A fresh take on a popular topic (How long would we last against the imperials).
So, would we survive?
Edit: Sorry about that, thought I had less time than I do.
So, assuming a Tyranid swarm descended upon Earth right now, using our current technology, how long do you think we would survive against the Guants, Warriors, and Carnifexes of the the Tyranid Hive Fleet?
Personally, I wouldn't give us much longer than a month.
I'd say a couple hours to a week depending on which. If it was like, leviathan oh yeah we'd be goners. If it was behemoth we might be able to last a week if we expended all our nukes.
I’m not saying that modern-day earth is completely amazing or anything but we’re pretty adaptable and the, for the most part, our Industrialized/militarized nations are educated. Where the Tyranids can adapt biologically, we can adapt technologically – very quickly.
When most people think of the 40k universe, they tend to think of bombs and nukes and the sort of bloody conflict reminiscent of World War 2 and World War 1 set in a Dark Ages analogy. That’s not how we fight any more – and it certainly wouldn’t be how we would fight against an invading alien species.
First you have to consider that in 40k, the PDF is a single organization that’s lead by a single (often incompetent) leader. On earth there are over one hundred nations, each with their own fighting doctrine and command structure. There are between five and ten nations who wield nuclear weapons and would certainly be ready to use them in the name of self preservation. While the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty has certainly depleted the worlds arsenal of nuclear weapons, there are still estimated to be over 20,000 nuclear weapons worldwide locked, cocked, and ready to rock at the drop of a hat – and between Russia and the US alone there are an estimated additional 60,000 cold-war era weapons that can be mobilized in a situation as dire as a Tyranid invasion.
They Tyranid lore paints them as quite a nasty and horrifying threat but if you REALLY think about the nuclear weapons available to the nations of the world, we have quite a bite of our own.
Now, we should also consider that the Biological Weapons convention prohibits the development and use of such weapons. I’d imagine it wouldn’t take long for those weapons that lay dormant in secret vaults all over the world to make an appearance. Likewise, I’d imagine it wouldn’t take long to develop a virus/toxin that attacks Tyranid-specific biology. I think it’d be about ten days after the capture of the first Tyranid body for Dicks Sporting Goods shelves to be stocked with instant-acting Tyranid Ebola/AIDS/Plague mace right next to their gaunt-shaped target dummies.
Which brings up another important point… The universe of 40k commonly depicts the rank-and-file civilian as an ignorant and helpless fool standing feebly behind marginally better equipped PDF. Many (not all) nations (particularly the U.S., many Middle Eastern countries, and some Asian countries) have an armed population ready and willing to fight off would-be invaders. I myself have numerous (that’s NUMEROUS, not one, or a few) friends and relatives who are unintentionally equipped to look a zombie apocalypse straight and the eye, spit in its face, sleep with its girlfriend, and eat its lunch before putting a bullet straight through its brain. The U.S. LITERALLY had truckloads of armed civilians driving around looking for trouble because of a FAKE War of the Worlds radio broadcast. It wouldn’t take long for history to repeat itself in the event of a REAL invasion.
Lastly, I’ll mention the X-factor of technological development that the general populace is unaware of. Remember, that Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened in an era where the most powerful computer on earth was about half as powerful and one tenth as fast as the cellular phone I carry in my pocket. I have been in college math classes where the conversation shifted to modern mathematics application to weapons – the professor said that he really couldn’t discuss it but nuclear weapons may as well be bow and arrow in today’s modern technological world, that he had personally seen and worked on mathematics that could obliterate a mountain range and that math was being used to develop the weapons of the future. This was about 12 years ago, before 9-11, and war has a tendency to speed weapons development exponentially. I’m not sure this is really “optimism” per-se, but I’m willing to bet that there are some mind-boggling weapons the governments of the world have at their disposal that we’ve never seen that would come in handy during an alien invasion.
They Tyranids, as they’re depicted in the lore, wouldn’t have as easy a go at modern-day earth as one might expect.
Well, humanity would pretty much just bio-bomb the hell out of it. And then nuke it, over and over again. Humanity is fairly unwilling to be destroyed, and I fairly sure if it were to be real, pretty much every human would attempt to hurt as much as they could as natural instinct. Well, I know I would go down attempting hack open some nids face with a Broadsword kept on my wall, failing that I would try and tear its throat out with my fething teeth. But yeah, the point stands, humanity is pretty damn hardy, and angry, when it comes to things like that.
yournamehere wrote:Guys guys guys, your forgetting one big weapon we have that can single handedly destroy an entire tyranid fleet, that the imperium has no access to.
Chuck Norris, he still lives...
Chuck, Bruce Lee, Arnie, Sulvester stalone, Jet Li, Harrison Ford.
All Primarchs, created from the genetic material of the emporer himself.
People would like to think "Oh humanity can persevere through anything" No we can't. They would have ships filled with billions upon billions of tyranids. Would we fight? of course. Would we win? No way in hell. We have a finite number of resources. Chief amongst them, oil.
Imagine trying to get oil moved around the planet when the entire planet is a warzone. The hive mind isn't stupid, the second it realizes our warmachine needs oil like we need blood it's going to shut it off. and without oil, we can't move our forces & if we can't be mobile we can't fight. Not to mention all the manufacturing that requires oil.
tl;dr we. are. boned. I give us 4-6 months max of solid resistance with small pockets lasting until the very end (absorption into the hive ships)
1 day for all major powers to be eliminated as functional entities. All nukes, nerve gas, etc expended within 3 days. Oceangoing forces would last longer, simply because the Nids seem to stick to land when they can, until the final consuming stages.
There is simply no way for any nation on earth to form a coherent response in the face of a global, simultaneous orbital assault. How can you decide where to launch the nukes, when every corner of your nation is heavily infested? The army cant move to defend civilians when their bases are under attack.
Yes, we would go down fighting, but it would be brief.
If it was a large Nid attack we would go down, but...we would make them glow in the dark before we did.
If it was a on a small scale, say a few thosand drop pods or landing craft, we would own the Nids, or any other army/force from 40k, they just could not stand against all the fire power we could bring to the fight.
Yes the we would lose a butt load of civs at the start.
But even they with all there house hold fire arms would take a huge toll on any force.
And after the "O CRAP" moment passed...and the armys of the world got there stuff together...the Nids would be no more in sort order
It would take a lot of political to-ing and fro-ing to co-ordinate the governements of the world, ones that have a hard enough time doing anything as a cohesive unit. The time this would take would be spent getting eaten.
Gravity distortions caused by the nids method of space travel (narwhals?) would cause earthquakes, eruptions, etc, destabilising large populations, well in advance of their presence.
The preceeding biological attack (spores, viruses etc) from the nids themselves would leave us severely depleted, morally and physically.
The mental/psychic horror of the hive mind would begin to drive the entire population insane, so that only the hardiest few were capable of mounting resistance. Assuming they were able to get to any nuclear weapons, they would need to be lucky to know where to aim them without killing the other pockets of resistance. More people would begin to die from radiation poisoning. Nids, by all accounts don't seem to mind such things (although obviously not the direct force of the blasts).
