Those who tend to spirits and exorcise demons have existed across history for hundreds—if not thousands—of years. There are as many specific practices as there are cultures that exist on Earth. Without Leundafelan influence, many of these cultures would have retained their practices into the current century.
Before Leundafel, the spirit workers of Tekago kept any demon and spirit problem at bay without issue. They practiced in groups, usually of families, and lived in the society they had sworn to protect. The spirit workers were human anomalies who passed down their practices from generation to generation. They spread their philosophy and teachings through books and oral accounts.
At the time of Leundafel's first established Tekago colony, they were undergoing a massive problem with demon appearances in Leundafora. The spirit workers of Tekago, unlike most other cultures', were involved directly with their own society, and not a secret to anyone. Leundafel watched as spirit workers pacified demons and took an interest. With their growing influence in Tekago, they funded these spirit workers and changed their policies. With enough time, groups were reestablished with reconsideration of a spirit worker's goals.
The new goal: get rid of demons at all cost.
While Tekago tradition required that demons be pacified or humanely put down as a last resort, Leundafel wanted demons gone. They did not consider demons as the unfortunate and needy members of Tekagese society, but as vermin.
These goals and groups spread outside Tekago and eventually made it all the way to Mainland. Spirit workers still exist, though only in small pockets in South Tekago.
Demons are created by strife, stress, and trauma; an operative is a bandage on a cracked foundation. The operatives need an overhaul, but Easton's societal norms and government must be destroyed as well to truly resolve the influx of demon appearances.
Between the spirit workers and neo operative phase, Leundafel used prison labor in the fight against demonic infestation. This resulted in mass deaths due to a lack of proper training. In addition, these unpaid laborers didn't function "properly"—the operatives were "too nice" in their own marginalized communities.
A neo operative is an operative after "the reform": the comprehensive changes that brought about the current system of operatives. It's the neo-liberalization of the LAS: a private business contracted by Leundafel, funded by shareholders, and relying on government bailouts.
These changes involve the reformation of neurochemical biology in the form of "re-education" in place of using unwilling labor—some consider it to be a form of slavery. This is, obviously, still coercive, and involves breaking the minds of the recruits.
Operatives are no longer unpaid workers. Now, they are paid anywhere from minimum wage to well above living wage depending on where they work. With these changes, a new, higher class of raceless people joined groups in poorer areas to manage misbehavior and rising demon populations. There are now protection laws for group mates against leadership, though many cite them being flimsy and easy to skirt by.
With these changes, a new recruitment system began with multiple pipelines. One pipeline is for the poor, disabled, and imprisoned: work in wealthy areas for the ruling class. The other pipeline is better paid and maintained, meant for middle to upper-class raceless people to work in severely underprivileged areas.
This reform also encapsulates the usage of privileged operatives who patrol marginalized communities.
The actual usage of neo operative: a term of derision, used by the underprivileged operatives, abused and neglected, to refer to the "upper-class" operatives that mostly consist of blank able-bodied rich folk. The word "neo operative" is often used to refer to cruel, thoughtless, individualistic, and neo-liberalist behavior and rhetoric.