What would happen if a Chaos God entered the Shadow in the Warp?

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**EmpNortonII**

Since we're on a big Tyranids and Chaos kick, what would happen if a Tyranid Hive Mind entered the Warp- or worse, encountered a Chaos God? Given their ability to mess up psykers, would the Tyranid hive mind be a hard counter to the Chaos Gods?

**Maximus Bitch**

The hive fleet will probably go mad and disperse.

Here's some food for thought: since trillions of tyranids die everyday, won't their souls coalesce in the warp?

Could they form a Tyranid God in the Warp? A 5th god?

**EmpNortonII**

Maximus Bitch wrote:
The hive fleet will probably go mad and disperse.

Here's some food for thought: since trillions of tyranids die everyday, won't their souls coalesce in the warp?

Could they form a Tyranid God in the Warp? A 5th god?

I don't think Tyranids have souls.

**Maximus Bitch**

Tyranid souls cannot empower the Chaos gods.

From the latest dex:

“The Hive Mind was leeching their energies, severing the Daemons from the sustaining powers of the Empyrean.

No real blood flowed for Khorne, just worthless alien ichor.”

“Without the fear or devotion of true mortals to sustain them, the Daemons were foundering fast.”

Automatically Appended Next Post:

EmpNortonII wrote:
Maximus Bitch wrote:
The hive fleet will probably go mad and disperse.

Here's some food for thought: since trillions of tyranids die everyday, won't their souls coalesce in the warp?

Could they form a Tyranid God in the Warp? A 5th god?

I don't think Tyranids have souls.

Hmm, soulless psykers...

From the wiki, describing a hive tyrant:

They wield potent psychic powers but are unaffected by the daemons of the Warp, a condition that would indicate a lack of a soul at the individual level for most Tyranids, though the species' collective consciousness brings into being a truly potent psychic presence in the Immaterium called the Tyranid "Shadow in the Warp"

Another example of the tyranid psyche interfering with chaos.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
So while humans, eldar, orks and tau empower Chaos, the tyranids might empower something else. Both are warp related though.

**Veteran of The Long War**

The Shadow. can overcome even very powerful greater daemons but a Chaos God itself? Idk what would happen but I'd put money on the God drowning out the shadow with it's own psychic power.

**curran12**

Very much a case of irresistible force vs immovable object.

**Frozen Ocean**

Like a lot of things relating to the Tyranids, the specifics of their supernaturalism are, well, alien. Truly alien, not humans-with-extras like Orks, Tau or Eldar. We can assume that they have some equivalent of a soul - a psychic spark of sorts - but unique. It would stand to reason that the Shadow in the Warp is essentially their own, alien, Warp (or rather, the Shadow is the noticeable effect on the Warp caused by the Tyranid-Warp). We don't know what happens to this "spark" (for want of a better word) once the organism dies, but it would follow a pattern for Tyranids and for "our" Warp that the "spark" enters the Shadow-Warp again.

I explain the Tyranid ability to perfectly recycle their biomass by assuming that they use some kind of psychic energy - either relating to the organism's own "spark" or not - to handle the process, escaping entropy through use of magic (otherwise the energy comes from nowhere, and with Tyranids so intimately tied to magic as a race, it fits).

Tyranids outnumber everything. If we assume that every Tyranid soul, barring psykers on both sides, is roughly equivalent to a human/Ork/Eldar soul in power, the psychic field (Tyranid-Warp) that causes the Shadow is astronomically more powerful than our own Warp.

Imagine every sentient being giving off a sort of radio signal, and those waves coalesce into what we call the Warp. The Tyranids emit their own signals, not dissimilar, but their sheer volume drowns out anything else, making our signal completely impossible to detect. That's a greatly simplified version of how I imagine the Shadow in the Warp works. It could also be likened to what happens when you put a powerful magnet next to a screen.

