History Main / FutureImperfect

*** Subverted with the [[WeHelpTheHelpless Minutemen]], who show a pretty good grasp on the American Revolution they theme themselves after.

** The latter case is justified since that same episode ends with the implication that Android 18 consciously set out to destroy all country music after she and Android 17 killed off the Z Fighters.

** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E1TheMysteriousPlanet "The Mysterious Planet"]], the Three Books of Knowledge are ''The Water-Babies'', ''Literature/MobyDick'', and a UK public information volume about geese.

* David Macaulay's ''Literature/MotelOfTheMysteries'' is the story of a group of far-future quasi-Victorian archaeologists who uncover the buried remains of a 20th-Century American motel under a hundred feet of [[OlderThanTheyThink civilization's accumulated trash]] and decide that it's a sacred burial site. In a parody of contemporary [[AdventurerArchaeologist archeological discoveries]], the ''toilet'' and the ''television'' are considered to be the holiest of artifacts, given their apparent place of honor.
* PlayedForDrama in ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'' by Creator/GeorgeOrwell, where [[InvokedTrope historical records are actually altered by the ministry of truth to make the Party look good]]. They say they invented the airplane, for one thing. The protagonist still remembers the time when they only claimed to have invented the helicopter... and predicts they'll soon be saying they invented the steam engine. They also say that DroitDuSeigneur was practiced by Industrial Age capitalists.
* The sequel series to ''Literature/TheObsidianTrilogy'' by Mercedes Lackey has folk tales about the characters in the first trilogy that are so blatantly inaccurate (or in some cases, just plain made up) that one has to wonder if the historians of Kellen's time period even tried to write down what was going on. Made more blatant than usual, despite the centuries long time skip between the trilogies, by the fact that due to the longevity of elves, several of the people in those stories were ''still alive'' (and for some reason had made no attempt to correct the histories).
* In ''The Outrider'' series by Richard Harding, someone sees a large sign near the ruins of Las Vegas advertising KINO CRAPS SLOTS and assumes it's a public insult directed at a guy named Kino.
* Third Earth (Earth in the early 51st Century AD) in ''Literature/ThePendragonAdventure'' inverts this. As one character put it, they "know everything about everyone and everything they ever did."

* In Creator/IsaacAsimov's science fiction novel ''Literature/TheStarsLikeDust''--set many thousands of years in the future--two characters discuss the etymology of the Horsehead Nebula (through which they are traveling at the time). One character confidently asserts that the name actually comes from a man named Horace Hedd (who was the first person to explore the nebula); the name "Horsehead" Nebula is thus presumably an example of folk etymology. (The other character, who has recently visited Earth, does note that Earthmen explain the name as the nebula resumbling the head of a certain Eath animal, a "horse". As he points out, the name could ''only'' have arisen on a planet that looks at the Nebula from the correct angle, and that perhaps there never was any such person as "Horace Hedd".)

* ''Website/{{Cracked}}'': The article [[http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_216_25-common-items-that-will-baffle-future-archeologists/ 25 Common Items that Will Baffle Future Archeologists]] And its kinda-sequel, [[http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_348_23-modern-images-as-misunderstood-by-future-acheologists/ 23 Modern Images as Misunderstood by Future Archeologists]]. One such contest had a "fertility goddess" statue with exaggerated sexual characteristics, more identifiable as ''VideoGame/DragonCrown'''s Sorceress.

** House Atreides takes its name from supposedly being descended from Atreus, father of Agamemnon and Menelaus of Greek myth. Needless to say, they were not actually real people, featured only in ''Literature/TheTrojanWar''.

* The Australian sketch comedy series ''The Comedy Company'' featured a parody of David Attenborough who used this trope (played for humour of course) when examining modern society.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'':

*** At one point, you meet a caretaker of an American history museum in Rivet City who has made quite a few mistakes (for one, he thought the Declaration of Independence was flown to Britain on a plane), even with the history that occurred before the game's timeline diverged from real history. This is justified in-universe by the nuclear war, the fact that the best sources of info in the Capital Wasteland are currently overrun with Super Mutants, the Brotherhood or both, and because other groups like the Slavers are actively attempting to destroy historical artifacts for their own ends.

*** This generally subverted in civilized areas like the New California Republic, and even places like the Mojave Wasteland. Thanks to the presence of intact archives in places like the Vaults, attempts to recover pre-War artifacts, and extraordinarily long-lived individuals like ghouls or Mr. House, there's some general understanding of what the Old World was like and the period leading up to the Great War, however imperfect said understanding might be.

