Setting: The planet Barrayar in Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Universe
Barrayaran History in a Nutshell: Travel between planets in this universe is via near-instantaneous wormhole transit. Barrayar is discovered, 50,000 settlers go to work terraforming the world, and … the wormhole collapses, isolating them. By the time history picks back up, there are about 60 warring counts, unified by Emperor Dorca Vorbarra “the Good.” At some point either near the end or just after Dorca’s reign, a new wormhole jump reconnects Barrayar to the rest of the Wormhole Nexus, bringing a feudalistic society into a futuristic one. It’s made clear in the most recent book, Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, that Dorca had two sons, Yuri and Xav, Yuri being the older. The only wormhole link in is dominated by Komarr, a Venice-like republic of traders living in domes on the otherwise-uninhabitable planet. Komarr accepts a bribe to allow the expansionistic Cetagandan Empire in to conquer Barrayar.
Yuri and Gen. Piotr Vorkosigan, who marries Olivia, the older of Xav’s two daughters, together mount a guerrilla resistance to the Cetagandans, while Xav jumps around the Nexus as diplomat, seeking help against the Cetagandans. They are ultimately successful in repelling the Cetagandans, but Emperor Yuri goes paranoid, killing nearly all potential claimants of his throne, including Piotr’s wife Olivia and their elder son. Only Aral, their 11-year-old younger son, and his cousin Padma Vorpatril (father of the protagonist of CVA) survive. Piotr then allies with Ezar Vorbarra to overthrow Yuri. Ezar is then emperor, and remains such until near the end of Shards of Honor, the first book of the Vorkosigan saga. His son Serg having been killed during the book’s storyline, 5-year-old Gregor becomes Emperor with an adult Aral as Regent.
In an early book there’s a bunch of foofaraw about whether Salic Law applies on Barrayar, Aral being the obvious heir to Yuri if it didn’t, as Xav’s older daughter’s sole surviving child.
Ezar is not Dorca’s son. And neither of Dorca’s sons appear to have fathered a son. So where did he come from? And why is he the undisputed Emperor at the end of Mad Yuri’s War? Anybody know anything I don’t?
Vorbarra/Vorkosigan family tree.. Short answer: the male line of Dorca’s descendants having been extinguished, the throne (well, campstool) would have devolved to the nearest male ancestor of Dorca’s parents, likely a brother of Dorca’s himself. Although I suspect a healthy dose of, “I’ve got a lot of guns and have been demonstrably effective in using them to get my way, so do you REALLY want to argue this with me?” played a role.
Thanks for the family tree - so Ezar was Yuri’s uncle, while Yuri was Aral’s great uncle.
Regarding Yuri’s legitimacy, the fact that, Piotr, who was the father of the plausible heir to the campstool, and a high noble himself, allied himself with Ezar, was a big boost for Ezar.
Since we are up to chapter 11 in the list group reading and discussion of it unspoilered, it has been out at least 3 months, though I seem to remember it came out in November.
Here’s my question: why were the rulers Emperors? An Empire implies one group is ruling over subject people.
Barrayar currently rules over Komar and Sergyar, so it qualifies as an Empire now. But the title goes back to when the Barrayaran Empire was restricted to a single planet. While there were four ethnic groups on Barrayar, it’s never been implied one of them ruled over the others (and all four seem to be represented in the Vor class). Somebody like Dorca should have been a King not an Emperor.
Why does Japan have an emperor? Japan went through a brief period of actually having an empire from the Meiji period until the end of World War II, but Japan has been ruled by an emperor (tennō) not just a king (kokuō) for a long, long time, even during those periods when the “emperor” ruled/reigned over only the Japanese archipelago itself. In-universe, Barrayar was settled by a mixture of British, French, Russians, and Greeks; but Meiji-era Japan was clearly one of the inspirations for the setting (and Bujold herself has confirmed this).
In-universe, empereur and император would certainly resonate with the French and the Russians, and the concept would hardly be utterly foreign to the British or even the Greeks. Besides, during the Time of Isolation the guy was (at least nominally) ruler of the entire inhabited world–in terms of relative power, way more than Alexander the Great, Augustus Caesar, Genghis Khan, Charles V, Peter the Great, or Queen Victoria could ever say.
The title goes back to way before Dorca. But I do suspect that was the logic behind it–Varadaur Tau has just conquered the entire planet, and he says he’s the Emperor now. Who’s going to argue with him at that point? (Later, the Emperor’s tax-collecting District [Ac]count[ant]s manage to make themselves hereditary feudal lords and Counts of their Districts, and spend much of the next several centuries doing what the “emperor” tells them to only when they damned well feel like it, until Dorca comes along, knocks some heads together, and restores the title’s original power.)
Actually, according to that website, Ezar ended up being Yuri’s brother-in-law. Ezar was a distant Vorbarra cousin who allied with Xav (who survived Yuri’s madness) and Piotr and got offered the Imperium to ensure the alliance. He then married Yuri’s sister to strengthen his claim.
The point is that kings rule over a single people; emperors rule over different peoples. This is true in British, French, Russian, and Greek history. King is a unifying title and Emperor is a divisive title.
Bujold is obviously aware of this. She shows that Barrayar is currently going through this kind of problem. Barrayar and Komarr are both part of the same Empire but it’s clear they are not equal partners.
Characters in the books are always making historical references. If there had been a period two hundred years ago when the North Continent was assimilating the South Continent or the Russian-speakers were assimilating the other language groups or the Vorbarra Empire was assimilating the former Eastern Union, you’d expect Miles or Aral or Gregor to make the comparison with their current assimilation program in Komarr. But other than a few references to the Greek speakers feeling like second-class citizens, we’ve never seen any mention of this.
Email list. I prefer it to her section of Baen’s Bar, most of us on the email list have been there for years. She is pretty active on the list, and she has a blog as well.
I think it’s a mistake to assume that the title will have the same nuances some five hundred years from now and half a galaxy away from Earth, particularly given that the other major title on the planet, “Count,” has an explicitly distinct etymology from the original usage of the term. The first Barrayaran to claim rulership over their world chose to call himself Emperor, probably because that was the biggest, fanciest title he knew about. Since he probably got that position by being better at hacking people to death with a sword than anybody else, he probably wasn’t too concerned with how the term was used in France in the 18th century, assuming he even knew what France was, or when the 18th century happened.
