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Hey guys, I was playing my tyranids yesterday, And i started wondering, "How could the tyranids evolve naturally?"

Asking this has made me think about these questions.

1:Could they evolve through natural selection, or were they the result of a twisted experiment in another galaxy?
2:What was most likley the first tyranid species?
3:How does a hive mind come to exsist?


Any help on any or all these questions would be appreciated.

Ever seen Aliens? I guess they would evelve from something like that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
*evolve

Well then how did something like the aliens evolve?

An incredibly hostile environment, (but rumor has it that Aliens are a bio-weapon created by the Jockey's). . . . I really don't think the nids are a natural species, I view it sorta like the zerg, some race was messing with genetic engineering and ended up making a bio weapon. . . the nids, which then ate them and their galaxy

Hey thanks guys. Does anyone want to take a crack at the other questions?

I don't believe the nids were created naturally.

I think they were simply created to harvest biological matter for the hive mind.
Once they have acquired enough bio matter, they will bring it back to be consumed, along with all of the genetic information that have obtained.

The hive mind probably started out as a being with immense psy power. Either the creature of a planet in a far away galaxy or a denizen of the warp.
It somehow become super-duper-uber powerful and had a hunger to consume and learn.
So it used it's power to either enslave or create a multitude of races (e.i. gaunts, fexs) to fed it.

I think they are just the pinnacle of evolution and they were pushed on by the immense power of the hive mind. What is the hive mind? Possibly an old one.

I doubt the tyranids evolved "naturally" they seem structured wrong for that. What would make part of the same species elvolve one way and part of the species evolve another without the species breaking apart, also how did the hive mind develop?

It seems much more likely that they were bio engineered. Or their evolution may have been controlled by the hivemind (whatever it actualy is) since they were very basic creatures, in a similar way to the kroot.

You realise that we do have hive minds here on Holy Terra?

Look at any beehive, termite mound or ant nest. Individual ants do not have the processing power or knowledge to do much beyond react to immediate surrounding. But the gestalt mind, the overall hive, if you will, can learn, evolve and solve problems well beyond the scope of an individual unit.

Now, nobody is quite sure how they communicate, learn or evolve, but they do. It's not so far fetched to imagine that they could evolve into larger, more powerful creatures in a favourable - or hostile - environment.

Now, if the individual units gained size, mass and brain power, it's quite possible that the overall mind would do so as well.

Munch Munch! wrote:Hey guys, I was playing my tyranids yesterday, And i started wondering, "How could the tyranids evolve naturally?"

Asking this has made me think about these questions.

1:Could they evolve through natural selection, or were they the result of a twisted experiment in another galaxy?
2:What was most likley the first tyranid species?
3:How does a hive mind come to exsist?
4:How did there ancestors interact and behave?
5:What do you think their home world was like?

Any help on any or all these questions would be appreciated.

They couldn't evolve naturally. Their method of life and reproduction is counter-survival. No predator species can survive by exterminating all its prey.

There is a long thread on Tyranids. My theory is that they were designed specifically as a biological terror weapon, and got out of control.

Kilkrazy wrote:Their method of life and reproduction is counter-survival. No predator species can survive by exterminating all its prey.

Never heard of locust swarms, then? They strip the landscape bare of very single piece of vegetation, food, refuse or dead matter, growing ever-larger and hungrier - stopping only when they run out of food or the winter freezes them to death.

Maybe that's why the Tyranids are so aggressive, the bigger they get, the more food they get. And the hungrier they are, the more desperate they are...

1.) First of all we don't know (and GW neither). The Tyranid's origin was placed in a far away Galaxy for a reason. As they go on evolving, it is save to assume that they did so from the start.
2.) Tyranid warriors seem to be the most generic form, they are also the oldest Tyranid miniature next to the termagaunt. Genestealers are something independent (and predate "real" Tyranids miniaturewise), the relation between Genestealers and Tyranids not completely clear.
3.) There is an Über-hivemind in a far away galaxy, every hive node (synapse) is ultimately linked to that one, either directly or via superior hive nodes. So establishing that link is what you call "come to exist". Generally these direct links are formed at the start of a Hive fleet, back in the other galaxy.

Don't know what question 4) means and have no idea for question 5).

Ah, never mind those questions. I'm going to delete those anyways.

The Tyranid Norm Queen are omniscient ,able to peer into other dimensions and fabric of reality.

Miraclefish wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Their method of life and reproduction is counter-survival. No predator species can survive by exterminating all its prey.

Never heard of locust swarms, then? They strip the landscape bare of very single piece of vegetation, food, refuse or dead matter, growing ever-larger and hungrier - stopping only when they run out of food or the winter freezes them to death.

Maybe that's why the Tyranids are so aggressive, the bigger they get, the more food they get. And the hungrier they are, the more desperate they are...

No, I've never heard of locusts. Perhaps you might be able to explain why there is still life on Earth after locusts.

Kilkrazy wrote:No, I've never heard of locusts. Perhaps you might be able to explain why there is still life on Earth after locusts.

A second time? Fair enough.

Miraclefish wrote:...stopping only when they run out of food or the winter freezes them to death.

The way i look at the tyranids evolution is that each codex is an updated documentation of the species by the imperium. As the hive ships push further into the galaxy and evolve and adapt so does the documentation. Strategies, units, biomorphs and bio-weapons all come, go, and change based on the adaptations by the hive mind.

