Background
Elite; note blue eyes
Erito, more commonly known as "Elite" among the Jod Military Forces & Royal Command, are highly trained top-secret Force-sensitive Black Operations commandos & assassins. Oddly enough, their allegiance is specific to the Church of Jod---a religious non-profit civilian organization. While not officially part of the military, they are nonetheless a feared and useful resource of it.
Their background goes back to Homu Sekai in the Unknown Regions; fleeing their home world in the midst of a brutal Chiss Ascendancy planetary invasion, civilians and Erito alike would brave the Chiss blockade around their world. Most of their escape ships were either captured before launch or destroyed by the military blockade. Only one escape ship would survive---it would crash land after a hyperspace malfunction and its survivors were rescued by exiled (by Order 66) Jedi Master Alexander Zat, who was working for the Kingdom of Jod after the Clone Wars in exile. Although the details of the rescue were not publicly released and kept secret.
The Erito---later called Elite by the Jod---would become a powerful protective, commando, and assassination force for both the Church of Jod and the Kingdom of Jod.
Alexander Zat & the Beginning
Elite; no masks
As only a handful of rescued Jedi Padawans, Knights, & Masters rescued by the Jod---in a secret alliance with Jedi Master Yoda & the Jedi Order during the Clone Wars---in the aftermath of Order 66, Alexander Zat was also the highest ranking survivor (although he didn't know that Yoda would later survive, although he found out years later). The Jod, wanting the Jedi Order to survive, put Alexander Zat and the Church of Jod in charge of reforming the Jedi Order from the ashes of Order 66. Zat was put in charge of going out into the Outside Galaxy, rescuing what Jedi he could, and bringing them back to the Kingdom of Jod, where the Church of Jod would assist in the civilian organization and reformation of the Jedi Order.
While both the JMF provided limited assistance and Royal Command to a greater degree, Alexander Zat was still facing a ever-growing and evil Galactic Empire. And the small numbers of Jedi he had with him were a precious resource and even the limited causalities he sustained in rescuing other Jedi were starting to thin the already remnant ranks of Jedi he had to his disposal.
Zat's solution was one of accidental nature. While returning from a successful "Jedi Rescue Mission" or JRM as Zat's crews & personnel would shorten them to, the Jod and Jedi crew zeroed in on an emergency beacon. Landing on a forgotten & remote jungle world, they would find the half-buried wreckage of a strange alien craft that had seemed to had landed several years prior without notice. While its several thousand crew & passengers were long dead from the devastating crash landing at high speeds (from the debris wreckage pattern), several hundred civilians and military personnel survived. Of those survivors, located in suspended animation pods, were many Erito. The Erito would later swear their allegiance to the Church of Jod alone for their rescue and see Alexander Zat as their leader.
In a display of politics and religious traditions, the Church of Jod and Zat were able to work a deal behind closed doors with the Royal House and House of Royal Intelligence, with limited participation of Royal Command. What started as "Guardians of the Jedi" would turn into much more with the relaxed and restricted supervision and accountability that the HRI & Royal Command were given to oversee the operations of the Elite.
Religious Warriors & Jedi Assassins
Elite training
In time, even the most noblest of intentions can be tainted by the Dark Side of the Force for the Jedi that is not aware. In a episode of greed and revenge---in a desire for the Jedi to return to their once traditional role as "Guardians of the Galaxy"---Zat started to come in line with more extreme religious thinkers within the Church of Jod whom saw the Elite as more then just mere elite baby-sitters of the remnant of Jedi on Jod, but as a powerful tool to bring religious purity to the Jod and bring back the Jedi Order of old. And even more so, bring the Erito back to Homu Sekai---although this was more used as a tactic to ensure the Erito's continued loyalty and their civilian and military counterparts loyalty from their crashed escape ship.
In time, where Elite once guarded Jedi havens on Jod & around the galaxy and protected Jedi from the shadows wherever they may journey, they became an increasingly offensive tool used by the Church of Jod to accomplish religious goals. Whereas the church may not be permitted to assassinate anyone or be connected to murder, shadowy assassins with deniability could carry out the darker agenda of the church. Soon, the political agenda of the church entered mainstream Jod politics.
In time, Elite would be nicknamed "Jedi Assassins" for their Jedi-like abilities. Over the years & decades, Zat himself and the Erito that swore allegiance to him would unwillingly become the very evil they swore to defeat. Even the Jedi Order that Zat sought to restore looked far less like the Jedi Order he served before Order 66, as it did a Religious Military Order.
Elite Training Academy
King Alex "The Just" and the Church of Jod
Elite; mask close up
While a firm believer in the Church of Jod, King Alex the Just could start to sense the corruption of the church. Where pastors and prophets once peacefully supported and instructed the people's religious worship and morality, now the church's external agenda to gain more power to influence those not in line with the church's teachings were becoming troublesome.
