History VorkosiganSaga / TropesAToI

* HitThemInThePocketbook: In ''A Civil Campaign'', Count Vormuir creates a BabyFactory using leftover eggs from his subjects' use of Uterine Replicators and his own sperm to create over 100 daughters he hopes to use to lure male subjects to his district. Barrayaran law doesn't make this technically illegal, but Emperor Gregor wants to punish him to dissuade others from repeating the scheme. So, at Ekaterin's suggestion, Gregor rules that he must provide large dowries for each of the daughters.

** In ''Barrayar'', Lady Alys curses her husband for getting himself shot right when she was about to give birth. She's still mad about it thirty years later in ''Captain Vorpatril's Alliance''.

* HitThemInThePocketbook: In ''A Civil Campaign'', Count Vormuir creates a BabyFactory using leftover eggs from his subjects' use of Uterine Replicators and his own sperm to create over 100 daughters he hopes to use to lure male subjects to his district. Barrayaran law doesn't make this technically illegal, but King Gregor wants to punish him to dissuade others from repeating the scheme. So, at Ekaterin's suggestion, Gregor rules that he must provide large dowries for each of the daughters.

** Miles tells a story about one of his Vorkosigan ancestor's who used the "smuggling bicycles" version of the trope to smuggle horses into a besieged city. Though we do not see the mission itself, Miles was telling the story because they were about to do the same thing with ''warships''.

-->'''Miles:''' Ba Lura must have been more to [Emperor Gaija] than a piece of the furniture -— it served him for over fifty years.

** Ivan is convinced that Vorrutyers have a not-uncommonly murderous tendancy toward eccentricity. Going by the Vorrutyers we see, he may have a point.

** Also how Barrayarans and Cetagandans acknowledge head spies. The Cetagandans know TheSpymaster Voreedi's title at the Barrayaran Embassy on Cetaganda is a fiction -- and the Barrayarans know they know, just as the Barrayarans know who the TheSpymaster is in the Cetagandan Embassy on Barrayar. Ivan even invokes the trope when discussing the embassies in London:

* HeadTurningBeauty: Elli Quinn's effect on men after undergoing plastic surgery. Well, [[spoiler: not Ethan Urqhart, though he at least has the excuse of coming from [[PlanetOfHats the all-male planet of Athos)]].]]

* HigherUnderstandingThroughDrugs: In ''Komarr'', a scientist is questioned under "Fast Penta", a kind of truth serum, and discovers it helps her think outside the box in order to figure out a complex scientific mystery.. After being cleared of the charges against her she asks if she could try Fast Penta again in order to help her creativity.

** Byerly Vorutyer, for a given value of hero. Guile AntiHero, perhaps?

** Galactics sometimes look down on Baryarans for getting their milk and meat from real animals instead of replicaters and giving birth from real instead of artificial wombs.

** Barrayar has cultural elements of Russia (complete with Baba Yaga folktale), and Kibou-daini is heavily reminiscent of Japan (Including Japanese honorifics), but this is because their ancestors were actual Russians and actual Japanese.

** In ''Cryoburn'', [[spoiler: Cordelia refuses to put Aral in cryostasis because he died via a brain aneurysm. He would have been revived with serious brain damage, and considering what happened to Dubauer in ''Cordelia's Honor'' (shot by a nerve disruptor in the head), she has ample reason not to subject Aral to that. She also believes that reviving him, with his memories intact, would be just as bad a fate for him.]]

** [[spoiler: Ivan and Tej had known each other for less than 3 days when they got [[CitizenshipMarriage married]].]]

-->'''Ekaterin:''' Oh, no, sir, do you meant to say you are dragging that poor woman through five wormhole jumps from Barrayar to Komarr for ''me''? She gets so jumpsick!

* EasySexChange: Lady Donna/Lord Dono's sex change to contest a seat on the Council of Counts is a major sub-plot in ''A Civil Campaign''. Dono notes that Betan surgery is so advanced several Betans have changed sex ''a few times'' in their lives; however, he also states has no such plans and is determined to remain a male for the rest of his life.

