Quote: ordnance11 wrote:
The Abh still use wormholes to go from one point to another. Maybe different drives methodology, but when you're talking about 500 years divergence, eh.
The Vorkosigan universe uses plasma ship weaponry and fusion shells. The Abh uses railguns and missles. Not too divergent technologies. Hell, some forces in
the Abh universe still use gunpowder small arms
As for polities and politics...the Abh were a bio engineered race designed for a life of deep space...same as the quaddies. Also the mother of the current
Cetagandan Emperor (Empress Lisbeth) had the goal of separating the Cetagandan into to competing halves. Now who is to say a previous ruler some generations
back had the same idea and managed to do it on the black.
The major astrogation difference is that Vorkosigan universe uses point to point wormoles, creating a chain of locations. The Abh wormholes lead into planar
space - and then you can go anywhere. These result in very different strateigic situations. As for politics - the Vorkosigan universe is filled with largely
independant worlds with radically different internal politics. The Abh universe has a choice of two different empires (the nominally democratic but with no
tolerance for difference, disent or genetic engineering United Mankind or the feudal but hands off Humankind Empire Abh), independant worlds will be swallowed
up by one or the other.
You could easily place an Abh like race of posthumans into the Vorkosiganverse and creating an isolated and recently recontacted world in the Abhverse would
be even easier (Jinto's from one for starters), but you'd have to be careful and not just try and merge the two universe's without thinking of the
consequences. For instance, the Abh are arguably better than the United Mankind, but are a bunch of imperialistic warmongers by Barrayar standards.