Different religious teachings had arose over the generations to challenge the church's age-old message of Jesus Christ with the understanding that The Force was a religious gift by the Holy Spirit . The Church of Jod saw that the forces of Good and Evil fought with each other to sway a person to God or the Devil (in general summary of the religious context). In terms of The Force---as if someone was gifted by the Holy Spirit to use it---this "gift" could be removed by God, but could---in some cases---be replaced by the Dark Side of the Force, or as the Church of Jod saw it, the evil (and lesser) copy by the Devil of the greater gift provided in terms of the Light Side of the Force (via the Holy Spirit / God).
The Church of Jod----it's traditions under attack from many external forces for religious and moral control of the general Jod population---fought back, but only in a way that a religious "peaceful" organization could: through cloak and dagger.
Seeing his long time friend & adviser Alexander Zat slip more and more from the path of the Jedi and instead resort to these tactics to restore the Jedi Order, King Alex the Just intervened personally on Zat's behalf. Bringing his long-time trusted adviser and friend back to his original goal of bringing back the Jedi Order, Zat started to work within the Church of Jod to reform some of the very policies that he helped create. While some reforms were welcome by the Church of Jod, most were not as it started to take away the power of the church to intervene in cultural, social, political, and even military matters.
In time, Zat's reforms would meet a unwelcome boundary and the Church of Jod conspired against it's long-lasting "Champion of Good & Justice". Soon, Zat was excommunicated from the Church of Jod completely. Publicly, Zat---once known as the "General of the Elite"---was simply removed from office and retired to civilian life. Privately, he was hunted by the very Elite he once trained and lead, their loyalty to the Church of Jod.
One of the few conditions the Royal House, House of Royal Intelligence, and Royal Command was able to come to agreement to with the Church of Jod were the Protection of the Royal House, Jedi & Church Decree, and the Royal Command Order. Both conditions obligated the Church of Jod to loan, for an undefined length of time, the Elite to the services of the Royal House and Royal Command respectfully.
The former Protection gave the Royal House the right to protect any person and / or organization, government, and / or society from any such actions stemming from the Elite's actions and / or the actions of the Church of Jod---it also protected any such persons, organizations, governments, and / or societies from any governmental / organizational action and / or any foreign governmental or organizational action against them. The latter Order gave the Royal Command rights to use the Elite in any military actions, as the situation dedicated it, without favoritism to the stance of the Church of Jod.
The middle, the Decree, provided a separation---in ideology and functionality---between the Jedi Order remnants and the Church of Jod. Essentially put, the Jedi Order---including the Elite which fell under it----were a separate organization; a practicing & training branch for the use of The Force as it relates to Jesus Christ & the Holy Spirit. While the Church of Jod oversaw the rebuilding and overall health of the Jedi Order, it was in no way in control of the Jedi Order as a means to use it as a service of its own. Rather, it was understood, that the Church of Jod overall the spiritual and morality health of the Jedi Order, but not its functional practices and / or ideology in the application of what the Jedi Order stood for.
The confusing Decree provided the Church of Jod with organizational authority over the remnants of the Jedi Order---as the Jedi were a branch of the church---but the Decree also limited the extend in which the church could control the Jedi Order as a asset of it's own without the newly reformed Jedi Council first voting on it. The Elite---henceforth---were under the protection & training of the Jedi Order as being Jedi themselves, yet under the allegiance of the Church of Jod. This enabled the Elite to carry out the Black Operations it did for the Church of Jod, yet remain impartial about it, and serve the Jedi Order in its full function as well. While this often times provided friction between the Jedi Order and Church of Jod, the Jedi were nonetheless separate from the Elite, yet trained and practiced The Force with them.
The depth of the Decree also provided King Alex the Just with the legality he needed to place Jedi Master Alexander Zat not only under the Protection of the Royal House, but also had a Royal Command Order placed to assign an Elite in protection of Alexander Zat (Tora Senshi). These two orders negated the Church of Jod's power to eliminate Alexander Zat and any attempt to do so---whether openly or covertly---would paint the church in a criminal light, something the church could ill afford it's enemies to be able to capitalize on.
Historical Background of the Erito before the Kingdom of Jod
May 14, 2014 at 4:37 PM & May 14, 2014 at 10:17 PM
As retold by Tora Senshi...
"My people," Tora begun as he removed a small footlocker from under his bed in one of the master bedrooms, "Are a people of tradition. Of honor. We weren't always that way and we," Tora took a small gold key he had under the mattress and put it into the footlocker, "Never stayed that way."
Even Zat could feel the swirling of emotions in the Force, the heavy presence of something great in this room. "You don't have to do this," Zat said, "I know how secret you have kept your people's history, even from me."
