Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The Tyranids appear unstoppable as the current fluff goes, but we all know it can (and will) be revised to give humanity a chance. They can always insert a new plot, character, race, technology, whatever that somehow keeps the tyranids at bay without completely neutering them.

The essential question is, in a universe without any real "good guys," is it worth even offering salvation? Suppose the Tyranids just disappear; does that change anything to the collective violence of the universe? No, just one less threat to shoot at; the cycle of violence would continue.

At this point, the tyranid threat is merely the "Vegas Odds" leader as to who might win the ultimate conflict.

Grimm wrote:Why doesn't the whole Imperium move, or at least the important bits of it. I'm sure that the Imperium have enough ships to literally drag Terra to another Galaxy. They planets that they ditched (and the poor, defenceless human left on them) would keep the Nids busy for long enough.

Yeah let's drag a planet out of the galaxy on some steel cable.


/sarcasm

Skinnattittar wrote:It would only take one man to defeat the Tyranid threat: Chuck Norris

YEAH! He can obviously grow to a size bigger than the Earth and also takes out Velociraptors wholesale. Tyranids - even the Norn Queen - should be no problem. Also chicks love him.

More seriously:

I think if The Emperor used his awesome psychic powers to control the Norn Queen and then got her to devour all the nids everywhere (plus scour all nid-infested planets) then made her fly into a star or something, yeah, that would do it.

Not sure what the Emperor is waiting for, though. Maybe it isn't that easy since the Norn Queen has gotta be an immensely powerful psychic also.

Maybe the Nids will get eaten by the Squats this time?

Hey, the way the new Tyranid 'Dex looks, that's not unrealistic.

Emperors Faithful wrote:Honestly I think Necrons and Nids will just cancel each other out, leaving the Imperium to clean up the sorry mess left behind.

It's well stated in Tyranid fluff that Tyranids ignore Necron worlds as those worlds tend to be already dead.

Leigen_Zero wrote:If I remember the fluff correctly the tyranid hive fleets originate outside the galaxy, and so even if they did kill all the tyranids in this galaxy there is always more waiting outside on the doormat.

You partially remember it correctly. Tyranids are from outside the galaxy, but those fleets we've seen so far are only Vanguard fleets for the larger, more powerful fleets still in transit. Essentially, these fleets are akin to the Genestealer cults/Vanguard swarms on an intergalactic scale.

Well unless specifically stated in the new codex, that thought was only conjecture, that they COULD just be the precursor fleets. Unless fluff has changed (again) we could be looking at pretty much it. If the galaxy survives these assaults, then they are good to go and onto defeating the ultimate enemy, the Pan Fo.

Frazzled wrote:Well unless specifically stated in the new codex, that thought was only conjecture, that they COULD just be the precursor fleets. Unless fluff has changed (again) we could be looking at pretty much it. If the galaxy survives these assaults, then they are good to go and onto defeating the ultimate enemy, the Pan Fo.

That's assuming they choose to revile themselves once more.

Solorg wrote:

I think if The Emperor used his awesome psychic powers to control the Norn Queen and then got her to devour all the nids everywhere (plus scour all nid-infested planets) then made her fly into a star or something, yeah, that would do it.

Not sure what the Emperor is waiting for, though. Maybe it isn't that easy since the Norn Queen has gotta be an immensely powerful psychic also.

1) The Emperor is a vegetable that hasn't done anything substantial since M31. He sits on his little throne all day in a state of near-death, munching on Psyker brains and watching as the countless inbred nazis and Spess Mehrehns wage war for him: a corpse on a fancy chair.
2) The Norn Queen is an imobile birth mother living inside certain Hive Ships which manipulates Tyranid biomatter to make more advanced organisms. She is connected to the ship, so unless the Nids were to jump in her mouth, she ain't doing gak. She's not the "queen mother of the Tyranids" as you seem to be taking her for. Killing one of them isn't going to do anything substantial. There's hundreds of Norn Queens and they aren't that psychically powered. The main Psychic force or "overlord" of the Tyranids is the Hive Mind, which is a psychic force composed of billions of Tyranid conciousnesses all working together in one gestalt organism. It's so great in psychic power, that many theorize it may be a reincarnated (and very vengeful) Old God.

