[ catch-all: barrayar ]

[forwardmomentum]

Who: Miles, Ivan and Gregor of the Vor Boy Band feat. Lady Alys and you, probably
When: gestures vaguely at May
Where: Barrayar
What: all Ingress trips to Barrayar, whether it be Vorkosigan Surleau, Vorbarr Sultana, or anywhere else on Space Russia
Warnings: TBD

Welcome to Barrayar, the planet that was cut off from the rest of the Nexus after its only known wormhole connection collapsed, leaving its meager starter colony population stranded. 700 years in total isolation saw the loss of their advanced technology and a regression to a pre-industrial and feudal society, until a new wormhole route to Barrayar was discovered and propelled them from horseback to spaceflight in the space of a single generation. Its terraforming is still incomplete, the landscape characterized by the mixture of imported Earth green plantlife and the reddish native flora of Barrayar. After a couple of generations, Barrayarans are growing more and more accustomed to galactic peoples and cultures, though they're still a little wary of outsiders, and an old and long-entrenched cultural paranoia of genetic mutation means they can be a little hostile or mistrustful of people who bear visible disabilities or who don't look quite human.

Comments

[whatdidisay]

"Well, not the castle. I'm no count's heir like Miles or Gregor, but yeah. Barrayar." No, he's just titled because his grandfather made the mistake of marrying a Vorbarra princess. He grins at Luke's expression -- farm boy, absolutely. But it's not a cruel smile; Ivan love his city even if he lacks the obvious attachment to the planet as a whole like Miles and Gregor. They're technically required to.

Still grinning, Ivan gestures around them. "Well? What do you think?" He can tell, he just wants Luke to say it.

[t65]

Luke is never slow to express his appreciation for something; maybe that's to do with being some kind of outer rim hick, or maybe it's just part of the unbearable Skywalkerness of being. Regardless, Luke pipes up right on time. "It's amazing! I've never seen anything like it. Not outside of holos, and those don't do them justice at all."

He beams. "You're not a count's heir-- where do you live?" Where, Luke wonders, do the normal people of this planet live?

(Ha.)

[whatdidisay]

Yes, a potential claimant to the Barrayaran Empire and hereditary lord is absolutely normal. Also: that depends, Luke. Are you talking about the people who live in the backcountry or the proles that moved to the cities? Ivan preens a little at Luke's excitement -- Barrayar is still his home, even if Ivan sometimes wants to be as far away from everyone on it as possible. "An apartment building ten blocks from here. I grew up in a bigger place, of course."

Of course.

[t65]

Of course?

But the causal way Ivan talks about obvious nobility could be similar to how Luke talks about his sister. He shouldn't make assumptions, especially with how much he hated it when Sans thought he was a prince. "What kind of place? I don't know anything about your system. What's the trade like? What are you known for?"

[whatdidisay]

"Just a reasonably sized mansion," Ivan adds helpfully. "We're an Empire -- that means there's an Emperor who rules and everyone who lives on the three planets of the Barrayaran Empire are subjects. There's a council of Counts -- sixty of 'em -- that pass laws even though the Emperor has the final say. Our current one likes to sit back and let them fight it out."

Simple enough, right? As for what Barrayar's known for--

"Well there's the part where the rest of the Nexus lost us for seven hundred years. And then the twenty year long invasion by a different planetary empire that we fought off. And then the return takeover of the planet that controls our only wormhole to the rest of the Nexus because they sold us out to that planetary empire." Uh. "Our military, mostly."

[t65]

Luke opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. His expression of wonder fades, and if Ivan could feel his presence in the Force he'd be able to notice how his excitement has gone cold. He'd forgotten about that, about what Ivan had said the last they'd talked. Luke frowns.

"You... you mentioned an emperor." Luke raises his hand, points to the castle. "That's where he lives?"

[whatdidisay]

Ivan doesn't need to feel the Force to see it drain it out of his face, and attempts to give him a thin smile back. Right. "That's right. The Imperial Residence. There's a museum there, and one where the Counts sit, but that's more military."

Something that isn't about fighting, Ivan. Surely there's something on Barrayar that-- no, hah. "Come down to the river. It's the touristy part of town."

[t65]

The trick, of course, is that Luke has nothing against militarism and everything against imperial forces. He considers keeping that fact from Ivan, but then, Luke trusts him enough to come to his homeworld. If he thinks he can't tolerate a difference of opinion, what kind of friend is he?

That doesn't mean he has to do it all at once, though. "Really? What kind of visitors do you get?" Look, he can do idle chatter until he figures out how to spill.

[whatdidisay]

"Curious galactics, mostly. Aunt Cordelia's tried to drag in as many Betan scientists as she can, so sometimes their families come visit." Ivan gestures for Luke to follow him as he tries to wave a taxi down. "We can swing by my place, pick up my groundcar."

[t65]

Most of that sentence made no sense to Luke, so he responds in the truly universal tongue: nod and smile. He follows closely behind.

"Ivan- have you met the emperor? Held court or... something?" Despite technically living on the outskirts of an empire, Luke has no idea how the deeper political workings operate. Which is, he imagines, probably the point.

[whatdidisay]

Oh yes, he knows the Emperor. He's played games with the Emperor when he was a child, because Gregor would lower himself to the ages of his primary playmates even though he was older than they all were by years. And eventually Miles would do something to make him smile -- there'd been a food fight, one day.

Also he's currently sharing a room with him.

Ivan coughs, awkwardly, to cover the silence. "Oh yeah, loads of times. M'mother works for him, actually, since he doesn't have a wife. She manages his social calendar."

[t65]

"...Huh." Well, that's... stranger than strange. Luke shakes his head, keeps walking behind Ivan. "What's he like?"

