Parallel Future Histories

Poul Anderson's Technic History is so long, complex and comprehensive that it holds our attention for a considerable period. Comparing it with even one other future history series broadens our mental horizons to a certain extent.

(i) The Technic History passes directly from interplanetary travel to FTL interstellar travel whereas Anderson's earlier Psychotechnic History has an intermediate STL period. In both cases, FTL is via a (different) version of hyperspace.

(ii) The Second and Third Dark Ages in the Psychotechnic History correspond to the Time of Troubles and the Long Night in the Technic History. 

(iii) In the Technic History, the First/Terran Empire spans the period from Troubles to Long Night whereas, in the Psychotechnic History, the First and subsequent Empires exist between the Third Dark Ages and the later Galactic civilization. (Here I accept that "The Chapter Ends" is a part of the Psychotechnic History. Its psychotechnicians can be seen as a remote fulfilment of the aims of the originally supressed Psychotechnic Institute. Otherwise, this story becomes a separate piece of future historical writing.)

(iv) Both series culminate in a single work describing mankind more widely distributed in space. In the Technic History, human civilizations have spread through several spiral arms of the galaxy and some populations are ceasing to be human whereas, in "The Chapter Ends," mankind, mentally controlling cosmic energy, migrates to the Galactic Centre, leaving the periphery to the gas-giant-inhabiting Hulduvians. This is also a parallel with some other future histories. In "Watershed," at the end of James Blish's pantropy series, Adapted Men have spread through the galaxy and will even recolonize the now desert planet Earth. In "Safe At Any Speed," at the end of Larry Niven's Known Space series, known space has become the Thousand Worlds and human beings have become genetically lucky.