Title: You Never Know Who Understands.
Author: lannamichaels
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga
Series: Part 7 of Are You Out There, Can You Hear This?
Pairings: Gregor Vorbarra/Duv Galeni, Gregor Vorbarra/Ekaterin Vorvayne
Rating: G
A/N: The title is from Are You Out There by Dar Williams. This was inspired by nnozomi prompting more radioverse, including someone else who listens to Komarran radio.
Archives: Archive Of Our Own, SquidgeWorld

Summary: Ekaterin was also listening all the time.



1.

PRIVATE MESSAGE

FROM: Mod Lorie

TO: GB3451

SUBJECT: Only_A_Gardener

Greg,

Only_A_Gardener is a forum member on the Komarran board. She's Vor and has been through a lot while living on Komarr; the board helped her get her husband thrown in jail and then got her a good divorce lawyer. She's coming back to Barrayar, potentially permanently, potentially not. She has a teenage son and a lot going on in her life. She likes spaceways buskers and folk.

She can be very timid and she is exactly the kind of person to believe you when you say you're not Vor, and to get very concerned about the kind of shit you pull here.

Do. Not. Scare. Her. Off.



PRIVATE MESSAGE

FROM: GB3451

TO: Mod Lorie

SUBJECT: Re: Only_A_Gardener

What do you take me for? I don't scare off newbies.



PRIVATE MESSAGE

FROM: Mod Lorie

TO: GB3451

SUBJECT: Re: Re: Only_A_Gardener

Usually our newbies aren't Vor women who have mutie sons.

You're not on the Komarran board so you don't know your reputation there. Let's just say, it precedes you.

Only_A_Gardener cares more about Vor honor than you do, and less about Kalle Quick.



PRIVATE MESSAGE

FROM: GB3451

TO: Mod Lorie

SUBJECT: Re: Re: Re: Only_A_Gardener

...Acknowledged.



2.

"--and here is Emperor Ezar's statue garden!" booms the voice of one of Gregor's auditors from around the corner. Gregor pauses and turns.

Vorthys is waving expansively at the statuary, accompanied by a bemused-looking woman approximately Gregor's age, and a boy around fifteen or sixteen, with the aspect of a boy who has suddenly found himself taller than his mother and isn't sure how he feels about the situation. He's hunched a little, as if he can reverse the treachery of his bones. Nevertheless, he looks bored.

Gregor contemplates clearing his throat and calling attention to himself, but before he can, Vorthys says something to the woman, who responds, "everything is ballast when you don't care" and Gregor blinks.

"That's from one of mom's songs," the teenager says.

"I didn't know you were composing!" Vorthys says and the woman demurs.

"I didn't write it," she says. "Nona Blue did."

And Gregor has to step forward then. There isn't a power on Barrayar that could have stopped him. "Back when she was living in Serifosa and working at Jolly Luck Shipyards."

"Yes, exactly," the woman starts and then looks up and realizes who interrupted her.

Vorthys manages to introduce his niece Ekaterin Vorvayne, and her son, Nikolai, but Gregor's caught by the way she looks at him, as if she sees him first as a kindred spirit, and only second as an Emperor.



3.

Excerpts of conversations between Greg Bleakman and Duv Galeni:

...not sure how long I can hold off on them making me the dean but I'm still fighting the good fight... you'll like this story, Adriane swapped the scripts for the links this morning and no one noticed for three hours because no one actually reads the scripts. She was trying to make a point to me about what we spend our time doing, but now I want to shake all these ostensible radio professionals (and the undergrads) and tell them we have scripts for a reason, and that reason is that it adds emphasis when they suddenly go off script... early semester is somehow always the worst except for late in the semester which is also the worst... only one weather-related tantrum this month so far... still not sure how you Barrayarans handle this... did you see the new Vor on the KMBB forum?

