History WMG / VorkosiganSaga

In RealLife when a mercenary organization gets tired of fighting other people's wars they often simply find themselves a nice cushy kingdom to take over and declare themselves kings. Why should not the Dendarii do the same? They probably have more experience and firepower then many small nations, and many would rather be ruled by Queen Eli Quinn then by King Whoever They Had Before. Besides many employers of mercenaries tend to default on their contracts. And what do mercenaries do when that happens? They foreclose! Forcibly.

* Ma Kosti will be come a Vorkosigan Arms(wo)man, in order to keep various high-ranking relatives from stealing her away from Miles. Besides, "Vorkosigan does it backwards" - instead of having armsmen who are "cooks" like Count Vorloupulous, Count Vorkosigan will have a cook who's an "armsman."

** Except Ezar [[http://vorkosigan.wikia.com/wiki/Wife_of_Ezar_Vorbarra didn't have a family at the time]]; Yuri really was paranoid, to the point he publicly [[http://vorkosigan.wikia.com/wiki/Yuri_Vorbarra#Behind_the_scenes threw the Privy Council out the window]]; and Ezar did end up losing both his wife and son - to [[http://vorkosigan.wikia.com/wiki/Serg_Vorbarra insanity]] inherited from [[http://vorkosigan.wikia.com/wiki/Wife_of_Ezar_Vorbarra#Behind_the_scenes Yuri's side of the family]].

*** Ah but here's the rub, it was arguably much better to [[OffingTheOffspring kill off]] [[TheCaligula said son]] and said [[ToxicFriendInfluence sycophants]]/[[TheCorrupter manipulators]] that way rather then let them ascend to absolute power after Ezar's death. Hundreds or thousands probably died as a result of that military misadventure; but plausibly more, by one or two orders of magnitude, would have been killed in the first few of years (if not the within just the first) of Emperor Serg's reign. That almost certainly would have included non-Barayarans as well, as Serg was already expansionist if for no other reason than to serve his own ego and that would not have changed. Furthermore, if anything was going to eventually stoke a wide-scale rebellion by Komarr, being subject to the whims of an egomanical, depraved, sadist with absolute power probably would be it. Emperor Ezar was in no way a [[MagnificentBastard conventionally good man,]] but [[PragmaticVillainy he of all people]] [[EvenEvilHasStandards recognized]] what a disaster his son succeeding him would be for the Vorbarra line, Barrayar, as well as Kormarr and the neighboring systems (although Ezar probably didn't worry that much about the latter).

** Discussed (and possibly Jossed?) in-series, in Komarr. After being needled about his father secretly planning the massacre by a Komarran conspiracy theorist, and giving that notion a resounding rebuttal, said theorist backpedals onto Ezar as a possible plotter; Miles agrees that Ezar was quite likely ruthless enough, but counters that even laying aside all moral considerations, the Massacre was supremely ''wasteful'', something no-one has ever accused Ezar of being. Of course, this is Miles' opinion rather than fact.

** Although I very much doubt there is anything like a constitutionally protected free press on Barrayar; I'm sure there was some form of news media by the time of Aral's regency and it continued into Gregor's reign. However, there was almost certainly a significant amount of influence the central Barayarran government could put at least the primary news outlets, and allowing such lurid speculation to run rampant would not serve Emperor Gregor politically nor sit well with his personal affection for Miles (and that's setting aside the fact that in this case Gregor would know the truth that Miles had nothing to do with Tien's death other than being a helpless witness, even though the whole thing is a state secret).

*** Count Piotr's name was Piotr Mark. 'Pierre' is the second name of Cordelia's father Miles Pierre Naismith.

* Barrayar does have a news media. Ivan spots news aircars hovering around the excavated bunker in ''Captain Vorpatril's Alliance''. And Vicereine Vorkosigan has a press officer, Blaise Gatti, in ''Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen''.

Apart from his early injuries, he's been shot, cryo-revived, and exposed to a horrific bio-weapon that left him with low stamina and increased chance of strokes and heart failure. He has regular seizures and uses a cane, especially when he's tired. He's shown as physically weaker in the later books, especially ''Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen.'' Cordelia, in her own thoughts, has no faith that Miles will make it to even a Barryaran old age. Miles privately agrees. Neither of them says so aloud.

* Only because Poitr refused to give his name to Miles.

No, seriously. No reporters are ever mentioned, nobody seems to be watching some equivalent of television on a down night. Imagine ''A Civil Campaign'' where tabloids were blasting that Miles killed Tien to woo Ekaterin--how is this not happening on Barrayar?

My best guess: blame it on Mad Emperor Yuri? Maybe he banned media?

** It is a near-absolute monarchy, ''not'' a democracy. Also, the Time of Isolation was not all that many generations ago and the Barrayarans would not have had a cultural tradition of news media or free press. One should not imagine it to be a huge stretch that the emperors and the counts have not supported establishment of such media either locally or on a planetary scale. Plus, it is likely that any would-be reporters are too scared of ImpSec knocking on (or down) their doors to post anything that negatively reflects on the High Vor, government officials, the military or ImpSec itself.