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A couple of days, honestly. A single Trygon would be nigh unstoppable without military assistance, even then....

Multiply that by about a million. We're boned.

Nightrave wrote:i think the current us would survive quite well actually, given that in 40k, the standard everybody, up to officers in the emperors imperial forces are...well. backwater, superstitious fear mongering, frightend of their shadow, brainless imbeciles. they learn very little of their enemys other then "if we shoot the big ones with missles or tank fire they die! well, they die withlasguns too"

We on the otherhand learn and adapt and study and produce. i mean, Mankind built a car that goes from 0-100 in like 3 seconds for sng's when are back is to the wall, we will build. plus who knows what kind of bio tech we can build using Tyranid bio!

It takes time to learn and adapt. The idea that we could create an affective countermeasure to such an overwhelming force is simply not realistic - we're talking about 'real world Earth' here, not the Star Trek federation - especially since we know how well Tyranid already resist to bio-warfare in the first place.

Nightrave wrote:i think the current us would survive quite well actually, given that in 40k, the standard everybody, up to officers in the emperors imperial forces are...well. backwater, superstitious fear mongering, frightend of their shadow, brainless imbeciles.

And what do you suppose the generals and commanders would be when a voracious, face-eating alien horde that can psychically crush a person would turn into?

It would be an hours, maybe a day or two, a most. And we wouldn't hurt them at all considering the biomass they'd get from us.

Tarkand wrote:

Nightrave wrote:i think the current us would survive quite well actually, given that in 40k, the standard everybody, up to officers in the emperors imperial forces are...well. backwater, superstitious fear mongering, frightend of their shadow, brainless imbeciles. they learn very little of their enemys other then "if we shoot the big ones with missles or tank fire they die! well, they die withlasguns too"

We on the otherhand learn and adapt and study and produce. i mean, Mankind built a car that goes from 0-100 in like 3 seconds for sng's when are back is to the wall, we will build. plus who knows what kind of bio tech we can build using Tyranid bio!

It takes time to learn and adapt. The idea that we could create an affective countermeasure to such an overwhelming force is simply not realistic - we're talking about 'real world Earth' here, not the Star Trek federation - especially since we know how well Tyranid already resist to bio-warfare in the first place.

That's actually untrue.

Tyranids can adapt to biological warfare. They're not immune to it.
You would have to feasibly have a delivery system for the biological weaponry that would render any further adaptions impossible. Poisoning the Spawning Pools, etc would work.

This topic is really grim.... I didn't expect it to be this grim when I made it.....

Kanluwen wrote:

Tarkand wrote:

Nightrave wrote:i think the current us would survive quite well actually, given that in 40k, the standard everybody, up to officers in the emperors imperial forces are...well. backwater, superstitious fear mongering, frightend of their shadow, brainless imbeciles. they learn very little of their enemys other then "if we shoot the big ones with missles or tank fire they die! well, they die withlasguns too"

We on the otherhand learn and adapt and study and produce. i mean, Mankind built a car that goes from 0-100 in like 3 seconds for sng's when are back is to the wall, we will build. plus who knows what kind of bio tech we can build using Tyranid bio!

It takes time to learn and adapt. The idea that we could create an affective countermeasure to such an overwhelming force is simply not realistic - we're talking about 'real world Earth' here, not the Star Trek federation - especially since we know how well Tyranid already resist to bio-warfare in the first place.

That's actually untrue.

Tyranids can adapt to biological warfare. They're not immune to it.
You would have to feasibly have a delivery system for the biological weaponry that would render any further adaptions impossible. Poisoning the Spawning Pools, etc would work.

It's not just that they adapt, and he didn't say they were immune, he said the were resist. According to fluff, they lack several organs, possess several redundant ones, and instead of a digestive tract, most of the filler space inside their carpaces is filled with phage cells which usually EAT whatever foreign objects they encounter.

To put it in perspective, the imperium isn't ill-adept at using biological warfare, they've invented world destroying viruses, sometimes in a few days time. THEY have a tough time devising biological weapons that successfully weaken or kill tyranids that don't also kill just about everything in their path. Considering how far advanced their medical technology is above us, it's fair to say to devise something even remotely close would take months. The most generous estimates here barely assume even month.

Slarg232 wrote:This topic is really grim.... I didn't expect it to be this grim when I made it.....

Did you REALLY think we would have a chance? This planet isn't set up like an important 40K world. At BEST we are a lightly defended agri-world to the Imperium.

Many planets in the Imperium that can withstand a Tyranid invasion have more Guardsmen on them than we have total population.