The specifics of the title question are tricky, however. A Chaos God doesn't have a being, so there's no way they could "enter" the Shadow itself without the entirety of the Tyranid race being present within the Milky Way and thus "Shadowing" the entirety of the Warp, not just a localised region.

**Wyzilla**

EmpNortonII wrote:
Since we're on a big Tyranids and Chaos kick, what would happen if a Tyranid Hive Mind entered the Warp- or worse, encountered a Chaos God? Given their ability to mess up psykers, would the Tyranid hive mind be a hard counter to the Chaos Gods?

They're torn to pieces by daemons with no actual defense against them if Chaos wills it so. Unless there's feats for the shadow of the warp operating like a gellar field, there's no reason to believe they'd have any defenses against daemons ripping them to pieces. Hell after just reading Battle for the Abyss, daemons have really good feats for ripping anything that enters the warp and they don't like a new one. While they can overcome Chaos in the materium, in the warp? They're screwed, royally.

Although I don't know how the feth a Chaos God enters the Shadow when they're not beings.

Also, is the OP forcing a confrontation? Chaos has no real reason to engage the nids unless a meandering daemon walks by. Tyranids feed Chaos nothing, so there's no point for Daemons to even bother them. They can't do anything- the warp should cut them off from the hive mind, and hell I don't even know if they could travel through the immateirum in the first place. Similar to the tau though, you'd have the raging bonfire to a candle thing going on, only more extreme. I wouldn't call Nids blanks, blanks are more like a neutral pyschic power. If psykers are positive numbers going up with power, blanks are the exact opposite. Nids however seem to just be zero. They don't really act like blanks, but they're little more than filler. Unless they do something to attract attention, daemons may very well keep torturing the trillions of souls in the warp and completely ignore the Tyranid hive fleet that went missing. Hell it might even show up like a space hulk. Just a blob of matter with no delicious souls to reap.

**Frozen Ocean**

Hive Mind, not Hive Fleet. Although the use of "a" in the original post is more than a little confusing.

**Spetulhu**

Tyranids entering the Warp would be bad, very bad... There's worse things than daemons there. The Enslavers went to sulk in the Warp after their galaxy-spanning dominion was broken and they're still nasty enough that the daemons cross to the other side of the road rather than confront them.

**Wyzilla**

Frozen Ocean wrote:
Hive Mind, not Hive Fleet. Although the use of "a" in the original post is more than a little confusing.

Oh, well in that case it dies as I don't remember anything pointing to the hive mind being capable of surviving in the Immaterium. Also, for the last post above mine, aren't the Enslavers retconned?

**Frozen Ocean**

There's nothing pointing to intimate Hive Mind interaction with the Warp being anything. It'd be a totally unprecedented event. I surmise that the Hive Mind in its entirety is stronger than the Warp, though. The Warp is the (undirected) psychic effluence of the sentients of the Milky Way, and the Tyranids as a whole are not only unified but quite possibly outnumber them by a large margin.

In short, we don't really know, but it probably wouldn't be good for either of them.

**Wyzilla**

Frozen Ocean wrote:
There's nothing pointing to intimate Hive Mind interaction with the Warp being anything. It'd be a totally unprecedented event. I surmise that the Hive Mind in its entirety is stronger than the Warp, though. The Warp is the (undirected) psychic effluence of the sentients of the Milky Way, and the Tyranids as a whole are not only unified but quite possibly outnumber them by a large margin.

In short, we don't really know, but it probably wouldn't be good for either of them.

Except Chaos is laughably more stronger than the Nids in the warp, not to mention has better quotes backing it up than the nids.

