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PLAYER

Name: madi
Age: 31
Contact: runawayballista @ plurk
Other Characters: Sonia Barra
Interests: I’m interested in living the good ol’ jamjar life again and all the weird shit that comes with reconciling with the fact that you’re never going home, especially for a character who is uhhh at times a little bit of a control freak. I’d love for Miles to get up in plot stuff too, since his whole job is military covert ops, he’s here to HELP. He’s also just a complete wreck of a person and can at times be described as “a host of neuroses in a very small people suit”, and I can’t wait to inflict this little manic disaster on Thedas.

CHARACTER

Name: Lord Miles Naismith Vorkosigan
Canon/OC: The Vorkosigan Saga
Canon Point: Post-Brothers in Arms, after leaving Earth
Journal:

forwardmomentum
Age: 25

Canon World

It is the 31st century and humans have mastered wormhole jump technology and have been colonizing planets for centuries (no sentient aliens tho sorry)
- This is 80s scifi with a real Star Trek vibe: lots of hard digital media with silly nicknames (who calls a watch a “chrono”, honestly), lots of beige and gray, Barrayar is more or less Russian expy Klingon
Several centuries ago, the only known wormhole route to a little ol’ planet we like to call Barrayar spontaneously closed, doused the planet and its small initial colonizing population in radiation, destroying all of their advanced tech and cutting them off from the rest of the Nexus
Over the course of the next several hundred years, known as the Time of Isolation, Barrayar went neo-feudal and formed the Vor and prole caste system, the Vor more or less a military aristocracy (it’s a little Shogunate Japan-flavored)
- Fear of radiation-derived mutations entering their limited gene pool evolved into a cultural paranoia and bias against “mutants” (people with congenital defects or, just, you know, anyone with a visible disability) and those perceived thus.
- Barrayar is…….problematic
Then a NEW wormhole route to Barrayaran space was discovered two generations before Miles, and they were able to start catching up to the rest of the Nexus — for about 20 years before they were invaded by an empire about eight times their size
Unfortunately for this superior empire, Barrayarans are just like, really fucking stubborn, and after 20 years of occupation, they gave up in disgust and left
Having gone from horseback to spaceflight and endured a war that decimated its population in a single generation has given Barrayar a WHOLE lot of cultural whiplash; in Miles’s time, it is going through some extraordinary growing pains as the oldest generation of staunch conservatives is starting to die out and leave room for new growth (read: they’re working on the sexism and the ableism)

History
The MOST important thing you need to know about Miles is that when he was 17, in a truly stupid series of events spurred on by a fit of despair and desperation, he accidentally acquired an entire mercenary fleet, the mere act of which, technically, also counted as high treason against his planet. The fact that he is 1) not dead and 2) still in charge of the mercenaries he stole (“stole” is a strong word) is a towering testament to two things: how quickly Miles can spew convincing bullshit in the midst of a blind panic, and how much the people around him trust in him.

But here’s a quick rundown of the important things:

He is the heir to House Vorkosigan; his father the Count is not only a legendary military figure but also the Prime Minister (formerly the Imperial Regent), and his off-planet mother was an astrocartographer and commanded a ship of scientific daredevils
- He might have like…a little bit of a complex?
An assassination attempt via toxic gas was made on his parents when his mother was pregnant with him; unfortunately the antidote was very Bad for fetal bone development
Thanks to a LOT of experimental science, Miles was born with bones — just very brittle ones, most of which he has broken, repeatedly, and resulted in very stunted physical development, leaving him at 4’9 with pronounced scoliosis
At age 17 he tried and failed to get into military school by breaking both his legs at once and he was so sad he accidentally acquired an entire mercenary fleet under the impulsively fabricated persona of “Admiral Miles Naismith”
- This is what happens when you’re both a really good bullshitter and make a lot of “fix this now, fix the rest later” panic decisions, and you spend the next four months trying to dig yourself out of a hole by digging an even deeper hole
- This is how Miles both gets into and out of trouble, mostly
Then he got to go to military school after all, yay
As a lieutenant in the Barrayaran Imperial Service, he’s ostensibly just a courier for Imperial Security (aka Barrayaran intelligence); however, his real work is to command the Dendarii Mercenaries as Admiral Naismith on covert ops missions that secretly benefit Barrayar
Managed to stop a couple of wars and liberated a prison camp (it wasn’t fun) by the time he was 25, which is cool (about 50% by accident)
Most recently discovered he has a secret clone brother who was originally engineered as a plot to kill and replace him, in a greater plot to take over the Barrayaran Empire, which was also a plot for personal revenge against Miles’s father; a LOT of things happened, very quickly, there’s a lot of uncomfortable feelings, but in the end clone bro decided not to go along with the plot and despite Miles’s KEEN desire to not be an only child, they went their separate ways

