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Characters / Vorkosigan Saga

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Characters for the Vorkosigan Saga. Beware of copious spoilers!

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Komarrans

    Duv Galeni 

Duv Galeni aka David Galen

Son of Komarran terrorist, Ser Galen, Duv joined the Barrayaran army after getting his PhD in Barrayaran history. An ambitious and conscientious officer, he hopes to rise in the ranks to better help his native Komarr.

  • Bait-and-Switch Tyrant: Miles initially thinks he's a deliberately obstructive superior plotting against him, but that turns out to not be the case and he and Miles end up (somewhat uneasy) friends.
  • Beware the Quiet Ones: Duv is highly educated, well-read, level-headed, does everything by the book...and after a really bad week, took down a couple of Cetagandan ghem commandos with his bare hands, quite possibly by repeatedly smashing their heads into a nearby car.
  • Child Soldier: His father had him infiltrating and setting bombs as a young teenager.
  • Deadpan Snarker: As one of Miles' former commanding officers, it comes naturally.
  • Did Not Get the Girl: Subverted; he loses Laisa Toscane to the Emperor, but by the end of the same book he's pretty solid with Delia Koudelka.
  • Foil: To Miles.
    • Duv is quiet, rule-bound, and driven to work his butt off to be both good at his job and completely incorruptible — because if he's not, he'll be ejected from his job and things will instantly become much harder for the Komarrans who try to follow him. Miles is an attention-getting maverick who (while he tries desperately not to rely on it) has a fair amount of privilege, and acts the way he does for personal reasons. Good reasons. Usually.
    • Both followed similar career paths. The Army, then ImpSec. But Miles got kicked out for lying while he was being groomed to run ImpSec. Duv ends up the first Komarran head of Komarran Affairs.
    • Both men live in the shadow of their fathers. See Ser's folder below.
    • Duv is also a foil to Mark, who's his father's other son. Between army and ImpSec training, both Miles and Galeni are quite physically capable when needed. Both are good leaders. Mark is trained specifically as an assassin, much like Galeni was trained as a terrorist, and is not a very good leader. But he is a good businessman.
  • Gentleman and a Scholar: He actually has a PhD, but nobody calls him "doctor" in ImpSec.
  • Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Happens in universe when, furious over losing Laisa to Gregor, calls Miles in a drunken rage. His cultured accent slips down to "street Komaran".
  • Unwanted Assistance: Toward Miles after said Miles, having accidentally sabotaged his chances with Laisa Toscane by introducing her to Gregor, offers to assist Duv in his courtship of Delia Koudelka.

     Ser Galen 

Ser Galen

Seriously disturbed and extraordinarily cruel Komarran terrorist. Not a good father; his son Duv was voluntarily estranged from him.

  • Abusive Parents: To Mark, despite Mark's being a clone. He didn't leave his biological son Duv Galeni many happy memories either, if their interactions are anything to go by.
  • Face Death with Dignity: Not Galen, whose death is anything but dignified, but his sister. She merely stared her executioner in the eye as she was murdered. Aral remembered, which is why he supported Duv's ascension.
  • Foil
    • Casts a shadow over his son's life, just like Aral. But Ser Galen actually was a terrorist, while the massacre that got Aral called "The Butcher" wasn't even Aral's fault. That massacre — which killed Galen's sister — happens to be a major reason Galen hates Aral.
      • Aral tries to be a good father, and Miles wants to be a soldier to make Aral proud. Galen taught Duv how to be a terrorist from childhood, and Duv joined the military of their conquerors to atone for his dad. Galen also created Mark, Miles' almost literal Evil Twin, as an anti-Aral assassination weapon. And abused him. Including sexually.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: After he abuses and tortures Mark to train him into the perfect Tyke Bomb, Mark turns on him and shoots him dead.
  • Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: While his hatred of Barrayar in general and Aral Vorkosigan in particular is understandable, if somewhat misguided, his pursuit of his aims is totally despicable.
  • Windmill Crusader: His sister died in the Solstice Massacre, an event widely attributed to Aral Vorkosigan's orders, and Ser Galen desperately wants to avenge both his personal loss and the Barrayaran occupation of Komarr. Shame about his methods, and his grip on reality, and the fact that his idea of "training" includes sexually assaulting Mark with a shock stick for the unforgivable crime of trying to sneak out for a date with a girl...

     Laisa Toscane 

Laisa Vorbarra/Laisa Toscane

Gregor's eventual wife. First introduced in Memory. Their wedding forms the backdrop of the novel A Civil Campaign.

