In the early 1990s the Strugatsky brothers began writing what they intended to be a final Noon Universe novel. It would have tied up some of the plot threads that were left unresolved in previous novels. However, following the death of Arkady Strugatsky, the surviving brother, Boris, felt that he could not bring himself to finish the novel. The book should have been named "White Ferz" (). "Ferz" or "Vizier" is the Russian term for a Queen in chess. The Strugatsky brothers planned the book as a direct sequel of "Prisoners of Power" following the story of infiltration of the progressor Maxim Kammerer into the elite of the Island Empire.