The swift destruction of our satelllites in orbit by their ships would asolutely cripple the militaries of the world, so organised resistance would crumble.
This leaves a few people with their own weapons, and some scant remnants of the military. These would be taken down piecemeal by a co-ordinated, efficient force governed by a single will, not thousands of individuals with precious few ways of communicating over distances.
The effects of such basic weaponry (compared to 40k standards) is debateable. Battle tanks and fighter/bombers would do some damage, and sure a few hypothetical weapons might do something, but it assumes that the people who might be able to use them were alive or mentally aware enough to do so.
Reanimator wrote:It would take a lot of political to-ing and fro-ing to co-ordinate the governements of the world, ones that have a hard enough time doing anything as a cohesive unit. The time this would take would be spent getting eaten.
Gravity distortions caused by the nids method of space travel (narwhals?) would cause earthquakes, eruptions, etc, destabilising large populations, well in advance of their presence.
The preceeding biological attack (spores, viruses etc) from the nids themselves would leave us severely depleted, morally and physically.
The mental/psychic horror of the hive mind would begin to drive the entire population insane, so that only the hardiest few were capable of mounting resistance. Assuming they were able to get to any nuclear weapons, they would need to be lucky to know where to aim them without killing the other pockets of resistance. More people would begin to die from radiation poisoning. Nids, by all accounts don't seem to mind such things (although obviously not the direct force of the blasts).
The swift destruction of our satelllites in orbit by their ships would asolutely cripple the militaries of the world, so organised resistance would crumble.
This leaves a few people with their own weapons, and some scant remnants of the military. These would be taken down piecemeal by a co-ordinated, efficient force governed by a single will, not thousands of individuals with precious few ways of communicating over distances.
The effects of such basic weaponry (compared to 40k standards) is debateable. Battle tanks and fighter/bombers would do some damage, and sure a few hypothetical weapons might do something, but it assumes that the people who might be able to use them were alive or mentally aware enough to do so.
Good analysis.
A lot of people who are talking about 'civilian being armed and doing some damage' seem to forget that a good amount of combatants (both civilian and professional... but really, mostly civilians who don't really have any discipline for those sort of things) would most likely be insane or dead before the war actually started.
It's one thing to be trained to fire a gun... but how do you deal with monsters (which is what the tyrannids are really)? Of the few rednecks with shotguns left when the Tyrannids would touch down... how many would just gak their pants and run when faced with a Warrior or worse? Heck, even the gaunts are nightmares made flesh...
This isn't just about some bugs running all over Kansas either... it's a global invasion. Communication and organization on such a scale is unheard of in today's military. If the most powerful military body in the world is making a mess of 1 war in 1 country, I can't even imagine what things would look like on a global scale with no easy to define battle front (where do you send the airstrike/nukes when the nids are fighting in your cities and military infrastructure?)... and that's before we even factor in the Tyranide striking us blind by taking down satellites and other communication arrays...
the tyranids also launch a psychic attack on the defenders so well see how billy bob does when he poops his pants from total fear, plus they devour all bio-mass from the planet so im sure they got ways of consuming oceans and what not so ships would probably be screwed eventually and apparently the whole process takes a month and the defenders are dead by around day 22 so i'd say were pwned lol
It would only last for days at most. I mean, in the background the tyranids are presented as being invincible. This is a sort of dissonance with the rest of the background. When the background wants to describe the IG or even Orks attacking a planet, they often talk of forces that wouldn't be large enough to fight, say, one of the powers involved in WW2. When tyranids are desribed as attacking a planet, horrible death-monsters rain from the sky for days on end. So yeah, we'd be boned, and it would probably go to nuclear weapons ASAP.
An hour, at most, only because Earth is one, small, lonely, orbitally defenseless planet. Our ammunition would be burnt within hours, the second wave of nids would be immune to nukes more or less. Unless we fired like...anthrax missiles or something at their massive motherships or gave them the common cold (HARDY HAR) we would be killed instantly. Every meter of earth would be under attack in 20 minutes.
I think we would simply nuke the nids out of orbit.
First of all, we would detect something as big as a hive fleet months before it would reach us, with all those astrophysicians staring at the stars 24 hours a a day.
From there, I guess it would not take us that long to figure out that the stuff heading towards Earth are actually quite dangerous.
20 000 nukes would probably be enough to slaughter the incoming hive fleet. I guess a few ships would make it to low orbit and release their spores, but it would remain manageable.
Of course, if the entire fleet would make it to the surface, we would not stand a chance (and get nommed in an hour), but I'm pretty confident that we would prevent most of the nids from reaching the surface.
incarna wrote:I’m not saying that modern-day earth is completely amazing or anything but we’re pretty adaptable and the, for the most part, our Industrialized/militarized nations are educated. Where the Tyranids can adapt biologically, we can adapt technologically – very quickly.
When most people think of the 40k universe, they tend to think of bombs and nukes and the sort of bloody conflict reminiscent of World War 2 and World War 1 set in a Dark Ages analogy. That’s not how we fight any more – and it certainly wouldn’t be how we would fight against an invading alien species.
First you have to consider that in 40k, the PDF is a single organization that’s lead by a single (often incompetent) leader. On earth there are over one hundred nations, each with their own fighting doctrine and command structure. There are between five and ten nations who wield nuclear weapons and would certainly be ready to use them in the name of self preservation. While the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty has certainly depleted the worlds arsenal of nuclear weapons, there are still estimated to be over 20,000 nuclear weapons worldwide locked, cocked, and ready to rock at the drop of a hat – and between Russia and the US alone there are an estimated additional 60,000 cold-war era weapons that can be mobilized in a situation as dire as a Tyranid invasion.
They Tyranid lore paints them as quite a nasty and horrifying threat but if you REALLY think about the nuclear weapons available to the nations of the world, we have quite a bite of our own.
The use of Nukes would be very hard to co-ordinate. Assuming that the leaders of such countries aren't all dispatched by infiltrators or overrun in the first few hours of the invasion, where would they target these weapons? How are they to know that New York is managing to keep the larger protion of a Tyranid Horde at bay, when Washington itself is already flooded by a horde of chitin? There would be no means to direct these weapons at the bulk of Tyranid forces (which inevitably drop down at the major population centres). In the final few seconds before whatever headquarters the military leaders of the world are tucked away in (assuming infiltrators don't get there as well) there might be enough desperation to simply launch as many nukes as possible, but unless every single city in the world was targetted then the damage to the Tyranid forces would even be noticeable, and if they are launched at these cities the nukes might also wipe out the last pockets of real resistance in the process of trying to deny the Tyranids a complete victory.
Now, we should also consider that the Biological Weapons convention prohibits the development and use of such weapons. I’d imagine it wouldn’t take long for those weapons that lay dormant in secret vaults all over the world to make an appearance. Likewise, I’d imagine it wouldn’t take long to develop a virus/toxin that attacks Tyranid-specific biology. I think it’d be about ten days after the capture of the first Tyranid body for Dicks Sporting Goods shelves to be stocked with instant-acting Tyranid Ebola/AIDS/Plague mace right next to their gaunt-shaped target dummies.
