Different Histories

See the previous post.

Earlier, I had argued that the references to psychodynamic science in "The Acolytes" and in some subsequent stories do link the FTL (faster than light) period of the Psychotechnic History back to its pre-FTL period. However, this link is thematic rather than specifically historical. Psychodynamics, like hyperdrive and anti-geriatrics, can exist in more than one fictional future.

If Volume I not only ended with "Brake" but also presented the Chronology only from World War III in 1958 to the Second Dark Ages beginning in 2300 and, if Volume II, beginning with "Gypsy," presented the Chronology from the invention of the hyperdrive in 2784 to "The Chapter Ends" fifty or sixty thousands years later, then these would be two self-contained volumes, not closely linked.

In some time travel fiction, a character can start out in one timeline and wind up in another. In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, time travellers returning from the past find that a quantum fluctuation in space-time-energy has altered the timeline beyond a certain historical nexus point. Such ideas could be applied to future histories. Thus, a character might disappear from the author's first future history series and appear in his second. However, this should be done, if at all, only understatedly with readers having to deduce that it has happened. For the most part, each history should retain its internal integrity without any extra-historical interruptions disrupting the flow of events.