Transition To Empire

The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume III, Rise of the Terran Empire, ends with The People of the Wind. Volume IV, Young Flandry, begins with Ensign Flandry. This is the fictional chronological order of these two novels, the single Ythrian novel and the first Flandry novel. However, Hloch's twelve introductions and one afterword to The Earth Book of Stormgate are fictitiously written shortly after the events of The People of the Wind, therefore long before the events of Ensign Flandry. In the pre-Saga reading order, the Earth Book directly preceded Ensign Flandry. 

In "Sargasso of Lost Starships," the Terran Empire annexes the planet, Ansa. In The People of the Wind, a Terran Imperial armada including a Planet-class cruiser called Ansa fails to annex the planet, Avalon. Thus, we have twice seen the Empire in conflict outside the Solar System. Ensign Flandry begins with the planet-wide carnival of the Emperor's Birthday on Earth.

We have seen the Empire as an aggressor. With Flandry as hero, we will read narratives recounted from the Imperial point of view. But first we get Lord Marcus Hauksberg's perspective:

the Empire was won and is maintained by naked power;

the central government is corrupt;

the frontier is brutal;

the Navy is the last organization with high morale;

but it it lives for war, oppression and anti-intellectualism.