Jin Daiyu



Jin Daiyu, councilor for the Earth Kingdom, and non-bender, has occupied his position for about twenty years. As a child, Jin watched ships pass his native town on the shores of the southern earth kingdom, carrying goods to and from the great cities of the world, and wondered why none ever stopped there. There was a power to them, those behemoths of fire, smoke, and steel, cutting their way through the waves, and making them their own; sending towering billows of ash into the sky, and filling the air with the low roar of their engines. He would sit by the cliffs and watch as they passed from dawn to dusk, and when he grew older, read every book he could find that discussed the sea and the great ships that sailed upon it. It was this obsession that went on to shape the rest of his life.

As soon as he finished school, Jin applied to the Earth Kingdom naval academy, and arrived in Ba Sing Se with the greatest enthusiasm imaginable, expecting to find the realization of his dreams. However, nothing could be further from the truth, and for all the Earth Kingdom's vast armies, the Royal Navy was a stunted and archaic organization, with just a dozen coal powered ships, and only twice that number of sail. After meeting with the admiral at the head of the school, a fat and wheezing old man, who had never captained a ship, let alone been within even a few miles of the sea, Jin realized that he would need to turn elsewhere. Leaving the capital, he left for the developing industrial towns along the Kingdom's western edge, where trade with the other nations was constant, and ships of all types constantly docked.

Here he took a menial job, and spent his spare time wandering the docks, inspecting ships, asking questions, and making connections; eventually coming into contact with a school of ship design. The Feng Tian school was in many ways similar to Ba Sing Se's naval academy, under funded, under staffed, and poorly led. However, unlike that other organization, Feng Tian suffered from a lack of exterior interest, and found its designs overlooked by major corporations merely because they were of Earth Kingdom origin, not because they lacked merit. Jin decided that this needed to change, and immediately set about putting his intelligence and experience to work, shocking the students and their teachers with his brilliant ideas, securing himself a place at the school, and eventually a contract with the Fire Nation's primary shipping business: the Satsumo Group.

It is unclear exactly how he did so, but within a few years of working for Satsumo, Jin uncovered a web of widespread corruption throughout his own and several other major seafaring corporations based in both the Earth and Fire Nations. Instead of going to the media, or securing himself a paycheck for his silence, Jin went to the workers and sailors he had gotten to know on the docks; the force behind his business, and every ship on the sea. Thus, the Daiyu Docker's Union was born, and as strike after strike rocked Satsumo and its contemporaries, Jin grew to become the people's hero. By uniting disparate Earth Kingdom laborers, Fire Nation sailors, and eventually even workers from all corners of the world, he tore down some of the world's most powerful businesses, and through the collective strength of his followers, established a new one from the ashes. The Daiyu Docker's Union, and the newly christened Daiyuu Corporation, became one and the same, and where its older partners tried to carry on with inexperienced laborers, Daiyu surged ahead. Powered by his revolutionary ship designs, passion for the open ocean, and his followers, Jin had gone from rags to riches, and so Republic City was an easy next step. With so many backing him, and the timely death of his predecessor, Jin sailed through Earth Kingdom elections, and has since represented his nation in the United Republic of Nations.

Today Councilor Daiyu enjoys widespread support from among Republic City's lower classes, and from the members of his company around the world.

WIP