The Great and Secret Knowledge
In this one, Sofia B drops by to discuss traffic planning, terminators, and Jeff's favorite science fiction novel, The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold.
Sofia will return soon to discuss The Vor Game, Chapters 3 thru 5 soon. Get in on the fun by sending your thoughts to: [email protected]
Please join our Discord server and get to know the fam!
Check out Sofia’s interview on Jeff’s other show, Everything is Awesome with Jeff and ?:
https://awesomepodnw.libsyn.com/episode-149-saving-the-wetlands-ft-sofia-buhrgard
Jeff's podcasts
Everything is Awesome with Jeff and ?
Omniversal Escapades (Jeff’s livestreaming RPG show)
James Lark (composer, podcaster) wrote the theme song for the show Licensed for show use, copyright 2024
Here’s James website for all his activities:
Recommendations
The Lost Cause by Cory Doctorow
A Deadly Education and Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
Social Media
None for Sofia R unless you're looking for traffic planning - if so hit us up and we'll connect you!
Jeff Richardson
@eljefetacoma on Facebook, Bluesky, Instagram, and Mastadon
Everything is Awesome with Jeff and ?
Omniversal Escapades (Jeff’s livestreaming RPG show)
Links
Extended Notes
chapter 1
page 1
plastic flimsie - apparently we're still using plastic centuries from now - hopefully its made of bamboo or hemp or something biodegradable
maybe their matter recyclers break them down so they dont sit in landfills
so we're in an empire
page 2
chief of impsec illyan who remembered everything
the emperor is young? if hes near military academy age thatd be 23 plus
Vorish types? whats that?
page 3
ship duty is the most sought after appointment
ive been interviewing my dad and he got ship duty, though he wasnt academy trained
"'So what have they done to you this time?” asked Plause, clearly prepared to offer congratulations or sympathy as indicated."
Ivans Miles's cousin? also Miles has physical handicaps. long description of what it was like being made taller
page 4
miles isnt built for infantry
Major Cecil has a sense of humor
page 5
miles insurbodination
"your most insidious chronic problem is in the area of . . . how shall I put this precisely . . . subordination. You argue too much.”
“No, I don’t,” Miles began indignantly, then shut his mouth."
page 6
Miles is a manipulator par excellence
if he keeps his nose clean and gets along with his officers and subordinates hell be recommended for ship duty on a shipnthat sounds a lot like the enterprise
page 7
"your saving grace. Mutant"
there are mutants in this story? and Miles is proving their worth?
"We’re not trying to make it impossible, Ensign.”
Merely very difficult. “I’m glad to know that too. Sir.” Miles’s parting salute was almost subordinate."
page 8
"A couple of the black-clad men, watching him as he hopped down from the ramp, made remarks to each other in Barrayaran Greek, a minority dialect of Earth origin, thoroughly debased in the centuries of the Time of Isolation."
so we have greeks on a different planet who still speak greek, this isnt earth and were after something called the time of isolation
Miles can speak Greek but he plays it cool
its a mutant! lets talk disability and how folks treated disabled folks in the 90s
its horrible that you could be beaten to death in this society for being too different. also a good sign of Miles's character that he acknowledges his privilege. That sort of thing was much less common in the 90s
the vorkosigans own district? is that where they live or do they rule it? is Miles a prince?
"Yes, rank, social or military, had its uses. Miles meant to acquire all he could before he was done."
page 9
he chooses to walk rather than inconvenience the jerks
his disabiity sounds severe, having to wear braces and having trouble walking very far
his pride makes him hide his trouble
base is free of infantry until summer
page 10
the air inside is 98.6! who works here?
the meteorology officer is a drunk in his underwear
page 11
this is Lieutenant Anh
hes been in this terrible assignment for fifteen years
you have to wonder what he could have done to deserve that
he runs into a jogging sergeant maybe in the lobby
page 12
"Miles stood with his legs slightly apart, threw back his head, and stared up with equal force. The man seemed totally oblivious to Miles’s collar tabs. Exasperated, Miles snapped, “Are all the keepers on vacation, or is anybody actually running this bloody zoo?'"
"With a cold flare of his carved nostril, the Base Commander glared down at Miles and growled, “I run it, Ensign."
Chapter 2
page 1
Anh is awake, hungover, and breathing poorly
"Ha?” Ahn looked up, and returned his salute automatically. “What the devil are you, ah . . . Ensign?”
this dude lost an entire day
Miles seizes the chance to trick this dude into teaching him something
Anh looks him over ever so briefly and moves on
he names all the computers womens names
page 2
he tapes the procedural discs under each piece of gear
he names his coffee pot Georgette
Anh turns in a slow 360 to meditate (or maybe predict the weather?)
just past the shortest night of the year
in summer
must be the north pole?
