Shuos Jedao

**Shuos Jedao**, born **Garach Jedao Shkan** and having also used the undercover name **Arioi Sren**, was a Shuos soldier who served the heptarchate and hexarchate both during his lifetime and, as a revenant, after his death. He appears throughout the Machineries of Empire continuity.

For the version of Shuos Jedao who appears in Revenant Gun, see **Jedao Two**.

## Appearance and Personality

Jedao was a leanly muscular man of middling height, with dark eyes, an unremarkable face, and a wide scar on his neck just above the collar.

As an anchored revenant, Jedao's presence is visible only in his anchor's shadow, which generally appears as his own shadow with nine candle-yellow eyes, and their reflection, which appears as his. The shadow can defy physics and change shape. Jedao's voice can only be heard by his anchor or another revenant. He does not sleep and has a 360% range of vision around his anchor's body. All of Jedao's anchors have experienced bleed-through of his body language, reflexes, and accent; emotional bleedthrough is rare but possible.

## Personal Life

Jedao was born to Garach Ledana, an eccentric Shparoi agricultural researcher. He met his noncustodial father, Koiresh Shkan, only twice. Jedao and his half-siblings Rodao and Nidana, also born of noncustodial fathers, were raised on Ledana's farm and were familiar with agriculture and Shparoi customs. Jedao was on good terms with his siblings and caused his share of trouble on the farm, including an explosive incident involving his mother's food processor when he was twelve. He was also "adopted" by a gosling which became less cute as it grew up; during his adulthood, Ledana sent him goose fat rendered from the goose's distant descendant.

Though superficially gregarious in his military service, Jedao had no long-term friends or lovers. He preferred intimacy with men and slept with few womanforms, medically insuring that no offspring would result. He was known to have been intimate with fellow cadets Vestenya Ruo and Lirov Yeren, among others, and endured a public sexual assault by Heptarch Shuos Khiaz. His relationships with Heptarch Nirai Kujen and Rhi Teshetwere not a matter of historical record, nor was the fact that he had always wanted children.

## Career

### Shuos Academy

Jedao attended Shuos Academy. In his first year, Jedao hesitated to declare a track, considering languages due to his linguistic facility. His reflexes were in the ninety-sixth percentile, which an instructor remarked could be an asset or a liability for an assassin. The only class he had trouble with was math, due to a form of dyscalculia. However, he worked hard and passed those classes too.

During the yearly game competition, Jedao anonymously created a game designed to trick others into committing small heresies. One night, he learned from Yeren that Ruo, his first Academy friend and a former lover, had committed suicide after being caught using the game to frame a visiting Rahal magistrate. Another cadet, Chenoi Tiana, claimed to have created the game and was commended for it, and Jedao, having lost his best friend, did not reveal his authorship.

After Ruo's suicide, Jedao switched to the Academy's assassin's track, with analysis on the side.

Jedao also met Shuos Meng during a class exercise. The two remained friends during their subsequent careers. Other classmates included Veller, Noe Irin, and Meurran.

### Wetwork

Jedao spent some time working for Heptarch Khiaz, analyzing data in her office and eventually working directly under her as an assassin for eight months. Though he was one of her better assassins,, he sensed her predatory intent and transferred to the Kel as soon as he could.

He worked with Shuos Sereset to deploy Shuos shouters and assassinate the general of the Axers. Sereset was wounded by a stray Kel bullet on the battlefield and Jedao was with him when he died.

### Kel Service

Jedao entered the military as infantry due to his tactical ability, instead of the usual intelligence position given to a Shuos seconded to the Kel. As a lieutenant, he got his company out of a bad situation in which all the Kel officers who outranked him had been killed, winning enough trust from the Kel to be given all their worst assignments.

Under the name Arioi Sren, Jedao, then a commander, took the Carp merchant troop to Du Station to retrieve Shuos Meng from the Gwa Reality. Afterwards, Brigadier General Kel Essier assigned him to her third tactical group, commanding the fangmoth *Sieve of Glass*; the advancement also came with an overdue promotion.

