than the theatre police, and seemingly not connected to the Phantom. There's a footnote in which the author "explains" that he ''does'' know what that was about, but isn't going to tell us. If anything, he just makes it more mysterious:
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* In ''Literature/ThePhantomOfTheOpera'', when the Persian and Raoul are searching the Opera House' cellars, the Persian orders Raoul to hide, and they're passed by a shadowy figure in a cloak and felt hat. The Persian explains he's encountered this figure before, and has taken him to the manager's office before, but is "much worse" than the theatre police, and seemingly not connected to the Phantom. There's a footnote in which the author "explains" that he ''does'' know what that was about, but isn't going to tell us. If anything, he just makes it more mysterious:
--> Like the Persian, I can give no further explanation touching the apparition of this shade. Whereas, in this historic narrative, everything else will be normally explained, however abnormal the course of events may seem, I can not give the reader expressly to understand what the Persian meant by the words, "It is some one much worse than that!" The reader must try to guess for himself, for I promised M. Pedro Gailhard, the former manager of the Opera, to keep his secret regarding the extremely interesting and useful personality of the wandering, cloaked shade which, while condemning itself to live in the cellars of the Opera, rendered such immense services to those who, on gala evenings, for instance, venture to stray away from the stage. I am speaking of state services; and, upon my word of honor, I can say no more.
--> Like the Persian, I can give no further explanation touching the apparition of this shade. Whereas, in this historic narrative, everything else will be normally explained, however abnormal the course of events may seem, I can not give the reader expressly to understand what the Persian meant by the words, "It is some one much worse than that!" The reader must try to guess for himself, for I promised M. Pedro Gailhard, the former manager of the Opera, to keep his secret regarding the extremely interesting and useful personality of the wandering, cloaked shade which, while condemning itself to live in the cellars of the Opera, rendered such immense services to those who, on gala evenings, for instance, venture to stray away from the stage. I am speaking of state services; and, upon my word of honor, I can say no more.
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* In ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'', when Ishtar, Goddess of Love, asks Gilgamesh to be her new mortal boy toy, he angrily rejects her, listing a number of her past flings whose stories ended in disaster when she tired of them. Some of his examples seem pretty self-explanatory, but a few are ''very'' weird and unexplained (apparently one of exes include [[BestialityIsDepraved a lion and a horse]]). Presumably, most of these references were pretty clear to the original Sumerian audience, who would be well-acquainted with these other stories, but no records of them are known to exist today, creating an extreme form of ParodyDisplacement.
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* In ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'', when Ishtar, Goddess of Love, asks Gilgamesh to be her new mortal boy toy, he angrily rejects her, listing a number of her past flings whose stories ended in disaster when she tired of them. Some of his examples seem pretty self-explanatory, but a few are ''very'' weird and unexplained (apparently one of the exes include [[BestialityIsDepraved a lion and a horse]]). Presumably, most of these references were pretty clear to the original Sumerian audience, who would be well-acquainted with these other stories, but no records of them are known to exist today, creating an extreme form of ParodyDisplacement.
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* In the Mad Tea-Party scene from ''[[Literature/AliceInWonderland Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]'', TheMadHatter proposes the riddle, "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?" Some time passes before Alice, the Hatter and the March Hare all admit that they can't find the answer. This did nothing to stop readers from persistently trying to find answers such as "Creator/EdgarAllanPoe wrote on both." Although Carroll himself eventually came up with the answer "Because it can produce a few notes, though they are ''very'' flat; and it is [[SdrawkcabName nevar]] put with the wrong end in front!" Or "They both have inky quills".
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* ''Literature/AliceInWonderland'': In the Mad Tea-Party scene from ''[[Literature/AliceInWonderland Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]'', scene, TheMadHatter proposes the riddle, "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?" Some time passes before Alice, the Hatter and the March Hare all admit that they can't find the answer. This did nothing to stop readers from persistently trying to find answers such as "Creator/EdgarAllanPoe wrote on both." Although Carroll himself eventually came up with the answer "Because it can produce a few notes, though they are ''very'' flat; and it is [[SdrawkcabName nevar]] put with the wrong end in front!" Or "They both have inky quills".
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* Literature/TheBrightestShadow: Common, both in terms of characters referring to parts of the world not immediately relevant, and several epigraphs that refer to highly ambiguous events.
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* Literature/TheBrightestShadow: ''Literature/TheBrightestShadow'': Common, both in terms of characters referring to parts of the world not immediately relevant, and several epigraphs that refer to highly ambiguous events.
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* Creator/JRRTolkien was a master of WorldBuilding, working on his Middle-Earth world from about UsefulNotes/WW1 until his death. ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' is full of lovingly crafted and referred-to details, many of which are left unexplained, whose stories first got public with the posthumous publications of the earlier stories.
** One thing Tolkien knew from his studies as a linguist and English teacher is that some of the old myths recreate the CrypticBackgroundReference effect ''entirely by accident'', when the relevant poems or stories are lost -- the medieval Finns probably had an explanation of what a [[TheSampo Sampo]] (from ''Literature/TheKalevala'') is, for example, but it didn't survive the Middle Ages.
** One thing Tolkien knew from his studies as a linguist and English teacher is that some of the old myths recreate the CrypticBackgroundReference effect ''entirely by accident'', when the relevant poems or stories are lost -- the medieval Finns probably had an explanation of what a [[TheSampo Sampo]] (from ''Literature/TheKalevala'') is, for example, but it didn't survive the Middle Ages.
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* Creator/JRRTolkien Creator/JRRTolkien:
** Tolkien was a master of WorldBuilding, working on hisMiddle-Earth world ''Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium'' from about UsefulNotes/WW1 until his death. ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' is full of lovingly crafted and referred-to details, many of which are left unexplained, whose stories first got public with the posthumous publications of the earlier stories.
** One thing Tolkien knew from his studies as a linguist and English teacher is that some of the old myths recreate theCrypticBackgroundReference cryptic reference effect ''entirely entirely by accident'', accident, when the relevant poems or stories are lost -- the medieval Finns probably had an explanation of what a [[TheSampo Sampo]] (from ''Literature/TheKalevala'') is, for example, but it didn't survive the Middle Ages.
** Tolkien was a master of WorldBuilding, working on his
** One thing Tolkien knew from his studies as a linguist and English teacher is that some of the old myths recreate the
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** [[EldritchAbomination "Far, far below the deepest delvings of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things."]]
** Half of fun of reading Tolkien is this. Go read ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'' and go back and read ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''. Now revel in all the references most people didn't get the first time around. That part of the song Aragorn sings in ''The Fellowship of the Ring'' about Beren and Lúthien? Now you know the whole story. Bilbo's song about Eärendil that Aragorn seemed to find so cheeky to sing in Rivendell? It was about Elrond's father (and mother) who he hasn't seen in five thousand years and probably dredged up some bad memories about the ransacking of his home when he was a child by the sons of Fëanor. The list goes on.
** Half of fun of reading Tolkien is this. Go read ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'' and go back and read ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''. Now revel in all the references most people didn't get the first time around. That part of the song Aragorn sings in ''The Fellowship of the Ring'' about Beren and Lúthien? Now you know the whole story. Bilbo's song about Eärendil that Aragorn seemed to find so cheeky to sing in Rivendell? It was about Elrond's father (and mother) who he hasn't seen in five thousand years and probably dredged up some bad memories about the ransacking of his home when he was a child by the sons of Fëanor. The list goes on.
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** [[EldritchAbomination ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': Gandalf mentions that "Far, far below the deepest delvings of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things."]]
" He never explains what are things are, exactly, or even what they look like.