...yes, I've PMed her to say hello... we don't handle it, that's why we go on vacation to experience different weather, and spend resources on weather satellites, why do you think I go off to Komarr all the time... my mother's father used to say we came to this planet for the weather, because we came off a generation ship; I'm pretty sure he's wrong on every particular, but if he was talking about the weather he wasn't talking about anything else... I think Adriane is my favorite of your new staff this semester, she always sounds like she's trying to make everything better even if she's still figuring out how to do that, better her than what's-their-name from last year, the one who kept breaking microphones... my new hires are, unfortunately, not nearly as entertaining. I'm surrounded by competence...

...don't lie to me, you send me too many requests for outdome drilling recommendations to be surrounded by competence, you are not a man happy with your coworkers... are you going to do anything about that festival thread, even Pat is telling me it might be "uh, a good idea" for Greg to show up, and you know how Pat refuses to admit that... not sure what to do about my own mother's family, they're coming to visit because I haven't been back home in so long and they want to reconnect, it's been long enough since we saw each other and I write them one dutiful letter a year, we weren't that close, but I have some voting shares and just got more through a realignment and if I'm not going to the close shareholders meeting, the bylaws need me to be told in person of this and that and the details... Mer heard me complaining about it and said why didn't I just take the time and go back home to visit and that's how yet another person in the department found out about my father... awaiting the inevitable question of how they let me onto Barrayar in the first place... you'd think a man can change his name and move to another planet and home will stop following him around...

...that festival thread is the highlight of my life, I'm never going to interfere in it... tell Mer that Barrayar is a many-tentacled space monster that enveloped Komarr and is slowly strangling it, or whatever that quote is, every time I try to actually read that book, my personal assistant taps me on the shoulder and invents things for me to do, suspect a conspiracy...

...stop letting trolls give you book recommendations, this is like that time you spent a year and a half reading Komarran romance and told me it sounded complicated... you can't wow me with Vor politics anymore, academia is worse, check the news from the university account... date night with Saverio last night, he spent the entire time complaining about it, I can't escape even in my escapes... he says hello... every semester I think I should stop giving all the newbies accounts on all the forums and lists, since most of them don't use them anyway, and the ones that use them will then turn to me at the worst moments and say, did Benny really write Join about having sex with a crowbar, the Komarran music scene is too small, six years ago someone would have just asked Benny in the halls but now he's touring the Domes and I refuse to give his contact information to anyone who doesn't remember that time his voice broke live on air...

...I saw Benny the last time I was in Equinox, he's doing really well, but I will always remember him as your little protege who couldn't pass any of his classes because he was too busy being in seventeen bands with every other music student... I know he was your favorite and I know he would never have sex with a crowbar, he'd use a wrench... give my best to Saverio... Gardener and I went to a show last night...

...you add that like it's not the biggest news of the decade, you've met someone from the Komarran world face to face and name to name, or did she already know you? You can tell me you're not Vor again, if it makes you feel better... research trip to the old supply garrison is finally happening, after being pushed off five times... found myself humming When Boat Got Stuck today and accidentally started an impromptu sing-along at a department meeting, there are too many Komarrans here, I came to Barrayar to become a Barrayaran, I remind myself all the time, all the time... what happened and why am I just a Komarran on Barrayar, surrounded by everyone I tried to leave... if I were Benny I'd write a song about that instead...

...you know enough songwriters, you should write them a confessional... sorry I laughed thinking of what face you'll make when you read that, I know you never will, but I still think you should, there's poetry in your soul, Duv... no poetry in mine, of course, I'm immune to it... ignore my collection of poetry and ignore how much of it came from you... but I think about ship tunes a lot, how it's a genre of music we don't have at all on Barrayar. We have our share of work songs, but ship tunes capture something elusive to our spirit, and I think that's why you're finding them so popular amongst Barrayarans. One of my coworkers even wrote a version of one that's about having a conversation with me... he's a brave man and showed it to me himself... that's the one who used to live on Komarr, he knows me well enough to know that I'd think it's funny, and he was right, it was hilarious, of course then we did have to have that conversation and that wasn't fun at all... wish I could quit my job but it's a sinecure... how did it go with your relatives?...

