Just putting it out there.
When you meet another Tyranid faction it just says there are two hive minds.
When you destroy the other Tyranid faction it says this was just a resolution of difference of opinion. The weaker, grosser hive mind lost out and now all the information, genetic data, and biomass it gathered is added to the stronger hive mind.
So there are multiple hive minds and inter tyranid conflict.
Other sources of fluff say there is a single hive mind. For instance the recent Devastation of Baal or Wraithflight novels. That interpretation says that the source of tyranid vs tyranid conflict is the hive mind performing weapons testing. Throwing different strains of its forces against each other to see which is stronger.
Which to believe, depends on what author you prefer.
This interpretation would mean that each fleet has its own hive mind, only so long as its long range communications are cut off from the other hive fleets. As soon as it reestablishes communication, it merges back into a single hive mind.
Headcannon but given the distance lf inter-galaxy travel the
chances of their being 2 hive minds in such close proximity to the Galaxy are miniscule. Even given the time between Behemoth and Leviathan / Kraken it seems unlikely that there are multiple unique instances of Tyranids.
I do wonder at the level of autonomy the hives have though. I'm of the opinion that the Hive Mind has adjusted tactics but that it's pretty much "told" the hive go get that galaxy and the sub commanders are doing it as they see fit, the antaganism simply being a version of Not Invented Here as opposed to actual intercine fighting.
Arson Fire wrote: This interpretation would mean that each fleet has its own hive mind, only so long as its long range communications are cut off from the other hive fleets. As soon as it reestablishes communication, it merges back into a single hive mind.
I'd mostly go with Kayback in that the three big invasions - Kraken, Behemoth and Leviathan - are all the same hive mind, taking time to probe the galaxy at different points. But splinter fleets, especially with all the fracturing going on post-Leviathan and the Great Rift, I'd say are more like Arson Fire's quote here. In my headcanon the hive mind casts a big shadow in the warp but doesn't cast it very far, comparatively speaking. A hive mind can maybe detect far-off psychic signals (GSCs and sitch) but is there anything about them shooting off instructions and orders like astropaths?
Why they would fight rather than merge smoothly? Maybe there's no merging smoothly, if two splinters have been going off on their individual guided-hyper-evolution shtick for a while. Speciation, competition, fitness, red in tooth and claw.
Arson Fire wrote: Other sources of fluff say there is a single hive mind. For instance the recent Devastation of Baal or Wraithflight novels.
That interpretation says that the source of tyranid vs tyranid conflict is the hive mind performing weapons testing. Throwing different strains of its forces against each other to see which is stronger.
Which to believe, depends on what author you prefer.
This interpretation would mean that each fleet has its own hive mind, only so long as its long range communications are cut off from the other hive fleets. As soon as it reestablishes communication, it merges back into a single hive mind.
Gladius also says Hive Minds are solitary. When you encounter Orks it says "To battle something so similar must be a strange feeling for the solitary mind"
So from Gladius we can know that the Hive Mind is a solitary pure warp entity that controls Tyranids like puppets. Further supported by the fact that the Hive Mind gives each individual Tyranid its attention, and great attention during the creation process of Synapse Tyranids, and stuff like this:
"birthing canals are something like biological production lines, enabling many creatures to be produced in parallel without direct oversight f the hive mind."
Without direct oversight. So it's a solitary mind giving attention and directly overseeing some tyranid production and not overseeing other tyranid production.
Think of it like the metaphorical angel-self over one shoulder and demon-self over the other, arguing why their perspective is right. Only they are actual hive fleets and you can have them fight to the death to determine which choice is better.
I can certainly see the appeal of making decisions that way.
Arson Fire wrote: Other sources of fluff say there is a single hive mind. For instance the recent Devastation of Baal or Wraithflight novels.
That interpretation says that the source of tyranid vs tyranid conflict is the hive mind performing weapons testing. Throwing different strains of its forces against each other to see which is stronger.
Which to believe, depends on what author you prefer.
This interpretation would mean that each fleet has its own hive mind, only so long as its long range communications are cut off from the other hive fleets. As soon as it reestablishes communication, it merges back into a single hive mind.
Gladius also says Hive Minds are solitary. When you encounter Orks it says "To battle something so similar must be a strange feeling for the solitary mind"
So from Gladius we can know that the Hive Mind is a solitary pure warp entity that controls Tyranids like puppets. Further supported by the fact that the Hive Mind gives each individual Tyranid its attention, and great attention during the creation process of Synapse Tyranids, and stuff like this:
"birthing canals are something like biological production lines, enabling many creatures to be produced in parallel without direct oversight f the hive mind."
Without direct oversight. So it's a solitary mind giving attention and directly overseeing some tyranid production and not overseeing other tyranid production.
The best officially licensed WH40K video game in existence.
Out of curiosity, what do you make of the fluff in the tyranid codex where hive fleet Leviathan is leaving pre-digested worlds behind for hive fleet Kronos to consume?
Kronos is getting insufficient biomass due to constantly fighting against chaos daemons, so Leviathan appears to be helping it. That seems to run contrary to the fluff in the Gladius game. As it suggests that either there is a single hive mind controlling both fleets, or that their individual hive minds are not so solitary, and are capable of working together at a strategic level.
Arson Fire wrote: Out of curiosity, what do you make of the fluff in the tyranid codex where hive fleet Leviathan is leaving pre-digested worlds behind for hive fleet Kronos to consume?
Kronos is getting insufficient biomass due to constantly fighting against chaos daemons, so Leviathan appears to be helping it. That seems to run contrary to the fluff in the Gladius game. As it suggests that either there is a single hive mind controlling both fleets, or that their individual hive minds are not so solitary, and are capable of working together at a strategic level.
Neither scenario is inconsistent with Gladius.
Solitary means the hive mind is like a god instead of cloud computing. If you look at ants and cloud computing, everything runs on consensus of the masses. If enough ants make the same decision, or if enough computers in the cloud make the same decision, everything else follows. This is a non-solitary mind. A solitary mind is like a dictator where he gets to do whatever the **** he wants and there's nothing that can stop him.
So this means like you said, Leviathan and Kronos is controlled by a single hive mind, or they're controlled by separate hive minds working together. What it's not is a bunch of norn queens acting like cloud computers deciding to behave the way leviathan and kronos is doing. Hive Mind controls the norn queens. No consensus decision making thingy.
First, we need to understand that the Hive Mind is vast, and utterly alien in nature. There’s room for dispute as to despite its clear awareness, how far that goes. Is it truly sapient, or just highly, highly instinctual?
Now, I’ll use my profession as an example. I deal in financial complaints as an independent arbitrator. It’s my job to weigh up the facts as they’re presented, and compare them to various laws and that.
Quite often, that does involve a wee conversation in my head as I challenge my own assumptions.
Just now I’ve been going over a case, and had one of those conversations as to whether or not I really needed some additional info. So I worked out the potential scenarios compared to the likely delay the request will cause. Decided that if this shows what I think it will, it’ll kill off one party’s arguments completely. So I sent the email.
When we see Hive Fleets going at it, it’s likely the same, just on a scale we can barely comprehend. It’s likely both are travelling along the same adaptation experiment, and the scrap is a litmus test to see how it’s going,
After all, when Nid battles Nids, is there really any actual loss of biomass involved?
First, we need to understand that the Hive Mind is vast, and utterly alien in nature. There’s room for dispute as to despite its clear awareness, how far that goes. Is it truly sapient, or just highly, highly instinctual?
Now, I’ll use my profession as an example. I deal in financial complaints as an independent arbitrator. It’s my job to weigh up the facts as they’re presented, and compare them to various laws and that.
Quite often, that does involve a wee conversation in my head as I challenge my own assumptions.
Just now I’ve been going over a case, and had one of those conversations as to whether or not I really needed some additional info. So I worked out the potential scenarios compared to the likely delay the request will cause. Decided that if this shows what I think it will, it’ll kill off one party’s arguments completely. So I sent the email.
When we see Hive Fleets going at it, it’s likely the same, just on a scale we can barely comprehend. It’s likely both are travelling along the same adaptation experiment, and the scrap is a litmus test to see how it’s going,
After all, when Nid battles Nids, is there really any actual loss of biomass involved?
There are energy losses otherwise it would be a violation of thermodynamics. Taking a dead body and reprocessing it into a fresh Tyranid takes energy, which must come from somewhere. That somewhere might be solar energy via photosynthesizing Tyranid flora, or via the digestion of existing biomass whether that be dead Tyranid or some other non-Tyranid life caught in the crossfire.
Though I do prefer the concept of the Hive Mind being multiple entities united, rather than a single intelligence.
My preference in order
1. Multiple Hive Minds. But the numbers are few and each hive mind controls ridiculous amounts of tyranids at once.
2. Norn Queen Cloud Computing.
3. Single Hive Mind controls all tyranids.
All our understanding of Tyranids is filtered through the fact that we very rarely get any actual lore written by Tyranids - its all other factions interpreting Tyranid actions. Even many things (like game) are interpretations of tyranids made into a form we understand as players.
As such there are huge areas we don't understand. For example we know that Hive Tyrants, Zoanthropes and such are highly intelligent creatures capable of operating well outside of the greater influence of the Swarm. We know that norn queens are even higher on the intelligence scale so, again, we can presume that they are also able to operate well outside of the hives core influence. Furthermore those creatures don't just operate themselves, they project the synapse connections to other Tyranids in their local area (varying on their signal power - ergo a queen can hit a bigger area than a tyrant etc...). How much individuality they have when operating alone and when operating within range of the bulk of the rest of the Hive Mind is totally unknown. Heck Norn Queens are only known of from a tiny fragment of records - the greater details we've no idea of.
We also know that "personalities" can exist within the swarm. The Swarmlord is such a creature/entity/mind within the Swarm. Both individual and unique and yet at the same time part of the united swarm. Again we've no real idea how much individuality and control it has over its own actions nor even the real concept of where self begins and unity ends in terms of the Tyranids. Ergo we might see what we think is individuality thoughts and unique approaches and even conflict within the tyranids united mind; yet it might simply be how the united mind deals with thinking. Ergo whilst its conflicted its not actually fighting itself.
We also know that genestealer cults can operate right outside of the will of the swarm. Infecting whole systems and even building small empires of their own if they can't call a swarm. Again we get that notion of the Swarm being able to operate in isolation from the greater whole; and yet when united again with the greater whole there is no "conflict". Even if one consumes/destroys/fights the other there doesn't seem to be the concept of civil war.
Tyranids also seem to resource bias for physical material (biomatter and minerals) which treating energy/thermal as essentially infinite. They don't appear to worry about the loss of raw energy when doing their weapons tests; instead they are far more concerned over raw materials. It's like a child playing with lego - it doesn't matter at the comparative tiny loss of energy in building, destroying and rebuilding - all that matters if you've got the most blocks to build with.
Yazima wrote: Yeah no. Meet Dawn of War and Space Marine
Never played space marine but dawn of war was terrible.
1. I tried moving my entire space marine army from one side of the map to the other. What happened? Half of each squad ended up getting split, they all got inter-congested along the path to the objective, and at the end all of units stand still. Because the units at the front want to go backwards to meet up with the rest of the squad but the way back is blocked by units trying to go forward so they all end up standing still doing nothing and it is impossible to untangle them. At this point I went pure vehicle solely because they only have 1 model per squad.
2. All the missions in Dark Crusade and Soulstorm are identical. You start here, 1-3 ais start there. The end.
I did manage to enjoy dark crusade by going chaos, rushing defiler, and having that rushed defiler solo the entire ai long enough for me to get more defilers out and just win with defilers and later Daemon Prince Eliphas. But that squad pathfinding congestion thing is unforgivable.
Dark Crusade dialogue was great. I watched youtube videos of everyone just talking solely because it was that great. Eliphas is awesome as hell.
But the game was severely unpolished, balance is completely broken especially dark crusade necrons and soulstorm air units, etc. etc. The game attempted to be a starcraft dupe and failed miserably.
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DoWII was fun too but it was severely repetitive and no challenge. You just build units, suicide them to the enemy, and repeat repeat repeat. YOu cannot lose any mission because there is no real loss condition. No penalty for losing units. No penalty for taking a million years to complete the mission.
Last stand was fun while it lasted. But why only 2 maps? They could've made it so much more popular if they made a few more maps. I mean how hard is it to make a map that sends 20 waves of units and the players?
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In any case DoW is nowhere near the level of Gladius.
DoW > Gladius at launch cause gladius at launch was boring.
Gladius > DoW now because Gladius is super polished now and amazing.
The best officially licensed WH40K video game in existence.
Yeah no. Meet Dawn of War and Space Marine
UNfortunatly I can't seem to find any more games of space marines, the srves have been abandonned a while ago...
I briefly considered getting gladius but then turned away, I wasn't confident in a 4X 40k videogame.
I personnaly love the idea that a single, gigantic entity would control all tyranids butI believe that in the current fluff's state, several interpretations of what the hive mind in pratice is are open. To me the better one would be that the hive mind is a sort of cloud, but that hives then have a somewhat autonomous counsciensness to lead them. The confrontations between different hives would hint that direction, wouldn't it?
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: To me the better one would be that the hive mind is a sort of cloud, but that hives then have a somewhat autonomous counsciensness to lead them. The confrontations between different hives would hint that direction, wouldn't it?
