Seltorian Tribunal

The Tholians of our galaxy originated in the M81 Galaxy, which is about 12 million light years from the Milky Way. The Tholians had ruled M81 for many centuries.

Tholians are a crystalline species based on silicon, which only has biological properties at extreme heat. (Normal “room temperature” for Tholians is 400°F.) The Tholians consider carbon-based life (which they refer to as “the organics”) to be as low as we humans consider bacteria. This results in a reputation of cruelty and disdain.

Tholians (as far as the general population goes) prefer to live on planets as opposed to ships, bases, or asteroids. Rather than inhabit the few planets close enough to stars to have the preferred temperature, the Tholians used their web technology to assemble Dyson spheres around tiny stars, resulting in a vast land area and an atmosphere of comfortable warmth. These spheres required vast resources to be harvested from other areas and moved over interstellar distances to the spheres.

Given the difficulty of recruiting enough of their citizens to crew the vast fleets of starships required to police an entire galaxy, mine resources, and transport those resources to the spheres, the Tholians allowed organics to colonize planets, produce tribute, and crew starships to transport that tribute. The problem was the need to keep the organics in line. The Tholians selected (over time) several organic species and made them the “first servant species” and used them as starship crews. The problem was that every one of these “first servant species” eventually
rebelled and had to be annihilated. In despair, the Tholian genetically engineered an insectoid species (the Seltorians) to be genetically incapable of rebellion. Most Seltorians lived only about five years and were capable of adult work after only a few weeks. A tiny handful of each generation were effectively immortal and became the (male) Sages and (female) Experts who ran the Seltorian administration. Rather than destroy rebellious starships and planets, the Seltorians relied on massive numbers of ground troops (hatched from eggs weeks earlier) and the Tholian provided shield cracker weapon to board ships and invade planets.

The problem was that eventually genetic mutations eliminated the anti-rebellion gene from more and more individuals, and the Seltorians rebelled. The Seltorian Rebellion was the worst ever because the Seltorians figured out how to convert the shield cracker into the web breaker, which could destroy Tholian webs. While moderately useful in tactical space combat, the web breaker had a particular ability — it could destroy the Dyson spheres in which the Tholians lived. Gigantic cargo ships operated by the Seltorians were converted into massive “Battlewagons” armed with rows of these web breakers. When the rebellion began, the Seltorians were able to crush the spheres, murdering billions of Tholians in moments.

A few Tholians left the M81 Galaxy in whatever ships they could find, headed for any other galaxy they could reach. Two small groups of Tholians arrived in the Milky Way Galaxy, pursued by the Seltorian Tribunal. (This was something of a cross between the Spanish Inquisition and a Mongolian big-game hunt.) One group of Seltorians arrived in the Milky Way and made a deal with the Klingons: in exchange for a worthless junk planet, the Seltorians would continually attack and eventually destroy the Tholians. What the Klingons discovered later was that the Seltorians had queens on their ships able to lay thousands of eggs, which would turn into workers in a few weeks. The Seltorians could instantly produce an entire planetary population of hardworking people with no concept of time off or vacations. It became clear that the Seltorians, left to their own devices, would quickly take over the entire Milky Way Galaxy. The Klingons then wiped out the Seltorians and sold their last few ships to the WYNs.