I'm sure that the Imperium will survive thanks to Spess Muhreenes.

1) Yes, I agree, but it would require brilliant tactician with unbelieveable thinking processes to counter the Nids. It's possible, but not very probable.

Im sure a certain tactical genius would have a way......

I heard that the hive fleets encountered so far are only scouting fleets for the incomprehensibly vast Tyranid population. The only way the imperium would have a chance is if the Emperor finally died, then reincarnated and started to somehow kick Tyranid ass.

So basically Necrons win in the end.

5th edition was just a minor setback.

There are very few rays of light in the new Nid fluff.

Some big changes:

#1: Basic elimination of the Nid Supervirus idea. Thank goodness. The idea of a Nid sickness that came from microscopic Nids always made the rest of the swarm look ridiculously inefficient. Nowadays the only poisoning the Nids do is with Venomthropes and acid fog. The ubiquitous Nid sickness o'doom seems to be gone.

#2: Introduction of a bunch of new Nid Hive Fleets, most of which matched up with the other races. I'm very happy to hear about this, as it is much cooler than the typical All on Imperium nonsense.

#3: Hive Tyrants + Swarm Lord = sentient? Not merely as Hive Mind nodes, but individually sentient. Very interesting, looks like Greater Daemons of the Hive Mind to me.

#4: Necron props continue, roughly the third codex to feature such. In this one they are mentioned twice:

4a: Nids are slaughtering Tau, then Necrons emerge from the world and effortlessly defeat them. Then the Tau attempt to thank their "rescuers" and get Harvested.

4b: Two tendrils of Nid Hive Fleet redirect to avoid Necron worlds into barren areas, starve themselves into dormancy rather than facing Necrons.

Orks are the counter to tyranids.


Since orks love to fight, and fighting makes them grow stronger and larger, when a Waaaaggggggghhhhh Meets a hive fleet they end up fighting forever.

Keep in mind that although fighting nids planetside is a very difficult war to win, an entire hive fleet was almost completley destroyed by the combined fleets of the ultramarines and battlefleet pacificus.

I think the biggest challenge to wiping out the nids is that far future humanities policy is to make an enemy out of every race they encounter. Nowadays, they are beset on all sides and can't mass their fleets large enough to repel tyranid advances. if they termporarily ignored nearby threats from tau/eldar/orks/chaos/necrons, got a couple battlefleets together, they could smash apart most hive fleets in one go.

Imperium just isn't logistically organized that well.

Shep wrote:Keep in mind that although fighting nids planetside is a very difficult war to win, an entire hive fleet was almost completley destroyed by the combined fleets of the ultramarines and battlefleet pacificus.

I think the biggest challenge to wiping out the nids is that far future humanities policy is to make an enemy out of every race they encounter. Nowadays, they are beset on all sides and can't mass their fleets large enough to repel tyranid advances. if they termporarily ignored nearby threats from tau/eldar/orks/chaos/necrons, got a couple battlefleets together, they could smash apart most hive fleets in one go.

Imperium just isn't logistically organized that well.

Problem with this is, most xenos follow the same policy, and would be happy as clams to stab the Imperium in the eye with the Olive Branch, then proceed to beat it senseless at the first chance they got.

In the GrimDarkFarFuture, everyone bickers like 5 year olds!

40kenthusiast wrote:
#3: Hive Tyrants + Swarm Lord = sapient? Not merely as Hive Mind nodes, but individually sapient. Very interesting, looks like Greater Daemons of the Hive Mind to me.

Fix'd

All Nids are sentient, only some are sapient.

Do 'Nids fight other 'Nids? There are multiple hive fleets, are they competitive with each other? Do they operate on a pheromone like system, akin to ants and other colony insects? If you were able to "scent" 'Nids to something other than their standard, would they fight each other thinking they are competing 'Nids?