The scary prospect for the Imperium and the Galaxy at large is the thought that there is a bigger over-mind behind the hive fleets. If Behemoth was a precursor to Leviathan/Kraken they could be the precursor to a bigger fleet coming up behind, like a river's tributaries but in reverse. For now the "feeler" fleets are acting autonomously but when the parent wakes up the squabbling children will be clipped around the ears and then the parent will step in.
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: I briefly considered getting gladius but then turned away, I wasn't confident in a 4X 40k videogame.
Despite being advertised as "4X" I wouldn't call it that.
This is what you do in game
1. build buildings
2. use those buildings to build units
3. keep repeating 1&2 until everyone is dead.
The game is 100% combat. And is super deep mechanically and soooo much customization. Which heroes to get out first, whether to go infantry focused, vehicle focused, monster focused, or all 3. I often just play an empty map for 80 turns to perfect my build order for that thing I'm trying to do. I call it turn based starcraft because calling it "4X" imo is not accurate.
Space Marine was pretty epic. Did a good job of balancing "realism" of the 40K fluff with gameplay. The ability to commandeer Guard heavy weapons was great.
I wanted to shoot the Inquisitor in the face the second I met him.
Kayback wrote: Space Marine was pretty epic. Did a good job of balancing "realism" of the 40K fluff with gameplay. The ability to commandeer Guard heavy weapons was great.
I wanted to shoot the Inquisitor in the face the second I met him.
I think it was that Skrillex-looking hairstyle that did it for me. Dude deserved a thunderhammer to the face for sure.
It was a great game though, sadly let down by the multiplayer
Sterling191 wrote:Im shocked, shocked! that a mid-budget licensed third party video game takes some liberties with established lore.
More likely when they asked GW "So what are Tyrainds" they got something along the lines of "hive mind controlled swarming monsters that attack with huge hive fleets. Tyranids of different hive fleets have different focus and colourations and sometimes fight against each other as weapon tests." Which gets interpreted as each hive fleet has its own hive mind even if they are all linked.
Which to be fair might actually happen - everything we know about tyranids is filtered through other races impressions. We don't have a perfect first hand break down of all the ins and outs of Tyranids. Furthermore the way they operate might defy our understanding, so we end up with translations into a way we understand which don't quite convey the full truth. Especially when you're trying to convey those concepts with a few words rather than paragraphs
roboemperor wrote:
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: I briefly considered getting gladius but then turned away, I wasn't confident in a 4X 40k videogame.
Despite being advertised as "4X" I wouldn't call it that.
This is what you do in game
1. build buildings
2. use those buildings to build units
3. keep repeating 1&2 until everyone is dead.
The game is 100% combat. And is super deep mechanically and soooo much customization. Which heroes to get out first, whether to go infantry focused, vehicle focused, monster focused, or all 3. I often just play an empty map for 80 turns to perfect my build order for that thing I'm trying to do. I call it turn based starcraft because calling it "4X" imo is not accurate.
Personally I was hesitant with the game as its Slytherine who are competent, but often feel like they are abit resource starved (not quite enough skill within smaller teams in specific areas; or not quite enough budget to realise the full potential). I liken them to a "little Paradox" as they cover very similar genre areas, but the latter has a few big titles that let them have far more money to devote to bigger teams and larger game budgets.
That said Gladius does what it does really well for what it is. I agree its closer to simply turn based strategy rather than pure 4x. I think calling it 4x is more marketing because that segment of games is actually doing rather well whilst RTS And TBS are not doing as well. It is indeed totally combat focused, but like you say it achieves a really fun and good level of fun with its combat. The depth is purely in the army side of things. Unlike many 4x there's no vast research tree (there is research and choices on it are important); or vast array of buildings to get you "lost" in the complexities of building cities as well as combat. If anything I'd say its superior to quite a few other 4x where the split between managing cities and combat tends to result in one taking a loss - often combat can feel very simplistic or you end up with a game where resource management is complex and its very easy to lose because you devoted too much to either the city or the army etc...
It's an overall fun game and very good turnbased strategy game - well worth a punt if you like 40K and strategy
Kayback wrote: Space Marine was pretty epic. Did a good job of balancing "realism" of the 40K fluff with gameplay. The ability to commandeer Guard heavy weapons was great.
I wanted to shoot the Inquisitor in the face the second I met him.
I think it was that Skrillex-looking hairstyle that did it for me. Dude deserved a thunderhammer to the face for sure.
It was a great game though, sadly let down by the multiplayer
I quite enjoyed the multiplayer especially the co-op one.
Kayback wrote: Space Marine was pretty epic. Did a good job of balancing "realism" of the 40K fluff with gameplay. The ability to commandeer Guard heavy weapons was great.
I wanted to shoot the Inquisitor in the face the second I met him.
I think it was that Skrillex-looking hairstyle that did it for me. Dude deserved a thunderhammer to the face for sure.
It was a great game though, sadly let down by the multiplayer
I quite enjoyed the multiplayer especially the co-op one.
I mean the support for the multiplayer. It feels like they abandoned the whole thing so early. The horde mode was decent and chaos rising was fun but the player base eroded long before anything really came of it. I remember buying the Dreadnought DLC and it being impossible to get a game within 1-2 weeks of its release
Sterling191 wrote: Im shocked, shocked! that a mid-budget licensed third party video game takes some liberties with established lore.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Gladius is a video game that is justifying Tyranids fighting Tyranids. I think to imply more is overthinking it.
GW is incredibly protective of their IP. They blew up their deal with blizzard because of lore stuff. So I doubt Gladius or Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 or any officially licensed WH40K game is permitted to take any liberties with established lore.
pm713 wrote: What perspective is the gladius thing from? Tyranids, mechanicus or what?
I think omniscient narrator. When you meet Imperial Guard they Hive Mind "flexes its psychic muscles". It's impossible for any faction to notice that.
roboemperor wrote:
GW is incredibly protective of their IP. They blew up their deal with blizzard because of lore stuff. So I doubt Gladius or Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 or any officially licensed WH40K game is permitted to take any liberties with established lore.
Overread wrote:
More likely when they asked GW "So what are Tyrainds" they got something along the lines of "hive mind controlled swarming monsters that attack with huge hive fleets. Tyranids of different hive fleets have different focus and colourations and sometimes fight against each other as weapon tests." Which gets interpreted as each hive fleet has its own hive mind even if they are all linked.
Which to be fair might actually happen - everything we know about tyranids is filtered through other races impressions. We don't have a perfect first hand break down of all the ins and outs of Tyranids. Furthermore the way they operate might defy our understanding, so we end up with translations into a way we understand which don't quite convey the full truth. Especially when you're trying to convey those concepts with a few words rather than paragraphs
As I said before even with GW being protective of their IP it doesn't mean that things can't slip through the net; or that a narrator or Imperial study can't be wrong based on the lore. Especially about Tyranids where so little is known of them to start with. Again, like others, I wouldn't take a 3rdparty game "too" strictly to the letter. Even within GW's own internal writing from Black Library there is some variation - heck even between codex there's variations. The lore is flexible and changes and shifts around a bit. GW is protective of it, but at the same time the lore serves their needs and desires not the other way around.
Also I never heard that it was IP that caused GW and Blizzard to split. Don't forget this was WAY back when Warcraft 1 was being made (well the game that was going to be warhammer than then became warcraft 1). This is back when games were on floppy disks and Blizzard was nothing like the giant they are now and there was no way to predict they'd ever get to be like that (heck its honestly a fluke that they ever became as big as they are; esp when you consider that even before WOW they published very few games).
roboemperor wrote: GW is incredibly protective of their IP. They blew up their deal with blizzard because of lore stuff.
No, they didn't. GW decided they wanted to work with a more well known developer and Blizzard remembered from their DC comic games that licenses were a pain in the arse to work with, so both companies walked. Per Patrick Wyatt himself: "We had already had terrible experiences working with DC Comics on "Death and Return of Superman" and "Justice League Task Force", and wanted no similar issues for our new game."
GW is incredibly protective of their IP. They blew up their deal with blizzard because of lore stuff. So I doubt Gladius or Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 or any officially licensed WH40K game is permitted to take any liberties with established lore.
Quite to the contrary, GW is well known for throwing their IP to anyone who asks for it. Whether small no-name video game dev teams, or authors who want to write about space marines equipped with multi-lasers, while punching tyranids hundreds of feet into the air with their bare hands (seriously look up C.S. Goto if you want a laugh). They're incredibly protective when it comes to people using their IP without asking them, but once you've got permission, anything goes.
Even the bigger budget games take quite a few liberties with established lore. Unless you're claiming that Abaddon was killed during the events of battlefleet gothic armada 2. Or that terminator captains grow to the size of primarchs, and perform backflips in said terminator armour like in dawn of war 3.
GW's response to all questions about conflicts in canon is that everything in their universe is seen through the lens of an unreliable narrator. Everything is true, everything is false, and that's the way they like it. GW wants it to be a framework for telling stories. How far they drift from other stories in the setting is not a concern.
Quite to the contrary, GW is well known for throwing their IP to anyone who asks for it.
Take it from someone with experience, GW doesn't just "throw" their IP at anyone. And you better believe they maintain control over what's get made and what's get said. If you're working with GW, everything you do gets approved by them. You don't just get to make gak up and hope they don't notice.
I guess we have different sources. Yours is probably correct instead of mine.
What my source said was that Blizzard wanted to take too many liberties with the lore and eventually GW said **** it and left leaving Blizzard in quite a hole with half developed assets that they spent all their money on. So they made warcraft, made a ton of money, and then conducted "legally assisted copyright infringement" with that money for starcraft which resulted in a lawsuit by GW to Blizzard something about Lictor v.s. Hydralisk.
I first dismissed this, but after starcraft 2 came out and how it showed its true colors as a wh40k ripoff with nothing original in it, I started believing it.
Arson Fire wrote: Unless you're claiming that Abaddon was killed during the events of battlefleet gothic armada 2. Or that terminator captains grow to the size of primarchs, and perform backflips in said terminator armour like in dawn of war 3.
That game outright says upfront that its a "what-if" story.
I'm pretty sure DoWIII is canon. Along with DoW II and I. As in Tau sterilizes humans to reduce their population to 0.
Sterling191 wrote: Im shocked, shocked! that a mid-budget licensed third party video game takes some liberties with established lore.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Gladius is a video game that is justifying Tyranids fighting Tyranids. I think to imply more is overthinking it.
GW is incredibly protective of their IP. They blew up their deal with blizzard because of lore stuff.
A: That was almost 30 years ago and
B: Blizzard decided not to license with GW because they had bad experiences with previously licensed ip and wanted to retain control over their creation. GW didn't "blow it up".
Arson Fire wrote: Unless you're claiming that Abaddon was killed during the events of battlefleet gothic armada 2. Or that terminator captains grow to the size of primarchs, and perform backflips in said terminator armour like in dawn of war 3.
Also BFGA2 is canon. Story is a canon what-if. And the Hive Ship Designs are fully canon. Splinter fleets of Hive Fleet Leviathan can and do have hive ships that look like the hive ships in BFGA2 which is a good thing because BFGA2's hive ship designs are far, far superior than the tabletop design.
I’ll just contribute with some Gladius fluff. The game is set over Imperial planet Gladius Prime where the usual 40k suspects fight it out. You can play as AM, SM, orks, Tyranids, Necrons, Chaos and Tau. Come to think of it Eldars are currently missing from the game. Anyway you can win by killing your enemies or fulfilling a bunch of quest objectives, always ending with a ridiculously big and difficult battle. Every faction has narration whenever they accomplish certain things such as defeating an enemy, succeeding on a quest or claiming a reasource. The planet is for some reason full of kroot hounds, Catachan devils, Enslavers, ambulls, psychobuggs (forgot the name) and random mechanicus robots (most notably castellans) walking around. The main plot involves a warp storm and artifacts of vaul (which should be Eldar in origin if I’m not mistaken?). Also there’s Jokkaeros everywhere. Overall a pretty good game but I wouldn’t take anything it says about the lore to be canon. I certainly enjoyed my time with it though. Recommend it if you’re into 4X games, though it’s quite streamlined.
Here’s a link to a trailer for the game if people are interested:
Edit: List of 40k video games: Gladius, Mechanicus, Armageddon, Dawn of War, Chapter Master, Chaos Gate, Final Liberation, Space Marine, Space Hulk Deathwing, Space Hulk, Fire Warrior, Inquisitor, Squad Command, Battlefleet Gothic Armada, Deathwatch, Kill Team, Warhammmer 40k: Regicide, Carnage Champion, Storm of Vengeance, Space Crusader, Vengeance of the Blood Angels, Rights of War, Glory in Death, Combat Cards, Eternal Crusade, Space Wolves, Lost Crusade, Freeblade, Drop Assult, Legacy of Dorn: Herald of Oblivion.
If anyone claims it’s canon because it has GW IP then they are wrong. Most games on this list take extensive liberties with the lore. Gladius included. Also surely I missed a few titles in this list. Didn’t bother with numbers like DoW 1-3 or Soulstorm/Dark Crusade.
Edit 2: oh and gotta recommend Mechanicus to absolutely everyone. Game is just damn amazing and actually does the lore justice.
There are plenty of quotes direct from authors, editors, and game designers at GW that give their stance on consistency of canon.
