Lodestar IV

Poul Anderson's "Lodestar" informs us that human beings from the colony planet Lochlann are among the crews and agents of Supermetals. Therefore, I was mistaken to state in a recent post that Lochlann is first mentioned in stories set during the post-Imperial period of Technic Civilization.

The Supermetals Company, enriching itself by mining supermetals from the supergiant companion planet of a former supernova, represents backward planets like Diomedes, Woden and Ikrananka and neglected colonies like Lochlann (human) and Catawrayannis (Cynthian).

The Terran Empire buys Catawrayannis from its Cynthian discoverers and settles it with human colonists;

Diomedes is still experiencing social and economic difficulties in Flandry's time (late Empire);

aristocratic Lochlanna later dominate Nuevamerica, which rebels, and become a force in the Allied Planets.

Thus, in the case of Lochlann at least, Supermetals made some long term contribution towards the eventual revival of interstellar civilization after the Long Night. Another example is the human colony planet Vixen which funded much needed weather stations thanks to its participation in Supermetals and later founded New Vixen which was part of the Commonalty serving an entire galactic spiral arm long after the Allied Planets.