...agonizing, I got told I was being so responsible and had grown up well, if there's one thing Komarrans love, it's an academic, even if I'm an expert on the wrong thing on the wrong planet, only two attempts to get me to Come Home and take a job at University of Solstice, I got to say I'm having a feud with their chair, convenient and also true... was asked twelve times about children and if I was in a relationship that involved consolidating finances, told them about you and Saverio and Pat, they expressed surprise that I'm simultaneously in casual relationships with a Komarran, a Barrayaran, and a Cetagandan and not living with any of them, never met one of them, and no children at all except all the graduate students, seems I'm like Legendary Ancestor Muriel, which if I remember my mother's stories correctly, is assuredly _not_ a compliment... my cousin said it was good I gave them things to disapprove of so they didn't have to go find some, he's a little too Barrayaran for someone who's never been here before... he lives on Sunsynchrone Station, which is mostly Barrayaran, or so he tells me... official numbers say it's not, so it seems he's like me and seeks out the Barrayarans... hope the Komarrans don't chase him... terrible taste in fashion...

...saw Watch Parrigan with Gardener and told her about your academic shenanigans, she says her aunt and uncle deal with the exact same problems, shame I can't also be dating a Cetagandan, all the ones I meet are supremely undateable... is this the cousin Walter who writes you those long letters or cousin Mo the engineer... my cousin the astrocartographer keeps arguing with his crew about the best jumpship for its size, he doesn't want a big lug but it can't be so small it can't navigate by itself, talks my ear off about it every chance he gets... he has no ear for music, thankfully, or he'd find his way onto one of the forums and be immediately banned for life for picking fights with the fleeties...

...rumors about the revival of the Komarran Senate have reached even the Barrayarans; the commander of the supply garrison talked of nothing else when he found out I was a Komarran. Larissa told him my aunt was in the Senate, and the commander spent the rest of the visit under the mistaken impression that that made me some kind of Komarran Vor. Everyone thinks this is funny, I tell you because I know you won't... storerooms full of old cavalry equipment in the supply depot, the original lists in the garrison, a career lieutenant serving as archivist... already trying to schedule my return visit... interns this semester somehow are all fleeties, they switch back and forth between incomprehensible ship shorthand and painfully perfect Vor Russian they learned from language tapes and soap operas... this is why the Komarran Society has language classes but I wish we could go one year where they weren't necessary, Rhoda wrote a note to send back to their ships counselors... interns keep pointing out they can communicate, I tell them not well enough... not letting them in the broadcast booths, I don't know all their slang and don't want them saying something on air we'd be legally liable for... none of them are studying broadcasting or music, they're only here to vex me and for academic credit...

...send them to Pat for a couple days and have them discover the only people who speak like they're in soap operas are the insufferable Vor bores, they'll be happy for your language classes... honestly, the kind of bloody-minded determination that led their ancestors to terraform Komarr and build waystations in the dark should get them through a couple months of language classes so they don't sound like Aral Vorkosigan... dealing right now with insufferable Vor bores, wish they were Komarran teenagers instead, I know how to deal with Komarran teenagers, I say, what's the difference between overdome and underdome and watch them devour themselves trying to define music genres... wondering now if Little Gardener would count as a Komarran teenager to your students, he did spend a large percentage of his life in Serifosa and then Solstice, although he's Vor... great kid, I'm surprising myself by feeling paternal, I didn't know I could, never felt like someone's dad before, and this boy's dad was a jerk, so he needs a new one... really understand now the way you talk about some of your grad students...

