A History Of Beginnings II

One advantage of regular blogging is that we are always free to add to, or even to contradict, recent posts. In A History Of Beginnings, I identified sixteen, (i)-(xvi), "beginnings" in Poul Anderson's Technic History. However, I omitted one that I had thought of, then forgotten. This should have been no. (vii), thus transforming the existing (vii)-(xvi) into (viii)-(xvii).

I refer not to the short story, "Hiding Place," but to the Introduction to that story which is signed "Le Matelot." Thus:

Poul Anderson, "INTRODUCTION HIDING PLACE" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 555-556.

Although this two-page passage is presented as an "Introduction" to one particular story, it in fact introduces the entire Polesotechnic League period and really belongs much earlier in the series, before the story, "Margin of Profit." It is about beginnings and indeed begins:

"The world's great age begins anew..." (p. 555)

You cannot get any more "beginning" than that! This means that the "beginnings" that directly or indirectly affect David Falkayn are:

first contact with Ythri;
exploration of Avalon;
"The world's great age begins anew...";
Adzel's student days;
Falkayn's apprenticeship;
the trader team's first mission;
the discovery of Mirkheim;
the founding of Supermetals;
the colonization of Avalon -

- nine of the seventeen.