Mabogian

The Mabogians are a race of humanoid creatures, a member of a Mabogian Union, which consisted of them along with some other species, including one humanoid race. They appear in the 1954 story "Hands Off", written by Robert Sheckley.

Appearance
The Mabogians are roughly humanoid; that is, they have two arms, two feet, two eyes and a mouth, although not a head. Their body is two feet high, a foot wide and less than two inches thick.

Physiology
Despite the roughly humanoid appearance, Mabogians are very different from humans. Their planet has very high gravity as well as temperature; on their starships, half the minimum takeoff acceleration is enough to make a human faint, while the minimum temperature setting is enough to give one burns in short order. Despite that, they are extremely resistant to temperature changes; a Mabogian shot several times by human freeze-blasters fainted temporarily, but was otherwise unharmed. There is a saying among their race - "Either a Malbogian is killed fast or he isn't killed at all".

Oxygen is poisonous to Malbogians; however, they are capable of holding their breath for a long time; hours or even days. On their ship, instead of acceleration cots, they fill entire rooms with oil to float in. They breath an atmosphere which appears as a yellow poisonous gas to humans; a certain type of extremely strong acid known to humans can be electrolyzed into a substitute or the components for one.

Their diet largely consists of kerla nuts, a hard type of nut varying in size from two inches to twice a man's head, most of that being the shell. They last almost forever and are very nutrient rich, but the only known way to open one is a hydraulic press.

The outer layers of a Malbogian's skin harden within hours if left to themselves. Given enough time, it becomes solid horn, with potentially lethal results for the Malbogian. This is prevented by either showering in certain cleansing liquids (the aforementioned acid can serve as a mild substitute) or removing the dead layers (which requires a sharp blade and a device to hold the Malbogian still).

Culture and society
The Malbogian society was extremely pacifistic and forbid all murder with no exceptions allowed. Cases of murder were so few that they were all recorded in the psychology books. A Malbogian encounering a human crew on an uninhabited planet assumed them to be friendly, and not only was he shocked at being fired upon, he couldn't understand how a race could do that and still be cooperative enough to build a starship. He never truly believed these humans could be representative of their race (he was right, to an extent; it was a pirate gang) and intended to send the human government a transmission reporting them as mentally ill.

Technology
The technological level of the Malbogians was close to that of humans in the story; a human crew aboard the ship had no trouble understanding most of the controls, but was very impressed with the ship's power.

Appearances

 * "Hands off", by Robert Sheckley (1954 short story)