| abstract
| - Back in the Golden Age of science fiction, a rough outline of the future began to form. It was largely hinted at in various stories that shared many common attributes. Whether or not this was done consciously is unknown, but the fans noticed the trends in the stories and pieced it together. Thus formed the Standard Sci Fi History. The Standard Sci Fi History is a broad template, which hinted to a future history. At the time, it allowed writers to hint at a common reference readers would understand. The savvy reader would notice these hints, and understand the background to the setting. This avoided bogging the tale down when trying to explain everything. Although the details greatly vary, the outline was basically the same: 1.
* Exploration and Colonization of the Solar System: Humanity explores the Moon, Mars, and the rest of the Solar System. Earth is always a looming presence. While travel times may be immense, space trips are common and a message can always reach earth in under a day. Apart from the oldest SF, none of the worlds explored are humanly habitable. Typical plots also include the colonies starting Wars of Independence from Earth. 2.
* World War III: Disaster strikes (often nuclear war), and Earth is devastated. When the Apocalypse occurs can actually vary, sometimes after Interstellar Colonization, sometimes before Spaceflight, sometimes during the Decline of the Empire. But often, a devastating war occurs in the beginning of the timeline. No matter how bad it gets, Earth and humanity eventually recovers. Whenever it happens, it serves to wipe the political map clean, removing all modern day nations as players. If the timespan till the next phase is long enough, multiple wars may be used to fill the centuries inbetween. 3.
* Interstellar Exploration and Colonization: Superficially similar to #1, only spreading out to the Stars. However, unlike #1, the focus is on inhabitable worlds, and contact with earth is difficult at best. There's no phoning home for advice when the message round trip would take years. Lost colonies were typically founded during this phase. This is also the period during which faster than light travel is generally invented. 4.
* Alien Contact: Humanity makes First Contact with alien life forms. This can happen at any point. It's placed for here for convenience, since the best known Alien Contact tales occur before the Empire forms. The precise sub-genre depends largely on whether the aliens are technologically inferior, comparable, or superior to humanity, and whether or not they are hostile, but it ranges from alien invasion to humans playing star-god. 5.
* The Cycle of Empire: 6. 1.
* Formation of Empire: At this point, the independent human and/or alien worlds are united for whatever reason. Sometimes its for a common defense, sometimes its by force. The result is the birth and expansion of new government. Note: Empire doesn't have to mean The Empire (although it often does). It could be The Federation, or the rise of interstellar civilization. The First Empire is often centered on Earth. 7. 2.
* Empire at its Height: Here, civilization is at its apex, showing the best qualities and values. Technology is highly advanced and there is order. During the Interregnum, people will look back to this time as a Golden Age. The various iterations of empire differ slightly. The first is the most optimistic period. The Second Empire is generally wiser and more benevolent, but is also aware that empires can fall. In the Golden Age, the Second Empire was often also the Final Empire. Third and later empires are essentially the same setting as the Second Empire, but the higher number serves to imply an old galaxy, not locked in stasis.Whichever iteration it is, authors rarely focus much on the Empire itself. Presumably there's simply not enough action. Tales set during this period typically focus on exploration of unknown space, or small scale dramas - the kind of events that might shake a solar system, but go completely unnoticed by the larger galaxy. If this period doesn't turn out to be the Final Empire, eventually the edifice begins to crack, leading to: 8. 3.
* Decline and Fall: The Empire begins to decay, often due to decadency and corruption. Outer provinces begin to revolt, barbarians begin to invade, internal conflict increase. At the end of this phase, the Empire is but a shadow of itself. Expect this phase to bear at least a passing familiarity to Edward Gibbon's seminal text or Gibbon's own successors, though exceptions have been known to exist. 9. 4.
* Interregnum: Interstellar trade and communication fails, final demise of the former Empire, knowledge and technology is lost, rise of petty wars and kingdoms. Overall, not a great place to live. A lot of Space Opera tales are set in this stage. Rarely, this can end with humanity's extinction. 10. 5.
* Renaissance: Rebirth of knowledge and civilization. Interstellar trade and communications resume, and the seeds of a new Empire are planted. From here, the history can circle round back to Formation of Empire. Otherwise, it leads up to: 11.
* The Final Empire: During the final empire, humanity/interstellar civilization becomes highly civilized, peace reigns, and humanity explores the ultimate questions (God, Life, and the Universe). Note that all empires at their zenith do this kind of thing. It is just at this stage, humanity can confront such questions directly. This period can only be distinguished from previous empires when its future is mapped out. 12.
* Humanity's Final Fate: Humanity Ascends to A Higher Plane of Existence or mysteriously vanishes/goes extinct. Sometimes this could lead to the literal End of History. This was the most commonly used timeline. However, it doesn't mean every writer followed every single Stage. Some Stages got rearranged, others are skipped totally. It should also be noted that this History was often Human-centric, although aliens were sometimes followed this template. See the Examples below. Often the history was linear, but the steps could repeat themselves. In particular, the cycle of empire might only happen once, or might repeat any number of times; interstellar exploration can continue on the frontiers of the civilization even at the height of empire; and alien contact can occur at any time, quite possibly more than once. Also called "Consensus Cosmogony" by Donald A. Wollheim, a science fiction fan and scholar who identified the trope. See also The Trope History of the Universe. Examples of Standard Sci Fi History include:
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