SPECIES: THOLIAN

Very little is known about the Tholian Assembly, the race is a silicon-based life form that prefers environments with a mean temperature of 500 degrees Celsius.  The bodies ae made from a previously unseen crystalline compound.  Their exact composition is unknown, therefore any vulnerabilities they might have is unknown as well.  Very little is known about Tholian physiology, but what is known is that both genders exist, but their method of reproduction is unknown.  They are reputed to live remarkably long lives, the cause of their long life span is unknown.  The Tholians are believed to have psionic abilities, most commonly telepathy, it is theorized that their crystalline structures provide for psionic vibrations which they can understand.  The people are xenophobic, isolationists to the extent that they refuse diplomatic relations with other interstellar governments.  They value there privacy as any incursion into their space is met with violent retribution.  Despite their xenophobic and isolationist nature, they are opportunistic and will not hesitate to conduct military operations in order to gain territory.  These incursions are never a full scale exercise and are designed to seize small regions of territory.  It is unsure what the Tholians do once an area is seized, or the specific goal as many of the past incursions have resulted in the gaining of systems with small resources and having no strategic value.   Once a new territory is captured, the Tholians protect that new resource as any other Tholian territory.
Long range sensor probes have confirmed that the core area of Tholian space is a stellar nursery, a large nebula in which new stars are forming.  Planetary systems that have been identified are very young , usually revealing class C, class F and class H planets, all of which are incapable of supporting humanoid life.  Expeditions bordering Tholian space report many planets rich in mineral resources.  The stellar nursery that is Tholian space is littered with subspace anomalies that cause warp fields to collapse and other unpredicted affects.  The risk from the anomalies has  caused the Federation to restrict access,  sending manned starships to this area has been forbidden.

The Tholian race was first identified by Starfleet over a century ago by the starship Enterprise NCC- 1701.  The information about their history is pieced together from what other races know.  It has been rumored that the Tholian species is not native to the that part of the Beta Quadant which they now control.  It is believed that hundreds of years ago, just as many Alpha and Beta Quadrant natives were achieving limited warp abilities, the Tholians arrived form the Beta/Delta Quadrant boundary fleeing a revolt in their own system.  The Tholians were apparently rulers of an immense empire, rivaling that of the Iconians, using a genetically engineered race of insectoid robots to police their territory.  At some point, the insectoid robots revolted and waged war against their masters.
The Tholians that escaped to the far corner of the Beta Quadrant are believed to have arrived in two waves.  The first being that of an outlining colony escaping with a small moon.  Using the web technology that they possessed to pull the moon to a wormhole, they arrived in this region and began looking for their new worlds destination.  They placed the planet inside a nebula and named it Tholia.  The Tholians had limited supplies and few ships, but they're capabilities were great.   After their initial contact with the Federation, a treaty of non-aggression was reached and signed.  The Federation was in the second war with the Klingons at the time.  One condition of the treaty that the Federation protested vehemently was the Tholians demanded phaser technology.  Only the fact that the Klingons were also in negotiations with the Tholians at the same time prompted the Federation to agree to the Tholian's stipulation.
The Klingon Empire was outraged and they attempted to invade Tholian space.   The Klingon incursion proved disastrous, thanks to the high maneuverability of the Tholian ships and the web technology they possessed they turned back the Klingon invasion and destroyed a reported 43 enemy vessels while sustaining only 12 losses.
The second wave of Tholians was an entire battle group and support craft.  They stumbled onto each other after the second wave completed its long journey using conventional warp.  The second wave of Tholians brought with them engineers, ship schematics and 4 fleet repair docks, which were converted into shipyards.  Federation subspace telescopes tracked and recorded the movements of the second wave of Tholians.

The Tholian- Gorn conflict: the brief war has been an off again, on again situation which began with the Tholian attack on the Gorn colony of Beta Scorpii III, a mineral rich planet intolerable to both the Gorn and Tholians.  This required the construction of habitable atmospheric domes.  A Tholian squadron attacked the colony and destroyed it,  the Tholians then constructed their own atmospheric domes and begun mining the planet surface.  The Gorn Hegemony declared war and the fighting lasted for 2 years before the fighting died out.  No resolution was ever reached, the Gorn became occupied with civil war.  Recently after the reunification of the Gorn clans they attacked Beta Scorpii III and retook the planet's mining operation.  Both the Tholian Assembly and Gorn Alliance asked the Federation to mediate their conflict.   There has been sporadic diplomatic contact with the Tholians, always over subspace or ship to ship, never actual physical meetings.  There had been little or no contact in over 60 years before 2353 when the Tholians lauched a military incursion into Fedration space where a Federation starbase was destroyed.  The resulting conflict lasted  7 years claiming the lives of 250,000 Federation citizens.  An armistice was reached in 2360 and a peace treaty was signed on Bellatrix shortly there after.  Recently the Tholian Assembly signed a treaty of non- aggression with the Dominion.