More an exploratory thread than one entirely based off my own opinion. My own opinion will of course feature, but I’ll try to stop comfortably short of conclusions.
Looking to the background we have of course see Hive Fleets and Splinter Fleets dealt with. And via Advanced Space Crusade and Tyranid Attack, the brave, bold or possibly terminally stupid can board an individual Hive Ship whilst it’s still in bio-stasis, and slay it by destroying its vital organs.
So overall, they’re not completely unstoppable. The downside is, you’ve got to be incredibly thorough. Even a single Drone Ship making planet fall can replenish stocks, up to and including spawning a new fleet. Rinse and repeat a few times, and the threat grows once again. There’s also the Shadow In The Warp, which is perhaps their greatest asset. Not only does it prevent messages getting out the system, but even nearby reinforcements sent in before the Shadow completely occludes a system will find the Warp extremely turbulent, making their travel incredibly risky.
Yet they have inherent weaknesses. Whilst likely efficient beyond our ken? They are biological. They need sustenance in the form of food and water. And every engagement reduces their stocks. Not just in the exertions of their ships, but every shot is the result of a biological process, be it a spine, acid, bioelectricity, some manky bug etc.
This introduces the very real possibility of starving them out. Indeed, the more you can engage them whilst they travel between systems, the more you erode those stocks. You “just need” to play keep away with large centres of biomass. If you can do that? Overall attrition begins to swing in your favour as the Hive Fleet struggles to replace losses and ammo. There may even be a distinct tipping point where it can no longer properly defend itself, making the final engagements much easier.
The above is of course largely theoretical, and much easier said than done. So…how would you go about trying to do that? Or if you have another way to encounter them, what is it?
Figuring out what means of propulsion the Hive Ships use could be the answer.
Destroying its stock of propellant or other form of motive drive would allow for nudging the thing into a star - i don't care how adaptive the biological processes are, they wont survive being immersed in a Meson-Gluon-Quark plasma!
The Hive Ship relies on the smaller genus creatures it harbors to agglomerate biomass for Planetside-Ship extraction so i don't think its going to suddenly start gaining propellant or motive energy from a star its falling into.
If that's all it takes then the next problem is to ensure that no Tyranid genus entities escape the Hive Ship to the surrounding star system.
Maybe that's how genestealer infestations happen? Their Hive Ship loses all propellant and falls into the gravity well of a star, shedding genestealer infestation nodes to the surrounding system of planets - like accepting that the Hive Ship is now a sacrificial component of the Hive-Minds expansion process?
The Hive Ship relies on the smaller genus creatures it harbors to agglomerate biomass for Planetside-Ship extraction so i don't think its going to suddenly start gaining propellant or motive energy from a star its falling into.
Tyranid ships seem to use propellant which seems to be waste and waste gases. We know Imperial ships expel plasma at high velocity. Tyranid ships appear to do the same with lower velocity (but perhaps higher mass) waste. They are still generally slower than Imperial ships, aside from a few specialized ships like Kraken.
The BFG upgrade they could get to increase their base speed took the form of bio-vanes to collect energy from the nearest star. I don't think it was literally a solar sail. I suspect it was more like the vanes give surface area and some organisms within them use the sunlight energy to grow and these organisms are then themselves used or metabolized in the process to provide energy.
The optimal way to defeat a Tyranid fleet is purely in space, because they are consuming a planet from the moment they make planetfall. Even if they are still expending net resources, you are now potentially dealing with the net biomass of a planet being recycled into making Tyranids the longer you keep dragging out the surface war. The problem about engaging a Tyranid fleet is the Shadow in the Warp. It clouds a fleet's approach so the Imperium often does not know which star systems are being attacked until it is already too late to concentrate naval forces there. The individual local system defence forces of a star system are almost always insufficient to do more than be a speed bump for a hive fleet. On the strategic level the Tyranids have the initiative because they are the ones that are able to pick where and when to attack, whereas the Imperium is forever on the defensive as the hive fleets come from space and have no fixed assets (outliers like the Hive Fleet Tiamet's protection of that planet notwithstanding)
The Imperium tried starving Hive Fleets as a tactic. The problem is Hive Fleets have a huge momentum to start with, so starvation tactics take time before the fleet runs out of resources. Denying the Tyranids resources means destroying worlds which makes them basically useless as resource points and population centres for your own faction. The speed of advance is also such that you might not even be able to evacuate whole worlds and systems; so you've got a huge death toll on your hands to deal with.
Furthermore Hive Fleets can support each other. We already have one fleet that pre-digests worlds for another so that the other can go forth and tackle Demonic infested worlds and not starve because when deamons die they just return to the Warp instead of leaving food on the world (and considering that surface life is only part of the ecosystem and biomatter we have to infer that heavily demonically infested worlds also shed a lot of biomass as the demonic incusion is destroyed.
Another layer to consider is speed. Right now it seems that Tyranids are feeding on habitable worlds and on the most readily and quickly accessible biomass. If they started to get denied over and over again they might well shift tactics. Focusing on Gas Giants; rendering down more mineral components; feeding for longer to get at that rocky material etc...
Ergo it might only slow them down rather than outright stop them. At the same time your faction is still sacrificing worlds.
Basically its a "managed retreat" tactic and that works so long as you've got a plan for how to turn that retreat around before you've sacrificed too much to recover from.
Which introduces another big problem - scale. You don't know the size nor striking location of the Hive Fleets. It's thus very hard to be cost effective when evaluating tactics. If you knew for certain there were only 5 hive fleets in total then yes you could use a managed retreat with staged attacks and a pushback to sacrifice worlds to weaken the fleets and then take them out.
However when the number is unknown its really hard to tell. Those 100 systems you sacrificed to weaken and then kill one hive fleet. Did that stop a significant percentage of them or have you just sacrificed 100 worlds for a 0.0000001 amount of damage to the total Swarm.
Go around waking up Necron Tomb Worlds and stop interfering with the Silent King's plans.
Sure humanity is going to be exterminated but Necrons have a way better shot vs the Tyranids (although even 5th Necron codex noted that if certain lesser civilizations coughHumanitycough didn't stop being annoying idiots then even the Necrons may find themselves in a bad spot vs the Tyranids).
Necrons do have a certain upper hand in the form of Gauss, and other weapons which are akin to disintegration.
As well as finding little of use in a fallen Necron of any type, Gauss would leave little in the way of Tyranid corpses to be reabsorbed, so there’s a double whammy.
Necrons could also, in a pinch, make use of the Celestial Orrery to really swat a given Hive Fleet, provided the ramifications of such drastic action don’t lead to worsening consequences.
Other things to consider in terms of Project Keep-Away is it need only be finite. Because whilst I don’t think we can put a definite timescale, sooner or later the Tyranids are going to end up in dire straits. Add in the brutal calculus that yes, it would cost untold billions of lives? Not doing it is hardly going to preserve those lives anyway, and may indeed only make the problem so much worse.
Biggest downside is that even if one can fairly handily evacuate a planet (the sort of if that were it a but, Sir Mix-A-Lot would be a right pest)? That world or those worlds are still part of your overall web of supply. An Agriworld could be evacuated with relative ease due to being sparsely populated, and then blowed up to wreck the Tyranid fleet as it settled down for its picnic. But…that world wasn’t just feeding itself now, was it.
As a crap analogy, it’s like bloodletting as a cure for a bloodborne disease. Yes in theory it could work. But…man. You get your calculations off and you’ve done the disease’s job for it. All you’ve really done is prevent it infecting another body. And even then you can cock that right up.
Tyran wrote: Go around waking up Necron Tomb Worlds and stop interfering with the Silent King's plans.
Sure humanity is going to be exterminated but Necrons have a way better shot vs the Tyranids (although even 5th Necron codex noted that if certain lesser civilizations coughHumanitycough didn't stop being annoying idiots then even the Necrons may find themselves in a bad spot vs the Tyranids).
The Silent King's plans of cutting the galaxy off from the warp may work against the Tyranids and Shadow in the Warp, though I suspect the Hive Mind will be aware of this and will have a showdown with the Necrons. The problem is the Necron Pariah Nexus and others like it around the galaxy are also a threat to humans and other factions because the weakening of the connection to the warp seems to sap the motivation to live from organic beings and makes them catatonic. That is why the humans and other factions are fighting back against the Necron plans as well. The Necron "cure" is as lethal as the original Tyranid problem.
Other things to consider in terms of Project Keep-Away is it need only be finite. Because whilst I don’t think we can put a definite timescale, sooner or later the Tyranids are going to end up in dire straits. Add in the brutal calculus that yes, it would cost untold billions of lives? Not doing it is hardly going to preserve those lives anyway, and may indeed only make the problem so much worse.
Biggest downside is that even if one can fairly handily evacuate a planet (the sort of if that were it a but, Sir Mix-A-Lot would be a right pest)? That world or those worlds are still part of your overall web of supply. An Agriworld could be evacuated with relative ease due to being sparsely populated, and then blowed up to wreck the Tyranid fleet as it settled down for its picnic. But…that world wasn’t just feeding itself now, was it.
As a crap analogy, it’s like bloodletting as a cure for a bloodborne disease. Yes in theory it could work. But…man. You get your calculations off and you’ve done the disease’s job for it. All you’ve really done is prevent it infecting another body. And even then you can cock that right up.
You aren't the only one doing calculations though. The Tyranids are constantly evaluating their expenses vs their gains, comparing that with what what they know about the capabilities and weakness of their prey and making decisions not only in the short term but also long term.