-->"It's the Cetagandans' plan to break you, and then return you to your world like little innoculated infections, counseling surrender to your people.\\

* EscapePod: "Bod pods" feature in a couple of the stories. They are inflatable, single person, idiot proof life support modules for use by untrained personel in an emergency. Miles really dislikes them, because once you're stuffed inside one, you're stuck waiting helplessly for someone else to come rescue you.

** Quinn, Elena and Taura [[spoiler:leave Mark in Baron Ryoval's clutches to hunt down a missing Miles, since they thought Ryoval would quickly realised that the former wasn't the latter. Miles furiously asks "Did you ever figure that Ryoval wouldn't ''care?"'' and tells them to go look at the room Mark was kept in and tortured for five days.]]

** Count Aral during his self-destructive periods. Ivan recalls that Aral taught him to fly by demonstrating maneuvers that made his hardened Impsec guards scream in terror.

* DeclarationOfProtection: Drou about Kareen (though she actually says it to Cordelia).

* DesignerBabies: A common feature of the setting; Cetaganda takes this further than anyone else: their society, economy and political structure is built around making designer babies. Most of the galaxy uses uterine replicators, but Barrayar is just beginning to adopt them, along with genetic screening. While Miles got his mix of genes the old fashioned way, his kids are screened and canned in a uterine replicator. It is often mentioned that some form of fetal sex-selection treatment is available; its introduction to Barrayaran culture, where the Vor are all ''very'' keen on male heirs, has led to a rather pressing demographic problem by the time of the series; there simply are not enough eligible women on Barrayar. It is even worse in the High Vor social scene, where eligibility is much more narrowly defined.

* DancingBear: The series directly invokes the trope more than once. Considering Barrayar is Space Russia, it's apropriate. In ''Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen'', Cordelia discusses Aral's artistic talent with her grandson.[[invoked]]

* CloningBodyParts: Fairly common tech. Miles gets a whole new set of internal organs after his chest is blown out by a needle grenade, and Aral has to take some time off, waiting for them them to grow him a new heart, after his heart attack. In emergencies, the parts that get installed are often undersized and need to grow ''in situ'', but with advance warning, full sized parts can be grown.

** Several paragraphs at the beginning of ''The Warrior's Apprentice'' briefly outline what has happened since ''Shards of Honor'' -- those events were planned, but the novel hasn't been written. When Bujold got to write ''Barrayar'' several years later, she did some things differently. The most cited by fans are circumstances of Padma Vorpatril's death and Cordelia's role during the mutiny. Fortunately, other novels published before ''Barrayar'' do not mention those events, and later ones stick with ''Barrayar'' version.

** Gold went from WorthlessYellowRocks in ''Shards of Honor'' to a major part of a treasure cache in ''Captain Vorpatril's Alliance''. Part of it was the author realizing that gold is rare universally; one can now attribute the Betan idea that "gold was a useful conductor and not ''that'' important" to CulturalPosturing more than anything else.

* ChekhovsVolcano: Completely subverted in ''Gentleman Jole''. Despite Kareenburg being built on the side of a volcano that is known to be a geological time bomb, and despite Cordelia's insistence that the planetary capital move to somewhere safer, it does not go off during the book. (The capital gets moved anyway -- and Kayburg suffers some strong tremblors during the epilogue, hinting that the mountain is getting ready to blow sometime in the near future.)

** Miles has a lot, including one that would be the equivalent of a Cold War-era American soldier having a ''Hero of the Soviet Union'' medal (or a Soviet one having a ''Medal of Honor'', given the flavor of the setting). The irony is that ''both'' his cover stories precludes him from wearing most of them or admitting he has them. His Cetagandan Order of Merit medal is one of the few exceptions, having been very publicly awarded to Lt. Vorkosigan by the Cetagandan Emperor. Miles only ''wishes'' he could have it classified. Miles finds a good use for them all in ''Memory''.

** In ''Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen'', a panicked Cetagandan consul aide who does ''not'' return to his family and deal with IToldYouSo mockery tries to propose to Jole's aide in an attempt to get Barrayaran citizenship. She rejects it immediately, one because they'd only known each other for less than a few months, and two, having a Cetagandan husband would be bad for her military career.

