The Barrayaran Imperium consists of three planets, a number of space installations, and roughly fifty million people scattered across its various components.
Barrayar is the homeworld of the three-planet Barrayaran Imperium. Barrayar was originally founded as an Earth Colony long ago, by what are known in Barrayaran history books as the Fifty Thousand Firsters. These settlers descended from several Earth cultures, with the result that Barrayar's official languages today are various dialects of English, French, Russian, and Greek.
But what should have been an orderly colonization and terraforming job for these settlers soon turned into a voyage back into the Dark Ages. The interstellar wormhole through which they had transited from Earth vanished just as mysteriously as it had appeared. The colony cascaded back into a near-Stone Age without the aid of support ships from their home planet. Most of the technology of advanced civilization vanished on Barrayar.
And so the colony was lost to galactic civilization for several hundred years, a period known as the Time of Isolation. The colonization of Barrayar—unlike those of Beta Colony or Escobar—degraded into a ragged fight for survival, as the world descended into chaos.
But humans are stubborn, and the settlers managed to hang on and multiply despite hostile native flora and the constant threat of mutations cropping up among the descendants of the original settlers. A new civilization was born. A feudal aristocracy developed among the contentious settlers as factions among them fought for power over their world. The warring elite were eventually united and merged into a real unitary government by Dorca Vorbarra. His central government restored a rough and ready order planet-wide, though one that strongly favored its elites.
Ruthless customs, including infanticide, sprang up among the population to keep human mutations at bay and the colony healthy and growing. As the population grew, the canny use of all the planet's resources—native and Earth-derived—helped the colony thrive, though hardly in the ways foreseen by the initial settlement plans. Among the many problems tackled by the early colonists was how to aggressively make Barrayar hospitable to Earth-descended agriculture and animal husbandry before they all starved to death. They succeeded, but much of the original planetary ecology was irrevocably lost in the areas so cultivated.
During this Time of Isolation from galactic civilization, the basic political structure on Barrayar settled down into a single government headed by a hereditary Emperor, supported by an equally hereditary aristocracy known as the Vor. The word Vor implies an obligation of duty and service to the Emperor. The Vor were originally the planet's warrior caste.
More than a hundred years prior to the present galactic civilization, Barrayar was once again rediscovered by the larger human community. The planet rapidly absorbed newly available galactic technology, but the habits acquired during the Time of Isolation died hard. To this day, the planet remains an archaic society in the eyes of galactics, who view it as both fascinating and primitive. But its unique issues also give rise to unique virtues.
The opening of the planet to the galaxy had consequences far beyond the importation of lightflyers and computers and the exportation of a reputation as a backwater. The Cetagandans invaded Barrayar through a wormhole near Barrayar's closest neighbors, the planet Komarr, in an attempt to claim Barrayar as a colony. The Barrayarans responded in a way that the astonished Cetagandans never anticipated. Led by Ezar Vorbarra and General Piotr Vorkosigan, the Barrayaran resistance retreated to the mountains and fought back viciously, relentlessly, and successfully. It took twenty years, and the deaths of five million Barrayarans, but the Cetagandans were eventually driven off the planet.
They left an odd gift behind. Because of the necessity of utilizing every bit of their native talent to survive in the wider galaxy, the traditional Vor privileges of Imperial service were no longer reserved for the Vor alone. The war opened up the Imperium to the idea of service based on merit, rather than bloodlines. The Imperial academies were opened to non-Vor applicants based on aptitude, and the society eventually became more level, with the military serving as an egalitarian force on Barrayar. But it is still forbidden for non-Vor to privately own deadly weapons, including a wide range of swords, though many citizens gain access to such weapons through Imperial training and government service.
At the apex of Barrayar's hereditary Vor aristocracy are the counts. The term "count" derives from the job's origin in the people—accountants—who procured taxes for the Emperor from the local populace, amassed it into organized offerings, counted it, and delivered it to the proper Imperial authorities. The North Continent is divided into sixty districts, each run by its own count. The counts give their loyalty to the Emperor though a ceremony of fealty, which includes a placing of their hands between the Emperor's, and a voiced repetition of oaths. (This style of vocal affirmation—spoken vows serving as binding words of honor—is something that pervades Barrayaran society.) The fealty ceremony is renewed with the installation of each new Emperor.