As far as natural evolution i see them as totally being able to evolve naturally. Start back two codex ago, when termagants were able to develop a hive node on one model. That there could very well be the trait that lead to the hive minds birth. You start with a small brood of gants running around and then the hive node trait develops, it does not radiate outward but makes that brood a better predator. The brood becomes the dominant predator and continues to expand, as the brood grows larger and larger the hive mind slowly develops into a more and more cunning predator until it actually gets to the point of sentience. From that point warriors develop to replace the hive node gants as the "leaders" but the trait remains as it still has value. The species develops but not beyond the point of Alpha predator of a planet. Finally some other intelligent life makes landfall and through a series of events the species somewhat becomes able to travel space, perhaps the same way that genestealers use Space Hulks to travel. They cannot steer themselves but nonetheless eventually find there way onto other planets and slowly start to become the species we know now. It probably is only a matter of time before they overgrow these ships to be able to steer them and then eventually start to just grow their own fleets.

That's how i see them developing naturally as opposed to being a creation out of control.

Miraclefish wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:No, I've never heard of locusts. Perhaps you might be able to explain why there is still life on Earth after locusts.

A second time? Fair enough.

Miraclefish wrote:...stopping only when they run out of food or the winter freezes them to death.

Unlike Tyranids, who obliterate the entire biosphere including atmosphere, etc, thus making the planet uninhabitable.

It seems a bit unlikely a planet could spawn a species which obliterated itself like that.

Kilkrazy wrote:Unlike Tyranids, who obliterate the entire biosphere including atmosphere, etc, thus making the planet uninhabitable.

It seems a bit unlikely a planet could spawn a species which obliterated itself like that.

WHat was the home planet of the Necrontyr again? You know, those Omnicidal guys who already wiped out 99.9999% of life in the Galaxy once?

They are robots.

It makes as much sense as saying a nova evolved.

Kilkrazy wrote:They are robots.

It makes as much sense as saying a nova evolved.

TO be fair, they are Cyborgs, not Robots, as they were a natural race who shed their bodies with the help of the C'Tan

Cyborgs comprise fleshy and machine parts. The Necrons are actually totally robot, with a 'personality' downloaded as software.

Gwar! wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:They are robots.

It makes as much sense as saying a nova evolved.

TO be fair, they are Cyborgs, not Robots, as they were a natural race who shed their bodies with the help of the C'Tan

Kilkrazy wrote:Cyborgs comprise fleshy and machine parts. The Necrons are actually totally robot, with a 'personality' downloaded as software.

Gwar! 0
KK 1

Really, Gwar!, come on now!

Alpharius wrote:

Gwar! wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:They are robots.

It makes as much sense as saying a nova evolved.

TO be fair, they are Cyborgs, not Robots, as they were a natural race who shed their bodies with the help of the C'Tan

Kilkrazy wrote:Cyborgs comprise fleshy and machine parts. The Necrons are actually totally robot, with a 'personality' downloaded as software.

Gwar! 0
KK 1

Really, Gwar!, come on now!

So a Consciousness is not an organic component?

Gwar! wrote: So a Consciousness is not an organic component?

Via the paradigm set in 40k, no.
   ...but pariah's are Cyborgs.
Also, as a note.
   The in the paradigm of 40k consciousness does not require a reflection in the warp.
   But a reflection in the warp requires a 'organic component', or the annihilation of said reflection. -conjecture based on Pariahs.


On Tyranids, I'm wondering if originating on an Avatar-esque planet would work.
   All it would require is some sort of socially/mentally broken series of creatures to achieve some sort of grand predatory consensus.
Also, they may be still functioning within a predator organism's framework. Even with stripping all life & resources from planet.
   They may be just acting on such a scale and time frame that it would seem like they'll run out of resources, to things have evolved from nothing within the framework of their existence.
   They're sphere of predation could easily span 100 galaxies and a temporal unit for them could be as long as a billion years.

Gwar! wrote:

Alpharius wrote:

Gwar! wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:They are robots.

It makes as much sense as saying a nova evolved.

TO be fair, they are Cyborgs, not Robots, as they were a natural race who shed their bodies with the help of the C'Tan

Kilkrazy wrote:Cyborgs comprise fleshy and machine parts. The Necrons are actually totally robot, with a 'personality' downloaded as software.

Gwar! 0
KK 1

Really, Gwar!, come on now!

So a Consciousness is not an organic component?

No. Artificial Intelligence exists in 40K.

The Necrons have a conscious mind which was originally running on a biological substrate, but is now running in software simulation on a computer.

An AI is a conscious mind which was entirely developed on a machine substrate.

Unlike Tyranids, who obliterate the entire biosphere including atmosphere, etc, thus making the planet uninhabitable.

It seems a bit unlikely a planet could spawn a species which obliterated itself like that.

I wouldn't be so sure

I bet that was made by some hippies at woodstock.

What evolutionary link could the venomthrope have with a zoenthrope, besides both being able to float (but even then the venomthrope uses a system of bladders, and the zoenthrope uses physic might)

Klawz wrote:What evolutionary link could the venomthrope have with a zoenthrope, besides both being able to float (but even then the venomthrope uses a system of bladders, and the zoenthrope uses physic might)

the same thing that links all arachnids. One developed psychically and levitates itself, the other developed physically and floats.