Continuing my habit of being late, but not as late this time...
I wrote fic about this a while back, for the Spook Me Ficathon: King of the Mutants. (Not a happy fic, nope nope nope. Probably no more triggery than the source material, but probably not any less, either.)
The wiki says it lasted about 600 years. That's long enough for inbreeding habits to cause bad recessives to line up if people aren't careful about finding partners they're not closely related to, which has got to be an extra problem for Vor.
I do love how Aral handed this one off to Miles. Worked as a nice test on multiple levels:
Miles is going to have to deal with these people somehow; if he can't, he has the option of moving to Beta or whatever, but he'll need to figure that out as soon as possible.
The people are going to need to accept Miles as heir--and Aral knows that they're not going to be able to ignore him and mumble about "our count with the, y'know, mutant thing;" Miles is far too noticeable for that to work once he starts taking an active part in politics. Aral needs to send a message to the backwoods communities that no, this *really is* the heir, and they need to cope with that.
There is no "wrong way" to do this case - the gate guard was going to turn Hara away entirely, as something too minor to bother the count with. Aral counted on Miles' good intentions and natural authority not to botch this horribly, but even if he failed to find a "good" solution, the worst likely result is that one backwoods village hates their count's whole family. That's hardly an insurmountable problem in the long run; this makes a great test case because, in case of problems, the results don't matter.
A count could have the whole village executed if things turn bad enough - in fact, the assassination attempts that did happen, would be grounds for executing the whole village. So: Botching this horribly can't hurt Miles' future as Count Vorkosigan, except for the emotional damage involved. (Which could be substantial, but the point is, Aral can give him the freedom to make mistakes, here.)
And Aral desperately needs to know how Miles deals with authority outside of a military context, away from both Vor and offworld politics. He needs to know how Miles copes with people who are required by law to obey him but who despise him - Miles needs to win their cooperation, not command their compliance, and Aral needs to know he's got the skills to do that.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2016-07-20 08:58 pm (UTC)I wrote fic about this a while back, for the Spook Me Ficathon: King of the Mutants. (Not a happy fic, nope nope nope. Probably no more triggery than the source material, but probably not any less, either.)
The wiki says it lasted about 600 years. That's long enough for inbreeding habits to cause bad recessives to line up if people aren't careful about finding partners they're not closely related to, which has got to be an extra problem for Vor.
I do love how Aral handed this one off to Miles. Worked as a nice test on multiple levels:
Miles is going to have to deal with these people somehow; if he can't, he has the option of moving to Beta or whatever, but he'll need to figure that out as soon as possible.
The people are going to need to accept Miles as heir--and Aral knows that they're not going to be able to ignore him and mumble about "our count with the, y'know, mutant thing;" Miles is far too noticeable for that to work once he starts taking an active part in politics. Aral needs to send a message to the backwoods communities that no, this *really is* the heir, and they need to cope with that.
There is no "wrong way" to do this case - the gate guard was going to turn Hara away entirely, as something too minor to bother the count with. Aral counted on Miles' good intentions and natural authority not to botch this horribly, but even if he failed to find a "good" solution, the worst likely result is that one backwoods village hates their count's whole family. That's hardly an insurmountable problem in the long run; this makes a great test case because, in case of problems, the results don't matter.
A count could have the whole village executed if things turn bad enough - in fact, the assassination attempts that did happen, would be grounds for executing the whole village. So: Botching this horribly can't hurt Miles' future as Count Vorkosigan, except for the emotional damage involved. (Which could be substantial, but the point is, Aral can give him the freedom to make mistakes, here.)
And Aral desperately needs to know how Miles deals with authority outside of a military context, away from both Vor and offworld politics. He needs to know how Miles copes with people who are required by law to obey him but who despise him - Miles needs to win their cooperation, not command their compliance, and Aral needs to know he's got the skills to do that.