Sesus Akida

Name: Sesus Akida
Type: Terrestrial Exalted
Age: Unknown
Player: NPC
Aspect: Air
Political Affiliation: All-Seeing Eye
Motivation: Prevent civil war in the Realm
Likes: Gateway, dogs, theater, flying, the Immaculate Order
Dislikes: Conspicuous consumption, independently wealthy people, bland food

Background

A prominent All-Seeing Eye operative who handles many Scavenger Lands missions for the agency. He believes the key to preventing civil war in the Realm lies in the development of the Confederation of Rivers.

Akida, despite being born into a noble house, did not have an easy life. He was an only child, the son of a Dragon-Blooded Admiral and his mortal wife. His mother was thought to be infertile, and so Akida's birth was seen as particularly auspicious. His father correctly guessed that he would not see other offspring, and as such, raised Akida to the utmost standards of excellence. He Exalted, to his father's private delight, and then the bar was set even higher. After a childhood nearly devoid of leisure, he attended the House of Bells, earning the respect of his classmates and faculty as being among their most disciplined members. After graduating in the House of Bells, he was commissioned as an officer in a coastal assault unit in Sesus Legions. Although he was offered a higher position in the Navy, he refused this. Most assume this was because of his fear that any success would be attributed to his father, but in fact, Akida simply did not wish to encounter the possibility of ever dealing with his father in a formal situation.

Akida rose through the ranks quickly enough anyhow, and was quickly put in charge of the coastal assault Dragon he commanded. His discipline and unprecedented battlefield cunning did not go unnoticed, and after his superiors noticed his ability to implement entirely new strategies with his troops on-the-fly, he was recruited into an unconventional warfare unit jointly operated by the Navy and the Army. As part of this unit, he trained and armed indigenous peoples throughout the Threshold and privately supervised their insurrections when it was beneficial to the Realm's interests. This unit's work was largely unofficial and certainly not acknowledged by the Deliberative. As such, many of its commanding officers were well connected with the All-Seeing Eye. From there, it was only a matter of time until Akida was given the lidless eye tattoo that changed the life of all who bore it.

Akida knew perfectly well what it meant, but was conflicted. He hated the All-Seeing Eye for its underhanded, dishonorable tactics, but as he thought of what the Realm had become, he couldn't help but take note of the corruption festering in all its edges. It was at this point that the spark of ambition was lit; until this point, Akida had simply been doing what he'd be taught to do his entire life - excel as a soldier. The standard paths for political action were already too far gone, and Akida knew that traveling that path would do nothing to stop the familial power-mongering now rampant in most Dynastic bureaucratic dealings. The All-Seeing Eye, however ironically, was perhaps less corrupted; its position somewhat on the fringes of legality made it a difficult organization to manipulate politically. Tentatively, Akida accepted the offer. Although he was asked to do things he found morally reprehensible, his conditioning was too strong to ignore; he kept his mouth shut and followed orders, amassing a closet full of skeletons, as most ASE agents did. Within the organization, Akida was outspoken about the dubious loyalty of many agents, pushing for a streamlining and downsizing of the organization. This quickly caught the ear of higher-ups, who began to employ Akida as an internal mole-hunter. It wasn't long before Akida found himself with a tremendous amount of authority as one of the organization's chief internal security agents.

With the emergence of the Solar Exalted and disappearance of the Empress, the Scavenger Lands became a hotbed of activity. Akida saw his chance. If the Confederation of Rivers were to become a coherent state, it would give the Realm an external focus for its diplomacy and military efforts. Although it was technically a demotion for him, Akida called in a favor from Bal Keraz and had himself re-assigned as the chief field agent for the All-Seeing Eye in the Confederation of Rivers. There, he works jointly to defend the interests of the Realm (the idea of the Realm more than the individuals currently running it) and to ensure that the Scavenger Lands becomes sufficiently organized that the Realm must acknowledge it as a political entity.

Akida supports and enforces the belief that physical prowess and discipline are the most important qualities of a covert operative. He recruits exclusively from the ranks of the Legions, Wyld Hunt, and Immaculate Order, and encourages his colleagues to do the same. He cares little for Spiral Academy graduates armed with nothing but a deep purse and silver tongue. After all, words will never speak louder than actions.