Mael-Num

The Mael-Num are a fictional race of beings featured in the sci-fi Star Control computer game series.

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

The Mael-Num were part of the Sentient Milieu which existed several thousand years ago and spanned half the galaxy. They were one of the 7 known races of the Milieu (the others are the Drall, Faz, Taalo, Ur-Quan, Yuli and the Yuptar).

The Mael-Num were one of the founding members of the Sentient Milieu who survived the millennia of Dnyarri enslavement along with the Ur-Quan, the Yuptar, and the Faz. When the Dnyarri were finally overthrown, the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za and the Kohr-Ah adopted different strategies for protecting their species from future enslavement. The Kzer-Za chose to become slave masters themselves, while the Kohr-Ah chose to destroy all other intelligent life. Before the Kohr-Ah could begin the destruction of the Mael-Num, a Mael-Num representative spoke the only words that are known to have drawn an explanation out of either kind of Ur-Quan: "Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?" While the Kohr-Ah explained the reasons for their actions the Kzer-Za arrived to enslave the Mael-Num, and so began the first of the Ur-Quan's "Doctrinal Conflicts". During the battles between the Ur-Quans, the Mael-Num fled their planet in a huge fleet of interstellar vessels and vanished.

The Mael-Num are in fact the ancestors of the Melnorme, if it wasn't already apparent by the fact that the Mael-Num had one eye and their name sounds like Melnorme.