Mother (The Moon Era)

Mothers are a sapient species of peaceful creatures which inhabited the Earth's moon Luna billions of years ago, in a time when Luna was a temperate forested world with an atmosphere breathable for Humans and was not yet tidally-locked around the Earth.

Strictly speaking, the name "Mothers" should be exclusively used to refer to the reproductive caste of this species. However, neither the worker caste nor the species as a whole seem to have a proper name, and it's not known whether or not members of the worker caste have the potential to become Mothers.

Biology
Mothers are serpentine creatures with no limbs other than a pair of membranous wings. They're covered in fine yellow feathers and have feminine faces, a small mouth with red lips, a crest of blue feathers on top of their heads, and a pair of large violet eyes. Their wings are flexible mantle-like white membranes crisscrossed with red veins. Their appearance has been described as exquisitely beautiful.

They're about 5 feet in length (~ 1.52 meters) and weigh about 10 pounds under lunar gravity. This means that on Earth they would weigh close to 60 pounds or 27 kg.

Their speech sounds like high-pitched pipe music, and their telepathic abilities allow them to make their speech understandable to other species. However, the translation of pipe-music into coherent telepathic language is not instantaneous and sometimes demands repetition. Being in physical contact with the Mother's mantle-like wings facilitates and speeds up the process.

Their most notable ability is to direct their vital energy to heal the wounds of other creatures or revitalize them. Conversely, they can also use this ability offensively, to stun and paralyze those that pose a danger to them.

Mothers are eusocial creatures with societies resembling those of ants or bees. Each community contains thousands of non-reproductive female workers and a single leader (the Mother proper) which is the only one capable of reproduction. It appears that their reproduction is asexual, as the Mother spontaneously generates seeds inside her body.

Their diet consists of sweet crystalline powder produced by giant flowers.

History
In the past, Mothers created technology to aid them and their civilization, but found that they had become so dependent on their machines that this lifestyle atrophied their bodies and even their brains. A cultural schism divided the species into two factions: one which rejected the use of technology, and one that merged their bodies with machines and turned themselves into a new biomechanical race known as the Eternal Ones.

Although they could extend their lives with machinery, the Eternal Ones were still mortal and, having become incapable of reproducing themselves naturally, their numbers dwindled. They raided Mother communities to abduct Mothers and forcefully convert their children into new generations of Eternal Ones, but the Mothers invariably killed themselves before allowing their offspring to be corrupted in this way. After the Mothers became extinct, the Eternal Ones were left without means to prevent their own decline and presumably died out soon.

Appearances

 * "The Moon Era", by Jack Williamson (1932)