Accepted Histories

From The Coursebooks Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Formal title: H.P. Galactis's On the Accepted Histories of the Alliance and Known Worlds.

The Accepted Histories is a group of books (eighty-nine volumes at the end of the Age of the Dragon) that attempt to chronicle all of recorded history, from the beginning of the Mage Wars up until the modern era (the Fourth Age at the time of first publication, the end of the Age of the Dragon when they stopped being revised).

The name 'Accepted Histories' arose in the early Fourth Age, and refers specifically to a series of unverifiable claims; but is more broadly used to describe any number of stories that might be "tall tales" but are often accepted as fact.

Historians did not chronicle the Mage Wars or the early history of the Alliance until nearly a thousand years after the events had transpired. Most written records were destroyed during the Second Chaotic Period, and what was left was usually full of gaps. Oral traditions only preserved important events, not dates or specific figures.

Composing the Accepted Histories Text

Essentially, by the time anyone thought to sit down and get the story straight, nobody knew which stories were true or not. Archeology began digging into the past, but was hampered somewhat by the lack of written records. Essentially very little was known with absolute certainty.

Some data known to be unverified eventually made it into the standard historical record, which occasionally caused mild outcry. Other times, known false facts made it in, which caused massive outcry.

As the Ages passed, and more and more of recorded history became available, precise details about the distant past grew less important. The Second Age, being only 1,000 years removed from the Mage Wars, was far more concerned about themselves than the Fourth Age, which began over 3,000 years after the wars' end. With some important events more than 3,500 years before that, it was often questioned why certainty was so important when it came to things nearly 7,000 years ago.

Thus came the rise of the Accepted Histories, which began as a series of books written by Herbet Patric Galactis, who combined known historical facts with stories and unverified claims to create what he called an "acceptable picture of history". Anything conclusively proven untrue was removed from the series, while those "facts" for which there was no evidence 'for' or 'against' and were not of significant importance were allowed to remain. Anything based only on stories written hundreds or thousands of years after the fact was carefully prefaced as such.

Galactis continued to update and revise his "histories" for the rest of his life, and in the centuries that followed, more authors and historians continued to contribute. Though much of the validity of the Accepted Histories is questionable, it is still considered the most concise picture of what transpired during the Age of Mages and the Golden Age.

Other Uses

While the Accepted Histories refers to a certain body of text, it has also been used to describe a number of specific "facts" generally accepted as true. Typically, their proof as true or false would have no major impact on history.

Specific Examples

The scientist Kit Fernel who lived early in the Golden Age, often claimed to be a descendant of Johan Fernel, who lived over 3,000 years earlier. There is absolutely no historic evidence supporting or damaging this claim, so it is widely accepted as fact.