I'm trying to think of some way of ensuring that a Caretaker God ends up in control of Pantellia, but there's no way the Mabelen could ensure that themselves, as they don't know Caretaker Gods exist. The highest SI level any being on Pantellia has is SI:2 (the Stormwood is actually a single clonal entity, with the roots of the trees containing trillions of neurons and synapses and forming one vast brain, but even the Mabelen are unaware of this fact) and they would definitely get rolled over by anything higher even if the entire planet mobilized all its resources. The Stormwood is capable of releasing controlled bursts of electricity at specific locations, the Mabelen have slow acting nanotech, and the dragons do have fire breath, but beyond that I can't think of anything that would have even the slightest chance of damaging a ship. The element of surprise, and the fact that it would likely only be small scouting groups that would find Pantellia at first, are the only real defenses they would have.
However, I have toyed with the idea before that the "Towers" of the Ancients were meant to be not only city-skyscrapers and observatories, but also launching points for engineered probe-organisms which would be able to survive the vacuum of space and possibly become living satellites, but the Ancient civilization fell before completing the project - perhaps they had plans for other spacefaring technologies which were never developed and the Mabelen might find those plans, decrypt them, and figure out how to build them after the initial skirmish with Terragens in order to have a somewhat greater chance of protecting themselves... furthermore, any Terragen technology they came into contact with, they would do their best to reverse-engineer, though this would have only limited success for things developed at very high toposophic levels...
One thing that seriously bothers me about all this is that they WOULD be so helpless against these alien invaders... it would bother them too. The major civilizations and higher species of Pantellia are used to dominion and almost magical (to their minds) powers over the world around them - when they come into contact with beings that are so much more powerful, the culture shock would be not only horrendous but Lovecraftian. I have always wanted to incorporate cosmic horror elements into this world anyway, but it would be such an ironic reversal if the horrible incomprehensible beings from outer space are ultimately descended from humans in some way, as the Archai are... I don't want my beautiful creations to just be subsumed into preexisting structures like the various Sephirotics though, at least not at first, so their only hope is to somehow come under the guardianship of a Caretaker God.
However, I have toyed with the idea before that the "Towers" of the Ancients were meant to be not only city-skyscrapers and observatories, but also launching points for engineered probe-organisms which would be able to survive the vacuum of space and possibly become living satellites, but the Ancient civilization fell before completing the project - perhaps they had plans for other spacefaring technologies which were never developed and the Mabelen might find those plans, decrypt them, and figure out how to build them after the initial skirmish with Terragens in order to have a somewhat greater chance of protecting themselves... furthermore, any Terragen technology they came into contact with, they would do their best to reverse-engineer, though this would have only limited success for things developed at very high toposophic levels...
One thing that seriously bothers me about all this is that they WOULD be so helpless against these alien invaders... it would bother them too. The major civilizations and higher species of Pantellia are used to dominion and almost magical (to their minds) powers over the world around them - when they come into contact with beings that are so much more powerful, the culture shock would be not only horrendous but Lovecraftian. I have always wanted to incorporate cosmic horror elements into this world anyway, but it would be such an ironic reversal if the horrible incomprehensible beings from outer space are ultimately descended from humans in some way, as the Archai are... I don't want my beautiful creations to just be subsumed into preexisting structures like the various Sephirotics though, at least not at first, so their only hope is to somehow come under the guardianship of a Caretaker God.