They can and have ignored biomass rich worlds and even sectors in favor of strategic targets, because they have realized that Imperial forces that get obsessed with resource denial strategies get massive blindspots regarding the overall strategic situation and may leave military and/or logistical key worlds undefended.
And to be blunt, if you try to frame this as a calculus, you are going to lose because you are lacking key information regarding Tyranid numbers, their growth rate, expenses and even fleet positions while the Tyranids in turn seem to have gained a good grasp on Imperial numbers, key worlds, logistical chains, etc
Also its not just numbers - its capabilities as well.
Tyranids change behaviour and hyper evolve. Those two things mean that whatever tactic you create to deal with them might well only function in the short term before they adapt.
Those adaptations are only partly known and the true potential of them is an unknown quantity. Eg that huge planet they are building is totally alien to everything they've done before with hive fleets. What its ultimate purpose is (and it might have more than one) is unknown. It's not even known if its a new thing or something Tyranids have done before, just in other Galaxies.
Overread wrote: Also its not just numbers - its capabilities as well.
Tyranids change behaviour and hyper evolve. Those two things mean that whatever tactic you create to deal with them might well only function in the short term before they adapt.
Those adaptations are only partly known and the true potential of them is an unknown quantity. Eg that huge planet they are building is totally alien to everything they've done before with hive fleets. What its ultimate purpose is (and it might have more than one) is unknown. It's not even known if its a new thing or something Tyranids have done before, just in other Galaxies.
All the above points are true however one thing to note when it comes to evolutionary adaptations is that they generally all cost something such as increased energy spent maintaining such features.
Thicker carapace may provide more protection but be heavier (as well as costing more of the material used to make the carapace), resulting in slower speed. To maintain speed, muscles might be strengthened but then all of this carries metabolic cost.
That is why the Hive Mind does not make super Gaunts that can do everything and be immune to everything. It's too expensive.
We see this in the real world too with bacteria and antibiotic resistance. If such resistant bacteria are cultivated in an antibiotic free environment, they are less successful or end up shedding their antibiotic resistance because the cost of maintaining their resistance is a drag on their fitness and performance.
Another interesting thing is that the Hive Mind is not a perfect singular intelligence as we might understand it. Whilst the Swarm displays many elements of working under a single united control; there's also elements that show that its not all encompassing.
Hive Fleets having to swap DNA with each other and also evolve from random mutation to deal with threats new to a specific Hive Fleet; Tyranids getting separated from the greater whole of the Swarm;
Another argument you can make is that Tyranids might well lose DNA. When you consider that they should have, in theory, an almost infinite library of DNA from earlier conquests outside the Milky Way; its interesting that the have to resort to using chance mutation to help hyper evolve to new situations in the Galaxy. Suggesting that Individual Hive ships not only don't have access to the entire DNA library, but that that library is in constant flux and might not be complete.
So yes this could very well be that Tyranids shedding un-needed DNA whilst travelling the gulf of space between Galaxies meant that when they arrived they had far less than they started with and thus had to re-evolve many things.
Honestly this is one of the things I love about Tyranids. Everything about them is unknown; most of what do know is based on observations of other characters/races in the setting and they are so totally alien in many ways.
Races like Orks, Tau, Eldar and even Necrons are much easier to understand. Tyranids are just on a whole other level of being truly Alien
From most excerpts you can get, the main tactic would actually simply be to kill Norn queens as this disrupts the fleet to a level at which it simply shatters, these organisms being too expensive to bring back quickly.
The speed and volume at which the Tyranid replace losses make it actually almost impossible for the Tyranid to lose to attention. Even the very time you ferry your reinforcments onto the planet is too much compared to do that of the nids. Sure, Kryptmann's tactic is stated to have slowed them down, but that won't last forever and most importantly this won't kill the hive fleet. The only way attrition could work would be in cases like hive fleet kraken where it attacked a front too large (as in, Eldar AND humans at once) and thus bit more than it could chew.
Overall considering how it is portrayed, Tyranids can be beaten only by a decisive blow. Boarding bioships before they awake could be. Killing a norn queen is. Shattering their fleet in orbital fleet to fleet engagement could be as well, as producing ships is very expensive and time consuming.
But really, when I look at operations on the ground, I wonder whether you can actually get that kind of decisive victory.
If the Tyranids have already made planetfall, then you have already lost unless you can find a way to take the fight back to the Norn Queens in the hive ships. Human, Ork, Tau, pretty much all other races rely on some form of infrastructure in order to produce the weapons, ammunition, vehicles, or troops to fight. The resources are in the form of things like metals, oil, etc... all of which need to be processed. The Tyranids are recycling the biomass of the planet and throwing them back at you in the form of endless waves of Rippers and Gaunts. They can make use of areas that are otherwise unproductive to other races such as tundra and jungle.
Even if you take out the Dominatrix or Hive Tyrant on the ground, that only buys a little bit of time as even such Synapse creatures are replaceable.
That sense of futility of fighting on the ground is what was conveyed in the book Warriors of Ultramar which depicted the Tarsis tendril. The Ultramarines and humans on the planet struggled at great effort to hold out against various waves but this was all ultimately going to be futile until they found the McGuffin toxin and launched a decapitation strike on the Norn Queen in the one remaining fully mature hive ship in orbit (the others had been killed off by various means in space combat earlier in the book). If they had not done so, they would have ultimately lost to the endless waves of Tyranids sooner or later.
In my line of work, we have a whole sect of xenonologists who focus on IPM or integrated pest management.
The ultimate trick would be to terraform a few dead worlds with fresh biomass that has been genetically engineered. A bait sector that would draw the fleet rather than the Kryptman blow everything up. As the Tyranids arrive and feed, the genetically engineered biomass should have some sort of viral component or misc super poison that works to simultaneously draw more to the sector and causes mass death once the biomass is returned to the ships.
Of course the ultimate ultimate trick would be a way to hide that fact from the Hive Mind so that it keeps happening again and again.
Olthannon wrote: In my line of work, we have a whole sect of xenonologists who focus on IPM or integrated pest management.
The ultimate trick would be to terraform a few dead worlds with fresh biomass that has been genetically engineered. A bait sector that would draw the fleet rather than the Kryptman blow everything up. As the Tyranids arrive and feed, the genetically engineered biomass should have some sort of viral component or misc super poison that works to simultaneously draw more to the sector and causes mass death once the biomass is returned to the ships.
Of course the ultimate ultimate trick would be a way to hide that fact from the Hive Mind so that it keeps happening again and again.
No toxin or virus seems to work more than once on the Tyranids, and even then pretty much everything other than the Norn Queen is expendable. That was the whole plot of Warriors of Ultramar: finding a surviving 1st generation Tyranid from the initial planetfall and using that to create a tailored poison that would work on the Norn Queen. All the subsequent generations had started mutating and adapting so were different enough from the Norn Queen so as to make them unsuitable to create such a toxin. Even then, the Tech-Priest said it would only work on this one tendril.
Norn Queens are also buried deep within the depths of the hive ships so the only way they could guarantee the toxin was successfully delivered to target was to actually board the ship and deliver it in person.
To be fair, it's always been kind of the dilemma we ever stated on the internet: while that makes them cool, from a lore standpoints the nids are just a tad "too much", and the level of shenanigan they pull up makes it hard to not have them wipe everybody out and still remain write a credible story.
The whole thing with the Tyranids is that they can't be beaten with any sort of conventional warfare.
Even if you do manage to beat a tendril, it's ruined the world you're fighting on, and by Current Year M41, the Hive Mind isn't sending one tendril into a sector, it's sending five.
Even if you beat those five in your sector, the next sector over has fallen because troops were diverted and only a small garrison remained.
The only hope anyone has to stop an invasion is widescale genocide of their own worlds (or enemy worlds in the case of the Aeldari).
Agree with the stuff upthread, but want to add the caveat that small hive fleets can be beaten during ground invasions. Seems to be more likely on cold worlds.
I’m unsure on the Hive Fleet’s overall intelligence.
Rather than being sentient as we understand, I see it as more being an incredible level of instinct. Yes it does of course adapt, and rapidly so. But what I’m not convinced about (but of course remain open to citation and references) is that it can make leaps of logic which would make them truly intelligent.
For instance, when the Tau found warrior forms became resistant to Pulse weapon fire, I don’t interpret that as the Fleet actively studying the problem and devising a specific counter. Rather I think it’s more it’s look at whatever would pass for “after action report”, and favour genetic builds which proved resilient. The difference there being there’s lack of questioning the “why”, and going down the relatively blind evolutionary path of “well of course this form was favoured, because it was the most successful in the environment”. Just with some kind of guiding consciousness to apply whatever allowed that to other warrior forms, producing essentially sub-species rapidly.
What you need to do is figure out how alter human genes in such a way that it poisons tyranids if they’re eaten. Then perform the gene therapy on a few billion humans and put them in the path a hive fleet.
Ain’t nothing but a thing to sacrifice that many people of your in the Ordo Xenos
Rather than being sentient as we understand, I see it as more being an incredible level of instinct. Yes it does of course adapt, and rapidly so. But what I’m not convinced about (but of course remain open to citation and references) is that it can make leaps of logic which would make them truly intelligent.
I disagree, I think its very intelligent, but has a few factors that come into play
1) Imperfect control. The Hive Mind itself appears very smart and capable of creating generals (Hive Tyrants) capable of organising and conducting warfare on a vast scale. Tyranids are more than capable of creating highly intelligent strains when they want too; but it seems that they operate "kind of" on their own.
