The Vorkosigan Companion - Lillian Stewart Carl [97]
Other Political Entities in the Wormhole Nexus
(In rough order of importance to the Vorkosigan universe)
Cetaganda
The Cetagandan Empire consists of eight developed worlds and a number of allied and puppet dependencies, many of them forcibly acquired. Cetaganda is ruled by a genetically engineered emperor, and the Imperial government consists of a two-tiered aristocracy. At the head of the Imperial power structure is the haut class and at the head of the haut class is the emperor—currently Emperor Fletchir Gaija. The Emperor serves as the only point of meeting between the affairs of the haut and the affairs of the second tier of the aristocracy—the ghem.
The haut consider themselves to be a post-human breed, the result of several centuries of genetic engineering that they have carried out upon their population. They have a vaguely attenuated elf-like look, and their physical beauty is revered throughout the galaxy. Haut women are so beautiful, in fact, that they are rarely seen in public, traveling in float chairs surrounded by opaque force screens as they move through the landscape, and exiting their protective chairs only in safe and restricted confines familiar to them. The sight of a haut woman has been known to induce instantaneous emotional slavery in typical human men.
The haut do not believe that their genetic experimentation has reached its apex yet. The work of improving the genome is undertaken by the Star Crèche—which is run by the haut consorts of the various planetary governors and headed by the emperor's mother or the mother of his heir. Each year, the result of their genetic work is sent out to the Cetagandan worlds in the form of a shipment of developing haut embryos in uterine replicators. These children-to-be are taken in by their respective genetic constellations when they reach their home planets, where they will be raised and educated to take their place among the planets' ruling elite. The haut own nothing individually, despite their luxurious lives spent in isolation in the incredibly beautiful enclaves inhabited exclusively by the haut and their genderless ba servitors. All property is held in trust by the government, and awarded to the haut caste based on breeding, merit, status in the haut hierarchy, and ceremonial needs.
The ba are asexual genetic siblings to the haut, and are created by haut geneticists to test out new genetic additions to the haut bloodlines. The ba are engineered to be servile and loyal, but a few incidents in which they have behaved with startling initiative and ingenuity have raised some questions among the haut as to the degree to which their genetic control has been effective.
The haut control their empire though a secret and reputedly devastating collection of bioengineered weapons. The few examples of haut genetic weaponry that have been used throughout the galaxy have been so terrifying that it is widely believed that the reputation of haut for maintaining a strong arsenal has been, if anything, underestimated.
The haut look inward at what they are becoming, while the ghem are the outward face of the Cetagandans. The ghem women, in imitation of the haut, also work in genetic engineering, but they concentrate on non-human material. The ghem men concentrate on politics and conquest, and favor a very aggressive brand of territorial expansion. Their most recent adventures have been universally disastrous for the last century (Barrayar, Vervain, Marilac, etc.). It is widely hoped throughout the galaxy that the Cetagandans are embarking on a newly peaceful period in which they concentrate