**Wulfmar**

I was always under the impression that the following points were the basic gist of the situation:

a) Daemons do not benefit from Tyranids. Tyranids are soulless, basic creatures that rely heavily on a controlling Hive Mind. Perhaps that Hive Mind is the creature with a soul, but the smaller units are practically extensions of it's will. It is also possible that the lesser Tyranids do have souls, but they are so small and basic that they aren't noticeable.

b) Daemons are weakened by the lack of emotion that the Tyranids possess and find themselves wasting their time fighting them.

c) Tyranids find that killing Daemons is a waste of time from a resource gathering point of view - but instead react in a way that's different to it's usual interactions with the other 40K races. If I recall correctly, somewhere it suggested that the Tyranids react to the presence of Daemons as there being competition for resources (as in, they think the Daemons are another predator that is fighting for resources) and so go out of their way to eliminate the competition. A bit like two lions fighting each other over turf.

d) The Tyranids seem to be farming resource rich lands on their way to the Eye of Terror. Could it be that the Hive Mind believes there is competition there it want's to eliminate? Or could it have mistaken Slaanesh for a sexy lady Hive Mind and be on the way to woo it?

e) Perhaps the Tyranids will cancel out the warp with the Shadow of the Warp and in fact as the galaxy's salvation from Chaos - but also it's destruction at the same time. I feel the Tyranids are the cure for the warp but it's a sacrificial cure.

Just my thoughts

**jhe90**

They may be able to weaken them, starve them but the warp is truely chaos home turf.
Normal rules do not apply, all manner of freaky things, creatures, long forgotten monsters and the like.

Tyranoids would be chow pretty fast.

**Wulfmar**

Perhaps, I was under the impression that Chaos / the Eye was fuelled by worship/fear. As the Tyranids chow down upon the planets it scours, it weakens the power of Chaos by denying that which it relies upon.

At the current game stage, The Eye is unassailably Chaos, though as the 'Nids move closer I expect the Eye's bridge to this reality to weaken and possibly collapse as it runs out of that which sustains it in combination with the Tyranids own smothering effect.

Again, just an idea I have - doesn't mean it's right. Once I get into the Black Library I'll probably have all the answers

**Sigvatr**

The Tyranids would never even dare coming close to it. They turned around and panicked when coming even close to The Outsider, one of the, if not the, mightiest corporeal being in the universe so entering the Eye of Chaos would be extremely unlikely.

**Animus**

In Valedor Slaanesh lurks behind the Shadow and just shoves it aside when it comes time for a lot of Eldar to die so he can eat their souls.

**Archon_Zarbyrn**

Honestly I not sure it even possible for a Chaos God to enter the Shadow in the Warp let alone even remotely challenge the Hive Mind. We know that the Tyranid race has devoured multiple galaxies and that Hive Mind very old as stated in sources such as the 5th rulebook. Next considering the fact that only a small portion of the Tyranid race is currently in the 40k galaxy yet capable of blocking out warp communication and heavily disrupting warp travel across entire sections of the galaxy. They are also capable of denying Deamons the very things needed for them to exist, no souls to corrupt and no emotions to feed off of. This show all shows just how powerful the Hive Mind, though I am curious if the Shadow has any effect on Orks. Any sources on this?

**Formosa**

Depending on what source you use the chaos gods are either enormous sentient warp storms or vortexs of emotion given life of a kind.

The first one can move around the warp and since the warp touches every reality and universe, that pretty much means it can go where it pleases, we also know that the gods can tear holes in into reality at Will, so if they so wished they could track the hive fleets via the warp shadow and drag them into the warp.

The chaos gods do not consider tyranids a threat yet, when they do the tyranids will be wiped out, just like the emperor

**Xyptc**

Formosa wrote:
Depending on what source you use the chaos gods are either enormous sentient warp storms or vortexs of emotion given life of a kind.

The first one can move around the warp and since the warp touches every reality and universe, that pretty much means it can go where it pleases, we also know that the gods can tear holes in into reality at Will, so if they so wished they could track the hive fleets via the warp shadow and drag them into the warp.

The chaos gods do not consider tyranids a threat yet, when they do the tyranids will be wiped out, just like the emperor

Do you have a citation for any of that?

**Bharring**

I always thought an interesting game would be a Farseer with a small force helping Nids (CtA, of course), because they thought either the Shadow would cause their souls to dissipate upon death, instead of being devoured by Slanesh, or that the Bids could eventually defeat Slanesh.

