[2] The common elements are the Jiffi-scuttler transport device, the company, Terran Development, that manufactures it (and still exists to play a large role in the later works), and a summary of Prominent Author as an event of the past in chapter 2.

There are two dominant US political parties, the "Republican Liberals" and the "States Rights Conservative Democrats" who run CLEAN, a racist frontgroup that opposes Briskin's candidacy, although higher-income white American voters support him.

Terraforming becomes a pivotal election issue, until a warp drive malfunction in a "'scuttler" tube results in the discovery of an apparently uninhabited alternate world, an 'alter-Earth' where Homo sapiens either never evolved or lost in competition with other early hominids.

In this case, the point of divergence appears to have occurred between one and two million years ago, as Homo erectus, also known as Sinanthropus, Pithecanthropus or Peking Man, is the dominant species.

During this time the conjoined twin businessman George Walt, who had run the Golden Doors of Bliss satellite brothel, had emigrated into the parallel world during initial colonization and set himself up as a "wind god".