Thorgh
Thorgh (pronounced /θɔrg/) is a living world of Tamamna, a planet-sized lump of biomass that is home to many different ellogous species. Most of Thorgh's inhabitants live deep in the interior of the world, safe from the cosmic radiation of space, but a few hardy species manage to make their homes on its surface.
History
Thorgh was created about thirty thousand Terran years ago by the stell, a soft-bodied, multilimbed race. The stell are not forthcoming about the exact methods of its creation, but it clearly involved advanced techniques of bioengineering; most scientists believe it was probably originally formed as a vast number of smaller creatures that were designed to henose into a whole. The stell themselves seem to have evolved underwater, though many of them have since engineered themselves to be able to get about terrestrially. Because of this, some biologists suspect the stell themselves may have been genetically engineered by another race, on the grounds that beings of aquatic origin would not be able to develop industrialization and advanced technology without access to fire. Many scientists disagree, however, some pointing out that even without access to fire and technology nothing prevents the stell from having evolved intelligence on their own, and others allowing that there may be other roads to advanced technological capability that do not require fire as a precursor.
In any case, part of what makes more information about the stell so elusive is that they originally come from the galaxy IC 342 (sometimes called the Stell Galaxy in their honor), and the stell on Thorgh are the only representatives of their species in the Milky Way, save a few scattered individuals who themselves came from Thorgh or are descended from those that have. How exactly Thorgh got to the Milky Way from the Stell Galaxy remains something of a mystery; at its current fastest rate of travel it would have taken far longer to make the journey than the world has been in existence. Some scientists try to get around this by supposing that the accounts of Thorgh's age are inaccurate, and that it is actually much older than is conventionally thought. Most scientists discount this hypothesis, however, believing that it would make the evolution of the stell have occurred implausibly early in the universe's existence.
In any case, when Thorgh arrived in the Milky Way about nineteen thousand years ago, it was already home to a sizeable contingent of stell, along with other species presumably also from the Stell Galaxy, or perhaps from other galaxies Thorgh had passed through before arriving at the Milky Way. Since its arrival, Thorgh has traveled widely around the galaxy and passed many worlds, and picked up many new inhabitants. The living world continues to travel erratically, staying for years near a particular star and then suddenly moving to a distant location. Given that it always seems to end up near stars, its meanderings presumably aren't completely random, but whether somewhere in the vast being are pilots guiding its journey or whether Thorgh itself controls its sojourn remains in question.
Anatomy
Thorgh's anatomy is clearly designed more for the comfort and convenience of those living within it than purely for the functionality of the organism itself. Much of Thorgh's interior is taken up by enormous hollow organs that serve little or no apparent purpose for Thorgh itself but whose cavernous interiors make good living spaces; many of these organs are even subdivided by thinner membranes into much smaller cells that can serve as individual rooms and residences. Labyrithine networks of air- or water-filled ducts connect the living organs, serving as passages between them. To move upward or downward by significant amounts, perhaps the most useful conveyances are the peristaltic tubes that can move objects and creatures through themselves with a sort of a swallowing motion. Still another set of passages called flow vessels, useful for slightly more rapid unassisted transit, is filled with oxygen-rich fluid that moves through the vessels at a quick pace, carrying anything within along with it. Flow vessels have valves all along their sides that yield easily to light pressure, taking anything outside them into the vessel and, conversely, expelling any solid contents near the valve. The transport fluid that fills the flow vessels is not directly breathable by humans and most other terrestrial creatures, but many Thorghan residents have been modified to be able to breathe it.
Not all of Thorgh is so subdivided into tiny chambers and vessels (tiny compared to the size of the planet; many of the living organs are several kilometers across, and some span almost a thousand kilometers); there are six enormous bodies of water called inner seas distributed evenly through it. The inner seas are each nearly two thousand kilometers in diameter, and run through by a latticework of bony struts and platforms that serve as substrates for the growth of sessile oceanic creatures. Each of the inner oceans has a slightly different chemical consistency—they are all water, but with different amounts of various salts and other solutes.
Despite all these features, however, Thorgh necessarily does possess certain organs and systems necessary for its continued existence. One important consideration is that of power. Vast membranes jut from huge appendages on Thorgh's surface, somewhat resembling tattered wings—and referred to as solar wings in observation of this resemblance. These solar wings are turned to gather the maximum amount of sunlight, which they convert into chemical energy through innumerable organic photovoltaic cells embedded in their surface, that energy in turn being shunted down to batteries deep in the heart of the world. Not all Thorgh's energy comes from these solar wings; Thorgh also does get some energy from nuclear fusion, like stars. Thorgh gains some material for its fusion through solar winds, but also occasionally swings by gas giants and nebulae to gather more fusion fuel through intake orifices.
Thorgh also has a circulatory system, to carry nutrients through its system and expel what (relatively) few wastes it produces. These latter are vented through excretory pores scattered all over its surface. Thorgh does not seem to have a centralized brain; it does have a neural network to control its automatic responses, and a few small ganglia, and these seem to be adequate for its needs. It is partly because of this distributed nervous system that most biologists are convinced Thorgh itself is not intelligent, though a few dissenters disagree.
Gravity
Under normal gravitational conditions, an organism the size and consistency of Thorgh shouldn't be able to exist; it should crush itself by its own weight. Certainly, Thorgh, with its fleshy and mostly hollow consistency, is significantly less dense than the stone that makes up an Earthlike planet, but it's still vast enough that it should collapse to enormous density in the center. The reason it doesn't is because Thorgh seems to have some ability to control the curvature of space in its interior and in its vicinity, and through that its gravity. The gravity within most of Thorgh accordingly varies between about half a gee to about two gees, with a few small areas of no gravity, particularly in the connecting ducts. Mostly, the acceleration of gravity in Thorgh is directed toward the world's center, though there are occasional scattered places where it's differently oriented.
There are two significant exceptions to these usual gravitational trends. Most of the inner seas have no gravity (or at least, the gravitational acceleration there is too small to measure); there is no real "up" or "down" there, with objects tending to more or less float in space regardless of buoyancy. There are some irregularly distributed areas within the inner seas that do have gravity, particularly near the platforms, but never enough to build up a pressure of much more than 100 megapascals. Meanwhile, the gravity is augmented in Thorgh's fusion cells, where hydrogen and other fuel is compressed to a much higher degree than its own mass would be responsible for, the better to speed its fusion process.
Thorgh's ability to curve space is responsible not only for preventing its own catastrophic collapse and regulating the environment of its inhabitants. It is also the mechanism for Thorgh's long-distance travel. While Thorgh can accelerate slowly by controlled venting from its excretory pores and by using its wings as solar sails, longer distances it traverses by creating, and passing through, temporary wormholes. This takes time, however, and Thorgh cannot instantaneously jaunt millions of light years. Specifically, it seems to take roughly twenty-six seconds to generate the wormhole per light year of travel, though it isn't exactly a linear relationship, especially at the ends of its range; Thorgh has never been known to have traveled by wormhole less than five light years or more than forty thousand.
The exact mechanism by which Thorgh manages this feat is still uncertain; biologists have not even definitively identified what organs or structures are responsible, though there are several theories. If the stell are aware of its exact workings, they have not chosen to share that information. In any case, however, when Thorgh begins to open a wormhole there are certain telltale signs, giving enough warning that visitors are unlikely to become stranded within when it moves.
Inhabitants
In addition to the stell that created Thorgh and many of whom still dwell within (or their descendents do, at any rate), Thorgh has accumulated inhabitants of many other races as well. A not inconsiderable contingent of humans live in the world, but the same could be said of dozens of other species, and there are many more with smaller representation. Aside from humans and stell, other major races of Thorgh include the caci, the many-bodied smen, the juvel tree, and the iridian. The inner seas, too, contain ellogous life, albeit ellogous life that had not yet developed high levels of technology on its own. Prominent among their denizens are the communal dedalite and the enormous naicuru.
Of course, Thorgh is home to many alogous beings as well, most presumably brought there by its intelligent residents as companions and tools. Also, some creatures prowl the ducts of Thorgh that are thought to serve its biological purposes in some way, perhaps helping to transport needed substances through its body or to maintain the integrity of its structure.
Resources
Resources on Thorgh are not in short supply. In addition to the resources produced by the technologies of the inhabitants, the world itself provides for all the people's basic needs. Glands produce nourishing liquids and pastes of various colors and flavors, and the structure of the world itself provides plenty of temperature-controlled shelter. Of course, most of Thorgh's intelligent denizens don't want to settle for merely their basic survival needs, and augment what Thorgh provides with the product of their own manufacture or of trade with other worlds. Even here, Thorgh's nature helps; engineers have found a way to tap into the world's batteries and conductors for their own power needs.
Thorgh also provides some more unusual materials and services. Many interesting uses have been found of some of Thorgh's secretions, from direct use as lotions and oils to synthesis of new materials with unusual properties. Thorgh even provides its own prisons—or at least, if that's not what these areas were originally intended for, that's what they're largely used for now. There are certain walls scattered within Thorgh, known as interfaces, that absorb creatures pressed against them, assimilating them into their form. The proper stimulation of the surrounding region may induce the interfaces to release the assimilated creature, however, even after considerable time has passed. Creatures absorbed into interfaces are connected with Thorgh and with other assimilated creatures not only physically, but to some degree mentally as well, sharing some of their thoughts and emotions; Thorgh's residents have found that such enforced empathy seems to aid in the rehabilitation of criminals so treated, and have come to use these interfaces as a primary system of incarceration, though there are also those who willingly subject themselves to the interface for the experience of oneness with Thorgh and their fellow inmates. Despite the disparate nervous systems of Thorgh's resident races, it seems to have developed the ability to network with them all, although races new to Thorgh may not be immediately integrable until it has learned how to connect with their nervous systems.
Society
Thorgh has become divided politically into a number of disparate states of various sizes, some more or less monospecific and some with citizenships integrated from many of Thorgh's resident races. Relations between these nations are not always friendly, but outright war is rare, perhaps because Thorgh itself discourages it, reacting to large-scale fighting within itself with the spraying of acidic fluids, the creation of enormous monsters, and similar measures. Still, nations at serious odds will frequently try to undermine each other by subtler means. Even near the surface, the nations do not take up all the space within Thorgh; between them are some no man's lands that may be dangerous to travel through thanks to their lawless or monstrous inhabitants.
Especially close to the surface of the world, the inhabitants engage in trade and cultural exchange with nearby worlds, though such relationships generally have to be reforged anew each time it moves. Deeper within the living world, however, the people of Thorgh tend to be more insular; cultures have been even discovered deep within the living world that have lost their technology and their memories about the outside worlds and believe that Thorgh is all their race has ever known. In general, the farther one gets from the surface, the sparser the organized nations and the wilder the life and the people. By no means has all of Thorgh been explored, at least by those known to the surface nations. In particular, the center of the world remains a mystery; no expeditions sent there have reached the center and returned, and no instrumentation has been able to reliably detect its contents. Many scholars think it likely that there's nothing special there anyway, that it's just another expanse of living organs and vessels like most of the world, but there are repeated rumors and speculations that perhaps the center of the world holds something very special indeed, should anyone manage to reach it.