The counts serve in a legislative Council, which has a great and glorious history, along with a number of highly archaic traditions, and its share of insane adventures—including the famous affirmation of a horse named Midnight as a count's legal heir. In modern Barrayar the Council of Counts is a rather mixed body of progressives, conservatives, geniuses, and idiots. But, having grown into being along with the planet, this form of government provides a workable, if occasionally erratic and confusing, arm of the Imperium. Signs of modern progress in local government are evident everywhere on the planet, thanks mainly to a law passed during Aral Vokosigan's Regency government, which allows ordinary citizens to move from Count's District to Count's District without restriction. On Barrayar, the planet's people in effect vote with their feet for the best forms of local government.
After a number of bloody insurrections, including everything from quick and dirty wars over the distribution of the horse manure from the Imperial Stable to the rebellion of counts against the insane Emperor Yuri Vorbarra, private armies have been abolished on Barrayar. All military service is through the Imperium, with the single exception of the counts' armsmen. Each count is allowed to maintain a private, oath-sworn force of twenty loyal men for personal protection.
The Barrayaran planetary day is 26.7 hours long, and Barrayaran ships keep Imperial, rather than Old Earth, time cycles. The planet has two moons, a temperate climate with four distinct seasons (as on Earth, winter, spring, summer, and fall), and a topography that is very Earth-like, including large oceans. There are two main continents and a number of islands. The North Continent was settled by the original colonists, and is the main population center of the planet, although the South Continent, which is the personal property of the Emperor, has been opened to settlement for some years and is expanding in population quickly.
Barrayar's mythology is varied. Military and cultural heroes from the planet's recent and distant past are celebrated, along with a number of carryovers from Old Earth culture, including Russian fairy tales and Greek mythology. The main holidays celebrated on Barrayar are the Emperor's Birthday, Midsummer Review, and Winterfair, where the coming of Father Frost is eagerly awaited by all Barrayaran children. The planet's society is still very much a male hierarchy, with inheritance laws based on primogeniture, and the military and Imperial Security academies are still closed to women. The Army and its domestic arm, Imperial Security, or ImpSec, are still all-male organizations. Women are making strides toward more rights, but they have a very large amount of ground to cover before true equality is achieved. Currently their power base is gained through manipulating the men around them, for better or worse. But with increasing levels of education and pressures from other galactic civilizations, great change is inevitable in the long term.
Komarr is a planet with a single main reason for its settlement, namely a rich supply of wormhole jumppoints in its immediate vicinity. By charging a hefty tariff on all goods passed through those jump points, the various merchant families who formed the ruling oligarchy on Komarr amassed both riches and power. The planet is essentially a galactic parasite, surviving and thriving on the taxes placed on interstellar trade. The planet may have economic riches, but it is an inhospitable place. Human habitation is possible only in domed cities. An array of solar mirrors to increase the natural light sources and a planet-wide terraforming project are scheduled to make Komarr habitable by humans outside the domes in the very long term, but all current expeditions outside are only possible with the use of some form of serious breathing apparatus.
The Komarrans grew up as an independent colony, but when they gave access to Cetaganda for an invasion of Barrayar, they sealed their fate to become part of the Imperium. Under the leadership of Aral Vorkosigan, Barrayar invaded and conquered Komarr. Given its lack of habitable land for any resistance to retreat to, and its vulnerability to attacks that might shatter the domes, the conquest of Komarr was quick, though not as bloodless as Vorkosigan had envisioned when setting up the invasion. During the war, two hundred members of the planet's ruling families, gathered under a flag of truce to negotiate the surrender, were killed by a political officer acting without orders from above. Despite murdering the responsible officer with his bare hands, Vorkosigan was never able to convince the Komarrans that the political officer's action wasn't planned, leaving some segments of the planet ripe for seeking revenge against Barrayar. Vorkosigan became known throughout the galaxy as "the Butcher of Komarr." But galactic aid was not forthcoming to the Komarrans from neighboring states, because Barrayar immediately reduced the tariff on interstellar goods passing through Komarr from twenty-five percent to fifteen percent. This made galactics favor keeping Komarr in Barrayaran hands.
