These in-person meetings were now the default of the Martian Parliament, Salkor mandating such as a means to ensure some further measure of personal investment in the good order of the planet and this assembly. Anybody not present in person without accounting for it would be considered as having abstained from the meeting, anybody insistent on appearing through remote means would have restrictions on their capacity to speak and vote. Arguments that it was inefficient to attend physically when they could speak wholly adequately through transmissions would be countered with a simple observation: research could be done, orders relayed, and whatever other duties they would claim demanded their time had more than enough means to be done remotely upon the Red Planet just as easily as they could be done through personal intervention. It wasn’t as if any of the representatives turned centrifuges or engraved microwafers through their own hands or mechadendrites. 

There were some frustrations with this arrangement nonetheless. For one, with everyone present in person it was much harder to deal with constant interruptions – figures speaking over one another, so on and so forth. The amplifiers of their voice were largely formalities, for turning them off for those that wanted to truly raise their voice would not stop their own bombastic amplifiers sometimes within devices as small as a finger resonating across the colossal scene. Worse yet, despite themselves being constant violators of it, they all believed that it was outright religious dogma (and indeed, in some sense it was with many scriptures bearing canons that spoke of this) for the Cult of the Machine that all must wait their turn and speak in an orderly and timed fashion. This meant that on top of the many and omnipresent violations of the many strictures of the Parliament, further time, goodwill, and something so pathetically human as sanity was wasted on everyone pontificating on each other’s infractions demanding Salkor do something about them. On the few instances he brought up the hypocrisy of the masters present - largely as an experiment rather than with sincere intent to have this endeavour bear fruit - he received long litanies that read more as rants about why each violator was somehow exceptional and deserving of extra time, or to interrupt another.

All by the will of the Machine God of course, the self-presumed divinity of their word justifying all without question.

A door opened, and Salkor was reminded of yet another privilege every attendee assumed they had; being late. Briefly he attempted to penalize those that were tardy, yet another trait so disgustingly reminiscent of the weakness of the flesh despite them citing business in their Forges they had to attend to that got in the way of timeliness. But nonetheless many still had the audacity to not come on time, or now did not even come at all. Reluctantly he waived these penalties now, unless the offender did something else objectionable at which point they were merely a way to incur further punishment on those that earned his ire. 

Archmagos Kerano, a creature that would elicit disgust among humans and many of the Red Planet’s denizens alike. He opted largely for organic augmentations instead of  those of steel. But those that had underestimated him in the recent violence suffered for it. The seemingly unsystematic meat covering his form was as unnatural as plasteel that made the bodies of other Tech-Clerics. Grown out of studies in meticulous labs it hummed rather than pulsed, transfer of blood and nutrients optimized to be faster and more discrete. Perhaps it was marginally less durable than the manufactured armours elsewhere on Mars but would-be assassins saw his vital organs regenerate in moments after attacks that would have felled other Archmagoses. Centuries from now people would have terms for what he resembled, an unfortunate coincidence of his tentacles and bulbous chunks of muscle looking not dissimilar to a chaos spawn; it was an analogy Salkor's mind wouldn't be tormented with for a long time. 

But all of this was a distraction. He let the fleshy thing take its position, before resuming his point. “The audits of production are again inconsistent across almost all Forges. The agreed upon quotas to prepare for Terran Imperialism is not met. Every Forge that cannot explain the discrepancy will be subject to sanction.” Binharic complaints assaulted his feeds at the same time as his auditory sensors were overwhelmed. 

“Access to magrails will be restricted. Access to orbital transports will be restricted. Access to-” and suchlike continued from Salkor’s unabated speech. A human couldn’t hear it over the cacophony, though he knew well enough that everyone present could filter out and process every single thing said despite its simultaneity. Eventually the Fabricator General finished his words that were not quite clearly sincere warning nor aggressive threat. It was only some time after that did all the Archmagoses finish their own angry retorts. They had slowly started to understand the somewhat paternal fashion that the Speaker had come to use with them, waiting for every individual tantrum to subside before continuing. Yes, he was wasting his own time standing on formality but he was wasting theirs in equal proportion and there was so much more of them here. On some level, he supposed they understood that in this war of attrition, he was expending and losing less than they were in total and gradually submitted to his efforts in taming their unruliness. “Further,” he continued. “There is a failure to re-militarize among more than half of the Forges present. Defences are not erected. Similar sanctions will be applied to any that refuses to adjust production to a standard of fortification that is being cast to every one of your receivers now.” 