"No," Tora said as he turned the key inside the footlocker, it was a gateway into the past, "I do."
Tora opened the footlocker and began taking items out, one at a time and told his story. The items were mostly clothes, small gold or silver items, and several letters written on old paper. He put them besides the footlocker.
"Many hundreds of years before I was born, my people were a warlike people. We fought and killed each other for control of land in our own clans. Alliances were formed and broken. Leaders put on thrones and taken down from thrones in blood. Families rose to power and were utterly assassinated by rival clans. My people became masterful warriors through the shedding of their own blood. At some point, the Heiwa Keiyaku was declared, after hundreds of years of clan warfare. We became a peaceful people, turning our weapons into plows and our warriors into farmers. Our military leaders became historians and professors and we put family and country in front of clan names. We declared an Emperor, had a Ruling Council made up of one representative from all of the Clans, and had a Caste system: workers, inventors, teachers, thinkers, philosophers, scholars, clergy, healers...and warriors. Afraid that our past would overcome our warriors, a strict system was put in place for our warriors and we called it the Heishi No Za Oda or Soldiers of the Order. The greatest military leader---and most honorable and moral man---of our warrior clan days, we declared him Master. Under the Master, several other military leaders of our warrior days were called to be the Council; to be on the Council or be elected as the Master, you had to be a warrior above reproach, a man dedicated to peace and honor, but a man that would not hesitate to bring the sword to the enemy when the time came. Together, these twelve men were the keepers of our military knowledge and our bloody history. It was forbidden for anyone, even the Emperor himself, to know what the Master and the Council knew. Our law enforcement and our standing military were all put together into the Heishi No Za Oda. Much like, I would imagine, your Jedi Order was here, back in the days of the Republic.
"For generations, our culture and our society reformed itself. No visitors came to our world. We were able to develop as we desired; soon, cart and horse gave way to the vehicle. Villages were replaced by skyscrapers. But still, our people were a peaceful people. Our bloody people's past was forgotten, only retained by the Master and the Council. A way of peace was all we knew, was all we wanted. But in time, even the noblest of pursuits encounters darkness. The human heart, Jedi Master Zat, cannot be trusted."
Zat's heart stopped as He looked at him for a long moment at the last statement, "But your not human..."
Tora smiled, "We are human. Near-human now would be the best way to describe us now. We were part of the Tho Yor migration to the Tython System; while our people knew nothing of rocket ships, let alone starships back then, a strange alien ship came to our planet and picked several of our most educational people to travel with it..we sent them, part in fear, part in awe. But they all could use, what you call, The Force. We were part of the gathering of philosophers and scientists from several star systems gathered on Tython to share our combined mystical knowledge of what would become known as The Force. Our people came from the Unknown Regions, as you well know Master Zat. During the Force Wars on Tython, the scholars, philosophers, and thinkers we sent came back to us...changed. Some shared views on this Force in a enlightened academic manner...others came back more aggressive...darkness had consumed their souls: greed and power and status became their goal and any clans that stood in their way would die by the sword. So our once peaceful people, now exposed to alien starships of mysterious design from worlds far away, were plunged into the darkness of blood that consumed my people for the hundreds of years before my birth. When our scholars and philosophers returned, with them, they brought something. And it wasn't just the Light and Dark Side of the Force. Something changed our world...changed us. Soon, our children were being born with higher and higher Midi-chlorian counts and even longer life spans that could turn into hundreds of years or more and then, our blue eyes came into place. Why are our eyes blue? It is the Force, because our bodies became so consumed with the Force. Our people never had a name---and how we reached our planet in the Unknown Regions is still unknown, because we can trace ourselves back to Coruscant---but the Force gave us our name. We started calling ourselves Hitobito No Za Chikara or People of the Force.
"Several generations before I was born," He had emptied out the footlocker to an array of clothing, small items, and old pictures, but still one item remained in the footlocker, covered by a piece of cloth, "Our people had become a technology driven people, although we still had yet to travel off our planet in starships, mostly because the Emperor and the Ruling Council forbid such actions in fear that it would be bring outsiders to our planet. The Heishi No Za Oda were still the protectors of our world, of our people. But as I said Master Zat, even the noblest of pursuits eventually encounters darkness. With technology comes business, with business comes money. With money, comes the evilness of the human heart. The Heishi No Za Oda knew of the corruption of businessmen in our society and they did their best throughout the years to limit it, to combat it; for many of the businessman had armed thugs, ran underground illegal businesses for drugs, and even had sex and slave trafficking. Our once noble streets and livly gardens turned into streets of despair and prostitution and of evil. For hundreds of years now, the Soldiers of the Order had been the guardians of peace and justice on our world, much like your Jedi Order. But now, even the Council and the Master could not stop the progression of darkness. For generations, our people pursed the highest calling, the most noblest of pursuits, and the Heishi No Za Oda protected our people. But now, big business started to rule over all and soon, businessmen found their way into the Ruling Council and then, the Emperor's personal advisers. Soon, the Soldiers of the Order were outlawed, viewed as a 'controlling body of old money that sought to derail our people's progress'. We had our supporters, our enemies had theirs. Soon, Za Hanran No Za Hitobito begun. Once peaceful farmers turned in their plows for weapons, their historians and professors became military leaders, and family and country were replaced by clan names. Soon, they hunted us down, killed our warriors. We did not fight back. We knew the people were being lied to and we could not kill the very people we pledged to protect with our lives. So we allowed them to take our lives. Be bowed and our heads were chopped off; we knelt and swords were thrust through our chest; we laid our weapons down and our hands were cut off; we spoke peace and our tongues were cut out.