...don't know if I should thank you or curse you for the idea to show them recordings of Aral Vorkosigan, now they're refusing to speak anything but shorthand... Sandor is teaching them Greek... sometimes I wish I could see Komarrans the way you do but then I get caught wondering... I know I was there, but it still seems so strange to me... why did you even listen to me, what possibly interested you in early hours radio, did you just have insomnia... what do they do to the cadets at the Academy that made listening to Komarran radio and dreaming of our life as if it was better than yours an attractive proposition... I know I'm the one who always pulls back from the conversations that go too close to what I don't want to discuss, but really, at what point did _you_ find out about my father and, for that matter, about me... but it goes both ways, I suppose, I loved Barrayar for not being home for so long, I longed for it, really, but I never idealized it, I admired it for its changes, but knowing you has made me admire it for what it can keep becoming... are you a good representative of your fellows, I wonder, because you always say you're not, but yet, here you are... and here I am, so I suppose... our little dance, you always call it, but if it's a dance, it's slower than docking maneuvers in an unfamiliar system... glad this is you and not Pat I'm talking to, he'd turn that into a sex joke... some Komarrans love Barrayar for the horses and the outdoors and your soap opera of a life, but I love it because it's not stagnant, and I always felt like my life was fighting against stagnation... you talk about terraforming Komarr, while all around you Barrayar is doing the same... our situation is not more hopeless than yours just because we had to live in domes, don't know what Komarr would have become if we'd been cut off for hundreds of years, maybe my aunt would have been a Vor after all...

...did I fall in love with Komarr first and then you, or you and then Komarr, I couldn't tell you either... the things we don't talk about in our thing are undiscussed on purpose and I understand... and still ...you're the most important person to me and the relationship we've built is the most important part of my life. I don't want to throw that away. I know how delicate this is. But our plausible deniability, Duv, is... starting to talk to Gardener about marriage, David from the board and the radio, Duv from my stories... you're the most important person to me and it hurts me so much that I can't ever meet you -- our little dance, I told my best friend, and he thinks I'm crazy, but not the kind of crazy that, you know, or I guess you don't -- how long have you known, I've always wondered, I know you fought that terrible joke as long as you could... all the things I want to say to you but I don't want to accept what it will do to us if I do... with her it's not the heady passionate love of the ballads, but a steady engine roar of happiness, someone who knows all of me and embraces it... never thought I would or could have this, there's no fragmentation with her... I think we'll be married by midsummer...

...I know... everyone on the board is rooting for the two of you to get married, you're our own Vor love story (I know, you're not Vor, Vor don't fall in love)... I know how important it is to your family that you get married and have kids. How could it change anything? Especially not to someone who can be what I can't -- or won't -- ...you'll finally be able to say you're not Vor but your wife is...

...I'm certainly not Vor and I'm not certainly not in love. But half the reason I fell in love with Komarr was falling in love with people who understood me, and she understands me. I don't think she's in love with me in a different way than I'm in love with her, we're in love with the places that we fit together. We both love the same world, and in our own world, that's so very rare. So very very rare. You all give me shit about not being Vor, but how can I be Vor and still exist in this world? She understands that. I would marry her just for that. I don't think you need to have a ballad love with your wife; no Vor thinks that. To have a ballad love in common with your wife -- can there be anything more precious? I don't need sex for a relationship -- if I did, I wouldn't consider you -- and us -- whatever us is -- to be anything at all. You never want to meet me and I don't want everything to fall apart... the things we don't want to acknowledge... would be honored if you would come to our wedding...

...ask me in twenty years and I may say yes.



4.

Excerpts of conversations between Gregor Vorbarra and Ekaterin Vorvayne:

...the Dreaded Marriage Question. I know I forfeit as Rafe says, but Nikki is being insistent, as well as certain Other Parties... no objection on my part, but...

...does Nikki like traveling? I can't make him a jumpship pilot, or rather, I won't, because he's medically unfit still, and Emperor or no Emperor, I won't contravene the intergalactic standard, but did he want to be a jumpship pilot to be a jumpship pilot, or because he didn't want to be stuck too long on planet? Because if it's that latter, I can make him a very nice offer of a Crown Prince position that travels all over the galaxy, representing Barrayar. And Komarran universities are used to students who spend most of their time on merchant fleet ships, he won't ever be the odd one out in his classes...