What a nuisance. He was born on earth and he saw the weakness of the flesh epitomized yet he couldn’t help notice so many parallels between the leadership of Mars and a squabble of tribal Terran children.

“These sanctions will only harm our effort to prepare for the Terrans.” 

“Then do not make them applicable to you.” 

Silence.

“We are forced to do such. We cannot trust those that so recently took arms against us.” This was from another voice, and raised much much more proverbial finger pointing about the recent conflict.

“None of these objections will matter if the Terrans ransack and pillage our holy world.” Salkor overclocked every single core of his processors, the effect analogous to time slowing down. He had an impulse for a speech. But would it be wise? Emotion was never truly gone, much of the writings of the scriptures memorized by all present hinting to that even if denying the principle. 
He decided against it. The Fabricator General wouldn’t stomach being told to get on with it by these centuries old walking and hovering relics.

“Techno barbarians.” Came a voice from old withered lips, Archmagos Kalovan electing to use (at least, seemingly) unaugmented human utterances to speak. A sucking noise that a young Salkor might have seen as disgusting punctuated every syllable, but thankfully he had evolved enough to ignore it. “If we are unable in our current state to annhillate their unenlightened realm, then I would declare that either our dogmas are false, or we have failed to adhere to them.”

One of Salkor’s many mechadendrites tapped his Omnissian axe lightly. “Such arrogance will not serve. The Writings of Elder Zotian, Canon Nineteen. The Omnissiah’s greatest miracle is no personal intervention, but the endowing of capacity and reason to let the faithful overcome any hindrance to the divine order they are to bring about. Venerable Ulyzhec in the Fourth Epistle to the Phaetonites: Proactivity in the Machine God’s name is a virtue unto itself, for they that show sloth in their efforts are lacking in the graces of the Motive Force.” In both cases, Salkor was certainly paraphrasing, and even then they didn’t support his point outright. But citations of blessed archives even if tangentially relevant did give pause to those that wished not to obey the directive of the Fabricator General.

Another voice spoke, the chittering of Archmagos Nicil. “And if our defences should fail? What then?”

Salkor almost responded too quickly, for he along with others didn’t truly regard the defeat of Mars as a possibility. But, brashness could be seen as primitive folly. 

“Provisions for evacuation will be made.” Confidence was not something that could be heard on something so neutral as a monotone mechanical enunciation, nor could it be seen in body language of a mechanical beast as himself. But nonetheless, part of him hoped he projected it. 

Slowly, voices again began to speak out of turn, the connective handshakes of software not happening to maintain that orderliness Salkor so thoroughly sought.

“But, they will not be necessary.” He spoke over the litanies of grievances before they managed to coalesce into something uncontrollable. Rhetoric had to go offence now, to compensate for the concern. “Our projections indicate that - provided acquiescence to the terms outlined is given - the Terran hordes will be destroyed. To you, the faithful to the vision, possibilities will be open greater than ever conceived. Imagine, the archaeotech stores of Old Earth opened. Faithless barbarians turned en-masse to servitors in the sanctification of that barren world for the Machine God, and the unearthing of what has been lost to any archive.”

That interested them, as expected. But now that he had raised their mechanical passions, their expectations had to be tempered. “But that will only come to pass if the Terrans bring violence on our world, and we persevere with sufficient reserves remaining to mount punitive expeditions.” 

Finally, he had them in a frame of mind he could work with. Stoking the furnaces of their greed for the unknown at least for now got them obeisant to his demands. Yet, he had managed to make no promises he couldn’t keep. No wars needed to be had, merely defences prepared. 

All was well on the Red Planet. 

For now.