As if the Hive Mind creates a super smart Hive Tyrant and says "take that world" but the specifics of how are left to the Hive Tyrant itself. So its limited by its intelligence level; its direct experiences through its Hive Fleet and so forth.
2) Reliance on instinct/biological elements. A bit like how in The Matrix series, machines could not disobey several parts of their core programming. Similarly Tyranids, whilst very intelligent are "bound" by elements of their biology. They are "shackled" and still wearing their earpiece. Of course that is also what gives them their bonuses too, so its not one sided, but it means that they have to do things in a certain way.
3) Single Hive Mind, but not singular of thought. This is a tricky one to explain, but in general my thought is that the Hive Mind is less of a single thinking entity and more of a state of mindset across the whole Tyranid Swarm. Ergo the Hive Mind is more a general set of wills, desires, directives and thinking that is built up from the collective of all the Tyranids at once. With higher level ones having greater sway and impact over lesser. This would explain how Tyranids can drift in and out of contact with the Hive Mind and yet still remain functional; and whilst not creating constant disagreement when re-joined.
4) Individuality is a thing. The Swarm Lord proves that there is a concept within the Tyranids of individuals. Of course an individual still follows the will of the Swarm, but it appears to have some degree of agency on its own. I would wager Norn Queens are similar - much like Starcraft Zerg Cerebrates - in that they act of their own ideas; just that they are also part of the all swarm as well.
Others have likened the Hive Mind to the mind of a human whilst the Tyranids that form it are more like the cells of a body. All in agreement at once in heading in the direction the Brain tells them too; but at the same time operating within the boundaries and guidelines of the body to do their own thing. Capable of working directly for the body's will; but also some elements being outside of direct control.
Ergo you can pick up a cup off a table by commanding your body; but you can't command it to increase bloodflow to a specific spot. You have to do actions that might result in that desired end state. Similarly there are elements totally outside of one's own control - eg the release and use of white blood cells in fighting infection.
Starving them out worked as a tactic but the problem is that it was a half-measure. Kryptman destroyed all those planets to deny the Tyranids biomass, but the fleet was still allowed to travel relatively unmolested from system to system. In theory, the trick would be to not only deprive them of biomass through scorched earth tactics, but to also harry them the entire way. Both the Tau and the Eldar have been able to go toe-to-toe with the Tyranids in fleet battles- in fact one of the things that kept Tau in the game against Gorgon is that their fleet despite being outnumbered was able to consisently destroy Narvhals and slow down the Hive Fleet's advance to the point that the Tau could maneuver reinforcements and evacuations around contested systems.Since the win condition for Tyranids is getting to a planet to harness its resources, it stands to reason that strategically, hit and run attacks on a traveling Hive Fleet would be devstating. If you don't allow your forces to engage in a pitched battle with the Tyranids (and you have literally infinite space to maneuver) then the Hive Fleet's decisions are to either break off from pushing toward a planet and commit to chasing down your harrying fleet, or ignore them and let itself get whittled down.
Almost all of the advantages that Tyranids have in terrestial combat don't really apply in void warfare. The only hiccup is Shadow making long-range coordination difficult, but I don't really buy that it makes hive fleets undetecable. To the contrary, I imagine that the shadow is probably fairly easy to distinguish by astropaths who are outside of it. When gazing at the warp how do you not notice the utterly massive, moving black hole?
imo the biggest reason that the Imperium struggles against the Tyranids is because of their military doctrine. The Imperium always wants to form either an unstoppable hammer or an unbreakable wall- both strategies play right into the Tyranids' hands.
Old Man Grotsnik and Underread, you both give the energy of "guy who hasn't kept up with the background since 3rd edition, and refuses to update the headcanon they crafted in 2001"
If you want a direct homework assignment, that's easy: read the novel The Devastation of Baal.
I've lost count of the questionable assertions/suggestions you've each introduced in this thread, but they include:
- that the Hivemind is not a singular intelligence
- that the Imperium evacuates planets (lol)
- that Tyranid evolution is random
- that hive beasts always have some level of independence and cannot be directly "puppeted" by the Hivemind
- that the Hivemind "loses DNA"
I realize that's it's extremely easy to just go, "if you disagree show me a quotation," but that reminds me of someone who'd say something like, "I personally don't believe that vaccines work, but if you disagree you can show me a source." You've apparently missed two decades of background development -- it's going to be hard for anyone to fill you in with a single quotation, and it's your responsibility to catch up if you desire accuracy.
I will post one section from the aforementioned novel, partly because it indirectly addresses some of the ideas in the thread, but mostly because it's one of the coolest parts in the book (which is unfortunately three quarters bolter porn, as it goes).
The lictor looked like a creature unto itself. It moved as a solitary organism. It had operated on its own for years, far away from the hive fleet. But it was not apart from the hive mind. That was the mistake the prey always made. Even at this corpuscular level, it was a mistake to see the lictor as a lictor, one of millions; there were not many, there was one. The lictor was the lictor. Every iteration was a copy, better than perfect for aeons of improvement, party to the actions, mistakes and successes of every other lictor that had come before. Welded to the very genes of its being were untold millions of years of experience. And it was on Baal just as it was simultaneously on a thousand other worlds throughout the galaxy.
It put ancient lessons into action. Sight was the easiest sense to fool. The lictor moved at night, when it was harder to see. Chromatic microscales lent it near perfect chameleonic ability even in the full light of day. Deformable organ clusters embedded in its skin allowed it to change its shape somewhat, enabling it to take on the rough texture of stone, or mimic fronds of vegetation. Smell was a more primal sense, harder to deceive because of it. The lictor managed that too. It had virtually no scent. Only when it flooded the air with pheromone trails to guide its kin beasts did its emissions become noticeable. By then it was too late. Most prey could hear, so it made no sound when it moved. Special arrangements of hairs baffled the whisper of its limbs moving over one another.
More esoteric senses were equally well accounted for. Its electromagnetic profile was minimal. Its brain case was shielded by internal bone structures against energy leakage. The nerves in its body were similarly cloaked. Its hooves were shaped to make the minimum of vibration, and although it could not entirely stop the perturbation of the air made by its movements, its chitinous plates were fluted in precise molecular, fractal patterns to minimise its wake. It gave off no heat. It shed no cells unless damaged. Its psychic link with the hive mind was like spider silk, gossamer thin, strong, and almost impossible to detect.
More adaptations heaped on top of more. Unlike a natural organism, which loses certain gifts in favour of others as evolution pushes it down a particular path, the lictor’s advantages were retained, new gifts stacked atop the others. Its genetic structure was incredibly complex. Within every cell was billions of years’ worth of adaptation, culled from every lictor, coiled up one over the other. Anything useful to its role, no matter how inconsequential seeming, it retained forever.
Every machine and psychic ability the Imperium had geared towards detection, the lictor could evade. The hive mind had consumed far more advanced races than mankind. Infiltrating Baal was child’s play. There was no need for it to employ a fraction of its considerable talent
bonus:
In the [Swarm Lord's] eyes glimmered an ancient and powerful intellect. As old as he was, Dante felt like a newborn babe compared to the intelligence staring at him through that unblinking gaze. He sensed that there were two beings looking at him. The monster, and the being that controlled it. They were separate, yet one. A sense of crushing psychic might emanated from it, so great its grasp encompassed galaxies. There was sophistication there, and terrifying intelligence, but all were outweighed by its bottomless, eternal hunger.
For the moment that the man and the monster stared into one another’s souls, Dante pitied it. The hunger of the hive mind made the Red Thirst trivial by comparison.
lmao, and people complain about marine spank in GW writing. Every time a Hive Fleet loses these dudes die in droves, yet somehow they're completely invisible to the naked eye, completely scentless, completely silent, can't be picked up on any wavelengths, can't even be seen through the warp despite literally being psychic creatures themselves. One would think there'd be hundreds of them skulking around Macgragge when in reality Catachan hunt them for sport in stories like Deathworlder.
First, the thread is a discussion, not a lecture. And deliberately so.
You’ll also see where I for one clearly say I’m entirely open to citation and reference for conflicting sources.
Why? Because there’s a lot of source material out there, and it’s often conflicting. Thus I don’t present myself as an absolute authority with a complete knowledge.
Old Man Grotsnik and Underread, you both give the energy of "guy who hasn't kept up with the background since 3rd edition, and refuses to update the headcanon they crafted in 2001"
If you want a direct homework assignment, that's easy: read the novel The Devastation of Baal.
I've lost count of the questionable assertions/suggestions you've each introduced in this thread, but they include:
- that the Hivemind is not a singular intelligence
- that the Imperium evacuates planets (lol)
- that Tyranid evolution is random
- that hive beasts always have some level of independence and cannot be directly "puppeted" by the Hivemind
- that the Hivemind "loses DNA"
I realize that's it's extremely easy to just go, "if you disagree show me a quotation," but that reminds me of someone who'd say something like, "I personally don't believe that vaccines work, but if you disagree you can show me a source." You've apparently missed two decades of background development -- it's going to be hard for anyone to fill you in with a single quotation, and it's your responsibility to catch up if you desire accuracy.
I will post one section from the aforementioned novel, partly because it indirectly addresses some of the ideas in the thread, but mostly because it's one of the coolest parts in the book (which is unfortunately three quarters bolter porn, as it goes).
