Miles Vorkosigan/Naismith:
His Life And Times

by John W. Braue, III

Early 3rd millenium ₁

Alpha and Beta Colonies
Invention of Necklin Drive, exploiting natural wormholes.

c. 2300

Firsters arrive on Barrayar. Connection to rest of wormhole nexus disappears. Time of Isolation begins.

c.2500 - 2700

Bloody Centuries on Barrayar. Rise and establishment of native feudalism.

c. 2525

A Kosigan is created Vor on Barrayar. ₂

c. 2550

Settlement of Athos.

c. 2575

Uterine replicator a working device. Creation of quaddies and hermaphrodites. ₃

c. 2600

Falling Free. Invention of artificial gravity on Beta Colony. The reigning Emperor Vlad Vorbarra weds Lady Vorlightly on Barrayar _*.

c. 2645

Birth/creation of Lisbet Degtiar. ₄

late 27th century

Dorca Vorbarra accedes to (or seizes) the Barrayaran throne. Unification of Barrayar. Birth of Yuri and Xav Vorbarra. ₅

c. 2690

Birth of "Ry" Ryoval, later Baron Ryoval. ₆

2693

Piotr Vorkosigan born. ₇

2695

Ezar Vorbarra born. ₈

c. 2703

New wormhole connection to Barrayar via Komarr discovered. Time of Isolation ends.

c. 2705

Creation of Lily Durona I. ₉

2713 - 2733

First Cetagandan War. Cetagandan invasion and occupation of Barrayar.

c. 2720

Birth/creation of Fletchir Giaja. ₁₀
Birth of Georish Stauber, later Baron Fell.

2727

Aral Vorkosigan born. ₁₁

c. 2735

Death of Dorca Vorbarra; accession of his son, "Mad" Yuri. ₁₂
Birth/creation of Lotus Durona, later Baronne Bharaputra.

2737

Padma Vorpatril born. ₁₃

2738

Cordelia Naismith born. ₁₄

2739

Yuri attempts to exterminate all other descendants of Dorca Vorbarra; death of Aral's mother and elder brother. Piotr Vorkosigan and Xav Vorbarra back Ezar Vorbarra in Mad Yuri's Civil War

2739 - 2741

Mad Yuri's Civil War. At its end, Yuri is killed and Ezar assumes the throne. ₁₅

c. 2740

Birth of Serg Vorbarra.
"Ry" Ryoval assassinates his father and seizes power. Lily Durona and Georish Stauber escape from him.

c. 2745

Fletchir Giaja accedes to the Cetagandan thone. ₁₆
Birth of Simon Illyan.

2762

Birth of David Galen (a/k/a Duv Galeni).

2763

Birth of Etienne Vorsoisson.

2767

Birth of Gregor Vorbarra.

2768

Barrayaran conquest of Komarr.

2772

Shards of Honor. Sergyar discovered. Aral Vorkosigan and Cordelia Naismith meet, fall in love, and wed. Serg Vorbarra killed.

2773

Barrayar. Death of Ezar and accession of Gregor Vorbarra. Aral Vorkosigan named Regent. Vordarian's Pretendership: Padma Vorpatril, Princess Kareen, and Vidal Vordarian (among others) are killed. Birth of Ivan Vorpatril, Miles Vorkosigan, Elena Bothari, and Ekaterin Vorvane (later Vorsoisson).

2777

Komarr Revolt.

2779

Birth/creation of Mark Vorkosigan.

2780

Creation of Taura.

c 2787

Aral Vorkosigan steps down from the Regency, becomes Prime Minister.

2790

The Warrior's Apprentice. Death of Piotr Vorkosigan; Konstantin Bothari killed. Elena and Basil Jesek wed.

2792

Birth of Nikolai Vorsoisson.

2793

"The Mountains of Mourning"
The Vor Game. Vervani War; Hegen Hub Alliance defeats Cetaganda.

2795

Cetaganda. Cetagandan Empress Dowager Lisbet Degtiar dies.
Ethan of Athos.

2796

"Labyrinth". The Quaddie musician Nicol is seen.

2797

"The Borders of Infinity"
Brothers in Arms

2798

The Borders of Infinity (frame).

2801

Mirror Dance. Cetagandan occupation of Marilac ends. Miles is killed, temporarily. Baron Ryoval is killed, permanently. Aral Vorkosigan steps down from the Prime Ministership (for health reasons), is named Viceroy of Sergyar.

2802

Memory. Miles is medically discharged (as an alternative to being cashiered) from the Barrayaran Armed Forces. Simon Illyan is afflicted by an uncertain force; as a result, Miles is first temporarily, and then permanently, named an Imperial Auditor. Elli Quinn is promoted to Commanding Admiral of the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet (which remains a covert arm of Barrayaran Imperial Security).

