How To Package The Technic History

After considerable re-reading and reflection, I think I have found the perfect titles, and by implication contents, for omnibus collections of Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilisation:

THE POLESOTECHNIC LEAGUE
STAR TRADER
TRADER TEAM
AVALON AND EMPIRE
YOUNG FLANDRY
OUTPOSTS OF EMPIRE
FLANDRY AND EMPIRE
CHILDREN OF EMPIRE
AFTER THE EMPIRE

OUTPOSTS OF EMPIRE would comprise only "Outpost of Empire" and The Day Of Their Return. The Terran Empire is successfully resisted in the first but not in the second. The Day Of Their Return, about a potential jihad originating on an inhospitable but colonized planet, is comparable to but more plausible and substantial than Frank Herbert's better known, twice dramatized, Dune.

CHILDREN OF EMPIRE would contain the three novels featuring sons and daughters of four characters, including Dominic Flandry, who were introduced in the first of the three YOUNG FLANDRY novels. Thus, the Technic History would have two solid concluding volumes, one for the Empire period and another for the series as a whole.

At the end of TRADER TEAM, van Rijn, title character of STAR TRADER, and Falkayn, the leader of van Rijn's Trader Team, anticipating the decline of the Polesotechnic League, begin preparations that will bear fruit on the planet Avalon whereas, at the end of CHILDREN OF EMPIRE, the post-Imperial "Long Night," although foreseen, remains more remote - two of the "Children" are about to embark on new adventures. For both League and Empire, a single significant narrative emerges from the diverse individual stories and novels.

Anderson was able to spread his story lavishly over many volumes yet still to leave major questions unanswered or even unasked. Flandry's opponent Aycharaych may have been killed at the end of A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows (CHILDREN OF EMPIRE I), yet it is hinted that he might still be around in The Game Of Empire (CHILDREN OF EMPIRE III). I accept that Aycharaych's species, the Chereionites, were the Ancients but where did they go and what does Aycharaych do after his disappearance? During the Empire period, the Merseians sought to destroy and supplant the Terran Empire. Why do they seem no longer to be around after the Fall of the Empire? Did Aycharaych do something to thwart their schemes? After earlier events, he might have been motivated to do so and might also have been even more successful than Flandry.