The lictor looked like a creature unto itself. It moved as a solitary organism. It had operated on its own for years, far away from the hive fleet. But it was not apart from the hive mind. That was the mistake the prey always made. Even at this corpuscular level, it was a mistake to see the lictor as a lictor, one of millions; there were not many, there was one. The lictor was the lictor. Every iteration was a copy, better than perfect for aeons of improvement, party to the actions, mistakes and successes of every other lictor that had come before. Welded to the very genes of its being were untold millions of years of experience. And it was on Baal just as it was simultaneously on a thousand other worlds throughout the galaxy.
It put ancient lessons into action. Sight was the easiest sense to fool. The lictor moved at night, when it was harder to see. Chromatic microscales lent it near perfect chameleonic ability even in the full light of day. Deformable organ clusters embedded in its skin allowed it to change its shape somewhat, enabling it to take on the rough texture of stone, or mimic fronds of vegetation. Smell was a more primal sense, harder to deceive because of it. The lictor managed that too. It had virtually no scent. Only when it flooded the air with pheromone trails to guide its kin beasts did its emissions become noticeable. By then it was too late. Most prey could hear, so it made no sound when it moved. Special arrangements of hairs baffled the whisper of its limbs moving over one another.
More esoteric senses were equally well accounted for. Its electromagnetic profile was minimal. Its brain case was shielded by internal bone structures against energy leakage. The nerves in its body were similarly cloaked. Its hooves were shaped to make the minimum of vibration, and although it could not entirely stop the perturbation of the air made by its movements, its chitinous plates were fluted in precise molecular, fractal patterns to minimise its wake. It gave off no heat. It shed no cells unless damaged. Its psychic link with the hive mind was like spider silk, gossamer thin, strong, and almost impossible to detect.
More adaptations heaped on top of more. Unlike a natural organism, which loses certain gifts in favour of others as evolution pushes it down a particular path, the lictor’s advantages were retained, new gifts stacked atop the others. Its genetic structure was incredibly complex. Within every cell was billions of years’ worth of adaptation, culled from every lictor, coiled up one over the other. Anything useful to its role, no matter how inconsequential seeming, it retained forever.
Every machine and psychic ability the Imperium had geared towards detection, the lictor could evade. The hive mind had consumed far more advanced races than mankind. Infiltrating Baal was child’s play. There was no need for it to employ a fraction of its considerable talent
bonus:
In the [Swarm Lord's] eyes glimmered an ancient and powerful intellect. As old as he was, Dante felt like a newborn babe compared to the intelligence staring at him through that unblinking gaze. He sensed that there were two beings looking at him. The monster, and the being that controlled it. They were separate, yet one. A sense of crushing psychic might emanated from it, so great its grasp encompassed galaxies. There was sophistication there, and terrifying intelligence, but all were outweighed by its bottomless, eternal hunger.
For the moment that the man and the monster stared into one another’s souls, Dante pitied it. The hunger of the hive mind made the Red Thirst trivial by comparison.
Bringing up devastation of Baal is interesting, but this offensive tone hasn't got its place here, may I remind you.
BlaxicanX wrote: Starving them out worked as a tactic but the problem is that it was a half-measure. Kryptman destroyed all those planets to deny the Tyranids biomass, but the fleet was still allowed to travel relatively unmolested from system to system.
The fleet may have travelled unmolested, but resources still had to be expended to create the forces that landed. That's not free. Tyranids can form endless numbers of huge swarms because the material lost in creating the swarms will be recovered by the harvesting operations. If huge swarms are created, but nothing is recovered to replace the material used to create the swarms, the fleet gets starved. It's like an investor investing money in various projects. If none of those projects produce a return, he'll run out of money. What Kryptmann was doing was essentially the same thing to the Hive Fleet. If this went on for long enough, the fleet would eventually need to start cannibalizing itself in order to create landing forces
BlaxicanX wrote: Starving them out worked as a tactic but the problem is that it was a half-measure. Kryptman destroyed all those planets to deny the Tyranids biomass, but the fleet was still allowed to travel relatively unmolested from system to system. In theory, the trick would be to not only deprive them of biomass through scorched earth tactics, but to also harry them the entire way. Both the Tau and the Eldar have been able to go toe-to-toe with the Tyranids in fleet battles- in fact one of the things that kept Tau in the game against Gorgon is that their fleet despite being outnumbered was able to consisently destroy Narvhals and slow down the Hive Fleet's advance to the point that the Tau could maneuver reinforcements and evacuations around contested systems.Since the win condition for Tyranids is getting to a planet to harness its resources, it stands to reason that strategically, hit and run attacks on a traveling Hive Fleet would be devstating. If you don't allow your forces to engage in a pitched battle with the Tyranids (and you have literally infinite space to maneuver) then the Hive Fleet's decisions are to either break off from pushing toward a planet and commit to chasing down your harrying fleet, or ignore them and let itself get whittled down.
Almost all of the advantages that Tyranids have in terrestial combat don't really apply in void warfare. The only hiccup is Shadow making long-range coordination difficult, but I don't really buy that it makes hive fleets undetecable. To the contrary, I imagine that the shadow is probably fairly easy to distinguish by astropaths who are outside of it. When gazing at the warp how do you not notice the utterly massive, moving black hole?
imo the biggest reason that the Imperium struggles against the Tyranids is because of their military doctrine. The Imperium always wants to form either an unstoppable hammer or an unbreakable wall- both strategies play right into the Tyranids' hands.
I definitely agree with the idea that harassing the hive fleet while it's in transit seems like the ideal way to go. Make it expend energy during the whole flight.
I don't know how easy it is to find and get to the fleet itself though. Seeing the Shadow should be easy. But locating the actual fleet might still be tricky because the Shadow itself is so vast. My understanding is that it extends thousands of light years out from the fleet. Using this was one of the strategies of the Leviathan invasion. It split into two branches and the Shadow in the Warp stretched between them, "cutting off an enourmous section of Imperial space" as well as "making it impossible to navigate through the Warp toward the beleagured systems." If the Shadow is measured in interstellar distances, and it also makes Imperial interstellar travel hazardous or impossible, that's a hefty problem to overcome.
But we do know that finding and boarding vessels in hibernation has happened too. Maybe in hibernation the Shadow isn't as active? Or maybe these are small splinter fleets where the Shadow isn't as potent in the first place, and the boarding parties have been patiently slow-intercepting them under non-Warp travel after dangerous Warp navigation into the outskirts of fainter Shadow? Reconciling the various descriptions of the seems to take a lot of guesswork.
Could a give fleet escape a black hole? Lure them into a heavily populated system that can put up some resistance and once the hive fleet is dug into the conflict collapse the star
40K does have ways and means of sending stars Nova, which is gonna be a bad time for anyone in that solar system.
But, the heavens are a pretty precise dance because of how gravity works. Remove an element, or replace it with a black hole? And you’re going to have consequences. Really pretty major ones.
Yes, that would likely wreck a Hive Fleet as readily as any other fleet. But like just blowing up planets they’re trying to feed on (Kryptmaaaaaaaaaaannn!), you need to consider the impact of doing so on your own supply web.
And here’s another thought. The Imperium isn’t a cohesive area. It has worlds and system scattered across the galaxy, usually the result of known, stable warp routes. Yet there may be, and almost certainly are, entirely unknown and unexplored systems out there.
As Tyranids do not need to prey on advanced worlds? If there’s a system the Imperium can’t get to, how do you stop the Hive Fleet stopping there for its picnic? If it had a populated world, that’s fresh biomass to replace at least some losses in relative peace and quiet,
Interesting how lictors have gone from excellent stealth operatives that are difficult but possible to detect at short range (even having rules where psykers and auspexes could detect them within 6" on the tabletop) to whatever is in that passage.
Also, this made me laugh:
More adaptations heaped on top of more. Unlike a natural organism, which loses certain gifts in favour of others as evolution pushes it down a particular path, the lictor’s advantages were retained, new gifts stacked atop the others. Its genetic structure was incredibly complex. Within every cell was billions of years’ worth of adaptation, culled from every lictor, coiled up one over the other. Anything useful to its role, no matter how inconsequential seeming, it retained forever.
Lictors are not like natural creatures, instead they *describes natural evolution*
Traits that are kept because they are useful to the niche occupied by an organism is entirely consistent with evolution. Clearly the lictor doesn't keep traits that are otherwise known to the Hive Mind that are not useful to its role like wings or being the size of a biotitan... The only artificial aspect is that the lictor's niche is a role defined by the Hive Mind rather than in a naturally occurring ecosystem. It is essentially selective breeding.
Necrons could he the ones to actually harass the hive fleet if they choose so. After all, they don't rely at all on warp drive, so they could use teleporting techs and dolmen gates to get in the way of hive fleets and snap away in time, repeating the processe all over the course the fleet travels along. Tau don't need the warp either but not having access to the necron's teleporting drives makes them simply too slow to redeploy quickly enough I suppose.
As stated above the crowns are pretty much THE Tyranid counter anyway.
The Shadow is usually described as being difficult to detect up until the point it is over you. Arguably it is simply too big for a mortal navigator or psyker to make sense of it, with Hive Fleets usually being detected only until someone high enough in the command chain realizes there are entire sectors missing.
Seems the most you can hope for is to keep track as best you can of systems going silent. From there, you can get some idea of where they’ve been, and make an educated guess as to where they’re going.
Of course….a super high risk solution might be to allow a Genestealer Cult to get its uprising out the way, getting a Hive Fleet there, then knacking the planet.
It’s still sacrificing a planet though, so not exactly a good plan.
