Ioe Jerhit
The Kela Guardian
Leaving the Syndicate
Ioe Jerhit is the younger brother of Brena Jerhit and twin to Iera Jerhit. He rejected the criminal life of the Jerhit Syndicate and the Geban underworld entirely. He left Inland Thazvaar and invested his inherited fortune into establishing small mercenary groups based in Kela, dedicated to escorting settlers and researchers through hostile regions and protecting them from predators, pirates, and syndicate raiders. His operations specialized in hunting wanted criminals across Geba, particularly tracking fugitives to remote areas where no other force would follow.
Uncharted Expeditions
Following a failed expedition to The Uncharted, Ioe adopted controversial tactics. He kidnapped skilled engineers and forcibly relocated them to Kela to develop technologies for surviving the Uncharted's extreme conditions. Despite their captivity, these engineers were exceptionally well paid and protected, housed in fortified compounds with security that no other employer on the planet could match. Ioe coerced many of them to his cause by relocating their families to private clearings and providing them with resources and comfort, which bound them to him through obligation and without threats. For those without families, or those wealth did not convince, he appealed to ambition, arguing that the Uncharted was Geba's true final frontier, where survival technologies could open possibilities that no manufactory or imperial program had ever attempted.
His methods echoed the syndicate coercion he had rejected. He crossed the line between protector and captor deliberately and without apology, knowing what he was doing and believing the destination justified the route.