In future histories, society has to change and the changes have to be explained.
In Robert Heinlein's Future History, technology progresses but society regresses, leading to a theocracy and the Second American Revolution.
In James Blish's Cities In Flight, the currency for interstellar trade is the germanium-based Oc dollar so that, when the germanium standard fails, there is widespread bankruptcy and the end of the Okie culture.
(No cities fly in Volume I.)
Heinlein, Blish and Anderson had to think about how society works and about how that would affect the lives of their characters. We can think of several future histories in parallel.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I don't believe in what used to be called the Whig view of history: "progress" is inevitable, ineluctable, impossible to stop. Rather, human history is chaotic and unpredictable, and societies can go backward and forward, up and down, or sideways. And we're lucky if we end up with something not too terribly bad. History is one dang thing after another.
Ad astra! Sean
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