** Half of fun of reading Tolkien is this. Go read''Literature/TheSilmarillion'' ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'', ''Literature/BerenAndLuthien'', ''Literature/TheChildrenOfHurin'', ''Literature/TheFallOfGondolin'', ''Literature/TheFallOfNumenor''...and go back and read ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''. Now revel in all the references most people didn't get the first time around. That part of the song Aragorn sings in ''The Fellowship of the Ring'' about Beren and Lúthien? Now you know the whole story. Bilbo's song about Eärendil that Aragorn seemed to find so cheeky to sing in Rivendell? It was about Elrond's father (and mother) who he hasn't seen in five thousand years and probably dredged up some bad memories about the ransacking of his home when he was a child by the sons of Fëanor. The list goes on.
** Half of fun of reading Tolkien is this. Go read
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** ''Literature/UnfinishedTales'' also fleshes out several of these including the Cats of Queen Berúthiel that Aragorn mentioned during the journey through the Mines of Moria and the other two Wizards of the five Saruman brings up in his rant at Othanc.
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** ''Literature/UnfinishedTales'' ''Literature/UnfinishedTalesOfNumenorAndMiddleEarth'' also fleshes out several of these including the Cats of Queen Berúthiel that Aragorn mentioned during the journey through the Mines of Moria and the other two Wizards of the five Saruman brings up in his rant at Othanc.
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!!!'''By Author:'''
* Creator/IsaacAsimov:
** ''Literature/FoundationSeries'': The Fifth Seldon Crisis [[ConflictKiller gets disrupted by the Mule]] during the events of "Literature/TheMule", while the Sixth and Seventh Seldon Crisis are never mentioned in Dr Asimov's works. ''Literature/FoundationsEdge'' opens during the successful resolution of the ''Eighth'' Crisis (with [[PosthumousCharacter Hari Seldon]] appearing during FoundingDay to announce [[AllAccordingToPlan exactly why they made the right decision]]), and characters refer to the Plan having been on track since the Kalgan War (which wasn't a Crisis and ''was'' covered), making it clear that all three happened, but only the Eight has any detail on its nature or resolution given[[note]]there was a political movement calling for the Foundation's capital to be moved from Terminus to a more central location, and it failed[[/note]].
** ''Literature/TheGodsThemselves'': No detail is provided on an event that killed about 4 billion people: "Just about the time the Lunar colony was being established, Earth went through the Great Crisis. I don't have to tell you about that."
* Creator/PaoloBacigalupi never really provides descriptions or actual expositions of his countless settings. While it was somewhat understandable when he was in short stories and novelettes, as seen in his ''Literature/PumpSixAndOtherStories'' anthology, once he started to write books, all the world-building is still done by off-hand remarks in dialogues and tiny snippets of information in narrative, going as far as giving a name-drop as all that is to provide information. Piercing together details about his recurring settings is a favourite past-time of his fans.
* Literature/TheBrightestShadow: Common, both in terms of characters referring to parts of the world not immediately relevant, and several epigraphs that refer to highly ambiguous events.
* Creator/HPLovecraft stories make repeated, throwaway references to fictional books and locales, but there's little evidence that the man himself had any unified vision in mind. His pals also did the same, throwing out cryptic {{Shout Out}}s to Lovecraft and each other's works. Enticed, the readers wanted more, and piecing together such references is part of the fun of the ''Franchise/CthulhuMythos''.
* Creator/JRRTolkien was a master of WorldBuilding, working on his Middle-Earth world from about UsefulNotes/WW1 until his death. ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' is full of lovingly crafted and referred-to details, many of which are left unexplained, whose stories first got public with the posthumous publications of the earlier stories.
** One thing Tolkien knew from his studies as a linguist and English teacher is that some of the old myths recreate the CrypticBackgroundReference effect ''entirely by accident'', when the relevant poems or stories are lost -- the medieval Finns probably had an explanation of what a [[TheSampo Sampo]] (from ''Literature/TheKalevala'') is, for example, but it didn't survive the Middle Ages.
** Then there are some things which never got elaborated on, even posthumously, like in ''Literature/TheHobbit'' when Bilbo makes reference to "the wild Were-worms in the Last Desert." Nothing remotely similar is ever even spoken of again.
** [[EldritchAbomination "Far, far below the deepest delvings of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things."]]
** Half of fun of reading Tolkien is this. Go read ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'' and go back and read ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''. Now revel in all the references most people didn't get the first time around. That part of the song Aragorn sings in ''The Fellowship of the Ring'' about Beren and Lúthien? Now you know the whole story. Bilbo's song about Eärendil that Aragorn seemed to find so cheeky to sing in Rivendell? It was about Elrond's father (and mother) who he hasn't seen in five thousand years and probably dredged up some bad memories about the ransacking of his home when he was a child by the sons of Fëanor. The list goes on.
** The Second Prophecy of Mandos, which describes what the end of the world will be like, is referenced (though not by name) in virtually all of the canonical stories of Middle-earth. However, the prophecy itself does not appear in canon -- only in Tolkien's earlier drafts for ''The Silmarillion''.
** ''Literature/UnfinishedTales'' also fleshes out several of these including the Cats of Queen Berúthiel that Aragorn mentioned during the journey through the Mines of Moria and the other two Wizards of the five Saruman brings up in his rant at Othanc.
!!!'''By Work:'''
* In the Mad Tea-Party scene from ''[[Literature/AliceInWonderland Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]'', TheMadHatter proposes the riddle, "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?" Some time passes before Alice, the Hatter and the March Hare all admit that they can't find the answer. This did nothing to stop readers from persistently trying to find answers such as "Creator/EdgarAllanPoe wrote on both." Although Carroll himself eventually came up with the answer "Because it can produce a few notes, though they are ''very'' flat; and it is [[SdrawkcabName nevar]] put with the wrong end in front!" Or "They both have inky quills".
* In the UsefulNotes/NaNoWriMo novel ''Literature/AndThenThereWereMonsters'', some of the monsters mentioned in the text are explained in Father Mallern's [[EncyclopediaExposita journals]]. Most are not. Dire cattle, for example, and referenced a few times, but never seen, and in the end all we know is that the only similarity they have with normal cattle is that they still have four legs.
* Alien characters in ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' often allude to various other species or situations that have nothing to do with the plot:
** For example, early books would sometimes list random species the Yeerks had supposedly enslaved, though practically none of them are seen except for Hork-Bajir, Taxxons and Gedds.
** There's also a whole subplot happening off-scene with a planet called Anati: apparently the Yeerks knew very little about it (including whether or not it was inhabited) and sent Visser One to conquer it, but she wound up failing for some unknown reason.
** "The Five," the mysterious race responsible for hunting the Venber to extinction. Ax doesn't know where they came from or why they called themselves that, but they have since also vanished, possibly due to the Andalites of old giving them a taste of their own medicine.
** At the end of book 41, the BadFuture Jake was experiencing turns out to be [[spoiler: a psychological test conducted by an unknown being, for no obvious reason but curiosity. We never find out who was running it.]]
** Crayak, a being who straddles the line between SufficientlyAdvancedAlien and CosmicHorror, was evicted from his galaxy of origin by an even ''more'' powerful being.
* The ''Mechwarrior Dark Age'' novels (based on the ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' game world) made references to events that had occurred in the 65-year TimeSkip since the last published ''[=BattleTech=]'' novel. The result was a lot of terms used in general discussion that had no explanation - The Jihad, the Ruins of Gabriel, Apollyon, the Master and so forth. Since then, new ''[=BattleTech=]'' fiction has begun to explain some of this.
* ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'' has Mr. Willy Wonka noting that Loompaland, the homeland of the Oompa-Loompas -- and a country none of the other characters have heard of -- is a HungryJungle full of "hornswogglers and snozzwangers and those terrible wicked whangdoodles" without explaining what exactly those beasts are (besides ''very'' hungry). This isn't surprising, as Mr. Wonka himself has a never-explained MysteriousPast and is InexplicablyAwesome. (For one thing, between the original novel and its sequel, he's apparently managed to travel the world ''without being recognized'' for years, and has knowledge of ''other planets and alien races''. Also, the [[Theatre/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory 2013 stage musical]] plays this concept for laughs with throwaway lines that reveal that he used to go to ''raves''.)