  • Ambadassador: Well sort of. When first met she is a lobbyist for Komarran shipping interests and impresses Gregor with her intelligence and political savvy.
  • Big Beautiful Woman: Is described as having "a figure that made Miles, for one, just want to sort of fall over on top of her and burrow in for the winter..." This proves to be a source of chagrin for Lady Alys, who had tried unsuccessfully for years to catch Emperor Gregor's eye with an endless parade of tall, slender Vor women, only to have him fall in love with a short, plump Komarran entirely of his own accord.
  • Happily Married: To Gregor.
  • Non-Idle Rich: She is the daughter and primary heiress of the powerful Toscane shipping dynasty, but she holds a doctorate in economics and is a shrewd negotiator in her own right.
  • Not with Them for the Money: As a scion of "those Toscanes" the money really wasn't an issue but, despite the political advantages, she didn't marry Gregor to become Empress, she married to become Gregor's wife. As it happens, she also makes one heck of an Empress.
  • Thinks Like a Romance Novel: She has a romantic streak and was enamored by some of the "fairy tale" aspects of Barrayaran history.

Jacksonians

     Baron Ryoval 

Baron Ryoval

Head of the Jacksonian House Ryoval, aficionado of producing horribly genetically modified slaves to satisfy the perverted desires of his wealthy customers; practically makes his fellow Jacksonian barons look human.

  • Circling Monologue: He'll indulge in this from time to time to taunt his victims, and it's what ultimately kills him. His mistake was leaving Mark lucid enough to understand him.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: The man was famous for it, both as a service he offers and as a hobby he enjoyed.
  • Deader than Dead: Mark made very sure that Ryoval wouldn't be transplanted into a new body, by going out of his way to destroy the brain after killing him.
  • Evil Is Petty: Ryoval, having already prolonged his life via brain transfer into a clone body, waits as his younger brother Baron Fell (whom he did his best to kill when they were younger) plans to do the same...and then, just when Fell's clone is fully matured and ready to be 'harvested', Ryoval has the boy assassinated, leaving Fell trapped in an aging body and frantic for some other method to save himself.
  • Grand Theft Me: Despite going well on a century, Ryoval looks like a young man...because, in the words of Mark, he's wearing the corpse of a clone.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Torturing Mark until he got Dissociative Identity Disorder amused Ryoval...and ultimately let Killer off the leash.
  • Mind Rape: His favourite kind, after having gotten bored with the more traditional sort.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Herod: While he got pretty close to killing his entire family, he didn't quite succeed, and the survivors are his enemies, particularly his brother Baron Fell.
  • Torture Technician: Has a whole stable full of them, and indulges from time to time for his own amusement.

     The Durona Group 

The Durona Group

A medical clinic and biological research and development firm run by a group of nearly 40 clones. Formerly serfs to Jackson Whole's Baron Fell. Later set up at Escobar.

  • Berserk Button: If you sabotage a medical procedure performed by Doctor Raven Durona, putting the patient's life beyond any skills he has, he will be very, very pissed. Medicine is always chancy, but he does not appreciate being set up to fail.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Lily, Jr is convinced by Baroness Bharaputra that it is "her duty" to have her brain scooped out and thrown away while the Baroness' is put in charge of her body. Miles cures her of that delusion.
  • Clones Are People, Too: They refer to each other as siblings rather than clones, despite being raised on the distinctly clone-non-friendly world of Jackson's Whole. One of the reasons they wind up helping our heroes is to get the hell off Jackson's Whole, so they can have their own individual lives apart from each other.
  • Conditioned to Accept Horror: They have a minor, disquieting habit of discussing/witnessing ethically dubious or morally bankrupt medical practices with more enthusiasm than one would like.
  • Defector from Decadence: Lily, from House Ryoval. Inverted with her first daughter, who became Baronne Bharaputra. The two women hate each other, and the latter deliberately names the clone who is intended to be her future body 'Lily' as a means of thumbing her nose at her progenitor.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: While they're practically saints compared to the rest of Jackson's Whole, the Durona Group are still rather amoral (especially for medical practitioners) and Miles privately muses that despite Lily's certain ethical quirks, she wouldn't hesitate to dispose of anyone who posed a threat or whom she had no use for. Regardless, Lily categorically refuses to have anything to do with clone brain transfers, and (almost) all of her children follow suit. It's even written into their contract with House Fell.
  • Intimate Healing: Rowan Durona practices this with Miles...who happens to be her patient at the time, even if he was the first to register his interest.
  • Theme Naming: All of the women are named after flowers, all of the men are named after birds.
  • Tranquil Fury: Raven Durona, during Cryoburn, has a moment when he removes his surgical gloves and mask, face frozen into blankness, and breathes out sharply. Miles notes that other doctors would probably have thrown the equipment across the room and started swearing, but Raven still gets the sentiment across.
  • Truly Single Parent: Lily Durona.
  • Young Face, Old Eyes: Lily, the matriarch, who is over 100 years old but looks forty years younger, but being a part of House Ryoval has hardened her forever. Miles even notes "100 year old eyes look at you differently."

