Thelea

Thelean homeworld. Located in Sycentia star system, in Milky Way galaxy.

One of most well guarded locations in THEA universe. While they try to distribute the relics across the entirety of their territory for just such risks, Thelea still holds the largest collection of relics as it's likely the best-guarded location in the entire galaxy, together with Regulus Station.

## General description

Earth has a radius of 6371 km, while Thelea has a radius of 9201 km: it's a fair bit larger than Earth for sure. Not nearly as large as our gas giants or ice giants, but certainly larger than any terrestrial planet in the Sol system.

Thelea was a bit of a garden world too, though it had far larger landmasses with the water concentrated mostly in massive lakes and swamplands. The failed attempt to attack the planet with the Regulus Station left the planet badly damaged though, with its ecosystem deteriorating and great earthquakes and volcanic eruptions becoming more and more frequent. To counter this, the Theleans built massive terraforming structures using resources from Thelea and many other planets, covering the planet in a grid of massive constructs.

The planet surface features a lot of swamplands - the Theleans' native biome - which are still visible underneath the massive terraforming constructs. Swamps are called 'Chamfa' and the hexagonal structures are 'Kehran'.

Thelea's skies are blue during the day. The planet has an atmosphere quite similar to that of Earth, though it's a bit denser than that of Earth and the composition isn't exactly the same. The colour of the sky changes based on the time of day, of course, but is generally quite similar to Earth. Thelea doesn't have the same grass that Earth has, of course, but it does have plantlife that is similar to grass. It's not as common as Earth grass, though. Thelea is a very wet planet, with massive swamplands all over the planet. Much of the ground is covered in low-growing vegetation similar to ferns, but Thelea has multiple types of biomes just like Earth. There's fewer dry places and far more swamplands and jungles.

There's still plenty of natural landscapes there, but there'll almost always be one of those constructs in sight. Thelea is now covered in terraforming constructs built to reverse the damage caused by Regulus.

Just like Earth, Thelea is home to millions of species of flora and fauna. The event that caused the Theleans to start constructing the massive terraforming structures (the hexagonal arrays) caused a mass extinction that saw many of these native species go extinct, but many more survived and the planet still has a wide biodiversity.

When the Ventrons attacked the planet using Regulus Station, much of Thelea's ecosystems was destroyed. The terraforming constructs were built to restore and stabilize these ecosystems. The structures themselves are mostly metal on the outside, while the gray areas underneath them are usually either massive rock plateaus, or massive Thelean cities.

## History

The now-extinct Ventrons, once used Regulus in an attempt to destroy Thelea itself. The attempt was thwarted when the Theleans placed their largest capital ship in the weapon's path, and made it enter Hyperspace at the very instant when the beam hit the ship. The ship was utterly destroyed, and Thelea still took a beating, but the planet survived the attack. After this, the Thelean managed to seize Regulus and eventually laid waste to the Ventronian armada, destroyed every last city on Ventronia and hunted the Ventrons to near-extinction. Since then the station has been under constant guard by the second-largest Thelean fleet.

Thelea didn't survive completely unscathed, however: the planet grew unstable from the impact of Regulus's weakened attack, and it would have grown uninhabitable if the Theleans didn't intervene further. They started their largest-ever construction project, covering the entire planet is mega-structures intended to keep the planet's surface stable, and that's what those structures visible on the planet's surface are.

The worst of the effects were averted, but the atmosphere was still wrecked, there were earthquakes, and there was additional volcanic activity after the attack. The planet experienced a sudden and violent global warming, and ecosystems were wrecked. The Theleans built massive terraforming devices to stabilize the planet's climate, reduce volcanic activity and restore the atmosphere to pre-Regulus levels.

## Wildlife

Thelea isn't all that dangerous as far as wildlife is concerned - the natural Theleans aren't much of a threat either.

The Ghavorkan used to be a natural type of wildlife on Thelea, and was actually largely domesticated by the Theleans (though they always kept their aggressive nature). They were primarily used as war beasts, or as hunting companions, since their speed and aggressiveness made them excellent predators. After the Theleans had modified themselves, the Ghavorkan were eventually 'upgraded' into their current form through cybernetic enhancements, much like the Theleans themselves. Nowadays, the Ghavorkan are generally bred in in artificial pods, which is much easier than breeding them naturally. They are still used as war beasts, since their overall smaller size and incredible speed gives the Theleans more tactical options in battle.

The original creatures that later became Ghavorkan were aggressive, slithery creatures that somewhat resembled a mix between a lizard, a salamander and a leopard or some other big cat. They weren't very large - about half the size of a Ghavorkan - but they were fast and deadly in groups. The Theleans augmented the creatures through both genetic engineering and technological augmentation, and the current Ghavorkan wouldn't even be alive without their augmentations. They're a strange, twisted mixture of a robot and an animal, and the endo/exoskeleton and the creature itself can't be separated anymore.

## Trivia

* Theleans would evaluate potential strenght of a creature, and if it is deemed useful enough in it's current state, the Theleans would likely proceed to create cybernetically enhanced clones of them (much like they did with the Ghavorkan, and many other types of wildlife from Thelea and other planets).
* In the old lore, the damage was greater - and Regulus could actually destroy entire planets - but in the current canon many of these things have been toned down a bit as THEA started leaning into harder science-fiction a bit more.
* If the Theleans lost Thelea, they'd lose a lot of the relics they have hoarded. While they try to distribute the relics across the entirety of their territory for just such risks, Thelea still holds the largest collection of relics as it's likely the best-guarded location in the entire galaxy, together with Regulus Station. Losing Thelea would be a massive blow to morale, as the Theleans have fought many enemies to keep their homeworld safe, but it's not a loss they couldn't recover from.