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They tried it once, and the nids rapidly evolved to become immune to it

And the worst thing about the nids is that in no time flat they've found a fun way of turning it against you.

Now some sort of virus *cluster* bomb might be better, where instead of a big honkin' warhead into a single ship, you saturate the fleet with it like a galactic aerosol.

It has been tried before. A strain admistered directly to a norn-queen took out a large amount of hive fleet Leviathan. However it hasn't worked again and earlier attempts resulted in virus resistant 'nids.

Now the cluster bomb idea could work. But you would need a lot of them.

It doesn't work because GRIMDARK gets in the way. If the Imperium had an easy solution to their enemies then their enemies wouldn't exist as anything other than foot notes in a library that'll be burned at some point.

Virus Bombs themselves only exist because of GRIMDARK. Someone at GW thought, "What would be a cool way to destroy a planet? Conventional Nuclear destruction? Mass Drivers? Naw, not GRIMDARK enough. I know a bomb that liquefies people into goey puddles and then sets the entire planet on FIRE!!!!1!!!eleven!!!"

Aforementioned person had a GRIMDARK-gasm, and so it became cannon.

Kilkrazy wrote:Viruses don't need oxygen.

A better question is why the Tyranids don't just drop viruses on a planet which cause all live to liquify. It would save all the hassle with the flamethrowers and so on.

DNA would be detroyed that way. Its all about the Genomes with the nids.

Thatguyoverthere wrote:It doesn't work because GRIMDARK gets in the way. If the Imperium had an easy solution to their enemies then their enemies wouldn't exist as anything other than foot notes in a library that'll be burned at some point.

Virus Bombs themselves only exist because of GRIMDARK. Someone at GW thought, "What would be a cool way to destroy a planet? Conventional Nuclear destruction? Mass Drivers? Naw, not GRIMDARK enough. I know a bomb that liquefies people into goey puddles and then sets the entire planet on FIRE!!!!1!!!eleven!!!"

Aforementioned person had a GRIMDARK-gasm, and so it became cannon.

Sounds about right.

I'd pay $10 to see that on the big screen.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Viruses don't need oxygen.

A better question is why the Tyranids don't just drop viruses on a planet which cause all live to liquify. It would save all the hassle with the flamethrowers and so on.

DNA would be detroyed that way. Its all about the Genomes with the nids.

DNA isn't destroyed when creatures and plants are liquified.

Kilkrazy wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Viruses don't need oxygen.

A better question is why the Tyranids don't just drop viruses on a planet which cause all live to liquify. It would save all the hassle with the flamethrowers and so on.

DNA would be detroyed that way. Its all about the Genomes with the nids.

DNA isn't destroyed when creatures and plants are liquified.

Not when Liquified no.

But you know how viruses replicate right? By parasiting a host cell and turning its DNA into Virus DNA/RNA and then assploding the Cell.

Not much use to the nids then.

But if the Imperium did that, what fun would it be? They could virus bomb every planet.

I know how viruses work.

They copy their DNA into the cell's DNA which subverts the cell's mechanisms to produce copies of themselves.

Once the cell is producing copy viruses, it eventually dies because it isn't performing its proper life support functions. The dead cell pops, releasing a cloud of new viruses which can infect new cells. If the infection rate is high enough, cells can be dying quickly enough to kill the host organism.

A properly designed virus could make the infected cell produce two new types of virus. One is copies of the infection virus, to continue spreading the infection. The other is an encapsulated copy of the cell's original DNA.

Once all life has been destroyed, the Tyranids simply hoover up all the biomass and virus particles, including perfect copies of all the DNA.

Kilkrazy wrote:I know how viruses work.

A properly designed virus could make the infected cell produce two new types of virus. One is copies of the infection virus, to continue spreading the infection. The other is an encapsulated copy of the cell's original DNA.

Fine, except apparently that's imposssible. Viruses don't carry a full strand of DNA. Just enough RNA to warp the host. They are not cells.

In the fluff the virus bomb isn't actually a disease. It's more of a sentient acid if you can call it that, that literally eats everything on the planet.

Also you cannot truly bomb a Tyranid fleet most of the time unless it's a case as with Ultramar where the whole system and other systems are actually able to join together and fight it. This is because the Tyranids ambush planets/systems without being detected. They are not detectable in any way until they "activate" themselves, where-upon they multiple by the billions and overrun the planet, and disable communications at the same time.

I'm sure it would be somewhat effective. But if I were to put it in game terms: a lance in BFG causes a hit on 4+. A viral torpedo would just cause a hit on a 3+ or something to that effect. Pretty good, but doesn't change the face of the galaxy. Still gotta go out there and shoot them with torpedos.

Virus bombs aside, the best way to rid yourself of nids, take a page from kryptmans book and shoot a space hulk full of genestealers into ork held territory.

Maledictus wrote:Virus bombs aside, the best way to rid yourself of nids, take a page from kryptmans book and shoot a space hulk full of genestealers into ork held territory.

No that was like the worst thing ever. 'Nids just eat them all and come back 100 times stronger.

Why bother firing viruses at it... YOU MUST KILL IT WITH FIRE!

A virus has to be specifically tailored too the target, which takes time that a, frankly doomed, imperial planet doesn't have when facing down a tyranid hive fleet. The best way to kill off the tyranids is with over whelming firepower on a galactic scale.

I still believe a psychic 'virus' or fractal or impossible equation or such, placed into the hive's gestalt conciousness is the way to go. Hives fall apart when the central control organisms (norn queens, tyrants etc) cannot exert control on the swarm.

Biological weaponry is short lived in success and back in the old fluff (mebbe 2nd ed?) it was postulated that all viruses in the galaxy may represent an extremely advanced vanguard of tyranid organisms, bombarded at a target galaxy to force evolve the potential food into resilient forms of life worth consuming and adding to the swarm.

[edited for double post]

What you need is Giant Galactic Economy sized FLY PAPER strung up around the planet.
That should do the trick.

ironlord wrote:Why bother firing viruses at it... YOU MUST KILL IT WITH FIRE!

A virus has to be specifically tailored too the target, which takes time that a, frankly doomed, imperial planet doesn't have when facing down a tyranid hive fleet. The best way to kill off the tyranids is with over whelming firepower on a galactic scale.

Nope. The Imperial Life-Eater Virus destroys all organic matter even rubber!