Firstly, 10 days would see the end of most organized resistance and certainly would have the weapon mass-produced by any means. Secondly, the Imperium has tried such methods, sometimes with sucess, but it has never been a final solution, and they had the means to deliver these weapons precisely where it would hurt.
Which brings up another important point… The universe of 40k commonly depicts the rank-and-file civilian as an ignorant and helpless fool standing feebly behind marginally better equipped PDF. Many (not all) nations (particularly the U.S., many Middle Eastern countries, and some Asian countries) have an armed population ready and willing to fight off would-be invaders. I myself have numerous (that’s NUMEROUS, not one, or a few) friends and relatives who are unintentionally equipped to look a zombie apocalypse straight and the eye, spit in its face, sleep with its girlfriend, and eat its lunch before putting a bullet straight through its brain. The U.S. LITERALLY had truckloads of armed civilians driving around looking for trouble because of a FAKE War of the Worlds radio broadcast. It wouldn’t take long for history to repeat itself in the event of a REAL invasion.
Spores and other Tyranid biological weapons utilised in the atmosphere prior to the invasion would render most civilian forces, as well as a large portion of infantry forces, all but useless. The civilian gun-happy force that would supposedly make such a huge impact would most likely be huddling in their houses and bunkers, hunted down by swarms of gaunts, rippers and genestealers. Ironically just like most 40k civilians.
Lastly, I’ll mention the X-factor of technological development that the general populace is unaware of. Remember, that Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened in an era where the most powerful computer on earth was about half as powerful and one tenth as fast as the cellular phone I carry in my pocket. I have been in college math classes where the conversation shifted to modern mathematics application to weapons – the professor said that he really couldn’t discuss it but nuclear weapons may as well be bow and arrow in today’s modern technological world, that he had personally seen and worked on mathematics that could obliterate a mountain range and that math was being used to develop the weapons of the future. This was about 12 years ago, before 9-11, and war has a tendency to speed weapons development exponentially. I’m not sure this is really “optimism” per-se, but I’m willing to bet that there are some mind-boggling weapons the governments of the world have at their disposal that we’ve never seen that would come in handy during an alien invasion.
How's that tinfoil hat going for him?
Even so, the destructive power of these weapons is meaningless, unless there is somehow a way to direct them where it would actually hurt the Tyranids.
They Tyranids, as they’re depicted in the lore, wouldn’t have as easy a go at modern-day earth as one might expect.
I think you're first mistake is to assume that the Tyranid forces always attack in an onrushing horde. The only reason that most 40k defences/population centres are not overrun in the first couple of hours is becuase of the orbital defences, anti-air batteries and Void Shields that prevent the cities themselves from being the Tyranid landing forces. With no such countermeasures available in modern-day cities they would be overrun in a matter of hours, barring perhaps a few well defended military bases, or even Airfields.
To cut to the chase, they would have an easy time of modern-day Earth. They really would.
xlightscreen wrote:Against a small break of a main tyranid fleet invading. Yes I think we have a small chance.
Remember a lasgun is really no better then there auto-guns they are just more reliable.
Not only that we could easily create a bio-weapon against them.
This thread has been full of silly statements, but this one is just about the worst. I wish effective bioengineering projects could start from scratch and reach effective fruition in a matter of hours. It'd certainly make my life easier.
Anyway, the definitive answer is, 'not long.' The tyranid's complete dominance of space would mean we're toast.
i think the current us would survive quite well actually, given that in 40k, the standard everybody, up to officers in the emperors imperial forces are...well. backwater, superstitious fear mongering, frightend of their shadow, brainless imbeciles. they learn very little of their enemys other then "if we shoot the big ones with missles or tank fire they die! well, they die withlasguns too"
We on the otherhand learn and adapt and study and produce. i mean, Mankind built a car that goes from 0-100 in like 3 seconds for sng's when are back is to the wall, we will build. plus who knows what kind of bio tech we can build using Tyranid bio!
I also think, that if tyranids are real, then Eldar must be real! and other races...and im sure they would probably give us a heads up
Nightrave wrote:i think the current us would survive quite well actually, given that in 40k, the standard everybody, up to officers in the emperors imperial forces are...well. backwater, superstitious fear mongering, frightend of their shadow, brainless imbeciles. they learn very little of their enemys other then "if we shoot the big ones with missles or tank fire they die! well, they die withlasguns too"
We on the otherhand learn and adapt and study and produce. i mean, Mankind built a car that goes from 0-100 in like 3 seconds for sng's when are back is to the wall, we will build. plus who knows what kind of bio tech we can build using Tyranid bio!
It takes time to learn and adapt. The idea that we could create an affective countermeasure to such an overwhelming force is simply not realistic - we're talking about 'real world Earth' here, not the Star Trek federation - especially since we know how well Tyranid already resist to bio-warfare in the first place.
Nightrave wrote:i think the current us would survive quite well actually, given that in 40k, the standard everybody, up to officers in the emperors imperial forces are...well. backwater, superstitious fear mongering, frightend of their shadow, brainless imbeciles.
And what do you suppose the generals and commanders would be when a voracious, face-eating alien horde that can psychically crush a person would turn into?
It would be an hours, maybe a day or two, a most. And we wouldn't hurt them at all considering the biomass they'd get from us.
Nightrave wrote:i think the current us would survive quite well actually, given that in 40k, the standard everybody, up to officers in the emperors imperial forces are...well. backwater, superstitious fear mongering, frightend of their shadow, brainless imbeciles. they learn very little of their enemys other then "if we shoot the big ones with missles or tank fire they die! well, they die withlasguns too"
We on the otherhand learn and adapt and study and produce. i mean, Mankind built a car that goes from 0-100 in like 3 seconds for sng's when are back is to the wall, we will build. plus who knows what kind of bio tech we can build using Tyranid bio!
It takes time to learn and adapt. The idea that we could create an affective countermeasure to such an overwhelming force is simply not realistic - we're talking about 'real world Earth' here, not the Star Trek federation - especially since we know how well Tyranid already resist to bio-warfare in the first place.
That's actually untrue.
Tyranids can adapt to biological warfare. They're not immune to it.
You would have to feasibly have a delivery system for the biological weaponry that would render any further adaptions impossible. Poisoning the Spawning Pools, etc would work.
Nightrave wrote:i think the current us would survive quite well actually, given that in 40k, the standard everybody, up to officers in the emperors imperial forces are...well. backwater, superstitious fear mongering, frightend of their shadow, brainless imbeciles. they learn very little of their enemys other then "if we shoot the big ones with missles or tank fire they die! well, they die withlasguns too"
We on the otherhand learn and adapt and study and produce. i mean, Mankind built a car that goes from 0-100 in like 3 seconds for sng's when are back is to the wall, we will build. plus who knows what kind of bio tech we can build using Tyranid bio!
It takes time to learn and adapt. The idea that we could create an affective countermeasure to such an overwhelming force is simply not realistic - we're talking about 'real world Earth' here, not the Star Trek federation - especially since we know how well Tyranid already resist to bio-warfare in the first place.
