At The Core Of The Technic History

"The Star Plunderer" is the pivotal story in Poul Anderson's Technic History because it captures that moment when Earth has been sacked and the Solar Commonwealth has gone under but Manuel Argos leads a slave revolt and proclaims the Terran Empire. Mankind has sunk and rises again. Argos is a major figure in the History despite appearing in only a single short story.

However, I feel that "Lodestar" is the core of the Technic History. It was written to be a concluding Polesotechnic League story although fortunately its themes were expanded in Mirkheim. "Lodestar" is the last League story in The Earth Book of Stormgate and the concluding story in The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume II, David Falkayn: Star Trader. This story brings together prevailing themes and looks forward - albeit into uncertainty and darkness. It begins with a short trader team adventure that ends with an Andersonian moment of realization for David Falkayn. Chee Lan even mentions the Terran Empire as a possible, although less desirable, successor to the League. Next, the story summarizes the ten years of Nicholas van Rijn's life that follow the Satan/Shenna affair. Then he embarks in an Ythrian ship - the Ythrians are the other main narrative thread in this section of the History - and is accompanied by a new character, his granddaughter. In Satan's World, Falkayn:

"...had begun to grow wistful about finding some one girl..."

-Satan's World, XVIII, p. 506.

Coya Conyon is not only that one girl but also our viewpoint character on what is going wrong in the Polesotechnic League.

The highly dramatic and also historically pivotal conflict between van Rijn and Falkayn contrasts sharply with their first interview in "The Trouble Twisters," only five instalments earlier and also collected in Saga, Volume II.

Definitely a core story.