     House Cordonah 

The ghem Estif Arqua Family (House Cordonah)

House Cordonah is run by a Jacksonian pirate and a ghem/haut Cetagandan woman. They have eleven children, six of whom were extensively genetically modified by the Baronne. Using her own gene pool, the Baronne created "Jewel" kids followed by "normal" kids in alternating sequence. The Jewels are just as much siblings as the other kids, but aren't known as such publicly.

  • Best Served Cold:
    • Moira and the brooch at the end. It's worth it to her to blow up a very, very expensive item just to punish the haut for throwing her out.
    • Udine promises that their revenge on the usurping Prestene family "will be famous."
  • Cool Old Lady: Moira, who is 130 years old but still breaking into a hidden bunker and one hundred percent capable of Neck Lifting people she takes a dislike to.
  • Dancing Is Serious Business: In fact it is business. The Jewels use their dance as an opportunity to spy on guests.
  • Dude, Where's My Reward?: Amazingly, Pidge has the nerve to demand a 10% finder's fee of the treasure, because it wouldn't have been found without them. Even more amazingly, they do end up with 5% of it, which is their ten percent less expenses.note 
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: They all seem surprised that at least some powerful Barrayarans actually manage to do their jobs without bribery and actually value their given word. Or that Ivan married Tej for no other reason than to get her out of trouble. In Ivan's case they can't quite understand that he isn't playing for the Imperial throne when he is close enough in ancestry to make a play for it. That is kind of "evil cannot comprehend sloth."
    • In general they are so obsessed with scheming that they can't comprehend anyone who isn't. Justified, as Simon Illyan went in with them on their scheme, behind Gregor's back!
  • Everyone Is Related: The general public think the Jewels are the Baronne's specially created dance troupe. In reality, they're as much family as the "normal" kids.
  • Foil: Shiv and Udine are to Aral and Cordelia. Ivan even warns Simon that whatever he's thinking of, not factoring in Udine would be akin to not factoring in Cordelia; Simon takes the advice seriously, having seen what kind of damage Cordelia was capable of when underestimated.
  • Graceful Loser: Shiv's reaction to losing his bet with Simon, potentially getting them imprisoned on capital crimes, is to merely shake his hand and say, "Well played."
  • Hypocrite: Tej and the rest of her family refer to commoners as grubbers. However, in Jacksonian society titles are meaningless without wealth to back them up, and their house has currently been ousted, leaving them virtually broke and technically no longer nobles.
  • Instant Expert: Udine is the daughter of a haut lady and a ghem general. The kids are all half-Cetagandan, and canon precedence is that carefully cultivated Ceta genes can grant people the kind of dexterity, intellect, and learning speed that makes this trope possible.
  • Massive Numbered Siblings: Half of the kids (the Jewels) are visibly genetically modified, the other half were more normalized. They call themselves the "odd sibs" and "even sibs."
  • Melting-Pot Nomenclature: Shiv got ahold of an old Earth baby name book and gave a lot of his children 3—5 names at a time, themed based on Earth locations.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: "Shiv" is a common term for an improvised stiletto.
  • Noble Fugitive: In fact this is Lampshaded when the book comments that Tej's marriage to Ivan works perfectly in Barrayar because every blue blooded Vor will be enchanted by a tale of rescuing a lost princess from a fallen dynasty.
  • Nobody Here but Us Statues: The Jewels are performers, and one of their acts are to be "living statues" — and are excellent spies when doing so.
