Gooforcht Hoowh (/guːˈfʊərt͡ʃt huː/) was a male Exoi who served as the last Governing Judge of Toriafas and one of the last leaders of the Exoi Kritocracy.
Biography[]
Born, raised, and educated on Toriafas, Gooforcht was the descendant of a long line of Exoi judges and scholars. He graduated from university and his judiciary training program with top marks, but eschewed a junior position on Toriafas itself for a more senior one on another Kritocracy world. He witnessed the consequences of economic stagnation firsthand, and when he returned to Toriafas to assume a different position, it was with those lessons in mind.
Continuing to excel in the executive judiciary and earning a reputation as an even-handed and well-informed judge, Gooforcht came to the attention of the Governing Judges at the relatively young age of seventy-four. They ensured his promotion to senior levels of leadership, eventually supervising the entire civil justice system of Toriafas. At the age of eighty-six, he was installed by the authority of the Exoi God-King as the Governing Judge of Toriafas.
As primus inter pares among the nineteen remaining Judges, Gooforcht did what he could to keep the Kritocracy together despite its systemic collapse on many worlds. By 155 ABY, he was aware that the Kritocracy was functionally doomed, but felt there was no alternative to staying the course. In that year, however, Queen Rin Sakaros of the Golden Empire arrived on Toriafas and invited the Kritocracy to dissolve and its worlds to become possessions of the Empire.
Gooforcht met privately with Rin the night before she was to address the Governing Judges, intrigued by her and seeking to discover what she could offer to the Kritocracy. He was aware that its worlds were stagnating, and was open to new ideas that could save them. He was among the Judges most sympathetic to the proposal but, constrained by precedent, he yielded to the opinion that such a thing could not occur without the consent of the God-King. He was supportive of the Empire when when, rather than working through the Acolytes of the God-King, Rin went directly to the Temple of Incarnate Glory. When Rin exposed the Acolytes' deception in maintaining the physically and mentally disabled Chohwelk VII, Gooforcht was sickened and infuriated at the deception and not overly disturbed by Rin killing the God-King with the Force.
As her Centurions hunted down and killed the Acolytes responsible for the ruse, Rin again invited the Governing Judges to bring the Kritocracy worlds into the Empire. Recognizing that no precedent could possibly govern this situation and there was now no one to give new laws, Gooforcht argued forcefully that the most compelling precedent of all was that the Judges act in the best interests of the Kritocracy worlds. The debate among the Judges was divisive and often incendiary, but finally resulted in a majority vote to dissolve what remained of the Kritocracy and bring all nineteen worlds into the Golden Empire.
Though Hoowh expected to live out his days in quiet retirement, Rin took him with her to meet the people, and many expressed support for them both. As Toriafas was integrated into the Empire, Gooforcht found himself elected its first Tribune, and worked alongside the newly appointed Consul.