"It won't be destruction." His lips thin. He looks down at his feet. "It'll just be...different. A different form of government. You know full well that Barrayar isn't the Vor class. Barrayar is her people. And even called by a different name, under a different form of government, the people will survive. And they'll survive brought into the modern era - given proper medicine, proper education. Girls will be allowed to go to school - and they'll reproduce with uterine replicators instead of having to undergo the brutality of body-births. Mutations will be surgically corrected instead of the babies being killed.

"And at what cost? Replacing the Vor prefix with ghem? What a great loss." He shakes his head, then, though he doesn't look up at her. "All that the Vor have done - have ever done for this world - is leech off it. Our social class is parasitic. We soak up the good labor of the proles, and we use the wealth of their hands to...what, get drunk and fight duels and make war on each other. At least the worst the ghem do is make incomprehensible art. And make war on others, planets away." He points heavenwards. "Instead of ripping themselves and their own people apart."