Czar Vargo

Czar Vargo is a famous mage of the Sons of Ether. Born in what would become the Republic of Georgia in 1870, Professor Vargo became a Master of Forces and Matter, and developed the Chemical Conversion Engine by the age of 19. He became famous for the speech he gave at the 1900 Paris Exhibition against the development of increasingly more powerful war machines by and for Sleeper governments. He severed his ties with his fellow Etherites in 1909, disgusted by their continued research and development of military weapons. On July 24, 1924, now calling himself "Czar Vargo", he launched a fleet of airships over all of Earth's great cities simultaneously, and demanded that the world's governments cede authority to him. The New World Order launched an assault on him with an army of robots, but he defeated them soundly. However, when Progenitor-mutated human soldiers were deployed against him, he and his fleet retreated into the Umbra rather than cause more damage and loss of life. The subsequent paradox backlash wiped all memory of the event from almost all non-Awakened citizens of Earth. Although Void Engineers and others have reported Umbral sightings of his fleet since, none have reestablished contact with Vargo. The Sons of Ether still honor his self-proclaimed title as "Czar of Terra".

In the year 2012 of a future timeline (possibly the future), Czar Vargo was among the famous Etherite scientists encountered by Ernesto C. Amanguale ("Ace") as he traveled through time from the year 1974; by this point, Vargo's Chemical Conversion Engine had been upgraded to, or replaced by, an Ether Converter.