Created by Captain Michael Turlogh Kane on Aug 16, 2016 @ 4:47pm

THE THOLIAN ASSEMBLY

The THOLIAN ASSEMBLY is a small Alpha Quadrant power that lies to the coreward-trailing border of the Federation. The Tholians are a xenophobic crystalline species, whose relations with the Federation were initially hostile, but are now a cold neutral. They are aggressive and territorial, but can be reasoned with. They do not venture far from their own borders.

What is conclusively known about the Tholians is limited. It is known that they are a very old race, older than any of the existing Alpha Quadrant powers. It is also known that their normal environment would appear to be super-hot methane. Their territory is largely unexplored because any ship that has ventured into Tholian space has been captured and crushed by their continually evolving tractor beam technology.

Little is known about Tholian technology or their starships. They are quite small by comparison to Federation starships, but several of them operating together can create what is known as a 'Tholian Web' - a high-power immobilisation field around any other starship. The rank of a starship commander is considered to be Commander, but many agree that this is merely the universal translator's closest approximation to the Tholian language (if a language is what they have - being crystalline beings, they must communicate via portable vox units).

After three centuries of isolation and sporadic attacks on Federation territory, the Tholians began to respond to diplomacy. They have sent Ambassadors to the capital worlds of the Alpha Quadrant powers (but have not reciprocated the favour). They allowed the starship USS Century to venture into their space and make contact with them. But the Tholians move slowly, perhaps as a result of their physiology, and it may be many more decades or centuries before diplomacy between the Federation and the Assembly at last comes to fruition.

In the early decades of the 25th century, a new theory regarding the link between the Tholians and the Thal has emerged. With such physiological similarities between the two species, Starfleet Intelligence believes that the Tholians may be an off-shoot, or a devolved form of, the Thal. The working theory is that Tholians are the remains of an ancient 'garrison' left behind by the Thal that devolved due to lack of contact with the Hive Mind. If this theory is accurate, then it puts a whole new dangerous spin on one of the Federation's neighbours, especially if the rumours of an imminent Thal return are to be believed.