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troperville

This is a "Wild Mass Guess" entry, where we pull out all the sanity stops on theorizing. The regular entry on this topic is elsewhere. Please see this programme note.

Vorkosigan Saga

Gregor had an older brother who died before the start of Shards of Honor.

If he were Prince Serg's oldest child, standard Barrayaran naming conventions would imply that he should be named "Ezar". He could be a second son — Bujold hasn't written anything about Princess Kareen's family, so "Gregor" could easily be her father's middle name...

Possible, but I think it would have been mentioned. As a parallel to Aral's second-son-ship, at the least. Perhaps the naming after grandfathers is the custom among the nobility but not royalty, or custom in rural districts like the Dendarii mountains, or some such. It's unlikely to be a universal custom for the entire planet, at least.

Ivan's going to marry a Galactic

He's about due another stint of embassy duty, and he's pretty much run through all of his prospects at home. Plus now that both Gregor and Miles have produced heirs, he's out of the crossfire, and being physically normal he's under less pressure to be conventional about such things.

The Amazon description of the next book heavily supports this, especially since it's about Ivan, and features him rescuing a female Galactic.
- Confirmed. Tej is half-Jacksonian, half-Cetagandan, and is a granddaughter of the last Cetagandan military governor of Barrayar to boot.

Part of the reason that Simon went along with the plan to break into the vault beneath ImpSec HQ was because he was hoping they'd damage it somehow in the process

He'd hated that building for his entire career, and had been trying on and off to get the funding to replace it for thirty years before his efforts were ended by his retirement. If there was a chance he could finally get rid of that eyesore once and for all, then he was going to take it.

Kou's Wedding budget woes were solved by Lady Alys insisting on holding the weddings at Vorkosigan House, Vorbretten House, or the Imperial Residence

Gregor is likely to be a wedding guest after all, so the location has to be secure. And Lady Alys is the Emperor's social secretary and still owes a debt to Drou and Kou

Varjak Paw

WMG/Literature

The War Gods