1 Martian 1: If we're to make the Martian race prosper again, we'll need guidance.
2 Martian 1: So I've programmed the personalities of revered elders into the computer to act as an Ethics Committee.
3 Martian 1: Let me just activate them.
4 Ethics Committee: You know, digging through our records to bring us back like this isn't terribly ethical...

And that explains it.

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2022-04-03 Rerun commentary: Wow. I'd forgotten about this strip. It's an eerie precursor of the Martian Archive, which first appears much later in #4341.

I suppose when you only have three characters on an entire planet, you need to keep inventing ways for them to have more people to speak to.