Miasma

Miasma
Details
Pronouns	She/her
First Mentioned	Juno Steel and the Train from Nowhere (Part 1)
Status	Deceased
Location	Hyperion City Olympus Mons (formerly), Mars
Occupation	Xenoanthropology professor (formerly)
Known Physical Features	Face constantly shifting and changing, tentacles (Martian form)
Voice
Voice Actor(s)	Kate Jones
First Heard	Juno Steel and the Prince of Mars (Part 1)

Miasma was a professor of xenoanthropology at Olympus University for fifty years. She received three lifetime achievement awards for her studies on Ancient Martian culture.

Early Life

Over her life, Miasma became obsessed with the Ancient Martians and increasingly fed up with her fellow humans.

She began a plot to collect Ancient Martian artifacts, keeping secret the discovery of an entire well-preserved Martian tomb and at some point acquiring Martian teleportation technology. Six months before Juno Steel and the Case of the Murderous Mask Update (Part 1), the owner of an ancient key, Samira Haddad, was burgled and killed in her sleep, and it is implied Miasma arranged this. She subsequently hired Peter Nureyev to steal the Death Mask of Grimpotheuthis from the Kanagawas.

History

After receiving the Mask of Grimpotheuthis from Nureyev, Miasma extracts traces Ancient Martian DNA from it. She then splices it with her own, giving her incredible strength and regenerative abilities.

Miasma later attempts to legally buy another Martian artifact, the Throne of Architeuthis, but ends up killing the owner, Samantha Cartwright. At around the same time, she has Anthony DiMaggio abducted and killed to obtain the Martian pill of telepathy he and his husband had discovered. Dr. Lillian Strauss, the scientist DiMaggio had researching the pill, is likewise killed, and her apartment burned down. Before Miasma can take possession of the pill, however, Juno Steel swallows it to keep it from her.

The most important artifact to Miasma's plan was the Egg of Puris, an object which could be used to wipe out all other life on Mars. She tasks Nureyev with retrieving it from the Utgaard Express, but when he deviates from the plan, she captures him and Steel, torturing Nureyev and experimenting on Steel to determine the effects of the pill she was denied. Her ultimate plan backfires when Juno Steel traps her in her own bunker with the Egg. When it goes off, it obliterates all life possessing Ancient Martian DNA. Because Miasma had spliced some into her own genetic sequence, she is killed in the detonation while Juno is spared.

Personality

Cunningly cruel and intelligent, Miasma was a twisted individual with a hatred for human civilization. She despised how loud and annoying civilization has become, to the point where she silenced the assistants she hired through a surgical method she invented herself. Her hatred for civilization led her on her mad quest to use the Egg of Puris to wipe all life off of the surface of Mars so that the world could finally be quiet and she could finally be alone. Determined to the point of obsession, Miasma was willing to stop at nothing to get what she wanted, even if it meant committing theft, murder, or attempted genocide.

Abilities

After completing the genetic modifications on herself thanks to traces of Martian DNA she aquired, Miasma seemed capable of reviving herself from mortal wounds and reforming severed limbs with multiplying tentacles. The Lassonionic Growth the Martian pill formed let her hear others' thoughts.

Trivia

• During her career as a professor, Miasma seems to have eaten little or nothing except soup, cans of which also made up a large portion of her supplies in the Martian tomb.