An elderly Aldean musician who is given the kidnapped Enterprise child Katie to raise and teaches her to play an instrument that turns thought into music.
Melian is one of the people of Aldea, the cloaked and sterile world of the first-season episode When the Bough Breaks. He is a musician, and a gentle, kindly man.
When the Aldeans abduct seven children from the Enterprise to rebuild their dying society, each child is placed with a household suited to his or her talents. Katie, who is musical, goes to Melian, and he shows her an Aldean instrument that plays whatever melody the performer imagines.
He treats her with real affection, but like the others he has never questioned the Custodian, the machine that runs Aldea. He returns Katie with the rest once Doctor Crusher shows that the planetary shield is what has made his people barren.