Skinnattittar wrote:Do 'Nids fight other 'Nids? There are multiple hive fleets, are they competitive with each other? Do they operate on a pheromone like system, akin to ants and other colony insects? If you were able to "scent" 'Nids to something other than their standard, would they fight each other thinking they are competing 'Nids?

I'm pretty sure they're all united under the leadership of the Hive Mind, so I think they are all on the same page.

Darth Bob wrote:

Skinnattittar wrote:Do 'Nids fight other 'Nids? There are multiple hive fleets, are they competitive with each other? Do they operate on a pheromone like system, akin to ants and other colony insects? If you were able to "scent" 'Nids to something other than their standard, would they fight each other thinking they are competing 'Nids?

I'm pretty sure they're all united under the leadership of the Hive Mind, so I think they are all on the same page.

Do you have any references for that? There could be multiple hive minds. They used to fight each other by the fluff, but that was a long, long time ago.

Skinnattittar wrote:

Darth Bob wrote:

Skinnattittar wrote:Do 'Nids fight other 'Nids? There are multiple hive fleets, are they competitive with each other? Do they operate on a pheromone like system, akin to ants and other colony insects? If you were able to "scent" 'Nids to something other than their standard, would they fight each other thinking they are competing 'Nids?

I'm pretty sure they're all united under the leadership of the Hive Mind, so I think they are all on the same page.

Do you have any references for that? There could be multiple hive minds. They used to fight each other by the fluff, but that was a long, long time ago.

Why yes, yes I do.

Tyranid Codex, page 6 wrote: The Hive Mind is a single coordinating sentience formed from untold billions of individual conciousnesses, each of which is a Tyranid.

It is one, made of many, but they all work symbiotically to govern all Tyranids toward the goal of the Hive Mind as a whole.

But does it say there is only one Hive Mind in all the universe? Or does it simply describe what a Hive Mind is? There doesn't seem to be much in the quote to insinuate there is a single Hive Mind for all Tyranids.

Well, you both seem to assume that the Hive Mind is some sort of external consciousness beamed into the brains of tyranids rather than a being made up of tyranids like a brain is made up of brain cells.

I the 5th ed codex it states that Tyranid do fight each other, the better 'mutated' fleet winning and then feeding on the other fleets bodies, taking the better 'mutations' for themselves'.

Skinnattittar wrote:But does it say there is only one Hive Mind in all the universe? Or does it simply describe what a Hive Mind is? There doesn't seem to be much in the quote to insinuate there is a single Hive Mind for all Tyranids.

Really? It says The Hive Mind is a single collective consiousness and there is nothing saying that it's not a single Hive Mind. Okay. If that's what you want to believe, then so be it. All throughout the codex it is referred to as "The Hivemind". It never mentions anything alluding to the fact that there is more than one.

Also, right before that quote I posted, it says the Hive Mind holds all Tyranid creatures under a psychic bond to let them act as one gestalt organism.

Saltoric wrote:I the 5th ed codex it states that Tyranid do fight each other, the better 'mutated' fleet winning and then feeding on the other fleets bodies, taking the better 'mutations' for themselves'.

Alright so in the end, the defeated Nids' biomass is just made into more Tyranid for the winning fleet. Sounds like it's pretty smart on the Hive Mind's part; rather than have two fleets with different advantages, have one fleet with all the advantages.

Manchu wrote:Well, you both seem to assume that the Hive Mind is some sort of external consciousness beamed into the brains of tyranids rather than a being made up of tyranids like a brain is made up of brain cells.

Ummm I assume that because that's exactly what it is? It's a being made of many conciousnesses that (for lack of a better term) beams its will into lesser Tyranid organisms through the Synaptic Web given off by larger Tyranid organisms like Hive Tyrants or the Dominatrix.

Darth Bob wrote:

Manchu wrote:Well, you both seem to assume that the Hive Mind is some sort of external consciousness beamed into the brains of tyranids rather than a being made up of tyranids like a brain is made up of brain cells.

