Neither is happy about the arrangement at first, but they spend the next twenty-five years effectively preventing rebellions against the Empire so that the Imperial Navy can concentrate on blockading the Moties in their star system.

While investigating suspicious economic activity on the planet Maxroy's Purchase, Renner and Bury encounter wide idiomatic usage of the phrase "...on the gripping hand".

The source of the phrase turns out to be innocuous enough — the governor picked up the expression as a crewman on INSS MacArthur on the expedition to Mote Prime — but the memories dredged up are too much for Bury.

The sole currently existing Alderson Point leads to the photosphere of the supergiant red star Murcheson's Eye, which made the blockade much more practical.

With the aid of the grownup offspring of Lord and Lady Blaine, raised in the company of Mediators brought back by the first expedition, Bury and Renner fight to save the Empire.

[4] In his 1991 collection Playgrounds of the Mind, Niven stated that he and Pournelle were contractually forbidden from collaborating on any projects until they had completed a sequel to The Mote in God's Eye.