Indigenous Tyranids?

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**MOMUS**

i imagine the tyranids to have been an advanced race that started experimenting on themselves genetically

maybe they got bored after dominating their distant galaxy and rather than seek 'bliss' like the eldar they turned to perfecting their races genes...

**Railguns**

Inso wrote:but we came from apes

Wrong. Apes co-evolved with the human line and both theoretically sprang from the same common ancestor. We're cousins, not direct descendants.

I like to think of the Tyranids as a MAD style bioweapon created by the Old-Ones that fled the galaxy as a final "screw you" to the galaxy the C'tan took from them.

"You like life force eh? We'll we're gonna wipe all of it clean so you can spend the rest of eternity with a lovely case of withdrawal syndrome. Enjoy your personalized hell."

**Squig_herder**

Railguns wrote:
I like to think of the Tyranids as a MAD style bioweapon created by the Old-Ones that fled the galaxy as a final "screw you" to the galaxy the C'tan took from them.

In the old fluff, there was a clear distinction between the tyranids and the weapons they held, much like the lasgun in the hands of an IG, and in the 2005 codex (current one till Jan 16th) they have noted that the weapons have now become apart of the tyranid, almost no distinction can be made where the weapon ends and the tyranid starts.

I think due to this fluff the tyranids are a natural force they have evolved to evolve (no pun) and fast.

**Railguns**

The old ones were masters of manipulating "natural forces". It is an entirely reasonable supposition that perhaps Old Ones fleeing the galaxy created a biological mass destruction failsafe by making their genetic-manipulation technology self contained and self aware, then turning it back on the big petri-dish of the galaxy. It's more thorough than a simple bombing. Not only do you kill all of the life that the C'tan love to harvest so much since they got bored of eating stars. These guys dig up and eat all of the necessary materials for life to occur at all preventing any further life forms from ever occurring again in areas Tyranids have scoured clean. If you wanted to be a dick to C'tan then there wouldn't be any better way. They can either go and suffer from eternal withdrawal syndrome or go crazy and eat eachother, THEN go on eternal withdrawal. I like this explanation because I am easily entertained by the idea of ancient, nearly omnipotent uber-species being huge jerks to eachother.

**Ktulhut**

I always figured that the Warrior genus was the closest to the "original" Tyranid. Apart from Genestealers (which are debatably a seperate species that's been absorbed totally by the hive fleets), they're the most anthropomorphic creature in the swarms, have the most useful looking arm and hand structure, and synaptically controll the other creatures around them.

I like the idea that some original Tyranid race in another galaxy started modifying itself, and wound up creating numerous slave and soldier castes over the course of many millenia.
As their technology became more advanced, they started growing and splicing it rather than forging it. Their latent psychic abilities evolved and converged in a similar fashion, eventually creating a hive mind.

**kirsanth**

I always assumed it was an intergalactic version a story written by Harry Harrison in the series starting with West of Eden.

**Railguns**

It could be anything really, GW has left the subject deliberately blank, so the origin of the Tyranids is just up to the player.

**IvanTih**

Nurglitch wrote:There's no such thing as a "queen" egg for ants or bees: the workers themselves, through merely eusocial means, choose a new queen and do the legwork that will allow that egg to develop into a reproductive 'caste'.

The problem with the whole application of anthropocentric terms like "queen" and "caste" to eusocial insects is that they are misleading. The queen bee is no more the queen of the hive than Freddie Mercury was Queen of England. A queen bee is merely the female reproductive member of the hive. Likewise the point of castes is that they are defined by station, occupation, and community: you don't marry outside your castes, but all castes in an ant colony are genetically identical: it's epigenetic factors that have caused them to develop differently.

But back to Tyranids.

I don't like the official fluff on Tyranids. I've hated it since 2nd edition. I much preferred the 1st edition, Rogue Trader, background that had them as using organic technology actually made out of other life-forms rather than evolved from a central Tyranid genome, keeping slaves, and causing insanity in more conventional races. The whole notion of the Tyranids are tyrannical and bent on subjugating other races to not only their authority, but also their whim ("This human would work better as a coffee-table, break out the bone-saws!") appeals to me more than the bland "Great Devourer" of official GW fluff.

I prefer a notion of individual Tyanids with actual individual motivations, somewhat more aligned with eusocial insects such that a Hive Tyrant is a male drone of the female queens, but one that dominates the hive through both psychic force and patriarchy. Naturally genestealers are a biological weapon, a macrovirus intended to infiltrate and convert other races to willing minions of a Tyranid Hive Tyrant.

The Tyranids have their castes, although their caste is determined by epigenetic 'flesh-smithing' rather than any genetic bull-poop. Which fits really nicely with the current model line which I love because it really gives Tyranids a coherent look which fits really nicely with my background: Rippers are larvae that can develop into Workers (Termagants), or small Warriors (Hormagaunts), or large Warriors (Warriors), or small Scouts (Gargoyles), or large Scouts (Winged Warriors), or Tanks (Carnifex), etc.

All of my Tyranids thusly follow the Termagant layout: scything talons as the mid-legs (usually positioned to emphasize a quadrapedal locomotion) and the forelegs bearing a weapon or manipulative (rending) claws. The Warriors all have their crests severely cut back to match the Termagants, Hive Tyrants, Carnifices, etc. I'm really looking forward to incorporating the new models, particularly the snake and winged forms into my army.

Mind you, I've incorporated the concept of the Great Devourer into my personal background's concept of religious beliefs for the Tyranids, making the Great Devourer their concept of the divine, the eternal attributes of hunger, domination, bloodlust, and consumption.

In a sense they're a mix between the Imperium, the Tau, and the Orks. Like the Orks they're de-centralized - each Hive Tyrant is out for himself and his hive of progeny, either trying to reach a new world to establish a planet-spanning Tyranid Hive, or trying to conquer (or re-conquer) a planet that doesn't accept him as ultimate ruler. Like the Imperium they're in it for racial hegemony, judging that Tyranids are the true holders of Manifest Galactic Destiny, and despite internal disputes will unite against outsiders. Finally, like the Tau, they'll accept aliens into their society, except like Orks they'll only accept them as slaves or food. They want to enslave, dominate, and tyrannize the galaxy.

That's where they're unlike the other races of 40k - where the rest will either kill or enslave you, the Tyranids will disassemble your still living body into components of disgusting organic technology, rather than killing you and reassembling you at a genetic level. They don't attack planet because they're somehow trying to get more DNA (they have plenty of their own and can grow more much more efficiently by growing it themselves). They're doing so for the same reasons as the humans, tau, orks, eldar, and other violent powers of the galaxy: to promote their own ascendence and dominance over the galaxy: they just do it in a particularly disgusting and alien fashion.

I too prefer rouge trader tyranid fluff.Rouge trader fluff for some races was better.

**Colossal Donkey**

TauAdmiral wrote:Xenomorphs from the AvP series.

I just about vomited. Go watch Alien. Giger would turn in his grave, if he wasn't still alive.

I always assumed that 'Nids were a bioweapon gone horribly wrong/right.