The reason I'm asking is because Thalan tech tree provides Hives and the Gaia Vortex. Both of which provide big boosts to base production thereby avoiding the "I have no population and thus no production" problem that all synthetic races have in the early game.
Thalan tech line won't provide the Spark of Life path. On the other hand you get better early game factories, and the AWESOME Hives tech (which gives a +4 to production REGARDLESS of what your population on the planet is).
Consequently, Thalan tech tree allows synthetic races to colony spam. And since the game can effectively be won during the colony spam era, ANYTHING that increase your ability to colony spam is a good thing.