...surprised and flattered, of course, but I'm also confused. You'll make another man's son your heir, when you can still have your own? ... I do want more children, I thought you did, too...

...must confess that Nikki's existence is a benefit, not something to be worked around. Everyone's been after me for twenty years to obediently get married and obediently produce heir + spare + several more for Vorbarra inheritance drama, but it's come up against my stubbornness. I don't want to give this Imperium to someone who doesn't want it and doesn't have the opportunity to decline. Nikki hasn't been raised with the expectation of getting it, or that he has to have it. If he wants it, it's his. He's Vor and legitimate and body-birthed, and he's seventeen, no one has to worry about another lengthy regency, which has always been everyone's second-greatest fear (the first, of course, is no legitimate heirs at all). If Nikki wants to be the next Emperor of Barrayar, I'll be pleased to give it to him... as for more children, I'm in favor, but only via uterine replicators and only gene cleaned. First for the obvious, the second for the politics. No one will truly object to Nikki when the alternative is a uterine replicator and a twenty year regency...

...I see how it is, you only want me for the son I bore, I feel a Vor woman out of the ballads now. But you only want to send him to a Cetagandan diplomatic reception, I imagine, and not off to a distant battle-field, and so I'll talk to him about it. You're right that this isn't something he's considering. He asked me if I thought you'd make him a prince or if he'd just be a lord somebody or whoever, if you'd let him take your name or insist on it. Neither of us considered you were desperate enough for an heir to risk it on a divorcee and a healed-mutie...

...don't under-state yourself, I also want you for your encyclopedic knowledge of thirty years of spaceways buskers. Tell me, did you ever think about running away...

...constantly but I can't play the guitar or sing and neither can Nikki, all hopes were doomed...

...do you want guitar lessons? I know everyone there is to know at the Conservatory, they're always at my throats about why I love Komarran music so much and not anything homegrown. I don't tell them that anything homegrown is too stuck in the dirt, think they would revolt...

...the music is so freeing, don't you think? It's from people who are always one foot in the stars...

...Duv Galeni is the closest thing I've ever had to a relationship and I won't give him up; I won't ask you to give up anyone else either... it took so long... but it would break instantly if he knew who I was, so we both pretend he doesn't... wish all the time he would be willing to take a risk and meet me as equals, but this wormhole can't be traversed... he knows about you on both levels and he is happy for me and for you... wish he would let me ever touch him... but you see now, don't you, why... not just the first person to understand me, but the person to make me understandable... don't know how to explain, have you ever read Venture...

...surely the two of you have managed to have sex over messages if nothing else... I do understand. After Tien, I'm shy... but I do want sex, with you or with someone else, we can decide later if you like... uterine replicators give us so much more time...

...I remember the first time I understood what uterine replicators could represent and I'm reminded every time there's a forum thread insulting Vor men...

...it's never stopped surprising me how they see us, sometimes they see us so well and other times... I don't think you're helping...

...why should I help, I fell in love with them because they hated Aral Vorkosigan as much as I do... I developed better reasons over time, of course...

...you would have had to... of course I'll come with you next week... was about to say it's like you never had anyone to go to shows with and then I remembered... at least when I've gone by myself or with Nikki, it was on purpose, but you've gone with security, I think that's almost sad... hope your security enjoyed the shows... plenty of Vor women hate the replicators, too, it gives everyone something to point to when demanding more children out of them, as if all that goes into raising children is the creation of them...

...never thought of it that way but you're right, suppose I've always had people ordering me to produce babies... Vor women and Emperors, must reproduce on command...

...Nikki starting to refer to his impending adoption as his apprenticeship, making jokes about it, think he's nervous about it... not backing out... your offer of taking his friends along has been firmly rebuffed, he wants to be a professional crown prince, and taken seriously, not a vacation... I'm proud of him, wish I thought Tien was proud, too...