The worst part in my opinion is that considering the area becomes hard to navigate as a whole, even if you know approximately where you need to go, the part where you're supposed to head there will be catastrophicly difficult for any warp travelling fleet such as that of the imperium. And if the covered area is that big - approximating and then continuing onwards sunlight speed isn't really an option to truly catch the fleet I suppose.
mrFickle wrote: Could a give fleet escape a black hole? Lure them into a heavily populated system that can put up some resistance and once the hive fleet is dug into the conflict collapse the star
I'm no expert, but my understanding is that suddenly collapsing a star into a black hole wouldn't change anything about the magnitude of gravity exerted on an object or fleet already in orbit around said star, because the amount of mass in the star/black hole stays the same.
If you somehow magically collapsed the sun into a black hole, the amount of gravity experienced by the earth wouldn't change. But there would be no sunlight, so any ecosystem would collapse. The only effect on the earths orbit would be from the sudden lack of the solar wind and photon bombardment gently pushing outward under normal circumstances.
Now if the method of turning the sun into a black hole was to somehow multiply its mass by orders of magnitude, then yeah, then you have something. But just converting the existing mass into a black hole means any fleet could fly away normally.*
*unless it's a "solar sail" powered fleet in which case it's trapped in orbit.
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Haighus wrote: Interesting how lictors have gone from excellent stealth operatives that are difficult but possible to detect at short range (even having rules where psykers and auspexes could detect them within 6" on the tabletop) to whatever is in that passage.
Take with grain of salt imo. Marines in lore are running at 80 kph or whatever, despite being no faster than a human on the tabletop. (And slower than Eldar, who must be running around at 140 kph then?) The written BL lore often hyperbolizes to ridiculous levels.
More adaptations heaped on top of more. Unlike a natural organism, which loses certain gifts in favour of others as evolution pushes it down a particular path, the lictor’s advantages were retained, new gifts stacked atop the others. Its genetic structure was incredibly complex. Within every cell was billions of years’ worth of adaptation, culled from every lictor, coiled up one over the other. Anything useful to its role, no matter how inconsequential seeming, it retained forever.
Lictors are not like natural creatures, instead they *describes natural evolution*
Traits that are kept because they are useful to the niche occupied by an organism is entirely consistent with evolution. Clearly the lictor doesn't keep traits that are otherwise known to the Hive Mind that are not useful to its role like wings or being the size of a biotitan... The only artificial aspect is that the lictor's niche is a role defined by the Hive Mind rather than in a naturally occurring ecosystem. It is essentially selective breeding.
Yeah I chuckled a bit too. But there is something to be said for a directed evolution across far more environments than any natural species would adapt and survive in, while purposefully retaining all the useful bits of each evolutionary success. So it's still slightly different than naturally occuring evolution in a notably important way. A tyranid creature is simultaneously adapting to a thousand biomes againt a million opponents and sharing all of that infofmation accross every entity in real time, rather than just locally over generational time spans.
The big difference bewteen Tyranid evolution and natural evolution is that natural evolution cannot make leaps in capabilities. Pretty much every change needs to both gradual but also useful, which is why there is stuff natural evolution cannot do, like laser zebras.
All the mass of a collapsed black star goes into the singularity, I believe, but the event horizon can span a much greater distance. There is a point around a black hole where the pull is so strong that even light can’t escape.
Also I think a collapsing star would do a fair bit of damage on its own.
It may have negative consequences for other parts of the galaxy but that’s exactly the kind of ingorance that the imperium of man has about it’s science and tech
mrFickle wrote: All the mass of a collapsed black star goes into the singularity, I believe, but the event horizon can span a much greater distance. There is a point around a black hole where the pull is so strong that even light can’t escape.
Also I think a collapsing star would do a fair bit of damage on its own.
It may have negative consequences for other parts of the galaxy but that’s exactly the kind of ingorance that the imperium of man has about it’s science and tech
If no mass is added when collapsing the star into a black hole, the event horizon will be very close to the black hole and the solar system will have the exact same gravity it had before. As mentioned, the only effect on the wider system will be the loss of solar light. Well, and the effects of whatever stupendous process was used to collapse the star
Tyran wrote: Actually because a black hole rips and distorts space time (and everything in it), actually it would be longer within a black hole.
Not that anyone outside would notice.
Oh is that the infinite-stretch thing? I thought things would crumple up before that happens, in the same way that a neutron star is not a black hole, but the atomic bonds have already been smashed.
Tyran wrote: The big difference bewteen Tyranid evolution and natural evolution is that natural evolution cannot make leaps in capabilities. Pretty much every change needs to both gradual but also useful, which is why there is stuff natural evolution cannot do, like laser zebras.
Tyranids meanwhile can go into space brrrrr.
You refer to what are called local fitness peaks. If an organism reaches a peak, as a species it can find itself unable to go down since that decreases fitness, even though there might be a higher fitness peak elsewhere. That is why a laser zebra cannot naturally evolve. A laser zebra might have increased fitness in surviving predators but anything short of a functioning laser would be a fitness decrease as it is additional weight and metabolic energy expended on growing something non-functional.
Tyranids however are anything but naturally evolved. Most Tyranids do not reproduce and many cannot even eat anything that is not already pre-digested. The Hive Mind is free to stack on as many adaptations as desired onto a design without having to pay attention to considerations of reproductive fitness or long term survival, so long as it fits the role envisaged for it and at a reasonable cost. At some level cost does seem to be a factor considered as the Hive Mind seems to still run standard Termagants despite being able to make them better, but this calculus is done at a far higher level and scale than on the level of individual organisms.
Tyran wrote: The big difference bewteen Tyranid evolution and natural evolution is that natural evolution cannot make leaps in capabilities. Pretty much every change needs to both gradual but also useful, which is why there is stuff natural evolution cannot do, like laser zebras.
Tyranids meanwhile can go into space brrrrr.
You refer to what are called local fitness peaks. If an organism reaches a peak, as a species it can find itself unable to go down since that decreases fitness, even though there might be a higher fitness peak elsewhere. That is why a laser zebra cannot naturally evolve. A laser zebra might have increased fitness in surviving predators but anything short of a functioning laser would be a fitness decrease as it is additional weight and metabolic energy expended on growing something non-functional.
Tyranids however are anything but naturally evolved. Most Tyranids do not reproduce and many cannot even eat anything that is not already pre-digested. The Hive Mind is free to stack on as many adaptations as desired onto a design without having to pay attention to considerations of reproductive fitness or long term survival, so long as it fits the role envisaged for it and at a reasonable cost. At some level cost does seem to be a factor considered as the Hive Mind seems to still run standard Termagants despite being able to make them better, but this calculus is done at a far higher level and scale than on the level of individual organisms.
Plus, not all Tyranid adaptations are necessarily that creatures genetics. Bioplasma for instance could be achieved via a parasite organism added to the main creature. Whilst we might immediately think Pyrovore, any gun wielding Tyranid is a similar amalgam of creatures, the Fleshborer or what have you not being a “natural” part of its bearer, rather a separate beastie implanted, grafted or grown on the host.
It’s all about the minimum expenditure of resources. There’s little to gain by churning out top spec Termagants, with the best guns, chitin resistant to Pulse weapons and extra stabby hooves until that combination seems the appropriate response. So you send in the first wave of relatively basic bugs to see what the enemy is packing, and then specialise from there. In short, the more specialised the bug, the more resource intensive it is to spawn. If you can overwhelm the prey without specialisation? Do that first.
Does the Shadow in the Warp affect warp-rift-based weapons? Imperial Vortex weapons and Eldar Wraith and Distortion weapons also provide a route to destroy stuff with no residue by dropping it into the warp. That is equivalent to the Necron disintegration route.
Flinty wrote: Does the Shadow in the Warp affect warp-rift-based weapons? Imperial Vortex weapons and Eldar Wraith and Distortion weapons also provide a route to destroy stuff with no residue by dropping it into the warp. That is equivalent to the Necron disintegration route.
I've never seen anything to suggest they don't work.
Tyran wrote: The big difference bewteen Tyranid evolution and natural evolution is that natural evolution cannot make leaps in capabilities. Pretty much every change needs to both gradual but also useful, which is why there is stuff natural evolution cannot do, like laser zebras.
Tyranids meanwhile can go into space brrrrr.
You refer to what are called local fitness peaks. If an organism reaches a peak, as a species it can find itself unable to go down since that decreases fitness, even though there might be a higher fitness peak elsewhere. That is why a laser zebra cannot naturally evolve. A laser zebra might have increased fitness in surviving predators but anything short of a functioning laser would be a fitness decrease as it is additional weight and metabolic energy expended on growing something non-functional.
Tyranids however are anything but naturally evolved. Most Tyranids do not reproduce and many cannot even eat anything that is not already pre-digested. The Hive Mind is free to stack on as many adaptations as desired onto a design without having to pay attention to considerations of reproductive fitness or long term survival, so long as it fits the role envisaged for it and at a reasonable cost. At some level cost does seem to be a factor considered as the Hive Mind seems to still run standard Termagants despite being able to make them better, but this calculus is done at a far higher level and scale than on the level of individual organisms.
Well, if you consider Tyranids to be one giant organism and individual Tyranids to be akin to cells, suddenly it looks a whole lot more natural again, with natural selection being felt across the entire Tyranid species and specific traits being selected in specific circumstances through something more akin to epigenetic triggers. A red blood cell also cannot reproduce, is monotasked, and dependent on other cells for survival (red blood cells can only use glucose for energy). It is short lived and recycled, typically at ~120 days. I don't think that is so different to a gaunt.
