Present, Immediate Future And Further Future

"The Saturn Game" refers to:

"...war and fantasy games..." (p. 25)

- as:

"...a revolt of the mind against the inactive entertainment, notably television, which had come to dominate recreation..." (ibid.)

"...during the middle twentieth century..." (ibid.)

Thus, this one story links the period during which Poul Anderson wrote the Technic History, 1951-1985, his "present," to the future periods described in the History. The story also presents the only account of the first of these fictional periods, the recovery from the Chaos during the twenty-first century.

The second story, "Wings of Victory," leaps to the period of the Grand Survey during the twenty-second century. However, the introduction to "Wings of Victory" leaps several centuries further to the aftermath of the Terran War on Avalon. Anyone reading Anderson's Technic History for the first time in The Technic Civilization Saga finishes the opening story, "The Saturn Game," then reads two pages of references to the Stormgate Choth, Ythri, Avalon and the Empire - references that lack any context as yet. In fact, they will not be fully elucidated until the end of Volume III of the Saga.

However, far from being any kind of flaw in the narrative, this early preview of later developments provides an excellent introduction to a future history series. Readers do not understand everything that they read as yet but also know that all that they need to do is to continue reading.