[For Barrayar] setting

[barrayarmods]

artwork by runawayballista

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 settle 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 this is Beta Colony, one of the oldest colonies in the Nexus and rivaled only by Cetaganda in its technological innovation. 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 successful genetic engineering means that the average life expectancy on Beta Colony is around 120 years.

The Cetagandan Empire spans across eight planets around the Nexus. Dominated by the cultural ideal of perfecting the human genome, the Empire is built around the art of genetic engineering and the prestige of advanced and high-quality genes. Cetagandan upper society is made up of two distinct castes, the ghem and the haut. The lower of the two classes, the ghem largely seek prestige either through military service for men, or artistic achievement with nonhuman genetic engineering for the women. Great military achievement is often rewarded with marriage to a haut woman culled from her constellation, allowing some of the superior haut genome to be distributed into ghem society. The ghem are easily distinguishable by their painted faces; ghem face-paint can indicate a wide variety of societal cues, such as clan, social status, occupation. Used in military contexts, face-paint may denote what mission or squad he has been tasked with. While the ghem make up the military presence and much of its artistic and academic culture, the cloistered haut are the curators of the genome, the true center of rule. They craft genetic crosses not only with longevity and health in mind, but with beauty as well. Cetagandans have an average lifespan of 150 years, and the scarcely-seen haut women are reputed to be almost ethereally beautiful.

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 continents, and has two tidally locked moons. 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 not only destroyed almost all of their technology, and their society waxed feudal, developing into two distinct castes: 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 holding the highest value 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, cultural paranoia of genetic mutations quickly developed, and with it the practice of infanticide on newborns with visible genetic mutations. With the lack of access to modern technology and relatively poor quality of living, the average Barrayaran life expectancy is only about 80 years. The Barrayaran day cycle is 26.7 hours.

Seven hundred years after the wormhole collapse, a period referred to on Barrayar as the Time of Isolation, a new wormhole route was discovered to Barrayar by the Betan Astronomical Survey, enabling Barrayar to rejoin the Nexus. Its nearest neighbor is the planet Komarr, a trade hub with now 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 Cetagandan Empire to let their warships pass through the wormhole to Barrayar unimpeded. Intent on making Barrayar the Ninth Satrapy, the Cetagandan Empire swept in without mercy. Taking the planet's capital, Vorbarr Sultana, under occupation, they demanded unconditional surrender. The Barrayarans refused.

With only swords and horses at their disposal, the Barrayarans are far outmatched by the Cetagandans' cutting-edge war technology. But where they fall short in arms, the Barrayarans more than make up in heart and cunning. Determined to protect and reclaim their home at any cost, the Barrayarans took to the hills to wage guerrilla warfare against the Cetagandans with their Emperor as their commander, picking fights and taking little victories where they can – and sometimes great ones. However, the Cetagandan Empire is well-equipped for a long siege, and ten years into the war, Barrayaran casualties already number in the millions.

To the south in Vorkosigan's District, Emperor Dorca's youngest General, and one of his most loyal, General Count Piotr Vorkosigan leads the Barrayaran resistance against ghem-General Zahal Zefyst's forces. The guerrilla camp is hidden in the thick foliage of the Dendarii mountains, the small army aided by the nearby hill villages. Both driven by a fierce pride for their homes and a dead-set determination to win, General Vorkosigan and ghem-General Zefyst are locked in a vicious struggle. General Vorkosigan is emblematic of the Barrayaran fighting spirit, and ghem-General Zefyst knows that if he can kill Vorkosigan, he can kill the resistance, too. But thus far Vorkosigan, a man equipped with only two swords and a horse, has proved a difficult man to kill.