Erasmas becomes aware of Orolo's discovery after Orolo is banished (in a rite called Anathem) from the concent for using a video camera (a forbidden technology) to observe the ship. His teacher, Fraa Orolo, discovers that an alien spacecraft is orbiting Arbre – a fact that the world government ( Sæcular Power) attempts to cover up. The narrator and protagonist, Fraa Erasmas, is an avout at the Concent of Saunt Edhar. The avout are normally allowed to communicate with people outside the walls of the concent only once every year, decade, century, or millennium, depending on the particular vows they have taken. The avout (intellectuals separated from Sæcular society) are banned from possessing or operating most advanced technology and are supervised by the Inquisition, which answers to the outside world. Thousands of years before the events in the novel, the planet's intellectuals entered concents (monastic communities) to protect their activities from the collapse of society. Anathem is set on the fictional planet of Arbre.
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