  • Obliviously Evil: Can be chalked up to haut sense of entitlement, but Moira ghem Estif manages to render even Lady Alys and Simon Illyan speechless with her matter-of-fact recounting of her late husband's personal tragedy of losing his son during the Cetagandan occupation of Barrayar when the young man went to Vorkosigan Vashnoi to be with (and possibly rescue) his Barrayaran lover just as the Cetagandans nuked the entire city. That she tells this tale at a dinner party hosted for her family by Lady Alys, and her nonchalant reaction to the observation that the site no longer glows leaves the Barrayarans too shocked to even be angry. Especially when she asks that the next time Ivan flies over the site (because she calmly notes that they presumably cannot land in the radioactive wasteland) that he give a nod to her deceased stepson and his boyfriend. Yet in her detached way she was sufficiently moved to remember and tell the story and request Ivan give a salute to her stepson and his lover. She also mentions she conceived Udine specifically to make up to General Ghem-Estif for the loss of his (presumably) only child. Nonetheless, she seems to exhibit no concern over everyone else who was killed in the city, weighing the entire tragedy only in terms of how it personally affected her and her husband.
  • Obnoxious In-Laws: To Ivan. Well, when you roll into town, and take over your wife's life to the point where she doesn't even talk to her husband any more...Oh yeah, and they're trying to steal a ton of Cetagandan treasure from under the ImpSec offices.
  • Pirate Booty: the hidden treasures in the Cetagandan bunker hidden under the ImpSec building. With strong undertones of Nazi Gold, at least from the Barrayaran perspective — most of the physical treasures there were stolen during the Cetagandan Occupation. Most of what's there that isn't just financially valuable is also fantastically historically valuable and often lost family heirlooms.
  • Roaring Rampage of Rescue and Roaring Rampage of Revenge: presumably what the Arquas got up to by the time of the epilogue of Captain Vorpatril's Alliance.
  • Space People: As their House was originally based on a space station, albeit one relatively near a habitable planet, they have some of this mentality. At one point Tej has to remind herself that a fireplace is decorative rather than an environmental hazard.
  • The Stateless: Lady Moira ghem Estif renounced her Cetagandan citizenship when she and her husband expatriated to Komarr in the wake of the disastrous invasion of Barrayar. Her husband took Komarran citizenship, and she had residency as his spouse. Since then, she has lived with House Cordonah on Jackson's Whole, and as a resident alien on Earth, but specifically calls out her status as someone who's been stateless for over a century.
  • Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: While nowhere near as stunted as Miles, Shiv is on the short side of average height while Udine is One Head Taller and much stronger than her willowy frame would indicate thanks to her Haut bloodlines.
  • Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Space pirate Shiv and half-haut half-ghem Udine. In fairness, Shiv isn't really ugly by any means, but he's not exactly described as a looker. Udine, meanwhile, is half unbelievably beautiful and half mind-shatteringly beautiful.
  • White Sheep: Tej and Amiri. Tej has no interest in her family's scheming and is perfectly happy with a comfortable life as Lady Vorpatril. Amiri has just as little interest and wishes to be a doctor on Escobar. Not surprisingly Amiri is Tej's favorite sibling, though she's actually closest to Rish who has been her Knight Templar Big Brother since birth.
  • Woman Scorned: Tej notes that Udine is far more frightening than Shiv. While Shiv might give you fair warning, Udine won't even ask. Shiv also taught former haut lady Moira to give her entire former caste the middle finger.
    Udine: When I get my hands on those Prestenes, the retribution will be famous.

