> I think we're sort of splitting hairs here -- and overlooking a bit of
> canon. What Merlin meant was that nothing remotely like the hegemonic
> "Terran Federation" would survive its collapse. But in /Space Viking/
> Beam also tells us -- via Harkaman (and the plot of the novel) -- that
> there were several "civilized worlds" (including Marduk and Aton and
> Baldur and Ishtar and Isis and Odin) which managed to survive and
> prosper /after/ the collapse of the Federation and into the Viking era.

Too much all-or-nothing thinking about the post Federation collapse.

Event in 800AD or so, there were still major cities in Europe the
Vikings couldn't hope to raid and plunder.

These formed the nucleus of the recovery Medieval and then Renaissance
civilization that "succeeded" ancient Rome.

So the post Federation collapse was horrible and destructive, but it
wasn't absolute.  A few worlds kept the lights on.

And from those seeds, fertiziled by the Space Vikings, the Empire grew.