The Milky Way In A Stone In Heaven

"Elsewhere were the stars in their myriads, argent sweep of the Milky Way, nebulae where new suns and worlds were being born, mysterious glimmer of sister galaxies."
-Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 1-188 AT XIII, p. 171.

Passages presenting brief descriptions of the Milky Way often refer to "sister galaxies" so maybe I should have been noting those references as well.

I have finished rereading A Stone In Heaven and started The Game Of Empire but there remain a few points to make about A Stone... For example, Flandry says of the Hermetians:

"'They're good stock; they'll become important again in the Empire...and afterward.'" (XIV, p. 186)

Thus, Hermes joins Nyanza, Freehold, Vixen and Dennitza as one of the planets that Flandry or his contemporaries hope will outlast the Empire. Millennia later:

neo-Freeholder techniques are still used;
other known planets, Kraken, Atheia and Ifri, survive;
there is a Vixenite colony called New Vixen.