Different Kinds Of Temporal Sequences

See the previous post, "Missing Empires"

As a matter of fact, Poul Anderson's "The Star Plunderer" was published in Planet Stories in 1952 whereas his "The Chapter Ends" was published in Dynamic Science Fiction in 1953 so that, in this case, the Technic History story preceded the Psychotechnic History story. However, disparate stories were not pulled together into the Technic History until 1959. Add to this that the position of "The Chapter Ends" in the Psychotechnic History is disputed. Thus, these two stories were written at a time when they might have been either one offs or instalments of some third, First Empire/Sol City, series.

Nevertheless, for most of their publication histories and in their creator's mind, the Psychotechnic History precedes the Technic History. In fact they form not a chronological trilogy but a conceptual triad with Robert Heinlein's original Future History:

Future History, the model

Psychotechnic, modelled on the model

Technic, not modelled but growing organically into a Heinleinian future history