"Kyril Island was an egg-shaped lump about seventy kilometers wide and one-hundred-sixty kilometers long, and over five hundred kilometers from the next land of any description. Lumpy and brown described most of it, both base and island."
nobody bothered with agricultural terraforming
so this is a thing now, making worlds more like earth
talking about bleakness
"To the near south, the leaden sea heaved, muting the sun’s best efforts at sparkle. To the far north a gray line marked the border of the tundra at a chain of dead volcanic mountains."
hed been in snow before but here the sea air seeps into his bones at every old break (which is many)
page 3
Anh is shocked to learn that Miles's dad is Lord Vorkosigan
Admiral Count, conqueror of Komarr, hero of Escobar, Lord Regent to the emperor
"I have seen him laugh in pure delight, standing on the dock at Vorkosigan Surleau and yelling instructions over the water, the morning I first sailed, dumped, and righted the skimmer by myself. I have seen him weep till his nose ran, more dead drunk than you were yesterday, Ahn, the night we got the word Major Duvallier was executed for espionage. I have seen him rage, so brick-red we feared for his heart, when the reports came in fully detailing the stupidities that led to the last riots in Solstice. I have seen him wandering around Vorkosigan House at dawn in his underwear, yawning and prodding my sleepy mother into helping him find two matching socks. He’s not like anything, Ahn. He’s the original.
“He cares about Barrayar,” Miles said aloud at last, as the silence grew awkward. “He’s . . . a hard act to follow.”
Miles think Ahn would be more prejudiced if he wasnt so stoked about his coming retirement
page 4
What is Vor?
"I’m Vor,” said Miles impatiently. “I serve. Or at any rate, I try to. Wherever I’m put. That was the deal.”
what are wah-wahs?
Miles doesnt mind beatings but he hates
practical jokes - same
explains ropes between buildings and how to fall without breaking bones
"...you must never let yourself get caught without your cold gear, or more than fifteen minutes away from a bunker. There’s bunkers all around the grubs’ practice fields out there.” Ahn waved his arm in that direction. He seemed quite serious, even earnest. “You hear that siren, you run like hell for cover. The size you are, if you ever got picked up and blown into the sea, they’d never find you again.'"
spoiler alert - good foreshadowing about the dangers and the bunkers
he wonders how Anh gets his numbers
page 5
"'You’re not just making them up, are you?” said Miles in suspicion.
“No!” said Ahn. “I hadn’t thought about it, but . . . it’s the way the day smells, I guess.” He inhaled deeply, by way of demonstration."
theres no such thing as a smellometer
"When Ahn leaves, this island is going to experience an 11-to-21% drop in forecast accuracy. They’re going to notice."
page 6
Anh is trashed so Miles gets to work
more good foreshadowing
"Base personnel, Miles had been given to understand, had grown extremely tired of picking lost antigrav sleds out of the frigid sea. Not to mention their late drivers."
one of the ableist Greeks from earlier is at the motor pool when Miles gets there
page 7
Miles has to constantly preclvent himself from going off, but hes gotten good at it
"Concentrate on the task, not the bloody audience. You’ve always had an audience. Probably always will."
he realizes its gonna be a year or two before people respect him every time he goes to a new post
page 8
hes enjoying being alone for once
hes late so he decided to camp out for four hours til its light again
he parks where Pattas told him to park
on a video he saw a portapotty flying horizontally and decides he needs to weigh down his tent
page 9
to that end he attaches a chain from his tent to the scat cat
he reads, goes to sleep, then wakes up in darkness even though it should be bright out
hes experiencing carbon monoxide poisoning and is stuck in the muck, tent all squished up
"Miles shoved one finger against the thin cold plastic. It yielded slowly, like soft butter, and retained the dented impression. What the hell . . . ?"
hes underground, stuck in some sort of slow mud
page 10
he tells himself to relax
he thinks about the ice poking tube in the scat cat, then realizes the scat cat is pulling him down
he hs a terrible vision of people finding his gross body
he gets a rib from the tent and pokes it through a small gap in the zipper
"He’d feared the black mud would pour in, drowning him at once, but it only crept in extrusive blobs, to fall with oozing plops. The comparison was obvious and repulsive. God, and I thought I’d been in deep shit before."
he turns the heat tube off to put in his pocket and its pitch black
hes running out of time
page 11
he unzips his boots and undoes his belt buckle
he pulls in tons of mud to make room, then surges upward
"His legs slid out of his boots and pants, his hips sucked free, and he rolled away. He lay spread-eagled for maximum support on the treacherous surface, faceup to the gray swirling sky. His uniform jacket and long underwear were soaked with slime, and he’d lost one thermal sock, as well as both boots and his trousers.
It was sleeting."
later his colleagues find him freezing in the weather station, having busted a piece of equipment to use to signal Anh back in HQ. He's alive, but boy is he pissed