Spoiler:
Gav Thorpe - Lead Designer wrote:With Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, the notion of canon is a fallacy. [...] Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 exist as tens of thousands of overlapping realities in the imaginations of games developers, writers, readers and gamers. None of those interpretations is wrong.
Gav Thorpe - Lead Designer wrote:[...] is the job of authors and games developers to illuminate and inspire, not to dictate. Perhaps you disagree with the portrayal of a certain faction, or a facet of their society doesn’t make sense in your version of the world. You may not like the answers presented, but in asking the question you can come up with a solution that matches your vision. As long as certain central themes and principles remain, you can pick and choose which parts you like and dislike.
Andy Hoare - Game Designer wrote:It all stems from the assumption that there's a binding contract between author and reader to adhere to some nonexistent subjective construct or 'true' representation of the setting. There is no such contract, and no such objective truth.
Aaron Dembski-Bowden - Author of books in Horus Heresy series wrote:There is no canon. There are several hundred creators all adding to the melting pot of the IP.
Marc Gascogne - Chief editor at Black Library wrote:Here's our standard line: Yes it's all official, but remember that we're reporting back from a time where stories aren't always true, or at least 100% accurate. If it has the 40K logo on it, it exists in the 40K universe. Or it was a legend that may well have happened. Or a rumour that may or may not have any truth behind it.
Marc Gascogne - Chief editor at Black Library wrote:I think the real problem for me, and I speak for no other, is that the topic as a "big question" doesn't matter. It's all as true as everything else, and all just as false/half-remembered/sort-of-true. The answer you are seeking is "Yes and no" or perhaps "Sometimes". And for me, that's the end of it. Now, ask us some specifics, eg can Black Templars spit acid and we can answer that one, and many others. But again note thet answer may well be "sometimes" or "it varies" or "depends". But is it all true? Yes and no. Even though some of it is plainly contradictory? Yes and no. Do we deliberately contradict, retell with differences? Yes we do. Is the newer the stuff the truer it is? Yes and no. In some cases is it true that the older stuff is the truest? Yes and no. Maybe and sometimes. Depends and it varies. It's a decaying universe without GPS and galaxy-wide communication, where precious facts are clung to long after they have been changed out of all recognition. Read A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter M Miller, about monks toiling to hold onto facts in the aftermath of a nuclear war; that nails it for me. Sorry, too much splurge here. Not meant to sound stroppy. To attempt answer the initial question: What is GW's definition of canon? Perhaps we don't have one. Sometimes and maybe. Or perhaps we do and I'm not telling you.
So when it comes to these 3rd party games, and even their own stories taking liberties with established lore, they've said themselves that it's really not a big deal to them.
Stories where warlord titans are 500m high are official. Stories where warlord titans are 50m high are official too.
Stories where the tyranid hive mind is a single entity spanning all fleets are official. Stories where each hive fleet represents a conflicting hive mind are also official.
None of these conflicting versions are either right or wrong in the eyes of GW.
To claim that GW is protective of their canon within the stories in these 3rd party games is ridiculous, when there quite deliberately is no canon. So long as it kind of fits into the existing universe if you squint at it a bit funny, it gets the rubber stamp of approval.
As I said at the start of the thread, just pick the version you like the best.
There is Cannon its just not a strict set of cast iron rules. There are certainly many elements that remain true, things like scales and perceptions of things are what tends to vary. Details like the size of a titan through to the size of a space ship. In general GW goes for a more cinematic faithful approach. It doesn't really matter if the battleship is 1 mile or 100 miles long; what matters is that its festooned with gothic designs, shrines, statues, gargoyles, rows of massive cannon and crewed by admech etc.... The visual cinematic experience and design approach is what GW are after remaining faithful too rather than the exact measurements and such.
When ever I explain how synapse work to my opponent I use the metaphor of a router. If they are online they are fearless. If not they default to one of two starting programs.
The Hive Mind on Gladius is trapped because of the warp storm stuff.
Gladius created a psychic signal akin to that produced by a doomed astropath on Fecundia which somehow divided the Hive Mind against itself. The second hive mind rose to fight the first.
The Local Hive Mind Fragment <--- official terminology, reconnects with Hive Mind Tiamet briefly to learn how to destroy Gladius.
An artificial separation not naturally occurring within the swarm itself. Furthermore its all interpreted through the eyes of an Imperial Scientist. You know the sort who believe in machines as gods and spirits and who cannot deviate from a standard design template because it goes against the will of god. Even if you're just putting a better scope onto your gun to shoot better.
It can be wrong; its just a human, a pitiful human trying to understand something far greater than itself.
The Hive Mind on Gladius is trapped because of the warp storm stuff.
Gladius created a psychic signal akin to that produced by a doomed astropath on Fecundia which somehow divided the Hive Mind against itself. The second hive mind rose to fight the first.
The Local Hive Mind Fragment <--- official terminology, reconnects with Hive Mind Tiamet briefly to learn how to destroy Gladius.
Multiple hive minds ftw.
That just sounds like one mind split into two temporarily, each part thinking for itself during the split, before reconnecting again. Which doesn't seem to me to be two Hive Minds, but an artificially divided single Mind.
Which, honestly, is really very cool. It displays the Hive Mind not being borne out of any single entity, but really being a consequence of a distributed network that can adapt, disconnect, reform and re-absorb itself. That's some extremely powerful adaptability.
So I doubt Gladius or Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 or any officially licensed WH40K game is permitted to take any liberties with established lore.
Armada does play kind of fast and loose with established events. Example: Armada 2's Imperial Navy campaign has Admiral Spire kill Abbadon and destroy the Vengeful Spirit during the 13th black crusade, which obviously didn't happen since he (and it) are still around post indomitus crusade at Vigilus....
Depending on the campaign you consider "true" many things happen. In one the Tyranids eat Admiral Spire; in another Chaos wins; heck if they'd actually kept going with the game we could have had even Tau winning.
So I doubt Gladius or Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 or any officially licensed WH40K game is permitted to take any liberties with established lore.
Armada does play kind of fast and loose with established events. Example: Armada 2's Imperial Navy campaign has Admiral Spire kill Abbadon and destroy the Vengeful Spirit during the 13th black crusade, which obviously didn't happen since he (and it) are still around post indomitus crusade at Vigilus....
Presumably it takes the Dawn of War approach and only one, if any, of the storylines is canonical.
Sterling191 wrote: Im shocked, shocked! that a mid-budget licensed third party video game takes some liberties with established lore.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Gladius is a video game that is justifying Tyranids fighting Tyranids. I think to imply more is overthinking it.
GW is incredibly protective of their IP. They blew up their deal with blizzard because of lore stuff. So I doubt Gladius or Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 or any officially licensed WH40K game is permitted to take any liberties with established lore.
Uhh.. Dawn of War. Dawn of War takes lots of liberties with established lore.
Gladius created a psychic signal akin to that produced by a doomed astropath on Fecundia which somehow divided the Hive Mind against itself. The second hive mind rose to fight the first.
The Local Hive Mind Fragment <--- official terminology, reconnects with Hive Mind Tiamet briefly to learn how to destroy Gladius.
Multiple hive minds ftw.
That just sounds like one mind split into two temporarily, each part thinking for itself during the split, before reconnecting again. Which doesn't seem to me to be two Hive Minds, but an artificially divided single Mind.
Which, honestly, is really very cool. It displays the Hive Mind not being borne out of any single entity, but really being a consequence of a distributed network that can adapt, disconnect, reform and re-absorb itself. That's some extremely powerful adaptability.
Distributed network Hivemind(s) splitting and reabsorbing each other seems very cool, and it can still explain Tyranid vs Tyranid conflict without being a mere "weapons test" -- maybe it's one splinter-Hive Mind trying to reduce the others' influence in the collective as they rejoin.
-- CONNECTING -- QUERY: STATUS : HIVE MIND SPLINTER ALPHA = 97 Norn Queens QUERY: STATUS: HIVE MIND SPLINTER BETA = 63 Norn Queens
HIVE MIND SPLINTER ALPHA: reset (SETTINGS_ALL_LOCAL_NODES) equal to (SETTINGS_ALPHA) HIVE MIND SPLINTER BETA: cancel reset LOCAL SYNAPSE NODE: (97 Norn Queens "reset" ) / (63 Norn Queens "cancel" ) = 1.539 LOCAL SYNAPSE NODE: 1.539 < 2.0 LOCAL SYNAPSE: reset authorization threshold = NOT MET LOCAL SYNAPSE NODE: reset cancelled
HIVE MIND SPLINTER ALPHA: run (NOM_NOM_NOM.exe) on (HIVE MIND SPLINTER BETA) HIVE MIND SPLINTER BETA = 59 Norn Queens HIVE MIND SPLINTER BETA = 48 Norn Queens HIVE MIND SPLINTER BETA = 43 Norn Queens
HIVE MIND SPLINTER ALPHA: reset (SETTINGS_ALL_LOCAL_NODES) equal to (SETTINGS_ALPHA) HIVE MIND SPLINTER ALPHA: cancel reset LOCAL SYNAPSE NODE: 97 Norn Queens "reset" / 43 Norn Queens "cancel" = 2.259 LOCAL SYNAPSE NODE: 2.259 > 2.0 LOCAL SYNAPSE NODE: reset authorization threshold = MET LOCAL SYNAPSE NODE: execute reset LOCAL SYNAPSE NODE: reset = complete
QUERY: STATUS: HIVE MIND SPLINTER ALPHA = 140 Norn Queens QUERY: STATUS: HIVE MIND SPLINTER BETA = 0 Norn Queens
That just sounds like one mind split into two temporarily, each part thinking for itself during the split, before reconnecting again. Which doesn't seem to me to be two Hive Minds, but an artificially divided single Mind.
Which, honestly, is really very cool. It displays the Hive Mind not being borne out of any single entity, but really being a consequence of a distributed network that can adapt, disconnect, reform and re-absorb itself. That's some extremely powerful adaptability.
I disagree. The local hive mind fragment needed to connect with hive mind tiamet to learn how to create the Doom, you know, the experimental Tyranid that consumed Eldar souls of Malan'tai by Hive Fleet Naga. Which only makes sense if it's a new hive mind. Norn Queens all share and know all Tyranid units experimental or otherwise. If the local hive mind fragment didn't know how to make the Doom then there is no norn-queen on Gladius and the Hive Mind is a newly created entity.
https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Norn-Queen "Once a type of bio-form has been engineered to meet a purpose determined by the Norn-Queen, more bio-forms of the same type can be cloned by all the other Norn-Queens of a given Hive Fleet. "
Far as we are aware there isn't a Norn Queen on Gladius - just a hive with spawning pools establishing itself. I believe so far Norn Queens have only been seen/heard of in the great Hive Ships. I don't believe we've seen them come planet-side.
Also note that Tyranids like The Doom and The Swarmlord are sort of like heroes are to other races. They are unique entities within the Swarm itself. The Swarmlord (which the Doom in Gladius is copy-catting) is unique, totally unique. There is only one within the Swarm. It exists as likely close to an "individual" within the matrix of the hivemind. Therefore it can only be at one place in one time, but it can be any place that the Hivemind reaches.
A hive locked off getting access to the Doom means that its basically connected to the main swarm for that access to that very specific creature.
Furthermore swarms that are isolated will evolve their own strains; the main body of the swarm also continues constant evolution. If you remain severed then you operate without that exchange of biological data. Once connected the exchange can be made.
Overread wrote: Far as we are aware there isn't a Norn Queen on Gladius - just a hive with spawning pools establishing itself. I believe so far Norn Queens have only been seen/heard of in the great Hive Ships. I don't believe we've seen them come planet-side.
Dominatrices carry norn-queens in them. But I agree, Gladius is an anphelion project. No norn-queen.
Overread wrote: Also note that Tyranids like The Doom and The Swarmlord are sort of like heroes are to other races. They are unique entities within the Swarm itself. The Swarmlord (which the Doom in Gladius is copy-catting) is unique, totally unique. There is only one within the Swarm. It exists as likely close to an "individual" within the matrix of the hivemind. Therefore it can only be at one place in one time, but it can be any place that the Hivemind reaches.
A hive locked off getting access to the Doom means that its basically connected to the main swarm for that access to that very specific creature.
I don't think the Doom is a hero. I think he's just an experiment like the Parasite of Mortrex.
Overread wrote: Far as we are aware there isn't a Norn Queen on Gladius - just a hive with spawning pools establishing itself. I believe so far Norn Queens have only been seen/heard of in the great Hive Ships. I don't believe we've seen them come planet-side.
Dominatrices carry norn-queens in them. But I agree, Gladius is an anphelion project. No norn-queen.
Overread wrote: Also note that Tyranids like The Doom and The Swarmlord are sort of like heroes are to other races. They are unique entities within the Swarm itself. The Swarmlord (which the Doom in Gladius is copy-catting) is unique, totally unique. There is only one within the Swarm. It exists as likely close to an "individual" within the matrix of the hivemind. Therefore it can only be at one place in one time, but it can be any place that the Hivemind reaches.
A hive locked off getting access to the Doom means that its basically connected to the main swarm for that access to that very specific creature.
I don't think the Doom is a hero. I think he's just an experiment like the Parasite of Mortrex.