     Tej 

Akuti Tejaswini Jyoti ghem Estif Arqua Vorpatril (Tej)

A Baronette from House Cordonah on Jackson's Whole and the second youngest of a very large family. Enters into a citizenship marriage with Ivan in order to avoid arrest and capture. Turns out to actually like being Lady Vorpatril, despite getting the "fall in love" and "get married" parts out of order.

  • Agents Dating: With Ivan, though there are some mix-ups because of the in-law troubles.
  • Big Brother Worship: Toward Amiri who is offstage for much of the book but is her favorite sibling. Also toward Rish to some degree.
  • Blessed with Suck: Tej's highly tuned Cetagandan senses come with downsides. She has a low tolerance for sonic or visual dissonance and is subject to horrendous wormhole jump sickness. She also has this attitude to her large breasts, frustrated they made her too "top-heavy" to be a serious dancer like her Jewel half-siblings.
  • Bonding over Missing Parents: Tej thinks this applies to her and Ivan. It doesn't.
  • Buxom Beauty Standard: There's a My Eyes Are Up Here moment when Ivan takes a little too long reading her nametag — before sighing everyone has that issue. Interestingly, Tej was the only one of her siblings not to be gene-modded — just two chromosomes from each of her parents and gene-cleaned for genetic disorders. So, her endowment is entirely natural and unplanned.
  • Citizenship Marriage: With Ivan, in order to get diplomatic immunity on Komarr
  • Conflicting Loyalty: Between her and Ivan Xav who is conflicted between her and Barrayar.
  • Daddy's Girl: Tej, very much so. According to her, she was her mother's "gift" to her father — she was unmodified, just a natural crossing.
  • D-Cup Distress: Tej dislikes being extremely well-endowed, and not just because of the unwanted attention. She wants to be a professional dancer like her half-siblings, but she moans to Ivan she's too "top-heavy" to be one.
  • Does Not Know Her Own Strength: When she demands she see her family who are in security detention, she lifts the officer by his jacket off his own feet, not realizing she has until she's already done it. It's apparently In the Blood, when Udine does the same exact thing to the Big Bad, though she knows how strong she is.
  • Eating the Eye Candy: Even if it wasn't Love at First Sight, Tej takes a lot of time fantasizing about Ivan sexually even before he gets her in a Citizenship Marriage.
  • Given Name Reveal: And it's a mouthful.
  • Happily Married: Surprisingly, given their elopement.
  • In-Series Nickname: "Tej" turns out to be short for her Overly Long Name.
  • Insistent Terminology: always refers to her husband as "Ivan Xav" in every conversation and even inside her own head once she finds out that he's the only "Ivan Xav" among the many "Ivan Vorpatril"s in the Barrayaran peerage. Ivan Xav is her Ivan. Similarly, in her internal monologues, she always refers to Emperor Gregor as "The Gregor". Miles is similarly "The Coz".
  • Interrupted Suicide: Ivan's proposal stops her and Rish from throwing themselves off a building to avoid arrest and capture.
  • Instant Expert: The whole ghem Estif Arqua brood are half-Cetagandan, and there's canon precedent for the carefully toggled Cetagandan genes conveying Instant Expert status in a number of areas (see: René Vorbretten and music). Despite being the "control child", Tej is no exception:
    • Having never really driven before landing on Barrayar, Tej is signed up for driving lessons by Ivan. Within a few hours she gets her learner's permit, has one moment of hitting a pillar on her first day, and then manages to get her license to drive in a week. In Vorbarr Sultana traffic.
    • Picks up Barrayaran languages (all four of them) with stunning speed, to the point where she can identify a Barrayaran Russian speaker and converse with him fluently. She says to Ivan that languages are fun. Studying economics is much more like work.
  • The Loins Sleep Tonight: Being on the run, Tej has been more or less uninterested in sex. After her first erotic dream of Ivan, she muses in her head, "Hello, loins! I haven't heard from you in a long time."
  • Mafia Princess: Of the Yakuza princess subtype. Played with. Her family doesn't understand her lack of enthusiasm for the freebooting Jacksonian lifestyle.
  • Meaningful Name: "Princess Radiant Light." Ivan thinks her father must have thought the world of her.
  • Muscles Are Meaningless: She is about as normal as anyone with a Haut grandparent can get, but she can still lift grown men off their feet without actually meaning to.
  • Omniglot: She can learn new languages in weeks. She picks up all four of Barrayar's languages in less than a month. Not only that, but she's able to detect, discern and mimic accents as well. She tells Ivan learning language is easy — economics is hard.
  • Overshadowed by Awesome: Much of the reason she gave up on dancing is that she was too tall, stocky, and top-heavy to measure up to the standards of the Jewels. She is also uninterested in economics, law and politics like Pidge and Star. It's strongly hinted that her true talent is in diplomacy, as she's the perfect ambassador's wife, which is a job unto itself (and being an extreme Omniglot makes her perfect for the role.)
  • Overly Long Name: A background character tries to read it off, hesitates, and then settles for "Lady Vorpatril." When she challenges Ivan to repeat her full name, he does it flawlessly, impressing her.
  • Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Her marriage purchases an alliance with Barrayar through sheer good luck, and she never knew Ivan was the Emperor's cousin. When her dad hears about it, it seems to hurt his pride that such a useful Deal was not gotten through his scheming. Though of course she only wanted Ivan Xav, none of her earlier suitors brought as much of a political package as a bride-price. Udine comments that they didn't match because their "antibodies didn't mesh well"; Tej just thinks they were boring.
  • Reassigned to Antarctica: Subverted. When we last see her and Ivan, Ivan is Military Attache on an obscure planet where he was sent until the incident was forgotten and has moved the consulate to a tropical island so she and Ivan could spend a two-year working vacation. Kind of "Reassigned to Riviera."
  • Suddenly Suitable Suitor: Inverted. Staying with her just about ruins Ivan Vorpatril's chances at becoming Emperor of Barrayar... and that is a bonus for him. invoked
  • White Sheep: She's the least genetically modified child of the entire family (at dad's request), "the control child" and the least understood by her family because she isn't obsessed with power and control. When her family needs her to help rob a vault, her primary job is driving the car.