Currently the planet seems to be adapting well to Barrayaran rule. The Imperium is fast-tracking suitable Komarrans into positions of power, and Emperor Gregor Vorbarra recently married a Komarran, Laisa Toscane. As a wedding gift to the planet, he arranged for a much-expanded solar mirror array, speeding up the terraforming project by several orders of magnitude.
Barrayar discovered a wormhole jump that led to the planet Sergyar, and claimed the planet as its own. Named for Emperor Ezar's son, Crown Prince Serg, the planet is earthlike and beautiful, and since it had no native species possessing higher intelligence, it was ideal for opening up to human settlement. But Barrayar's main reason for settling Sergyar in the beginning was to use it as a staging point for an invasion of Escobar. The invasion failed miserably, in part because of aid to Escobar from Beta Colony, and Prince Serg and a number of high-ranking Barrayaran military officers died in that attempt. After a peace treaty with Escobar was worked out, the planet was retasked to more peaceful purposes, and is currently a rapidly expanding human settlement. Government of the colony is handled by an Imperially appointed viceroy. Early difficulties that impeded settlement, including a terrible worm plague that hideously bloated its victims, have been overcome, and the colony is on track to become a vibrant and valuable member of the Imperium.
Other Political Entities in the Wormhole Nexus
(In rough order of importance to the Vorkosigan universe)
The Cetagandan Empire consists of eight developed worlds and a number of allied and puppet dependencies, many of them forcibly acquired. Cetaganda is ruled by a genetically engineered emperor, and the Imperial government consists of a two-tiered aristocracy. At the head of the Imperial power structure is the haut class and at the head of the haut class is the emperor—currently Emperor Fletchir Gaija. The Emperor serves as the only point of meeting between the affairs of the haut and the affairs of the second tier of the aristocracy—the ghem.
The haut consider themselves to be a post-human breed, the result of several centuries of genetic engineering that they have carried out upon their population. They have a vaguely attenuated elf-like look, and their physical beauty is revered throughout the galaxy. Haut women are so beautiful, in fact, that they are rarely seen in public, traveling in float chairs surrounded by opaque force screens as they move through the landscape, and exiting their protective chairs only in safe and restricted confines familiar to them. The sight of a haut woman has been known to induce instantaneous emotional slavery in typical human men.
The haut do not believe that their genetic experimentation has reached its apex yet. The work of improving the genome is undertaken by the Star Crèche—which is run by the haut consorts of the various planetary governors and headed by the emperor's mother or the mother of his heir. Each year, the result of their genetic work is sent out to the Cetagandan worlds in the form of a shipment of developing haut embryos in uterine replicators. These children-to-be are taken in by their respective genetic constellations when they reach their home planets, where they will be raised and educated to take their place among the planets' ruling elite. The haut own nothing individually, despite their luxurious lives spent in isolation in the incredibly beautiful enclaves inhabited exclusively by the haut and their genderless ba servitors. All property is held in trust by the government, and awarded to the haut caste based on breeding, merit, status in the haut hierarchy, and ceremonial needs.
The ba are asexual genetic siblings to the haut, and are created by haut geneticists to test out new genetic additions to the haut bloodlines. The ba are engineered to be servile and loyal, but a few incidents in which they have behaved with startling initiative and ingenuity have raised some questions among the haut as to the degree to which their genetic control has been effective.
The haut control their empire though a secret and reputedly devastating collection of bioengineered weapons. The few examples of haut genetic weaponry that have been used throughout the galaxy have been so terrifying that it is widely believed that the reputation of haut for maintaining a strong arsenal has been, if anything, underestimated.
The haut look inward at what they are becoming, while the ghem are the outward face of the Cetagandans. The ghem women, in imitation of the haut, also work in genetic engineering, but they concentrate on non-human material. The ghem men concentrate on politics and conquest, and favor a very aggressive brand of territorial expansion. Their most recent adventures have been universally disastrous for the last century (Barrayar, Vervain, Marilac, etc.). It is widely hoped throughout the galaxy that the Cetagandans are embarking on a newly peaceful period in which they concentrate on improving their own empire, instead of aggressively invading their neighbors.