That's actually untrue.
Tyranids can adapt to biological warfare. They're not immune to it.
You would have to feasibly have a delivery system for the biological weaponry that would render any further adaptions impossible. Poisoning the Spawning Pools, etc would work.
It's not just that they adapt, and he didn't say they were immune, he said the were resist. According to fluff, they lack several organs, possess several redundant ones, and instead of a digestive tract, most of the filler space inside their carpaces is filled with phage cells which usually EAT whatever foreign objects they encounter.
To put it in perspective, the imperium isn't ill-adept at using biological warfare, they've invented world destroying viruses, sometimes in a few days time. THEY have a tough time devising biological weapons that successfully weaken or kill tyranids that don't also kill just about everything in their path. Considering how far advanced their medical technology is above us, it's fair to say to devise something even remotely close would take months. The most generous estimates here barely assume even month.
Slarg232 wrote:This topic is really grim.... I didn't expect it to be this grim when I made it.....
Did you REALLY think we would have a chance? This planet isn't set up like an important 40K world. At BEST we are a lightly defended agri-world to the Imperium.
Many planets in the Imperium that can withstand a Tyranid invasion have more Guardsmen on them than we have total population.
We. Are. Hosed.
Maybe in your next life some part of you could be something cool, like a Carnifex.
Slarg232 wrote:This topic is really grim.... I didn't expect it to be this grim when I made it.....
You're aware the question you asked us to debate was essentially "How long would it take for over 6 billion people on Earth to die when faced with a nigh unstoppable alien threat?"
Nightrave wrote:i think the current us would survive quite well actually, given that in 40k, the standard everybody, up to officers in the emperors imperial forces are...well. backwater, superstitious fear mongering, frightend of their shadow, brainless imbeciles. they learn very little of their enemys other then "if we shoot the big ones with missles or tank fire they die! well, they die withlasguns too"
We on the otherhand learn and adapt and study and produce. i mean, Mankind built a car that goes from 0-100 in like 3 seconds for sng's when are back is to the wall, we will build. plus who knows what kind of bio tech we can build using Tyranid bio!
It takes time to learn and adapt. The idea that we could create an affective countermeasure to such an overwhelming force is simply not realistic - we're talking about 'real world Earth' here, not the Star Trek federation - especially since we know how well Tyranid already resist to bio-warfare in the first place.
That's actually untrue.
Tyranids can adapt to biological warfare. They're not immune to it.
You would have to feasibly have a delivery system for the biological weaponry that would render any further adaptions impossible. Poisoning the Spawning Pools, etc would work.
It's not just that they adapt, and he didn't say they were immune, he said they were resist. According to fluff, they lack several organs, possess several redundant ones, and instead of a digestive tract, most of the filler space inside their carapaces is filled with phage cells which usually EAT whatever foreign objects they encounter.
Irrelevant when we're talking about something like the "Life-Eater Virus". It kills whatever it comes into contact with, then boils off the corpse gases and uses it as a 'wick' that the orbiting Imperial forces can use to start a flamestorm consuming everything.
That is what the Tyranids would have to adapt to.
To put it in perspective, the Imperium isn't ill-adept at using biological warfare, they've invented world destroying viruses, sometimes in a few days time. THEY have a tough time devising biological weapons that successfully weaken or kill tyranids that don't also kill just about everything in their path. Considering how far advanced their medical technology is above us, it's fair to say to devise something even remotely close would take months. The most generous estimates here barely assume even month.
Again, untrue.
The reason the Imperium doesn't use biological warfare?
They don't want the Tyranids to be able to adapt themselves to it...while also incorporating that weapon into their new beasts.
If even a single Lictor, Genestealer, Gaunt, or Ripper survives the biological holocaust unleashed upon it and is later reabsorbed? The Hive Mind has a brand, spankin' new weapon that it is completely immune to but your troops are not.
That's the real, terrifying fact of the Tyranids, at its core.
They don't just kill you and take your homes. They break you down and use what distinctly made you you against your people on another world.
Irrelevant when we're talking about something like the "Life-Eater Virus". It kills whatever it comes into contact with, then boils off the corpse gases and uses it as a 'wick' that the orbiting Imperial forces can use to start a flamestorm consuming everything.
That is what the Tyranids would have to adapt to.
I brought up Imperium capability as a comparison to ours. Even we could devise a Life-Eater Virus, we'd have no way to us it without killing EVERYTHING...which is exactly what I said.
Again, untrue.
The reason the Imperium doesn't use biological warfare?
They don't want the Tyranids to be able to adapt themselves to it...while also incorporating that weapon into their new beasts.
If even a single Lictor, Genestealer, Gaunt, or Ripper survives the biological holocaust unleashed upon it and is later reabsorbed? The Hive Mind has a brand, spankin' new weapon that it is completely immune to but your troops are not.
That's the real, terrifying fact of the Tyranids, at its core.
They don't just kill you and take your homes. They break you down and use what distinctly made you you against your people on another world.
Actually, the imperium has attempted numerous times to devise biological ways to kill tyranids (and succeed once, one of the novels they use a one-time plague or something and murders the entire hive fleet). They've just been, for the most part, unsuccessful. The only thing they're holding back is the Life-eater virus.
Edit: actually, it might not have a been a novel, it's the battle of Tarsis Ultra, ironically, it was a lightly defended agri-world, that just so happened to have an Ultramarine company.
We wouldn't have time to develop bio weapons and whatnot, and even if we somehow developed, produced and deployed it the nids would be immune to it before it did any major damage.
Having more competent commanders than the guard or PDF doesn't mean much in a nid invasion since the only real way to fight them is to point all your guys at them and shoot and if they get there asses kicked with more men than us and lasguns (which are far superior to modern firearms) then we're screwed.
Also the stuff about rednecks getting their guns and fighting might work against other humans or eldar or mabey even orks but there is no way in hell a civilian would stand and fight if they saw a gaunt coming at them. They'd run from the scary monsters, I know I would.
Aren't Genestealers part of the Tyranid horde?
I seem to remember they used infiltration and manipulation tactics to soften up planets for forthcoming attack. Strange purple people in robes, and cults of the beast type-stuff?
If so, our defenses would be disabled from the inside, and our military nullified before the fleet was even properly detected.
So, time to extinction, hours, preceded by weeks or months of waiting for the fleet to arrive.
I'd say we don't have a chance. After all, if bolters can't penetrate their carapaces, what change does our guns have? Also, I reckon that tanks in 40k have more advanced armour than current real life tanks, yet genestealers punch through it.
In game terms, I'd say our tanks have AV of 8 or so. As for soldiers, they would be guardsmen in stats but guns would be something like S2 AP- And armor saves would be - or 6+ at best.
Anyways, in fluff a single space marine would be tougher than ten Rambos.. yet they can't stop the Tyranids alone
2 things strike me about the pro-human responses in this thread:
1. People have a lot, lot more faith in military commanders than my experience with them would lead me to believe is sensible. Something about superstitious, fear mongering, brainless etc. Sounds like humanity at its worse, 40k or not, so the militaries of the world are not immune to such sentiments. (Some of them even embody such ideals totally).