     Rish 

Lapis Lazuli (Rish)

The next to the youngest Jewel in the Baronne's troupe of dancers and spies. A genetically engineered daughter of the Baronne, she has skin designed to look like her namesake, along with wicked dance skills, pointy ears, super strength and super senses.

  • Beta Couple: With Byerly. She admires that he's as covertly sneaky as she is.
  • Blessed with Suck: Rish's senses are even more highly tuned than Tej's. She can't even drive a groundcar without experiencing sensory overload.
  • Blue Skinned Space Babe shot through with metallic gold, as well.
  • Dancing Is Serious Business: And frequently camouflage for investigating a situation.
  • Daddy's Girl: Inverted. Rish is mama's girl through and through, deeply grateful to her mother for giving her a striking appearance and enhanced senses and abilities.
  • Daytime Drama Queen: While in hiding on Komarr she became addicted to several daytime holo-dramas. She's delighted to find out that a few crewmembers on a military ship are also fans, and they end up having sessions of watching tapes as they arrive.
  • Deadpan Snarker: a match for Byerly in this regard
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: She's warm around her family, but Ivan finds her chilly and intimidating. Byerly probably has a hand in mellowing her out a bit.
    Ivan: You're my sister-in-law? That... explains a lot, actually.
    (Cue Byerly ROTFLMAO.)
  • Grand Dame: Downplayed, but she loves being seen among high society — even among notoriously xenophobic Barrayarans — and looks down on "houseless grubbers." (She's exotic enough that Barrayarans think of her more as a displaced alien princess than a mutant.)
  • I Am What I Am: She's proud to be blue and has no interest in hiding that from the norms, and screw you if you find her freaky.
  • In-Series Nickname: "Lapis Lazuli" is her stage name, "Rish" is her family nickname. If she has a formal name it's never revealed.note 
  • Knight Templar Big Brother: In fact the Barrayarans at first think she is a genetically engineered slave-bodyguard. She is genetically engineered, but her loyalty is perfectly normal sibling loyalty. (She was to be a "jeeves", but Udine stopped the loyalty treatments because she couldn't stand the idea of her Jewels dying if she died.) Her parents tasked her with keeping an eye on her baby sister—which probably makes her more dangerous than any artificial loyalty programming ever could—and it's implied that she's been doing so for Tej's entire life.
  • Nobody Here but Us Statues: Her and the Jewels' jobs would often be as "living statues". Of course, people would forget they could hear and see everything going on in a party, and that made them perfect spies, too.
  • Only One Name: possibly, but she doesn't seem to have the mouthful that Tej has.
  • Stage Name: She claims Lapis Lazuli is her stage name, "Rish" is a family nickname like Tej, Pidge, and Star. The only other Jewel we meet (Onyx) also has a family nickname, "Jet". If any of the jewels have any other names it's not mentioned.note 
  • Sarcastic Devotee: Originally designed to be a loyal retainer ("jeeves"), but her mother discontinued loyalty treatments on the Jewels after a while. She's loyal on her own recognizance (and good old-fashioned filial piety). She loves her mom, dad, and baby sister in that order.
  • Shout-Out: She looks a lot like a short Na'vi.
  • Super-Strength: Considerably shorter and slighter than Tej... and much stronger.
  • Yaoi Fangirl: Aside from dating a bisexual man, when Tej brings up the idea of Ivan and By sleeping together, Rish expresses an intense desire to watch.

Others

     Cavilo 

Cavilo

Mercenary in command of Randall's Rangers, Cavilo is probably the series' smartest antagonist, Miles' match in brainpower with absolutely zero morals.

  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: One of her defining traits. Though to be fair, Stanis Metzov really had it coming.
  • Gambit Pileup: Unfortunately (for her) it backfires.
  • Kick The Son Of A Bitch: "Stanis, darling..." she says, just before murdering the man who raped her.
  • Mirror Character: Of Miles, a fact that a number of his friends and allies are quick to hang a lampshade or five on. The only real difference is that Miles does what he does for other people, whereas Cavilo is really only out for herself.
    Gregor: You're both twisty. And, ah, short.
  • Opportunistic Bastard/Fatal Flaw: Cavilo is the leader of a mercenary company who has no qualms about betraying her employer if she gets a better offer from someone else. After capturing her at the end of the book Miles gives her a "Reason You Suck" Speech about it.
    Miles: You should have stuck to your original contract. Or your second plan. Or your third. You should, in fact, have stuck to something. Anything. Your total self-interest did not make you strong, it made you a rag in the wind, anybody's to pick up.
  • Pre-Mortem One-Liner: "Stanis, darling. 'Spread your legs for me, bitch, or I'll blow your brains out.'"
  • The Vamp: And she's terribly effective at it, though not enough fool Gregor.
  • We Could Have Avoided All This: Miles notes that had she simply ferried Gregor straight back to Barrayar, she could have named her reward.
  • Xanatos Gambit: She provides the page quote.
    Cavilo: The key of strategy, little Vor, is not to choose a path to victory, but to choose so that all paths lead to a victory.

