Future history

[jude_rook]

This page on Winchell Chung’s website contains a lot of useful notes on designing a future history.  Of particular interest to me is the chart reproduced from James Blish’s Cities in Flight series, outlining how his particular 2000-year-plus scenario was influenced by the cyclical theories of Oswald Spengler.  I believe Spengler’s work has fallen somewhat into eclipse in recent decades, but maybe he’s due for a comeback -- and in any case, there’s no prohibition against adapting his theories for your own interstellar civilization.  Or better yet, subverting them, which is pretty much what Blish did!