*** Moe Cronin, the owner of the baseball store in Diamond City, believes that baseball was a BloodSport in which players would beat each other to death with "swatters," catch bullets with their gloves, keep a tally of kills on their baseball cards, and autograph balls to give to their victims' next of kin. Being a FishOutOfTemporalWater, the [[PlayerCharacter Sole Survivor]] is given the option of correcting him and explaining the rules -- sounding very irritated about the whole mess. Moe decides he likes his version better. Unbelievable.

*** Some Raiders have set up a base of operations next to Walden Pond, and consider Creator/HenryDavidThoreau to be the trope maker for CrazyPrepared -- hence the expression, "being thorough."

* ''VideoGame/JobSimulator'' takes place in a distant future where {{Job Stealing Robot}}s have made human workers obsolete, and one of the past-times available to humans is experiencing virtual recreations of "jobs". These recreations of such jobs as office worker, gourmet chef, convenience store clerk, and automobile mechanic are not very accurate, and mostly an excuse to have you mess around with random objects in each scenario.

* ''Fanfic/TheWritingOnTheWall'': Daring Do and her crew come across what they believe to be a foreboding tomb with an ancient curse warning people to stay away. [[spoiler: It isn't a tomb, but a nuclear waste dump and end up poisoned with radiation]]. This is a rare example that is PlayedForDrama.

* ''ComicBook/TheSpirit'': An Creator/AlanMoore story done for ''The Spirit: The New Adventures'' sees the immortal Denny Colt taking a tour of ruined Central City conducted by a guide majoring in necropology (a form of archaeology concerning “dead cities” abandoned long ago due to climate disaster). The Spirit is now believed to be a god of this old civilization, the Holy Spirit, his blue wardrobe representing the Virgin Mary’s garb. Several women associated with the Spirit — Ellen Dolan, P’Gell, and Plaster of Paris — are conflated into Plaster of P’Gell, sometimes called P’Gellen (and at times further confused with “Ellen of Troy”). Oh and based on studying our “billboards” it’s been concluded that one of our chief gods was [[AllHailTheGreatGodMickey Cokaco, who eventually slew his brothers and rivals Pepsico and Texaco]].

* The ''Tales From the SMP'' episode "The Lost City of Mizu" takes place one hundred years after the events of the LetsPlay/DreamSMP, where a group of fishermen stumble upon the titular underwater city, which is supposedly dedicated to preserving the legacies of the characters of the Dream SMP. Unfortunately for them, the characterization of each person is distorted ''[[ExaggeratedTrope heavily]]'', to the point that most of the "facts" shown there are direct opposites of the characters in reality, some of the characters are heavily {{flanderized}} with their HiddenDepths ignored, and some characters like [[FallenHero Wilbur]] are [[{{Unperson}} lost to time altogether]]. There are even [[ImpliedTrope implications]] that canonical LGBTQ+ relationships have been [[HideYourGays straightwashed]] over time. This may be partially justified by Ranbob, the keeper of the city, having [[ForgetfulJones memory problems]] like his supposed ancestor, Ranboo.

* Creator/IsaacAsimov's ''Literature/FoundationSeries'': The Empire's inhabitants don't even know what planet humans evolved on. Not only that, but there are those who scoff at the idea of humanity having come from a single planet at all, convergent evolution being the preferred model of Imperial philosophers. Amusingly, one of the few scholars who does believe in EarthThatWas, and has pieced together clues about the planet from fragments of myth and legend, includes brontosauruses and orcs on a reconstructed list of its dangerous wildlife.
* Crossing over with ShroudedInMyth, the Christian cross in Lois Lowry's ''Literature/GatheringBlue'' is known as "The Worship Object". Because of [[AfterTheEnd The Ruin]], all knowledge has been lost about it to the community, but the citizens, knowing that it was important in the past, worship it out of sheer respect.

