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By Root 1029 0

from the planet's recent and distant past are celebrated, along with a number of carryovers from Old Earth culture, including Russian fairy tales and Greek mythology. The main holidays celebrated on Barrayar are the Emperor's Birthday, Midsummer Review, and Winterfair, where the coming of Father Frost is eagerly awaited by all Barrayaran children. The planet's society is still very much a male hierarchy, with inheritance laws based on primogeniture, and the military and Imperial Security academies are still closed to women. The Army and its domestic arm, Imperial Security, or ImpSec, are still all-male organizations. Women are making strides toward more rights, but they have a very large amount of ground to cover before true equality is achieved. Currently their power base is gained through manipulating the men around them, for better or worse. But with increasing levels of education and pressures from other galactic civilizations, great change is inevitable in the long term.

Komarr

Komarr is a planet with a single main reason for its settlement, namely a rich supply of wormhole jumppoints in its immediate vicinity. By charging a hefty tariff on all goods passed through those jump points, the various merchant families who formed the ruling oligarchy on Komarr amassed both riches and power. The planet is essentially a galactic parasite, surviving and thriving on the taxes placed on interstellar trade. The planet may have economic riches, but it is an inhospitable place. Human habitation is possible only in domed cities. An array of solar mirrors to increase the natural light sources and a planet-wide terraforming project are scheduled to make Komarr habitable by humans outside the domes in the very long term, but all current expeditions outside are only possible with the use of some form of serious breathing apparatus.

The Komarrans grew up as an independent colony, but when they gave access to Cetaganda for an invasion of Barrayar, they sealed their fate to become part of the Imperium. Under the leadership of Aral Vorkosigan, Barrayar invaded and conquered Komarr. Given its lack of habitable land for any resistance to retreat to, and its vulnerability to attacks that might shatter the domes, the conquest of Komarr was quick, though not as bloodless as Vorkosigan had envisioned when setting up the invasion. During the war, two hundred members of the planet's ruling families, gathered under a flag of truce to negotiate the surrender, were killed by a political officer acting without orders from above. Despite murdering the responsible officer with his bare hands, Vorkosigan was never able to convince the Komarrans that the political officer's action wasn't planned, leaving some segments of the planet ripe for seeking revenge against Barrayar. Vorkosigan became known throughout the galaxy as "the Butcher of Komarr." But galactic aid was not forthcoming to the Komarrans from neighboring states, because Barrayar immediately reduced the tariff on interstellar goods passing through Komarr from twenty-five percent to fifteen percent. This made galactics favor keeping Komarr in Barrayaran hands.

Currently the planet seems to be adapting well to Barrayaran rule. The Imperium is fast-tracking suitable Komarrans into positions of power, and Emperor Gregor Vorbarra recently married a Komarran, Laisa Toscane. As a wedding gift to the planet, he arranged for a much-expanded solar mirror array, speeding up the terraforming project by several orders of magnitude.

Sergyar

Barrayar discovered a wormhole jump that led to the planet Sergyar, and claimed the planet as its own. Named for Emperor Ezar's son, Crown Prince Serg, the planet is earthlike and beautiful, and since it had no native species possessing higher intelligence, it was ideal for opening up to human settlement. But Barrayar's main reason for settling Sergyar in the beginning was to use it as a staging point for an invasion of Escobar. The invasion failed miserably, in part because of aid to Escobar from Beta Colony, and Prince Serg and a number of high-ranking Barrayaran