Although recent Tyranid codexes have noted that Tyranid stuff can survive being dropped into the warp just fine, so warp-rift-based weapons don't destroy nids, just make it someone's else problem (which can get hilarius if you subscribe to the multiversal teories regarding the warp).
There's nothing in a Tyranid for a Warp Demon to feed on. Warp Demons want your emotions and so forth - Tyranids have nothing. Or rather what they have is so utterly alien and bound to the Hive Mind that there's nothing to eat.
Meanwhile get enough Tyranids together and the Shadow in the Warp effect means the demons wouldn't even get near them within the warp anyway.
Overread wrote: There's nothing in a Tyranid for a Warp Demon to feed on. Warp Demons want your emotions and so forth - Tyranids have nothing. Or rather what they have is so utterly alien and bound to the Hive Mind that there's nothing to eat.
Meanwhile get enough Tyranids together and the Shadow in the Warp effect means the demons wouldn't even get near them within the warp anyway.
Ok, probable re. daemons, although daemons do fight Tyranids in realspace so probably would in Warp space too.They aren't the only Warp predators though and we don't know if others only eat tasty souls.
The Shadow in the Warp might protect a fleet, but I doubt that would protect a handful of gaunts or a carnifex sucked into the Warp by a D-cannon. In addition, the currents of the Warp are shown to be enough to tear apart mighty warships alone- the failure of gellar fields doesn't just risk daemons, but imminent destruction by the Warp itself. The Shadow in the Warp does calm the Warp, but would that be enough to protect any frontline organisms sucked into the Warp by weaponry?
As a caveat, obviously this applies to creatures sucked in whole. A partially-hit creature is going to be sawed in two and probably killed by that.
Yes, but are the mutating effects of the warp somehow physical or at ethey the symptoms of a plague of the mind only? If they were physical, then the hive fleet could very much suffer severely from it nonetheless. Also, considering the warp doesn't offer food to the hive either, and with time being distorted, isn't it possible that it could in a way super starve in what would be a short period of time in real space?
A Tendril wouldn't stop the Warp existing if it went into the Warp.
The Shadow is a veil between reality and the Warp that prevents the bleeding of Warp energy into Realspace.
Once you enter the Warp, that energy is everywhere and it is far more powerful than when drawn into reality.
Ships can travel the Warp by using Gellar Fields to essentially give themselves a reality bubble, the Nids don't have that. As soon as they go into the Warp proper and not just say Eye-space (or something similar) then its curtains for those bugs.
Tyranids are extremely resistant even to the physical effects of being submerged into the warp, it is one of those "Tyranid mysteries" that baffle xenobiologists that study the nids.
Admittedly individual nids likely wouldn't survive as they can be thrown out anywhere and space is mostly empty. But it is a current plot point that hive ships and fleets survive the experience just fine.
It could be they have “hardened” DNA, if indeed that’s how The Warp mutates, and it’s not something to do with Souls. Souls Tyranid organisms may not even possess.
We know that Kin are crafted with “hardened souls” which protect them against Warp influence and spontaneous mutation, so such things are therefore evidently possible.
Tyran wrote: Tyranids are extremely resistant even to the physical effects of being submerged into the warp, it is one of those "Tyranid mysteries" that baffle xenobiologists that study the nids.
Where is that a thing? Being subject to Warp based abilities and existing in un-reality are two very different things.
When the Rift first opened above Baal, those Nids in orbit ceased to exist.
I don't think the Warp kills through uncontrolled mutation. It seems to kill primarily by being a raging torrent of unbridled energy. Ships whose gellar fields completely fail are typically torn to shreds, not merely mutated. Even Chaos vessels can be destroyed this way, they also need shielding against the power of the Warp.
If Tyranid fleets can resist this, then they must have some kind of gellar field equivalent or (what I suspect) the Shadow in the Warp calms the Warp locally and provides gentle seas to sail in. I don't think they are merely incredibly tough, because they can still be destroyed by weapons fire in realspace.
I am pretty sure the Shadow in the Warp has been described as becalming the Warp before, hence why I think it is that which protects hive fleets.
It's not really just mutations though, it's all the various daemons and warp entities that can kill everyone on a ship. Anything mortal that they can latch on to they'll kill or otherwise terrorise.
The Shadow in the Warp that Tyranids project is simply a masking effect that stops those entities taking an interest.
Like various insects that can give off pheromones that basically say I'm not tasty so don't eat me.
Haighus wrote: I am pretty sure the Shadow in the Warp has been described as becalming the Warp before, hence why I think it is that which protects hive fleets.
It blocks astropathic signals and complicates Warp travel. When a world is surrounded it is hidden from the Astromican, which is how Navigators find their way in the Warp. Again, the Shadow doesn't affect the Warp itself, it just blocks the energies from being pulled into Realspace by Psykers and the connection needed by the Daemonic to allow them to manifest.
It's Flextape but for the bleed of Warp energy into reality. The Warp is still there, but the flow is stopped.
The Tyranids don't do Warp travel. They travel at sub-light in Realspace by manipulating the gravity well of a target system when attacking or using other means of propulsion when "drifting" between feeding grounds.
Interesting. I wonder how that might impact the targeting mechanism for warp missiles. That would be a useful weapon at starship scale that tyranids might have difficulty in countering.
What does the current lore say about tyranid psykers? Do they channel warp energies, or is it some kind of warp adjacent power coming from the hive mind?
A Vortex missile would still be a problem because it's not a slow draw on the Warp, it's a brick through a window. It punches a hole through reality to create a massive explosion of Warp energy. Vortex Torpedoes do exist but are extremely rare because they are very very difficult to make and very very dangerous to keep around. The Dark Angels had a big Vortex cannon on one of their Heresy-Era ships because they got all of the very cool and very dangerous Warcrimes toys from the Emperor.
As for Tyranid Psykers, they still draw their power from the Warp. The leading theory about the Shadow is that it is essentially the psychic "traffic" of the various Synapse creatures in a Tendril communicating with every single Tyranid creature in that Tendril. So that "traffic" doesn't effect the Tyranids because they are the ones causing it.
Tyran wrote: Tyranids are extremely resistant even to the physical effects of being submerged into the warp, it is one of those "Tyranid mysteries" that baffle xenobiologists that study the nids.
Where is that a thing? Being subject to Warp based abilities and existing in un-reality are two very different things.
When the Rift first opened above Baal, those Nids in orbit ceased to exist.
Actually no, the hive fleet in orbit was scattered by the Warp but it survived the trip. That has been stated by 8th, 9th and 10th edition codexes.
There is also that time the Eldar threw a Kraken Hive Fleet into the Warp only for it to reemerge later and make the plot of Valedor happen.
Flinty wrote: Interesting. I wonder how that might impact the targeting mechanism for warp missiles. That would be a useful weapon at starship scale that tyranids might have difficulty in countering.
What does the current lore say about tyranid psykers? Do they channel warp energies, or is it some kind of warp adjacent power coming from the hive mind?
Warp Missiles or Vortex could prove pretty useful.
Warp Missiles are nasty against large, slow-ish moving targets because provided they hit? The emerge inside said target, then explode like a regular munition. This of course neatly bypasses external armour and shielding, and hopefully goes bang you really don’t want anything going bang near. For conventional warships that’s stuff like your reactor or equivalent, magazine or enginarium. Something which will just take it out of the battle in a single hit, even if it doesn’t completely wreck it. Trick here with Tyranids in Guess Where The ‘Urty Bits Are.
Vortex Missiles just Make Bits Go Missing, as it casts them into the Warp. Again these are nasty weapons, because they don’t really care about your external armour. And leave some area of now unarmoured and depressurised ship/bioship, giving conventional munitions a nice soft spot.
Thing is, we’ve no clear idea of the Imperium’s capacity to produce those. Certainly they seem rare enough not to be standard issue. And you may need to be a Bigwig to be allowed to use them, even if you have a supply. And you can be about as confident as confident can be that as soon as the Hive Mind realises which ship is packing them? It’s going to give some extra special slobbery hugs to that ship.
Tyran wrote: Actually no, the hive fleet in orbit was scattered by the Warp but it survived the trip. That has been stated by 8th, 9th and 10th edition codexes.
No, it didn't. The Tendril of Leviathan that assaulted Baal was cut in half by the Rift, with those caught within destroyed by its creation or by Daemons led by Ka'Bandha who was mad that something else was trying to steal the title of "Doom of the Blood Angels". Those that remained in Baal itself were then destroyed by the Indomitus Crusade when it came to rescue the defenders of Baal.
The remains of the Tendril that weren't destroyed by the Warp, Daemons, or the Imperium would then re-emerge after the Blackness to start feasting on the Red Scar once again during the Angel's Halo campaign.
There is also that time the Eldar threw a Kraken Hive Fleet into the Warp only for it to reemerge later and make the plot of Valedor happen.
Can't comment, never read the Valedor novel.
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Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Thing is, we’ve no clear idea of the Imperium’s capacity to produce those. Certainly they seem rare enough not to be standard issue. And you may need to be a Bigwig to be allowed to use them, even if you have a supply. And you can be about as confident as confident can be that as soon as the Hive Mind realises which ship is packing them? It’s going to give some extra special slobbery hugs to that ship.
Rare enough that a Deathstrike is supposed to be guarded by a whole infantry platoon and a single vehicle commanded by a Lord Commissar. The Torpedoes are rarer still and also have that problem of a misfire wiping out the very expensive and important ship they're being fired from.