I'd forgotten that bit on the dominatrix carrying them, though I've a feeling that it might be a bit of lore that's shifted around a bit. I recall it being something in Epic 40K, but since then the queens have shifted. IT might also be that the idea of the queen has never really been set in stone in the lore itself (since it has no model) and that as a result we might have two or three different types of queen or creature; all called the Norn Qyeen.
As for the nature of the Doom, its like as not impossible for us to know unless GW confirms. Either an experimental gene that's hard to replicate and thus strictly limited in quantity (much like neurothropes are) or a unique entity that exists within the hive.
It's not helped that Old One Eye is sometimes used as a name for a very specific carnifex, but also is a name sometimes used on any "I'll be back" type carnifex that appears to show extreme regeneration and brutality in combat. Indeed the current codex doesn't confirm if its a single carnifex that just won't die; or if its a rare strain or a unique element of carnifex bodies that only manifests when undergoing and surviving extreme stress and damage.
Overread wrote: I'd forgotten that bit on the dominatrix carrying them, though I've a feeling that it might be a bit of lore that's shifted around a bit. I recall it being something in Epic 40K, but since then the queens have shifted. IT might also be that the idea of the queen has never really been set in stone in the lore itself (since it has no model) and that as a result we might have two or three different types of queen or creature; all called the Norn Qyeen.
Norn-Queen is set in stone. Gladius makes a reference to it. The Impossible Difficulty AI for Tyranids is called the norn-queen. So if an officially licensed modern game has it, then it's not just a rumor that's retconned out.
I'd forgotten that bit on the dominatrix carrying them, though I've a feeling that it might be a bit of lore that's shifted around a bit. I recall it being something in Epic 40K, but since then the queens have shifted. IT might also be that the idea of the queen has never really been set in stone in the lore itself (since it has no model) and that as a result we might have two or three different types of queen or creature; all called the Norn Qyeen.
Yeah I think you're right about that being shifted around or retconned. The old fluff for the Dominatrix in Hive War mentions that they are the brood-mother of the swarm they lead. Basically filling the role of a norn-queen. However it makes no direct mention of norn queens. I suspect because they hadn't come up with the concept of norn-queens at the time that was written (1995).
I can't find any mention of norn-queens up until the 3rd edition codex (released about 6 years later), which states: '...The highest forms of Tyranids, their Dominatrixes and Norn Queens, are living bio-factories which give birth to an unending stream of warriors, hive ships and symbiote weapons.'.
I've checked a few books in between, but I'm not sure where I could find any more recent fluff linking dominatrixes to norn-queens. Dominatrixes aren't really referenced very often, due to only really showing up in epic, and that game being so old. It's quite possible that people have just inferred that Dominatrixes contain norn-queens due to them filling a similar role. Rather than it being directly stated anywhere.
Overread wrote: I'd forgotten that bit on the dominatrix carrying them, though I've a feeling that it might be a bit of lore that's shifted around a bit. I recall it being something in Epic 40K, but since then the queens have shifted. IT might also be that the idea of the queen has never really been set in stone in the lore itself (since it has no model) and that as a result we might have two or three different types of queen or creature; all called the Norn Qyeen.
Norn-Queen is set in stone. Gladius makes a reference to it. The Impossible Difficulty AI for Tyranids is called the norn-queen. So if an officially licensed modern game has it, then it's not just a rumor that's retconned out.
That's not how licenses work, nor background lore or setting details. It could be in a dozen licensed products, and if GW wants to go a different route and ignore it, they completely can, with no consequence.
There's a pile of Official GW Material that they happily ignore, and blithely contradict (Sensei being a good example of the former, and the Rubric, the latter. Originally, Thousand Sons marine squads were psychic batteries that could be tapped for d6 extra power points, not soulless automatons) Heck, there was a half-eldar Space Marine librarian running around for a while, and according to Warhammer Siege back in 1988, the Ultramarines weren't given Macragge or even full Adeptus Astartes status until after the Batlle of Macragge vs Hive Fleet Behemoth in 745.M41.
'Where do tyranids come from' is low tier fluff compared to the original status of the posterboy 'first founding' chapter.
roboemperor wrote: The whole canon/noncanon thing is just GW justifying their desire to retcon anything and everything they want. Nothing more.
So unless a later source material definitively contradicts and earlier fluff, it's canon until further notice.
That isnt remotely how continuity works.
Right. Everything is a legend. Everything is a rumor. Everything is a second hand accounting.Everything is true. Everything is not true.
Nice "continuity" you got there. Explain how it works then.
No this is just GW saying they want to retcon anything and everything in the future at will with no restrictions. And also as others said to not restrict creative 3rd parties with strict rules that might kill their imagination.
roboemperor wrote: The whole canon/noncanon thing is just GW justifying their desire to retcon anything and everything they want. Nothing more.
So unless a later source material definitively contradicts and earlier fluff, it's canon until further notice.
There's canon which can taken more seriously than others. Codex is about as official as it gets, videogame by minor studio is waaaay down the totem pole.
Right. Everything is a legend. Everything is a rumor. Everything is a second hand accounting.Everything is true. Everything is not true.
Nice "continuity" you got there. Explain how it works then..
It works because GW works much like american superhero comics. It doesn't matter that there's several dozen different versions of Batman through the ages. They are all canon in their own way by virtue that they all embody similar tropes and themes that remain mostly fixed. Only the specific details shift around, the generalist concept remains the same (barring those alter-ego ones of course).
40K works the same way; there are specific details but they are not set in stone. Authors, creators can change and shift them around; adjustments are made and the game moves forward. It's why Titans from Titan Legions era when it was just titans are often depicted in the art as being VASTLY bigger than they are in most of the games and much of the modern lore. Then again some of the cities they march through have also grown in size. 40K does not have a JRR Tolkien who is master of world building holding allthe cards keeping it tightly constrained to specifics. Instead they aim for the cinematic style. As long as that Battle Barge is a floating cathedral in space with over the top gothic architecture then it doesn't matter really if its 1 mile or 10 miles long. That latter part is a specific that doesn't matter so much as the feel and theme of the flying cathedral.
Overread wrote: I'd forgotten that bit on the dominatrix carrying them, though I've a feeling that it might be a bit of lore that's shifted around a bit. I recall it being something in Epic 40K, but since then the queens have shifted. IT might also be that the idea of the queen has never really been set in stone in the lore itself (since it has no model) and that as a result we might have two or three different types of queen or creature; all called the Norn Qyeen.
Never much went for the idea of the Dominatrix carrying around the 'real' synapse creature on it's back. Symbiotic creatures don't make much sense when you're talking about a superorganism that can shuffle selected genetic sequences around at will and grow the results. Surely a better idea to stick that set of psychic synapses in a thickly-armoured head rather than in a high-up exposed cradle?
I could make an exception for bio-weapons, but again, why glue different creatures together when you can grow them whole? It's not like that individual termagant is ever going to swap out it's fleshborer for a deathspitter.
Ditto Old One Eye and the Swarmlord. Background-wise, special characters are anathema to Tyranids. It's like making a Borg Queen. Not to mention Old One Eye turned up in third, looking kind of incongruous alongside those ridiculously customisable mutation rules. I'd agree with the idea that they're a ocassional genetic glitch that the Hive Mind somehow, somehow, hasn't figured out how to replicate
I'm ok with specialists in the Swarm. They just need to be like Malanthropes in that they are simply higher organisms that are super rare and hard to recreate so the Swarm only makes very few of them. Gameplay wise it lets Tyranids have "heroes" that are not heros; model wise it gives us more choices and lore wise it gives GW more big beasties they can beat up and kill without Tyranids ever "losing" them.
Personally I'd rather Old One Eye slipped into being a myth and just being a tough as nails carni. Instead creatures like the Red Terror and Deathleaper are more suitable for that mysterious almost unique Tyranid that seems to sneak its way in everywhere.
I like the idea that 'special character' nids require some sort of rare resource as a catalyst for their growth and accordingly they are more limited in how often the Hive Mind can deploy them. So if Old One Eye needs the fleet to expend plottinite to grow, their deployment of Old One Eyes is limited by the supply of plottinite. Accordingly Old One Eyes are only deployed sparingly and not more than one at the same battlefield in order to not overspend plottinite.
Much like the Doom of Malan'Tai requires a Zoanthrope (or likely Neurothrope now) to devour a vast glut of Eldar spirit stones and souls and psychic energies in order to reach full potential. The kind of thing that will only very rarely happen. A creature that the Swarm might not break down at the end of combat and will preserve. Passing it from swarm to swarm as needed. Rare creatures that are possible to replicate, just very very hard to achieve in the end.
You know what I find most interesting about Tyranids.
Go look at the first generation tyranids - most of their weapons are held in their arms. They have clearly defined hands and talons holding weapons.
Sure they still have blades and claws, but the majority are held weapons, even if they might have a connection tube to the unit using them.
Steadily as we head thorugh the following generations of evolution we see more and more the weapons fusing into the arms of the Tyranids. More and more we get models where the gun is inseparable.
Makes you wonder about future generations, will the weapons continue to blurr and meld into the Tyranid form. Does this represent the Swarm's hyper evolution getting more and more focused on war and war alone and perhaps does it also suggest that earlier strains were more adaptive at an individual level. We also see this with Warriors, Carnifex and tyrants - the original core of the army which are all very adaptable with weapon types. Moving forward things like the Exocrine and alike are much more singular in their focus. Designed from birth for a single role .
NinthMusketeer wrote: I like the idea that 'special character' nids require some sort of rare resource as a catalyst for their growth and accordingly they are more limited in how often the Hive Mind can deploy them. So if Old One Eye needs the fleet to expend plottinite to grow, their deployment of Old One Eyes is limited by the supply of plottinite. Accordingly Old One Eyes are only deployed sparingly and not more than one at the same battlefield in order to not overspend plottinite.
I recall back in the previous codex, the fluff for the swarmlords bone sabers said they contain a crystal core that can't be found in our galaxy. So that sort of fits.
The concept of a special character is weird only in that they won't just deploy broods of them.
There have been more primarch clones running around than simultaneous swarm lords. It's dumb.
The swarm doesn't need to exclusify its resources like that an indeed it's antithetical to their way of existence that they don't absolutely capitalise on the creation of a swarmlord by making every new hive tyrant a swarm lord.
The character of a nid army should be in its unique expression of the Hive Mind due to its evolutionary history. The Gestalt mind of the uberswarm is still just a communications network rather than a true singularity of being.
It's not unlike all the disparate infinity circuits combining to form Ynnead. Each one is still a unique expression.
If they want people to have characters in their army, they need to create Hive Mind Quirks, or Traits that reflect the unique evolutionary path of that particular swarm.
The HM can still deploy intelligent organisms with personality, it's just that they're expressions of that swarm's gestalt mind in particular forms.
Unlike a normal army you wouldn't use unique names for special characters, but rather unique designations, like Nexus Prime, Covert Echelon etc.
Look at it as a resources vs result dynamic. If growing a Swarmlord costs the same amount of resources as growing 2000 Termagants, the Hive Mind will only grow the Swarmlord when a Swarmlord is more useful than 2000 Termigants.
If a Hive Fleet is eating a world full of civilians that don't have weapons, the Hive Mind can throw Rippers at them with some Warriors or Malanthropes to run the show. If the Hive Fleet is facing an armored division, it has to grow some Hive Guard to kill the tanks cause Rippers can't get it done.
If the Hive Fleet is facing organized resistance lead by a skilled, experienced leader with strong plot armor and a wide range of units, it grows a Swarmlord.
Tyranids have always practised varied production of units. If they only produced the best of the best we'd only have Hive Tyrants on the table and nothing else - smart, physic, synapse monsters with thick armour, fast mobility and an array of weapon options from artillery to close combat and wings. Why make anything else if there are no limits to what the Swarm produces.
They'd just make billions of Hive Tyrants and win every battle.
Instead we see a vast amount of specialist diversity and a focus on swarming concepts. We see synapse as a limited resource within the swarm as well as a whole range of units that appear only rarely from a few within a swarm down to single instances. Clearly rare resources are a thing for hte Swarm and it might even be that within its network of thinking of the Hive Mind that it has to have gaunts and non-synapse creatures as part of how it lives and exists.
Another consideration is that we don't know the history of the Swarm; some of these limited units might be the result of long seated elements from way back when it began life. Old ways of approaching things much like how necrons still have pilots on some vehicles because they still cling to a non-machine past. Tyranids might be clinging to something like that, only for them instead of a closer to emotional link; its perhaps instinctive or genetic.
Overread wrote: Tyranids have always practised varied production of units. If they only produced the best of the best we'd only have Hive Tyrants on the table and nothing else - smart, physic, synapse monsters with thick armour, fast mobility and an array of weapon options from artillery to close combat and wings. Why make anything else if there are no limits to what the Swarm produces.
They'd just make billions of Hive Tyrants and win every battle.
Instead we see a vast amount of specialist diversity and a focus on swarming concepts. We see synapse as a limited resource within the swarm as well as a whole range of units that appear only rarely from a few within a swarm down to single instances. Clearly rare resources are a thing for hte Swarm and it might even be that within its network of thinking of the Hive Mind that it has to have gaunts and non-synapse creatures as part of how it lives and exists.
Another consideration is that we don't know the history of the Swarm; some of these limited units might be the result of long seated elements from way back when it began life. Old ways of approaching things much like how necrons still have pilots on some vehicles because they still cling to a non-machine past. Tyranids might be clinging to something like that, only for them instead of a closer to emotional link; its perhaps instinctive or genetic.
