Finn Jalgori-Tobu
Finbar (Finn) Charles Louis Griffin Jalgori-Tobu is a ~25-year-old Uranic aristocrat from Gondiar and the adventure-thread protagonist of Exodus: The Archimedes Engine. Restless under Crown Dominion client-rule, he survives a mercenary dump over Anoosha, bonds with the late arkship Diligent, and becomes a driving force behind seizing and using an Archimedes Engine on Dolod — for human liberation, and under Gyvoy Enfoe’s manipulation.
Background
Finn is the second son of the Jalgori-Tobu family, client rulers who administer human society on Gondiar for the Celestials of the Crown Dominion. As Minsterialis of Hafnir, he holds land and status, but he longs to travel space as a Traveler rather than settle into the family’s proxy-government role. Earth is only a history footnote to him — he is born into Celestial client order, not the exodus memory that still shapes Diligent humans. Like other Uranics, he carries neural interfaces that let him work Celestial materials such as livestone.
His twin sister Otylia (Minsterialis of Serki) is a more institutional counterweight: she manages family and ministerial politics while Finn drifts toward adventure and, later, open resistance. Older siblings include heir Zelinda Maryann Richelle and brother Everett Callan Mathias.
Anoosha and the Diligent alliance
The novel opens with Finn bound and thrown from a plane over the Camurdy Mountains on Anoosha after a failed heist involving the mercenary Liliana. Injured, he shapes livestone into shelter until he is found by Eleanor (Ellie) Aponi and her grandfather Josias Aponi, who have crash-landed from the newly arrived arkship Diligent.
Finn and Josias strike a bargain: land at Hafnir for the Diligent’s settlers in exchange for Finn’s path off-world. Back on Gondiar the family accepts the settlement deal as economically useful; Finn and Ellie later travel to recover the arkship and pursue a ZPZ generator so the ship can operate as a true deep-space vessel. Refits by the Gath and crew changes as colonists leave for Hafnir put Finn at the centre of the ship’s new mission profile.
ZPZ, the Engine, and the endgame
Finn’s long arc takes him through salvage at Terrik Papuan, clashes with Traveler interests (including captain Andino of Arcadia’s Moon), a dangerous extraction on Kajval, and the hunt for Archimedes Engine operating software at Kingsnest. Gyvoy Enfoe steers him toward using an Engine on Dolod to keep the gas giant from settling usefully into the Kelowan system — framed as a blow for human liberation.
On Dolod, Gyvoy’s influence and Finn’s grief over Crown violence (including the death of his mother the Marchioness during the Gondiar crackdown) push the crisis to a head. Finn issues Engine commands that redirect momentum transfers toward Boksrock rather than a simple Kelowan-denial plan; later he engineers a second transfer that accelerates the Diligent via an anchor ship and its ZPZ field, allowing the arkship to flee toward Capo Frois. Ellie recovers suppressed memories of Gyvoy’s non-consensual interface with Finn’s induction pad, exposing the manipulation behind the operation.
