Anderson was approached in 1953 by Twayne Press editor Fletcher Pratt with a story proposal: a scientist would create a world, and then he, Isaac Asimov and James Blish (Asimov thought the third writer might have been Blish's then-wife, Virginia Kidd)[1] would write novellas set in that world.

Anderson was able to sell Question and Answer to Astounding (where it appeared a few months after "Sucker Bait") and later to Ace Books.

Twenty-two years after the discovery of a faster-than-light drive, Troas is the only Earthlike world to be discovered, and enthusiasm for interstellar travel is waning.

Edward Avery, the expedition's psychomed, is unable to maintain group harmony aboard the ship, and at least one fight breaks out.

As the group of humans and Rorvan travel, Lorenzen listens to Avery's conversations with the aliens and realizes that their language is not nearly as difficult to understand as the psychomed claims.

When Lorenzen finally confronts Avery, the psychomed admits that he and his clique within Earth's government have been deliberately stifling interstellar travel, since they feel that humanity is not ready for it.

In the book, as noted, the Soviet Union conquered North America and Europe fell into a centuries-long devastation and chaos; conversely, in the Psychotechnic League history, the Soviet Union was totally destroyed, the survivors of its population reduced to the condition of "howling cannibals", while Europe recovered from its war devastation within a single generation.

In Psychotechnic League stories and books, psychotechnics stands for human peace and prosperity, for unification of Earth and afterwards of the entire Solar System – as against the forces of militarism, nationalism, political and religious extremism, which have caused World War III and might, if not stopped, cause "another war which humanity may not survive" (as described in "Marius").

In "Question and Answer", however, psychotechnics – having succeeded in establishing peace and stability – sets itself squarely against spaceward expansion, seeking to keep humanity within the protecting cocoon of the Solar System and prevent its spread throughout the Galaxy.