...wonderful thing about doing this at our age is we've got a good grounding in how not to do it... thinking about what you said about Blue Cherries and Nona Blue, have you ever listened to...

...love how calm you are. Tien was not calm...

...don't want to tie you to the ground when you long to soar... your own flagship or fleet, be my Empress Of Terraforming, you know I know nothing about it... no reason you can't travel in style as well as Nikki... multiple targets, I haven't been much of a traveling Emperor, I keep wasting all my time going to Komarr so I can sneak away to shows... hate going to Sergyar, it's so far and it reminds me too much of my father... I suppose I love uterine replicators so much because I know I'll never put my wife through what my mother had to endure... never let anyone tell you good things about Emperor Ezar...

...Nikki wants to know what to call you after the adoption... he won't be honest with me but what Tien did hurt him, too, if you're willing to be Uncle Greg a little while longer...

...in public, Nikki can take refuge in protocol like the rest of us and call me by title as much as he likes. In private, he can take refuge in family and call me whatever he likes, or not call me anything at all. I don't remember what I called my own father. I may not have seen him enough times to ever address him... Vorbarras aren't skilled parents. We're too busy being Vorbarra... another reason I haven't been too eager to have my own, I have no one to look at for ideas... I'm like Nikki, I never really knew what to call Aral Vorkosigan...

...are you close to him now or are these in-laws I should be prepared to never meet?... don't be upset if you never see my brothers too much, neither do I...

...it took years of effort for me to get him to see me as the Emperor and not Serg Vorbarra's son, and I've never managed to get him to see me as his own son, even though I spent years wishing he would... you'll see my paternal cousins Ivan and Miles more than Aral and Cordelia... Miles is a mutie, Nikki might be interested in talking to him about being a mutie High Vor... not that Miles is a model to follow, remind me to tell you about that time he was Nikki's age and committed five acts of high treason while under the influence of intoxicants, and then doubled-down on them when sober, including illegally swearing an armsman. Forget the hardest treason, Miles accomplished a whole lot of easiest...

...every time I see that treason thread, I think about you and your lawyers... are you ever going to deal with that festival thread or keep ignoring it forever...

...keep ignoring it, it's really funny sometimes... pile-up in my private messages, Pat keeps escalating his rhetoric... my lawyers have a drinking game, my favorite time was when Hochfelder came to me and said that one would actually work, please tell them it never will, or we'll have trouble... other lawyers have been prone to cursing Komarran ingenuity and then trying to hire them...

...don't tell me Doc works for you, I'll cry into my breakfast... can't ignore how easy it is to talk to you, it was never that easy with Tien, I was always so nervous. I don't know why I was nervous with him and not with the Emperor of Barrayar...

...I'm not the Emperor of Barrayar, I'm just some guy you met on a Komarran message board... would rather be your show-buddy than your Emperor but I'm old enough to understand that I don't get to choose... Doc Romance has refused six times to start working for me, you've met her granddaughter, she took your uncle's class last semester...

...Nikki called you Gregperor today... if I must have ladies in waiting, may I have Countess Vorvolk? She explains things so much better than Lady Alys Vorpatril, who I think wishes I was fifteen years younger and had a Count for a grandfather...

...Lady Alys has spent my entire adult life trying to marry me off to every single Vor lady on this planet, and now I found myself a bride on my own and she's very put out with me... don't be intimidated, she's overjoyed about Nikki... speaking of grandparents, she wants to adopt him as a grandson, she thinks he's perfect... I'll hold her back from trying to mold him too much... her son Ivan is too scared to have his own children, family trauma... Lady Alys is a Vor dragon and doesn't understand that her son has embraced cowardice as a survival strategy, and I'm not the sort of Emperor to force Ivan into bravery, it's fine with me if he never wants to captain his own ship, every ship needs all hands, not just command staff. Ivan was born to be command staff but so was I, and I can't escape it, so why shouldn't I let Ivan do so? Lady Alys disagrees... she's a woman born to be a Time of Isolation Empress, so needless to say I have never had any complaints about her as my hostess...

