- "Well, because it was the principal seat of government for the Vorkosigans, and because we owned about every stick and stone in it—it was a pretty important industrial and trade center—and because the Vorkosigans were, uh, prominent in the Resistance, the Cetagandans took the city hostage. It's a long story, but—eventually, they destroyed the place. It's now a big glass hole in the ground. You can still see a faint glow in the sky, on a dark night, twenty kilometers off."
- ―Miles explains the fate of Vorkosigan Vashnoi to Arde[src]
Vorkosigan Vashnoi (vohr-KOH-sih-gn VAASH-noy) was the original capital of the Vorkosigan District on Barrayar, ruled by the Vorkosigan District Count. During the First Cetagandan War, it was taken hostage and eventually destroyed by a nuclear bomb used by Cetagandan Empire ghem invaders.[1]
The city was bisected by a river; its population had been about 250 thousand at the time it was destroyed.[2]
By the time Miles Vorkosigan was thirty-five, Vorkosigan Vashnoi no longer glowed in the dark[3], or possibly the glowing in the dark was campfire tales[2]; although it was still too dangerous to visit, some criminals and fugitives were hiding in the ruins, occasionally chased by District Rangers.[4][2]
The still-dangerously-radioactive region around the city was officially named the Vashnoi exclusion zone.
Notes and references[]
- ↑ The Warrior's Apprentice chapter 5
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "The Flowers of Vashnoi"
- ↑ Captain Vorpatril's Alliance chapter 16
- ↑ Memory chapter 10