Editing Setting:Cloudburst/People (section)

==Magos Lethicos==
{{Topquote|Fuck this place.|Lethicos}}

Adamantium is one of the rarest and most valuable metals in the entire galaxy. It is the only thing sparing the world Tendrils from destruction.

Magos Lethicos of the Cognomen Explorator fleets discovered vast sums of it after his ship detected a slight radio wave transmission with unknown encryptions from an unexplored system in the northern edges of the Cloudburst Sector. When Lethicos arrived, he was immediately attacked with primitive ballistic weapons from the surface of the world. After seeing off the missiles with the guns of his battleship, Lethicos retreated a safe distance and scanned the surface carefully. He found both a hostile alien civilization of unknown organisms and the largest deposits of Adamantium ore for a hundred light years.

Lethicos quickly and excitedly sent news of his findings to the Cognomen Explorator command, and included notes about the primitive defense capabilities of the residents of the planet. Despite the obvious superiority of his weapons, Lethicos knew not to try to engage an unknown alien race with only a single battleship and minimal ground troops. However, the issue quickly rose away from his direct control.

As news of his discovery of enormous Adamantium deposits made its way up the chain of command, word eventually reached the Senate of the High Lords of Terra. As Adamantium is the most valuable metal in the galaxy after Aurumite, the Senate took an immediate interest in the issue, especially since it was accompanied by the discovery of a race of hostile aliens inside Imperial borders. Magos Lethicos was ordered to return to the planet with fresh supplies and dedicated orbital surveying equipment and conduct a proper scan of the surface and its defenses.

Lethicos did so, and flew back to Tendrils three years later. To his shock, the world had visibly changed. Even granting that he had not heavily scanned the population or surface beyond mineral surveys the last time, the world’s surface was too different to be confused for its original appearance. The number of aliens, which he dubbed Tendrilites, was far lower. However, despite an apparent population drop, the construction on the surface was vastly higher. There were far more buildings, and signs of extensive excavation all across the rain-lashed surface. Again, the aliens fired a barrage of cruise missiles at the Mechanicus ship, but this time, they fired over three times as many, and they were significantly faster. His defenses still swatted them down without trouble, but the noted improvement that the Tendrilites gained in the time it took him to fly home and get new orders shook Lethicos. He sent this new discovery to the Senate via Astropath, and started more detailed surveys.

Even as his ships watched from orbit, he saw the world below changing. Alien constructs and fortifications erupted from all around major cities. Populations of aliens vanished as they moved underground. Lethicos even spotted a few small-scale battles, perhaps between political factions. In the time since then, the planet has hardened against any further attempts to attack, while Cognomen dithers and focuses on other things.

Seventy years have passed. In that time, Magos Lethicos has returned to Tendrils over and over, and each time, their society has seen radical advancements in technology and culture, to an extent that horrifies Lethicos. Their technology alone has advanced immensely in the brief time that Lethicos has been watching them. They have progressed from a mixture of flintlock weapons and simple missiles to gas-propelled infantry rifles and complex cruise missiles with in-built anti-countermeasures that his ship can barely stop by itself. Culturally, they have progressed from warring internecine states to a nearly unified global military autocracy. The Tendrilites have also begun stockpiling truly shocking volumes of biological weapons that Lethicos has seen them testing on each other for lack of an understanding of human anatomy. Lethicos has been busily translating their language and hacking their primitive satellites to glean more intelligence about the Tendrilites, and has noted with unease their trend towards global unity and dedicated anti-alien forces.

Four times, Lethicos has sent pleading messages to Cognomen, Fabique, even Mars itself for backup, and every time, he has had nothing but unfulfilled promises and buck-passing. Cognomen insists that it is too busy shoring up the defenses against threats that can actually attack back, Fabique doesn’t wish to become too involved in a Cloudburst matter, and Mars is no better at returning Lethicos’s calls than Beraxos’s. Then, Lethicos tried Cloudburst Command, but after waiting as long as he had in the hopes that the Mechanicus would help him out, now the Cloudburst military authority are caught up in preparation for the impending Glasian Migration. As the millennium draws to a close, the Senate of the High Lords has delivered an ultimatum to Lethicos. Either he handles the Tendrilites, or they may send somebody who will do it for him. Lethicos is even considering falsifying his findings to suggest that the Tendrilites may have stolen Dark Age human tech to motivate Mars into helping.

Outside of his onerous duty of watching his job getting harder before his eyes, Lethicos is a quiet and stately man, with few hobbies or interests outside his clerical duties. When he is not staring in morose silence at the distant planet that is the source of his woes, he is usually tending to the spiritual needs of his crew, or carrying out research on the data his sensors collect about the Tendrilites. He is Cognomen born and raised, and until Beraxos’s sudden inability to help him arose, considered Beraxos a friend. When he enters battle, he does so with a master-crafted transuranic rifle of his own design, and a pair of Arc Pistols he carries for self-defense.