Personality

HERE IS THE THING: growing up visibly disabled on conservative Barrayar was a bad time. His social privilege is his only saving grace, but people still made hex signs at him in the street
- He’s been keenly aware all his life how society perceives him, and he’s got a chip on his shoulder, especially when it comes to Old-School Authority
- This can make him…………somewhat reckless
- Full of resentment towards Barrayar but also loves it and believes it could be better
- Determined to prove himself (to Barrayar, his dad, himself, to everyone watching) and show he can serve as well as anyone else, and that he’s succeeded on his own merits
Possesses a frankly terrifying capacity for determination, disgustingly stubborn and occasionally spiteful (in equal parts towards himself and others)
- His whole philosophy is FORWARD MOMENTUM (can’t stop won’t stop don’t know how to stop)
That said, he has an equal capacity for compassion; inherited a solid moral compass and sees his own struggle in others’
- His tendency to be selfish usually arises around issues of his ego and how people perceive him, and he just wants to Control That; he can be a little shortsighted and forget that like, other people have feelings?
- Loves to help. Sometimes too much
- He can be PAINFULLY earnest; actually a pretty friendly & nice guy if you treat him like a whole person
- Cares about his people REAL hard
His core values are SERVICE and HONOR. While he’s still in the process of growing up and sorting out his priorities, deep down, he just wants to serve, whoever & however he can
- Decidedly NOT interested in the pursuit of power for power’s sake (the idea gives him an ulcer tbh); he really does just want to help people out
- He is a Man Of Honor; if he gives you his word, he would rather die than break it. Honor is the standard to which Miles holds other people
Learns from his mistakes…………mostly
He couldn’t walk until he was five, so he spent that time honing his people skills to terrifying precision; baby Miles emerged from traction a ruthless negotiator
Fast-talker, world-class bullshitter, pretty good actor, thinks well on his feet, unfortunately is internally panicking at least 40% of the time
- Incredibly animated and energetic, talks about a mile a minute, has that sort of wild, magnetic personality people gravitate toward
- Talk now, figure out the rest later (aka The Snowball Approach)
- Wry, occasionally morbid sense of humor, also, a smartass
- Pretty good at getting a read on people, has an eye for personnel
- Relies heavily on his own intelligence; he’s clever but knows it, which gets him into as much trouble as it gets him out of
- Just really convinced his ideas are often the best ones; has a tendency to underestimate people he doesn’t view as clever as him
Big Bipolar Energy; tends toward manic but hoo boy does he crash hard
In conclusion: area man with good heart is a Hot Mess

Strengths & Weaknesses
Strengths

”If you can’t be seven feet tall, be seven feet smart”
Tenacious to a fault
Clever, analytical, out-of-the-box thinker who can keep track of a surprising number of things at once
Particularly good when it comes to tactics and leadership; he has a surprising amount of operational experience for his age
Actually makes a pretty good officer, as it turns out; has a good eye for personnel
Generally good with people; if he can’t get them to like him, he’ll find a way to maneuver around them
Thinks well on his feet, knows how to run with a lie, world-class bullshitter
Pretty good with horses actually

Weaknesses

Soft, shitty body
Seriously, his bones snap like twigs (except his leg bones, those are plastic now)
Tenacious to a fault
Prone to mood swings, particularly when under stress; bipolar with a heavy tendency toward manic & hypomanic episodes (followed, of course, by a fantastic crash)
His strategy of “talk now, figure out the rest later” backfires horribly about 35% of the time
While he is a great officer, he is an absolutely terrible subordinate and has a pathological difficulty following orders he thinks are dumb

Suggested Nerfs
Miles was nerfed in the womb

Arrival Inventory
Having just emerged from a CLASSIC “I’m taking an exam I haven’t studied for even though I graduated from school years ago” nightmare, Miles will arrive in his Barrayaran Imperial Service uniform with a few commendations attached and a fresh copy of the tactical treatise The Komarr Report. He’ll also have his grandfather’s dagger bearing the family seal, and a handful of Barrayaran change in his pocket.

Humanization
n/ah

Fit
Though Miles is from a decidedly Future setting, Barrayar’s neo-feudal bent and his own status as a Count’s heir will make it easier for him to relate to Thedas as a whole, while still posing serious problems to him personally (such as the lack of advanced medical technology). Miles is also a person of increasingly conflicting identity, as the roles he plays at home and out in his space adventures are considerably different, and he’s at a canon point where those identities are starting to become a little too crowded. Taking him completely out of his canon context and throwing him into Thedas will not only force him to deal with his identity issues, but open up some interesting possibilities for resolution.

Deep down, Miles’s core value is service, and that has always translated to him as his eventual inheritance of the responsibility of Count Vorkosigan. Being permanently stuck in another world means he will not only have to come to grips with that, but also find a new way to find some kind of service that is meaningful to him, because without that, he’s totally adrift. Riftwatch will be an interesting place for him to commit himself to; as someone who has been Othered for pretty much his whole life, Miles is there to throw his lot in with the misfits and outcasts.

SAMPLES

Miles & Byerly have a terrible time in Orlais
Miles & Lara Croft go for a midnight swim