Callida tilts her head slightly, smiling faintly. "It's never quite so simple as that, no."

"Then the Cetagandan Empire arrived and conquered the planet. Dorca fought, but it was swords against atomics; he lost. Barrayar never quite gave up during the Cetagandan occupation, though; Dorca's younger son, Prince Xav, made it out into the wider galaxy and started agitating for foreign aid. He must have been very good at it, given his results: it only took twenty years for Barrayar to repel the Cetagandan occupation. Soon afterward, Dorca died and his elder son Yuri inherited the Imperium. Yuri, unfortunately for everyone, was a classic paranoid. Early in his reign, he decided that all of Dorca's other descendants needed to die to secure his rule. But for some reason he didn't trouble himself to send his death squads after their spouses, even though one of Xav's daughters had married one of the greatest heroes of the Cetagandan war. General Piotr was, needless to say, very upset over the deaths of his wife and two of his three children. He found a more far-flung Vorbarra relative who'd survived the mass assassinations, and together they declared war on Yuri. It was over in less than a year, and that is how Emperor Ezar Vorbarra took power."

Well, isn't this a bloody history. Not as bloody as the history she's used to, but still bloody. She nods, face hard.

"Aral is General Piotr's surviving child," she adds. "But I was speaking of Ezar. He... I want to say he did the best he could with the material he had to work with. I'm not sure how true it is. I met him, once, near the end of his life. I found it an interesting experience. In his reign he oversaw several more wars, including the conquest of Komarr under Aral's command, and the failed effort to conquer Escobar - have you heard of those?"

"I've heard of Komarr, but not of Escobar."

"One of Ezar's greatest mistakes, I think, was his failure to keep Barrayar's more bloodthirsty factions in check. After the success at Komarr, a lot of Barrayarans were eager to go out and make some less necessary conquests. They attacked another planet, and were overwhelmingly defeated. Ezar's son, Prince Serg, was at the forefront of both the faction and the assault. He died in the single battle of that war, leaving behind a widowed princess and an orphaned five-year-old son, and that is the point in history at which I first met Gregor."

"... The five year old son?" surmises Callida, softly.

"Yes."

"I see."

She reminds herself that tragic backstories do not make people good, only more sympathetic, and nods.

"Ezar was dying of old age. He appointed Aral as Gregor's Regent, for lack, I think, of any other candidate whom he trusted to run the empire with adequate competence for fifteen years and then step down instead of attempting a coup. Not long after Ezar died, someone else attempted a coup instead. The pretender managed to spark a civil war and kill Princess Kareen, but failed to kill Aral or Gregor. Aral and I were therefore left with the task of raising the orphaned Emperor."

Well that is certainly a revelation, isn't it.

They sent Aral to meet a Sith Lord? She - understands that they might not have understood what that meant, but the idea is just so insane to her anyway it defies the explanation anyway. How. Why! Augh.

"That is quite a lot of power to entrust. No one took issue with the Regent raising the Emperor?"

"Issues were raised, but... the people who might have protested conceptualize power very differently from how I do, I think. For one thing, they didn't seem to realize that putting me in charge of his education might have any effects."

Callida raises her eyebrows slightly. Well. That's an interesting set of realizations the Barrayarans failed to have.

"I see. Is this a product of the sexism Count Vorkosigan mentioned?"

"Yes, I expect so."

"Interesting."

"I have always been one of very few people in Gregor's life who sees him as a person first, an Emperor second," says Cordelia. "I've never been enthusiastic about this style of government - Beta Colony is very egalitarian - but Gregor manages to make the system work admirably well."

An empire working well, isn't that novel. ... But she supposes she can see it. It's not like she answers to anyone about her fleet, and it's very tidy that way, since she's actually competent. But systems working admirably well don't necessarily mean for everyone involved, she shouldn't assume.

"Oh?" she wonders.

"If I had to distill Gregor down to a single personality characteristic, it would be his sense of responsibility. You could predict quite a lot about the structure and function of Barrayaran government just by knowing there is a man at the top who sees it as a personal failure every time one of his subjects is preventably hurt. I am... not thrilled about the costs to Gregor of this approach, but the benefits to Barrayar are immense."

Callida nods, thoughtful and unreadable.

"The system itself still looks a little insane to me," she admits. "The basic underlying principles are... very different from the democratic society where I grew up. The government of Beta Colony - I'd almost say that it reluctantly acknowledges that it's made of individual people, but tries its best to mitigate that. In the Vor framework, the individual people are the backbone of the entire project. It always seems very fragile to me, and there have certainly been failures - Emperor Yuri could never have happened on Beta Colony. But there are advantages, too, to a system where the ideal is for every job to be done by someone personally suited to that job. I sometimes wonder what Vor nepotism would look like if you separated it from the genetic transmission of power... sorry, I'm straying from the topic a little. Amateur sociology is endlessly fascinating."

"It's quite all right. It's interesting to hear another outsider's opinion on the subject. Do they have no - checks and balances besides rebellion?"

"I believe my son Miles once jokingly referred to the Dismemberment of Mad Yuri as 'Barrayaran democracy in action'. It's not quite as bad as that. The system is evolving toward a structure less vulnerable to Yuri-types. In theoretical terms, the Emperor's breath is law; in practical terms, the Emperor needs to spend a lot of time gently convincing people to see things his way if he wants to get anything done. A far cry from Dorca's day, but an improvement, in my opinion."

Callida cracks a smile at 'Barrayaran democracy in action' and snorts a little. And then: back to business.

"But still no solution if the Emperor is of the likes of Mad Yuri?"

"I think another Yuri would face a lot more trouble, a lot sooner, if he came to power today. But no, there isn't an explicit solution in place."

Nod. She does not seem disturbed by any of this, but then, it's rather hard to tell what she's thinking right now.

(She's thinking that she thinks she likes Barrayar, actually.)