* Creator/CSLewis's ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'':
** Mr. Tumnus has a collection of books, one of which is ''[[FictionalDocument Is Man A Myth?]]'' It serves no purpose to the story other than world building and further setting up the FaeriesDontBelieveInHumansEither trope.
** ''Literature/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader'': The protagonists meet a magician, who is later revealed to be personified star who was sent to earth as a punishment. On being asked what possible crime a star could commit, they are simply told: "it is not for you, a Son of Adam, to know what faults a star can commit." The reference gets even more cryptic when Eustace comments that in their world stars are balls of flaming gas and is told that even in our world, that is not what stars ''are'', but only what they are ''made of''.
** Aslan's father, the Emperor-Beyond-The-Sea, is mentioned but plays no direct role in the plot. Presumably the reason he's there at all is because Aslan, being a [[CrystalDragonJesus Jesus-equivalent]], needs a [[{{God}} father]] to complete the reference.
** There are plenty of AlwaysChaoticEvil species in the setting, but there are a few unelaborated-on references to some of these species [[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch being in Aslan's army.]]
* Part of the charm of the early books of ''Literature/ChroniclesOfTheKencyrath'' is that the main character is a member of a race with ten thousand years of history, but our glimpses of this history is as through a glass darkly because the main character already knows her history and doesn't feel the need to monologue about it. The later books have filled in many of the references, but far from all of them.
* In the ''Literature/CodexAlera'' stories, there are several mentions of a group called "The Children of the Sun" who were, it seems, wiped out by the Alerans relatively recently (historically speaking) and, as a last action, did ''something'', ''somewhere'', for ''some reason'' and now there's the Feverthorn Jungle in the middle of the continent, that no one can enter for reasons which are unexplained. Though we get a rough idea of where it is (middle southeast of the continent according to the map in ''First Lord's Fury'') what makes the jungle impenetrable (even to the ''[[HordeOfAlienLocusts Vord]]'') is unexplained. The Alerans idly speculate that if they could figure out what the Children did, they might be able to turn it against the Vord.
** Also AllThereInTheManual, as Butcher explained it on the website. They're another sentient race (of plant-people, with Woodcrafting-like powers), who are now all dead, wiped out by the Roman legions shortly after they arrived on Alera (and hence [[BadassNormal before they had developed significant furycrafting]]). Of all the sentient races that have appeared on Alera, only the toughest survive the competition.
** The Children of the Sun aren't the only ones to get this treatment. Late into the series, a character reminisces about other sentient races the Alerans have wiped out in their struggle for survival:
--> ''The Children of the Sun were long since dead, their Realm rotted back into the Feverthorn Jungle. The Malorandim had been driven to extinction eight centuries ago. The Avar, the Yrani, the Dekh -- all gone, nothing left of them but names that Amara dimly remembered from her history lessons. Once they had all been rivals and tyrants to a younger, smaller, weaker Alera.''
* ''Literature/TheColdMoons'' throws around references to the badger's AnimalReligion but doesn't explain the mythology though. Some things are namedropped in passing but all that's clearly known is that: Their {{God}} is named "Logos", while their {{Satan}}/devil is "Ahriman". Their {{heaven}} is "Asgard" and it's stated that all species live in harmony in Asgard. "Sheol" is referenced but it seems to be a {{hell}} equivalent instead of [[TheNothingAfterDeath a Jewish-style Sheol]]. Some badgers aren't prayed for upon dying and thus they become eternally BarredFromTheAfterlife in a place above the clouds called "Gehenna". "Elysia" is the pastures of heaven and is also used as a short-hand for an otherworldly paradise. Badgers have a group of ancient laws called "[[TheCommandments the Adamus]]" (which is only mentioned by name, in passing, in the final chapter).
* In the beginning of ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'', the third-person narrator often makes references to historical events and figures, such as the fall of Gilead and John Farson, as well as important characters in [[BadassLongcoat the gunslinger's]] [[MysteriousPast past]]. Many of these are clarified later in the series, further expanding the previously sparse world.
* The story of Princess Nell in Neal Stephenson's ''Literature/TheDiamondAge'' starts out like this, and Nell and the Primer spend the next decade or so expanding the references.
* Often used in ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'', with throwaway references to things like the politics of the Guild of Engravers (although that one eventually became ''Literature/TheTruth''), or the various notes on Sam Vimes' desk that he's too busy with the main story to deal with, creating the feel that Ankh-Morpork keeps running even when there isn't a story happening.
* Two examples from ''Literature/{{Distortionverse}}'':
** The ''Tryadine Effect case'' which was solved by Veckert before the events told in ''Chapter 1 - La Notte che Cammina'' and resulted in the opening of the dome of St. Patrick SHIELD is ''never'' explained in details -- only hinted at;
** The bombardment of Moscow mentioned by Egon Kramers in ''Sabbie''.
* ''Literature/{{Domina}}'':
** Loads. The names of [[GangOfHats cultures]] and [[RankScalesWithAsskicking warlords]] are dropped without context, only to be explained a dozen chapters later. Since there's lots of ThemeNaming and {{Shout Out}}s, the audience has some clues to figure out what the names refer to before they appear on screen.
** The Dagonites get referenced every few chapters for hundreds of chapters, with no explanation. Even when Dagonite characters show up on screen, the other characters just note that they don't look as weird as they expected, and move on.
** Space colonies are referenced as well. A refugee from a minor mutiny on the Chinese Shaohao station crash-lands at one point, and later it's mentioned that the Soviet Tsiolkovsky Station is the communications hub for the colonies. Ceres gets a few mentions (it's implied to be a factory colony), and someone says that a character is from "Lemuria, on Mars."
** The fall of Eden is mentioned more than once as an important part of the city's past, but no context is given.
* Stephen Brust's ''Literature/{{Dragaera}}'' books use this in massive amounts. [[Literature/KhaavrenRomances Paarfi's novels]] are supposed to be historical fiction novels within the universe, so they assume that the reader is a Dragaeran who doesn't need additional explanations. Vlad sometimes seems to make the same assumption, but other times he explains common aspects of the world for the reader's benefit. Vlad will also make vague references to his various other misadventures outside of the scope of the current story without going into detail. Sometimes he says he doesn't want to digress, and other times he's simply cryptic. Some of these do get explained in future novels. Brust intentionally includes them as possible story hooks for future novels without planning on where they'll go.
* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' contain a fair amount of them, such as the reasons for some wizards not showing up to a White Council meeting in Chicago including "He got real married", "Living under a polar ice cap", and "Pyramid Sitting".
** In a case that ultimately ended up a subversion; in the first book Harry mentions that Santa Claus is real, and implies he's [[BadassSanta terrifying]]. Fast forward fourteen books, and we finally meet him in ''Literature/ColdDays'', and get a good idea of why Harry would have been scared of him in the first book.
* Used fairly frequently in Herbie Brennan's ''Literature/TheFaerieWarsChronicles''. Since most of the series is set in a fantasy realm with only two non-native characters present, references to simbala parlours, power outrages, border Redcaps, or The Reindeer King of Crippenmas are pretty commonplace. Some of these are given explanations in the glossaries, and a few end up connecting to the plots of later books, but many are left entirely unexplained.
%%* The ''Literature/HarryPotter'' books sometimes play this straight and sometimes use it to disguise a ChekhovsGun.
* Creator/MercedesLackey's ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'' novels have a handy store of ancient history at which to hint. Some characters (Vanyel, Lavan Firestorm) have had their own books, but she claims "Windrider" and "Sun and Shadow" likely will not, since they work better as distant legends.
* ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' is littered with these, with allusions to far-off planets and some of their inhabitants that are never explored in-depth. For instance, Maximegalon is apparently a planet with a very rich academic history, although it's never visited; neither is Blagulon Kappa, a world mentioned off-handedly several times but about which even less is explicitly stated. On the character side of things, Oolon Colluphid is apparently a very prestigious writer and an acquaintance of Zaphod Beeblebrox's (as of [[Literature/AndAnotherThing the sixth book]]), and some of his books have been named, but he's never personally encountered. The same goes for Eccentrica Gallumbits, the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon VI, and ex-president Yooden Vranx, who ''would'' have been part of the first story arc, but [[Creator/DouglasAdams the author]] wound up not going there. What's ''really'' interesting is that the many of the stars and systems he mentions are real, like Sirius. This amuses people with arbitrary knowledge of stars.
** There's also a bunch of almost-correct ones. There is no real-life planet called Ursa Minor Beta, but there ''is'' a star called Beta Ursae Minoris.
* In Creator/CliveBarker's ''Literature/TheLastIllusion'', the story mentions a botched exorcism attempt on Mimi Lomax which has scant but horrific detail. The novel "Everville" goes into this incident with more fleshing.
* ''Literature/LoyalEnemies'' has vampire kingdoms, which are alluded to a few times, and the islands, which are somewhere in Beloria, but we don't even learn in what direction.
* With the ''Literature/MonsterBloodTattoo'' series, D. M. Cornish not only strives to make the Half-Continent feel lived in with side comments and throwaway lines, but he has so many [[HeroOfAnotherStory side characters]] who appear and reappear within Rossamund's narrative that it leaves readers thirsty for all the potential other stories that could be told. There is, after all, a reason why the glossaries in the back of the books can be a third of the physical book.
* Much like the Sherlock Holmes example, the ''Literature/NeroWolfe'' series by Rex Stout begins on terms of false familiarity, and vaguely references past cases that are never fully explained.
* In Creator/MichaelEnde's ''Literature/TheNeverendingStory'', many vague allusions are made to the further adventures of secondary characters, always accompanied by the phrase, "But that is another story, and will be told another time." Needless to say, said stories have never been told.
** Actually plot-significant, and gives the book its title. In the ending, [[spoiler: Bastian is told he can't leave until every storyline he started up is finished. But given the rate uncompleted plots have been created (several story hooks get created for every one he finishes) he'd never be done. Atreyu saves him by taking on the task on his behalf]]. The movies leave this out, resulting in an ArtifactTitle.
* ''Literature/{{Neverwhere}}'' is full of this. Particularly the BigBad's motivation for [[spoiler: sinking Atlantis. All we get is him shouting "THEY DESERVED IT!"]] Creator/NeilGaiman's work has tons of this, but ''Neverwhere'' and ''Literature/{{Stardust}}'' are particularly big examples.
%%* Simon R Green often uses this trope in the ''{{Literature/Nightside}}'' series.
* Used in the ''Literature/OldKingdom'' books by Creator/GarthNix, and not overused, either. He's mentioned in interviews that he's not really into world-building — he just makes everything up as he goes along.
* Creator/HannuRajaniemi's ''Literature/TheQuantumThief'' features many references to cataclysmic events that shaped the world of the novel, but remain a mystery to the reader, and sometimes even to the characters due to lost historical records and memory manipulation. These include the Collapse that caused most people to abandon Earth, the Cry of Wrath, the Spike which somehow destroyed Jupiter, and the Protocol War. Some get elaborated in the later books and even become major plot points, while others remain a mystery.
* In Raymond E. Feist's ''Literature/TheRiftwarCycle'', there is a place called Roldem in the east of Midkemia. It is mentioned in a few of the books, and included in every map of the world, however over the course of more than 20 books, it is not visited at all. In fact, most of the information on Roldem comes from a single e-mail written in 1998.
* ''Literature/TheRiseOfKyoshi'' has a few mentions of Salai, who is listed alongside [[WarriorMonk Yangchen]] as one of [[TheAce the greatest Avatars ever]]. Nothing else, including gender or nationality, is mentioned.
* In the ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'' stories, Watson is famous for this, often referring to other cases, such as the one involving "the giant rat of Sumatra, for which the world is not yet prepared". Some of these became stories in their own right (though usually not from Doyle's pen), but most remain unexplained.
* Used masterfully well in Ulysses Silva's novel ''Solstice''. There is exactly one incident where things are properly explained by the main character (even then, it's mostly clarification on things you've picked up). Everything else is left for the reader to figure out. And quite often, everything you thought you'd figured out turns out to be completely ''wrong'', leading to many an [[EpilepticTrees Epileptic Tree]] until the very end.
* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': The series is full cryptic background references to various events (the tragedy at Summerhall, the Tower of Joy, "The Rains of Castamere", the Blackfyre rebellion, the Ninepenny Kings, the Doom of Valyria, etc). As the series moves on, some of them have been at least partially explained. The map is a large example too: Creator/GeorgeRRMartin has stated that not all locations on the map of will be visited in the story. Consider the fact that no viewpoint character has yet visited (during the story, that is) the Lannisters' home Casterly Rock, or the Basilisk Isles that show up on the map of (part of) the Eastern Continent.
* Gary Seven references events and races in ''Literature/StarTrekTheEugenicsWars'' when Roberta asks him to justify whatever their mission is - some of which the audience has heard of, some of which were just made up. [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] when Roberta complains that she's never heard of these events or races and can hardly check up on them.
* Following the tradition of the films, the ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' and ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' make references of their own, some of them mentioned or expanded on by others, some of them never mentioned again. It gets downright fractal at times. Try hitting [[http://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Special:Random Random Page]] on Wookieepedia and see [[WikiWalk how far you can get]] before finding an article with one line of description and one or two appearances.
** A discussion on the Falcon from the first book in ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy'', ''Heir to the Empire'':
--->'''Lando:''' She's as safe now as she's ever likely to be. Don't worry about that.\\
'''Han:''' You know, that's almost exactly the same thing you said back on Boordii. That botched dolfrimia run -- remember? You said, 'It'll be fine; don't worry about it.'\\
'''Lando:''' Yes, but this time I mean it.
* ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'' has lots of these, references made by characters to things that happened in their pasts, references to the history of the world etc. Given that only the first book of a ten book series has been released, and that Creator/BrandonSanderson loves to collect [[ChekhovsArmoury loads and loads of Chekhov's guns]] it's highly likely that a lot of them are just waiting to go off.
* In the ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' Literature/{{Nintendo Adventure Book|s}} ''Pipe Down!'', Princess Toadstool mentions that in the past (around the time of her ancestors) there were things far worse and more powerful than the Koopa Kingdom, but no elaboration is offered as to what she means by that.
* ''Literature/TailchasersSong'':
** ''Tailchaser's Song'' notes that cats have three names: a "[[FirstNameBasis heart name]]" that is given by birth and is only used by those the cat is ''very'' close to (such as family or mates), a "[[LastNameBasis face name]]" that is given in a NamingCeremony at three months of age and is used by almost everyone, and a "tail name" that is a private name that a cat must discover on their own. Tail names are never discussed with anyone and it's noted that many cats nowadays don't ever find their tail name. Face names like "Tailchaser", "Fencewalker", and "Whitewind" use [[CommonTongue Common Singing]] words, while heart names like "Fritti", "Tangaloor", and "Firsa" use Higher Singing words. It's never mentioned what a tail name sounds like. Tailchaser ''might'' have found his in the final chapter, but it's never mentioned what it is, if he did.
** It's mentioned early on that, upon reaching adulthood, a cat becomes a "hunter". This is not touched upon in other scenes and is never clarified. It's only mentioned that Tailchaser, who is not even a year old yet, is too young to be considered a hunter.
