automation and extraterrestrial minerals make production cheap;
fusion units or proton converters make energy cheap;
faster than light interstellar travel becomes possible;
sociopolitical dissidents found extra-solar colonies;
interstellar distances and cultural differences prevent political union;
but there is no reason for interstellar conflict and good reason to avoid it;
colonies want home luxuries, home wants colonial products and older civilizations can exchange much;
importing is cheaper than synthesizing;
capitalists compete against each other but also cooperate against planetary governments;
the Polesotechnic League unites and employs members of a thousand species, cuts across political and cultural boundaries, makes policies and treaties, establishes bases, fights wars and spreads civilization;
the League is Terrestrial in origin but spread thinly across space and unpredictably changed by nonhuman peoples.
"'The world's great age begins anew...'"
- Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2009), p. 555.
"We cannot foretell what will come of it. We do not know where we are going. Nor do most of us care. For us it is enough that we are on our way." (ibid., p. 556)
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