2803

Komarr. Miles meets and falls in love with Ekaterin Vorsoisson. Death of her feckless first husband, Etienne Vorsoisson.
A Civil Campaign. Gregor marries Laisa Toscane (loud cheering and muffled sighs of relief from almost everyone). Miles and Ekaterin, Duv and Delia Koudelka are engaged (and possibly the rest of the Blonde Commando team). Rene Vorbretten's right to his Countship is challenged but confirmed; Dono (nee Donna) Vorrutyer defeats Richars for the Vorrutyer Countship. The loon Count Vorfolse and the insufficiently cunning Count Vormuir make appearances.

2805

Diplomatic Immunity. Miles and Ekaterin have been married for "a year and a half"; their first children, Aral Alexander and Helen Natalia, are about to be born (by uterine replicator). Events take Miles and Ekaterin to "Quaddiespace", the Union of Free Habitats, where Bel Thorne is partnered with Nicol.

• 1 Tying in the Vorkosigan Saga with the Christian-oriented dating system now in use is, of course, completely arbitrary. However, a number of things, including LMB's posts on the Bujold mailing list, suggest that Miles' lifetime is almost, but not quite, a millennium in the future.
• 2 Miles several times comments that he is the eleventh generation of House Vorkosigan.
• 3The quaddies in Falling Free are in their late teens, a few of them perhaps as old as twenty. Allowing a few years for some false starts, this seems to me to be the latest date to the which the invention of the uterine replicator can be assigned.
• * Is he is to be identified with the Emperor Vlad Vorbarra glancingly mentioned in Mirror Dance?
• 4 Miles' comment to Ivan in Cetaganda. Nobody, least of Miles, is going to be concerned about being accurate to the day.
• 5 Dorca had a claim to a pre-existing Imperial title through his mother (The Warrior's Apprentice); it's never been clear whether he succeeded in the normal course of things, seized the throne.err, campstool, or was accepted by the Vor in default of a more obvious heir.
• 6 Given Miles' thought at their first meeting ("Labyrinth") that "the brain in that body has to be at least a century old".
• 7 There's a complex interplay between Piotr Vorkosigan's personal history and off-world events. Miles relates that Piotr's life changed immensely between ten and twenty, twenty and forty, and forty and eighty. The changes at twenty and forty almost have to be identified with the beginning and end of the First Cetagandan War. It is not too much, then, to identify the change at age ten with the Rediscovery. The dates do not fit exactly, but Miles was giving a pep talk, not a history lecture.
• 8 The years of Ezar's birth and death are fixed in his conversation with Aral at the end of Shards of Honor. He claims to have been Piotr's military apprentice, which suggests that Piotr was the elder; I don't make him the elder by much, but apparently Piotr was a brilliant guerilla commander, at least, whilst Ezar's name is never mentioned in connection with the First Cetagandan War. As Emperor, he (or his propagandists and panegyricists) would have made much of his involvement, if there was anything to make much of; this suggests that his role was subordinate and merely competent. Since he was not one of Dorca's sons, but of a collateral Vorbarra branch, this is not surprising.
• 9 Given her apparent age in Mirror Dance.
• 10 Miles says to himself that he is "older than my father" in Cetaganda.
• 11 The year of Aral's birth is also fixed by his conversation with Ezar.
• 12 It is never stated explicitly, but it is implied, that Dorca survived the First Cetagandan War. It is perhaps pleasant to imagine that, after twenty years of exile, Dorca returned in extreme old age to Vorbarr Sultana to spend his last few years in comfort.
  It also suggests that Yuri may not have been so much mad as bad. Given my other assumptions here, he must have been at least pushing sixty when he acceeded to the throne, with little time to reign before him (cf. Victoria and Edward VII) and to put his mark on history. Unfortunately, he did so.
  Finally, it suggests that Dorca's epithet of "the Just" is at least partially propaganda. It seems unlikely that Yuri created his secret police and his death squads out of nothing; the Dorca-Yuri relationship may have had not just elements of Victoria-Edward VII, but also of Tiberius- Caligula in it.
• 13 Padma is identified as ten years younger than Aral in Barrayar.
• 14 Cordelia states in Shards of Honor that she is thirty-three years old.
• 15 Note that by Ezar's statement in Shards of Honor, he was forty-four at the start of Mad Yuri's Civil War. At some point, probably very early on, he married an unnamed daughter of Dorca (per LMB). She must also have been in her forties, given the assumptions here. A child of relatively elderly parents, as Serg must have been, is likely to have problems (to put it mildly, in Serg's case).
• 16 LMB (in authorial voice) states in Barrayar that Fletchir came to the throne "at less than thirty, a fantastically young age for a Cetagandan".

© 1999-2002 by John W. Braue, III (braue@ratsnest.win.net)

Current version by Michael Bernardi, mike@dendarii.co.uk

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Last updated: May 19th 2002