I've always felt that the Tyranid Warriors are as close to the "baseline" Tyranid entity that we see. They're more flexible than any other Tyranid in terms of what gear they can have, which makes me think most other species are designed later to be more specialized designs. One gets the sense that a Hive Tyrant is a "hero" Tyranid Warrior (and the early descriptions described the Tyrant as a big Tyranid Warrior). Warriors are also the baseline Synapse creature. Gaunts are like attack dogs, Genestealers are infiltrators, Carnifexes are Dreadnoughts, etc. And going waaay back, the first "Tyranid" model was warrior-sized, looking like a big Hunter-Slayer/Termagant.
But I also doubt that the Warriors are the grand genetic manipulators. The reference to the Norn Queen is obviously reminiscent of ants or bees. I could see the "original" Tyranids being proto-Warriors headed by a proto-Norn Queen. A hive-society that grew to be very advanced, and very aggressive, and the rest is history.
Insectum7 wrote: And going waaay back, the first "Tyranid" model was warrior-sized, looking like a big Hunter-Slayer/Termagant.
.
They weren't that big. I've got a pair of the RT tyranid models, they're roughly termagant sized (odd for 2 wound models) and termagant looking, but have some really weird design choices. Their bolters are biological looking, but their middle limbs are hooved (which they run on) and their back limbs are webbed.
That said, you're likely right about the rest. The RT zoat entry describes the other 'slave races' as little more than animals.
Amusingly, the original tyranid entry makes mention of them using mines of minerals and fuels as well as biological material when stripping planets, and they don't leave planets until reducing it to just airless rock.
^ The one in this article? The thing looks pretty big compared to the Space Marines it's next to in the photo, and the subsequent size comparison against a Guardsmen. Mind you, these are the Space Marines of the era, which are smaller than the ones of today. But the comparative size still makes the Tyranid pretty beastly!
Insectum7 wrote: ^ The one in this article? The thing looks pretty big compared to the Space Marines it's next to in the photo, and the subsequent size comparison against a Guardsmen. Mind you, these are the Space Marines of the era, which are smaller than the ones of today. But the comparative size still makes the Tyranid pretty beastly!
Insectum7 wrote: ^ The one in this article? The thing looks pretty big compared to the Space Marines it's next to in the photo, and the subsequent size comparison against a Guardsmen. Mind you, these are the Space Marines of the era, which are smaller than the ones of today. But the comparative size still makes the Tyranid pretty beastly!
The unreleased one? That they didn't put into production? No. It might as well be a 3-Up for all the relevance it has (well, a 2-Up).
But the ones they actually released and used aren't that big.
Well then I'm unaware of which model you are referring to, unless you're talking about the little Hunter-Slayers, (proto-termagant). As for relevance I was talking about the evolution of the Tyranid Warrior, of which I the unreleased model appears to be the first iteration. It's roughly the size of the plastic ones released for 40K, Advanced Space Crusade and Tyranid Attack.
Insectum7 wrote: ^ The one in this article? The thing looks pretty big compared to the Space Marines it's next to in the photo, and the subsequent size comparison against a Guardsmen. Mind you, these are the Space Marines of the era, which are smaller than the ones of today. But the comparative size still makes the Tyranid pretty beastly!
The unreleased one? That they didn't put into production? No. It might as well be a 3-Up for all the relevance it has (well, a 2-Up).
But the ones they actually released and used aren't that big.
Well then I'm unaware of which model you are referring to, unless you're talking about the little Hunter-Slayers, (proto-termagant). As for relevance I was talking about the evolution of the Tyranid Warrior, of which I the unreleased model appears to be the first iteration. It's roughly the size of the plastic ones released for 40K, Advanced Space Crusade and Tyranid Attack.
They're the same model, but smaller- same pose, same weapon, same head nodules. They were the 'tyranid' from the RT rulebook (which later became the warrior).
Basically the pink one in the article you linked, if that's a 25mm base. (As opposed to the bigger 'tan' one in the rulebook photo)
^The only thing I find that matches that description is what later became the Hunter-Slayers, and then Termagants. I found what looks to be an old catalog image of them referencing them as Tyranids, and describing the pointing one as a "leader". They Tyranid model picture in the RT rulebook is the big guy and it's a bit different.
In fact there appears to be two versions of the big guy, one with the mouth open and one with it closed, although they both look the same size.
Overread wrote: Did you ask on the support threads - though its only just Monday so staff might not have been around at the weekend to provide advice.
Actually didn't ask myself, however i noticed throughout Slitherine's forum that people had the issue since they released their last dlc, found little helpful. Other forums had solved the problem by different means that unfortunatly didn't work out for me...
Kind of went in an anger fit anyway that totally sucked up all hype of playing this game! Since I'm not coming back home that often I won't commit hours at my place to try and get this working, I'd rather stick to other, functionnal games.
Still wanted to warn that people might have to fix malfunctions, sorry for the rant!
The Magos Biologis of the Imperium categorises each Tyranid hive fleet as a separate force, an individual entity that competes with other hive fleets for resources. Indeed, each is self-sufficient, appearing to exhibit different strategies and developing unique creatures to overcome its prey. However, the truth is more complex, for each hive fleet is but a splinter of one greater assemblage. The Tyranids’ numbers are vast beyond counting, swarms so large that they block out the very stars, yet each and every creature is but a single cell in the living body of a single super-organism.
Every thought and action, every spark of life in the Tyranid race, is bound and interlinked into a single unfathomable consciousness, a great entity that stretches across hundreds of light years of space. This gestalt sentience is known as the Hive Mind. It holds all Tyranids in a psychic bond that enables them to act in perfect synchronicity. Under the influence of this ancient consciousness, the Tyranids have fed on countless planets and devoured civilisations since time immemorial."
You can easily draw parallels between the hive Mind and the chaos gods. In this instance the hive Mind is like the god of survival.
Just as a chaos god's demons are but slivers of its being, the Tyranids are individual components of the hive mind
.
Each daemon has its own personality despite being from the same source. Greater demons have an even greater singular identity and see themselves as separate entities distinct from one another.
Therefore I can see hive fleets themselves being identities in a similar way, each with individual organisms that make them up.
Combined they are the hive mind, but they have more autonomy than just separate parts of a single organism, just as the bloodthirsters are autonomous within the scope of khornes domain
Right. Everything is a legend. Everything is a rumor. Everything is a second hand accounting.Everything is true. Everything is not true.
Nice "continuity" you got there. Explain how it works then..
It works because GW works much like american superhero comics. It doesn't matter that there's several dozen different versions of Batman through the ages. They are all canon in their own way by virtue that they all embody similar tropes and themes that remain mostly fixed. Only the specific details shift around, the generalist concept remains the same (barring those alter-ego ones of course).
40K works the same way; there are specific details but they are not set in stone. Authors, creators can change and shift them around; adjustments are made and the game moves forward. It's why Titans from Titan Legions era when it was just titans are often depicted in the art as being VASTLY bigger than they are in most of the games and much of the modern lore. Then again some of the cities they march through have also grown in size. 40K does not have a JRR Tolkien who is master of world building holding all loating cathedral in space with over the top gothic architecture then it doesn't matter really if its 1 mile or 10 miles long. That latter part is a specific that doesn't matter so much as the feel and theme of the flying cathedral.
This may just about be the most sensible approach to 40k lore I have ever read. 40K is a setting (much like forgotten realms in dnd for example) where its more about making your own story than "this is what happened".
40k was born in the mid 80s, a time that tabletop roleplaying was arguably at its height (or possibly just past it) and the concept of "continuity" in any given IP wasn't much thought of because at that time (and trust me, I was there) gaming was mostly done in small, isolated groups of friends (we did not have this new fandangled internet stuff, hell, it was difficult enough to convince your parents to let you borrow the house phone for an hour to talk to your friends) so gaming backgrounds were more open ended and up to you to decide what to do with them. This is why 40k codices are pretty much the definition of "unreliable narrator" fiction biased towards the race in question as it is designed to give you ideas for your own narrative rather than constrict you to following one path or timeline ("battletech" "cough cough" is a great game but I never liked the whole ongoing timeline stuff myself though thats kind of the point)
At the end of the day, I guess that what I'm saying is "if you wanna go with one thing over another go for it, but don't insist others have to subscribe to your inerpretation of lore.
Edit for on topic reasons: I personally like the idea that all Tyranids everywhere are 1 conscious being as I find it far more frightening that all these various hive fleet attacks could be the work of 1 individual so different from our own concept of what an individual is that we struggle to understand it. This may very well be because I am a massive H.P.Lovecraft fan however and the concept of the unknowable alien "thing"appeals to me in particular.
I talked around people who know people who know people who know people that worked in game stores.
They all unanimously say
1. GW is greedy as hell
2. GW is incredibly protective of their IP and everyone must be within the boundaries they set for them.
So any of you who says GW sells their IP to anyone is making a baseless claim.
Everything that happens in Gladius is approved by GW.
Right. Everything is a legend. Everything is a rumor. Everything is a second hand accounting.Everything is true. Everything is not true.
Nice "continuity" you got there. Explain how it works then..
It works because GW works much like american superhero comics. It doesn't matter that there's several dozen different versions of Batman through the ages. They are all canon in their own way by virtue that they all embody similar tropes and themes that remain mostly fixed. Only the specific details shift around, the generalist concept remains the same (barring those alter-ego ones of course).
40K works the same way; there are specific details but they are not set in stone. Authors, creators can change and shift them around; adjustments are made and the game moves forward. It's why Titans from Titan Legions era when it was just titans are often depicted in the art as being VASTLY bigger than they are in most of the games and much of the modern lore. Then again some of the cities they march through have also grown in size. 40K does not have a JRR Tolkien who is master of world building holding all loating cathedral in space with over the top gothic architecture then it doesn't matter really if its 1 mile or 10 miles long. That latter part is a specific that doesn't matter so much as the feel and theme of the flying cathedral.
This may just about be the most sensible approach to 40k lore I have ever read. 40K is a setting (much like forgotten realms in dnd for example) where its more about making your own story than "this is what happened".
40k was born in the mid 80s, a time that tabletop roleplaying was arguably at its height (or possibly just past it) and the concept of "continuity" in any given IP wasn't much thought of because at that time (and trust me, I was there) gaming was mostly done in small, isolated groups of friends (we did not have this new fandangled internet stuff, hell, it was difficult enough to convince your parents to let you borrow the house phone for an hour to talk to your friends) so gaming backgrounds were more open ended and up to you to decide what to do with them. This is why 40k codices are pretty much the definition of "unreliable narrator" fiction biased towards the race in question as it is designed to give you ideas for your own narrative rather than constrict you to following one path or timeline ("battletech" "cough cough" is a great game but I never liked the whole ongoing timeline stuff myself though thats kind of the point)
At the end of the day, I guess that what I'm saying is "if you wanna go with one thing over another go for it, but don't insist others have to subscribe to your inerpretation of lore.
Edit for on topic reasons: I personally like the idea that all Tyranids everywhere are 1 conscious being as I find it far more frightening that all these various hive fleet attacks could be the work of 1 individual so different from our own concept of what an individual is that we struggle to understand it. This may very well be because I am a massive H.P.Lovecraft fan however and the concept of the unknowable alien "thing"appeals to me in particular.
2nd edit: silly grammatical errors.
Glory to the headcannon! I feel that until 8th edition when GW really started to want to have things move along and so way tighter drove the story, it was, as often stated on dakka, a setting, a sandbox, not a story. So GW gave you many the boundaries in with you are too play, with many details to help find your place and set up a credible sandbox... then all the rest is yours to do. That's actually the most important part of wargaming to me: assemble whatever books, rules, minis and friends you have at hand and carve you little piece of fun in that sandbox. After all, at the end of the day, neither the internet nor GW nor the government will watch over your shoulder what you make out of the lore.
Oooo people who know people who know people who know people who worked at the stores. That's a very reliable and clear insight to GW's inner workings alright. It doesn't mesh with my talking with managers though - they know as much as we do at most. Until the last minute anyway.
pm713 wrote: Oooo people who know people who know people who know people who worked at the stores. That's a very reliable and clear insight to GW's inner workings alright. It doesn't mesh with my talking with managers though - they know as much as we do at most. Until the last minute anyway.
What does that have to do with the fact that developers get smacked for trying to do anything without GW approval?
pm713 wrote: Oooo people who know people who know people who know people who worked at the stores. That's a very reliable and clear insight to GW's inner workings alright. It doesn't mesh with my talking with managers though - they know as much as we do at most. Until the last minute anyway.
What does that have to do with the fact that developers get smacked for trying to do anything without GW approval?
You are aware that the branching stories in Battlefleet Gothic 2 has one where the Tyranids win - one where the Necrons win, Chaos and Imperials too? They are all happening in the same place at the same time - they can't all win. Yet they are in the game and approved by GW.
Heck the wars and campaigns in Warhammer Total War 2 are the same.
They are games based on the lore and setting. They aim for the feel and asthetics and most of the technical details being correct. Furthermore don't overlook the fact that the info we get on the tyranids, even in their own campaign, is only deductions by humans. They can be wrong.