** In ''Captain Vorpatril's Alliance'', By assures Ivan that Tej is really a woman. Ivan snarks that with ''By'', he couldn't be 100% sure (referring to Lord Dono, formerly Lady Donna, and Ivan was never informed that the Donna he was meeting at the spaceport was no longer female.)

* CatsAreMean: Or at least in Zap's case, very bad-tempered (due to being caught in an "entangling field" (read as: captured and shocked interminally til the field is turned off.) In fact, she borders on bipolar: she sometimes purrs and growls ''at the same time''.

* ChangingOfTheGuard: from Cordelia to Miles. The trope then [[ZigzaggingTrope makes a swerve]] with ''Barrayar'', which is a prequel about Cordelia's exploits, written and published well into the Miles times. According to the WordOfGod, ''Barrayar'' was already planned, but she only got around back to it when the series became a big hit.
* CharacterTics: Miles tends to jerk his chin up defensively under stress; more so when younger and more self-conscious about his height. Miles also inherited the habit of putting his fingers together when being stern and incisive from his father, Aral. Mark shares all of Miles' tics, having been conditioned from a young age to impersonate him, but later begins to add his own variations to them (as part of his CharacterDevelopment, showing he has accepted his new role as a member of the family - also his brotherly rivalry with Miles). In ''A Civil Campaign'', a little time is spent illustrating that [[GenderBender Lord Dono]] is training himself to use more masculine character tics, and echoes one of Aral's[[note]]specifically, [[EdgyBackwardsChairSitting sitting backwards on a chair, with arms folded over the chairback]][[/note]]; his armsman had commented that Aral projected masculinity without effort, while Miles basically was imitating his father and it showed.

* BrokenPedestal: Lots and lots. Elena in ''The Warrior's Apprentice'', Gregor in ''The Vor Game'' and Nikki in ''A Civil Campaign'' have to face alarming revelations about their fathers - either after or immediately before their fathers' deaths, so that they have no way of repairing the relationship. (Though Elena does eventually forgive her father enough to burn a grave-offering for him, more than a decade later.)
** Downplayed for Miles - compared with the above, his discovery that his parents' marriage, while happy and loving, hadn't been exactly standard, doesn't qualify as more than AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents.

* BusmansHoliday (with a side order of WeirdnessMagnet): Even when he does not intend to, Miles tends to run into situations of intrigue and mayhem wherever he goes. He goes on a trip to Beta and ends up [[spoiler:accidentally taking over a mercenary space fleet]]. He is assigned to a do-nothing post at an arctic outpost in the middle of nowhere and ends up [[spoiler:putting his life and career on the line to take down a psychotic disciplinarian]]. He travels to Cetaganda on a diplomatic mission and ends up [[spoiler:saving the Cetagandan empire from treason (and saving Barrayar from being caught up in another war while he is at it)]]. He has the Dendarii Mercenaries take some time off on Earth while the fleet is being repaired and discovers a KillAndReplace plot to assassinate his father. Miles's ''entire early life'' is one long series of Busman's Holidays. And then on his honeymoon [[spoiler: a small detour to sooth ruffled feathers in a diplomatic incident turns into a wild dash to stop all out war between two empires.]]

* ButNotTooBi: Admiral Jole in ''Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen'', who was in a long term polyarmorous relationship with [[spoiler: Aral and Cordelia.]] But three years after the events of ''Cryoburn'', he begins a romance exclusively with [[spoiler: Cordelia, who is finally emerging from her grief over Aral's death.]]

* BehindEveryGreatMan: If not a CentralTheme, one of the running themes of the series. Aside from Cordelia, the women of Barrayar conspire to change society without the men even noticing it til too late; one of the biggest weapons has been playing on the fears with the UterineReplicator which can gene clean. Two women, Cordelia and Alys, made themselves two of the biggest power players on Barrayar simply by Cordelia then Alys having the most intimate access to Gregor as a child and later as an adult. In ''Captain Vorpatril's Alliance'', Ivan notes that his mother, Udine and former ''haut'' lady Moira had been having secret meetings before Gregor offered a Deal with Udine's husband Shiv that led to a WinWinEnding for all parties.