2. There is a huge over-estimation of our capability to organise and respond cohesively to such a threat. People on earth right now do not do things together quickly. Mobilising the entire armed forces of our planet against a single threat would require all the nations of the world to agree that there was indeed a significant threat in the first place. There is presently too much mistrust between the superpowers for them to put it all aside to act even nearly quickly enough. Talks of nukes in space is also improbable, as the resultant detonations would cripple all of our satellites. From then on we would have no way of aiming any of our other high powered weapons. Quack quack oops.
Coupled with a psychic barrage that would be incomprehensible to the contempary mind, I'm going to lean towards the "we're done for" argument.
The way I see it, we wouldn't make it to the end of the sentence 'Oh shi.....'
The only reason it would take more than a day or so to wipe out the entire planet would be because the 'nids still have to walk most of the way, and that could take a while...
dude0351 wrote:the tyranids also launch a psychic attack on the defenders so well see how billy bob does when he poops his pants from total fear, plus they devour all bio-mass from the planet so im sure they got ways of consuming oceans and what not so ships would probably be screwed eventually and apparently the whole process takes a month and the defenders are dead by around day 22 so i'd say were pwned lol
Except the entire population of Earth currently are psychic nulls. Now that I think about it, that might actually make them avoid us! Yay!
If they were to attack, we're all dead, but they're sure as hell not gonna get our biomass! Considering the amount of nuclear holocaust we can unleash there shouldn't be too much of a problem incinerating large swaths of the planet, we just need to realize that we're all going to die anyway and go into that "we're taking them with us!" mentality.
Irrelevant when we're talking about something like the "Life-Eater Virus". It kills whatever it comes into contact with, then boils off the corpse gases and uses it as a 'wick' that the orbiting Imperial forces can use to start a flamestorm consuming everything.
That is what the Tyranids would have to adapt to.
I brought up Imperium capability as a comparison to ours. Even we could devise a Life-Eater Virus, we'd have no way to us it without killing EVERYTHING...which is exactly what I said.
Again, untrue.
The reason the Imperium doesn't use biological warfare?
They don't want the Tyranids to be able to adapt themselves to it...while also incorporating that weapon into their new beasts.
If even a single Lictor, Genestealer, Gaunt, or Ripper survives the biological holocaust unleashed upon it and is later reabsorbed? The Hive Mind has a brand, spankin' new weapon that it is completely immune to but your troops are not.
That's the real, terrifying fact of the Tyranids, at its core.
They don't just kill you and take your homes. They break you down and use what distinctly made you you against your people on another world.
Actually, the imperium has attempted numerous times to devise biological ways to kill tyranids (and succeed once, one of the novels they use a one-time plague or something and murders the entire hive fleet). They've just been, for the most part, unsuccessful. The only thing they're holding back is the Life-eater virus.
Edit: actually, it might not have a been a novel, it's the battle of Tarsis Ultra, ironically, it was a lightly defended agri-world, that just so happened to have an Ultramarine company.
Tarsis Ultra was a semi-hive world.
There were some guard regiments and a Mortifactors company to help the Ultramarines.
The plague they used was genetically engineered to kill the Tyranids. In theory if the IoM did that every time they could begin to fight the Nids effectively... however we cannot.
If a full on attack came at us, like the one that hit Macragge.
Sure I think we all can agree that we are done for.
But when I think of these things I look at it on a much smaller scale, as if say the Nids somehow droping a a few 100.000 guys in some part of the world. Or even a few mill. Nids for that matter. Say some giant bio-ship crash lands in some part of the world.
Sure they would destroy much of the land and its people. And depending on where they made landing they may even kill the entire nation.
But look at how they make war once they invade.
Massed wave attacks,and lots of them. Yea they got some sneaky bits but...they just are not to smart in how they fight.
They would in the end get destroyed if not by nukes in the 1st few days<--and I think if one only take a few days for the 1st one to drop. And It prob would not take more then one, Then by our massed arms we can bring to the fight.
I do think the nids would be the worst army to fight as they are indeed monsters of nightmare.
Someone said that our weapons are week when compared to the ones the IPM use.
I just don't see it that way, the fluff of the 40k game does not ad up. Its just that--fluff. Or better said propaganda.
In 20 years of playing this game I have never seen a Space Marine live up to his hype.
Do you have any idea what a fully loaded B52 would do to ANY army from the 40k game. Or even a C130
With there massed formations and there WW1 tactics.
They just dont have the targeting systems to take these things out, yes I know they fight space battles and its darn hard to hit something in space, but once these armys make land fall they seem to lose all there uber space tech and revert back to a WW1 or even a Civil War status of fighting and that seems to go for the tech as well.
But thats just how I see in on a "small" scale invasion.
As said, I agree that if it was a big one or even a mid size one we would go down in the 1st few days.
But id go fighting with my redneck friends.
Leigen_Zero wrote:The way I see it, we wouldn't make it to the end of the sentence 'Oh shi.....'
The only reason it would take more than a day or so to wipe out the entire planet would be because the 'nids still have to walk most of the way, and that could take a while...
This
Our general population would freak, completely, even ignoring the psychic assault. We have no foundation to accept alien life forms with that kind of lethality. Even the Aliens and Predators are bipedal humanoids, and can be dealt with using current tech. Against something that would require main battle tank rounds to kill, outnumbers us 10,000 to 1, and is lethal in every possible way, we would be nothing more than food.
And don't put much faith in nukes, the Imperium uses weapons far more powerful than our nuclear arsenal on a daily basis. Look at the second battle for Macragge, they detonated a multi-mile-long promethium tanker in the middle of the hive fleet, and barely scratched it. They had to incinerate planets just to slow the Nids down!
Irrelevant when we're talking about something like the "Life-Eater Virus". It kills whatever it comes into contact with, then boils off the corpse gases and uses it as a 'wick' that the orbiting Imperial forces can use to start a flamestorm consuming everything.
That is what the Tyranids would have to adapt to.
I brought up Imperium capability as a comparison to ours. Even we could devise a Life-Eater Virus, we'd have no way to us it without killing EVERYTHING...which is exactly what I said.
Again, untrue.
The reason the Imperium doesn't use biological warfare?
They don't want the Tyranids to be able to adapt themselves to it...while also incorporating that weapon into their new beasts.
If even a single Lictor, Genestealer, Gaunt, or Ripper survives the biological holocaust unleashed upon it and is later reabsorbed? The Hive Mind has a brand, spankin' new weapon that it is completely immune to but your troops are not.
That's the real, terrifying fact of the Tyranids, at its core.
They don't just kill you and take your homes. They break you down and use what distinctly made you you against your people on another world.
Actually, the imperium has attempted numerous times to devise biological ways to kill tyranids (and succeed once, one of the novels they use a one-time plague or something and murders the entire hive fleet). They've just been, for the most part, unsuccessful. The only thing they're holding back is the Life-eater virus.
So basically, exactly what I said.
