Ursula K. LeGuin’s Hainish cycle has long been my favorite sci-fi world. It has such great lessons in humanity, sociology, and life, and the wealth of world-building is something I aspire to. But the timelines that I’ve seen online just feel wrong. By LeGuin’s own admission, there’s no set timeline for the overarching universe that her stories take place in. Yet I don’t think that has to be the case.
Most timelines put the Shing control of Earth somewhere in the middle of the timeline, and then handwave how an Earth stripped of its cultural heritage reverts back to close to normal later.
Instead, I put the Shing-controlled Earth at the very end, and have the Earth colonies’ revolt be the “Age of the Enemy” that is referred to in Left Hand of Darkness.
Similarly, I have events happening simultaneously across the vastness of space: The radical Christianization of the Earth that precedes The Telling happens while the events of the Left Hand of Darkness are occurring.
Werel/Alterra is just doing its own thing without outside contact and very slowly all throughout the Ekumenical period.
A number of non-Hainish stories of Earth colonization I put into the pre-LOAW period, as well as the stories of pre-League ki’O.
The size of the cells have no fixed time measurement associated with them.
Let me know what you think.