During his service with the Kel, Jedao cultivated working friendships with the most effective and high-ranking Kel generals, using competitive games and hunting trips to learn their styles of thought and command. After becoming a high officer, he met Kel Gized at an Andan flower-viewing party, dueled her, and won, later choosing her as his chief of staff.

At another Andan party shortly after his promotion to brigadier general, a decade after he left Shuos infantry for the Kel, Jedao was raped by Heptarch Khiaz. Gized prevented him from committing suicide afterwards.

Not much later, during a refit at a Nirai station, Jedao was confronted by Hexarch Nirai Kujen. Aware of Kujen's identity and reputation, Jedao immediately shot him. Kujen merely walked in again in a different body and offered him a partnership in what he had deduced was Jedao's desire to bring down the calendar. Seeing some advantages and, more importantly, no way out, Jedao accepted.

After being promoted to lieutenant general, Jedao took part in the Kel campaign against the Aughens and was tasked with executing five disgraced Kel who had failed their formation, a frequent occurrence before the development of formation instinct. A year later he rose to general, prompting a new round of gossip about how fast Kel Command kept promoting him.

During the Lanterner Rebellion, Jedao was pulled off medical leave after surviving an assassination attempt and given the remains of deceased general Kel Najhera's decimated swarm. Despite his injuries, Jedao led his eleven damaged fangmoths to an eight-to-one victory at Candle Arc. His swarm then joined the Twin Axes swarm at the Taurag border. Jedao later used the grand formation Skyfall to devastating effect in the Battle of Severed Hands.

When the Lanterners began to use their children and wounded as human shields, Jedao consulted High General Kel Garit, who instructed him to fire through them. Though horrified at killing children, Jedao carried out his orders.

### Hellspin Fortress and Execution

Once he understood what he had done, he begged for death. Rahal interrogators found a singularity response to their scrying: the Immolation Fox.

Khiaz, believing that he had feared death, ordered his body turned over to Kujen, who placed him in the black cradle to endure an endless undeath. In a fit of anger, Khiaz also signed him over to the Kel Arsenal as a weapon, removing him from direct Shuos oversight.

### Undeath

Kujen's psych surgery resulted at first in a completely tractable and penitent revenant with no tactical ability. His Kel liaison demanded talent and pain instead. Kujen obliged.

With his tactical genius restored, Jedao was anchored to living humans and fielded numerous times as a Kel weapon, and returned to the black cradle afterwards. He won every battle in which he was fielded.

## Influence and Legacy

Hexarch Shuos Mikodez keeps interpreters on hand for every language spoken by **Shuos Jedao**, including Tlen-Gwa.

## Development

* In the original draft for *Ninefox Gambit*, Jedao was a sociopath who, in a childhood flashback, vivisected a pet goose. The author's family now has roast goose for Thanksgiving in Jedao's honor. In rewrites, Jedao's sociopathy was transferred to Kujen. On an alpha reader's advice, the author also experimented with sexual tension in Cheris and Jedao's relationship, but disliked the result intensely and removed it.

## Trivia

* Jedao's first anchor was Kel Streven.
* Jedao will appear as "The Drowned General" in Hexarchate Tarot. The card stands for disaster and failure through hubris; reversed, it evokes ambition or a high-risk, high-gain gamble.

## References

1. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 4
2. ↑ Bunny, A Belated Blessing
3. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 22
4. ↑ Extracurricular Activities
5. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 18
6. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 10
7. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 22
8. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 21
9. ↑ Extracurricular Activities
10. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 21
11. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 22
12. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 21
13. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 22
14. ↑ Extracurricular Activities
15. ↑ Squirrel-Fishing
16. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 22
17. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 2
18. ↑ Extracurricular Activities
19. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 22
20. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 22
21. ↑ Extracurricular Activities
22. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapters 12, 22
23. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 12
24. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 21
25. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 22
26. ↑ The Battle of Candle Arc
27. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 10
28. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 21
29. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 9
30. ↑ TheBookSmugglers interview: Oops, I Accidentally Wrote A Trilogy
31. ↑ Author's remarks
32. ↑ Author's design
33. ↑ Hexarchate Tarot: Major Arcana