Thilles

Thilles is a planet in Umojan space. It was used as a main hub for a variety of diffrent kinds of research. The natural flora of the planet was desired for a number of applications, as the life there posessed the ability of almost unatural growth. Umojan scientists thought it a good opportunity to research it for agricultural use.

Besides the research on the flora, the planet also housed sites for researching AI in hopes they could replace standard military units with non-sentient computers to reduce the risk of casualties in combat.

History
Thilles was discovered in 2307 during Umojan exploration efforts, predating the reestablished contact between the survivors of the three supercarriers. Explorator probes discovered a planet thriving wit plantlife, with a rich soil, high carbon dioxide content, and lower than average gravity that lead to supermassive jungles sprouting out of a strange, almost sandy environment. The planet was named Thilles, in honor of the early Umojan writer Tyler Thilles, whose published works served as a cultural symbol of the first popular fiction in the fledgling Umoja not to be based off of old Earth stories.

Over the next fifty years Thilles as an agricultural for the Umojans in order to exploit its ideal soil conditions. This was not without great danger however, as many of these plants were highly toxic, and Thillian Sharksteeth Vines could overgrow and destabilize structures within hours. Thus, new technologies and fortifications were invented in order to safeguard Umojan structures, toxins and electronic deterrents were made to prevent the unnatural plantlife from getting into a building's circuitry and shutting it down. These proved successful (though required redundancy in power in order to be kept at safe levels in the event of a power outage) and Thilles was made safe for research.

By the 2400s, Umoja had set up research stations and a series of long greenhouses on the world, in order to facilitate growth and abuse the richness of the planet's soil. Thilles became a key producer of food for the Makali Systems ("Sector's Edge"), the furthest Umoja could realistically expand given their warp capabilities. Old Earth foodstuffs from the supercarrier such as lemons and plantains, as well as the popular Greystone Tubber were grown on Thilles.

As Umoja reached the point where it could feed its population and stockpile enough food to survive years of famine, research on Thilles became more broad. Several AI research facilities were set up in conjunction with inter-nation science groups in order to replicate and decode some of the foreign aspects of the ATLAS supercomputer that had guided the terrans to the sector. Several science ventures were placed on this world in research retreats, as the science domes were known for their luxury beyond that of the Confederacy's fringe colonies, and studies from Umoja Universities often lead researchers to use Thilles as a base of operations.

Due to its location on the fringe of Umojan space facing the outside of the sector, Thilles was unmolested by all of the wars of the late 2400s and early 2500s. It became key to the Umojan's drone efforts to pilot vehicles and aircraft through automated means, as the rough landscape with thick vegetation reaching up hundreds of feet in the air made it a greater challenge for vehicles to navigate than most planets. If a drone could navigate Thilles with no issue, it could navigate any battlefield.

With its drone research, many of the best AI minds in Umoja operated on Thilles to aid in the projects, and the momentum of that many minds there turned into a center of both agricultural and AI research, especially after the loss of the former Umojan AI research center, Research Station EB-103, in the Second Great War. The Umojan program Helldiver, a non-sentient combat AI designed to optimize raven construction on the battlefield and balance it with rudimentary self-preservation routines, was made here, and was what lead to many Dominion scientists seeking out the agreements to study on Thilles themselves. However to date none have been approved, giving the jungles of Thilles a mystique to the scientific community of the sector.