* "Literature/TheTamariskHunter": The events surrounding Lake Havasu City are referred to in-story, but beyond involving water and possibly the destruction of a water plant, it's not clear what they were.
* ''Literature/ThursdayNext'':
** {{Lampshaded}} continually in the series in the form of Textual Sieves. Roughly every other time they're mentioned, someone asks what they do, and are told that no one knows, since they're so sparsely described. Thursday asks [[Literature/GreatExpectations Miss Havisham]], and in turn Thursday5 asks Thursday how textual sieves work and the given explanation is "[[HandWave it's never properly explained]]."
** There's plenty of other examples, such as the "Boojumorial" of Jurisfiction agents lost in action ("Boojumed", or deleted), the views across the wilderness to other Great Libraries for other languages, the CityOfAdventure that is the Well of Lost Plots, previous disasters in the [=BookWorld=] (apparently, ''Theatre/TitusAndronicus'' used be "a gentle comedy of manners", but increasingly bad behaviour by the characters turned it into the "the daftest, bloodiest play in all of Creator/{{Shakespeare}}"), and items in Thursday's [=TravelBook=] that haven't yet turned out to be {{Chekhovs Gun}}s, such as String[-[[superscript: TM]]-]. There's even more examples in the Outworld, which to Thursday is [[ThisIsReality the real world]]. Genetic engineering means they've resurrected the woolly mammoth, but they don't have ducks; Britain was invaded by the Nazis during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and comedy musician George "When I'm Cleaning Windows" Formby led the Resistance, later becoming President-For-Life; The People's Republic of Wales; riots over [[SeriousBusiness art styles]] and literature; the weirder parts of [=SpecOps=], and so on.
* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': Sandy Mitchell's ''Literature/CiaphasCain'' books have loads, some of which get stories (a reference to hunting Tyranids on a hulk, now released as ''The Emperor's Finest''), others are not (yet) fleshed out (his encounter with a Dark Eldar wytch, and time spent on a Tau world, for instance).
* ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' novels are full of references to epic historical events and heroes, and the landscape is littered with ruins and relics of bygone ages. Some of it gets expanded on and turns out to be important to the backstory, but a lot is just hinted at to give the impression that the setting is ''old'' and didn't just sit there doing nothing until the main characters arrived.
** Even happens in-universe, with [[spoiler:Birgitte]] and [[spoiler: Mat (after he starts gaining access to the memories of his past life)]]. Being ancient characters, they have witnessed events that happened THOUSANDS of years prior and have been losts to the mists of time, so nobody around them has any idea what they're talking about when they start spouting off references.
** And because time in the setting is cyclical, many of the references are in fact to actual historical events in our time, but with the details garbled by the passage of the ages. Many of the oldest songs and stories will actually be surprisingly familiar to readers.
* ''Literature/WorldWarZ'' is in love with this trope, with casual mentions of numerous events during the Zombie War that never gets explained in-depth.
* ''{{Literature/Worm}}'' and its sequel ''{{Literature/Ward}}'' have many cryptic references, some of which receive later explanations or story arcs. Of the ones that have not:
** The Sleeper is the most prominent example that remains cryptic, an S-class threat whose presence causes ''an entire dimension'' to be written off for reasons that are so obvious to everyone that the reader gets no explanation.
** Why Canberra, the capital city of Australia is covered by a giant dome has never been explained, even when many other cryptic references have been addressed via word of god.
** The Three Blasphemies are an S-Class group of supervillains mentioned to be terrorizing Europe. This wouldn't be too remarkable except it's been suggested that they aren't human.
** The Machine Army is a group of self-replicating {{Killer Robot}}s that have been mentioned to be a persistent threat but have only been briefly featured in the narrative once. Who built them and why has been left unanswered.
* In ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'', when Ishtar, Goddess of Love, asks Gilgamesh to be her new mortal boy toy, he angrily rejects her, listing a number of her past flings whose stories ended in disaster when she tired of them. Some of his examples seem pretty self-explanatory, but a few are ''very'' weird and unexplained (apparently one of exes include [[BestialityIsDepraved a lion and a horse]]). Presumably, most of these references were pretty clear to the original Sumerian audience, who would be well-acquainted with these other stories, but no records of them are known to exist today, creating an extreme form of ParodyDisplacement.
* ''Literature/EncryptionStraffe'': Most details in the history or status of the major technology, locations and factions could only be inferred through insider dialogue, including those crucial to the plot. For instance, somehow the key technology to human-machine interface operates on... The power of hate.
* Creator/IsaacAsimov:
** ''Literature/FoundationSeries'': The Fifth Seldon Crisis [[ConflictKiller gets disrupted by the Mule]] during the events of "Literature/TheMule", while the Sixth and Seventh Seldon Crisis are never mentioned in Dr Asimov's works. ''Literature/FoundationsEdge'' opens during the successful resolution of the ''Eighth'' Crisis (with [[PosthumousCharacter Hari Seldon]] appearing during FoundingDay to announce [[AllAccordingToPlan exactly why they made the right decision]]), and characters refer to the Plan having been on track since the Kalgan War (which wasn't a Crisis and ''was'' covered), making it clear that all three happened, but only the Eight has any detail on its nature or resolution given[[note]]there was a political movement calling for the Foundation's capital to be moved from Terminus to a more central location, and it failed[[/note]].
** ''Literature/TheGodsThemselves'': No detail is provided on an event that killed about 4 billion people: "Just about the time the Lunar colony was being established, Earth went through the Great Crisis. I don't have to tell you about that."
* Creator/PaoloBacigalupi never really provides descriptions or actual expositions of his countless settings. While it was somewhat understandable when he was in short stories and novelettes, as seen in his ''Literature/PumpSixAndOtherStories'' anthology, once he started to write books, all the world-building is still done by off-hand remarks in dialogues and tiny snippets of information in narrative, going as far as giving a name-drop as all that is to provide information. Piercing together details about his recurring settings is a favourite past-time of his fans.
* Literature/TheBrightestShadow: Common, both in terms of characters referring to parts of the world not immediately relevant, and several epigraphs that refer to highly ambiguous events.
* Creator/HPLovecraft stories make repeated, throwaway references to fictional books and locales, but there's little evidence that the man himself had any unified vision in mind. His pals also did the same, throwing out cryptic {{Shout Out}}s to Lovecraft and each other's works. Enticed, the readers wanted more, and piecing together such references is part of the fun of the ''Franchise/CthulhuMythos''.
* Creator/JRRTolkien was a master of WorldBuilding, working on his Middle-Earth world from about UsefulNotes/WW1 until his death. ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' is full of lovingly crafted and referred-to details, many of which are left unexplained, whose stories first got public with the posthumous publications of the earlier stories.
** One thing Tolkien knew from his studies as a linguist and English teacher is that some of the old myths recreate the CrypticBackgroundReference effect ''entirely by accident'', when the relevant poems or stories are lost -- the medieval Finns probably had an explanation of what a [[TheSampo Sampo]] (from ''Literature/TheKalevala'') is, for example, but it didn't survive the Middle Ages.
** Then there are some things which never got elaborated on, even posthumously, like in ''Literature/TheHobbit'' when Bilbo makes reference to "the wild Were-worms in the Last Desert." Nothing remotely similar is ever even spoken of again.
** [[EldritchAbomination "Far, far below the deepest delvings of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things."]]
** Half of fun of reading Tolkien is this. Go read ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'' and go back and read ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''. Now revel in all the references most people didn't get the first time around. That part of the song Aragorn sings in ''The Fellowship of the Ring'' about Beren and Lúthien? Now you know the whole story. Bilbo's song about Eärendil that Aragorn seemed to find so cheeky to sing in Rivendell? It was about Elrond's father (and mother) who he hasn't seen in five thousand years and probably dredged up some bad memories about the ransacking of his home when he was a child by the sons of Fëanor. The list goes on.
