The Thalan Empire, also known as the Thalan Contingency is a mysterious civilization believed to be from another dimension or the future. They're a playable race in Galactic Civilizations II and Galactic Civilizations III. They also appear in Galactic Civilizations IV as a mega event.
The Thalans are a civilization we know very little about. We don't know how they got hyper drive. We don't know where they came from. Their homeworld isn't their homeworld based on what we've seen. It's a colony. Where their real home world is remains a mystery to us.
They appear to be an insectoid race, but if there is a hive mind of some kind we can't tell. Our contacts with the Thalan have been few and far between thus far, but individuals seem to be independent and unique. That is, they're not drones. However, at the same time, they seem to have little in terms of communication equipment. They don't speak out of a mouth. Communication is purely through computer devices. They make no sounds, no gestures. Their meaning simply shows up on a universal translator. How they communicate with each other also remains a mystery to us.
We do know a few things, however. First, we know that they are much more sophisticated than they appear. Our intelligence analysis indicates that wherever the Thalan come from, it is vastly more advanced than they are here. Everything on their capital world here appears to have been constructed recently. It is as if 10 years ago 10,000 of them simply "appeared" on Thala and began constructing everything they had from scratch. With only their knowledge to work with, they've cobbled together an impressive capital world and now seem poised to expand into the galaxy.
The question is, what do these guys want? Why are they here? Speculation abounds. One of our agents who spent a lot of time with the Thalan suggests they are time travelers or, at the very least, inter-dimensional beings. He has speculated that the Thalan have actually come here to stop some horrific event from occurring; an event that is sometime in our future. It is as if something terrible is about to happen that requires the direct intervention of this truly alien race.
Speculation aside, we do know that the Thalan are not as different from the other species as they appear. They engage in politics, war and trade just like everyone else. They are immensely productive and reproduce at a very high rate, far higher than the norm. We have not really been able to see them at war yet, so we can only speculate at their effectiveness but we suspect they will be quite lethal in battle. For some reason, despite our efforts to befriend them, the Thalan don't like us. We really can't tell why. It is as if they think we are the cause of whatever great peril is to come which of course is absurd.
Whatever their long-term agenda is, in the near-term, they rank up amongst the 10 major civilizations in our galaxy.
But recent discoveries have discerned more of why the Thalan are here in this time period. Apparently Thalans come from a separate universe that is more chronologically advanced then ours. It is in this parallel/future universe that the Thalans discovered that our universe's humanity will instigate an event of such cataclysmic destruction that it will not only destroy our universe, but begin a chain reaction that will destroy all of existence.
This shocking discovery gave the Thalans no choice but to travel to our universe, discern the source of the destruction, and stop humanity from destroying the omniverse.
History[]
The Thalans are a highly advanced insectoid race. They aren't native to the Centauron Sector, home to most of the races of the first game. They originated from a different region at the other side of the Milky Way and reached Centauron through an Arnor subspace stream.
The Thalans escaped the destruction of their home universe, brought upon by the Terran Crusade led by DL Bradley. Originally intended to liberate Earth and the allies of the Terran Alliance from occupation and enslavement by the empowered Drengin Empire, the Crusade lost its way when Bradley's hatred of the Drengi drove him to madness. In a final act of wrath, in 2242, with the full power of the Bane, Bradley destroyed the Drengi and their homeworld Drengia after defeating their empire. The annihilation of the evil Drengi liberated Ra and Gino, two Arnor spirits consumed by an unimaginable thirst for vengeance. They merged with Bradly and turned him into the Dark Mithrilar, Draginol.
The death of his mortal enemies didn't quell the ascended Terran's wrath. Draginol and his people were consumed by bloodlust and extended their Crusade upon the entire galaxy, murdering and destroying everything they saw as evil, which in their skewed views included most living things. In their destructive rampage, the Terrans abused the Bane's power to create weapons of mass destruction, which destabilized reality itself and made the universe implode. In a desperate attempt to survive the Crusade's onslaught, Hithesius and 10,000 of his people fled from the destruction of everything they knew, and with their advanced technology they sent themselves 26 years into the past, in an attempt to stop Draginol from ever coming into being.
The Thalans arrived in Thala in the year of 2216, only a year after the United Earth nearly wiped out the Xendar. Having lost much of their numbers and technology, they were forced to slowly rebuild their civilization in unknown territory. The Thalans were distant and rarely interacted with their neighbors except to warn them of the danger the Terrans posed, for their role in future events. The Alliance tried to form diplomatic relations, but the Thalans rejected them.
As the years passed, the Thalans discovered that the universe was stuck in a stable time loop that extended over several billion years, deeply linked with Draginol's rise and fall. The Thalans designated the loop as the "Cycle of Draginol". They also discovered that Draginol was the creator of the Arnor and the Dread Lords, which made them despise both Precursor races, but not enough to intervene when the latter were freed from their dimensional prison.
In 2230, when the Alliance's Second Fleet destroyed nearly all the Dread Lords with the Terror Star, the Thalans made their move and attacked them. In their assault they managed to destroy the star-killing weapon and Tandis' blueprints of it, denying the Terrans a potential weapon for the Crusade.
Race Info[]
- Official Name: Thalan Empire (II), Thalan Contingency (III, IV)
- Alignment: Neutral (50)
- Short name: Thalan
- Leader: Hithesius
- Homeworld: Thala - Class 15 (18 when fully terraformed in TA)
- Adjacent Habitable Planet: none
- Homestar: Thalis
Starting Technologies[]
- HyperDrive
- Xeno Engineering
- Xeno Industrial Theory
- Space Militarization
- Xeno Economics
- Stellar Cartography
Racial bonuses[]
Dread Lords[]
- Population growth: +20
- Social production: +20
- Military production: +20
- Research: +10
- Loyalty: +40 (inherent bonus)
- Logistics: +6 (inherent bonus,not removable)
- Miniaturization: +10 (inherent bonus, not removable)
- Left over points for customization: 2
Inherent bonuses are special bonuses that each preset race has on the top of the standard 10 points. You can remove all other bonuses to yield the standard total of 10 point available for customization. The inherent bonus will disappear if you try to customize that ability by selecting an option (whether higher or lower in value) in that category. In the expansions, all the bonuses stack.
Dark Avatar[]
- Economics: +25
- Social Production: +33
- Military Production: +33
- Logistics: +6
- Miniaturization: +10
- Left over points for customization: 8
Twilight of the Arnor[]
- Population Growth: -30
- Social Production: +33
- Military Production: +33
- Diplomacy: -30
- Logistics: +6
- Left over points for customization: 8
Note that, in Twilight of the Arnor, the Thalans take a really nasty hit to their diplomacy and population growth, and, in both expansions, suffer a penalty to their customization points.