They have to engineer the biological weapon to exacting specifications just for that specific Hive Fleet.
Oh, and as a sidenote? Biological weapons are not used against Tyranids for the reasons I in the post you're "disagreeing" with. Kryptmann put down an Inquisitorial Mandate stating that if you're going to commit a world to Exterminatus, you're to use the standard weaponry such as Cyclonic Torpedos or Lance Barrages.
Biological weapons are withheld because they're usefulness pales in comparison to the potential danger from the Tyranids adapting those weapons into their own forms.
I'm pretty sure that we as a race wouldn't have the means of accurately detecting/identifying an Alien Invasion at this point in time anyway, especially something the size of a 'Nid Invasion.
Even if the military/NASA could, they'd withhold the information until it was too late.
Now not knowing much 'fluff' about the Tyranids I'm assuming they'd start off any planet fall with some sort of bio-weapon in order to turn the atmosphere to suit their breathing requirements? That alone would nuke a good part of us.
I'd say we'd last a week max at best. Probably not even that. They'd faceroll over our military efforts as we'd be too busy arguing about who was to lead the defence etc.
If all else fails I'd send up Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith in a UFO and see what they could do ^^.
With the Tyranids, they don't need to turn the atmosphere to suit their breathing requirements ala "Evolution".
They just adapt themselves to the environment. But, they do have some kind of genetic abnormality that flakes off their carapaces that makes it so the flora of a planet go into hyperactive growth.
So at best, we'd have the rain forests taking back all kinds of territory
AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Except the entire population of Earth currently are psychic nulls. Now that I think about it, that might actually make them avoid us! Yay!
This has no proof. A psychic null is not the same as a non-psyker. A null has zero warp signature, essentially soulless. It is is said that a null is as rare amongst psykers as psykers are amongst normals. Just because we can't use psyker abilities does not mean we are nulls.
Billinator wrote:Hours... Nothing more. Added nukes, tanks, and what anyone is able to think of, or imagine the world hasn't yet seen or can be invented.
The Tyranids invade planets by the billions. Alone their mycetic spores, gargoyles etc. is so vastly numerous, that is blocks out the sun.
The genestealers would have infiltrated the most powerful governments and they would be saying 'don't, worry it's all ok'. We'll open our arms to the coming race and embrace them like brothers.
We'll find out what monsters they are and it will be too late as the first Mycetic Spores fall from the skies, like a mothers tears, as we realise that we are all doomed ...
Billinator wrote:Hours... Nothing more. Added nukes, tanks, and what anyone is able to think of, or imagine the world hasn't yet seen or can be invented.
The Tyranids invade planets by the billions. Alone their mycetic spores, gargoyles etc. is so vastly numerous, that is blocks out the sun.
obsidianaura wrote:Everyone would have gone mad with the shadow in the warp .
Except no. As I've already pointed out the present population of Earth is psychic nulls. If anyone goes mad, it's the nids from the 6 or so billion nulls gathered on one planet.
obsidianaura wrote:Everyone would have gone mad with the shadow in the warp .
Except no. As I've already pointed out the present population of Earth is psychic nulls. If anyone goes mad, it's the nids from the 6 or so billion nulls gathered on one planet.
Either this or the Tyranids dont have psychic communication and need to rely on regular matter and physics (gravity drive etc would have to be possible)
or Tyranids realize that they cant exist in our universe and poof out of existence
obsidianaura wrote:Everyone would have gone mad with the shadow in the warp .
Except no. As I've already pointed out the present population of Earth is psychic nulls. If anyone goes mad, it's the nids from the 6 or so billion nulls gathered on one planet.
Big difference between psychic nulls and non-psykers. The majority of earth humans are quite obviously non-psykers, but likelihood of us all having the Pariah gene is quite low. Nothing in our collective evolutionary past would suggest that we've had a need for this mutation, especially not on a planet-wide scale.
On topic, less than 1% of the earth's population could be considered any sort of armed combatant. We have no planetary defenses, no large-scale fortifications except those predating the industrial revolution. Our advanced weaponry is at least as much psychological in nature as destructive, more developed for surgical strikes that minimize collateral damage than for wholesale carnage.
Our agriculture, industry, and population centers are all in the open, protected more by geography and advance detection systems and threat of retaliation than by actual weapons emplacements. Tyranids would literally be falling on our heads and running through the streets before we could mobilize any sort of response--a response that had no option of bottlenecking the enemy advance or forming definitive defensive lines.
In short, we would be fighting an army of elite paratroopers that outnumbers our population several to one and our combatants several hundred to one. The battlefields would be within our population centers, which have next to nothing in terms of strategic food reserves.
The ground war is unwinnable, our aircraft are largely useless against multitudinous hordes with unbreakable morale, and there's no option of assassination to force capitulation.
If Earth can't kill the vast majority of the tyranid fleet before it makes orbit, the fight is over. The main predictor for how long the battle takes to resolve itself is simply how much time it takens for several billion tyranids to eat several billion humans.
imo, the human race is much tougher than people believe. If it came to it, we would probably just nuke the skys.
Trouble is that many nukes=radiation
A lot of radiation doesnt do us much good. Either way if we used loads of nukes we would probably kill ourselves, BUT the hivefleet is organic, and nuclear weapons give off nuclear radiation (as mentioned earlier). When cells split to reproduce, which the hive fleet is doing all the time, they have deformaties, some developing cancer and other such nasties. So we could theoretically not so much fight them off, but kill the hive fleet, so it could never devour another world as the deformed cells would create more deformed cells and eventually the fleet wont be in such a healthy shape.
obsidianaura wrote:Everyone would have gone mad with the shadow in the warp .
Except no. As I've already pointed out the present population of Earth is psychic nulls. If anyone goes mad, it's the nids from the 6 or so billion nulls gathered on one planet.
Except no. As I've already pointed out non-psykers are not mean nulls. A null is soulless & has no warp presence. Nulls are also as rare amongst psykers as psykers are amongst normals. Just because the present population of the earth has shown no proof of an ability to manifest psyker-like powers does not mean we are nulls.
By your logic daemons should have no reason to attack the imperium as every non-psyker is a null. Which would disrupt them & cause physical harm.
obsidianaura wrote:Everyone would have gone mad with the shadow in the warp .
Except no. As I've already pointed out the present population of Earth is psychic nulls. If anyone goes mad, it's the nids from the 6 or so billion nulls gathered on one planet.
Except no. As I've already pointed out non-psykers are not mean nulls. A null is soulless & has no warp presence. Nulls are also as rare amongst psykers as psykers are amongst normals. Just because the present population of the earth has shown no proof of an ability to manifest psyker-like powers does not mean we are nulls.
By your logic daemons should have no reason to attack the imperium as every non-psyker is a null. Which would disrupt them & cause physical harm.
Except no we arnt the imperium or even in the 40k Universe...
So sorry but havent really seen any evidence to support the warp in our universe....
If your mean argument to 'us vs Tyrannids' is, "Tyrannids don't exist" (or any other variation of "This isn't 40k!"), then you're kinda missing the point of the thread
Also, if it helps any, in 2011 in the 40k Universe, they had no idea the warp existed either and psychers weren't around yet.
