Created by: Lee Cronin, details by Garry Stahl
Appearance: "Specter of the Gun" (TOS), kind of.
Number of Members: 4.7 billion
Nature of Members: A Humanoid telepathic species. Melkots are descended from an arboreal primatoid species.
Organization: Super tribe.
Game Role: McGuffin in "Specter of the Gun" (TOS)
World Role: One of the Federation Member Worlds.
Relative Influence: Medium. the same influence enjoyed by other one world members.
Public or Secret?: Public, but most people know little about them.
Publicly Stated Goal: Enjoy life unencumbered by violent people.
Relative Wealth: One Star System.
Group advantages: Telepathy. Melkots average 92 on the Kraith scale. Humans generally average 18, Vulcans 55.
Special Abilities: Melkots are masters of psionic illusion, bar none. A vast part of their very shared culture is a mass agreed on illusion.
Group disadvantages: There culture is hard to understand, hard to get anything "real" into. Likewise they have a difficult time in the "Hard world" as they term it.
Special disadvantages: Melkots are physically pained by violent thoughts. Early attempts into interstellar exploration where halted when they found contact with certain members of other races to hurt. To this day the are not common among the stars.
Those who favor them: Gentle Xenophiles.
Those opposed to them: Anyone that fails to understand their unique point of view. Those that fear any race with psionic abilities.
Area of Operation: Melkot system. The UFP at large to a smaller extent.
Headquarters Location: Melkotia
Public Face: Weird people with a mass delusion on how the world looks.
Notable Members: None stated.
History of the Organization: Melkotians evolved from an arboreal primate like species. Sometime in the distant past they developed a physical aversion to violent action and violent thoughts. Melkot myth states from various sources that this was placed in them "by the gods" for their violent behavior towards each other. No recorded or remembered memory is able to clear this up (Drives Ane nuts). Archaeological evidence shows that 170,000 years ago Melkotia was a industrial technology world. That world ended in fire. The current Melkot civilization grew out of it's ruins.
       Melkot are masters of illusion, they constantly practice on each other. A good deal of their surroundings are what they call "soft". Simple objects that have had illusion impressed on them to the point that for anyone that is pis active the object looks as the impresser wishes it too. Blocks of wood are impressed as impossible works of art. Rude unfinished furniture is impressed with ornate decoration.
       Soft objects must be what they are to function as something. A chair must be a chair or you cannot sit in it. A bowl must be watertight to hold water. The soft aspect is in how it appears to yourself and to others. Melkotian art is an exercise in self and mass deception.
       Ned Dullbrain in the middle of a Melkot city square sees a random bolder over here, an artless and unadorned building, A pipe spraying water into the air and filling a concrete basin. Mark Melkot sees a stylistic statue by a great artist, the city hall adorned in iridescent tiles, and a fanciful fountain with impossible swirls of water.
       Hard art has made an impression with the Melkot since contact with the UFP, but it remains in the minority. To the average visitor to Melkotia they see are dull as dirt if not ugly settings that the inhabitants claim are great works of art and beautiful buildings. The Melkot understand perfectly the human saying that "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder'.
       The Melkot had a brief foray into warp drive. They found contact with more violence prone races physically painful, and retreated to their own world, set up their warning buoys and became firm isolationists. The UFP learned of the Melkot from legends and a few old Orion stories. Contact was made by the USS Enterprise in 2268.