Turtonyx

While space is inhospitable and life is nearly impossible to thrive, the gargantuan Turtonyx of the Pontic Thumb proves the ISM within the Hellecian Sector is more like an intergalactic ocean than a lifeless vacuum.

While few sources point to a definitive origin for these massive turtles: Poseidon's pets, mutated by radiated Ichor following the Helio-Apollan Binary Supernovae, or existing before time itself.

The Turtonyx are planet-sized turtles who survive in the vacuum of space by digesting space debris, housing an ecosystem of symbiotic bacteria and creatures inside the creatures body, and migrating the length of the Thumb in search for food....slowly.

Seeing as the Thumb was on the business end of the supernovae, the landmass of Karoj-Menos was sent to the other side of the sector. As a result, resources are very scarce along this portion of the Pontic Shell and very few livable planets exist in this portion of space.

To compensate, the creatures in this area of space formed symbiotic relationship with each other for survival. Turtonyx provided an ecosystem inside the creature's body. In exchange for its parasites, displaced flora and fauna and other creatures to work its natural processes and provide nutrients necessary to survive. 

As a result, Turtonyx rarely moves at all while floating through space. Relegating 95% of its bodily functions to the residents inside its body.

In fact, most of the creatures in this part of the sector survive this way by enticing parasites or bacteria to provide the nutrients it can't receive from the ISM. Making the Thumb a teeming ecosystem in the vacuum of space.

Even enticing the Ionite Flotilla of Space Faring Colonists to establish colonies inside these massive Turtonyx as the only home they can call home, due to the stipulations of the curse laid on their people.

During the winter cycles on the planets they harvest, the colonists who couldn't afford to join the Flotilla found refuge living inside the ecosystem of a Turtonyx.

A thrifty colonist could scrub out an existence inside these beasts: Collecting energy from solar panels or kinetic turbines on the shell, farming oxygen-rich plants for breathable air, hunting various creatures living inside, protecting intruders from injuring the Turtonyx internally, etc.

Thrifty Ionite colonists and native Thumbian anthropoids would band together and live inside these massive beasts as communities. Using their technology to take over the parasites' roles inside the Turtonyx. Being very careful not to disturb the delicate ecosystem inside. 

Acts of carelessness, laziness or over-consuming the natural resources inside the Turtonyx could cause a critical process to fail and surely kill the Turtonyx.

During the Age of Anarchy, many found refuge and security inside these beasts. And it was during the invasion of the Pexis-Sadem that the infamous Phrodrian Gordinyx banded a massive battle chariot of Turtonyx together to hold off the invaders while reinforcements from the rest of the Patrokonoi-Hellecia.

Eventually, it was the help of these Turtonyx colony beasts and the Cosmic Aurora that the sector survived and plugged up the Bosporous Spout for good.