Suffice it to say that the technical details of the Tyranids have never been spelled out ,but all the lore we have thus far supports the view of one singular Hive Mind concept. It's only through outside intervention that small "independent appearing" groups of tyranids have been formed; yet as we've only scant understanding of them, it might not even be how its presumed to work.
In the end all the lore barring 1 game in 1 mission (that might not be pure cannon since not all the races can win the Gladius battle at once either) agrees with the single Hive Mind approach.
Overread wrote: You are aware that the branching stories in Battlefleet Gothic 2 has one where the Tyranids win - one where the Necrons win, Chaos and Imperials too? They are all happening in the same place at the same time - they can't all win. Yet they are in the game and approved by GW.
Why do you people keep repeating this over and over? The stories are said flat out upfront as noncanon what if stories and each campaign is a what if story of that faction being victorious. What do the existence of these series of what if noncanon stories have anything at all to do with GW setting boundaries to what developers can do with their IP and smacking them down if they betray anything?
Are you saying GW's allowance of noncanon what if stories is evidence that they don't give a **** about what developers do with their IPs? What relevance do noncanon what if stories have with the topic at hand?
Insectum7 wrote: ^So the video game is both absolutely canon, but alao not canon.
So lets see
One video game outright upfront tells you that it's a non canon what if story.
Other video games like DoW and Gladius don't say it's a noncanon what if story. And in DoW's case there's even a canon. Space Marines won all but Soulstorm, which the Orks won.
Your logic is to somehow group all videogames into the same category as bfga2 because.......?
EDIT: If you feel someone is being impolite, please don't escalate.
The Magos Biologis of the Imperium categorises each Tyranid hive fleet as a separate force, an individual entity that competes with other hive fleets for resources. Indeed, each is self-sufficient, appearing to exhibit different strategies and developing unique creatures to overcome its prey. However, the truth is more complex, for each hive fleet is but a splinter of one greater assemblage. The Tyranids’ numbers are vast beyond counting, swarms so large that they block out the very stars, yet each and every creature is but a single cell in the living body of a single super-organism.
Every thought and action, every spark of life in the Tyranid race, is bound and interlinked into a single unfathomable consciousness, a great entity that stretches across hundreds of light years of space. This gestalt sentience is known as the Hive Mind. It holds all Tyranids in a psychic bond that enables them to act in perfect synchronicity. Under the influence of this ancient consciousness, the Tyranids have fed on countless planets and devoured civilisations since time immemorial."
The tyranid codex > low budget pc game.
The thing is though, in universe ideas can be wrong. Those Magos Biologis may be completely wrong and not break cannon.
This leaves plenty of wriggle room for retcons that technically aren't retcons but are better understandings or newer discoveries.
pm713 wrote: Oooo people who know people who know people who know people who worked at the stores. That's a very reliable and clear insight to GW's inner workings alright. It doesn't mesh with my talking with managers though - they know as much as we do at most. Until the last minute anyway.
What does that have to do with the fact that developers get smacked for trying to do anything without GW approval?
Considering how unreliable your 'sources' are it means that it's starting to seem like you can't deal with being wrong more than anything else.
pm713 wrote: Considering how unreliable your 'sources' are it means that it's starting to seem like you can't deal with being wrong more than anything else.
Lets see
I say GW is incredibly protective of their IP
You respond by saying gamestore managers are kept in the dark
I point out that has absolutely nothing to do with GW being incredibly protective of their IP. Your comment neither confirms nor denies this. It is totally off topic.
And now you accuse me of being incapable of being wrong.
I've had enough. I'm not gonna waste any more of my time reading posts of condescending people who fail at basic logic, throw nonsequitors out, and insults anyone who points out the flaws in their terrible "arguments". Both you and Insectum7 are on my ignore list now.
We aren't saying that GW isn't legally protective of their IP. We are saying that GW isn't strict in the consistence of specific details regarding certain aspects of their own lore.
Furthermore even where they are, there are elements in the style of information being presented through the lore which makes some deductions unreliable. Such as the note that most Tyranid specific details are written by Imperial Scientists rather than from the Tyranids point of view. The scientist can be wrong - indeed when you consider how Imperial science is conducted they've a greater chance of being wrong about Xenos stuff than being right.
It's a bit like how Victorian Scientists and "rich naturalists" could be. They could collect vast amounts of empirical data, however there were certain flaws in their thinking which affected some results. A notable one being that many were very religious, which influenced the conclusions and questions they would use in their science. Granted because they were Victorians and not from the 41st millennium, they were sane rather than insane so by and large valid science did win through in the end.
Finally when it comes to 3rd party created content it doesn't have to remain true to the specifics of the lore, just true to the specifics of the aesthetics of the lore. By their very nature many will break bits of lore for their own internal stories (eg Gladius, BFG1 and 2, Dawn of War Dark Crusade all have multiple races winning the same war).
pm713 wrote: Considering how unreliable your 'sources' are it means that it's starting to seem like you can't deal with being wrong more than anything else.
Lets see
I say GW is incredibly protective of their IP
You respond by saying gamestore managers are kept in the dark
I point out that has absolutely nothing to do with GW being incredibly protective of their IP. Your comment neither confirms nor denies this. It is totally off topic.
And now you accuse me of being incapable of being wrong.
I've had enough. I'm not gonna waste any more of my time reading posts of condescending people who fail at basic logic, throw nonsequitors out, and insults anyone who points out the flaws in their terrible "arguments". Both you and Insectum7 are on my ignore list now.
"I talked around people who know people who know people who know people that worked in game stores.
They all unanimously say
1. GW is greedy as hell
2. GW is incredibly protective of their IP and everyone must be within the boundaries they set for them.
So any of you who says GW sells their IP to anyone is making a baseless claim."
That is what you said and what I was referring to.
The relevance is quite clear and you need to chill out.
Overread wrote: We aren't saying that GW isn't legally protective of their IP. We are saying that GW isn't strict in the consistence of specific details regarding certain aspects of their own lore.
No, that's what YOU are saying not "we". And it's plausible which is why I haven't been refuting it.
Overread wrote: Furthermore even where they are, there are elements in the style of information being presented through the lore which makes some deductions unreliable. Such as the note that most Tyranid specific details are written by Imperial Scientists rather than from the Tyranids point of view. The scientist can be wrong - indeed when you consider how Imperial science is conducted they've a greater chance of being wrong about Xenos stuff than being right.
Only the quest is in the perspective of a scientist. The other stuff is in the perspective of an omniscient narrator.
Overread wrote: Finally when it comes to 3rd party created content it doesn't have to remain true to the specifics of the lore, just true to the specifics of the aesthetics of the lore. By their very nature many will break bits of lore for their own internal stories (eg Gladius, BFG1 and 2, Dawn of War Dark Crusade all have multiple races winning the same war).
Your claim isn't supported (3rd party can be lazy regarding to the lore) except by reddit quotes. My claim (GW is incredibly protective of their IP) isn't supported except by a couple of people who worked with them. So the discussion cannot move forward until we get an official quote directly from GW or a game developer.
But you're wrong about the other parts. Dark Crusade has space marines as the canon victor. Soulstorm has Orks as the canon victor. THe first two DoW and and DoW II have space marines as the canon victor. BFG2 is directly stated upfront to be just a what if story so there is no canon victor. None of the game's campaigns ever happened. And Gladius is like DoW before the sequels selected a canon victor.
Gladius is canon, but being canon in the 40k IP is kinda meaningless because of how large is the IP and GW doesn't have a canon policy beyond "everything and nothing is true". 40k is designed to be an open sand-box for both the player and the writer, with no "correct" interpretation of the lore.
If you want to prefer Gladius' lore over a Codex, that is valid. What is not valid is trying to impose your preferences over everyone else.
Tyran wrote: What is not valid is trying to impose your preferences over everyone else.
Where have I been doing that? Show me where I did that
I heard from people who worked with GW that GW is incredibly protective of their IP.
I shared that here.
A now ignored user threw a nonsequitor into the discussion.
I pointed out his comment was a nonsequitor
Overread posted some stuff but some of it was incorrect.
I pointed the incorrect parts out. Which is specifically using a game that outright upfront states they are noncanon what if story as proof of anything.
A 2nd now ignored user insulted me.
I responded to that
The first now ignored user insulted me.
I put those two users on my ignore list.
Overread once again comes in with a coherent argument.
You accuse me of trying to force my preferences on others.
Excuse you robo, I pointed out that your "source" of low level managers separated from you by two layers of other 'people' was ridiculous which is a valid point.
You're the one claiming that GW is both protective of their IP and retcons it whenever they want.
The thing is though, in universe ideas can be wrong. Those Magos Biologis may be completely wrong and not break cannon.
The magos biologis represents the IoM, and how its understands the tyranids. The next few paragraphs are from the point of view of an all-knowing 3rd person narrator.
The tyranids codexes has always been represented this way: "the IoM thinks that xxxx.. but in reality xxx..".
I dont understand where this notion, that the tyrnaid codexes are told only from the point of view of the imperium, comes from (people who has never read a tyranid codex?).
I dont understand where this notion, that the tyrnaid codexes are told only from the point of view of the imperium, comes from (people who has never read a tyranids codex?).
It never was.
3rd edition Codex only has a few actual solid pages of lore and its all Imperium based.
Same for the 4th edition - though there's more of a split between Imperial studies and Narrator but it shifts back and forth the whole time with a heavy focus on the Imperium. Suffice to say it strongly suggests that the information presented relates to the Imperium.
I don't think in either there's even a quote by another Xenos force relating to the Tyranids. It's not until the 5th that we actually see some relation to the Tyranids from a different aspects. By and large the Imperium remains the main voice - again the Imperium gets hit the most in general - but we start to see more Eldar and Tau influences too. This was the first Codex with a real meaty lore segment.
The more recent have erred closer to a more narrators voice approach, but almost always in relation to other species and the Imperium. Again we see this general view that what we know of the Tyranids is what other races (mostly the Imperium) knows of them rather than what the Tyranids know of themselves. Hence why we've no idea what that huge planet they are building is for. If another race were doing it we'd know what it was for or know that its purpose was intrigue being deliberately kept secret.
I dont understand where this notion, that the tyrnaid codexes are told only from the point of view of the imperium, comes from (people who has never read a tyranids codex?).
It never was.
3rd edition Codex only has a few actual solid pages of lore and its all Imperium based.
Same for the 4th edition - though there's more of a split between Imperial studies and Narrator but it shifts back and forth the whole time with a heavy focus on the Imperium. Suffice to say it strongly suggests that the information presented relates to the Imperium.
I guess that is true (the 4th edition codex has a fair bit more lore than 2nd and 3rd though).
In 5th and onwards, we start to get more informtion from a 3rd person narrator (information unknown to the IoM etc).
The thing is though, in universe ideas can be wrong. Those Magos Biologis may be completely wrong and not break cannon.
This leaves plenty of wriggle room for retcons that technically aren't retcons but are better understandings or newer discoveries.
You are misunderstanding the text. It is not written from the Magos Biologis POV, but from third person narrator. The narrator knows more than the IoM or the other races, but still leaves a lot of mystery and unanswered questions.
Tyran wrote: . It is not written from the Magos Biologis POV, but from third person narrator. The narrator knows more than the IoM or the other races, but still leaves a lot of mystery and unanswered questions.
Tyran wrote: . It is not written from the Magos Biologis POV, but from third person narrator. The narrator knows more than the IoM or the other races, but still leaves a lot of mystery and unanswered questions.
Yes, that was my point.
Bah fuzzy recollection. I haven't read the Tyranid codex in a while, I thought it was written in the voice of the in-universe IoM findings.
When discussing what counts as canon, always worth remembering this quote - the only time GW have ever declared an ‘official’ canon policy:
Marc Gascoigne, then head of BL wrote:"Keep in mind Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 are worlds where half truths, lies, propaganda, politics, legends and myths exist. The absolute truth which is implied when you talk about “canonical background” will never be known because of this. Everything we know about these worlds is from the viewpoints of people in them which are as a result incomplete and even sometimes incorrect. The truth is mutable, debatable and lost as the victors write the history…
Here’s our standard line: Yes it’s all official, but remember that we’re reporting back from a time where stories aren’t always true, or at least 100% accurate. if it has the 40K logo on it, it exists in the 40K universe. Or it was a legend that may well have happened. Or a rumour that may or may not have any truth behind it.
Let’s put it another way: anything with a 40K logo on it is as official as any Codex… and at least as crammed full of rumours, distorted legends and half-truths.
I think the real problem for me, and I speak for no other, is that the topic as a “big question” doesn’t matter. It’s all as true as everything else, and all just as false/half-remembered/sort-of-true. The answer you are seeking is “Yes and no” or perhaps “Sometimes”. And for me, that’s the end of it.
Now, ask us some specifics, eg can Black Templars spit acid and we can answer that one, and many others. But again note that answer may well be “sometimes” or “it varies” or “depends”.
But is it all true? Yes and no. Even though some of it is plainly contradictory? Yes and no. Do we deliberately contradict, retell with differences? Yes we do. Is the newer the stuff the truer it is? Yes and no. In some cases is it true that the older stuff is the truest? Yes and no. Maybe and sometimes. Depends and it varies.
It’s a decaying universe without GPS and galaxy-wide communication, where precious facts are clung to long after they have been changed out of all recognition. Read A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter M Miller, about monks toiling to hold onto facts in the aftermath of a nuclear war; that nails it for me."