SCATTERED TO THE STARS Leviathan’s enormous Baal invasion fleet is torn into a thousand fragments, and spat out across the vast expanse of the galaxy. Several hundred bio-ships tumble out of the void in the heart of the Maelstrom, andt here fall upon the piratical fleet of Huron Blackheart, master of the Red Corsairs. Another, larger host emerges in the midst of the Velis System, fearfully close to the heart of Segmentum Solar.
INEXPLICABLE PHENOMENA The longer the scholars of the galaxy study the Tyranid menace, the more bewildered they become by the xenos’ weird interactions with the warp. In some ways, the Tyranids appear empyrically inert. The Ordo Xenos have pieced together records that show splinter fleets swallowed by warp rents, only to emerge from other immaterean phenomena in entirely different regions of the galaxy. Should most races’ craft be plunged through the warp like this they would likely emerge badly damaged or mutated, if they emerged at all. The hive ships appear unharmed by their experience, however, surging from the roiling tides of warp space as hungry and as deadly as ever. Worse, more than one such tendril has burst forth directly into the midst of a settled system.
It is as if codexes tell the bigger picture of the setting while novels are mostly limited to the scope and vision of individual characters.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Thing is, we’ve no clear idea of the Imperium’s capacity to produce those. Certainly they seem rare enough not to be standard issue. And you may need to be a Bigwig to be allowed to use them, even if you have a supply. And you can be about as confident as confident can be that as soon as the Hive Mind realises which ship is packing them? It’s going to give some extra special slobbery hugs to that ship.
Rare enough that a Deathstrike is supposed to be guarded by a whole infantry platoon and a single vehicle commanded by a Lord Commissar. The Torpedoes are rarer still and also have that problem of a misfire wiping out the very expensive and important ship they're being fired from.
Thing is, their relatively rare deployment doesn’t necessarily indicate they’re a scarce resource. They’re monstrously destructive, and you’ve said unless your careful it’ll be you on the receiving end of said destruction.
It could also be the warheads are comparatively common, the launch unit is comparatively common, but they’re just so incredibly dangerous you need something akin to a stasis field to prevent mishaps, and it’s there any scarcity really comes in, alongside only a relative handful of persons within the Imperium having the authority to sanction their use.
All just idle speculation of course, but I thought it was an interesting enough bit of pondering to bring it up.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Thing is, their relatively rare deployment doesn’t necessarily indicate they’re a scarce resource. They’re monstrously destructive, and you’ve said unless your careful it’ll be you on the receiving end of said destruction.
It could also be the warheads are comparatively common, the launch unit is comparatively common, but they’re just so incredibly dangerous you need something akin to a stasis field to prevent mishaps, and it’s there any scarcity really comes in, alongside only a relative handful of persons within the Imperium having the authority to sanction their use.
All just idle speculation of course, but I thought it was an interesting enough bit of pondering to bring it up.
Rare in manufacture, rarer in deployment. Vortex weaponry is absolutely a scarce resource because it's not simple to make. Compared to say an Imperator Titan or Emperor Battleship, they are less rare but those are also not the same scale of equipment.
The Asuryani (Craftworlders) have much more common "Vortex" weaponry because their base tech level is superior to humanity. D-Cannons are the same principle but more controlled because they are more advanced. The Imperium just shoves a Nuke full of Warp energy from Psykers then hopes that it doesn't blow up before reaching deployment.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Tyran wrote: It is as if codexes tell the bigger picture of the setting while novels are mostly limited to the scope and vision of individual characters.
That’s not how I understand Vortex stuff to work? Rather it’s seemingly derived from Warp drives. In essence it’s throwing a somewhat unstable Warp Drive at the enemy and sending it critical. No psykers required?
Online sources seem to support, but of course 40K has many, many sources which can be contradictory.
Combine a warp missile guidance and propulsion system with a vortex warhead, and you’d be able to make all kinds of gribbly things lose a lot of important gribbly bits
Then again, might as well just make a million plasma torpedoes instead perhaps and brute force it.
It's all Dark Age tech but the Munitorum: Vortex Missile book states that they are constructed by channeling psychic energy into a warhead that is then attached to an ICBM.
The Grenade is just "Dark Age Tech" that gets built or discovered sometimes.
They are the same as a critical Warp Drive but then what's the difference between a hand grenade and a malfunctioning combustion engine? Both blow up, one is just supposed to and has a triggering mechanism.
It also gets messy because even lore writers miss-remember parts or they interpret things differently. Especially when much of the source material is either very short statements that gloss over a complicated situation with a general answer.
Another element that's tricky is the unreliable information source element. Characters in-world can have impressions, ideas, theories and so forth which can be utterly wrong or missguided or mistaken or whatever. They might make conclusions that sound finite and factual, but are in reality false.
This can make it confusing when you then read one reference and get an impression of how something works only to read another with a very different feel and viewpoint.
Or - as seems to be common - the writers that came later decided that the original outcome wasn't grimdark enough, and retconned it.
While often true, Devastation of Baal and the 8th ed Tyranid codex were released at the same time.
Someone had to come up with it first. It makes more sense that the novel author was the one who originated it. Presumably notes were left in whatever passes for a lore database at GW when the rough draft was being circulated through whatever review processes GW has. The Codex author then found the lore bit in the general collection of Tyranid notes, "adjusted" it, and included it in the codex.
Largely speculation on my part, but imo it seems like the most probable order of who did what.
I would definitely put codexes above BL novels for authority in reference. There seems to be all sorts of haphazard occurences and hyperbole in the novels that don't square very well with a long history of codexes and rules over multiple game systems. I think the BL authors are pretty free to write what they think is a good story, and favor that over accuracy or consistency.
Codices are definitely (as far as GW is concerned that is) made to be more "objective" information as it is mostly an introductory summary of the faction
Are the nids aware of the webway? If the eldar could lure a hive fleet to pass close to a big webway gate they could slingshot a big asteroid from another webway gate into the hive fleet giving them no time to respond
Who knows! I’m sure the Hive Mind will have some level of awareness, at least insofar as some Prey That Fight can pop out of nowhere to attack in surprising numbers, and disappear just as quickly. But whether it has any comprehension of what the Webway is? I honestly don’t know.
But I’ve a feeling at some point they did breach the Webway?
mrFickle wrote: Are the nids aware of the webway? If the eldar could lure a hive fleet to pass close to a big webway gate they could slingshot a big asteroid from another webway gate into the hive fleet giving them no time to respond
I wonder whether such an instance of nids ending up in the webway wasn't narrated in 7th codex harlequins. Memory could be treacherous however, that would need to be checked.
If the Eldar did slingshot an asteroid out of a webway gate... and?
If the strike is accurate (i.e. faraeer assisted), then one, or maybe two, ships get destroyed. But there are likely plenty of redundancies in each swarm of ships. It would be like firing a bullet into a swarm of insects.
It’s back to targeting the Norn Queen. If the rock is big and fast enough, it means that smaller escort ships can’t get in the way to save the bigger beasties. The Eldar are sophisticated enough to be able to identify the key ships. On the other hand throwing rocks seems a little beneath them
Automatically Appended Next Post: Clouds of monofilament fibres travelling at relativistic speed seems more their style. Instant space chowder!
Loathe as I usually am to bring up “but in the game”? I can’t stop comparing how a Hive Fleet fared in Battlefleet Gothic.
In short? One on one, the Hive Ships weren’t all that great. Provided you could keep them at a relative arms length, the engagement would be relatively one sided, as they tended to be very short ranged.
If we extrapolate that back to the Lore? I think that kind of holds up. The ships, individually, aren’t that difficult to knock holes in and kill. The difficulty is there tends to be significantly more of them than there are of you, so like on Terra firma, we see Nids excel at attrition. And many of the ships are quite chaffy. Easy to kill, but doing so doesn’t really make much impact on their wider forces.
Add in the impact of the Shadow of the Warp all but denying you any chance of reinforcement, and you really need to know your onions to make your kills really count.
Which brings me on to my next thought. potentially baiting a world or system. Now like most if not all plans suggested so far, you’re gonna be sacrificing that world more or less entirely. Certainly it’s gonna need a bloody good and thorough cleansing to begin with.
And this plan? Is letting a Genestealer Cult run its course.
In doing so, in the run up to the Day of Ascension, you can use gene scanners (confirmed to exist in the Cain novels, and aren’t noted as particularly esoteric) to keep the Cult contained to Just That World, with no Hybrids or Brood Brothers making it off world.
At the same time, you start massing assets in-system. Not just a fleet, but a Battle Group size. Once the signal is out and the Nids have arrived? Give ‘em hell. Potentially engaging them in the far reaches as they enter the system, giving you even more time to make use of your comparatively higher speeds to slowly bleed them. Engage at extreme range, withdraw, rinse and repeat, postponing a full scale naval engagement until they hit the system proper.
Laying a trap is a reasonable idea . . . but it's possible the Nids have forward scout ships. Or if you're baiting with a Genestealer cult, is it possible that a Magus or Patriarch can sense the massive number of warp disturbances of the Imperial fleet.
There is that possibility. But…what can they reasonably do with that information?
Don’t get me wrong, this is an “ideal world” situation, which not least requires you to be able to deploy a sufficiently powerful and numerous fleet without denuding other systems of support.
If you can pull it off, the Cult can only really try to summon a larger Hive Fleet - which isn’t necessarily an undesirable outcome, as you’re trying to reduce their overall numbers as much as possible.
