The Thalan factories and labs are entirely unlocked via research-industrial adaptation and technological adaptation (hyper fusion reactors --> artificial gravity --> planetary adaptation --> stellar production --> industrial & technological adaptation). They don't start with them.
In addition, the Thalan factories and labs do not follow the classical formula of increasing production and maintenance as you go up the tree-rather, they all provide the same production (or research), but start with high maintenance which reduces with each subsequent stage.
Galactopedia might help.
It's a good idea to use your starting miner to build asteroid mining bases as the Thalans (or with the Thalan tree), rather than converting it to a colony ship.
Do note also that Thalans do not get farms in their tech tree, and will have to tech trade for them.
It may also be relevant that the Thalan tree is limited to Traditional Warfare, Gas Warfare, and Information Warfare, so using any other invasion tactics is depedent on trading for or stealing tech from other civs.