* ''[[Franchise/SpiderMan Amazing Spider-Man]]'' #439 "There Once Was A Spider..!" written by Tom [=DeFalco=]. It featured future archaeologists having discovered one of Spidey's webshooters in an old building, and intertwined with the "current" timeline. How they perceive Spider-Man ranges from the generous to the outlandish to just plain inaccurate. For example, they thought the wall-crawler was often praised (cut to a cop "today" telling him to "SCRAM!") and that his wife was the envy of her friends (cut to MJ, alone, weeping with worry). What's more, there are [[ShoutOut some nods]] to a certain [[Franchise/{{Batman}} pointy-eared hero]].
* An arc in ''ComicBook/AstroCity'' deals with the hero Jack-in-the-Box meeting two BadFuture AntiHeroSubstitute versions of himself, one of whom, the Jackson, basically worships him like a god due to having been raised in a cult. Though he's deeply familiar with all of Jack-in-the-Box's adventures, he's interpreted the guy as a cruel KnightTemplar who showed no mercy to criminals rather than a goodnatured SpiderManSendUp who defeated his villains nonlethally through goofy clown-themed methods. In particular, he believes that "Of course you realize, ThisMeansWar" was a declaration of vengeance... which leaves the actual Jack-in-the-Box aghast, as he tries to explain it was a WesternAnimation/BugsBunny quote.

** ''ComicBook/{{Hitman}}'' reveals that, by the ''One Million'' timeline, Tommy Monaghan is remembered as a hero of the streets battling against ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd''-esque cops and a monstrous creature called "[[Franchise/{{Batman}} The Bat]]", and in love with "[[PromotedToLoveInterest the beautiful Natalie]]". It's implied that at some stage, somebody wrote an [[VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory at-best fanciful story]] about "[[IAmNotShazam Hit-Man]]", likely hundreds of years after he died, and it's only decayed since then. Monaghan is initially just incredulous that he's remembered at all, as he was mostly an unimportant contract killer who shot mobsters for money... though he doesn't take long to start giggling at the fact that, among other things, "Natalie" [[GenderFlip was actually Natt]].

* The concept behind many of the DC's 1996 ''ComicBook/LegendsOfTheDeadEarth'' annuals.
** Whether recounting stories of 20th century superheroes, or trying to [[LegacyCharacter follow in their footsteps]], the people of the distant future get a lot of things wrong. The ''Comicbook/{{Catwoman}}'' annual has Selina and Bruce as an OutlawCouple, the ''ComicBook/{{Superboy}}'' one is set on a world where the legend of Franchise/{{Superman}} has been merged with Aztec mythology, and the ''Comicbook/{{Aquaman}}'' one has two storytellers (implied to be the last survivors of Atlantis) come to blows over whether Arthur was a hero or a villain.
** In the ''ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'' Annual #1 story "The Legend Lives On", S'age gives her rendition of the Supergirl legend. Superman and Supergirl were metas from Krypton who gained their powers from exposure to Kryptonite radiation. Supergirl was the last being to leave Krypton after many failed attempts to save the planet. She and Supermen then journeyed to Earth, where they fell in love, got married and had a son, Superboy. Supergirl gained the ability to [[VoluntaryShapeshifting shapeshift]] from Kryptonite radiation and used it to transform into her secret identity of [[ComicBook/LoisLane Lo Slane]]. S'age claims that Supergirl could still be alive as she was a self-regenerating protoplasmic lifeform who was active from the First Heroic Age to the time of the [[ComicBook/LegionOfSuperheroes Legion of]] [[ComicBook/TeenTitans Titanic]] [[ComicBook/LegionOfSuperheroes Superheroes]]. She also believes that Supergirl once went crazy and tried to the destroy the world, an event called [[ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths the Crisis]].

