Two pivotal elements form the backdrop of everything that happens throughout The Broken Earth Trilogy. The first is the ongoing climate catastrophe, referred to as Seasons: unpredictable but inevitable environmental disasters that last anywhere from years to centuries and force human beings to build their society around surviving these events. The second is the systemic oppression and enslavement of orogenes, ostensibly because they are a danger to society, but more truthfully because their ability to control the earth provides a defense against the geological instability that makes life so precarious. Thus, in the eyes of those who built this system, climate catastrophe necessitates oppression. Orogenes born into this world have very few fates awaiting them, each as tragic as the next. They are either lobotomized and turned into a node maintainer; are taken in by the Fulcrum and conditioned to accept their oppression through fear, abuse, and anti-orogene ideology; or try to hide what they are only to be killed the first time they slip up and reveal their abilities.

The Syl Anagist interludes in The Stone Sky reveal that both the Seasons and the systemic oppression of orogenes arise from the imperialistic and exploitative attitudes of the Sylanagistines. Throughout the interludes, Syl Anagist is portrayed as an oppressive, genocidal, and capitalistic empire whose appetite for expansion culminated in it dominating the entire planet.