The Early Technic History

The Chaos occurs before the interplanetary exploration of "The Saturn Game."

The interstellar exploration of the first Grand Survey occurs during "Wings of Victory," which is about the Discovery of Ythri.

Hloch, writing after the Terran War on Avalon and introducing "The Problem of Pain," about the exploration of Avalon, refers to the Grand Survey expedition that had discovered Ythri and Avalon.

The entire history of the Polesotechnic League has occurred between "The Problem of Pain" and the Terran War.

Thus, Poul Anderson's Technic History approaches cross-temporal unity.

"...past and present and future have forever been intermingled and, in living minds, ever begetting each other..."

-The Earth Book Of Stormgate, p. 2.

 

The first Grand Survey casts its shadow forward across the History because:

 

it is referred to in the opening sentence of the eighth story, "A Little Knowledge";

 

the eleventh and twelfth stories, concluding the volume, describe the colonization of Avalon.