Joachim Werner

"He's highly dangerous, and has a strong following. People would die to protect him as any cost. His followers have committed unspeakable atrocities across Jacinto, and we need to bring him down. Only thing is, nobody knows where the old man is hiding."

- Anonymous Vidaean police officer, 2554.

Joachim Werner is an odd individual, first rising in prominence after the end of the Human-Covenant War, he has been wanted as a terrorist by the Commonwealth of Jacinto. Nicknamed "The Elder", he is the cult leader of the Church of the Ancients, a human religious movement found on Jacinto that worships the race known as the Forerunners. Many have claimed that the Covenant's highly religious society directly influenced Joachim, and that he fervently believes in the Covenant's own religion.

Since 2553, his cult followers have conducted several terrorist attacks and human sacrifices in order to bring about the return of the Forerunners, their ultimate goal. Following the rise in Promethean sightings throughout Jacinto and other human colonies, there have been large numbers of Jacintans following the cult, along with the Church taking this as a direct sign that their work was successful, leading to an increase of criminal activity, most prominently that of human sacrifices, which led to one of the highest murder rates on Jacinto in over a hundred years.