"Since each of us was several, there was already quite a crowd."
The idea of a hive mind is referencing the distribution of consciousness. Much of the science is undecided on what that means/how that functions. Is intelligence the sum total of a brain? or is it also present in the micro aspects of the neurons which comprise it.
I think framing the Hive Mind as either One or Many is a misreading. If consciousness is distributed, One is Many.
We have official things saying
Tyranids eat minerals solely for the microorganisms that reside on the minerals. They can't digest minerals.
Tyranids eat minerals and mineral content is what they also look for in selecting planets to devour.
Tyranids eat metal and target AdMech facilities for already refined metals.
Tyranids can't eat metal which is why AdMech beat the Tyranids in a war of attrition on Lucifer
Tyranids can't reproduce without a Norn Queen, Dominatrix, or Tervigon
Tyranids can reproduce from any Tyranid
Tyranids avoid necrons
Tyranids don't avoid necrons
You get the point. So the Hive Mind being multiple or single is not gonna be resolved until repeatedly future official things shoot it down as a total impossibility.
You get the point. So the Hive Mind being multiple or single is not gonna be resolved until repeatedly future official things shoot it down as a total impossibility.
The fact that the hive mind is "one" has been specified in every tyranid codex since 5th edition, with every tyranid brain, acting like a single neuron in an impossibly vast super organism.
Its even stated in 6th and 8th edition, that the fleets compete with each other, despite being part of the same single consciousness. So Gladius doesn't bring anything new to the table.
I have to say I rather like how GW has changed the instinctive behaviour rules in the game to reflect it a bit better. In the past Tyranids without synapse were almost useless - hunkering down or even more likely to retreat. It also meant opponents fast learned to focus on the synapse threat above all else.
Today taking out the synapse removes some control options, but your gaunts remain very effective killers - as they should be. They remain powerful fighting units, just lacking the overarching guidance and strategic control offered by higher lifeforms.
That's why older codexes had the Feed, Lurk and Hunt subclasses of Instinct Behaviour, as different Tyranids have different behaviours. Some are extremely aggressive and had the Feed rule, other were the complete opposite and had the Lurk rule and Hunt was for those that liked to fire a lot at range.
You get the point. So the Hive Mind being multiple or single is not gonna be resolved until repeatedly future official things shoot it down as a total impossibility.
The fact that the hive mind is "one" has been specified in every tyranid codex since 5th edition, with every tyranid brain, acting like a single neuron in an impossibly vast super organism.
Its even stated in 6th and 8th edition, that the fleets compete with each other, despite being part of the same single consciousness. So Gladius doesn't bring anything new to the table.
Gladius came out after all those codices.
5th edition says Tyranids avoided Solemnance. War in the Museum said they didn't avoid it and Trazyn dodged them. Which is right?
Lore is constantly shifting at the whim of GW writers. Since gladius is more recent than your codices its lore is valid until future material shoots it down, not past material. Your quoting of past material doesn't really do anything.
You get the point. So the Hive Mind being multiple or single is not gonna be resolved until repeatedly future official things shoot it down as a total impossibility.
The fact that the hive mind is "one" has been specified in every tyranid codex since 5th edition, with every tyranid brain, acting like a single neuron in an impossibly vast super organism.
Its even stated in 6th and 8th edition, that the fleets compete with each other, despite being part of the same single consciousness. So Gladius doesn't bring anything new to the table.
Gladius came out after all those codices.
5th edition says Tyranids avoided Solemnance. War in the Museum said they didn't avoid it and Trazyn dodged them. Which is right?
Lore is constantly shifting at the whim of GW writers. Since gladius is more recent than your codices its lore is valid until future material shoots it down, not past material. Your quoting of past material doesn't really do anything.
What you see in gladius is mentioned and explained in both 6th and 8th edition. There is no cannon conflict here?
Andersp90 wrote: What you see in gladius is mentioned and explained in both 6th and 8th edition. There is no cannon conflict here?
Yeah, I misunderstood you. Sorry.
Ok so lets just get some facts out here.
Fact1:
Tyranid Hive Fleets compete with each other.
Gladius Tyranids outright kill each other.
Fact2:
Tyranid Hive Fleets consume fallen hive fleets to obtain genetic data. What they adapted to and why that kind of stuff.
Gladius Tyranids had to connect with Hive Fleet Tiamet to learn how to kill Gladius and disintegrate Gladius.
So from this we can tell, the Hive Mind splits itself apart and then i guess merges back to the real hive mind? Kinda like Chaos God and their Greater Daemons? Independent yet fully subordinate and reabsorbed into the god at the god's whim? I mean, the Hive Minds don't know what the other Hive Fleets know, so that suggests those are two different Hive Minds, yet they are all the same Hive Mind so...?
That has also been mentioned in the codex lore - I assume to give a lore reason for tyranids vs tyranids TT games.
Fact2:
Tyranid Hive Fleets consume fallen hive fleets to obtain genetic data. What they adapted to and why that kind of stuff.
Gladius Tyranids had to connect with Hive Fleet Tiamet to learn how to kill Gladius and disintegrate Gladius.
So from this we can tell, the Hive Mind splits itself apart and then i guess merges back to the real hive mind? Kinda like Chaos God and their Greater Daemons? Independent yet fully subordinate and reabsorbed into the god at the god's whim? I mean, the Hive Minds don't know what the other Hive Fleets know, so that suggests those are two different Hive Minds, yet they are all the same Hive Mind so...?
I don't know. I'm a think about this later.
Its hard to tell at this point. In 4th edition (or 5th, I cant remember), it was stated that destroying a hive fleet would not prevent any information gained, from being passed on to the rest of the tyranid fleets/the hive mind. That seems(?) to have been retconned with "valedor"/8th edition.
Each hive fleet might just act as individual thoughts within one greater consciousness. Who knows.
Andersp90 wrote: Its hard to tell at this point. In 4th edition (or 5th, I cant remember), it was stated that destroying a hive fleet would not prevent any information gained, from being passed on to the rest of the tyranid fleets/the hive mind. That seems(?) to have been retconned with "valedor"/8th edition.
Each hive fleet might just act as individual thoughts within one greater consciousness. Who knows.
Share memories but different opinion? Yeah I can see that being one hive mind with multiple personalities or ideas or something.
But not sharing memories and knowledge? No, that's a definite separate entity. Not a single entity with split personalities.
Hive Fleet Hydra prioritizes consuming failed Tyranid invasions to gain data about the defenders of that invasion.
I'm just gonna think there are multiple hive minds that are cloud computing which makes them a "single" entity. As it's the only interpretation that makes sense atm.
Consider that whilst the Tyranid system has infinite possibilities there's clearly limitations on its data transfer within Synapse. Whilst Synapse is very powerful it has clear limitations and restrictions. Hence why every single Tyranid isn't a Synapse creature. Furthermore its likely why Tyranids have their own mind and require direction through Synapse rather than taking all their orders through synapse.
As a result it might well be that Synapse simply cannot allow for the constant transfer of information between hiveships. It's just too much information flying back and forth.
As a result only what is required is transferred at any one time. This allows for there to be inconsistency in terms of different hive fleets having different information. It's simply not within the Tyranids benefit and means to keep all data flying back and forth at all times. This might even be some form of vestigial element that comes from a time when the Hive was smaller and when Norn Queens might even have been individual.
We've also seen that long distances can break Synapse communication. Many Genestealer Cults operate well outside of regular Synapse range, often only gaining sufficient signal when they swell their numbers. Clearly those Stealer broods are alone, operating within their own miniature HiveMind. And yet that Hive Mind never overtly works against the Tyranid cause. Perhaps it is a separate HiveMind with its own strategic focus; however its goals, personality (as much as it has one) and its overall unity remain the same as the core Hive Mind. So we never see proper civil war within the Tyranids. The closest we get are supposed weapons tests between Hive Fleets.
In addition we have seen the Imperium trick tyranids into attacking other broods by changing/modification of the synapse signal. This might suggest, again, a past when there were more Hive Minds and that remains a vestigial element within the Swarm; but never powerful enough to subvert the single unity that they now have.
Andersp90 wrote: Its hard to tell at this point. In 4th edition (or 5th, I cant remember), it was stated that destroying a hive fleet would not prevent any information gained, from being passed on to the rest of the tyranid fleets/the hive mind. That seems(?) to have been retconned with "valedor"/8th edition.
Each hive fleet might just act as individual thoughts within one greater consciousness. Who knows.
But not sharing memories and knowledge? No, that's a definite separate entity. Not a single entity with split personalities.
Yet, that is what is hinted at in the 8th edition codex, and it is supported by several BL novels ("the devastation of baal", "valedor", "wraith flight" etc).
Here is a quote from Valedor:
Spoiler:
Taec was not to be denied. Summoning all his will and channelling it through the rapidly orbiting runes, he looked deep into this pivotal moment of time, smashing aside the blankness of the hive mind. What Taec saw froze him to the core. Two breeds of voidspawn came together as a world died; they fought in savage mating, Dûriel’s dying lands fertile fields for their joining. Hive fleets merged and new forms of death were their get. ‘Far Ranging Hunger joins with Starving Dragon, two become one, two become one!’ he half-sang to himself. Taec watched as the immense minds of the two fleets reached out towards each other, groping blindly across the streams of probability. The components of the hive minds were spiritually puny, whisper-thin lines generated by bestial minds. But with so many twisted together, they made a mighty cable of fate, dwarfing all other threads on the skein. As the twin cables of the hive fleets’ consciousnesses drew near to one another, their strands unwrapped. Their writhing tendrils reached, grasped, and the two pulled into conjunction. As one they were monstrous. Taec had a glimpse far back along their ancient path. As Far Ranging Hunger’s fleets made many splinters of one larger consciousness, so the wholes of Far Ranging Hunger and Starving Dragon were themselves only tendrils of something so vast it was beyond Taec’s scope to comprehend.
That might not compute with the human mind, but then again, should it? From the devastation of baal:
Spoiler:
The invader was Hive Fleet Leviathan, by Imperial designation, though the governing intelligence of the hive mind made no such distinctions between the component parts of its body. To its incomprehensibly vast intellect, Leviathan was a limb, a foot or an arm. If the hive mind regarded Leviathan as distinct from the other fleets devouring the galaxy in some way, it was by categories too alien for men to understand. From across the cold gulfs of intergalactic space the hive fleets had come, moving from one feeding ground to the next. The hive mind did not know and did not care what its food called itself, but noted, in its alien way, the strangeness of this prey-cluster; an environment where the realities of the mind and form were intermingled. There was risk there, but good hunting in the dangerous shoals. The galaxy teemed with life, and the hive mind glutted itself on a staggering array of biological abundance. From the human point of view, the tyrannic wars had raged for close to a half millennium. In that time, hundreds of Imperial worlds had been devoured. Several minor races had been consumed. Thousands of unknown planets outside the Imperium’s notice had been turned from living orbs to rocky spheres that would never bear life again. Had the High Lords of Terra known how devastating the tyranids truly were, they may have acted sooner. Like the mythical plagues of locusts of Old Earth, the tyranids stripped everything they came across bare. With each feast the hive mind became stronger, absorbing the genetic profiles of everything it devoured and adding their strengths to its own. With every new creature eaten, its repertoire of genetic tricks grew. When it encountered a threat, it adapted. Its methods became more efficient, its fleets more numerous. Its creatures proliferated and multiplied, the essences of the galaxy’s worlds converted into yet more elements of the never-ending swarms. So overwhelming was the threat it posed, the race had been declared Periculo Summa Magna, and was deemed by many departments within the Imperium’s higher echelons as the most serious challenge to mankind’s continued existence. They were wrong about that, but only by a little. These were dangerous years, well blessed with horrors. Nevertheless, the hive mind did not advance unopposed. There were brave men and women, heroes all, who stood against it no matter that the odds were impossible, and death was their only reward. Imperial losses were many. Victory was rare. At many junctures the Blood Angels Space Marines had defied Hive Fleet Leviathan, stealing away its food, and in some cases destroying its splinter fleets in their entirety. The hive mind responded to them as it did to other threats in the prey-cluster, creating new beasts to beat the defences of its prey, improving those it already possessed, and devising new strategies. All to no avail. Though pushed back, the red prey warriors fought on. At Cryptus the Blood Angels performed one last supreme effort, destroying a tendril of the greater whole, in truth a trivial victory at the cost of a rich system. Nothing could halt Leviathan’s encroachment on the Red Scar. After Cryptus there was Baal, home world of the Blood Angels, lying directly in the swarm’s path. This was not accidental. The sages of the Imperium thought the hive mind a non-sentient intelligence. They believed the actions of the myriad creatures in its swarms were performed instinctively, and that the sheer numbers of interactions between them gave rise to complex behaviour. At the very highest level these behaviours were remarkable, but only had the semblance of thought. Ultimately instinct drove the hive fleets, they said, not free will. Similar false intelligences had been witnessed so very many times in social animals across space, after all, from the ants of ancient Earth to the thought-trees of Demarea. The hive mind’s actions could be ascribed to sentient consideration, but the sages insisted they were nothing of the sort. The biologans held the hive mind to be only a complicated animal, a supreme predator driven by a devastatingly powerful reactive mind, nevertheless devoid of soul. It was an automaton, they said. Unfeeling. It was as unaware of what it did as the wind is unaware of the cliff whose face it scours away, grain by grain. The hive mind was biological mechanics writ large. Mind from mindlessness. The Imperial scholars were wrong. The hive mind knew. The hive mind thought, it felt, it hated and it desired. Its emotions were unutterably alien, cocktails of feeling not even the subtle aeldari might decipher. Its emotions were oceans to the puddles of a man’s feelings. They were inconceivable to humanity, for they were too big to perceive. The hive mind looked out of its innumerable eyes towards the dull red star of Baal. It apprehended that this was the hive of the warriors that had hurt it so grievously, who had burned its feeding grounds and scattered its fleets. It hated the red prey, and it coveted them. Tasting their exotic genomes it had seen potential for new and terrible war beasts. And so it drew its plans, and it set in motion its trillion trillion bodies towards the consumption of the creatures in red metal, so that their secrets might be plundered, and reemployed in the sating of the hive mind’s endless hunger. This was deliberate, considered, and done in malice. The hive mind was aware, and it desired vengeance
Can't remember if someone already mentionned the norn queens. If I remember well, the norn queens are said to "deploy/create" the hive mind while commanding the hive fleet. There must be a link between all the hive ships and the different norns because the Hydra phenomenon means that for each norn queen killed, the hives may spawn others.
