Conclusion(s)

Poul Anderson wrote "Lodestar" as a conclusion to his Polesotechnic League series but then added Mirkheim as a more comprehensive conclusion, explaining in detail what had gone wrong between League companies and also winding up the affairs of continuing characters even including Sandra Tamarin, Grand Duchess of David Falkayn's home planet, Hermes, who had been on Diomedes with Nicholas van Rijn in The Man Who Counts - as I said, comprehensive. In Mirkheim, two major changes happen in the lives of trader team members. First, Coya Conyon has married David Falkayn and joins the team although no instalments are set during this period. There is a single short passage of reminiscences by David. Secondly, the Falkayns start a family and stop trade pioneering. They have learned lessons from the irresponsibility of van Rijn's generation. Chee Lan joins another team and Adzel spends time as a lay brother in a Buddhist monastery in the Andes. Next, van Rijn reassembles the original team for an investigative mission to belligerent Babur. They then make a second mission to occupied Hermes. And that really is the end. We last see van Rijn, Sandra, Falkayn, Adzel and Chee Lan on Hermes after the conclusion of the Babur War. The following instalment is a short story about the Falkayns' grandson on Avalon during the long decline of the League. We never see the League again. The rest of the Technic History is fairly schematic:

the colonization of Avalon

the Troubles

the Terran Empire

the Terran-Ythrian War

the Flandry period

the Long Night

the Allied Planets

the Commonalty period with human civilizations in several spiral arms of the galaxy and the beginning of a new era of unprecedented wealth although, unfortunately, no more stories.