     Ethan Urquhart 

Doctor Ethan Urquhart

  • Fish out of Water: When he first gets to Kline Station. Ethan's from an all-male Planet of Hats that has no contact with women at all. However, he adapts fairly quickly, and having known Elli, he gains a ton more respect for Athos' founder: Dr. Cynthia Jane Baruch, a woman.
  • Nice Guy: First to his irresponsible nitwit of a foster brother/boyfriend Janos, then to troubled Cetagandan gene-spliced super-agent Terrence Cee, with much more success in the latter case than the former.
  • Non-Action Guy: At first.
  • Odd Friendship: Between super-responsible, straitlaced Straight Gay Non-Action Guy Ethan and snarky badass Action Girl Elli Quinn. One's a gay, strictly religious downsider, the other a stunningly beautiful spacer mercenary: together they take on agents of the Cetagandan Empire!
  • Straight Gay: Although technically since there are no women on his planet, and indeed most Athosians have never even seen a woman, they may have no concept of effeminacy upon which to base Camp Gay behavior. In addition, while most Athosians undergo a "madness" when seeing women for the first time, Ethan has no reaction.
  • Took a Level in Badass: With a little help from Elli Quinn.

     Terrence Cee 

Terrence Cee

  • Babies Ever After: What he was trying to do with Janine, and what eventually ended up happening in spite of her death.
  • Defusing the Tyke-Bomb: The Cetagandans engineered him to be the perfect superagent, but with a little basic human kindness Doctor Urquhart almost manages to reduce him to tears.
  • Pineal Weirdness: The source of his abilities.
  • Telepathy: An unusual case: his is chemically generated. It is also receptive only. He can read minds, but not send thoughts.

     Ghem Colonel Benin 

Ghem Colonel Benin

Cetagandan Security agent in Cetaganda who ferrets out a Government Conspiracy in the Cetagandan court with Miles' help. Later meets Miles again in A Civil Campaign.

  • Always Gets His Man: It doesn't matter to him that the victim was just a Ba servant. What matters was that someone was murdered.note 
  • Ambadassador: In A Civil Campaign we meet him as a Ghem-general and ambassador to Barrayar with the ultimate Cetagandan reward; a haut wife. He hints to Miles that Cetaganda knows who Admiral Naismath is.
  • Colonel Badass General Badass: Thanks to Miles and Pel.
  • Enemy Mine: He is an agent of Barrayar's traditional rival in interstellar politics. And if Miles ever did a deep-cover job on Cetaganda, presumably he would be a Worthy Opponent. But when we see him, he is an ally of Miles.
  • Fall Guy: Benin was intended to be one by ghem-General Naru if he didn't falsify his investigation. Miles warned him that he better get the Emperor's protection to prevent anyone from impeding his case.
  • Hero of Another Story: He's always on the opposite side of a mystery Miles is trying to solve, and one gets the impression that Benin has the tougher job.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure:
    • Often painted as Miles' opposite number among the Cetagandans, and apparently equally open-minded. In Diplomatic Immunity, it's Benin that Miles contacts to avert a potential Cetagandan-Barrayaran conflict.
    • In Cetaganda, Miles advises him to get the support of Emperor Giaja to prevent any of his possibly suborned superiors from getting lethally nervous about his competence ("If you're going to cover your ass, do it right" thinks Miles). While Benin is initially dubious about going straight to the Emperor, Miles reminds him that it's not some casual familiarity Benin is seeking — it's business, and with the murder of an Imperial servant, it's specifically Giaja's business. Benin follows Miles' advice, and it makes him far more efficient in arresting a high-ranking governor and his own superior officer who set him up to fail his investigation.
  • Tribal Face Paint: Painted in Imperial rather than clan fashion to show where his loyalties were.

     Nicol 

Nicol

Gifted Quaddie musician rescued from indentured servitude on Jackson's Whole by Miles and Bel. Has a second pair of arms instead of legs, which is a disability in gravity but gives her a huge advantage in free fall.