The ghem are kept under control by the haut through a system of rewards and restraints. Haut women who have fallen from grace are awarded to successful ghem men as trophy wives. Ghem who achieve great things have their genetic material taken up by the Star Crèche for inclusion into the haut genome. Ghem who fail are ruthlessly dealt with, sometimes by difficult and messy "suicides" that can include multiple stab wounds in the back, though more elegant forms of elimination are preferred.
The central world in the Cetagandan Imperium, and the home of the Imperial Gardens, where the planetary government and the Star Crèche are situated.
Located in Sector II.
The nearest Cetagandan world to the Komarran wormhole jump point.
A Cetagandan prison planet, which, while run in exact accordance with galactic treaties, is as fiendish and Darwinian a place as ever conceived by the minds of humans.
Other Civilizations of the Wormhole Nexus
Beta Colony is a technologically advanced planet with superb schools, a very high standard of living, and a very advanced approach to personal liberty, sexual orientation, and lifestyle choices. The planet is essentially a desert, with little surface water other than flat saline lakes, and the vast majority of human habitation located underground. Rebreathers and nose filters are required for humans to survive on the Betan surface, along with personal heat shields during the hotter months. Betan politics are based on a planetary-wide constitutional democracy. Logic and scientific exploration are central to the Betan way of life, just as oaths and honor are central to Barrayarans.
Sexual behavior is wildly free on Beta Colony, but at the price of reproduction being strictly controlled. This is a legacy of the planet's unique colonization by sub-light generation ships. To bear a child on Beta, a couple must undergo extensive training in parenting, apply for a child permit, and arrange for the health and welfare of the offspring in advance of its arrival. The first permit (actually, the first two half-permits) are free; more may be purchased on a secondary market, where the price varies, or are sometimes rewarded for merit. While a woman or herm may still undertake an old-fashioned risky body birth, and some do, most responsible parents choose in vitro fertilization with the zygote being carefully examined and treated for any genetic flaws before it is placed in a uterine replicator for its next nine months. Sexual preferences among the three genders (male, female, and hermaphrodite) are indicated by earring designs worn by all sexually active Betans, with a design to accurately indicate adult sexual status and the wearer's preferred variations, with gradations ranging in every stage from "not interested at all" to "involved in an exclusive relationship" to "will screw anything willing to allow it." Contraceptive implants are required by law, and may only be removed temporarily with government approval for reasons involving health or officially sanctioned reproduction.
Among the galactic tourist spots on Beta Colony is the Betan Orb of Unearthly Delights, where every kind of human sexual behavior ever observed is practiced with enthusiasm, and even accompanied by psychological counseling as needed.
Poverty is unknown on Beta Colony, and every citizen is guaranteed access to information, education, health care, and occupation.
Given its conveniently placed wormhole access to other planets, Marilac was a prosperous and advanced world. But it was invaded and conquered by Cetaganda. The planetary resistance was rounded up and sent to the Cetagandan prison planet Dagoola IV, and the conquest seemed complete. But a daring massive prison break arranged by the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet brought all the planet's rebels back into play at once. Eventually Cetaganda withdrew from Marilac, and left it to once again govern itself.
A technologically advanced neighbor of Beta Colony, Escobar was settled by colonists who were, judging by its resulting Latin culture, most probably from Brazil, Spain, and Italy.
Originally founded as an interstellar base by libertine space pirates, Jackson's Whole has since evolved into a planet run by a nongovernmental structure of 116 viciously competing Great Houses, countless Minor Houses, and a desperate population of ordinary citizens trying to stay out of the way of politics—which are generally widely terminal on Jackson's Whole. Only the Deal is sacred on the planet—and Jacksonians are expert dealers. The Great Houses have amassed power through traditional criminal enterprises, including slavery, illegal genetic manipulation of living organisms, clone slavery—including implantation of human brains into unwilling clone body donors—weapons dealing, and so on. Scientific research facilities, even if criminal, are top-notch, and do a large trade in galactic one-off contracts for poisons, assassinations, drugs, bioweapons, and other lucrative industries. Anything in the galaxy can be bought, traded for, or stolen on Jackson's Whole.