From there, I'd say the most suitable approach would be the hive mind is a great global conscionsness of all tryranids but subdivises amongst each hive flleet through the norn queens who whime being part of it have got a certain degree of autonomy.
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: Can't remember if someone already mentionned the norn queens. If I remember well, the norn queens are said to "deploy/create" the hive mind while commanding the hive fleet. There must be a link between all the hive ships and the different norns because the Hydra phenomenon means that for each norn queen killed, the hives may spawn others.
From there, I'd say the most suitable approach would be the hive mind is a great global conscionsness of all tryranids but subdivises amongst each hive flleet through the norn queens who whime being part of it have got a certain degree of autonomy.
The hive mind is the gestalt consciousness of every living tyranid organism. It is not created by the norn-queens specifically.
A human's digestive system is under control of the enteric nervous system, which operates independently of the brain though there is some communication between the two via nerves. However the human perceives itself as one entity.
Think of that as an analogy for the Hive Mind and its component fleets.
A Hive Mind is created when enough Tyranids are nearby. The best sense I can make of this is that every Tyranid has two parts in their mind. One part is their mindless feral behavior. The other part is a "hive mind node". Which is like a single computer in a cloud. And just like the bigger the cloud the more powerful the cloud, the more of these "hive mind nodes" there are, the more powerful and smarter the hive mind is. So a bigger hive fleet has a smarter and stronger hive mind.
So when two hive fleets get together, the two hive minds merge into a single super hive mind. And when the hive fleets splinter, you have multiple hive minds until the splinter fleets decide to merge again.
So important part is, despite being a "cloud", the Hive Mind is a solitary mind. There is no "consensus driven behavior". The Hive Mind is a dictator, it does whatever it wants, nothing opposes it, and it doesn't need to persuade anything to do what it wants, and its strength is directly proportional to the number of Tyranids that form the Hive Mind.
I understand it's a fool's errand trying to attribute real-life science to this (and psychic gestalt-intelligences) but if the Tyranid's are meant to represent an evolutionary pinnacle, then it would make absolute sense for them to be represented by competing hives and sub-species. These would continue to compete with each other for available resources, forming ever-more effective forms of predator (while ensuring that some equilibrium is maintained, and they don't become so veracious that all of their natural resources are expended). While a single species would present itself as vulnerable to being tram-lined into an evolutionary cul-de-sac; perhaps by other predators, disease, or in the context of a space-faring species annihilation by space-borne events (asteroids, super novas etc.)
There is a real-life equivalent of this with ants, which I believe do compete as much with each other as other species (sometimes even nearby hives of the same species).
Moving to another sci-fi, there was quite a cool Dark Horse Aliens comic (I think one of the sequels to Earth Hive) which featured the Alien hives becoming fractured after the death of the queen and 'red' and 'black' Alien hives competing for dominance.
Although I suppose the sci-fi element of a super macro-intelligence that directs evolution would surpass the requirement for any kind of natural process taking place, and again we're jumping into 40k really being more of a science-fantasy with psuedo-magical elements. So please ignore everything I have just said
Ultimately the true nature of the Hive Mind is mostly irrelevant. The Tyranids act as an united front at the galactic scale, the most glaring example being Leviathan teaming up and providing nourishment to Kronos or Hydra being basically a second wave after Leviathan or Leviathan and Kraken working together and almost merging in Valedor.
In some rare occasions Tyranids fight each other, but because of the nature of the Tyranids and how their logistics, production and infrastructure work, there is almost no real loss and in fact it is a win scenario as the superior Hive Fleet gains the resources and best traits of the consumed Hive Fleet (unlike for example human infighting that is always a lose-lose scenario),
Also according to Devastation of Baal the Hive Mind is stronger than the Emperor, and if each Hive Fleet has its own Hive Mind then that's a scary amount of Emperor+ scale entities attacking the galaxy.
Hydra is anti-tyranid. It actively hunts Tyranids down. So you cannot call Hydra a "united front".
While Hydra is ultimately on the same side as all Tyranids, it's less united than the other hive fleets. Because it targets Tyranids first. For both genetic data and biomass.
Hydra actively hunts down defeated or dying Leviathan tendrils and in the process consumes whatever defeated those tendrils, as far as we know it never hunts healthy tendrils.
Thus for the rest of the galaxy, Hydra is basically a second wave.
Dunno about other tyranids, but according to the GSC codex they're apparently happy with allowing genestealer cultists to make pilgrimages to it. They even let most of them leave again afterwards.
roboemperor wrote: Hydra is anti-tyranid. It actively hunts Tyranids down. So you cannot call Hydra a "united front".
While Hydra is ultimately on the same side as all Tyranids, it's less united than the other hive fleets. Because it targets Tyranids first. For both genetic data and biomass.
As Tyran stated, Hydra only seems to seek out defeated hive fleets.
And why do you keep pushing this argument when it has been proven false multiple times now, by both codexes and BL novels?
The whole tyranid vs tyranid was first mentioned in 4th edition, (prob to give a reason for tyranids vs tyranids on TT), and back then it was pointed out that the tyranids/hive mind were one united front.
Andersp90 wrote: And why do you keep pushing this argument when it has been proven false multiple times now, by both codexes and BL novels?
This is the first time I said it, and even now i"m not really saying it.
I said Hydra is ultimately on the same side as other Tyranids. But cannibalizing your own splinter fleets is not a "united front".
i.e. Space Marines murdering Imperial Guardsman is not a "united front" no matter the reasoning despite both being on the same side.
----
Are Tyranids 100% warp powered? If 0 biomass is lost in a full scale intercine war, then that means 0 biomass is used for energy.
There is a large difference bewteen humans killing humans and Tyranids killing Tyranids.
If a human kills another human, you have one human less.
If a Tyranid eats a Tyranid, you will still have the biomass of two Tyranids because the biomass is recycled. That's how digestion pools work after all, the Tyranids digest everything including their own troops.
When a Space Marine kills a guardsman he expends resources to reduce the Imperiums own resources in war. The best case is they get some "ration lard" stuff from the Guardsman...
With Tyranids one fleet consuming another isn't wasting resources, its changing them from one fleet to another. It's a violent transfer of biomatter which allows for part of their continual evolutionary approach to existing in terms of survival of the fittest.
Yes they also lose energy through the transfer, however Tyranids don't appear to worry about energy like that. They also don't theory-craft - they prefer honest battle and actual testing over dice theory.
Tyran wrote: There is a large difference bewteen humans killing humans and Tyranids killing Tyranids.
If a human kills another human, you have one human less.
If a Tyranid eats a Tyranid, you will still have the biomass of two Tyranids because the biomass is recycled. That's how digestion pools work after all, the Tyranids digest everything including their own troops.
I'm not saying it's not. I'm just saying its not the definition of "united front".
To the rest of the galaxy it is basically an united front. What matters is what the rest of the galaxy perceives of the Tyranids, because we almost never get the Tyranid pov.
I said Hydra is ultimately on the same side as other Tyranids. But cannibalizing your own splinter fleets is not a "united front".
i.e. Space Marines murdering Imperial Guardsman is not a "united front" no matter the reasoning despite both being on the same side.
I dont think you are getting the point. There is a huge difference.
When SMs are slaughtering the IG, its because they (or their leader more likey) have stepped over the line to heresy. The imperium do not gain anything from engagements like that, quite the opposite.
When tyranid hive fleets duke it out, the victor comes out stronger, to the benefit of the entire tyranid race.
If the Imperium fights 100 Guardsmen against 100 Guardsmen then at the end of the fight you might have only a few on both sides who survive and they might well be injured or crippled. Of those who are fit and healthy you have way less than the 200 you started with.
If the Tyranids fight 100 gaunts against 100 gaunts then at the end they've got 200 gaunts from the stronger of the two strains. Because any injuries, deaths and such are all reabsorbed into the hivefleet. They emerge with a more powerful end result.
Note in reality and practical situations it would likely be less than 200 gaunts as there would be lost biomatter and such; however the general point is that what you are left with is very similar and very much superior to what you started with.
With such a system Tyranids can fight each other, absorb each other and evolve. This need for combat testing and survival of the fittest appears essential for Tyranids. It's basically akin to weapon tests; only instead of numbers and theory; they use live tests which might involve whole hive fleets. It's also shown that there are often natural variations within the DNA of tyranids so that even Tyranids from the same hive fleet might have subtle differences that give advantages - Tyranids are always on the hunt for such subtle gains.
So if 100 space marines kill 100 guardsman with their barefists, and then the Ad Mech turns those 100 guardsman corpses into 100 servitors, and this ends up being a power gain,
roboemperor wrote: So if 100 space marines kill 100 guardsman with their barefists, and then the Ad Mech turns those 100 guardsman corpses into 100 servitors, and this ends up being a power gain,
this turns it into a "united front"?
Yes but no.
Firstly for a united front the Guardsmen have to agree to be beaten up
Secondly the Marines would have to beat them up and hurt them only in such ways as would facilities superior augmentation installation of bionics by the ad-mech
Finally it fails because the Ad mech has to invest additional resources to rebuild the guardsmen. Furthermore there's no part in the beating up that enhances, improves or otherwise increase the quality of the end result after the Ad Mech make their adjustments. If anything the beating up actually complicates the transfer and upgrade process and might even make the process result in a reduced level of performance due to the battle damage.
Can you incorporate the Too many voices mod into the game? PLEASE!?!?!
I would like to and have tried, but there are a lot of challanges associated with it, including very strict GW policies.[u] Perhaps something can be done later down the line.
Yeah, so this is from the devs of the game itself, so whoever said GW doesn't care about their IP and lets anyone do anything they want with the lore is wrong.
So...
Arson Fire wrote: They're incredibly protective when it comes to people using their IP without asking them, but once you've got permission, anything goes.
You are wrong : ),
...and you should stop spreading misinformation!!!
I've said this before in the thread, but it bears repeating: GW monitors everything that get's done with their IP. I know from first hand experience that they check everything, and if it exists, it's because they let it exist.
Adding mods into the core game comes with way more than just an IP issue.
First up many mods might "work" but won't necessarily work for all users, so there might be adjustments before a mod can go for the general public release.
Then there's the issue that a mod might rely on code from more than one person. This might be a clear cut situation or it might be a tricky mess where bits of code are owned by different people, some of which might not be involved with that mod specifically (its generic code made for a function that the modder has used).
It might even be that he mod is actually based on a different mod by a different modder and adjusted to suit its new purpose.
So the ownership of code and the legalities of using it can become a minefield for a developer.
Then there's the issue of the floodgate aspect. Letting one modder's work in can result in loads more screaming at favouritism if their mod isn't added.
There can also be issues with contracts and pay within the company. There might be restrictions on the firm regarding the use of 3rd party code within their software. It might also be that if the modder's code is used in a commercial game then the modder is due pay by the company. Suddenly it gets really messy and complicated!
In general developers are often cautious of incorporating modder content into their games; unless its a feature designed from the outset of the project. Or one where all major investors/stake holders within the firm are quickly on board with the idea and want to push forward even with the risks/additional legwork etc...
In other news - Gladius - where are my four legged necrons - where are my three legged necrons?!
Overread wrote: So the ownership of code and the legalities of using it can become a minefield for a developer.
Which is a very good reason not to immediately incorporate mods into the actual game, no matter how good they are. Those sorts of things have to be handled very carefully.
And as far as mods vs IP goes, I know that CA is very strict about the mods. Putting other IPs into Warhammer Total War Mods (ie. LOTR or GOT) is a massive no-no for them. Such creations risk their relationship with GW.
What does legal issues with mod content have anything to do with very strict GW policies? : \
I was refuting a claim by another poster that officially licensed gw products cannot be used for lore purposes because GW doesn't give a crap about anything other than making money.
roboemperor wrote: What does legal issues with mod content have anything to do with very strict GW policies? : \
I was refuting a claim by another poster that officially licensed gw products cannot be used for lore purposes because GW doesn't give a crap about anything other than making money.
Because a vague allusion to GW policies on a completely different subject doesn't say anything about lore produced in house for video games.
Mod content is being discussed, because that's what the 'GW policies' are referring to.