Certainly if your genescanning is done properly and thoroughly, you massively reduce the chance of the Cult getting off planet, or infesting your Naval assets? Heck, you could even pre-emptively virus bomb the planet, all but eliminating any risk of planetside defences being used against you.
Eumerin wrote: Only works if there's only one norn queen. I suspect most swarms have multiples on different ships for redundancy.
From Dante:
'If I may petition you, lord commander. We could concentrate our efforts on the guiding minds of the ships, the norncraft and their queens, as we depart,’ said Dhrost. ‘If we might dismantle their command network, it shall afford you more time to reinforce Baal.’
Phaeton and Aphael shared a worried look.
‘Speak!’ said Dante to his brothers, holding up his hand. ‘While Dhrost is here, he is to be accorded the same rights as a member of our Chapter. Let the record state that the Red Council will speak freely.’
‘We have accounted for eighty per cent of the norn, brood and hive ships seen in the system, general,’ said Aphael. ‘As per standard engagement strategy when making war upon the tyranids.’
‘The hive fleet recovers quickly. How?’ said Dhrost.
‘We lack sufficient intelligence to say exactly, general, but we are certain that adaptive evolution among the tyranid swarm has made the previous strategy unworkable. It appears the tyranids have found a means to counter our destruction of their largest vessels,’ said Phaeton.
‘Theories?’ said Dante. He toyed with the bowl full of rubies set into the desk before him. The glassy rattle of them against each other was supposed to aid meditation.
‘I have two,’ said Phaeton. ‘The first is that the hive mind has devised a way of exerting its will over a larger area, with fewer intermediary vessels required as nodes in its neural network. If this is true, it may be used to our advantage. If we were to commit to multiple strikes across a broad front of several infested systems, the operation of the hive mind might be greatly disrupted. By extending its range, the hive mind has increased its vulnerability.’
‘Provide the second theory,’ said Dante.
‘They have evolved a way of spreading their neural network more widely across a given area, making it harder to disrupt,’ said Phaeton. ‘The larger ships are no longer the only nexus points for the broader synaptic web of the fleets.’
Karlaen slammed his goblet onto the table with a growl. ‘You mean that shooting the big ones will no longer work, brother-captain. Speak plainly, Phaeton.’
‘In fleet actions, yes, brother, that is the case,’ said Phaeton. ‘Shooting the big ones will no longer work.'
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: There is that possibility. But…what can they reasonably do with that information?
I'm not too familiar with Tyranid fleets, so specific tactics are out of my wheelhouse. But one counter strategy might be to slow down the fleet and delay interception by weeks or months while other tendrils reach for other systems in the sector, forcing the Imperial fleet to either split up to defend other areas or risk losing worlds without adequate fleet defenses. Basically, if the Imperial fleet wants to concentrate resources, that can be an opportunity for the Nids to attack undefended space elsewhere.
It’s not at all clear what the dinner bell rung by the Patriarch is actually capable of.
It could just be a push notification to Hive Fleets that their order is ready, awaiting collection - and no more than that. Just a beacon to attract them, with the inherent expectation if not completely pacified by the cult uprising, at least a world already deep at war with itself, making resistance to the Hive Fleet proper theoretically much lighter.
But? Whilst I can’t think of any evidence to directly support, it could be an information feed of greater depth. Number of worlds, known defences etc.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: It’s not at all clear what the dinner bell rung by the Patriarch is actually capable of.
It could just be a push notification to Hive Fleets that their order is ready, awaiting collection - and no more than that. Just a beacon to attract them, with the inherent expectation if not completely pacified by the cult uprising, at least a world already deep at war with itself, making resistance to the Hive Fleet proper theoretically much lighter.
But? Whilst I can’t think of any evidence to directly support, it could be an information feed of greater depth. Number of worlds, known defences etc.
That’s a thread unto itself!
On the one hand, Genestealer Cults are intelligent. The Patriarch is a genius-level tactician and strategist.
On the other hand, they're NOT one-to-one linked to Nids. They don't know what awaits them.
I'd err on the side of more information going to the Nids than less, though.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Loathe as I usually am to bring up “but in the game”? I can’t stop comparing how a Hive Fleet fared in Battlefleet Gothic.
In short? One on one, the Hive Ships weren’t all that great. Provided you could keep them at a relative arms length, the engagement would be relatively one sided, as they tended to be very short ranged.
If we extrapolate that back to the Lore? I think that kind of holds up. The ships, individually, aren’t that difficult to knock holes in and kill. The difficulty is there tends to be significantly more of them than there are of you, so like on Terra firma, we see Nids excel at attrition. And many of the ships are quite chaffy. Easy to kill, but doing so doesn’t really make much impact on their wider forces.
Add in the impact of the Shadow of the Warp all but denying you any chance of reinforcement, and you really need to know your onions to make your kills really count.
The Tyranid fleet in BFG acts somewhat similarly to its ground counterpart. Smaller faster ships/organisms race ahead to distract and disrupt the enemy. In BFG it is the Kraken and they can launch boarding actions and hit and run attacks, injecting Genestealers and other organisms inside enemy ships. The enemy is then occupied with Tyranids running around inside their ship or is otherwise distracted shooting at these Kraken, giving time for the slower Hive ships and their expendable escorts to close the distance. At close range, the Tyranid ships pack a decent amount of firepower with their bio-cannons and their bio-plasma ignores void shields as the shots are so slow moving they pass through the shields. If they engage in close range boarding action, they will tear through the crew while their bio-ships tear through the structure with claws.
While it may be tempting to say "Just shoot the big ones", the smaller ships are meant to make it too painful to ignore them.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: It’s not at all clear what the dinner bell rung by the Patriarch is actually capable of.
It could just be a push notification to Hive Fleets that their order is ready, awaiting collection - and no more than that. Just a beacon to attract them, with the inherent expectation if not completely pacified by the cult uprising, at least a world already deep at war with itself, making resistance to the Hive Fleet proper theoretically much lighter.
But? Whilst I can’t think of any evidence to directly support, it could be an information feed of greater depth. Number of worlds, known defences etc.
That’s a thread unto itself!
On the one hand, Genestealer Cults are intelligent. The Patriarch is a genius-level tactician and strategist.
On the other hand, they're NOT one-to-one linked to Nids. They don't know what awaits them.
I'd err on the side of more information going to the Nids than less, though.
I guess it depends on where the Patriarch’s knowledge comes from. After all, genius isn’t measured by the stuff you know, rather your ability to process and store information, and apply it to new and novel use. For instance, Einstein presumably wasn’t born with any inherent knowledge of physics and that. But his unique, beautiful brain allowed him to learn from others and develop things further than anyone else.
It’s entirely possible The Most Intelligent Person In The World Ever has been and gone, but because they were born somewhere with no formal education system, they lived or are living their life without ever being able to realise their potential.
But waffle aside? Another thought occurs. The Hive Mind isn’t noted to take control of the Purestrains until the invasion is on. And we know of all Tyranid forms, its Genestealers that are able to operate entirely outwith the Hive Mind. Whilst not exactly conclusive, that knowledge has me leaning toward it being a fairly basic “light in the darkness” beacon, and not a two way radio type affair. It’s also possible for a Patriarch to have never been subject to the Hive Mind. Because any Purestrain can become a Patriarch in the right circumstances, not just those directly spawned by a Hive Fleet. This then brings into question that should complex information be transmitted in the signal, whether the Patriarch and Hive Mind would be able to understand what the other is saying with any great clarity. It is possible, given genetic programming. But I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily a given, as Just A Simple Beacon is purpose enough for what the Hive Mind wants. Which is the location of a prey world.
As ever if anyone has GW or BL sources to the contrary of my thinking, let me know, because knowing more is always cool.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: It’s not at all clear what the dinner bell rung by the Patriarch is actually capable of.
It could just be a push notification to Hive Fleets that their order is ready, awaiting collection - and no more than that. Just a beacon to attract them, with the inherent expectation if not completely pacified by the cult uprising, at least a world already deep at war with itself, making resistance to the Hive Fleet proper theoretically much lighter.
But? Whilst I can’t think of any evidence to directly support, it could be an information feed of greater depth. Number of worlds, known defences etc.
That’s a thread unto itself!
On the one hand, Genestealer Cults are intelligent. The Patriarch is a genius-level tactician and strategist.
On the other hand, they're NOT one-to-one linked to Nids. They don't know what awaits them.
I'd err on the side of more information going to the Nids than less, though.
I was always given to understand that the Cult has tiers - those at the very top and the Genetealer Patriarch itself should be 100% within the Will of the Hive Mind along with any purestrain Genestealers that are bred from the Cult if it reaches a maturity level capable of creating them. Because at that point they are all pure genetealers.
There's also a bit of lore in one of the older Codex that notes the new Planet sized construct has also been used as a holey site to take High ranking humans within Cults too which seems to reinforce their connection with the HiveMind/Stargods.
Which suggests that the very higher level humans at least know what the Tyranids are mostly all about (since they had to rise upon a world; have that world invaded and were then preserved whilst the rest of their Cult was likely devoured).
Indeed Tyranids preserving the upper ranks of a Cult and allowing/enabling them to escape to seed more worlds if a factor.
So the upper ranks are either fully Tyranid or as close as can be. The rest of the Cult is a whole spread from those who might have no mutations at all all the way to the heavily mutated with them having varied understandings of the Cult, its objectives and the Stargods/Tyranids.
