A Guide to the Cetian worlds
This is the guide to the Cetian worlds Urras and Anarres,
the worlds in Ursula K Le Guin's The Dispossessed.
See also:
About the planets 
The term Cetian is really a Terran term to refer to the twin worlds
of Urras and Anarres, the latter being the moon of the first. Urras was
(as all other known inhabited worlds) colonized from Hain many millenia
ago.
The calendar of Urras and Anarres is slightly confusing. For example,
Odo lived 698 - 769 accourding to her tombstone. This is apparently the
way they tell time, by the last three digits in the year. The millennium
is usually omitted.
Odo lived on Urras, she never came to Anarres. Her ideas - called Odonianism
- are those of anarchism, of a harmonic way of life based on mutual trust
and personal initiative.
Anarres Town was founded at the foot of the Ne Thera mountains in the
Urrasti year IX-738, as a mining operation. The self-plundering eras of
the Ninth and early Tenth Millennia had left the lodes of Urras empty.
Only the men went to work there. At the same time Thu had a secret base
on Anarres. In 771 the Thuvian government collapsed and as a consequence
it was decided to give the moon to the Odonian. Anarres Town was evacuated,
as well as most - but not all! - of the people in the Thuvian base. For
over twenty years twelve large ships shuttled a million Odonians to Anarres,
after which the space port was closed and migration was stopped. Anarres
town then held a hundred thousand inhabitants and was renamed Abbeney.
Anarres is arid. No large animals ever evolved there, and apparently
none were (surprisingly enough) brought by the odonians when they colonized
it. There is however some fish in the seas. On Anarres, men and women
are treated as equals. The family is largely replaces by collectives.
There is no marriage equivalent, although a less formal partnership is
common. The usual way of living is in common houses and dormitories, not
in private houses. In general, people own very little private things;
"Excess is Excrement" as Odo put it. There is no money on Anarres.
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