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[LMeire]

Now that Entities are starting to learn, write and talk about the world, (at least superficially, which will hopefully have an in-game impact soon.) I think it'd be a good time to bring up the possibility of persistent mistruths, myths and legends that just never actually happened but get repeated as scientific/historical fact anyway.

In a world of magic like DF tends to generate I figure there'd be a lot more superstitions than our relatively magic-free world; especially if there's no plans for "predictable industrial magic" that will always work the same way- people you tell about the pond that randomly boils away in the full-moon will be more likely to accept that it actually happened and if your word is proven wrong, maybe even invent variables you didn't account for when you "witnessed" it yourself which then get added to the superstition when they tell someone else. 

Mechanically, I think this could tie in with lying, just relying on general world data instead of personal entity data. Functionally, I'd like to see things like procedurally generated "snake oil" effects, semi-rare circumstances where otherwise worthless materials become valuable because potential customers falsely believe that the substance has supernatural properties like "good luck" or "disease immunity". Some in-game reference about what superstitions your civilization has would be nice to see, but I'd settle for some conversation options and/or just an occasional price inflation in the trading screen.

[The Big D]

Bumping for potential

I really like this idea, perhaps false medicines?

[Witty]

I could see this. Toady already has authors writing alternate history stories, so having DF deviate from all myths are true is certainly a possibility. Would certainly give the various entities some much needed individuality and uniqueness.

[Vattic]

Toady has mentioned this kind of thing a few times before. Incomplete knowledge, wrong maps, and similar. From what I gather he wants it in the game, but it's not trivial to implement and first he needs a world of facts to build the fiction on top of.

It would be really neat to see different groups in game perceive the same world differently. Different overlapping myths with varied interpretation and explanations for the world. Maybe an adventurer could never find a definitive answer to some of the deeper questions.

[GoblinCookie]

Now that Entities are starting to learn, write and talk about the world, (at least superficially, which will hopefully have an in-game impact soon.) I think it'd be a good time to bring up the possibility of persistent mistruths, myths and legends that just never actually happened but get repeated as scientific/historical fact anyway.

Actually I would prefer it if some events were disputed overall, so we cannot tell if any given event actually happened.  This would be done by attaching all 'facts' to a source and make it actually impossible to tell which events actually happened except by carefully comparing facts from different sources and evidence where applicable. 

We could use the same setup that hides events from us if we set reveal all history off and hide all actual truths.  Instead all events we can see as they are written by somebody or are the prevailing word of mouth of a given civilization.  Unlike at present we would be able to access legends mode during play, but only to see events as our entity is aware of them. 

The hard bit is trying to come up with the underlying reasons for being wrong.  That means we would have to give events a weighted value, both in the sense of how likely are they to become widely known and whether they are favourable events or not.  Amnesia would be 'motivated', so that civilizations would tend to remember all their victories but either forget or underplay their defeats. 

[Bouchart]

Throw in geocentrism and heliocentrism.

Urist: I'm telling you, the earth revolves around the sun!
Bomrek: Heretic! Burn him!
Cog: What is this "sun"?