** The Second Prophecy of Mandos, which describes what the end of the world will be like, is referenced (though not by name) in virtually all of the canonical stories of Middle-earth. However, the prophecy itself does not appear in canon -- only in Tolkien's earlier drafts for ''The Silmarillion''.
** ''Literature/UnfinishedTales'' also fleshes out several of these including the Cats of Queen Berúthiel that Aragorn mentioned during the journey through the Mines of Moria and the other two Wizards of the five Saruman brings up in his rant at Othanc.
!!!'''By Work:'''
* In the Mad Tea-Party scene from ''[[Literature/AliceInWonderland Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]'', TheMadHatter proposes the riddle, "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?" Some time passes before Alice, the Hatter and the March Hare all admit that they can't find the answer. This did nothing to stop readers from persistently trying to find answers such as "Creator/EdgarAllanPoe wrote on both." Although Carroll himself eventually came up with the answer "Because it can produce a few notes, though they are ''very'' flat; and it is [[SdrawkcabName nevar]] put with the wrong end in front!" Or "They both have inky quills".
* In the UsefulNotes/NaNoWriMo novel ''Literature/AndThenThereWereMonsters'', some of the monsters mentioned in the text are explained in Father Mallern's [[EncyclopediaExposita journals]]. Most are not. Dire cattle, for example, and referenced a few times, but never seen, and in the end all we know is that the only similarity they have with normal cattle is that they still have four legs.
* Alien characters in ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' often allude to various other species or situations that have nothing to do with the plot:
** For example, early books would sometimes list random species the Yeerks had supposedly enslaved, though practically none of them are seen except for Hork-Bajir, Taxxons and Gedds.
** There's also a whole subplot happening off-scene with a planet called Anati: apparently the Yeerks knew very little about it (including whether or not it was inhabited) and sent Visser One to conquer it, but she wound up failing for some unknown reason.
** "The Five," the mysterious race responsible for hunting the Venber to extinction. Ax doesn't know where they came from or why they called themselves that, but they have since also vanished, possibly due to the Andalites of old giving them a taste of their own medicine.
** At the end of book 41, the BadFuture Jake was experiencing turns out to be [[spoiler: a psychological test conducted by an unknown being, for no obvious reason but curiosity. We never find out who was running it.]]
** Crayak, a being who straddles the line between SufficientlyAdvancedAlien and CosmicHorror, was evicted from his galaxy of origin by an even ''more'' powerful being.
* The ''Mechwarrior Dark Age'' novels (based on the ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' game world) made references to events that had occurred in the 65-year TimeSkip since the last published ''[=BattleTech=]'' novel. The result was a lot of terms used in general discussion that had no explanation - The Jihad, the Ruins of Gabriel, Apollyon, the Master and so forth. Since then, new ''[=BattleTech=]'' fiction has begun to explain some of this.
* ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'' has Mr. Willy Wonka noting that Loompaland, the homeland of the Oompa-Loompas -- and a country none of the other characters have heard of -- is a HungryJungle full of "hornswogglers and snozzwangers and those terrible wicked whangdoodles" without explaining what exactly those beasts are (besides ''very'' hungry). This isn't surprising, as Mr. Wonka himself has a never-explained MysteriousPast and is InexplicablyAwesome. (For one thing, between the original novel and its sequel, he's apparently managed to travel the world ''without being recognized'' for years, and has knowledge of ''other planets and alien races''. Also, the [[Theatre/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory 2013 stage musical]] plays this concept for laughs with throwaway lines that reveal that he used to go to ''raves''.)
* Creator/CSLewis's ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'':
** Mr. Tumnus has a collection of books, one of which is ''[[FictionalDocument Is Man A Myth?]]'' It serves no purpose to the story other than world building and further setting up the FaeriesDontBelieveInHumansEither trope.
** ''Literature/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader'': The protagonists meet a magician, who is later revealed to be personified star who was sent to earth as a punishment. On being asked what possible crime a star could commit, they are simply told: "it is not for you, a Son of Adam, to know what faults a star can commit." The reference gets even more cryptic when Eustace comments that in their world stars are balls of flaming gas and is told that even in our world, that is not what stars ''are'', but only what they are ''made of''.
** Aslan's father, the Emperor-Beyond-The-Sea, is mentioned but plays no direct role in the plot. Presumably the reason he's there at all is because Aslan, being a [[CrystalDragonJesus Jesus-equivalent]], needs a [[{{God}} father]] to complete the reference.
** There are plenty of AlwaysChaoticEvil species in the setting, but there are a few unelaborated-on references to some of these species [[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch being in Aslan's army.]]
* Part of the charm of the early books of ''Literature/ChroniclesOfTheKencyrath'' is that the main character is a member of a race with ten thousand years of history, but our glimpses of this history is as through a glass darkly because the main character already knows her history and doesn't feel the need to monologue about it. The later books have filled in many of the references, but far from all of them.
* In the ''Literature/CodexAlera'' stories, there are several mentions of a group called "The Children of the Sun" who were, it seems, wiped out by the Alerans relatively recently (historically speaking) and, as a last action, did ''something'', ''somewhere'', for ''some reason'' and now there's the Feverthorn Jungle in the middle of the continent, that no one can enter for reasons which are unexplained. Though we get a rough idea of where it is (middle southeast of the continent according to the map in ''First Lord's Fury'') what makes the jungle impenetrable (even to the ''[[HordeOfAlienLocusts Vord]]'') is unexplained. The Alerans idly speculate that if they could figure out what the Children did, they might be able to turn it against the Vord.
** Also AllThereInTheManual, as Butcher explained it on the website. They're another sentient race (of plant-people, with Woodcrafting-like powers), who are now all dead, wiped out by the Roman legions shortly after they arrived on Alera (and hence [[BadassNormal before they had developed significant furycrafting]]). Of all the sentient races that have appeared on Alera, only the toughest survive the competition.
** The Children of the Sun aren't the only ones to get this treatment. Late into the series, a character reminisces about other sentient races the Alerans have wiped out in their struggle for survival:
--> ''The Children of the Sun were long since dead, their Realm rotted back into the Feverthorn Jungle. The Malorandim had been driven to extinction eight centuries ago. The Avar, the Yrani, the Dekh -- all gone, nothing left of them but names that Amara dimly remembered from her history lessons. Once they had all been rivals and tyrants to a younger, smaller, weaker Alera.''
* ''Literature/TheColdMoons'' throws around references to the badger's AnimalReligion but doesn't explain the mythology though. Some things are namedropped in passing but all that's clearly known is that: Their {{God}} is named "Logos", while their {{Satan}}/devil is "Ahriman". Their {{heaven}} is "Asgard" and it's stated that all species live in harmony in Asgard. "Sheol" is referenced but it seems to be a {{hell}} equivalent instead of [[TheNothingAfterDeath a Jewish-style Sheol]]. Some badgers aren't prayed for upon dying and thus they become eternally BarredFromTheAfterlife in a place above the clouds called "Gehenna". "Elysia" is the pastures of heaven and is also used as a short-hand for an otherworldly paradise. Badgers have a group of ancient laws called "[[TheCommandments the Adamus]]" (which is only mentioned by name, in passing, in the final chapter).
* In the beginning of ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'', the third-person narrator often makes references to historical events and figures, such as the fall of Gilead and John Farson, as well as important characters in [[BadassLongcoat the gunslinger's]] [[MysteriousPast past]]. Many of these are clarified later in the series, further expanding the previously sparse world.
* The story of Princess Nell in Neal Stephenson's ''Literature/TheDiamondAge'' starts out like this, and Nell and the Primer spend the next decade or so expanding the references.
