Ser Galen’s Komarran conspiracy

Ser Galen’s Komarran conspiracy sought to weaken the Barrayaran Imperium and free Komarr through coordinated political violence and sabotage. Its hidden biological component—a microorganism engineered to destroy neurochip proteins—was intended to disable Simon Illyan, and its timing was linked to a planned assassination of Prime Minister Aral Vorkosigan. The plot’s history became newly legible when Miles Vorkosigan found its long-stored evidence in an ImpSec inventory.

Background and Objectives

The conspiracy was associated with Komarran terrorist cells tied to the late Ser Galen, who was killed on Earth while attempting to launch a final plot against the Barrayaran Imperium. That broader campaign aimed to free Komarr. It also produced Mark, Miles Vorkosigan’s clone-brother, whom Ser Galen had created as part of his plans. The evidence does not establish that Mark participated in the later biological attack: Miles noted that Mark had been on Beta Colony for nearly half a year and arranged for his whereabouts to be checked.

The Biological Operation

The organism was a bioengineered apoptotic prokaryote designed to consume neurochip proteins. It had been made to order for the Komarran terrorists by a House Minor in Jackson’s Whole, a house better known for producing tailored drugs. Simon Illyan had been its intended target from the beginning. The disruption of ImpSec was timed to coincide with an attempt to assassinate then–Prime Minister Aral Vorkosigan, linking the attack on Illyan’s memory-related technology to a larger political operation.

Evidence and Discovery

The prokaryote’s physical trail had entered the ImpSec Evidence Room nearly five years earlier. An officer from Komarran Affairs delivered it after Imperial Counterintelligence recovered it in Vorbarr Sultana during an arrest sweep targeting terrorist cells associated with Ser Galen. It was filed in Bin Twenty-Seven, Shelf Nine, among tens of thousands of other items, where it remained unnoticed. When Miles encountered the inventory entry, the innocuous record connected the biological sabotage to the older Komarran conspiracy.

An ImpSec investigation five years earlier had already traced the organism to the building where it was produced and connected the Komarran payment to the Jacksonian biochemistry team’s bank accounts. Miles expected the newly initiated search to recover the same information, either after reconstructing the earlier investigation or once staff overcame their collective amnesia and found the material in existing files. He estimated that this would take between three and eight weeks. The rediscovery thus exposed both the conspiracy’s operational links and the institutional failure that had allowed its evidence to lie in plain sight.