Scholium Criteria

The criterion for inclusion of a text in the New Testament was whether this text proclaimed the Resurrection of Christ in fulfilment of scripture, not whether the text was otherwise consistent with other texts in the canon. 

A comparable criterion applies to James Blish's Haertal Scholium. A story or novel may refer either to Haertel himself or to some other element of an earlier narrative while not necessarily maintaining full consistency with every other such additional instalment. Thus, "A Dusk of Idols" and Mission To The Heart Stars both refer back to The Star Dwellers but are not necessarily mutually consistent. Haertel and Garrard exist in the past of a story where a telepathic "Central Empire" occupies the galactic centre and also in the past of a novel where the non-telepathic Hegemony of Malis occupies that same volume of space.

Story elements even extend beyond the Scholium:

in "A Case of Conscience," which became Book One of the Scholium novel, A Case Of Conscience, the planet Lithia exists in 2049;

in Book Four of the non-Scholium collection, The Seedling Stars, Lithia still exists millennia later;

in Book Two of A Case Of Conscience, Lithia explodes in 2050.

The Dirac transmitter:

first appeared in Blish's Okie series;

was developed more fully in the independent story, "Beep";

was not only developed further yet again but also incorporated into the Haertel Scholium when "Beep" was expanded as The Quincunx Of Time and linked by a Dirac message to Midsummer Century.

Einstein and Mars exist in alternative fictional futures. So likewise may Haertel, Lithia and the Dirac transmitter.