That's the real decider, isn't it? Not all emperors are alike-- they can't be, not all anything is alike, ever-- but he's curious as to Ivan's perspective.

[whatdidisay]

"Quiet." Is the first word that comes to mind when asked to describe Gregor. "But you'd be making a mistake if you thought it made him easy-going. He'd be shy if he was allowed to be, I think, but he's had the job since he was five and he's never had the option." Ivan frowns, looking back up at the castle. "He's good at it, though, much to the relief of my Uncle and just about everyone on all three planets of the Empire. The best we've had since Dorca the Just."

And Docra the Just broke a centuries long conflict between the Emperor and the Counts just in time for Barrayar to be rediscovered by the rest of the galaxy. And then he led the planet through a twenty-year long occupation, so that, in Ivan's opinion, is saying something.

It's funny, though, every time he sees a statue of his great-great grandfather he never thinks of him as being related to him. Mostly because he tries really hard to forget while at the same time not being able to escape it.

[t65]

Luke squints. "He doesn't want the job? Why doesn't he step down?" The idea of having such a powerful, influential position and not having the influence to leave seems ridiculous to Luke. He's sure there's an answer, but he can't think of one that makes sense to him.

He doesn't ask what being 'good' at the job means, though. He can guess. He hopes he's wrong.

[whatdidisay]

"Well he can't. He's the Emperor. And anyway, he doesn't have any heirs and naming one of three current potential heirs is just asking for trouble." Also: Ivan would rather die.

[t65]

"You make it sound like having an emperor is the only way to... do anything." He's sure Leia would have phrased that better. She'd know, after all.

[whatdidisay]

"It is on Barrayar," Ivan offers, shoving his hands into the pockets of his uniform trousers. "Anyone trying to change it into a different political system is bound to meet opposition if they tried, and that might easily start off a civil war. We've had enough of those to last us for quite a while.

"The trick of it," he says, continuing, "is to make the Conservative hold-outs not notice that you're changing the world around them. And that's what Gr-- the Emperor is so good at. He and my uncle -- Aral Vorkosigan."

[t65]

"But if you keep doing what the people who start civil wars stay, you'll always be in danger of one." Luke knows nothing about political theory, but he does know about bullies and ganglords. He thinks about what Jabba the Hutt would be like if he worked in government.

But he smiles when he hears Ivan's 'trick'. "At least you have some sort of plan..."

[whatdidisay]

"We always are. At least until things get more settled. Right now there's no designated heir for the Emperor, so everyone's going to be lining up to pick their favored supporter if something happens to him and then fighting for theirs to rule. I mean, we don't really need an excuse -- last time it was because one man got pissed off that Mad Emperor Yuri went and killed off most of his extended family. Which just so happened to include that one man's wife and kids."

And by the end of it, everyone wanted a piece of Yuri Vorbarra. Dismemberment had been the result of that. But Ivan catches that smile and nods. "Well, not me." Definitely not him. "But yeah, the smart ones who run the place."

[t65]

Luke tilts his head to the side, trying to see their rationale. It seems like a dangerous way to live. "It seems more dangerous than it's worth, to me. If you just do what people want because you're afraid of what they'll do if you don't... aren't they in charge? It doesn't matter if the Emperor's good, then."

But it seems like baseless complaining, when Luke says it outloud. He tries to show that he's got skin in the game, in his own way. "In my home galaxy, we're fighting a civil war. We're trying to get rid of our emperor."

[whatdidisay]

"Or we could do what they don't want, they get pissed, and kill him. It's a balancing act," Ivan points out with a shrug. "Anyway, politics. Not my thing. I can take you to Uncle Aral if you really want to chat about it. He's the Prime Minister."

And former Lord Regent for Emperor Gregor, but Ivan decides to only offer that information later. If Luke's interested. But then he mentions his own situation, back home, and Ivan frowns. So is that why he's jumpy around here? "I take it's not going very well?" Ivan doesn't ask what their Emperor's done to deserve it, if he's asking about how good of an Emperor Gregor is. Not good is easy enough to fill in.

[t65]

"I don't know that much about politics-- just what my sister's told me. She's been in the senate since..." Luke's memory fails him, mostly because the exact age has changed a few times in recent retcons and I can't fucking keep track anymore, "Twelve? I think? Or was it fourteen..."

Luke shrugs. "Well, I think it's going well. We destroyed a critical military weapon they were using, and we fought them off when they located out base; most of our transports made it out on time. They didn't even manage to capture the Princess when she'd been just about handed to them."

They're... kind of incompetent. But they're also everywhere, which is the real problem.

[whatdidisay]

"But that's not even the age of majority here," Ivan can't help but splutter -- getting into politics when you're just a kid? Hell. Gregor had a regent until he was twenty, dammit. There's no way Ivan would want a kid making decisions for him on any sort of scale, except for himself when he was that age. And probably not even then, as he's beginning to start looking back.

Military talk, Ivan can do. "Well that doesn't seem like it's going terribly poorly, but I've never been good at long-term or short term strategy planning."

[t65]

"She was only a junior legislator." Luke says, waving off Ivan's concerns. As far as he's aware, if it's good enough for Leia, it's good enough for everyone.

Luke shrugs. "Neither is the Empire. But they have more troops and better equipment than we'll ever have." So, you know. Who knows.

[whatdidisay]

"Oh, one of those." Ivan brightens up, and slings an arm around Luke's shoulder. "We're going to have to hit some of the museums about the Cetagandan invasion of Barrayar. They were using nukes while we were still using horses and swords. It took us twenty years, but we shoved them off-planet eventually. You could pick up some tips there."