The post-Imperial instalments of Poul Anderson's Technic History systematically address human linguistic, biological, psychological and genetic divergences after the fall of Technic civilization. This explains why none of these four instalments features any non-human intelligences. But there were plenty of those earlier in the Technic History, many in single short stories but several becoming part of the history alongside humanity. We get an Ythrian perspective in
The Earth Book of Stormgate and a Merseian perspective in
The Game of Empire. A novel about Aycharaych could have given us a Chereionite perspective.
What must be happening elsewhere in the galaxy? The Dispersal of Ymir extends far beyond human space and the Ymirites must know of other spacefaring oxygen-breathers. A sub-series could have been set in another volume of space with little or no direct contact with Terrans, Merseians etc.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
That first paragraph does make sense of why we see no non-human characters in Anderson's four post-Imperial stories. Albeit, at the times he wrote, say, the first two of them, I don't think he had that idea you suggested in mind. He might have by the time all four were written.
Ad astra! Sean
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