An End

I think that Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History needed something after The Peregrine even if "The Chapter Ends" was not necessarily the best choice for a concluding instalment. 

We needed to be told that:

the Stellar Union did not last;

there was a Third Dark Ages;

the Nomads, with some recruited Coordinators, preserved knowledge into a further future;

there was an eventual Galactic civilization where psychotechnics was at last developed fully.

Some of this knowledge comes to us from an interstitial passage by Sandra Miesel rather than from a text by Anderson but nevertheless it completes the picture.

Miesel makes two points:

"Given the prevailing stage of psychodevelopment, the innate contradictions with individuals and societies could not be resolved."

-Star Ship (New York, 1982), p. 252.

- and, in the very next sentence:

"Critical data that needed to be gathered surpassed the capacity of any organization to comprehend, much less coordinate." (ibid.)

The first point reflects the overall theme of this future history series. The second was made by Coordinator Trevelyan Micah early in The Peregrine. The consequence of both points is that:

"The Stellar Union flew apart like an overwound spring." (ibid.)

Miesel's first point has reminded me of a similar passage in Olaf Stapledon's future history but the prevailing stage of psychodevelopment is such that I must meditate for half and hour before trying to find the passage.