"Star Probe/Empires/3rd? 1977'ish question" Topic

I was reading the forward in TSR Star Empires this weekend, and noticed something that I never paid attention to before. The Foreword indicated that John Snider had already written the third volume of the series. I know it didn't hit the retail racks, but was wondering if anyone ever saw this 3rd book or even heard anything definitive about it. I don't know if Mr. Snider is still around, but I'm just curious to know.

I tried purely for the challenge, but I think it's hopeless. John Snider with or without the M is too common a name, and unknown book titles beginning with "Star" might be even worse. John Snider Star Something only turns up Probe & Empires.

Forward to the contrary, I doubt there ever was such. "Has written" or "has completed" tend to be very flexible phrases in PublisherSpeak. Often they mean "has promised" or "might write if this one sells." If he'd actually had something useful in hand, hard to believe he couldn't sell it to a publisher in the 1980's. I mean, consider what game publishers actually bought in the era.

I have tried a web search also, but to no avail. I don't know what the Forward meant exactly and you may be right that it was playing fast and loose with the terminology. I was just reading through the two books this weekend and wondering what would have been the topic of the third book. The first dealt with exploration and the second dealt with empire building based on that exploration. I have never felt that the series was incomplete; just wondering what could have been the nature of the third book. In today's world, the first two could be sold as PDFs and the third could possibly be funded through some kind of kick starter.

If I were to speculate, I'd say it would be a RPG set in the universe where you're the crew of an exploration ship in an essentially procedural universe.