The Cult of Lokus, if I ever actually play it (one of my Farseers)

**Wyzilla**

Archon_Zarbyrn wrote:
Honestly I not sure it even possible for a Chaos God to enter the Shadow in the Warp let alone even remotely challenge the Hive Mind. We know that the Tyranid race has devoured multiple galaxies and that Hive Mind very old as stated in sources such as the 5th rulebook. Next considering the fact that only a small portion of the Tyranid race is currently in the 40k galaxy yet capable of blocking out warp communication and heavily disrupting warp travel across entire sections of the galaxy. They are also capable of denying Deamons the very things needed for them to exist, no souls to corrupt and no emotions to feed off of. This show all shows just how powerful the Hive Mind, though I am curious if the Shadow has any effect on Orks. Any sources on this?

The shadow is unlikely to do anything, IIRC there already was a Hive Fleet that misshaped into the Eye of Terror and got obliterated, and no, Chaos is laughably beyond the Tyranids, along with all other factions. Tyranids can only challenge them in the home universe by Chaos being severely weakened upon entering it, but the Immaterium? It's another universe/dimension that doesn't obey physical laws at all, and the Hive Mand and its brood is subject to the whims of Chaos. Lemme grab that big quote I got from a Warhammer 40K Feats Thread.

The warp is the multi/omniverse(or is connected to them)

"The forms the live-things called Chaos, in their limited little ways of perceiving the omni-verse, swarmed and thrived in this infinite ocean of mind and emotion. The daemon moved with Stele. Waiting, waiting and watching for the moment when the thrashing and chattering of the quarry was at its peak. Only then would it strike, lapping up the absolute perfection of its fear, sinking in rending teeth, tearing it to soul- shreds."
Pg.106 Deus Sanguinius

“A miss indicates that the missile has left Warpspace at the wrong point – and this could be anywhere in any of the million universes.”
pg.37 Adeptus Titanicus

Thoughts can destroy or create thousands of universes in the warp

"Here in the Great Ocean, he could be whatever he wanted to be; nothing was forbidden and anything was possible.
Worlds flashed past him as he hurtled through the swelling tides of colour, light and dimensions without name. The roiling chaos of the aether was a playground for titanic forces, where entire universes could be created and destroyed with a random thought. How many trillions of potential lives were birthed and snuffed out just by thinking such things?"
Pg.712 A Thousand Sons

Chaos is older than time

All around him, he could hear the sounds of the future, of warfare and death. The thought that he shared the guilt of the destruction of the Emperor’s dream was the greatest shame and sorrow he had ever known.
An end to it all would be a blessed relief.
‘Oblivion,’ he whispered as he closed his eyes. ‘Do it. End me.’
The barriers in Fulgrim’s mind dropped and he felt the elation of a creature older than time as it poured into the void in his soul. No sooner had its touch claimed his flesh for its own than he knew he had made the worst mistake of his life.
Fulgrim screamed as he fought to keep it out, but it was already too late.
His consciousness was crushed into the dark, unused corners of his mind, forever to be a mute witness to the havoc wrought by his body’s new master.
One moment Fulgrim was a primarch, one of the Emperor’s Children, the next he was a thing of Chaos."
Pg.757 Fulgrim

"A terrible, ageless scream of frustration filled the chamber, echoing throughout all the realms of existence simultaneously as a creature older than time was thwarted in its ambitions."
Pg.619 Descent of Angels

"All I can tell you is that the warp is beyond the comprehension of you or I, and things exist in its fathomless depths that are older than time as we know it.’"
Pg.359 Battle For the Abyss

Schrodinger's Slaanesh/Chaos

That is how events are viewed from the chronology of the material universe. In the Warp, things are different, for the Immaterium is not bound by linear time, and events do not occur in a strict sequence of cause then effect. As his rival gods reckon it, Slannesh has always existed in the Warp, and yet has never existed at all
-Codex: Chaos Daemons 6th Edition pg. 16