  • Distressed Damsel: The closest thing to a traditional one in the whole series, and that doesn't stop her participating in the fight to escape.

     Leo Graf 

Leo Graf

Engineer who arranges the escape of the quaddies in Falling Free two hundred years before Miles and has Graf Station named after him.

  • Berserk Button: Shoddy work. He preaches almost like a reverend on how bad jury-rigged components or lazy construction can lead to disaster, especially in structures in space. The quaddies adopt this viewpoint as a cultural foundation.
  • Founder of the Kingdom: And the Quaddies will never forget him. Their main station is named after him, and Leo is by far the most popular name among male Quaddies.
  • Interspecies Romance: Quaddies are still human, so it's more like "Transhuman Romance", as he and Silver hook up by the end of Falling Free.
  • Messianic Archetype: Though it's more Moses than the Messiah. Graf even Lampshades his status by promising to bring the Quaddies to "the Promised Land".
  • Our Founder: Leo has the main space station named after him, Graf Station. (Madame Minchinko gets her own opera hall/theater.)
  • Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: He is outraged that the quaddies are to be sterilized because they're no longer cost-effective with the invention of Artificial Gravity. It leads to him stealing an entire station full of quaddies.
  • Socially Awkward Hero: And the Quaddies remember him as such in their opera The Crossing, in the most affectionate way.
  • Space Pirate: He technically qualifies for this, from hijacking a spaceship. He does not have any of the usual characteristics.
  • The Unfettered: A downplayed example, as he very much didn't abandon morality, but he committed himself to rescuing the quaddies, no matter the cost.

     Enrique Borgos 

Enrique Borgos

Mark's Escobaran business partner and creator of the butter bug — a creature that ingests organic matter of just about any variety and regurgitates it as bland nutritious goo that can be processed and flavoured in an enormous number of ways (nicknamed bug butter, not bug vomit, whatever Miles tells you), as well as excreting very high-quality fertilizer. He is brilliant and... fixated.

  • Absent-Minded Professor: So very. Selling more than 100% of his projects to venture capitalists is probably the best example.
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Obsessed with his butter bugs, thinks customizing his bugs (which look like a giant cross between a cockroach and a termite) with his host's livery is a way to get on his good side, and adapts his dissertation into poetry because he wanted to impress a pretty lady.
  • Character Development: By the time of Flowers of Vashnoi, several years of exposure to the Vorkosigans and their friends - not least Martya Koudelka, who married him - has seen some development of his social skills, although he's still a massive nerd.
  • Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Enrique cares deeply for his bugs to the point that he cries when the queens die. It appears completely beyond his powers of comprehension that most people do not feel the same way immediately, or even after he explains how wonderful they are at length.
  • Lovable Nerd: Well... Martya seems to like him, anyway.
  • Manchild: He doesn't need an assistant, he needs a keeper. Or a mother. He has to be reminded to bathe, eat, sleep, dress, look both ways before crossing the road, that most people are a bit cagey about eating bug puke no matter how sanitary and nutritious it is...
  • Stupid Crooks: Before meeting Mark, Enrique had sold several hundred percent of butter bug stock to his investors. Notably, he didn't even seem aware that this might be illegal. Or even impossible. "I was going to pay them back!"

     Ker Dubauer 

Ker Dubauer / The Unnamed Ba

A Ba servitor formerly of the Star Crèche who was the primary antagonist of Diplomatic Immunity.

  • Call-Back: To Cetaganda. It was another of the late Cetagandan Empress's confidants, and genuinely believed stealing the replicators and creating a splinter group of Haut was in accordance with her wishes.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: It makes horrifyingly liberal use of stolen Cetagandan bioweapons to slowly and painfully dissolve its victims into goo.
  • Fate Worse than Death: When Miles destroys the freezer case of genetic samples, the ba snaps and loses all sanity. When talking to the haut ladies of the Star Crèche, Miles thinks:
    He had slain men's bodies, and bore the mark, and knew it. He did not think he'd slain a soul, yet left the body breathing, bereft, and accusing.
  • Mistaken for Spies: Miles quickly notices that things don't add up and assumes it's on a secret mission for the Star Crèche. Since it was not actually trained as a covert operative, this leads him to overestimate its capabilities and underestimate its desperation.
  • No Biological Sex: An inherent part of being a Ba.
  • No Name Given: Its true name was never used, just the alias Ker Dubauer.
  • Opposite-Sex Clone: Although it's more like a Sexless Clone of the current Cetagandan emperor, Fletchir Giaja.
  • Take Away Their Name: Its ultimate punishment is to have its name stripped from all of the Star Crèche's records.

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