Martian (Old Faithful)

Martians are a sapient species of non-humanoid creatures from the planet Mars.

Biology
Martians are fragile creatures whose bodies look like a flattened grey-colored mass, about a yard in diameter. Multiple stalk-like limbs radiate from the center of their bodies like a starfish's arms. Some of these limbs terminate in pink threadlike tentacles, which are capable of great accuracy and precision when manipulating technology. A pair of tentacular eyestalks protrude from beneath the lateral flaps of their bodies. The eyes themselves are large and dark, each measuring three inches. The mouth is equipped with palps.

Martians have extraordinarily acute senses of sight and touch, but no sense of hearing, although they can perceive some sounds as vibrations on the ground. Accordingly, they have no vocal organs and are thus completely mute. They communicate with each other by touch, employing hairlike nerve filaments which are retracted inside a chitinous shell when not in use. Their great dark eyes can see into both infrared and ultraviolet frequencies, and distinguish between similar hues without effort.

Despite their physical frailty, Martians are sturdy creatures which can survive for long periods with little food and water, and require very little sleep. They breathe oxygen through conical orifices with feathery pink palps. Their blood is bright red, rich in hemoglobin, to compensate for Mars' rarefied atmosphere. When facing conditions such as starvation, they are capable of entering a dormant state similar to hibernation.

Martians are capable of reproducing sexually, but do so very rarely, only once in hundreds of generations. For the rest of the time, they reproduce asexually.

Culture and society
Martian society is governed by a group called the Rulers, whose orders are obeyed without question. The Martians' instinctive sense of practicality, obedience, stoicism and pragmatism are believed to be related to their racial struggle to survive in a dying world for countless generations (and possibly natural selection, as individuals who didn't show these traits were either executed or forced to survive by themselves in an unfriendly environment). Since food and water are scarce, older Martians are regularly executed in order to save these resources for the younger ones. The Rulers decide when it's time for an individual to die based on the individual's contributions to society, and may grant extensions to those whose work is considered useful.

Martians typically conceal their emotions and present a calm attitude, although they do have human-like emotions and bonds of affection. Whatever the Rulers decide is obeyed without question, to the point that they don't even need guards or police, as civil disobedience is virtually nonexistent. A Martian selected to die will duly resign to this fate. Their society as a whole has no appreciation for areas of research that are considered to have no practical application, such as astronomy. In spite of this, their technology has advanced to the point that they have easy access to robotic automatons, tripedal exo-suits and aircraft.

Individual Martians don't have names. Instead, they are identified by numbers, which relate to their familial lineages (e.g. Number 774 is the 774th descendant of the founder of his family line). Presumably, new family lines are created by sexual reproduction, which happens only rarely. For the rest of the time, Martians reproduce asexually and sire only a single offspring, thus making the family lines strictly linear.

Since they have no sense of hearing and no vocal language, Martians don't actually understand the concept of words. Their natural form of communication by touching nerve filaments requires no such symbols to exchange ideas.

Although young Martians are raised communally in nursery chambers, familial ties play an important role in their psyche and they tend to show deep love and respect for their parents, a sentiment only made stronger by the fact that they reproduce mostly asexually and thus have only a single parent.

Appearances

 * "Old Faithful", by Raymond Z. Gallun (1934)
 * "The Son of Old Faithful", by Raymond Z. Gallun (1935)
 * "Child of the Stars", by Raymond Z. Gallun (1936)