An advanced planet that serves as a wormhole link from Komarr to the Hegen Hub. It is part of the Hegen Hub Alliance along with Aslund, Vervain, and Barrayar.
It is a planet on the fringes of wormhole nexus famous for its interstellar shipbuilding.
A nexus system bare of habitable planets but rich in wormholes with a collection of adjoining worlds. The Hub serves as a galactic trading post and transportation hub.
A technologically advanced and comfortable Earth-like planet adjoining the Hegen Hub, it was invaded by the Cetagandans, and only saved from conquest by the actions of the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet and the Barrayaran space fleet under the leadership of Aral Vorkosigan. It is part of the Hegen Hub Alliance along with Aslund, Barrayar, and Pol.
The original home of humans and the beginning point for all human interstellar expansion, Earth has become a sleepy galactic backwater due to the few usable wormholes in its sector of space. It still remains of some importance due to religious and cultural tourism, and all major galactic political entities maintain embassies on the planet. Its population of nine billion is still handicapped by a divisive number of competing governments, as opposed to a single planetary government structure that is commonly practiced elsewhere throughout the galaxy. The planet has managed to maintain a large number of its cultural pilgrimage sites despite global warming and a major rise in ocean levels, thanks to intricate engineering and a vast series of water- controlling coastal dikes.
Located on the edge of Sector V, Quaddiespace has been in existence for more than two centuries. It was originally founded as a haven for quaddies—a class of humans genetically altered for zero-gravity environments by the addition of two more arms where their legs used to be, and claimed as slaves by the corporation that genetically engineered them. After anti-gravity technology in a large part rendered the quaddies redundant, the quaddies escaped to freedom by commandeering a D-620 super jump ship and heading out to the far edge of human colonization to found their own civilization.
They staked their claim on a double ring of asteroids and expanded through it to form a population group over a million strong. With a bottom-up government organized around the principle of work groups, and a work ethic that cannot be matched in the galaxy, the quaddies have done well for themselves. Graf Station, with a population of fifty thousand, is the oldest settlement, and the original asteroid and jump ship are preserved there as a museum. The population does include some legged humans, and areas with artificial gravity include Graf Station, Metropolitan, Sanctuary, Michenko, and Union Station. The quaddies conduct their interstellar trade through these outposts.
A three-hundred-year-old space station orbiting a planetless dark star, Kline Station serves six nearby jump points and the interstellar traffic that flows through them.
Athos is a predominantly agricultural planet settled and governed by a monastic order. All human residents of Athos are male. Reproduction is carefully controlled by the government, and is practiced through uterine replicators, using ovaries harvested from off-planet women and the sperm of the planet's males who have been selected as worthy parents. Fear of women is endemic in the society, and few men from Athos travel through the wormhole nexus other than for necessary spaceflights to restock the planet's egg banks and for galactic trade. Even access to information and literature from outside Athos is restricted on the planet, except for necessary scientific journals and other research material.
A colonized world destroyed in recent history due to a major tectonic disaster. The planet is frequently used by the illicit on Jackson's Whole and elsewhere as a convenience for forging new identities. Given that all Frost IV's official records were lost in the planetary disaster, it is very simple to assign an untraceable identity from Frost IV to someone seeking a new life, assuming that they are old enough to have lived through the disaster.
One of the Hegen Hub worlds, it is part of the Hegen Hub Alliance.
Mentioned in the Vorkosigan Saga, but no detail about it is provided.
Miles Vorkosigan passed through this planet's local space in his guise as Admiral Naismith while fleeing Cetagandan assassins shortly after the breakout from Dagoola IV.
A world settled by Muslims. The ruler is a hereditary head of state with both political and religious power. He is known as the Baba.
A nearby neighbor of Marilac, with a rich neighborhood of wormhole jump points that provide cross-routes throughout the nexus.
A distant planet famed as the source of mercenaries hired for interstellar conflicts.
This planet system was the site where Miles Vorkosigan began his mercenary career and his work as an interstellar troubleshooter. Here he found his destiny when he joined up with the Oseran Mercenaries, which he eventually converted into the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet. The Dendarii still serve as a secret arm of Barrayaran Imperial Security.