* Often used in ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'', with throwaway references to things like the politics of the Guild of Engravers (although that one eventually became ''Literature/TheTruth''), or the various notes on Sam Vimes' desk that he's too busy with the main story to deal with, creating the feel that Ankh-Morpork keeps running even when there isn't a story happening.
* Two examples from ''Literature/{{Distortionverse}}'':
** The ''Tryadine Effect case'' which was solved by Veckert before the events told in ''Chapter 1 - La Notte che Cammina'' and resulted in the opening of the dome of St. Patrick SHIELD is ''never'' explained in details -- only hinted at;
** The bombardment of Moscow mentioned by Egon Kramers in ''Sabbie''.
* ''Literature/{{Domina}}'':
** Loads. The names of [[GangOfHats cultures]] and [[RankScalesWithAsskicking warlords]] are dropped without context, only to be explained a dozen chapters later. Since there's lots of ThemeNaming and {{Shout Out}}s, the audience has some clues to figure out what the names refer to before they appear on screen.
** The Dagonites get referenced every few chapters for hundreds of chapters, with no explanation. Even when Dagonite characters show up on screen, the other characters just note that they don't look as weird as they expected, and move on.
** Space colonies are referenced as well. A refugee from a minor mutiny on the Chinese Shaohao station crash-lands at one point, and later it's mentioned that the Soviet Tsiolkovsky Station is the communications hub for the colonies. Ceres gets a few mentions (it's implied to be a factory colony), and someone says that a character is from "Lemuria, on Mars."
** The fall of Eden is mentioned more than once as an important part of the city's past, but no context is given.
* Stephen Brust's ''Literature/{{Dragaera}}'' books use this in massive amounts. [[Literature/KhaavrenRomances Paarfi's novels]] are supposed to be historical fiction novels within the universe, so they assume that the reader is a Dragaeran who doesn't need additional explanations. Vlad sometimes seems to make the same assumption, but other times he explains common aspects of the world for the reader's benefit. Vlad will also make vague references to his various other misadventures outside of the scope of the current story without going into detail. Sometimes he says he doesn't want to digress, and other times he's simply cryptic. Some of these do get explained in future novels. Brust intentionally includes them as possible story hooks for future novels without planning on where they'll go.
* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' contain a fair amount of them, such as the reasons for some wizards not showing up to a White Council meeting in Chicago including "He got real married", "Living under a polar ice cap", and "Pyramid Sitting".
** In a case that ultimately ended up a subversion; in the first book Harry mentions that Santa Claus is real, and implies he's [[BadassSanta terrifying]]. Fast forward fourteen books, and we finally meet him in ''Literature/ColdDays'', and get a good idea of why Harry would have been scared of him in the first book.
* Used fairly frequently in Herbie Brennan's ''Literature/TheFaerieWarsChronicles''. Since most of the series is set in a fantasy realm with only two non-native characters present, references to simbala parlours, power outrages, border Redcaps, or The Reindeer King of Crippenmas are pretty commonplace. Some of these are given explanations in the glossaries, and a few end up connecting to the plots of later books, but many are left entirely unexplained.
%%* The ''Literature/HarryPotter'' books sometimes play this straight and sometimes use it to disguise a ChekhovsGun.
* Creator/MercedesLackey's ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'' novels have a handy store of ancient history at which to hint. Some characters (Vanyel, Lavan Firestorm) have had their own books, but she claims "Windrider" and "Sun and Shadow" likely will not, since they work better as distant legends.
* ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' is littered with these, with allusions to far-off planets and some of their inhabitants that are never explored in-depth. For instance, Maximegalon is apparently a planet with a very rich academic history, although it's never visited; neither is Blagulon Kappa, a world mentioned off-handedly several times but about which even less is explicitly stated. On the character side of things, Oolon Colluphid is apparently a very prestigious writer and an acquaintance of Zaphod Beeblebrox's (as of [[Literature/AndAnotherThing the sixth book]]), and some of his books have been named, but he's never personally encountered. The same goes for Eccentrica Gallumbits, the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon VI, and ex-president Yooden Vranx, who ''would'' have been part of the first story arc, but [[Creator/DouglasAdams the author]] wound up not going there. What's ''really'' interesting is that the many of the stars and systems he mentions are real, like Sirius. This amuses people with arbitrary knowledge of stars.
** There's also a bunch of almost-correct ones. There is no real-life planet called Ursa Minor Beta, but there ''is'' a star called Beta Ursae Minoris.
* In Creator/CliveBarker's ''Literature/TheLastIllusion'', the story mentions a botched exorcism attempt on Mimi Lomax which has scant but horrific detail. The novel "Everville" goes into this incident with more fleshing.
* ''Literature/LoyalEnemies'' has vampire kingdoms, which are alluded to a few times, and the islands, which are somewhere in Beloria, but we don't even learn in what direction.
* With the ''Literature/MonsterBloodTattoo'' series, D. M. Cornish not only strives to make the Half-Continent feel lived in with side comments and throwaway lines, but he has so many [[HeroOfAnotherStory side characters]] who appear and reappear within Rossamund's narrative that it leaves readers thirsty for all the potential other stories that could be told. There is, after all, a reason why the glossaries in the back of the books can be a third of the physical book.
* Much like the Sherlock Holmes example, the ''Literature/NeroWolfe'' series by Rex Stout begins on terms of false familiarity, and vaguely references past cases that are never fully explained.
* In Creator/MichaelEnde's ''Literature/TheNeverendingStory'', many vague allusions are made to the further adventures of secondary characters, always accompanied by the phrase, "But that is another story, and will be told another time." Needless to say, said stories have never been told.
** Actually plot-significant, and gives the book its title. In the ending, [[spoiler: Bastian is told he can't leave until every storyline he started up is finished. But given the rate uncompleted plots have been created (several story hooks get created for every one he finishes) he'd never be done. Atreyu saves him by taking on the task on his behalf]]. The movies leave this out, resulting in an ArtifactTitle.
* ''Literature/{{Neverwhere}}'' is full of this. Particularly the BigBad's motivation for [[spoiler: sinking Atlantis. All we get is him shouting "THEY DESERVED IT!"]] Creator/NeilGaiman's work has tons of this, but ''Neverwhere'' and ''Literature/{{Stardust}}'' are particularly big examples.
%%* Simon R Green often uses this trope in the ''{{Literature/Nightside}}'' series.
* Used in the ''Literature/OldKingdom'' books by Creator/GarthNix, and not overused, either. He's mentioned in interviews that he's not really into world-building — he just makes everything up as he goes along.
* Creator/HannuRajaniemi's ''Literature/TheQuantumThief'' features many references to cataclysmic events that shaped the world of the novel, but remain a mystery to the reader, and sometimes even to the characters due to lost historical records and memory manipulation. These include the Collapse that caused most people to abandon Earth, the Cry of Wrath, the Spike which somehow destroyed Jupiter, and the Protocol War. Some get elaborated in the later books and even become major plot points, while others remain a mystery.
* In Raymond E. Feist's ''Literature/TheRiftwarCycle'', there is a place called Roldem in the east of Midkemia. It is mentioned in a few of the books, and included in every map of the world, however over the course of more than 20 books, it is not visited at all. In fact, most of the information on Roldem comes from a single e-mail written in 1998.
* ''Literature/TheRiseOfKyoshi'' has a few mentions of Salai, who is listed alongside [[WarriorMonk Yangchen]] as one of [[TheAce the greatest Avatars ever]]. Nothing else, including gender or nationality, is mentioned.
* In the ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'' stories, Watson is famous for this, often referring to other cases, such as the one involving "the giant rat of Sumatra, for which the world is not yet prepared". Some of these became stories in their own right (though usually not from Doyle's pen), but most remain unexplained.
