Diana's father is Dominic Flandry, the main character in other books about the Terran Empire. The Terran Empire works are part of a larger series dubbed by critics the "Technic History." The first part of the Technic History focuses on the Polesotechnic League, a group of traders and entrepreneurs who search the galaxy in search of business opportunities. The second part of the Technic History focuses on a period that follows about three hundred years after the first—an era in which the Terran Empire that followed the Polesotechnic League is corrupt and in decline.

Although Anderson's Roma Mater (1986) was published after The Game of Empire, it seems as if its research came before the writing of The Game of Empire. The subject matter of Roma Mater requires its inclusion of the rebellion of Maximus; there would be no such requirement for a science fiction...