** This is played with in the ''[[Franchise/GreenLantern Guy Gardner: Warrior]]'' Annual #2 story "The Legend Lives On!". The historical records on the asteroid museum Warriors celebrating the life of Guy Gardner claim that he fought injustice from the day that he was born (punching the doctor who slapped him), had a normal and happy upbringing, was always at the top of his class in high school, was a great athlete, served as the leader of the Justice League and was always faithful to his lady love, the goddess Ice. The museum does acknowledge that some archival sources suggest that Guy came from a dysfunctional family and that he was a high school dropout, a mediocre sportsman and an "obnoxious, womanizing hothead" who turned on the Green Lantern Corps. However, the tour guide Lumita claims that all of these stories are either inaccurate or were deliberately created to sully Guy's reputation. [[spoiler:It turns out that Guy is still alive and well, Lumita is his daughter and he created Warriors to promote himself and his legacy.]]
* Members of DC's ''Comicbook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'', transported a thousand years into the past to 1990s America, mistake a fairly average wall for the Great Wall of China. A {{lampshad|eHanging}}ing from the Post-ComicBook/ZeroHourCrisisInTime Legion of Super-Heroes. A museum curator in the 30th century tells visitors: "-and of all the surviving structures of the second millennium, we know the most about the Alamo. For example, it was here that Panamanian strongman George Washington wrote his classic poem, 'The Raven'-".
* In ''ComicBook/SecondComing'', it is revealed that Jesus's message from the events of the New Testament have become nearly unrecognizable to due to the two-thousand years of hearsay and political tampering, barely recognizing it when he finds a copy of it.
* Iris Allen had been born in the 30th century, growing up in the 20th and later returning. When she made a return to Wally West's life, she explains that she stayed away because she was worried her knowledge of the future would affect things. But Iris changes her mind when a former girlfriend of Wally's, who (according to Iris' notes) was supposed to live a long life, is murdered. It makes Iris realize you can't count on historical records from over a thousand years to be perfectly accurate and thus her "knowledge" may not be so certain.
* An Creator/AlanMoore story done for ''ComicBook/TheSpirit: The New Adventures'' sees the immortal Denny Colt taking a tour of ruined Central City conducted by a guide majoring in necropology (a form of archaeology concerning “dead cities” abandoned long ago due to climate disaster). The Spirit is now believed to be a god of this old civilization, the Holy Spirit, his blue wardrobe representing the Virgin Mary’s garb. Several women associated with the Spirit — Ellen Dolan, P’Gell, and Plaster of Paris — are conflated into Plaster of P’Gell, sometimes called P’Gellen (and at times further confused with “Ellen of Troy”). Oh and based on studying our “billboards” it’s been concluded that one of our chief gods was [[AllHailTheGreatGodMickey Cokaco, who eventually slew his brothers and rivals Pepsico and Texaco]].
* ''Comicbook/{{Transmetropolitan}}'' takes place in a future where no one even knows for sure what year it is.

* When Bishop first traveled to the current time, he didn't believe the ComicBook/XMen were who they said, because their exploits had become so legendary by his time that they were basically viewed as gods.

* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' New Series Adventures novel ''The Coming of the Terraphiles'' by Creator/MichaelMoorcock, the Terraphiles are Old Earth enthusiasts who base their understanding of Old Earth entirely on a selection of 1930s British "Boy's Own" adventure novels. Their Renaissance Festival is based around a game called Whackit, which combines cricket with archery (one of the books was ''The Adventures of RobinHood'').

* ''Fanfic/NobledarkImperium'': The Tindalosi, a poorly-understood species of time-traveling predators, are named such due to reasons long lost to the Imperium beyond a single written account from the 23rd Millennium, which compares them to creatures from "[[Literature/TheHoundsOfTindalos an ancient Terran story]]".

** In [[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Bjorn_the_Fell_Handed#Tales_of_Bjorn one]] /TG/ fanfic, Bjorn the Fell-Handed (see below under tabletop games) gets dredged up to tell stories (again,) and immediately begins disabusing the modern Space Wolves of some notions (ex, Leman Russ' heroics took second place to him being a JerkAss and nobody was nearly as wolf-obsessed as they are now).
** [[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Feral_World_Religion A similar story]] involved a primitive world that had long ago been taught the legend of the Emperor, and seen the whole thing mutate heavily over the years. Many of the names are wrong, and several of them have been altered greatly (for example, Sanguinius is now a beautiful female angel, Guilliman is reinterpreted as the fishlike Gill-Man, and Horus is a very evil horse). There's also some cases where the biases of the people who taught them the legend, the Salamanders, shine through; for instance, the controversial regulations of the Codex Astartes was reinterpreted as the Coat of Stars, a mysterious artifact that "the Gill-Man" used to try to castrate his brothers. That said, their interpretation of Leman Russ as [[BoisterousBruiser a shirtless barbarian bedding women and smashing his enemies with a flagon of ale]] was pronounced more or less completely accurate.

* ''Fanfic/TheLionTheWitchAndTheFairysTail'' follows the ''Manga/FairyTail'' wizards being involved in the plot of ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'', starting with Natsu, Gray, Lucy, and Erza as the protagonists of ''Literature/TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe''. In the sequels ''Return to Narnia'' and ''All Aboard the Dawn Treader'', it is shown that 1300 years have altered the Narnian's recollection of the wizards. For one example, Lucy's epithet "The Radiant" was thought to mean how beautiful she was rather than [[SummonMagic her ability to summon Celestial Spirits based on the stars of her world]]. Likewise, Narnian history recorded Natsu and Lucy [[MistakenForRomance as having been married during their rule]], while at the most the two had ShipTease and weren't in any romantic relationship at the time.

[-[[caption-width-right:321:Image used with permission.]]-]

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