Ummm I assume that because that's exactly what it is? It's a being made of many conciousnesses that (for lack of a better term) beams its will into lesser Tyranid organisms through the Synaptic Web given off by larger Tyranid organisms like Hive Tyrants or the Dominatrix.

No, that's not what it is. It is a collective consciousness that originates in but transcends the consciousness of its members, even including those lesser creatures. The synapse creatures merely facilitate interchange of information, which is something lesser tyranids are not capable of doing themselves. Think of neurons in the human brain being deprived of chemical synapses.

Manchu wrote:

Darth Bob wrote:

Manchu wrote:Well, you both seem to assume that the Hive Mind is some sort of external consciousness beamed into the brains of tyranids rather than a being made up of tyranids like a brain is made up of brain cells.

Ummm I assume that because that's exactly what it is? It's a being made of many conciousnesses that (for lack of a better term) beams its will into lesser Tyranid organisms through the Synaptic Web given off by larger Tyranid organisms like Hive Tyrants or the Dominatrix.

No, that's not what it is. It is a collective consciousness that originates in but transcends the consciousness of its members, even including those lesser creatures. The synapse creatures merely facilitate interchange of information, which is something lesser tyranids are not capable of doing themselves. Think of neurons in the human brain being deprived of chemical synapses.

Manchu's got it. The Hive Mind was once said to be a sentient being between the reality and the warp, where no enemy could reach it, but this has since been retconned in favor of the collective conciousness fluff that Manchu explains.

What you're thinking of DB, is more along the lines of Blizzard's misinterpretation of the Hive Mind as a living, breathing creature (which is part of the Reason GW turned down what is now Starcraft as a 40K Franchise - Blizzard got a whole schwack of fluff wrong)

metallifan wrote:

Manchu wrote:

Darth Bob wrote:

Manchu wrote:Well, you both seem to assume that the Hive Mind is some sort of external consciousness beamed into the brains of tyranids rather than a being made up of tyranids like a brain is made up of brain cells.

Ummm I assume that because that's exactly what it is? It's a being made of many conciousnesses that (for lack of a better term) beams its will into lesser Tyranid organisms through the Synaptic Web given off by larger Tyranid organisms like Hive Tyrants or the Dominatrix.

No, that's not what it is. It is a collective consciousness that originates in but transcends the consciousness of its members, even including those lesser creatures. The synapse creatures merely facilitate interchange of information, which is something lesser tyranids are not capable of doing themselves. Think of neurons in the human brain being deprived of chemical synapses.

Manchu's got it. The Hive Mind was once said to be a sentient being between the reality and the warp, where no enemy could reach it, but this has since been retconned in favor of the collective conciousness fluff that Manchu explains.

What you're thinking of DB, is more along the lines of Blizzard's misinterpretation of the Hive Mind as a living, breathing creature (which is part of the Reason GW turned down what is now Starcraft as a 40K Franchise - Blizzard got a whole schwack of fluff wrong)

Ohhh...okay that fact isn't made very clear in the codex, the way it's written, it is made to sound like it is it's own thing. So basically the Tyranids are all a big brain...except bugs...hmmmm...Brainbug...

Well, I don't think that the galaxy would have to worry because they all DO have to fight with every other faction. Plus a Chaos god could just decide that the tyranids are too powerful and kill the hive mind :3

@DarthBob: Starship Troopers doesn't have a consistent (or fleshed-out) enough backstory regarding the bugs to really get how those things work beyond speculation. By contrast, I think that quotation from C:T you posted does a pretty good job of describing Hive Mind.

ZacktheChaosChild wrote:Well, I don't think that the galaxy would have to worry because they all DO have to fight with every other faction. Plus a Chaos god could just decide that the tyranids are too powerful and kill the hive mind :3

Unfortunately, no. The Hive Mind also blocks the influence of the Warp in it's presence - hence the "Warp Shadow" that preceeds an invading Hive Fleet. That's the Hive Mind pushing the warp back. Take a garden hose with a pressure nozzle (Hive Mind) and spray it into a puddle (The Warp). You'll see how it pushes the water in the puddle away from it's impact point. That's sort of how it works.