Did RibonFox just post pictures from Starship Troopers 3? Wow, And I was worried I was the only person who saw that movie. At least it was better than the 2nd one.
But I just can't see Humans winning a war against an Extraterrestrial Invasion force. Especially one that is always adapting. Humans try to to adapt but large groups of people and certain political groups fight change tooth and nail. Also consider the lack of one unifying government to mobilize and get all the forces working together. As long as the peoples of the earth are divided they would lose. And even a single cohesive well operated force would have a hard time.
And as for the radiation comment mentioned by Winnertakesall, space is filled with radiation blasted out from stars just doing their thing that is uninhibited by atmosphere and Ozone, so the 'Nids who are a space fairing race would most likely have no problem with radiation from a 'nuke of any kind. Humans however would have big problems.
As for a timeframe, I just don't see humans lasting very long.
Mattlov wrote:
Maybe in your next life some part of you could be something cool, like a Carnifex.
Made me laugh.
Remember, all you earth fanboys, Tyranids ate Macragge. MACRAGGE. And Macragge was defended by hundreds of Space Marines, with access to decent spaceships, unbelievably powerful weaponry, and some of the best military minds ever.
How well does earth stack up when compared?
I honestly don't see humanity getting it's collective gak together in time to save itself from a hypothetical Tyranid invasion.
IMO various factions would climb on their soapboxes as usual and debate over "solutions" until the carnifexes were battering down their doors.
sourclams wrote:The ground war is unwinnable, our aircraft are largely useless against multitudinous hordes with unbreakable morale, and there's no option of assassination to force capitulation.
sourclams wrote:The ground war is unwinnable, our aircraft are largely useless against multitudinous hordes with unbreakable morale, and there's no option of assassination to force capitulation.
1) Airfield would likely be overrun with Spore Pods by the time the order to react has been given.
2) Said B-52 would have to contend with Tyranid flying creatures (and there are big ones out there), though I'm not sure what altitude they are capable of reaching.
3) The damage to a continent spanning horde would be still be minimal.
we got batman and auto bots and Indiana Jones would use his Jesus whip and even though chuck Norris is gay at moment we still have the mighty steve siegul
2 and a half seconds. Sorry whats protecting us? Oh look a massive fleet! OMG THEY HAVE SHIPS WE ONLY HAVE AIRPLANES AND NAVAL VESSELS! NUKE IT NUKE IT!
There's no real chance at all to fight nids without the ability to attack them in space. By the time we finished checking if we actually have any ICBMs that can do that they'd have landed, and from there they'd eat *everything*, at best we could get them to wait until they finish siphoning off most of the atmosphere and we drop from that silly 'needs to breath' weakness.
Requia wrote:There's no real chance at all to fight nids without the ability to attack them in space. By the time we finished checking if we actually have any ICBMs that can do that they'd have landed, and from there they'd eat *everything*, at best we could get them to wait until they finish siphoning off most of the atmosphere and we drop from that silly 'needs to breath' weakness.
In the darksiders game, humanity survived against the forces of the apocalypse for like 50+ years so it stands to reason that the people will find ways to live, at least for a few years, while the tyranids are around.
obsidianaura wrote:Everyone would have gone mad with the shadow in the warp .
Except no. As I've already pointed out the present population of Earth is psychic nulls. If anyone goes mad, it's the nids from the 6 or so billion nulls gathered on one planet.
Except no. As I've already pointed out non-psykers are not mean nulls. A null is soulless & has no warp presence. Nulls are also as rare amongst psykers as psykers are amongst normals. Just because the present population of the earth has shown no proof of an ability to manifest psyker-like powers does not mean we are nulls.
By your logic daemons should have no reason to attack the imperium as every non-psyker is a null. Which would disrupt them & cause physical harm.
Damn, right you are, I stand corrected. I could have sworn that I saw it mentioned somewhere though :S.
winnertakesall wrote:imo, the human race is much tougher than people believe. If it came to it, we would probably just nuke the skys.
Trouble is that many nukes=radiation
A lot of radiation doesnt do us much good. Either way if we used loads of nukes we would probably kill ourselves, BUT the hivefleet is organic, and nuclear weapons give off nuclear radiation (as mentioned earlier). When cells split to reproduce, which the hive fleet is doing all the time, they have deformaties, some developing cancer and other such nasties. So we could theoretically not so much fight them off, but kill the hive fleet, so it could never devour another world as the deformed cells would create more deformed cells and eventually the fleet wont be in such a healthy shape.
This is well intentioned, but ignores some other biological requirements for tyranid to exist, namely that if they were able to reproduce as fast, regenerate and so on, their ability to repair damaged DNA would far outstrip our ability to cause such damage. Increasing the speed at which DNA is replicated increases the risk of it doing so with deletions, insertions and other such errors that cause mutations. Most organisms that reproduce their DNA rapidly have very effective error removing systems. That the 'nids have this ability in spades is a given, otherwise they simply would not be able to create so many, repair themselves etc without turning into a gibbering mess of organic matter.
So no, nuclear detonations, whislt directly damaging because of heat, kinetic effect etc, would not cause the tyranids any lasting harm, as their supremely enhanced biology would remove the mutations that might result in the nasties like cancer that you mentioned.
ivangterrace wrote:In the darksiders game, humanity survived against the forces of the apocalypse for like 50+ years so it stands to reason that the people will find ways to live, at least for a few years, while the tyranids are around.
Problem being that Tyranids remove the atmosphere in most cases of planetary consumption. Your average bunker wouldn't last long, even with a supply of food there wouldn't be oxygen to ensure the survival. Although underground facilities much like on Tallarn (if they were suitably large, green and well protected) could possibly survive longer, unless the Tyranids somehow got wind of it and sent burrowing bioweapons such as Trygons. The question is do we have those kind of facilities?
Nids probably cannot develope immunity to nukes due to the way nukes do their damage on the atomic level. Changing your genetics does gak when your genetics are still made up of atoms which are all being excited to radicals at a rapid rate.
The leman russ battle tank in all honesty is technologically inferior to most tanks today. And most nations tanks are not their highest tech fighting forces. Save the power source being nuclear.
1 tyranid specimen alive or dead would allow for generation of biological weapons within a working day of initial study.
Also when nations backs are to the wall things happen. Global communication does exist on many levels both space, air, and groundborne. Much of the communication technology is wireless and relatively short ranged so the hive fleet wouldnt be able to recognize its existence until they were basically in orbit of our planet.
We cut off germanies oil supply and they were running all of their tanks and what not on ethanol within a week.
Nukes, ICBMS, etc do not have to always be fired at ground target. Most nations that have nuclear powers can fire nuke into space. We also are not including hydrogen bombs, chemical warheads, and neutron bombs. Of which the only one the nids could adapt to would be possible chemical.
And unlike 40k the pathway to launching a nuclear weapon is a lot easier for any nation that has them compared to the 40k universe.