"At seeing the honor and respect we showed our killers, that we showed the people we pledged to protect, a group of businessmen---of good and moral businessmen who did not share in the evil practices of their counterparts---approached the Emperor and pleaded with him to stop the bloodshed. Seeing the evidence before his eyes, the Emperor had the violence stop. To have the armies that roamed the planet to put their weapons down. Lied to about the Soldiers of the Order, the Emperor vowed to have those in his most trusted advisers that lied to him found out and killed for their treason and any that associated with them. But the damage had been done to us, to the Soldiers of the Order. Our numbers were too few, the corruption too great in the world. Although the Emperor pleaded with our remaining ranks to join him once again, our Master and the Council declared the great Keiyaku No Za Rekishi..."
"The Keiyaku No Za Rekishi?" Zat repeated as the word hung in the air from "He".
"Accords of the History," Tora said in Basic, "The Master and Council had decided that someone had betrayed the most sacred history of our people's bloodied past and delivered it upon the people to carry out our extinction and that this wrongdoing was so deep, so through and planned, that the Heishi No Za Oda leadership had decided that we could no longer effectively act as the policing and military body of our people. In effect, the people would have to learn through their own history, through their own decisions, what best served them. So thus, the Heishi No Za Oda retreated into the mountains and we shut our doors to the public. In secret, we served the Emperor and the Emperor alone as his newly formed Erito, serving as the protectors of peace and justice as we once did. Our traditional clothing were replaced with suits and sunglasses sealed to our faces to prevent removal and to protect our eyes from identification. While to the public we served as the Emperor's bodyguard, to the Emperor, we served as his secret police, as the body of protectors that dealt with crime at any and all cost away and separate from the standing military that was formed to replace the Order. So thus, the Heishi No Za Oda became a thing of legend, of myth, as our existence faded from memory and a few appearances---outside of Erito---of us persisted throughout the generations. In time, the Force too seemed to withdrew whatever mysterious hand of favor it had on our people for so many years and the birth rate with those with blue eyes dropped more and more over the years, as did the Midi-chlorian counts per newborn. Until, one day, it was so rare to find one with blue eyes, that we---now living in the shadows, devoted to stopping the crime and corruption that had so gripped our world and people---would secretly move in and take any newborns from the hospitals with blue eyes, for their Midi-chlorian counts were also high; we wanted to spare them the evil of the world, train and raise them in a better way, so as to give our people a hope and a future. The Force, it seemed, departed from our people, keeping itself only to a select few that we would train as warriors with the sword in one hand and scholars with books in the other hand. With newborn babies disappearing with blue eyes, our legend only grew."
"But who betrayed you?" Zat asked, "I don't understand."
"When the Heiwa Keiyaku was signed, it ended hundreds of years of bloodshed and corruption between those clans that had survived it. But what it did not end, were the memories. Some members of the family clans formed secret alliances, held secret meetings, and formed secret resistance groups to discredit and remove the Soldiers of the Order. The Order and only the Order stood between them and removing the new Emperor and Ruling Council. It was the Order's first big test and we thought, when we crushed them in multiple battles and finally defeated them, that they would have some amount of honor when we labeled them Tsuiho, but spared their lives. It seemed that even when banished to a distant world with no star map and no knowledge of the world they are on or where it is, that the fires of revenge have a way of returning to our own world. They would return in the way of the Chiss Ascendancy. And my dear friend, Kage Doragon---who had pledged to protect our people and the secrets of the Order---would become something far worse then the Chiss Ascendancy and would become the very embodiment of Tsuiho and the darkness that is them, the same darkness that he fought so hard to defeat. And I pledged to my Master and to the Council to stop him. At any cost."
Zat nodded, "I can only imagine how hard that is to fulfill. Being your best friend."
Tora's eyes lost focus as if he looked back to a distant memory, "He was my best-friend, because he is my brother."