--->'''Ivan:''' It's like working in an office with an entire boatload of mothers-in-law-to-be with pre-wedding nerves, every one of them a flaming control freak. I don't know where Mama found that many Vor dragons. You usually only meet them one at a time, surrounded by an entire family to terrorize. Having them all in a bunch teamed up together is just ''[[SickAndWrong wrong]]''. My chain of command is built upside down; there are twenty-three commanders, and only one enlisted. Me. I want to go back to Ops, where my officers don't preface every insane demand with a menacing trill of, ''Ivan , dear, won't you be a sweetheart and...'' What I wouldn't give to hear a nice, deep, straightforward masculine bellow of ''Vorpatril!''... From someone other than Countess Vorinnis, that is.

*** Played straight by local [=ImpSec=] chief Voreedi, who is convinced that Miles was on a secret mission from Illyan by the end of the book, something Miles refuses to confirm nor deny.[[note]]Nope, just another XanatosSpeedChess IndyPloy played by Miles. Although he does attempt to justify it to himself that if Illyan were fully appraised of all the details, he wouldn't hesitate to assign Miles to sort it out. Miles then subverts this by snarking to himself, "Yeah, try using ''that'' at the court martial."[[/note]]

*** This instance is extra amusing because [[DeadpanSnarker Vorlynkin]] occasionally [[SarcasticDevotee comments on it.]] The clear frustration and exasperation as he realizes he has not gotten a right and proper auditor, but a sawed off madman ready to bend, if not break, every rule covertly to pursue his self-assigned need to correct some other countries political issues; while Vorlynkin has to legally justify it all, is so satisfying.

** ''A Civil Campaign'' featured the intertwining romances of no less than '''five''' couples in addition to the primary story: Mark and Kareen[[note]]Particularly apt, considering where they've been attending school and their plans to return[[/note]], Duv and Delia, Gregor and Laisa, Olivia and Dono, and Martya and Enrique. After all, this is a comedy of biology and manners.
** ''Cetaganda'' featured Ambassador Vorob'yev and Mia Maz, which doubles as a CitizenshipMarriage, though that's irrelevent because they each expressed an attraction for each other despite their professional relationship.

** Arde Mayhew says this about being a jump pilot - which is so central to his life that, when he is in danger of losing his job, he is suicidally depressed.

* BailEqualsFreedom: Justified, averted, ''and'' lampshaded In [[Literature/VorkosiganSaga A Civil Campaign]]. On Escobar, a bond is a guarantee of court appearance, but on Jackson's Whole bail means getting off into the clutches of the one who pays the bail.

** A downplayed version in ''A Civil Campaign'' is when Count Rene Vorbretten is threatened with an succession suit because an ancestor was a bastard thus clicking complicated tangles in local laws. An added public relations difficulty was that the father was a soldier in an invading army.

* TheBeCarefulSpeech: Many people tell Miles to be careful; occasionally, he even listens to them. In ''Mirror Dance'', Kareen Koudelka tells Mark to "be careful" (even though he hadn't mentioned that he was in fact about to go into harm's way). This deeply touches him: ''No girl had ever told him to'' be careful'', as though she meant it.''

** Miles and Ekaterin have six children altogether. Though she wisely squashed his suggestion of having them all at once -- though in ''Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen'' she begins to wonder if she'd have been better off.

* AncestorVeneration: Cordelia notes to herself that "Barrayaran ceremonies for the dead approached ancestor-worship". When Miles makes an offering at the grave of his grandfather, Count Piotr, this includes burning very personal offerings (a special hand-calligraphied copy of his officer's commission in the Imperial Service, a scholastic transcript from the Imperial Academy, and hair) by the side of Piotr's grave. When [[spoiler:Ma Mattulich]] is convicted of infanticide, the sentence Miles hands down includes the stipulation that no one "shall make a burning for her when she goes into the ground at last", which the older and more traditional Barrayarans view as a literal sentence of the death of her soul.