Wormhole jump pilots are hard to replace, so this kind of tactic is rarely used even by cultures which, like Barrayar's, hold life relatively cheap. It is possible to invade a system through a wormhole, though there are also ways to temporarily block access, such as by sending a ship to destroy itself in transit on a suicide mission. The jump-points are also guarded by military stations, which also serve as customs enforcers.

Aside from space industry, habitats are positioned near wormhole jump-points to manage interstellar traffic. Some people live in space habitats with artificial gravity and never set foot on a planet. Life in the Nexus is tremendously varied.

The inhabited systems are known collectively as the wormhole Nexus, reflecting their interconnectedness. The spaceships employ artificial gravity and can sustain large accelerations, allowing them to cross from one wormhole to another in a matter of hours or days. Most trips between inhabited systems require more than one jump. Travel between star systems is by wormholes, spatial anomalies that exist in five spatial dimensions, that allow instantaneous travel from one star to another.

See Vorkosigan Saga timeline for the standard timeline of the saga. It was the second novel written in the series, after Shards of Honor. On the strength of The Warrior's Apprentice, Baen Books agreed to a three-book deal to include the two other novels. Lois Bujold wrote two books ( Shards of Honor and The Warrior's Apprentice) and was working on a third ( Ethan of Athos) before The Warrior's Apprentice was accepted (after four rejections). Shards of Honor, Barrayar, and Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen concern Miles' parents, while ' Dreamweaver's Dilemma', Falling Free and Ethan of Athos are set in the same universe as the other books but do not involve Miles or any of his family. The stories are listed in order of chronology, rather than publication date. Similarly, 'Winterfair Gifts' was nominated for Best Novella. The novels The Vor Game, Barrayar, and Mirror Dance each won the Hugo Award for Best Novel, and 'The Mountains of Mourning' won the Hugo Award for Best Novella Falling Free, Memory, A Civil Campaign, and Cryoburn were nominated but did not win. The Vorkosigan Saga is a series of science fiction novels and short stories by Lois McMaster Bujold, most of which concern Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, a physically disabled aristocrat from the planet Barrayar whose life (from before birth), military career, and post-military career is a challenge to his native planet's prejudices against 'mutants.'

Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold