This question has been bothering me for so long that I actually went out and bought Shield of Baal: Leviathan just to look up the lore on Aeros. Now that I finally have it let's discuss.
p.88
"Dhrost's metadossiers detailed several incidents of bio-fleets assailing Imperial gas giants. Each time they left nothing but a smattering of barren debris in their wake. The Tyranid race would devour anything, not just flesh and bone, in its constant quest to multiply and consume."
Is this saying Tyranids have consumed multiple Gas Giants? So it's pretty much official that Tyranids nom Gas Giants? Or am I misinterpreting this?
Rest of the stuff on Aeros is talking about the actual battle, and at the end of this supplement it says Aeros transformed into a planet-sized miasma of poison filled to the brim with spores, both microscopic to enormous.
roboemperor wrote:This question has been bothering me for so long that I actually went out and bought Shield of Baal: Leviathan just to look up the lore on Aeros. Now that I finally have it let's discuss.
p.88
"Dhrost's metadossiers detailed several incidents of bio-fleets assailing Imperial gas giants. Each time they left nothing but a smattering of barren debris in their wake. The Tyranid race would devour anything, not just flesh and bone, in its constant quest to multiply and consume."
Is this saying Tyranids have consumed multiple Gas Giants? So it's pretty much official that Tyranids nom Gas Giants? Or am I misinterpreting this?
Rest of the stuff on Aeros is talking about the actual battle, and at the end of this supplement it says Aeros transformed into a planet-sized miasma of poison filled to the brim with spores, both microscopic to enormous.
NinthMusketeer wrote:We know Tyranids consume the atmosphere of regular planets, it makes sense they could siphon off gas giants if they so chose.
It technically makes more sense to consume gas giants than biomass, because all the C, O, H, N you need is in higher quantities in the giants than the thin smear of life on rocks.
The only reason tyranids would ever need to consume life forms is the harvesting of new genomes to further the evolution of the swarm.
you could have some fun with swarms that lost their norn queens, stuck in the last bioforms they were spawned with, just instinctively consuming gas planets forever like benign browsing animals. With no drive to consume new genes, they would only consume what they needed to keep living.
The concept seems rather suspect. If nids could eat Gas Giants, why the heck do they eat anything else? Gas Giants have far more mass to consume than any solid planet. Mass that would be far easier to access than breaking down actual animals.
alextroy wrote: The concept seems rather suspect. If nids could eat Gas Giants, why the heck do they eat anything else? Gas Giants have far more mass to consume than any solid planet. Mass that would be far easier to access than breaking down actual animals.
Possibly the same reason humans need to eat more than just a quantity of calories. Maybe a Hive Fleet that eats only gas giants would get space-scurvy.
alextroy wrote: The concept seems rather suspect. If nids could eat Gas Giants, why the heck do they eat anything else? Gas Giants have far more mass to consume than any solid planet. Mass that would be far easier to access than breaking down actual animals.
As i stated above, they eat lifeforms to extract their genes and evolve their species. Tyranids are a space faring eugenics ecosystem. They don't 'invent' new genes, they just recombine existing ones and augment themselves with ones they find.
If they evolved due to their surroundings, then they'd generate mutations and those would be selected by surviving the environment and propagating in the next generation. Instead the norn queens recombine genes and spawn new bioforms based on their conscious exposure to new environments and the deaths they cause and they do this in realtime rather than the generations evolution normally occurs over.
alextroy wrote: The concept seems rather suspect. If nids could eat Gas Giants, why the heck do they eat anything else? Gas Giants have far more mass to consume than any solid planet. Mass that would be far easier to access than breaking down actual animals.
They could easily use the various elements to power, pressurize their ships or do space magic to make the ships go. They have ships enough to blot out the sky, so no real end to what they'd need various atmospheric gases for.
Giving a swarm of locusts gestalt sentience and genetic editing still doesn't teach it the merits of sustainable farming. Which is to say looking at is as 'why don't the Tyranids just do X' is somewhat missing the point; viewed from a rational free-thinking standpoint the whole idea of devouring planets is nonsensical in the first place. But we have no real indication, and many to the contrary, that Tyranids operate on that level of thought at all.
So the quote I put in the 1st post, it's undeniably saying that the Tyranids completely nommed multiple Imperial Gas Giants? For sure?
NinthMusketeer wrote: Giving a swarm of locusts gestalt sentience and genetic editing still doesn't teach it the merits of sustainable farming. Which is to say looking at is as 'why don't the Tyranids just do X' is somewhat missing the point; viewed from a rational free-thinking standpoint the whole idea of devouring planets is nonsensical in the first place. But we have no real indication, and many to the contrary, that Tyranids operate on that level of thought at all.
There is no point in "farming". Farming is the act of turning indigestible things like grass, soil, and sunlight into something digestible like vegetables and beef. But since Tyranids are able to consume grass, soil, and even metals and rocks directly, they don't need to farm anything.
Tyranids are not just grazing through the Galaxy, they are clearly making specific inroads and invading. They attack planets and strip them of life and resources not just to fuel their own hives, but also to deny those worlds to any opposing faction. Just look at how their Hive Fleets make specific strikes, often aiming for home worlds of Space Marine chapters with the biggest.
Tyranids are clearly conduction not just a harvesting of resources, but a war of resource denial. Every Hive Fleet that strikes and devours multiple worlds denies that world to the Imperium, Eldar and almost any other faction. Sure you can reconlonise some of those worlds and get at what minerals are perhaps left. After intensive resources are spent burning off any last vestiges of remaining Tyranid organisms; then building huge habitats and also shipping vast amounts of air to keep those habitats alive. You could even terraform; but again you've got to transport vast resources to the world to allow it to happen
And if you're doing all that to just get one world back online it means all those resources aren't going into other ventures like building more tanks to combat the swarm.
Tyranids do more than just feed; the intelligence behind them is alien and has objectives that we've never understood (because most of our understanding is based on observation guesswork by Imperial studies)
Well, perhaps we can reasonably infer that’s their main goal. They’re excellent sources of raw materials, yes?
But, when something of that mass suddenly no longer exists, it’d likely cause havoc in solar systems due to missing mass and the affect upon orbits.
Maybe in their home Galaxy, they first started to develop weapon beasts as a defence against those that would attack them, in an effort to spare the local Gas Giants.
From there, the tactic was developed to consumer intelligent life first, allowing them to eat the Gas Giants in peace?
I've long held the view that Tyranids are likely coming in several waves. What we have right now is either the tendrils of exploratory invasion fleets or the bulk of the invasion (which doesn't mean the bulk of Tyranids, there might be many more attacking other galaxies). The idea being that this wave sweeps through destroying other life. Consuming it to gain their generic adaptations, but at the same time also pacifying the Galaxy so that its "cleansed" of any threat. Following that the Tyrainds would have no opposition able to threaten or stop them. At which point you can bring in big feeding ships. Ships designed purely to feed on all the galaxy has to offer. Suns, nebual, gas giants, asteroids, planets. Consume it all when they don't have to then waste energy and materials building armies. Just feed and feed and then once it is all gone they can move on to the next galaxy. Heck it might well be that the attacking fleets will leave early to ready the next for the approaching swarm.
It would be a neat twist if Tyranids had underestimated the Milky Way and were taking longer to pacify and suddenly their feeding fleets arrive. Essential to their survival, but less well defended and not built for war. Fleets that the Imperium and other forces, could strike against and cause real harm to the Hive.
roboemperor wrote: So the quote I put in the 1st post, it's undeniably saying that the Tyranids completely nommed multiple Imperial Gas Giants? For sure?
NinthMusketeer wrote: Giving a swarm of locusts gestalt sentience and genetic editing still doesn't teach it the merits of sustainable farming. Which is to say looking at is as 'why don't the Tyranids just do X' is somewhat missing the point; viewed from a rational free-thinking standpoint the whole idea of devouring planets is nonsensical in the first place. But we have no real indication, and many to the contrary, that Tyranids operate on that level of thought at all.
There is no point in "farming". Farming is the act of turning indigestible things like grass, soil, and sunlight into something digestible like vegetables and beef. But since Tyranids are able to consume grass, soil, and even metals and rocks directly, they don't need to farm anything.
That... isn't what farming is. Farming is about making your food supply local, and as efficient and predictable as possible, rather than ranging over miles and miles foraging and gathering (and hoping food will be out there). Foraging has a very high energy cost, and a low return. Farming is also, very importantly, repeatable. And with time, experience and technology, you can get significantly better at the return of your time and energy investment.
Long term, the tyranid 'food' strategy means death. Even the worst farming techniques (that strip the soil of nutrients) allow people to return decades later. Tyranids have no such recourse.
I've long held the view that Tyranids are likely coming in several waves. What we have right now is either the tendrils of exploratory invasion fleets or the bulk of the invasion (which doesn't mean the bulk of Tyranids, there might be many more attacking other galaxies). The idea being that this wave sweeps through destroying other life. Consuming it to gain their generic adaptations, but at the same time also pacifying the Galaxy so that its "cleansed" of any threat. Following that the Tyrainds would have no opposition able to threaten or stop them. At which point you can bring in big feeding ships. Ships designed purely to feed on all the galaxy has to offer. Suns, nebual, gas giants, asteroids, planets. Consume it all when they don't have to then waste energy and materials building armies. Just feed and feed and then once it is all gone they can move on to the next galaxy. Heck it might well be that the attacking fleets will leave early to ready the next for the approaching swarm.
It would be a neat twist if Tyranids had underestimated the Milky Way and were taking longer to pacify and suddenly their feeding fleets arrive. Essential to their survival, but less well defended and not built for war. Fleets that the Imperium and other forces, could strike against and cause real harm to the Hive.
I like that a lot. It makes a lot of sense too considering that the situation in the Milky Way is weird when you look at it as a whole. Soooooo much war.
Voss wrote: That... isn't what farming is. Farming is about making your food supply local, and as efficient and predictable as possible, rather than ranging over miles and miles foraging and gathering (and hoping food will be out there). Foraging has a very high energy cost, and a low return. Farming is also, very importantly, repeatable. And with time, experience and technology, you can get significantly better at the return of your time and energy investment.
Long term, the tyranid 'food' strategy means death. Even the worst farming techniques (that strip the soil of nutrients) allow people to return decades later. Tyranids have no such recourse.
And with more technology you can turn the very soil the crops grow on and the very air livestock breath into food directly without engaging in farming. Which means there's no point in wasting time and energy growing crops.
You seem to think that farming is indefinite and infinite. It's not. It's actually quite an inefficient cycle wasting way too much energy in each iteration and the cycle continues solely by receiving more energy from the sun. In the end, the whole "farming" system is just recycling matter on earth to turn sunlight into kinetic energy like a really inefficient solar panel.
Tyranids have the right of it. Turn everything into more Tyranid flesh. Because to them eating Tyranid flesh is more efficient than eating soil, or using sunlight to grow crops on the soil and then eating the crops. And they will only starve when the stars die out too because Tyranids should be capable of creating super efficient lifeforms that can subsist solely off of sunlight being the impossible bio-tech species they are.
roboemperor wrote: So the quote I put in the 1st post, it's undeniably saying that the Tyranids completely nommed multiple Imperial Gas Giants? For sure?
NinthMusketeer wrote: Giving a swarm of locusts gestalt sentience and genetic editing still doesn't teach it the merits of sustainable farming. Which is to say looking at is as 'why don't the Tyranids just do X' is somewhat missing the point; viewed from a rational free-thinking standpoint the whole idea of devouring planets is nonsensical in the first place. But we have no real indication, and many to the contrary, that Tyranids operate on that level of thought at all.
There is no point in "farming". Farming is the act of turning indigestible things like grass, soil, and sunlight into something digestible like vegetables and beef. But since Tyranids are able to consume grass, soil, and even metals and rocks directly, they don't need to farm anything.
That... isn't what farming is. Farming is about making your food supply local, and as efficient and predictable as possible, rather than ranging over miles and miles foraging and gathering (and hoping food will be out there). Foraging has a very high energy cost, and a low return. Farming is also, very importantly, repeatable. And with time, experience and technology, you can get significantly better at the return of your time and energy investment.
Long term, the tyranid 'food' strategy means death. Even the worst farming techniques (that strip the soil of nutrients) allow people to return decades later. Tyranids have no such recourse.
If they weren’t extra galactic, I’d agree with you.
But, with Tyranids we know beyond shadow of a doubt they can comfortably cross the vast distances between galaxies. So total consumption is not in itself a death sentence for the Hive Mind.
Rather, it can possibly and crudely be compared to us driving from town to town, clearing out buffets as we go. To many species, we can cross ridiculous distances in search of food, even just on foot, so it matters less to us whether we scoff everything in a limited area, as we can simply move on to the next.
Tyranids are akin to conducting slash and burn strategies for food harvesting. Just on a universal scale. If the universe if inifinte and they can cross the gulf between galaxies then it doesn't matter if they eat mostly if not totally everything - there's another galaxy out there for them.
Voss wrote: That... isn't what farming is. Farming is about making your food supply local, and as efficient and predictable as possible, rather than ranging over miles and miles foraging and gathering (and hoping food will be out there). Foraging has a very high energy cost, and a low return. Farming is also, very importantly, repeatable. And with time, experience and technology, you can get significantly better at the return of your time and energy investment.
Long term, the tyranid 'food' strategy means death. Even the worst farming techniques (that strip the soil of nutrients) allow people to return decades later. Tyranids have no such recourse.
And with more technology you can turn the very soil the crops grow on and the very air livestock breath into food directly without engaging in farming. Which means there's no point in wasting time and energy growing crops.
You seem to think that farming is indefinite and infinite. It's not. It's actually quite an inefficient cycle wasting way too much energy in each iteration and the cycle continues solely by receiving more energy from the sun. In the end, the whole "farming" system is just recycling matter on earth to turn sunlight into kinetic energy like a really inefficient solar panel.
Yeah, magic fantasy 'science' nonsense doesn't enter into it. Neither does infinity. At some point the suspension of disbelief gets kicked in the head 'til its dead.
The point is, the tyranid pattern is a destructive foraging pattern. They'd be a lot more effective with 'nest' systems and a farming pattern supplemented by 'hunting', and it would be far more narratively interesting if they actually had a stake in the galaxy rather than just an unstoppable, unending wave of nonsense.
Tyranids have the right of it. Turn everything into more Tyranid flesh. Because to them eating Tyranid flesh is more efficient than eating soil, or using sunlight to grow crops on the soil and then eating the crops. And they will only starve when the stars die out too because Tyranids should be capable of creating super efficient lifeforms that can subsist solely off of sunlight being the impossible bio-tech species they are.
Except, of course, they don't do that. They go into stasis on at least the extra-galactic trips. I'm not particularly sure there's much to suggest they eat each other, or that they're 'eating' soil and rocks rather than using it for ship resources.
Voss wrote: They'd be a lot more effective with 'nest' systems and a farming pattern supplemented by 'hunting', and it would be far more narratively interesting if they actually had a stake in the galaxy rather than just an unstoppable, unending wave of nonsense.
The hunting model doesn't work here because unlike humans, Tyranids can eat everything. Us Humans gotta make sure we don't hunt things to extinction because if the things we eat go extinct, we die of starvation, and the grass and other stuff our prey ate become the sole survivors.
I don't think using any living creature model is a good idea with Tyranids. I like to thing of them as machines except with organics. Like if we had a killer robot species, they'd turn 100% of matter into space constructs be it space stations, battleships, etc. and just move on to planet to planet until 100% of matter is part of their ring worlds or dyson spheres. Tyranids are the same. They turn as much matter into Tyranid flesh. Not 100% because they can't eat bedrock for some reason.
So imo, farming, hunting, foraging, etc. models don't work with Tyranids because those models require indigestible things made digestible through a "middle species".
Voss wrote: They'd be a lot more effective with 'nest' systems and a farming pattern supplemented by 'hunting', and it would be far more narratively interesting if they actually had a stake in the galaxy rather than just an unstoppable, unending wave of nonsense.
The hunting model doesn't work here because unlike humans, Tyranids can eat everything. Us Humans gotta make sure we don't hunt things to extinction because if the things we eat go extinct, we die of starvation, and the grass and other stuff our prey ate become the sole survivors.
I don't think using any living creature model is a good idea with Tyranids. I like to thing of them as machines except with organics. Like if we had a killer robot species, they'd turn 100% of matter into space constructs be it space stations, battleships, etc. and just move on to planet to planet until 100% of matter is part of their ring worlds or dyson spheres. Tyranids are the same. They turn as much matter into Tyranid flesh. Not 100% because they can't eat bedrock for some reason.
So imo, farming, hunting, foraging, etc. models don't work with Tyranids because those models require indigestible things made digestible through a "middle species".
Correction, the gargantuan moon-sized planet eaters that do eat bedrock and everything else just haven’t arrived yet. Leviathan is a Lictor, just wait for the galactic scale Haruapex
Voss wrote: The point is, the tyranid pattern is a destructive foraging pattern. They'd be a lot more effective with 'nest' systems and a farming pattern supplemented by 'hunting', and it would be far more narratively interesting if they actually had a stake in the galaxy rather than just an unstoppable, unending wave of nonsense.
I disagree that they would be more interesting, I think they would be less interesting and the setting would be less for it. By being a massive alien force that does not care they fill an antagonist role in the 40k setting that is difficult to fill otherwise, and they do it with remarkably plausible motivations.
I've long held the view that Tyranids are likely coming in several waves. What we have right now is either the tendrils of exploratory invasion fleets or the bulk of the invasion (which doesn't mean the bulk of Tyranids, there might be many more attacking other galaxies). The idea being that this wave sweeps through destroying other life. Consuming it to gain their generic adaptations, but at the same time also pacifying the Galaxy so that its "cleansed" of any threat. Following that the Tyrainds would have no opposition able to threaten or stop them. At which point you can bring in big feeding ships. Ships designed purely to feed on all the galaxy has to offer. Suns, nebual, gas giants, asteroids, planets. Consume it all when they don't have to then waste energy and materials building armies. Just feed and feed and then once it is all gone they can move on to the next galaxy. Heck it might well be that the attacking fleets will leave early to ready the next for the approaching swarm.
It would be a neat twist if Tyranids had underestimated the Milky Way and were taking longer to pacify and suddenly their feeding fleets arrive. Essential to their survival, but less well defended and not built for war. Fleets that the Imperium and other forces, could strike against and cause real harm to the Hive.
Interesting, also for how it would put a time frame on the Tyranids. The effects of such feeding would be visible to the Milky Way; gravitational changes altering orbits, dimming stars, etc. It takes a certain amount of time for the light from one galaxy to reach another and Tyranids have FTL, so it is possible but puts an exact timeframe on when any such consumption occurred.
Patriarch Phyrx wrote: Correction, the gargantuan moon-sized planet eaters that do eat bedrock and everything else just haven’t arrived yet. Leviathan is a Lictor, just wait for the galactic scale Haruapex
Until GW makes this official I will be forever tormented for wanting it.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I disagree that they would be more interesting, I think they would be less interesting and the setting would be less for it. By being a massive alien force that does not care they fill an antagonist role in the 40k setting that is difficult to fill otherwise, and they do it with remarkably plausible motivations.
I agree. Despite prefering robots over bugs, I can't stop myself from coming back to Tyranids over and over and over because of what they do, how they do it, and because they're the only ones in the setting doing it. Which is convert all matter and energy into Tyranid flesh, and using that flesh to create pure weaponized monsters and absolutely nothing else. So saying they should act like every other faction in the setting and just settle down and farm is something I heavily disagree with. If anything it would make them significantly more boring instead of interesting.
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Not sure there are planet eating gribblies, as there’s evidence this isn’t the first time the Nids have eaten the Galaxy?
It’s said in the Cawl novel that some biological life survives, albeit on a microbial level. Given time, evolution will do its thing, and a new ecosystem will become established (albeit potentially radically different to what came before).
It could well be that eating the bedrock and core of planets is simply too much effort for the rewards they yield.
Look at scavenger creatures on land. Often, the bones will be cracked for the tasty marrow, but not otherwise consumed. So it may be with the Tyranids, with the effort of getting to the molten core all habitable planets presumably have simply being more than the nutritional gain from devouring them.
Especially when you can just consume a Gas Giant with far more ease.
Everything the Tyranids do is arguably driven by that pitiless calculation of reward vs cost. That's why I dislike that whole stuff about the Hive Mind having some sort of vendetta against the Blood Angels.
Lack of sufficient reward explains multiple Tyranid behaviors, such as why they avoid Necron tomb worlds on dead worlds. Tyranids can and have overwhelmed Necron tombs on worlds that have active biospheres, but they stay clear of dead worlds because there would be little return in both biomass and genetic material for the effort expended. Similarly, the Tyranids stop at bedrock because at some point the Hive Mind has concluded that beyond that point it would be more efficient to go look for a different target.
The Tyranids seem content to pick off the weak and vulnerable worlds because those offer most reward for the least effort. Though they may target highly defended worlds from time to time, such as Gryphonne IV, for every high value world a far higher number of no-name worlds are attacked and devoured. The Tyranids seem to accept losing the battle for a big world here and there while quietly winning 9 other lower profile worlds elsewhere. That is how the splinter fleets of Kraken regrew despite Kraken's defeat at Ichar IV.
As for why the Tyranids preferentially target life bearing worlds: The Tyranids have 2 needs.
1. Biomass
2. Genetic material
Life bearing worlds meet both needs, while inorganic sources of CHNOPS don't. The other reason life bearing worlds may be targeted and stripped bare is time. It may be quicker to strip a world that has biomass than making your own biomass from inorganic sources. If one could consume 10 worlds of biomass in the time to make the equivalent of 1 world's worth of biomass yourself from inorganic sources, then stripping bare would be favored.
It's the same reason why predation exists in the first place as opposed to all life synthesizing their own stuff like plants. When you eat another creature, you get far more organic material in an easily utilized format already whereas synthesizing it yourself is slow by comparison.
The Hive Mind may also make general exceptions when facing Necrons.
After all, even the most basic of Necron weapons leave nothing behind. Gauss literally disintegrates the target.
Tyranids can probably break down even living metal and Necrodermis to its constituent elements. But when the foe erase your weapon beasts from existence, and most of their fallen teleport away elsewhere (not always back to the world’s tomb complex, as it depends)? Risk is high, reward is low.
And as you noted? There’s no Necrontyr genetic material to harvest.
They can evolve plasma resistance carapace (Codex Tau, I think, where Fire Warriors adopted Kroot Rifles when the Hive Mind developed carapace resistant to Pulse weapons, which are plasma based). But Gauss? How do you stop a weapon where the base function is strip an object away, atom by atom?
You could pack in more atoms, but I’m fairly sure that leads to greater density, and thus weight. There has to be a tipping point between protectyness and actually being able to scuttle about freely, no?
After all, even the most basic of Necron weapons leave nothing behind. Gauss literally disintegrates the target.
Tyranids can probably break down even living metal and Necrodermis to its constituent elements. But when the foe erase your weapon beasts from existence, and most of their fallen teleport away elsewhere (not always back to the world’s tomb complex, as it depends)? Risk is high, reward is low.
And as you noted? There’s no Necrontyr genetic material to harvest.
They can evolve plasma resistance carapace (Codex Tau, I think, where Fire Warriors adopted Kroot Rifles when the Hive Mind developed carapace resistant to Pulse weapons, which are plasma based). But Gauss? How do you stop a weapon where the base function is strip an object away, atom by atom?
You could pack in more atoms, but I’m fairly sure that leads to greater density, and thus weight. There has to be a tipping point between protectyness and actually being able to scuttle about freely, no?
Gauss weapons strip off layer by layer. That is why armor still has some protective effect in game terms. A single gauss weapon hit may strip off a bit of armor but doesn't get to anything vital. So thicker Tyranid carapaces could provide some degree of protection, but there is the trade-off of more resources needed per creature. Same thing goes for making Tyranids with warp fields as protection.
Note that even when the Tyranids evolved resistance to pulse weaponry in Hive Fleet Gorgon, it wasn't a total immunity. I see it as more of a grand scale resistance. So maybe 1 in 6 Termagants might need a 2nd pulse shot before it dies, but that means the total number of Termagant casualties in the warzone has been reduced by 16% (or the Tau have to expend 16% more pulse ammunition). That's the kind of resistance I see the Tyranids dealing with, rather than trying to make any species immune. I think that would again be the Hive Mind making a calculation of how much is "good enough" and then manufacturing that creature in enormous numbers.
Iracundus wrote: Note that even when the Tyranids evolved resistance to pulse weaponry in Hive Fleet Gorgon, it wasn't a total immunity. I see it as more of a grand scale resistance. So maybe 1 in 6 Termagants might need a 2nd pulse shot before it days, but that means the total number of Termagant casualties in the warzone has been reduced by 16% (or the Tau have to expend 16% more pulse ammunition). That's the kind of resistance I see the Tyranids dealing with, rather than trying to make any species immune. I think that would again be the Hive Mind making a calculation of how much is "good enough" and then manufacturing that creature in enormous numbers.
20%, actually.
If you avoid 16% of casualties, then the Tau would need 20% more ammo. Same thing with a 6+ FNP providing 20% extra wounds.
Edit: Which is not to say the thrust of your argument is invalid! I'm just nitpicking details.
Though when it comes to Gauss, my Head Canon has always been that it’s a continuous beam, rather than pulses of energy.
Now I’m not 100% sure where that comes from. It may be the original Necron background. It may be my mate and I doing Mars Attack noises when his Necrons shot up my Dark Angels! Could be something in between!
Though when it comes to Gauss, my Head Canon has always been that it’s a continuous beam, rather than pulses of energy.
Now I’m not 100% sure where that comes from. It may be the original Necron background. It may be my mate and I doing Mars Attack noises when his Necrons shot up my Dark Angels! Could be something in between!
Even if a beam, a successful armor save can mean the beam only stayed on the target for a short period of time, not enough to inflict significant damage.
Iracundus wrote: Everything the Tyranids do is arguably driven by that pitiless calculation of reward vs cost. That's why I dislike that whole stuff about the Hive Mind having some sort of vendetta against the Blood Angels.
Lack of sufficient reward explains multiple Tyranid behaviors, such as why they avoid Necron tomb worlds on dead worlds. Tyranids can and have overwhelmed Necron tombs on worlds that have active biospheres, but they stay clear of dead worlds because there would be little return in both biomass and genetic material for the effort expended. Similarly, the Tyranids stop at bedrock because at some point the Hive Mind has concluded that beyond that point it would be more efficient to go look for a different target.
The Tyranids seem content to pick off the weak and vulnerable worlds because those offer most reward for the least effort. Though they may target highly defended worlds from time to time, such as Gryphonne IV, for every high value world a far higher number of no-name worlds are attacked and devoured. The Tyranids seem to accept losing the battle for a big world here and there while quietly winning 9 other lower profile worlds elsewhere. That is how the splinter fleets of Kraken regrew despite Kraken's defeat at Ichar IV.
As for why the Tyranids preferentially target life bearing worlds: The Tyranids have 2 needs.
1. Biomass
2. Genetic material
Life bearing worlds meet both needs, while inorganic sources of CHNOPS don't. The other reason life bearing worlds may be targeted and stripped bare is time. It may be quicker to strip a world that has biomass than making your own biomass from inorganic sources. If one could consume 10 worlds of biomass in the time to make the equivalent of 1 world's worth of biomass yourself from inorganic sources, then stripping bare would be favored.
It's the same reason why predation exists in the first place as opposed to all life synthesizing their own stuff like plants. When you eat another creature, you get far more organic material in an easily utilized format already whereas synthesizing it yourself is slow by comparison.
One of the books outright says Tyranids are eating less and less of the planet's mass and targetting Admech installations for refined metals. They eat less because either they're afraid and running, or they like eating humans more than rocks so they're going for the delicious humans first.
My "issues" with Tyranids will be satisfied if they can digest 100% of a planet but don't do it for other reasons. And my "issues" with Tyranids will worsen to the point I might lose all interest in the species if it turns out they are incapable of eating bedrock and such which multiple video games allude to.
Gladius says Tyranids trapped on a planet ate everything down to bedrock, but then stopped there and just endlessly get killed and re-killed by the planet over and over with less biomass each time.
Gladius says Tyranids can't eat Necron metal.
Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 has planets labeled "indigestible"
There's a lot of organic molecules in the atmosphere of a gas giant.
All you have to do is harvest them. A lot of them are easier to break down that full lifeforms.
It's an all-you-can-eat buffet.
They already consume the atmospheres of habitable planets, anyway. So it's not like it's something they can't do. Gas giants will give them more reaction mass, more complex organic chains from the habitable planets more grist for the gribbly mills.
That only meets the 1st need of the Tyranids, that of biomass. It doesn't meet their 2nd need for genetic material. That's not to say they won't do it, but they wouldn't consume them exclusively.
Tyranids are also clearly intent on destroying viable targets.
You say they've two objectives - harvest biomass and genetic material. However I'd argue they have three.
The third is pacification. Tyranids are not just after genetic material, they are clearly aiming to target the military and economic powers of the Galaxy. Why charge head long for a Space Marine homeworld when there are thousands of easier to hit targets, some with way more biomass and genetic material. It's not just that the swarm is hungry and lusting for genetic data.
The swarm is clearly intentionally targeting specific locations in an effort to weaken key power players within the galaxy. Avoiding Tomb worlds might be because they've observed that Necrons, if left alone, tend to stay mostly inactive.The logical train of thought then is to ignore them where at all possible and focus on building up forces on other worlds. Leave the Necron for later, especially as the Necron don't appear to reproduce very much at this stage (from what I recall). Necron's can't/aren't expanding their forces, so they are a finite target that, if left alone, is not a bother. Tyranids can skirt around them and focus on other targets and come back and deal with the Necrons later. I think this is one other thing where the Silent King has realised its happening. That if he's not careful and doesn't unite the Necron forces into a united front, the Tyranids will simple overrun other worlds and beat the Necrons through sheer weight of numbers. Having also then evolved to a superior point by harvesting genetic data from much of the galaxy as well.
It's the same reason we see Tyranids adapting and perhaps even building a huge planet to push out a huge Shadow in the Warp to drive back the demons. Of all the current factions Tyranids might actually be one currently capable and with the drive and resources to try and close some of the Chaos Rifts. Necrons have held them at bay before; Eldar might be able but lack resources; Imperium is a technological mess; Tau are still coming to terms with how big the Galaxy is and how the Imperium really DOES cover most of it and Demons are really a thing etc... Even if they could research technologies, they are far too few and in the wrong place.
Overread wrote: Tyranids are also clearly intent on destroying viable targets.
You say they've two objectives - harvest biomass and genetic material. However I'd argue they have three.
The third is pacification. Tyranids are not just after genetic material, they are clearly aiming to target the military and economic powers of the Galaxy. Why charge head long for a Space Marine homeworld when there are thousands of easier to hit targets, some with way more biomass and genetic material. It's not just that the swarm is hungry and lusting for genetic data.
The swarm is clearly intentionally targeting specific locations in an effort to weaken key power players within the galaxy. Avoiding Tomb worlds might be because they've observed that Necrons, if left alone, tend to stay mostly inactive.The logical train of thought then is to ignore them where at all possible and focus on building up forces on other worlds. Leave the Necron for later, especially as the Necron don't appear to reproduce very much at this stage (from what I recall). Necron's can't/aren't expanding their forces, so they are a finite target that, if left alone, is not a bother. Tyranids can skirt around them and focus on other targets and come back and deal with the Necrons later. I think this is one other thing where the Silent King has realised its happening. That if he's not careful and doesn't unite the Necron forces into a united front, the Tyranids will simple overrun other worlds and beat the Necrons through sheer weight of numbers. Having also then evolved to a superior point by harvesting genetic data from much of the galaxy as well.
It's the same reason we see Tyranids adapting and perhaps even building a huge planet to push out a huge Shadow in the Warp to drive back the demons. Of all the current factions Tyranids might actually be one currently capable and with the drive and resources to try and close some of the Chaos Rifts. Necrons have held them at bay before; Eldar might be able but lack resources; Imperium is a technological mess; Tau are still coming to terms with how big the Galaxy is and how the Imperium really DOES cover most of it and Demons are really a thing etc... Even if they could research technologies, they are far too few and in the wrong place.
That 3rd goal I would agree is there, but it is to still ultimately serve the other goals. The Tyranids according to their Codex now view daemons as other predators targeting the same prey as the Tyranids, and thus Hive Fleet Kronos is part of a strategy against them. Their targeting of heavily defended worlds like Gryphonne IV and space marine worlds can be viewed the same way, as surely the Hive Mind now understands these worlds are the sources of reinforcements to weaker worlds, and therefore a pre-emptive attack on them on the Tyranids' terms and timetable would be better.
Aye it serves the other two, but the other two also serve each other. Feeding the hunger allows for harvesting of more genetic material and vis versa.
However each one as a focus on its own brings its own distinctive elements to the table. As noted the Tyranids could feed on gas giants and likely "dead" worlds and feed its hunger that way. However such an approach might not produce genetic material; and it won't weaken many of the other races who also don't use those worlds.
Thus each of the three, both reinforces each other, but also serves to bring its own key requirements to the actions of the Tyranids.
This is, of course, ignoring any further motivations from elements of the Swarm outside of the Galaxy that we've yet (or might never) see. Such as my whale theory in that big juicy gas giants are being left for vast feeding space shipbeasts to come once the galaxy is "tamed and safe". Much like a moving herd - what we have now are the wolves; what follows are the cattle.
The main thing about nids seems to be a drive to destroy all other life. They seem to be hyperpredatory. Many predators kill what they need to survive, killing is a means to an, end, namely survival.The nids seem to make killing all other life an end unto itself. Maybe they ignore gas giants with no native life because there's nothing to kill in them.
They are eliminating potential threats, the 'why' is only for us to speculate. It may be that there is no why anymore; in their original form they were a swarm of organisms that ate and targeted threats so it could survive in its home ecosystem. Just like an ant colony or the like. But they over adapted, became an 'invasive species' in their home galaxy, eliminating all competition and eating everything. But that ant colony is still going to eat and eliminate threats, because that is what it does. Nothing about the Hive Mind's intelligence suggests it even has the capacity to consider existence outside of that.
Which is to say I feel the consumption is not the means to an end, it is the end in itself. Which would make the Tyranids all the more horrifying; they do not even have a secret motive or plan or goal. They devour worlds because that is what they do, with no more malice or motive than an asteroid striking a space station.
I think of Tyranids more as a sentient ecosystem thats driven to absorb other ecosystems. Like, if every living thing on our world, from viruses to whales, was part of the same consciousness, and was hell bent on absorbing every other living thing to make more of itself.
Ok, so according to the internet
4% of matter in the galaxy is stars
12% of matter in the galaxy is gas
0% of matter is non-gas like asteroids, rocks, etc.
84% of matter is darkmatter which is not proven to exist, just accepted.
The earth's crust makes up less than 1% of mass of the entire planet. Since bedrock is not that deep Tyranids consume much less than 1% of mass of a planet.
So it is accurate to say that Tyranids that don't consume gas giants consume around 0% of mass of the entire galaxy
That is pathetic.
But with the Shield of Baal: Leviathan's lore, we now know that Tyranids consume 12% of matter in the galaxy. And if we assume dark matter doesn't exist, this figure jumps up to 66.7% of the galaxy.
But still, being only able to consume less than 1% of a planet's mass is pathetic. And no mention about stars.
So I really hope that GW does eventually release lore that says Tyranids make bio-dyson spheres or some other way to consume stars, and a giant planet eating tyranid hive ship exists to eat more than 0.1% of a planet's mass.
Insectum7 wrote: ^That seems like an arbitrary metric, considering that the ability to re-convert all life in the galaxy into one giant organism is already monumental.
Is it though? A planet's crust is less than 1% of the planet. How much of that is organic life? Non-gas or stars make up 0% of the galaxy. And how many of non-gas or stars have organic life on them?
I don't think it's monumental for a millions year old race. Maybe for a 40,000 year old race but not billions.
The human race is around 300,000 years old and we're nowhere near that
We also don't know how old the Tyranids are. Although we know they're extra galactic, which is more than any othe 40k faction has achieved, apoarently. Being 'pathetic' for not being able to convert every atom into part of a living, sentient thing seems like a pretty high bar.
One of the books outright says Tyranids are eating less and less of the planet's mass and targetting Admech installations for refined metals. They eat less because either they're afraid and running, or they like eating humans more than rocks so they're going for the delicious humans first.
A lot of the questions in this thread should be answered by this quote.
From "The devastation of Baal"
Spoiler:
"They take even the metal,’ said Erwin.
The Servile of the Watch looked up from his podium over the augur pits, where baseline humans less fortunate than he laboured in unbreakable communion with the ship, their eyes and ears removed and sensory cortexes plugged directly into the auspectoria’s cogitators.
‘They take minerals of every kind, my lord,’ said the servile. ‘I have compared spectrographic analysis of this world with records of how it was. It shows massive depletion of all main range elements. The devourer remakes the worlds it consumes. Although I notice a small inconsistency with the oldest records of tyrannic-stripped worlds.’
‘Small enough for me to ignore?’ asked Erwin. The Servile of the Watch was an earnest fellow, genuinely fascinated with his work. He had been known to bore his masters with unnecessary detail.
The servile pulled a neutral expression, making his slave tattoos shift across his face, a sense of motion exaggerated by the low light of the command deck. The Servile of the Watch was unusually expressive for one of his breed. ‘Whether it is relevant or not I shall leave to your deep percipience, my lord.’
Erwin grunted. ‘Edify me then.’
‘The older worlds show a larger loss of mass. The tyranids spent longer on each, digesting parts of the planetary crust. They do not remain so long as they once did. Once the biological components of the world have been devoured, they target only sources of refined metals, such as the Mechanicus station here, in preference to the source minerals.’
‘Then they are running scared, feeding, moving on before they can be interrupted,’ said Erwin. ‘Commander Dante has them afraid.’
‘Or, my lord, they are presented with a surfeit of food. They have nothing to fear. They have too much choice. The Imperium is a banquet to them. They have become fussy eates"
Fussy and fast. Tyranids aren't grazing they are conducting a war in a hostile environment. Nibbling the choicest bits here and there as they go makes more sense than digging in and getting locked down. Mobility is a powerful and effective tool in war.
If Tyranids can keep moving fast and attacking world after world it hinders attempts to stop them because the front line keeps moving. If they are also seeding worlds ahead of them with Genestealer Cults then that will speed such disruption and destabilisation of the enemy.
Do the nids not realize that if they consume everything and keep growing they will destroy all accessible ood sources and eventually die of starvation?
Matt Swain wrote: Do the nids not realize that if they consume everything and keep growing they will destroy all accessible ood sources and eventually die of starvation?
Does a locust swarm realize the same thing?
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roboemperor wrote: Ok, so according to the internet
4% of matter in the galaxy is stars
12% of matter in the galaxy is gas
0% of matter is non-gas like asteroids, rocks, etc.
84% of matter is darkmatter which is not proven to exist, just accepted.
The earth's crust makes up less than 1% of mass of the entire planet. Since bedrock is not that deep Tyranids consume much less than 1% of mass of a planet.
So it is accurate to say that Tyranids that don't consume gas giants consume around 0% of mass of the entire galaxy
That is pathetic.
But with the Shield of Baal: Leviathan's lore, we now know that Tyranids consume 12% of matter in the galaxy. And if we assume dark matter doesn't exist, this figure jumps up to 66.7% of the galaxy.
But still, being only able to consume less than 1% of a planet's mass is pathetic. And no mention about stars.
So I really hope that GW does eventually release lore that says Tyranids make bio-dyson spheres or some other way to consume stars, and a giant planet eating tyranid hive ship exists to eat more than 0.1% of a planet's mass.
Uhm, the Tyranids aren't trying to consume as much matter as possible. Saying they are pathetic based on a metric that is coincidental does not make any sense.
Matt Swain wrote: Do the nids not realize that if they consume everything and keep growing they will destroy all accessible ood sources and eventually die of starvation?
Tyranid Universe Theory - in the beginning was the great belly that consumed all till there was nothing. Then it exploded.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Uhm, the Tyranids aren't trying to consume as much matter as possible. Saying they are pathetic based on a metric that is coincidental does not make any sense.
If it's because it's not their goal then you're right, they're not pathetic. Because they can but don't.
If it's because they are incapable then no, you're wrong. they're pathetic. Because they can't even if they wanted to.
Matt Swain wrote: Do the nids not realize that if they consume everything and keep growing they will destroy all accessible ood sources and eventually die of starvation?
All life still comes from stars and nebulae, so starvation only really happens after the universe has produced it's last star, which is pretty close to the end of everything else. A bunch of dead matter and the Tyranid macro-organism in that case.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Uhm, the Tyranids aren't trying to consume as much matter as possible. Saying they are pathetic based on a metric that is coincidental does not make any sense.
If it's because it's not their goal then you're right, they're not pathetic. Because they can but don't.
If it's because they are incapable then no, you're wrong. they're pathetic. Because they can't even if they wanted to.
Necrons can do it (crypteks can transmute any matter into any matter). Which means eventually, like within a million years, Tau and Chaos can do it. IoM can too if they stop being ******** and advance tech.
Necrons and Tyranids are supposed to be at the end of their technological prowess right? They can't make anything better. So one can utilize 100% of matter (necrons have dyson spheres. ask Trazyn), the other can only utilize 0% of matter. Well, with Gas giants I get its bumped up to 75% of matter.
I don't know. That's how I feel. One race can utilize trees, rocks, and lava. The other can only use trees. Can't help but think one is intelligent and the other is a dumb brute.
^Conversely, the Hive Mind is a consciousness that might span galaxies. There's an argument to be made that that's more advanced than any other faction could be, rock-eating (which they appear to be able to do) aside.
Necrons can do it (crypteks can transmute any matter into any matter). Which means eventually, like within a million years, Tau and Chaos can do it. IoM can too if they stop being ******** and advance tech.
Necrons and Tyranids are supposed to be at the end of their technological prowess right? They can't make anything better. So one can utilize 100% of matter (necrons have dyson spheres. ask Trazyn), the other can only utilize 0% of matter. Well, with Gas giants I get its bumped up to 75% of matter.
I don't know. That's how I feel. One race can utilize trees, rocks, and lava. The other can only use trees. Can't help but think one is intelligent and the other is a dumb brute.
Someone could use trees and rocks to make a stone weapon, another can use trees to make a 3-story mansion complete with furniture and paintings on parchment. By your logic, the first is more advanced.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Someone could use trees and rocks to make a stone weapon, another can use trees to make a 3-story mansion complete with furniture and paintings on parchment. By your logic, the first is more advanced.
Except we're not talking about a stone weapon. We're talking about a stone castle vs a wooden castle. Necron tech beats Tyranid tech in every way. Living Metal > Tyranid Flesh. We can't compare Necron production speed with Tyranid production speed because afaik Necron production speed is never mentioned other than their scarabs.
Necrons got world engines, Aether orbs, Dyson spheres, Magnovitrum or whatever that blows up gas giants, Celestial Orrey. Tyranids need to wait until GW advances the plot in the next decade for a real non-scouting hive fleet to arrive.
roboemperor wrote: Necrons and Tyranids are supposed to be at the end of their technological prowess right? They can't make anything better.
No. The tyranids are constantly improving existing designs, and coming up with entirely new ones. One could take the maleceptor as an example.
From 8th edition:
"The Maleceptor is the purest embodiment of the Hive Mind’s psychic power, a living vessel for the gestalt consciousness that rules the Tyranid race. As it advances ominously into battle, warp energy spears from its eyeless cranium, vapourising all in its path. Those fortunate enough to survive the monster’s keening psychic screams are spitted upon colossal talons, their torn bodies hurled aside. Bullets and energy bolts fired at the Maleceptor are consumed by a formidable psychic barrier, or deflect harmlessly from its thickly armoured hide. In response, ethereal pseudopods reach forth from the creature’s glistening brain-arrays. The merest brush from one of these psychic tendrils overloads the victim’s consciousness with a fraction of the Hive Mind’s unimaginable energies, detonating their skull in an eruption of blood and cerebral matter.
Maleceptors are the response of the Hive Mind to some of the more psychically gifted races that populate the galaxy"
So one can utilize 100% of matter (necrons have dyson spheres. ask Trazyn), the other can only utilize 0% of matter. Well, with Gas giants I get its bumped up to 75% of matter.
Yet, if the necrons are to have a chance of beating the tyranids, their enitre race will have to reunite.. So, does that mean that the necrons are pathetic?
I doubt GW changes Nids Lore much. I'm pretty sue they enjoy debates like this. And they're probably meant to be this unknowable ever-present threat that might end the galaxy. Woop de doo da.
Personally I find the Nids boring. They're like one of those novelty sliding graphic pens....interesting for a couple of minutes, but once the girl's bikini slides off a few times you're kind of done with it. There's just not that much to talk about. They're not very interesting.
Cooler than Tau though. Lamest species in the Lore.
Whilst I get the dislike for the evolution of the Necron lore I think that its actually not a bad direction. If anything they've brought more interesting ways to use the Necrons by making them more than just mindless terminator robots. Sure there's a level of fear in a mindless machine that hunts to kill and nothing more; however we still have that. Most of the warriors, Immortals and lower ranks are all very much the mindless machine with a will to kill life.
It's the upper ranks that have the more diverse personality. They provide a driving force that gives direction and story to the underlings beyond a repeat pattern of mindless war and random awakening of tomb worlds. It gives structure.
I thought so too, but GW is incredibly protective of their IP. Like really, really, reaaaaaallly protective of their IP. They blew up their deal with Blizzard because of lore issues. So it's safe to say GW fully controls the lore of WH40k video games. Even if it's not canon, if it's not true it doesn't make it into video games. And Gladius and BFGA2 both say Tyranids can't digest beyond bedrock. At least with what they have in the galaxy right now.
Still hoping for planet and star eater tyranids.
Andersp90 wrote: No. The tyranids are constantly improving existing designs, and coming up with entirely new ones. One could take the maleceptor as an example.
From 8th edition:
"The Maleceptor is the purest embodiment of the Hive Mind’s psychic power, a living vessel for the gestalt consciousness that rules the Tyranid race. As it advances ominously into battle, warp energy spears from its eyeless cranium, vapourising all in its path. Those fortunate enough to survive the monster’s keening psychic screams are spitted upon colossal talons, their torn bodies hurled aside. Bullets and energy bolts fired at the Maleceptor are consumed by a formidable psychic barrier, or deflect harmlessly from its thickly armoured hide. In response, ethereal pseudopods reach forth from the creature’s glistening brain-arrays. The merest brush from one of these psychic tendrils overloads the victim’s consciousness with a fraction of the Hive Mind’s unimaginable energies, detonating their skull in an eruption of blood and cerebral matter.
Maleceptors are the response of the Hive Mind to some of the more psychically gifted races that populate the galaxy"
That's engineering not science. Discovery of integrated circuits in silicon is science. Using that to create every electronic thing in the modern world is engineering. In other words the Tyrant Guard and Maleceptor is the Hive Mind using their tech in a different way to make different units. They didn't invent anything new.
They're a millions year old race that consumed multiple galaxies. If they haven't consumed all the planets in those multiple galaxies then it's safe to say their tech path can't do that. But we don't know that yet. Planet Eater Tyranids are still a possibility.
Andersp90 wrote: Yet, if the necrons are to have a chance of beating the tyranids, their enitre race will have to reunite.. So, does that mean that the necrons are pathetic?
No. Pathetic means helpless. Tau aren't helpless because they're making technological leaps that could one day let them surpass tyranids despite their inferior number. Necrons surpass Tau in both tech and numbers. In fact they're as numerous as IoM. Necrons are probably the strongest faction in the setting right now.
If Tyranids cannot consume anything below bedrock, then they're "pathetic" because if push comes to shove, they can't improve and suddenly start eating bedrock. If they can't that is. Still though, Gas giants are 75% of non-darkmatter matter.
Tyranids being unable to leave a planet in gladius, and tyranid shipyards in BFG2, are just two examples of stuff that are at odds with the codex lore..
No. Pathetic means helpless.
So the tyranids are helpless. Gotcha.
roboemperor wrote: Necrons surpass Tau in both tech and numbers. In fact they're as numerous as IoM.
Where is that stated?
Insectum7 wrote: That's great. In order for a species to be 'not pathetic' it has to eat rocks.
Yeah that's reeeeeaaaaally flimsy. They can easily be stuck on a planet like anyone else and it's very reasonable that someone refers to a place dedicated to the growth of new hive ships as a shipyard.
Tyranids being unable to leave a planet in gladius, and tyranid shipyards in BFG2, are just two examples of stuff that are at odds with the codex lore..
They can't leave gladius because gladius is a sentient planet thing with a warp storm that keeps the tyranids trapped. It's pretty clear that the warp storm is preventing the tyranids from leaving and that if it weren't for the warp storm the Tyranids would leave. Which means they can make hive ships on the ground.
I'd remind people that Tyranids built space elevators - capillary towers - to move resources into space. They don't have to be able to build ships on the ground; just infest the ground itself and grow the towers. Once the towers are grown the resources can be moved up into space where a ship can grow fat on the end with the delivery of resources from below.
I agree. Capillary towers and Anphelion project is enough to say that Tyranids can adapt to anything and can build whatever they want from a ripper or a gaunt as long as there's biomass available.
pm713 wrote: Okay and do these new ships appear fully formed and ready to go?
So it doesn't contradict anything then. It's an alternative not a replacement.
It doesn't make a whole lot of sense though. You have to build "shipyards" in the systems you have already conquered, meaning that your new ships then have to travel to wherever the fleet has moved to. It would also mean that the fleet would then have to travel back to a system with a shipyard with new biomass to create new ships. It makes no sense for a nomadic species to do any of this. But it saved the devs of BFG2 some money to not create a new mechanic just for the nids.
They can't leave gladius because gladius is a sentient planet thing with a warp storm that keeps the tyranids trapped. It's pretty clear that the warp storm is preventing the tyranids from leaving and that if it weren't for the warp storm the Tyranids would leave. Which means they can make hive ships on the ground.
One of the codices. Too lazy to look it up again. exact quote was "as numerous as they are".
When you read the 8th edition codex, you get the sense that time has been rough on the necrons, and I would guess that there are about as many necrons left, as there are humans on a small hive world.
I don't think it's arbitrary. But then this is fiction so maybe using real-life stuff is arbitrary.
If Imperium of Man and Tyranids are both given a planet, IoM will have a fleet of starships almost equal to the planet's mass, Tyranids will have a fleet of hiveships equal to about 0.5% of the planet's mass.
~100% v.s. 0.5%. How can you think that's not pathetic?
But, there still exists the possibility of planet eater tyranids.
I don't think it's arbitrary. But then this is fiction so maybe using real-life stuff is arbitrary.
If Imperium of Man and Tyranids are both given a planet, IoM will have a fleet of starships almost equal to the planet's mass, Tyranids will have a fleet of hiveships equal to about 0.5% of the planet's mass.
~100% v.s. 0.5%. How can you think that's not pathetic?
But, there still exists the possibility of planet eater tyranids.
Your logic isn't supported by the lore to begin with though..
roboemperor wrote: "They're a millions year old race that consumed multiple galaxies. If they haven't consumed all the planets in those multiple galaxies then it's safe to say their tech path can't do that. But we don't know that yet. Planet Eater Tyranids are still a possibility."
We dont know if the tyranid race is millions of years old, nor do we know if they have consumed multiple galaxies - or if they have even consumed A galaxy.
You also assume that the tyranids have reached a technological "peak", again, based on "facts" not supported by the lore.
Not making sense isn't a great argument in 40k. The existence of necrons doesn't make sense, the Horus Heresy doesn't make sense, the Custodes don't make sense and...well have you seen what Orks do?
Nid shipyards are well within possibility and actually make sense in some situations.
I don't think it's arbitrary. But then this is fiction so maybe using real-life stuff is arbitrary.
If Imperium of Man and Tyranids are both given a planet, IoM will have a fleet of starships almost equal to the planet's mass, Tyranids will have a fleet of hiveships equal to about 0.5% of the planet's mass.
~100% v.s. 0.5%. How can you think that's not pathetic?
The IOM doesn't convert a planet to materiel at anywhere near 100% efficiency.
Or look at it another way, no other faction converts all organic molecules to ITSELF. 100% of organic molecules become 100% owned by the hive mind. People still grow food from plants. Heck, people aren't even the same conscious entity, but lots of different entities that grow old and die. The Hive Mind is functionally immortal, simply seeking out more of the components it can use to grow itself. The Tyranid endgame is: The universe is some dead rocks, and everything else is itself. Perhaps from it's perspective it is the finite-lived, puny other races that are pathetic. Who cares if they can make a big dead spaceships, their spaceships aren't part of a higher, pan-galactic being.
Nid shipyards are well within possibility and actually make sense in some situations.
Yes, if all hive ships have been lost, and the tyranid force is left stranded (which is excatly what happened in the octarius war). In all other situations? No.
Nid shipyards are well within possibility and actually make sense in some situations.
Yes, if all hive ships have been lost, and the tyranid force is left stranded (which is excatly what happent in the octarius war). In all other situations? No.
Fleet is far away from other fleets and needs more ships and there are forces coming in to where they are. Grow a shipyard by sending lots of biomass etc to an isolated nearby system with a star for some energy production. Bam long term Tyranid problem with a shipyard.
Nid shipyards are well within possibility and actually make sense in some situations.
Yes, if all hive ships have been lost, and the tyranid force is left stranded (which is excatly what happent in the octarius war). In all other situations? No.
Fleet is far away from other fleets and needs more ships and there are forces coming in to where they are. Grow a shipyard by sending lots of biomass etc to an isolated nearby system with a star for some energy production. Bam long term Tyranid problem with a shipyard.
Why waste time and biomass building a shipyard when the hive ships can just give birth to new ships on the spot? Also, tyranid interstellar travel is slow compared to warp travel, so going back an forth between systems dosent make a whole lot of sense.
Nid shipyards are well within possibility and actually make sense in some situations.
Yes, if all hive ships have been lost, and the tyranid force is left stranded (which is excatly what happent in the octarius war). In all other situations? No.
Fleet is far away from other fleets and needs more ships and there are forces coming in to where they are. Grow a shipyard by sending lots of biomass etc to an isolated nearby system with a star for some energy production. Bam long term Tyranid problem with a shipyard.
Why waste time and biomass building a shipyard when the hive ships can just give birth to new ships on the spot? Also, tyranid interstellar travel is slow compared to warp travel, so going back an forth between systems dosent make a whole lot of sense.
Because they'll die the second someone else gets there and shoots them? It would be much safer to grow baby ships far away from the nasty ships that kill them.
Again much of 40k doesn't make sense. Besides they're going back once and sending a stream of new tyranids in that scenario. Hardly back and forth.
pm713 wrote: Okay and do these new ships appear fully formed and ready to go?
So it doesn't contradict anything then. It's an alternative not a replacement.
Per BFG rules, immature hive ships are hypothesized to be first Drone then Cruiser size, and only reach Hive ship size once their Hive Mind nodes mature.
Of course that is AdMech hypothesis so they may be wrong. It also doesn't say how long it takes to mature or whether the Hive Mind can accelerate the process.
Insectum7 wrote: The IOM doesn't convert a planet to materiel at anywhere near 100% efficiency.
Aren't Forge Worlds doing stuff like that? Endlessly mining to the planet's core to utilize 100% of the planet?
Even 50% or 25% efficiency is higher than 0.5%
Whatever, lets switch to Necrons who have anti-matter and matter transmutation abilities. Anti-matter to power their stuff, their stuff turns matter into necrodermis, repeat repeat repeat.
Insectum7 wrote: Or look at it another way, no other faction converts all organic molecules to ITSELF. 100% of organic molecules become 100% owned by the hive mind. People still grow food from plants. Heck, people aren't even the same conscious entity, but lots of different entities that grow old and die. The Hive Mind is functionally immortal, simply seeking out more of the components it can use to grow itself. The Tyranid endgame is: The universe is some dead rocks, and everything else is itself. Perhaps from it's perspective it is the finite-lived, puny other races that are pathetic. Who cares if they can make a big dead spaceships, their spaceships aren't part of a higher, pan-galactic being.
I guess I'm just disappointed that it's not 100% of matter and only organic molecules.
Why can't Tyranids use anti-matter? If they could then they can use 100% of matter. Necrons use it.
Why can't Tyranids conduct Nuclear Transmutation? Just split the atoms into smaller atoms (gases) and they can use all of that. High radiation applied to atoms makes them split. So just apply energy and atoms split.
It seems any big celestial object is pure gas, like gas giants and stars. So why can't Tyranids shove planets into each other to create a gas giant for consumption.
Or better yet push the planet into a sun and form a bio-dyson-sphere around it with hive ships.
side tangent:
I love Tyranids. In an earlier thread I chose Tau to be my race for wh40k but here I am after months coming back to Tyranids again as I always have. So Tyranids are my true love. No matter what I don't like about it, I keep coming back to it.
A large part of my issues with them has been resolved over time.
This gas giant quote from Devastation of Baal jumped their confirmed usable-matter from 0% to 75%.
I love Warriors, Carnifexes, and Hive Tyrants, and neutral to Tyrannofexes. I hate Hierophant. I hate how they look. And I also hate the hive ships. But I absolutely love Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2's Hive Ships. I asked over there if those designs are canon, and the posters there replied that Hive Ships can look however they want, and GW doesn't release "incorrect lore" in their video games so those Hive Ship designs are canon. And since Hive Ships are the "ultimate Tyranid lifeform" because they're the biggest and the strongest Tyranid unit in the game, I'm fine with not liking Hierophant because Hierophants aren't the ultimate Tyranid Unit, Hive Ships are.
But this being able to only use 0.5% of matter of a terrestrial planet is gonna forever haunt/bother me until GW finds a way to overcome that. Either with planet eating Tyranids, or that lack of consumption is because of a goal/expediency thing and not an incapability thing, or they intentionally keep these planets as Narwhal target points.
^My response would be that we really don't know how 'deep' Tyranid tech goes. We see organisms that are all war-based, and they may be optimized to be simple and expendable. But it's possible that the digestion vessels or the interstellar travel vessels are extremely technologically sophisticated. We really don't know. We DO know that they can do a bunch of things that other races can't though. They can travel intergalactically, and that in and of itself is no joke. They seem to have ftl travel that possibly doesn't use the warp (otherwise their invastion of our galaxy would take hundreds of thousands to millions of years), and they can drown out Chaos in the warp just by their massed presence. Tyranids are incredibly powerful as a faction, arguably the most powerful.
My favorite part about them? Tyranid Warriors are far superior to Space Marines/Primaris. There's roughly a million Space Marines, and probably billions-trillions of Tyranid Warriors, and the Hive Mind can probably regrow a Warrior in a week.
If you take the notion that much of the drive for technology comes from competition, consider that Tyranids may not consider anything they've come up against as 'competition'.
Insectum7 wrote: ^My response would be that we really don't know how 'deep' Tyranid tech goes. We see organisms that are all war-based, and they may be optimized to be simple and expendable. But it's possible that the digestion vessels or the interstellar travel vessels are extremely technologically sophisticated. We really don't know. We DO know that they can do a bunch of things that other races can't though. They can travel intergalactically, and that in and of itself is no joke. They seem to have ftl travel that possibly doesn't use the warp (otherwise their invastion of our galaxy would take hundreds of thousands to millions of years), and they can drown out Chaos in the warp just by their massed presence. Tyranids are incredibly powerful as a faction, arguably the most powerful.
My favorite part about them? Tyranid Warriors are far superior to Space Marines/Primaris. There's roughly a million Space Marines, and probably billions-trillions of Tyranid Warriors, and the Hive Mind can probably regrow a Warrior in a week.
If you take the notion that much of the drive for technology comes from competition, consider that Tyranids may not consider anything they've come up against as 'competition'.
the retcon to their FTL is probably the part I dislike most about current nids, aside from Swarmlord characterification.
They were always warp-based ships that hibernated through their travels and the original tyraind attack box was about marines performing special boarding missions to kill the ships before they awoke from hibernation.
Their ability to cross the intergalactic void shouldn't be impossible through the warp, nor for anyone else when you think about it. The concept that the void is still and calm should make it easier to traverse as ships use their own propulsion, they don't catch waves of warp energy. so the stillness should make it a simple matter to dive in and push yourself forward towards the yummy golden beacon you can see in the distance. There'd be less daemonic incursion too...
The idea that a single nid organism can lock onto the gravity field of a star millions of light years away when gravity operates under the inverse cube law making its field virtually nonexistent at that distance, and use that field to pull itself towards the star, just seems like someone trying to add their own unique stamp to the army rather than a well thought out development of their capabilities.
on the flip side I'm annoyed that they gave necrons their own webway and took away their superscience inertialess drives, as if anyone can muck with fundamental laws it's c'tan and inertialess means 'massless' effectively as it's a function of the object's resistance to change in velocity which is proportional to their mass. This gave them great capacity to move around and change direction instantly.
Tyranid 'tech' is definitely built around increasing their survival efficiency. i'll have to see if I can find the quote, but the consumption of atmosphere resulted in their hulls being sheathed in in the resulting frozen gases. They kind of piled on everything they can consume.
They also produce bioplasma which is just a fancy way of saying they've got some kind of biological system that ionises gases and expels them. This would be used for their propulsion as well as being a weapon.
They don't really need to worry about going fast in realspace when they can jump around with abandon - the hive mind being capable of drowning out chaos means they're far less likely to be assaulted by daemons in transit than other species. Jumping into the gravity well of a star is dangerous to everyone else, but nids don't care. they can just appear right over their chosen planet.
If they never knew how to photosynthesise, eating the orks of charadon has certainly given it to them as they've always had that ability in their skin. so consuming gas sources is just a way to feed their photosynthesis factories which are attached to their norn queens feeding them energy continually as they reassemble the new genomes they've consumed and grow new breeds.
pm713 wrote: Not making sense isn't a great argument in 40k. The existence of necrons doesn't make sense, the Horus Heresy doesn't make sense, the Custodes don't make sense and...well have you seen what Orks do?
Nid shipyards are well within possibility and actually make sense in some situations.
Agreed. It's best to take most of it on face value and not to think about it too hard.
Gellar fields are perhaps the most slowed concept I've encountered in any scifi. Absolute nonsense.
Personally I'm just in it mostly for the power armor and ultra violence.
If you take the notion that much of the drive for technology comes from competition, consider that Tyranids may not consider anything they've come up against as 'competition'.
Yep.
From "the devastation of baal".
"Every machine and psychic ability the Imperium had geared towards detection, the lictor could evade. The hive mind had consumed far more advanced races than mankind. Infiltrating Baal was child’s play. There was no need for it to employ a fraction of its considerable talents."
They don't really need to worry about going fast in realspace when they can jump around with abandon - the hive mind being capable of drowning out chaos means they're far less likely to be assaulted by daemons in transit than other species. Jumping into the gravity well of a star is dangerous to everyone else, but nids don't care. they can just appear right over their chosen planet.
BFG background has Tyranids exiting the warp far out system, further out than comparable human ships exit, then they drift in. Maybe that gives them enough time to start waking up from hibernation, which can be an energy saving practice even when travelling within the Milky Way galaxy. If you're looking for a weakness of the Tyranids, that's one. That is a window of vulnerability when enemies can strike, and the still mostly dormant ships only have a few patrolling sentries and just woken creatures in their innards.
pm713 wrote: Not making sense isn't a great argument in 40k. The existence of necrons doesn't make sense, the Horus Heresy doesn't make sense, the Custodes don't make sense and...well have you seen what Orks do?
Nid shipyards are well within possibility and actually make sense in some situations.
Agreed. It's best to take most of it on face value and not to think about it too hard.
Gellar fields are perhaps the most slowed concept I've encountered in any scifi. Absolute nonsense.
Personally I'm just in it mostly for the power armor and ultra violence.
They don't really need to worry about going fast in realspace when they can jump around with abandon - the hive mind being capable of drowning out chaos means they're far less likely to be assaulted by daemons in transit than other species. Jumping into the gravity well of a star is dangerous to everyone else, but nids don't care. they can just appear right over their chosen planet.
BFG background has Tyranids exiting the warp far out system, further out than comparable human ships exit, then they drift in. Maybe that gives them enough time to start waking up from hibernation, which can be an energy saving practice even when travelling within the Milky Way galaxy. If you're looking for a weakness of the Tyranids, that's one. That is a window of vulnerability when enemies can strike, and the still mostly dormant ships only have a few patrolling sentries and just woken creatures in their innards.
Iirc this was the premise behind the old Advanced Space Crusade and Tyranid Attack games. Space Marines would board the hive ships while they were waking up and try to destroy vital organs before the ships could become full strength. Mind you, that game was HARD on the Space Marines. Being stuck in corridors with waves of Nids coming out of the walls is pretty brutal.
pm713 wrote: Not making sense isn't a great argument in 40k. The existence of necrons doesn't make sense, the Horus Heresy doesn't make sense, the Custodes don't make sense and...well have you seen what Orks do?
Nid shipyards are well within possibility and actually make sense in some situations.
Agreed. It's best to take most of it on face value and not to think about it too hard.
Gellar fields are perhaps the most slowed concept I've encountered in any scifi. Absolute nonsense.
Personally I'm just in it mostly for the power armor and ultra violence.
Why the issue with gellar fields?
Some of the laziest and most ridiculous plot armor I've ever encountered. Basically whoever came up with that wasn't intelligent enough to conceive of a form of warp travel that makes any sense at all.
pm713 wrote: Not making sense isn't a great argument in 40k. The existence of necrons doesn't make sense, the Horus Heresy doesn't make sense, the Custodes don't make sense and...well have you seen what Orks do?
Nid shipyards are well within possibility and actually make sense in some situations.
Agreed. It's best to take most of it on face value and not to think about it too hard.
Gellar fields are perhaps the most slowed concept I've encountered in any scifi. Absolute nonsense.
Personally I'm just in it mostly for the power armor and ultra violence.
Why the issue with gellar fields?
Some of the laziest and most ridiculous plot armor I've ever encountered. Basically whoever came up with that wasn't intelligent enough to conceive of a form of warp travel that makes any sense at all.
pm713 wrote: Not making sense isn't a great argument in 40k. The existence of necrons doesn't make sense, the Horus Heresy doesn't make sense, the Custodes don't make sense and...well have you seen what Orks do?
Nid shipyards are well within possibility and actually make sense in some situations.
Agreed. It's best to take most of it on face value and not to think about it too hard.
Gellar fields are perhaps the most slowed concept I've encountered in any scifi. Absolute nonsense.
Personally I'm just in it mostly for the power armor and ultra violence.
Why the issue with gellar fields?
Some of the laziest and most ridiculous plot armor I've ever encountered. Basically whoever came up with that wasn't intelligent enough to conceive of a form of warp travel that makes any sense at all.
Then you do better.
I'm not seeing what's particularly ridiculous about it. Or even plot armour-ish. I mean they're better than void shields by far.
pm713 wrote: Not making sense isn't a great argument in 40k. The existence of necrons doesn't make sense, the Horus Heresy doesn't make sense, the Custodes don't make sense and...well have you seen what Orks do?
Nid shipyards are well within possibility and actually make sense in some situations.
Agreed. It's best to take most of it on face value and not to think about it too hard.
Gellar fields are perhaps the most slowed concept I've encountered in any scifi. Absolute nonsense.
Personally I'm just in it mostly for the power armor and ultra violence.
Why the issue with gellar fields?
Some of the laziest and most ridiculous plot armor I've ever encountered. Basically whoever came up with that wasn't intelligent enough to conceive of a form of warp travel that makes any sense at all.
Then you do better.
I'm not seeing what's particularly ridiculous about it. Or even plot armour-ish. I mean they're better than void shields by far.
Really? You don't see a conundrum in a situation where the the fact that the laws of physics which govern realspace are null and void can be surmounted by projecting a field of realspace reality around a space ship?
pm713 wrote: Not making sense isn't a great argument in 40k. The existence of necrons doesn't make sense, the Horus Heresy doesn't make sense, the Custodes don't make sense and...well have you seen what Orks do?
Nid shipyards are well within possibility and actually make sense in some situations.
Agreed. It's best to take most of it on face value and not to think about it too hard.
Gellar fields are perhaps the most slowed concept I've encountered in any scifi. Absolute nonsense.
Personally I'm just in it mostly for the power armor and ultra violence.
Why the issue with gellar fields?
Some of the laziest and most ridiculous plot armor I've ever encountered. Basically whoever came up with that wasn't intelligent enough to conceive of a form of warp travel that makes any sense at all.
Then you do better.
I'm not seeing what's particularly ridiculous about it. Or even plot armour-ish. I mean they're better than void shields by far.
Really? You don't see a conundrum in a situation where the the fact that the laws of physics which govern realspace are null and void can be surmounted by projecting a field of realspace reality around a space ship?
No. That's sort of the point. You aren't in a situation where physics is null and void. It's no sillier than forcefields. Oh look I have a magic invisible wall that stops things.
pm713 wrote: Not making sense isn't a great argument in 40k. The existence of necrons doesn't make sense, the Horus Heresy doesn't make sense, the Custodes don't make sense and...well have you seen what Orks do?
Nid shipyards are well within possibility and actually make sense in some situations.
Agreed. It's best to take most of it on face value and not to think about it too hard.
Gellar fields are perhaps the most slowed concept I've encountered in any scifi. Absolute nonsense.
Personally I'm just in it mostly for the power armor and ultra violence.
Why the issue with gellar fields?
Some of the laziest and most ridiculous plot armor I've ever encountered. Basically whoever came up with that wasn't intelligent enough to conceive of a form of warp travel that makes any sense at all.
Then you do better.
I'm not seeing what's particularly ridiculous about it. Or even plot armour-ish. I mean they're better than void shields by far.
Really? You don't see a conundrum in a situation where the the fact that the laws of physics which govern realspace are null and void can be surmounted by projecting a field of realspace reality around a space ship?
No. That's sort of the point. You aren't in a situation where physics is null and void. It's no sillier than forcefields. Oh look I have a magic invisible wall that stops things.
So the Imperium literally has the technology to create reality. It has figured out the total bit bit rate like prime intellect, and they use this power exclusively to travel through a demon-infested acid trip which by its very existence cannot be brought in to order or augmented in any way.
pm713 wrote: So, what's your better alternative then?
I'm not required to have one.
It's not me telling the story.
Generally, if you want to be taken seriously, you should have at least SOME idea of how to make it better. Or, at the absolute minimum, demonstrate a good understanding of what you're crititquing.
First off, even if you aren't a professional writer, you can still give ideas for what would be better.
Second off, they MAINTAIN realspace within the ship. Not CREATE it.
Think of a balloon, filled with air. This is your gellar field. It is made outside, in the air, and filled with air. It is then put underwater-the water, in this case, represents the Warp. If the balloon is strong enough, it will hold and you'll have a pocket of air inside the water. Likewise, a gellar field maintains the realspace within the Warp. it does NOT just create stuff.
The Gellar Field Device emits an energetic, invisible force field comprised of unknown subatomic particles called a Gellar Field, which essentially maintains a bubble of real space-time around a starship traveling through the Warp using the power of its sublight drives after utilising its Warp-Drive to pierce the veil between the physical universe and the Warp.
pm713 wrote: Not making sense isn't a great argument in 40k. The existence of necrons doesn't make sense, the Horus Heresy doesn't make sense, the Custodes don't make sense and...well have you seen what Orks do?
Nid shipyards are well within possibility and actually make sense in some situations.
Agreed. It's best to take most of it on face value and not to think about it too hard.
Gellar fields are perhaps the most slowed concept I've encountered in any scifi. Absolute nonsense.
Personally I'm just in it mostly for the power armor and ultra violence.
Why the issue with gellar fields?
Some of the laziest and most ridiculous plot armor I've ever encountered. Basically whoever came up with that wasn't intelligent enough to conceive of a form of warp travel that makes any sense at all.
What about it?
I mean, it seems as sensical as it needs to be considering WARP TRAVEL, DAEMONS, FEEDING THE EMPEROR 1000 SOULS A DAY TO MAKE A GALACTIC NORTH STAR etc.
JNAProductions wrote: First off, even if you aren't a professional writer, you can still give ideas for what would be better.
Second off, they MAINTAIN realspace within the ship. Not CREATE it.
Think of a balloon, filled with air. This is your gellar field. It is made outside, in the air, and filled with air. It is then put underwater-the water, in this case, represents the Warp. If the balloon is strong enough, it will hold and you'll have a pocket of air inside the water. Likewise, a gellar field maintains the realspace within the Warp. it does NOT just create stuff.
That's literally the same thing extrapolated a single degree of separation and I can't believe you're actually using this example as your argument. If they have the ability to preserve realspace, they have to first understand what realspace is, intimately., and have the technology to preserve it. It's probably going to be considerably easier to generate reality than to do that, and if they can, why don't they just fill the warp with Gellar fields and create their own permanent webways?
Air and water are just molecules.. They are part of reality. You can't bottle a day and literally stick time and space it on your mantle. Terrible analogy.
JNAProductions wrote: First off, even if you aren't a professional writer, you can still give ideas for what would be better.
Second off, they MAINTAIN realspace within the ship. Not CREATE it.
Think of a balloon, filled with air. This is your gellar field. It is made outside, in the air, and filled with air. It is then put underwater-the water, in this case, represents the Warp. If the balloon is strong enough, it will hold and you'll have a pocket of air inside the water. Likewise, a gellar field maintains the realspace within the Warp. it does NOT just create stuff.
That's literally the same thing extrapolated a single degree of separation and I can't believe you're actually using this example as your argument. If they have the ability to preserve realspace, they have to first understand what realspace is, intimately., and have the technology to preserve it. It's probably going to be considerably easier to generate reality than to do that, and if they can, why don't they just fill the warp with Gellar fields and create their own permanent webways?
Air and water are just molecules.. They are part of reality. You can't bottle a day and literally stick time and space it on your mantle. Terrible analogy.
It doesn't make sense. And I think you know that.
So, were balloons impossible to make before we had an understanding of molecules? I don't think so.
You can definitely preserve something or maintain it without knowing how it works-hell, that's 95% of the Imperium right there. They keep ancient tech working off rote, not off any understanding.
You are declaring "It's easier to generate reality than to maintain it" with absolutely no factual basis-mostly because we're dealing with fiction. But, bearing that in mind, why is it so hard to accept that it's easier to maintain reality than it is to generate entirely new reality? Because quite honestly, it seems pretty sensible that it's easier to maintain what's already there than to create something entirely anew.
JNAProductions wrote: First off, even if you aren't a professional writer, you can still give ideas for what would be better.
Second off, they MAINTAIN realspace within the ship. Not CREATE it.
Think of a balloon, filled with air. This is your gellar field. It is made outside, in the air, and filled with air. It is then put underwater-the water, in this case, represents the Warp. If the balloon is strong enough, it will hold and you'll have a pocket of air inside the water. Likewise, a gellar field maintains the realspace within the Warp. it does NOT just create stuff.
That's literally the same thing extrapolated a single degree of separation and I can't believe you're actually using this example as your argument. If they have the ability to preserve realspace, they have to first understand what realspace is, intimately., and have the technology to preserve it. It's probably going to be considerably easier to generate reality than to do that, and if they can, why don't they just fill the warp with Gellar fields and create their own permanent webways?
Air and water are just molecules.. They are part of reality. You can't bottle a day and literally stick time and space it on your mantle. Terrible analogy.
It doesn't make sense. And I think you know that.
So, were balloons impossible to make before we had an understanding of molecules? I don't think so.
You can definitely preserve something or maintain it without knowing how it works-hell, that's 95% of the Imperium right there. They keep ancient tech working off rote, not off any understanding.
You are declaring "It's easier to generate reality than to maintain it" with absolutely no factual basis-mostly because we're dealing with fiction. But, bearing that in mind, why is it so hard to accept that it's easier to maintain reality than it is to generate entirely new reality? Because quite honestly, it seems pretty sensible that it's easier to maintain what's already there than to create something entirely anew.
No, but we still don't intimately understand molecules ( that's why we have the LHC) and at no point was it possible to preserve time and space in a balloon.
The problem with Gellar fields is that they are logically irresolvable. Either realspace works in the warp, or it does not. No parameters of logic allow for both. Since space ships themselves are realspace entities, and gellar fields are just realspace which is just...well, realspace,and realspace doesn't/cannot exist in the warp, what excuse me, would be the point of projecting realspace in a realspace vessel inside a system where realspace conditions are not possible? Why bother even having a Gellar field at all if the space ship is just realspace anyway?
Either Gellar fields don't make sense, or the warp doesn't. Pick one.
Surely you an at least follow that? It's a logical fallacy.
And frankly I don't particularly care that it is.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Schrodinger's cat got your tongue?
Either Gellar fields don't make sense, or the warp doesn't. Pick one.
I thought the whole point of the Warp was that it did NOT make sense! Hence why you go all kinds of nuts if you even get a vision of it let alone take a step into it. Or at least it makes no sense to those who are still from "realspace".
Anyway a gellerfield is just a shield that lets you fly though hell without going insane and having demons shred your body and consume your soul.
Either Gellar fields don't make sense, or the warp doesn't. Pick one.
I thought the whole point of the Warp was that it did NOT make sense! Hence why you go all kinds of nuts if you even get a vision of it let alone take a step into it. Or at least it makes no sense to those who are still from "realspace".
Anyway a gellerfield is just a shield that lets you fly though hell without going insane and having demons shred your body and consume your soul.
In the lore, Gellar Fields make travelling the warp possible. According to the writers, who everyone seems to believe are actually....good, if they didn't exist, space ships would turn into giant penises and start playing the banjo or whatever as soon as they entered the warp.
Realspace and the warp have been shown to exist within each other. The warp energy that fills the Warp when in realspace can be in the form of Daemons or in the form of psychic phenomena such as what psychic powers are. Warp energy can even be converted to real matter such as in the case of wraithbone. However if not stabilized or sustained in some form, warp energy seems to be transient in realspace, hence why daemons need sacrifices, rituals, or warp storms to keep going.
Realspace stuff can be thrown into the warp with D-weaponry. Being in the warp is generally not conducive to life though the predatory entities in the warp like to tear apart and consume realspace things. Also with enough time, realspace matter and energy seems to dissolve into warp energy if in the warp.
The Gellar field keeps the two separate, and all that nasty warp energy from leaking into the area of the ship or inside the ship. We know that psychic energy in the 40K paradigm can do things like deflect objects and other forms of energy, as evidenced by all the various psychic powers and rune armor that provide this kind of protection. The Gellar field's exact workings are never explicitly given but seem to utilize similar principles to repel warp energy. The warp isn't entirely rule-less as the Eldar have built their entire technological base around it, so there must be consistent reproducible effects. It's just that the Warp operates under a different set of rules from realspace laws of physics, and some of those rules are like the "rules of magic" in other fantasy worlds, like the law of contagion for example.
Iracundus wrote: Realspace and the warp have been shown to exist within each other. The warp energy that fills the Warp when in realspace can be in the form of Daemons or in the form of psychic phenomena such as what psychic powers are. Warp energy can even be converted to real matter such as in the case of wraithbone. However if not stabilized or sustained in some form, warp energy seems to be transient in realspace, hence why daemons need sacrifices, rituals, or warp storms to keep going.
Realspace stuff can be thrown into the warp with D-weaponry. Being in the warp is generally not conducive to life though the predatory entities in the warp like to tear apart and consume realspace things. Also with enough time, realspace matter and energy seems to dissolve into warp energy if in the warp.
The Gellar field keeps the two separate, and all that nasty warp energy from leaking into the area of the ship or inside the ship. We know that psychic energy in the 40K paradigm can do things like deflect objects and other forms of energy, as evidenced by all the various psychic powers and rune armor that provide this kind of protection. The Gellar field's exact workings are never explicitly given but seem to utilize similar principles to repel warp energy. The warp isn't entirely rule-less as the Eldar have built their entire technological base around it, so there must be consistent reproducible effects. It's just that the Warp operates under a different set of rules from realspace laws of physics, and some of those rules are like the "rules of magic" in other fantasy worlds, like the law of contagion for example.
Granted, and this is a good post, but this still does not account for the equation outlined in my previous post, and would need to conform to it. Either the warp can be manipulated/harnessed/repurposed and used to create order, or Gellar fields don't make sense. Cannot be both. I prefer the idea that the warp is just a space governed by different physical parameters than realspace as opposed to just a kind of chaotic soup where anything goes.
Webways exist in the warp, so there's already a precedent for this idea. Gellar fields are very silly as far as ideas go. They're kind of the flux capacitors of 40K really.
My previous post described exactly how the energy of the warp already is channeled, repurposed, and manipulated. Warp energy is one of the forms of energy in the 40k universe and seems interconvertible with real space energy and matter, within certain rules and limits.
Iracundus wrote: My previous post described exactly how the energy of the warp already is channeled, repurposed, and manipulated. Warp energy is one of the forms of energy in the 40k universe and seems interconvertible with real space energy and matter, within certain rules and limits.
That begs the question though; why doesn't the imperium simply use their Gellar field Tech to create its own webways in the warp? Why doesn't it create Gellar highways?
And honestly I can't think of an Imperium example of harnessing warp energy well. I mean even the astronomicon doesn't really use warp energy on any level per se--certainly this isn't comparable to wraithbone which is literally repurposed warp energy....basically warp metal.
And you would still need to explain how Gellar fields kind of...what--filter, or act as buffer between warp space and realspace, which would still require you to explain why a realspace entity subject to the laws of material physics needs a field to generate more of itself in the warp where real space parameters do not matter/do not work.
There is no way out of that logical trap. It's circular. An infinite loop.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Anyways, thanks for turning up Mad Dog Grotsnik. Very enjoyable.
I get the feeling you are not really reading responses and are just repeating the same points over and over.
The Imperium doesn’t really use warp energy in any subtle way because the Imperium doesn’t seem to know how to. It may make use of large quantities of it in an uncontrolled way like with a Vortex missile or large quantities in a crude way like flaring vast quantities of it with the Astronomicon, or it can repel things such as with wards or a Gellar field. The Imperium does not have the skill nor technique for making permanent matter from the warp. The Emperor was the last apparent real researcher into things like creating an Imperial Webway but since then, virtually any warp related research is off limits so the Imperium makes no progress.
No one else but you is seeing any requirement for a Gellar field to create real space. It has been stated multiple times by multiple people that the Gellar field acts to keep the separation between the ship and the warp. That is what the hull of a submarine does. Keep the water out and the air in. The alternative of letting the water/warp flood inside is not conducive to the continued living of the people on board. Humans can not breathe warp energy and warp entities can manifest in areas saturated with warp energy, which is exactly what can happen if a ship’s Gellar field flickers or leaks.
You keep saying there is a logic trap or infinite loop but nobody is else is seeing any such contradiction, because there isn’t one.
Iracundus wrote: I get the feeling you are not really reading responses and are just repeating the same points over and over.
The Imperium doesn’t really use warp energy in any subtle way because the Imperium doesn’t seem to know how to. It may make use of large quantities of it in an uncontrolled way like with a Vortex missile or large quantities in a crude way like flaring vast quantities of it with the Astronomicon, or it can repel things such as with wards or a Gellar field. The Imperium does not have the skill nor technique for making permanent matter from the warp.
No one else but you is seeing any requirement for a Gellar field to create real space. It has been stated multiple times by multiple people that the Gellar field acts to keep the separation between the ship and the warp. That is what the hull of a submarine does. Keep the water out and the air in. The alternative of letting the water/warp flood inside is not conducive to the continued living of the people on board. Humans can not breathe warp energy and warp entities can manifest in areas saturated with warp energy, which is exactly what can happen if a ship’s Gellar field flickers or leaks.
You keep saying there is a logic trap or infinite loop but nobody is else is seeing any such contradiction, because there isn’t one.
Yes there is. You're simply not comprehending it. Appealing to popularity isn't an argument. If it were, Mcdonalds and Ariana Grande would be objectively the pinnacles of Gastronomy and Music. People generally are not very intelligent. They eat tide pods and hang plastic testicles foam the back of their tow bars.
A Gellar field is nothing like the hull of a submarine, it doesn't work that way, and the relationship between it is not comparable to that between steel and water (or whatever metal submarine hulls are made of).Warp energy is not analogous to water in that comparison. The only way it could work the way you just described is if two conditions changed:
A) There is a third type of prime matter that is not neither realspace nor Warp Energy, and this is generated by Gellar Fields
B) The warp or Gellar fields would need to start acting like physical properties which exist in realspace and would need to start observing physical relationships observed in realspace when interacting.
Since Neither is the case, we are left with the original conundrum--or perhaps paradox..
And that is, Gellar fields generate a pocket of realspace (This is in fact how they work according to the lore, not an issue of contention) either within or around spacecraft. Don't take it up with me. Take it up with the Wiki, which explicitly states:
The Gellar Field Device emits an energetic, invisible force field comprised of unknown subatomic particles called a Gellar Field, which essentially maintains a bubble of real space-time around a starship traveling through the Warp using the power of its sublight drives after utilising its Warp-Drive to pierce the veil between the physical universe and the Warp.
So in fact I was right all along. Gellar Fields literally do generate real space, which means the imperium has the power to generate reality.
Let's continue:
The concept here is that Gellar Fields create a bubble of real space around vessels which allows them to travel through the warp, which is supposedly a dimension in which real space (and time) doesn't make sense, and the protocols and laws of real space reality are not observed.
Space crafts are real space entities.
So A gellar field creates a real space field around a real space object inside the warp in order to protect a real space object from the forces of the warp which do not observe real space anyway. It is, to put it simply, doubling up on uselessness.
As I said originally, either the warp is a space where real space physics work, or it is not. There is no logical basis for the warp to make exceptions to it's own systems in order to ultimately oblige spacecraft by accommodating the very set of physical rules it not only rejects but is the antithesis of--That is, realspace, and realspace objects. Why for the love of God would you expect, given this set of parameters, a real space bubble to do anything at all? It is not possible for both not-warp rules and real space rules to exists concomitantly in any capacity because they contravene one another utterly by definition. If the warp makes exceptions to observe real space, it is not the warp, and its lore doesn't make sense. If Gellar fields do not work, the warp does make sense and Gellar fields are redundant/stupid. Both cannot logically resolve.
Either the warp lore is stupid, or the Gellar field lore is stupid. Pick one.
Genius 40K engineers:
"We can't travel through warp space because the laws of hysics don't apply'.
"I think I have a solution to that problem'.
'Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. Lets...let's generate a field of real space reality observing real space physics around space ships".
"Good plan. Should be fine. Glad we got to the bottom of it".
And that's it. Well, there is a third option, but pointing it out will probably get me banned.
You guys should maybe start your own thread as this is widely off-topic. Geller Fields are completely unrelated to tyranids or their ability to consume gas giants.
A: Maintaining is not the same thing as generating
B: Gellar fields aren't pure realspace physics, as they require psykers to generate/operate. They have "something" to do with the intersection of realspace and warpspace, and that's enough.
Insectum7 wrote: A: Maintaining is not the same thing as generating
B: Gellar fields aren't pure realspace physics, as they require psykers to generate/operate. They have "something" to do with the intersection of realspace and warpspace, and that's enough.
Insectum7 wrote: A: Maintaining is not the same thing as generating
B: Gellar fields aren't pure realspace physics, as they require psykers to generate/operate. They have "something" to do with the intersection of realspace and warpspace, and that's enough.
Insectum7 wrote:Would it surprise you to learn that this was already bought up?
Edit: and ignored?
Well not now that I've read the unread posts in the Shield of Baal thread.
Or else you mean the "how does it maintain reality in unreality?" "By maintaining reality" back-and-forth that went on there. To be honest that didn't seem well-explained to me either, at least not in this thread. It's a whole 'nuther set of rules, not just mixing mediums like pushing a plastic bubble of air under water. It's a kind a' water where plastic and air make no sense.
How does the psyker maintain that bubble? What makes it stable in an existence that is the definition of unstable? Off the top of my head, I'd say rather than a specific psychic power or even undefined psyker energy, it could be the psyker's warp presence - bigger than a, er, normie's warp presence - projected by the gellar device. The warp is swirling chaos but warp presences can maintain individuality and cohesion, especially those souls of living, physical beings. For a time, at least, daemons and warp eddies can't break through the gellar field because it's actually another, separate warp entity (the psyker). Ships can travel within the psyker's warp presence not because it traps a bubble of reality, but because the psyker creates their own warp-version of reality within their warp self, through concentration, hypnotic suggestion, or sheer inability to comprehend anything else. (Latter unlikely, maybe) [To keep in with this thread: like the psyker's own personal little 'shadow in the warp'] The ship is hitching a ride through a psyker's dream...
Losing a ship in the warp would be less the gellar tech breaking down, more the psyker's stretched mind finally succumbing to the increased battering from the warp. Many wards and rituals needed to safeguard. Maybe even a crude, miniature version of the golden throne, used to project the Emperor's psychic presence as the astronomicon?
Insectum7 wrote:Would it surprise you to learn that this was already bought up?
Edit: and ignored?
Well not now that I've read the unread posts in the Shield of Baal thread.
Or else you mean the "how does it maintain reality in unreality?" "By maintaining reality" back-and-forth that went on there. To be honest that didn't seem well-explained to me either, at least not in this thread. It's a whole 'nuther set of rules, not just mixing mediums like pushing a plastic bubble of air under water. It's a kind a' water where plastic and air make no sense.
How does the psyker maintain that bubble? What makes it stable in an existence that is the definition of unstable? Off the top of my head, I'd say rather than a specific psychic power or even undefined psyker energy, it could be the psyker's warp presence - bigger than a, er, normie's warp presence - projected by the gellar device. The warp is swirling chaos but warp presences can maintain individuality and cohesion, especially those souls of living, physical beings. For a time, at least, daemons and warp eddies can't break through the gellar field because it's actually another, separate warp entity (the psyker). Ships can travel within the psyker's warp presence not because it traps a bubble of reality, but because the psyker creates their own warp-version of reality within their warp self, through concentration, hypnotic suggestion, or sheer inability to comprehend anything else. (Latter unlikely, maybe) [To keep in with this thread: like the psyker's own personal little 'shadow in the warp'] The ship is hitching a ride through a psyker's dream...
Losing a ship in the warp would be less the gellar tech breaking down, more the psyker's stretched mind finally succumbing to the increased battering from the warp. Many wards and rituals needed to safeguard. Maybe even a crude, miniature version of the golden throne, used to project the Emperor's psychic presence as the astronomicon?
My guess is that it's something like a Force Weapon. Both are pieces of technology that a psyker trains to work with and use to amplify their awareness/ability etc. A "normie" can't use a Force Weapon, and iirc Gellar Fields are the same type of situation. But the size/power/drain of the Gellar field system drains out psykers rather often. So much so that there are several on standby who can take over operation. Or maybe they all work together in a mini-celestial choir setup. The online reference I quickly perused wan't clear.
Prior to the 'narwhal' rubbish, I rather liked the concept that the shadow in the warp was essentially an organic analogue to a gellar field: a massive area-effect that dampens psychic and daemonic effects, as well as 'warp turbulence', eliminating the need for a navigator equivalent by removing the need to steer around stuff.
Meanwhile - Tyranids, Tyranids - to be honest, the need to invade Earthlike worlds is questionable at best. Water, Methane, Ammonia, etc can be found in some ice asteroids and moons. Unless there's something 'special' there's little practical reason for a hive not to go around hoovering up uninhabited systems: yes, it's probably less efficient but it's also going to offer no resistance.
Attacking populated worlds only makes sense if either they get something unique from it (as per necron or chaos arguments about souls), or they have an instinctive drive to do so. The latter is perfectly possible, but of course we don't really know why the Tyranids do what they do or where they ultimately 'began'. Imagining them as a legacy doomsday weapon, for example.
Technically I'd argue that most of the lower life forms within Tyranid hives do actually use real instinctive behaviour. In fact even the upper life forms are built on instinctive behaviour. Tyranids don't have to go to school nor grow up as such as we'd understand it. So yes the bulk of their operations are instinctive.
However instinctive is a term that is dangerously loaded. On Earth we tend to use it to refer to less intelligent life forms and more automatic/lifesaving reactions from more intelligent ones. Ergo we look down on instinctive behaviours.
Now Tyranids by and large are born for a specific role with all the instinctive behaviour that they need to achieve that role in the swarm. They only achieve a greater level of tactical and military conquest by linking together and having smarter Tyranids within the swarm to give overall direction. Gaunts without a synapse node nearby are still deadly; they are still build to hunt and kill; but they lack the greater tactical awareness to position themselves in regard to the overall battleplan. So they are more likely to blind charge into enemy fire; whilst with synapse they link up to the greater swarm and use that to guide their advance.
Hive Guard area great example of this - technically the best sniper in the tyranid army has no eyes of its own. It relies entirely upon other Tyranids seeing things for it to then pick them out, target them relative to their own position in the swarm and then fire. A unit that, on its own, would be significantly weaker.
I guess my point is that at the lower level Tyranids are highly variable in performance and intelligence, but when added together there's clearly a lot of upper level thinking going on. So yes they run to the instinctive feed and grow. However you can argue that humans, orks and basically most living life follows that same pattern of behaviours.
Original topic? I don't have the energy to argue whether tyranids eat rocks or not. At this point I'm willing to fall back on the notion that if tyranids didn't attack inhabited worlds, GW would have trouble selling tyranid minis.
^Sick Broodlord+Beetleguise reference. That your paint job?
I think the idea that Tyranjds can *eventually* consume raw silicates is fine, personally. But it's totally plausible that they don't because they don't need much of it to build the majority of their organisms, in the same way thay that we consume iron, just not in ingot form. We don't need much of it.
Insectum7 wrote: ^Sick Broodlord+Beetleguise reference. That your paint job?
I think the idea that Tyranjds can *eventually* consume raw silicates is fine, personally. But it's totally plausible that they don't because they don't need much of it to build the majority of their organisms, in the same way thay that we consume iron, just not in ingot form. We don't need much of it.
Tyranids can and do consume silicates and metals. Past Tyranid Codices have described carapaces with silicates and tusks with adamantium, and there was a short story in the 3rd edition Codex about Tyranid flora rendering down an Imperial base and a destroyed Leman Russ tank.
A human body has trace metals and minerals in it, and contains as much iron as about 1 iron nail. A Tyranid fleet's "trace minerals" would still amount to many tons.
Here's the thing; no fluff suggests the Tyranids NEED to eat inhabited worlds. Bar theories that the Tyranids are running from something (and some snippets of long-obselete fluff), there is nothing to imply that survival is even a consideration which enters the picture. The Tyranids eat worlds because that is their goal. The Imperium wants to conquer the galaxy, Chaos wants to despoil it, Orks just want a good fight, Tyranids want to eat worlds carrying life. Sitting around to suck up gas giants probably slows things down more than the benefit is worth, but if a case arises where it IS beneficial the Tyranids would naturally do so.
1) BL is pretty poor on lore for other races that aren't Imperials/Marines. Most stories revolve around them and whilst there are various lore books and codex over the years; by and large most stories are very Imperial focused. This means that not only are there fewer considerations for background elements of other races that might not appear in a battlefield (where Imperials would turn up) but also that many of the lore points are filtered through Imperial understanding.
2) Tyranids don't have any "voice" (which is not inherently a bad thing) which means that there is no story about Tyranids written by Tyranids. Most are either lore details of events or, most often, Imperial accounts of encounters.
This twists the lore around them somewhat. Tyranids might well have eaten gas giants, but unless they eat one Imperials care about and eat one that Imperial's see then it might never get reported on. It might be rare that the Imperium has just never seen it; or its common, but its a detail they don't care to mention.
That along with Imperials getting things wrong can all account for a degree of fuzzy natures within the lore ;without even accounting for variation through time and evolution/adaptation/unique behaviours.
Overread wrote: This twists the lore around them somewhat. Tyranids might well have eaten gas giants, but unless they eat one Imperials care about and eat one that Imperial's see then it might never get reported on. It might be rare that the Imperium has just never seen it; or its common, but its a detail they don't care to mention.
What? I provided a quote on the very first page that directly says Tyranids have eaten gas giants the imperials care about and they have multiple reports on such incidents.
