For Barrayar Mods

it is the thirty-first century.
Humans began colonizing other planets a millennium ago, and the advent of wormhole jump technology has allowed them to spread across the galaxy to terraform and setlte new worlds, creating a galactic Nexus networking dozens of autonomous colonies.

Humankind technology has advanced by leaps and bounds, giving rise to vast improvements in both standards of living and medical science. At the forefront of this is Beta Colony, one of the oldest colonies in the Nexus. Beta Colony also hosts the Betan Astronomical Survey, a government organization dealing in the risky business of jumping through blind wormholes in the hopes of discovering more habitable planets in previously unexplored regions of the galaxy. The high quality of life and the success of genetic engineering means that the average life expectancy on Beta Colony is around 120 years.

Barrayar was a planet settled initially by a primarily Russian expedition from Earth, with portions of its population also from England, France, and Greece. Though the planet is mostly ocean, there are a couple of large habitable contents, with two tidally locked moons and a day cycle of 26.7 hours. The initial settlers were cut off from the rest of the Nexus when the only known wormhole route to their planet collapsed, sending out a massive blast of radiation. This destroyed their modern technology, and their society waxed feudal, developing into two distinct casts: the common proles, and their ruling military caste, the Vor. Fierce, defensive, and passionate, the Barrayarans came to hold honor as their highest virtue, the spoken oath valued above all others.

The radiation from the wormhole collapse also half-irradiated the planet, still in the early stages of terraforming, and raised the risk of harmful genetic mutations. With a scarce starting population of 50,000, fear of contamination of the gene pool gave way to cultural paranoia, and with it the practice of infanticide on newborns with visible genetic mutations. With their isolation and lack of technology and poorer quality of life, the average Barrayaran life expectancy is only about 80 years.

Several hundred years after the wormhole collapse, a period referred to on Barrayar as the Time of Isolation, a new wormhole route to Barrayar was discovered by the Betan Astronomical Survey, enabling Barrayar to rejoin the Nexus. Its nearest neighbor is the planet Komarr, a trade hub sitting on six wormhole routes to other planets in its space. A mere twenty years after the end of the Time of Isolation, Komarr accepted a bribe from the massively powerful Cetagandan Empire to let their warships pass through the wormhole route to Barrayar unimpeded. Intent on making Barrayar their Ninth Satrapy and seeing the backwater planet as easy pickings, the Cetagandans swept in without mercy. They launched an attack on the planet's capital without word or warning and demanded unconditional surrender. The Barrayarans refused.

Outmatched and outgunned at every turn, the Barrayarans took to the hills and waged a vicious guerrilla warfare campaign against the Cetagandans that lasted twenty years, and ultimately resulted in Cetaganda's withdrawal from the planet, a frustrating and embarrassing defeat. And Barrayar, war-scarred and its population half-decimated, was finally able to resume the process of rejoining galactic society just a scant five years ago. Going from horseback to spaceflight in a single generation is a dizzying leap, and much of Barrayar struggles with cultural whiplash between the old ways and the threat of the new. Modern infrastructure and technology on the planet is scattershot and incomplete, much of it focused around the capital where Cetaganda had built its primary military installations, but Barrayar is catching up at a rapid pace.

^^note that they have a lot of REBUILDING to do because the cetagandans blew up so much shit

The planet's capital and seat of government, Vorbarr Sultana, is located in the heart of Vorbarra's District, straddling the river that cuts across it. To the south is Vorkosigan's District, site of the original wave of outsiders and a major player in Barrayar's hard-won success against the Occupation. The rebel army is scattered among several bases and safehouses across the continent, but the primary base is located outside of Vorbarr Sultana.