That is how events are viewed from the chronology of the real universe; in the Warp, things are different. The Realm of Chaos has no true time, and events do not occur in a strict sequence of cuase then effect. In essence, Slaanesh has always exsted in the Warp, and yet had never existed.
-Codex: Chaos Daemons 5th Edition, pg.7

The sheer mind-boggling impossibiliry of the Warp defies
explanation, and those who attempt to delve further into
understanding its ways inevitably slip into madness. Of the
little that is known is that Warp space does not conform to the
laws of physics as we know them.
-Warhamer 40k 6th Edition Rulebook, pg. 144

It is a hurning ocean of chaos, raw emotion and madness given form, where the laws of physics, time and nature are meaningless concepts and nothing is as it seems.
-Warhammer 40k 4th Edition Rulebook pg. 122

In warp space there is no time, no distances, only a constantly flowing stream of immaterium.
-Battle Fleet Gothic Rulebook, pg. 85

It is a roiling, howling maelstorm of force and energy, utterly unpredictable and not subject to the rational laws and linear flow of time in the way that physical reality is.
-Horus Heresy Book 1: Betrayal, pg. 16

Beyond the boundaries of physical space, unrestricted by time or casuality, there is a dimension utterly incomprehensible to mortal minds.
-Codex: Chaos Daemons 6th Edition pg. 6

Beyond the boundaries of physical space, unrestricted by time or casuality, there is a dimension utterly incomprehensible to mortal minds.
-Codex: Chaos Daemons 5th Edition pg. 4

Timeless and ever-shifting, this psychic visionscape is known as the Realm of Chaos
-Codex: Chaos Daemons 5th Edition pg. 6

The Realm of Chaos, also known as the Warp, the Immaterium or Warpspace, is a dimension parallel to our own, a universe devoid of matter and life, without laws of time and space.
-Codex: Chaos Daemons 5th Edition pg. 6

The Empy holding reality against Chaos consuming the universe throughout space time.

"His immense psychic powers envelop and protect Mankind across the entire galaxy. His consciousness wanders through Warp space, warring against the Daemons that inhabit it, keeping closed the doors between this world and the next. If the Emperor fails then the Daemons of Chaos will flood into the galaxy. Every living human will become a gateway for the destruction of Mankind and the stuff of Warp space will submerge the galaxy. There will be no physical matter. No space. No time. Only Chaos."
-Warhammer 40k 5th Edition rulebook, pg.101

Physically fettered, chained atop mountainous banks of
machinery, the Emperor's mind stretches out through space
and time - a light in a vast gulf of blackness.
-Warhammer 40k 6th Edition Rulebook, pg.134

"Today, as for every day since that battle, the Emperor lives only by the immeasurable force of his supreme will. The stasis fields and psi-fusion reactors of the machine known as the Golden Throne preserve his broken and decayed body; his great mind endures inside a rotting carcass, kept alive by the mysteries of ancient technology. His immense psychic Powers reach out from the Golden Throne, enveloping and protecting Mankind across the enemy-strewn galaxy, a beacon of light in the malevolent darkness. If the Emperor fails, then none will be able to stop the influx of the dark powers; ravenous and all-consurning Daemons will flood into the galaxy. Every living human will become a gateway for the destruction of Mankind. Reality as it is known will be subsumed by the stuff of Warp space - a realm of nightmares and cruel insanity where all life will end. There will be no physical matter. No space. No time. Only Chaos."
-Warhammer 40k 6th Edition rulebook, pg.137

"Daemons are destruction and anarchy incarnate and they lust after the flesh, blood and very souls of living creatures. They want only to destroy, to drag any living essence they can capture back to their shadowy realm, to obliterate the material universe and engulf it within Warp space."
-Warhammer 40k 6th Edition rulebook, pg. 144

"They are never sated. The abominations from the Warp will not rest untii they have consumed not just Mankind, but the universe as well. All will be ruin; all will be Chaos."
-Warhammer 40k 6th Edition rulebook, pg. 234

The Black Library, Codices, and BRB's put Chaos laughably beyond anyone in their home dimension. Plus there's additional feats like Daemons shredding ships with failed gellar fields and mutating/tearing the ship to pieces, etc. It's just a matter of getting noticed and running like hell when you are.