We. Are. Hosed.

Maybe in your next life some part of you could be something cool, like a Carnifex.

Slarg232 wrote:This topic is really grim.... I didn't expect it to be this grim when I made it.....

You're aware the question you asked us to debate was essentially "How long would it take for over 6 billion people on Earth to die when faced with a nigh unstoppable alien threat?"

TheRedDevil wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

Tarkand wrote:

Nightrave wrote:i think the current us would survive quite well actually, given that in 40k, the standard everybody, up to officers in the emperors imperial forces are...well. backwater, superstitious fear mongering, frightend of their shadow, brainless imbeciles. they learn very little of their enemys other then "if we shoot the big ones with missles or tank fire they die! well, they die withlasguns too"

We on the otherhand learn and adapt and study and produce. i mean, Mankind built a car that goes from 0-100 in like 3 seconds for sng's when are back is to the wall, we will build. plus who knows what kind of bio tech we can build using Tyranid bio!

It takes time to learn and adapt. The idea that we could create an affective countermeasure to such an overwhelming force is simply not realistic - we're talking about 'real world Earth' here, not the Star Trek federation - especially since we know how well Tyranid already resist to bio-warfare in the first place.

That's actually untrue.

Tyranids can adapt to biological warfare. They're not immune to it.
You would have to feasibly have a delivery system for the biological weaponry that would render any further adaptions impossible. Poisoning the Spawning Pools, etc would work.

It's not just that they adapt, and he didn't say they were immune, he said they were resist. According to fluff, they lack several organs, possess several redundant ones, and instead of a digestive tract, most of the filler space inside their carapaces is filled with phage cells which usually EAT whatever foreign objects they encounter.

Irrelevant when we're talking about something like the "Life-Eater Virus". It kills whatever it comes into contact with, then boils off the corpse gases and uses it as a 'wick' that the orbiting Imperial forces can use to start a flamestorm consuming everything.
That is what the Tyranids would have to adapt to.

To put it in perspective, the Imperium isn't ill-adept at using biological warfare, they've invented world destroying viruses, sometimes in a few days time. THEY have a tough time devising biological weapons that successfully weaken or kill tyranids that don't also kill just about everything in their path. Considering how far advanced their medical technology is above us, it's fair to say to devise something even remotely close would take months. The most generous estimates here barely assume even month.

Again, untrue.

The reason the Imperium doesn't use biological warfare?

They don't want the Tyranids to be able to adapt themselves to it...while also incorporating that weapon into their new beasts.
If even a single Lictor, Genestealer, Gaunt, or Ripper survives the biological holocaust unleashed upon it and is later reabsorbed? The Hive Mind has a brand, spankin' new weapon that it is completely immune to but your troops are not.

That's the real, terrifying fact of the Tyranids, at its core.
They don't just kill you and take your homes. They break you down and use what distinctly made you you against your people on another world.

Irrelevant when we're talking about something like the "Life-Eater Virus". It kills whatever it comes into contact with, then boils off the corpse gases and uses it as a 'wick' that the orbiting Imperial forces can use to start a flamestorm consuming everything.
That is what the Tyranids would have to adapt to.

I brought up Imperium capability as a comparison to ours. Even we could devise a Life-Eater Virus, we'd have no way to us it without killing EVERYTHING...which is exactly what I said.

Again, untrue.

The reason the Imperium doesn't use biological warfare?

They don't want the Tyranids to be able to adapt themselves to it...while also incorporating that weapon into their new beasts.
If even a single Lictor, Genestealer, Gaunt, or Ripper survives the biological holocaust unleashed upon it and is later reabsorbed? The Hive Mind has a brand, spankin' new weapon that it is completely immune to but your troops are not.

That's the real, terrifying fact of the Tyranids, at its core.
They don't just kill you and take your homes. They break you down and use what distinctly made you you against your people on another world.

Actually, the imperium has attempted numerous times to devise biological ways to kill tyranids (and succeed once, one of the novels they use a one-time plague or something and murders the entire hive fleet). They've just been, for the most part, unsuccessful. The only thing they're holding back is the Life-eater virus.

Edit: actually, it might not have a been a novel, it's the battle of Tarsis Ultra, ironically, it was a lightly defended agri-world, that just so happened to have an Ultramarine company.

