[center][h3][color=9e0b0f]MARS[/color][/h3][/center]Salkor pored over the vast readings from analyzing the child he did not yet know to be a primarch. It was related to humanity in some way. Not just by the aesthetic, but a sample of genetic material relayed that inevitably it was a distant cousin of the homo sapiens. But it had been optimized. Stronger, faster, and clearly far more intelligent. It had apparently not known neither High Gothic nor binharic upon first arrival to Mars. Yet in a mere day it had mastered both of the languages as a student of many years might. Though confined to a glasscrete cube, the creature seemed strangely understanding and compliant with its situation once fully understanding it. Indeed, it went so far as to correcting a warped hydraulic in one of the servitors that had arrive to take its genetic material. Indeed, once the concept of a dissection had been explained it had even assisted in the examination of its own internal organs!

Much to the Fabricator General’s surprise, the creature had made for a good conversational partner. It had queried why the genetic samples would be needed, what they would be used for, and if the projects to use the information were successful then what that would mean for Salkor, for Mars, for the future, and for itself. Truth be told, Salkor himself didn’t even know what would happen if he could manage to clone the beautiful child. For one, that largely depended on what exactly this thing would mature to, assuming that indeed it was simply a child for now. But there was also the question of how simple would it be to make more of such beings even if the Priesthood did manage to wrap their minds around the biology of the synthetic person. 

That was what it was, Salkor decided. Such a thing could not simply evolve. Not over millennia, likely not in billions of years. Such a thing needed the guiding hand of intelligent design in its origin. The Mechanicum sought to augment itself with plasteel and adamantium where it could to surpass the boundaries of mere humanity but whoever manufactured this particular individual had managed to do so much better with mere meat. To what extent it could, this angered the Archmagos. The thought that all of the thousands of years of careful improvements on the human form with machine could be so thoroughly surpassed with flesh was just wrong to him. Jealousy, that was what he felt. The bit of him yet human screamed and wailed that it was unfair that he had to sacrifice all of himself save a few grams of brain whilst this creature was already born with perfection! 

Though initially he mostly visited the thing to personally take new readings and observe its growth to an even more herculean form, he found eventually that he was coming to the laboratory it was held in simply for the sake of being there. 

It was at one such visitation that he was disturbed by a servitor demanding his attention. It reported atmospheric great atmospheric disturbance, and initially Salkor was excited. Was he to get even more such subjects to study? If he had two, that would certainly allow him to be more… callous with the tests on one of them. Alas, he was to be disappointed.

“Thousands of missile signatures. Countermeasures.” 

Salkor paused for a moment, floating over to a cogitator in a wall and plugging into it. Looking upon Mars from a satellite he could even now see the crashing of vessels from orbit down onto the red dust. It had come to Salkor’s attention that in his new obsession he had neglected his domain, and if anyone else had noticed this fact they would be sure to bring it up when this sudden outburst of violence across the red planet would be inevitably discussed. His frustrations quickly grew when data reams would come that the sites of the missile barrages had all been rather close to Fulgurite temples. He knew for a fact they would leave behind no proof that they were the ones striking the vessels which he was now almost certain would be full of corpuscarii priests or their ideologues. Shame quickly replaced the frustration, for he had so long tried to maintain the fragile peace between them and now had failed. There was only one thing left for him to do, and that was to summon the Martian Parliament to discuss how to proceed.