Know Your Enemy II

Poul Anderson wrote that The Game Of Empire "...is a sort of coda to the biography of Dominic Flandry..." (Flandry's Legacy, New York, 2012, p. 191). Thus, two novels, Ensign Flandry and The Game Of Empire, bookend the Flandry series just as two short stories, "The Saturn Game" and "Starfog," bookend the Technic History as a whole.

Two characters are introduced in Ensign Flandry and last seen in The Game Of Empire, not only Dominic Flandry of Terra but also Tachwyr the Dark of Merseia.

In Ensign Flandry, Flandry is an ensign and Tachwyr is a mei, roughly equivalent to lieutenant, j.g. In The Game Of Empire, Flandry is a Fleet Admiral and informal Imperial adviser while Tachwyr is Hand of his Vach and Protector of the Roidhun's Grand Council.

Thirteen works of different lengths are set between the Flandry bookends. Flandry appears in eleven of these and Tachwyr in two of the eleven. In A Circus Of Hells, Flandry is a lieutenant, j.g., and Tachwyr is still a mei. In A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, Flandry is a captain, knighted, and Tachwyr, described as Flandry's "...opposite number..." is a qanryf (A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, London, 1978, p. 98).

Thus, although Tachwyr appears only four times and might be overlooked, his career from start to finish closely parallels Flandry's.