...you seem to be surrounded by people a generation above you who refused to be your surrogate parents and now that my son is almost fully grown and about to embark on a career I never foresaw for him, is it wrong that I find that almost sad? I can't imagine him with no one putting him first. Has anyone hugged you since you were five... realized too late that's a rude thing to say to your liege lord, Emperor of three planets, et cetera et cetera, but since we're going to be married soon, I think I have the right...

...please don't get the wrong impression of Countess Vorkosigan, she tried when she could, but she was busy being herself, she couldn't be my mother, too, when I was older, I understood... you'll say that doesn't mean I have to forgive it, but why should I forgive not being given something I was never promised...

...I think I understand now why you fell in love with Komarran music when you were fifteen, I think I hate the Vorkosigans, too...

...she really did try. You'll understand when you meet them. Everyone loves her...

...having met her, I think you need to go listen to Kalle Quick in a dark room with your armsmen guarding the door against any intruders, she would have gotten along with anyone but I can't like her, I know you told me your real friends called you Greg, silly me I thought you meant I wasn't the first one to do it to your face... Nikki asked me on the way home if they're his foster-grandparents now and I couldn't overcome my feelings enough to tell him, so I said every protocol expert I've talked to -- you and Lady Alys -- agree that he can always be polite and never ever has to be friendly... if the Vorkosigans ask him to call him something informal, I might change my mind about them...

...you're not only the first one to call me Greg, you're the first person to hate them because of me... I wish you wouldn't hate them, they did do their best, and Aral Vorkosigan never wanted to be my Regent, let alone my father... wish you wouldn't judge them on the scale of Tien, join me in judging them on the scale of Vorbarras...

...you were an orphan who needed parents, if they weren't going to be your parents, they should have found people who would be... I've spent too much time with Lady Alys because I can hear her saying that's dangerous and giving people power over the Emperor... I can see why you're marrying me, I don't think you're the Emperor, I think you're either Greg Bleakman or Gregor Vorbarra, depending on who I'm talking to, and either way, you're the man I'm marrying. Emperor is a job title...

...and to think that Lorie on the forum warned me that you take Vor honor more seriously than I do...

...is she one of the ones who suspects you're the Emperor?...

...I have no idea...



5.

FORUM: The Place To Put All Politics (YES ALL)

THREAD TITLE: News Summary

USER: Mod Jessssssa

It's been a whirlwind. We've closed all the threads; they were too tangled. Use this one instead.

Summary of the recent Imperial Announcements:

-The Council of Komarr and Council of Sergyar are established to pass laws and advise the Emperor.

-The Council of the Continents is established for the southern continent of Barrayar and any other matters that the Council of Counts "chooses not to" address, whatever that means.

-The three new bodies will all be elected: Komarr from the old Senate districts (adjusted for the rearrangements of the family fleets in the years since, according to old Senate protocol under the purview of Bernard Galen-Wallins and Patricia Neuberger), and Sergyar and the Barrayaran southern continent at-large so as not to discourage terraforming.

-The "Office of the Prime Minister" is now also considered a Count and the person who is the current Prime Minister can vote in the Counts. Everyone says that one has been in development for 20 years.

-The Emperor got this through the Counts because it's a reduction in his own power. Together, the head councilors of all four Councils + the Prime Minister can override him. It's unknown how that will work in practice and not yet announced how the head councilors will be chosen.

-Prince Nikolai is confirmed as Count Vorbarra's heir in the Counts. I don't really understand this one, but GB assured me over PM that it was, in fact, legally necessary and supremely important. Okay.

-The Emperor and Empress have announced that their next child will be born in a uterine replicator on Komarr, and will be celebrated by a huge festival, details later.

All future related announcements will be edited into this post and discussion consolidated in this thread ONLY.