Martian Spriting Dump

[Sundance]

As to your first concern, the idea isn't to make "Activate the artifact" a priority of the martians. It's just a neat side thing they could do.

As to your second, people could also say "Oh fuck possible bomb traitors, space all bomb making supplies and lock down toxins". We don't because we aren't shit.

Well, ok.
Well how about this idea?
The artefacts have a secondary degree function to the martains, the first degree being the normal function that we the humans use. This secondary degree function would be like an emp bomb, nuke, or perhaps a battery to fuel more biomass so they can manufacture more weapons.
Like Weavel said, they know the artifacts true potential

Don't make it work for just martian ones, just have it work for any artifact. They're all knowing evil bastards, they can figure out how to turn on whatever.