* Used masterfully well in Ulysses Silva's novel ''Solstice''. There is exactly one incident where things are properly explained by the main character (even then, it's mostly clarification on things you've picked up). Everything else is left for the reader to figure out. And quite often, everything you thought you'd figured out turns out to be completely ''wrong'', leading to many an [[EpilepticTrees Epileptic Tree]] until the very end.
* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': The series is full cryptic background references to various events (the tragedy at Summerhall, the Tower of Joy, "The Rains of Castamere", the Blackfyre rebellion, the Ninepenny Kings, the Doom of Valyria, etc). As the series moves on, some of them have been at least partially explained. The map is a large example too: Creator/GeorgeRRMartin has stated that not all locations on the map of will be visited in the story. Consider the fact that no viewpoint character has yet visited (during the story, that is) the Lannisters' home Casterly Rock, or the Basilisk Isles that show up on the map of (part of) the Eastern Continent.
* Gary Seven references events and races in ''Literature/StarTrekTheEugenicsWars'' when Roberta asks him to justify whatever their mission is - some of which the audience has heard of, some of which were just made up. [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] when Roberta complains that she's never heard of these events or races and can hardly check up on them.
* Following the tradition of the films, the ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' and ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' make references of their own, some of them mentioned or expanded on by others, some of them never mentioned again. It gets downright fractal at times. Try hitting [[http://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Special:Random Random Page]] on Wookieepedia and see [[WikiWalk how far you can get]] before finding an article with one line of description and one or two appearances.
** A discussion on the Falcon from the first book in ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy'', ''Heir to the Empire'':
--->'''Lando:''' She's as safe now as she's ever likely to be. Don't worry about that.\\
'''Han:''' You know, that's almost exactly the same thing you said back on Boordii. That botched dolfrimia run -- remember? You said, 'It'll be fine; don't worry about it.'\\
'''Lando:''' Yes, but this time I mean it.
* ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'' has lots of these, references made by characters to things that happened in their pasts, references to the history of the world etc. Given that only the first book of a ten book series has been released, and that Creator/BrandonSanderson loves to collect [[ChekhovsArmoury loads and loads of Chekhov's guns]] it's highly likely that a lot of them are just waiting to go off.
* In the ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' Literature/{{Nintendo Adventure Book|s}} ''Pipe Down!'', Princess Toadstool mentions that in the past (around the time of her ancestors) there were things far worse and more powerful than the Koopa Kingdom, but no elaboration is offered as to what she means by that.
* ''Literature/TailchasersSong'':
** ''Tailchaser's Song'' notes that cats have three names: a "[[FirstNameBasis heart name]]" that is given by birth and is only used by those the cat is ''very'' close to (such as family or mates), a "[[LastNameBasis face name]]" that is given in a NamingCeremony at three months of age and is used by almost everyone, and a "tail name" that is a private name that a cat must discover on their own. Tail names are never discussed with anyone and it's noted that many cats nowadays don't ever find their tail name. Face names like "Tailchaser", "Fencewalker", and "Whitewind" use [[CommonTongue Common Singing]] words, while heart names like "Fritti", "Tangaloor", and "Firsa" use Higher Singing words. It's never mentioned what a tail name sounds like. Tailchaser ''might'' have found his in the final chapter, but it's never mentioned what it is, if he did.
** It's mentioned early on that, upon reaching adulthood, a cat becomes a "hunter". This is not touched upon in other scenes and is never clarified. It's only mentioned that Tailchaser, who is not even a year old yet, is too young to be considered a hunter.
* "Literature/TheTamariskHunter": The events surrounding Lake Havasu City are referred to in-story, but beyond involving water and possibly the destruction of a water plant, it's not clear what they were.
* ''Literature/ThursdayNext'':
** {{Lampshaded}} continually in the series in the form of Textual Sieves. Roughly every other time they're mentioned, someone asks what they do, and are told that no one knows, since they're so sparsely described. Thursday asks [[Literature/GreatExpectations Miss Havisham]], and in turn Thursday5 asks Thursday how textual sieves work and the given explanation is "[[HandWave it's never properly explained]]."
** There's plenty of other examples, such as the "Boojumorial" of Jurisfiction agents lost in action ("Boojumed", or deleted), the views across the wilderness to other Great Libraries for other languages, the CityOfAdventure that is the Well of Lost Plots, previous disasters in the [=BookWorld=] (apparently, ''Theatre/TitusAndronicus'' used be "a gentle comedy of manners", but increasingly bad behaviour by the characters turned it into the "the daftest, bloodiest play in all of Creator/{{Shakespeare}}"), and items in Thursday's [=TravelBook=] that haven't yet turned out to be {{Chekhovs Gun}}s, such as String[-[[superscript: TM]]-]. There's even more examples in the Outworld, which to Thursday is [[ThisIsReality the real world]]. Genetic engineering means they've resurrected the woolly mammoth, but they don't have ducks; Britain was invaded by the Nazis during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and comedy musician George "When I'm Cleaning Windows" Formby led the Resistance, later becoming President-For-Life; The People's Republic of Wales; riots over [[SeriousBusiness art styles]] and literature; the weirder parts of [=SpecOps=], and so on.
* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': Sandy Mitchell's ''Literature/CiaphasCain'' books have loads, some of which get stories (a reference to hunting Tyranids on a hulk, now released as ''The Emperor's Finest''), others are not (yet) fleshed out (his encounter with a Dark Eldar wytch, and time spent on a Tau world, for instance).
* ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' novels are full of references to epic historical events and heroes, and the landscape is littered with ruins and relics of bygone ages. Some of it gets expanded on and turns out to be important to the backstory, but a lot is just hinted at to give the impression that the setting is ''old'' and didn't just sit there doing nothing until the main characters arrived.
** Even happens in-universe, with [[spoiler:Birgitte]] and [[spoiler: Mat (after he starts gaining access to the memories of his past life)]]. Being ancient characters, they have witnessed events that happened THOUSANDS of years prior and have been losts to the mists of time, so nobody around them has any idea what they're talking about when they start spouting off references.
** And because time in the setting is cyclical, many of the references are in fact to actual historical events in our time, but with the details garbled by the passage of the ages. Many of the oldest songs and stories will actually be surprisingly familiar to readers.
* ''Literature/WorldWarZ'' is in love with this trope, with casual mentions of numerous events during the Zombie War that never gets explained in-depth.
* ''{{Literature/Worm}}'' and its sequel ''{{Literature/Ward}}'' have many cryptic references, some of which receive later explanations or story arcs. Of the ones that have not:
** The Sleeper is the most prominent example that remains cryptic, an S-class threat whose presence causes ''an entire dimension'' to be written off for reasons that are so obvious to everyone that the reader gets no explanation.
** Why Canberra, the capital city of Australia is covered by a giant dome has never been explained, even when many other cryptic references have been addressed via word of god.
** The Three Blasphemies are an S-Class group of supervillains mentioned to be terrorizing Europe. This wouldn't be too remarkable except it's been suggested that they aren't human.
** The Machine Army is a group of self-replicating {{Killer Robot}}s that have been mentioned to be a persistent threat but have only been briefly featured in the narrative once. Who built them and why has been left unanswered.
* In ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'', when Ishtar, Goddess of Love, asks Gilgamesh to be her new mortal boy toy, he angrily rejects her, listing a number of her past flings whose stories ended in disaster when she tired of them. Some of his examples seem pretty self-explanatory, but a few are ''very'' weird and unexplained (apparently one of exes include [[BestialityIsDepraved a lion and a horse]]). Presumably, most of these references were pretty clear to the original Sumerian audience, who would be well-acquainted with these other stories, but no records of them are known to exist today, creating an extreme form of ParodyDisplacement.
* ''Literature/EncryptionStraffe'': Most details in the history or status of the major technology, locations and factions could only be inferred through insider dialogue, including those crucial to the plot. For instance, somehow the key technology to human-machine interface operates on... The power of hate.
