Progress And Regression

A future history series can show progress in some periods but regression in others. In Robert Heinlein's Future History, Volumes I and II show technological progress on Earth and in space whereas Volume III shows not loss of technology but restoration of theocracy with repressive applications of communications technology, including the Voice of God broadcasting station faking an "Incarnation." (In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Christ in TV ads tells true believers which products to buy. In George Orwell's 1984, there is ubiquitous surveillance through two-way telescreens and the proles would even be allowed religion if they wanted it.) In James Blish's Cities In Flight, the Bureaucratic State bans space travel but not before some colonials have escaped from the Solar System and, back on Earth, scientific knowledge cannot be suppressed indefinitely. Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History has a Second and a Third Dark Ages, the latter eventually to be succeeded by multi-species galactic civilizations, whereas his Technic History has a Time of Troubles and a Long Night, the latter eventually to be followed by a flowering of human civilizations through several spiral arms of the galaxy.

So our authoritative authors anticipate future rises and falls modeled on those in the past.