I doubt the world would last under sustained efforts from any hive fleet, but even though we haven't colonised other planets it is worth noting in many ways our offensive technology is superior to that of the imperium, and I believe people who think we wouldnt last a day or even a week are not really aware of the full firepower our world has and what would happen when the leaders of the world begin to decide that without unleashing everything we have we are doomed.
blaktoof wrote:1 tyranid specimen alive or dead would allow for generation of biological weapons within a working day of initial study.
That I simply don't believe .
blaktoof wrote:Also when nations backs are to the wall things happen. Global communication does exist on many levels both space, air, and groundborne. Much of the communication technology is wireless and relatively short ranged so the hive fleet wouldnt be able to recognize its existence until they were basically in orbit of our planet.
The genestealer cult infiltration would have gathered all of the relevant data on this. Our satellite in orbit are pretty much defenseless and would be taken out easily by the Hive Fleet, which in and out of itself pretty much screw any global communication. And it's not like the cults just disapear after this, they can sabotage, assassinate or even already be in control of several military asset before and during the invasion.
Secondly, the Tyrannids are intelligent. Any grounds troops or bio-plasma bombardment would first target communication arrays and high population center (nom nom) making it difficult to find and coordinate on targets and making said target filled with civilians. Bombers aren't so awesome when your target are engaged in ground fights with your troop on your airfield.
Global com would go down first, followed by local com... and at some point, you'll end up with a base full of missile and no idea of the city 2 states over is under attack or not... so what do you, just launch everything and hope for the best?
Nukes, ICBMS, etc do not have to always be fired at ground target. Most nations that have nuclear powers can fire nuke into space. We also are not including hydrogen bombs, chemical warheads, and neutron bombs. Of which the only one the nids could adapt to would be possible chemical.
And unlike 40k the pathway to launching a nuclear weapon is a lot easier for any nation that has them compared to the 40k universe.
Space missiles? Based on what? Were those missiles ever tested? Do we have any proof that we can actually hit a 'live target' with it?
Do they have any way to deal with a krakens (or any 'smaller' bio ship) slamming into it before it even gets close to the hive ship? I'm not even sure bio-ship would be needed for the task to be honest, just send Harpies or Gargoyles or spore mines... Or heck, just getting shot out of space?
And would you actually be able get target coordinates without our satellite network?
I doubt the world would last under sustained efforts from any hive fleet, but even though we haven't colonised other planets it is worth noting in many ways our offensive technology is superior to that of the imperium, and I believe people who think we wouldnt last a day or even a week are not really aware of the full firepower our world has and what would happen when the leaders of the world begin to decide that without unleashing everything we have we are doomed.
Firepower is meaningless if it can't be directed properly.
I just had a fun image in my had of Tyranids descending upon the whole earth, nukes plopping up in the sky everywhere, falling down again, then the whole shebang is gone
Seriously, not long. Like others have said, most of humanity would be gone in less than a day. Isolated pockets of resistance would probably exist for longer, but still not very long...perhaps a week if they are extremely well-hidden and very, VERY good at survival.
I'm not all that well-versed in the finer arts of Tyranid invasions, do they attack the whole planet at once or do they have a "starting point" and spread outwards?
Ratius wrote:Or Hariden snacks on said plane for lunch.
Nah, this is pure rubbish. I really hate how GW created an airforce for nids. Fine they have some kind of 60 tonnes flying monster. The point is that Harridan are only dangerous at close quarters. Their bio cannons have a very limited range and they can't attack flying objects with their scything talons. Now tell me how a harridan can do anything against a B52 flying at a speed of 925 km/h, and I'm not even mentionning modern jet-fighters. A harridan would get a phoenix missile in the face before even detecting the ennemy plane.
However, I didn't think about our ground crew being nom-nommed by hordes of gaunts... if this happens, well, let's just say we got it in deep...
obsidianaura wrote:Everyone would have gone mad with the shadow in the warp .
Except no. As I've already pointed out the present population of Earth is psychic nulls. If anyone goes mad, it's the nids from the 6 or so billion nulls gathered on one planet.
Except no. As I've already pointed out non-psykers are not mean nulls. A null is soulless & has no warp presence. Nulls are also as rare amongst psykers as psykers are amongst normals. Just because the present population of the earth has shown no proof of an ability to manifest psyker-like powers does not mean we are nulls.
By your logic daemons should have no reason to attack the imperium as every non-psyker is a null. Which would disrupt them & cause physical harm.
Except no we arnt the imperium or even in the 40k Universe...
So sorry but havent really seen any evidence to support the warp in our universe....
This one made me laugh.
A lot.
So we're not in the Imperium, or the 40K universe, BUT we are facing a nid invasion, and the fact that we're all psychic blankss will have some sort of effect?
I say a few hours, sheer force of numbers will weigh us down given that only a certain percentage of Earth's total population possess weaponry capable of holding off the enemies assaulting them.
Then account for the fact that the ENTIRE world is under attack at any given time, many choking to death on lethal spores. Then factor in that a certain percentage of the world's population consists of children who cannot fight. Once again, one must also remember that there will be very few areas where the force can actually be resisted, as the entirety of Earth's population will not be fighting together on the same front.
So, I give us a few hours if the Tyranids have decided to use outriders to collapse our government systems using Genestealers and tainting the population pools.
obsidianaura wrote:Everyone would have gone mad with the shadow in the warp .
Except no. As I've already pointed out the present population of Earth is psychic nulls. If anyone goes mad, it's the nids from the 6 or so billion nulls gathered on one planet.
Except no. As I've already pointed out non-psykers are not mean nulls. A null is soulless & has no warp presence. Nulls are also as rare amongst psykers as psykers are amongst normals. Just because the present population of the earth has shown no proof of an ability to manifest psyker-like powers does not mean we are nulls.
By your logic daemons should have no reason to attack the imperium as every non-psyker is a null. Which would disrupt them & cause physical harm.
Except no we arnt the imperium or even in the 40k Universe...
So sorry but havent really seen any evidence to support the warp in our universe....
This one made me laugh.
A lot.
So we're not in the Imperium, or the 40K universe, BUT we are facing a nid invasion, and the fact that we're all psychic blankss will have some sort of effect?
No. the original quote was talking about how humans would be affected by "shadow in the warp". And yes currently i believe we are not in the 40k universe or imperium so i was under the assumption that the nids would have to come in under our universe....
That so many people keep restating the same arguments on here, over and over without listening to the overwhelming evidence being put up against them is becoming a tad frustrating.
Re-stating that we could develop bioweapons based on nid cells in anything less than a week is science fiction, not fact. Culturing, growing and testing any strain of micro-organisms takes time. We do not have the tech to accelerate this yet.
Secondly, nids land on a variety of planets, all with their own microfauna. If they weren't capable of shrugging off the diseases a planet had to offer , every fleet would come down with the sniffles and never conquer anything.
Lastly, for those who keep ignoring all of the sensible responses, all the firepower on earth means nothing if you can't aim it or know where to send it. No satellites means no gps and no precision anything. Laser designation is fine assuming you've got someone alive on the surface to point it at the target. With the hive mind gibbering in your ear that's a big if.
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