**Psienesis**

It goes the other way around. The Shadow in the Warp is an echo of the uncountable numbers of Tyranids in Realspace.

In order for a Chaos God to "enter" the Hive Mind, the Hive Fleet in question would have to enter the Warp itself.

...And that's when the bugs are taught how to fear.

**pm713**

Or nothing at all happens according to the Eldar codex which makes sense...

**Formosa**

Xyptc wrote:
Formosa wrote:
Depending on what source you use the chaos gods are either enormous sentient warp storms or vortexs of emotion given life of a kind.

The first one can move around the warp and since the warp touches every reality and universe, that pretty much means it can go where it pleases, we also know that the gods can tear holes in into reality at Will, so if they so wished they could track the hive fleets via the warp shadow and drag them into the warp.

The chaos gods do not consider tyranids a threat yet, when they do the tyranids will be wiped out, just like the emperor

Do you have a citation for any of that?

Yeah of course buddy, infact I strongly suggest reading them as they are great books.

Liber chaotica tzeench, khorne, nurgle, slaanesh, undevided.
Codex chaos deamons (both books), deamons of chaos (all of them)
Necrons codex
A thousand sons, thief of revelations.
There are more but these are the most relevant.

Happy reading.

**Chaospling**

"... entering the Shadow of the Warp..." People who use the sentence for daemons to exist don't know the real and rather simple background of the term "Shadow of the Warp".
Apparently GW made the use of the warp in the materium affect other users of the warp if they're nearby in the materium. Shadow of the Warp is extreme use of the warp and so makes it impossible for other psykers in the materium...

I don't know how strong the bond between a Chaos God in the materium and the warp is but I can't imagine that extreme psykers and Chaos Gods will go insane by extreme warp traffic. I would think that instead of finding way through the traffic, they would just carve their own way, tearing and stopping the traffic.

It's a bit difficult to understand how GW thought about the Shadow of the Warp in detail if they ever did. Because if the shadow comes from extreme communication then shouldn't this kind of shadow also come from extreme gatherings of Orks and Daemons which also are quite numerous? Especially Daemons which use the warp so much should also make it very difficult for other nearby psykers. One exception is that Tyranids are almost one entity and so shouldn't block itself... Where Orks and Daemons by nature also fight themselves...

**Psienesis**

There's entire orders of magnitude between a Tyranid Hive Fleet and the population of a WAAAGH! or even a Hive World.

We're talking, like, tens of millions of Orks versus literally trillions of Tyranids.

**Chaospling**

Ok, I could go along and agree that no other faction in the materium are near the numbers of the Tyranids.
It could still be interesting for GW to elaborate of the link between the warp and the materium. I would think that the link is somehow narrow and can be blocked, but in the warp it would be impossible, it would be like trying to block the sun while standing in the middle of it.

I would still say that powerful psykers and Chaos Gods would have far less problems dealing with even extreme traffic between the materium and the warp. The Shadow of the Warp, the extreme traffic will overwhelm some psykers but what about the traffic/communication between Tyranids... Shouldn't they also be vulnerable to their surroundings in the warp like other beings are vulnerable to the traffic? Or is the answer just: no, because Tyranids?

By the way, someone once told me that Tyranids could evolve past the plagues of Nurgle faster than Nurgle could evolve the plagues - does anyone know in what book this took place?

**Formosa**

Nids codex, it's basically summarised as this, full on deamon world, nids lose as chaos can just keep coming and doesn't need warp portals, warp portal world severely limits the staying power of deamons and nids simply out evolved them and closed the portal.