We wouldn't have time to develop bio weapons and whatnot, and even if we somehow developed, produced and deployed it the nids would be immune to it before it did any major damage.
Having more competent commanders than the guard or PDF doesn't mean much in a nid invasion since the only real way to fight them is to point all your guys at them and shoot and if they get there asses kicked with more men than us and lasguns (which are far superior to modern firearms) then we're screwed.
Also the stuff about rednecks getting their guns and fighting might work against other humans or eldar or mabey even orks but there is no way in hell a civilian would stand and fight if they saw a gaunt coming at them. They'd run from the scary monsters, I know I would.

Aren't Genestealers part of the Tyranid horde?
I seem to remember they used infiltration and manipulation tactics to soften up planets for forthcoming attack. Strange purple people in robes, and cults of the beast type-stuff?
If so, our defenses would be disabled from the inside, and our military nullified before the fleet was even properly detected.

So, time to extinction, hours, preceded by weeks or months of waiting for the fleet to arrive.

I'd say we don't have a chance. After all, if bolters can't penetrate their carapaces, what change does our guns have? Also, I reckon that tanks in 40k have more advanced armour than current real life tanks, yet genestealers punch through it.
In game terms, I'd say our tanks have AV of 8 or so. As for soldiers, they would be guardsmen in stats but guns would be something like S2 AP- And armor saves would be - or 6+ at best.
Anyways, in fluff a single space marine would be tougher than ten Rambos.. yet they can't stop the Tyranids alone

So yeah.. My opinion is... we'd die horribly.

2 things strike me about the pro-human responses in this thread:

1. People have a lot, lot more faith in military commanders than my experience with them would lead me to believe is sensible. Something about superstitious, fear mongering, brainless etc. Sounds like humanity at its worse, 40k or not, so the militaries of the world are not immune to such sentiments. (Some of them even embody such ideals totally).

2. There is a huge over-estimation of our capability to organise and respond cohesively to such a threat. People on earth right now do not do things together quickly. Mobilising the entire armed forces of our planet against a single threat would require all the nations of the world to agree that there was indeed a significant threat in the first place. There is presently too much mistrust between the superpowers for them to put it all aside to act even nearly quickly enough. Talks of nukes in space is also improbable, as the resultant detonations would cripple all of our satellites. From then on we would have no way of aiming any of our other high powered weapons. Quack quack oops.

Coupled with a psychic barrage that would be incomprehensible to the contempary mind, I'm going to lean towards the "we're done for" argument.

The way I see it, we wouldn't make it to the end of the sentence 'Oh shi.....'

The only reason it would take more than a day or so to wipe out the entire planet would be because the 'nids still have to walk most of the way, and that could take a while...

dude0351 wrote:the tyranids also launch a psychic attack on the defenders so well see how billy bob does when he poops his pants from total fear, plus they devour all bio-mass from the planet so im sure they got ways of consuming oceans and what not so ships would probably be screwed eventually and apparently the whole process takes a month and the defenders are dead by around day 22 so i'd say were pwned lol

Except the entire population of Earth currently are psychic nulls. Now that I think about it, that might actually make them avoid us! Yay!


If they were to attack, we're all dead, but they're sure as hell not gonna get our biomass! Considering the amount of nuclear holocaust we can unleash there shouldn't be too much of a problem incinerating large swaths of the planet, we just need to realize that we're all going to die anyway and go into that "we're taking them with us!" mentality.

If the Tyranids are coming then Genestealers are already here ...

Not sure how well we would cope against an internal threat like that, we have enough problems with wikileaks and suicide bombers

I concur with the 'we're boned' sentiment. We don't have enough of anything to put up a decent fight.

TheRedDevil wrote:

Irrelevant when we're talking about something like the "Life-Eater Virus". It kills whatever it comes into contact with, then boils off the corpse gases and uses it as a 'wick' that the orbiting Imperial forces can use to start a flamestorm consuming everything.
That is what the Tyranids would have to adapt to.

I brought up Imperium capability as a comparison to ours. Even we could devise a Life-Eater Virus, we'd have no way to us it without killing EVERYTHING...which is exactly what I said.

Again, untrue.

The reason the Imperium doesn't use biological warfare?

They don't want the Tyranids to be able to adapt themselves to it...while also incorporating that weapon into their new beasts.
If even a single Lictor, Genestealer, Gaunt, or Ripper survives the biological holocaust unleashed upon it and is later reabsorbed? The Hive Mind has a brand, spankin' new weapon that it is completely immune to but your troops are not.

That's the real, terrifying fact of the Tyranids, at its core.
They don't just kill you and take your homes. They break you down and use what distinctly made you you against your people on another world.

Actually, the imperium has attempted numerous times to devise biological ways to kill tyranids (and succeed once, one of the novels they use a one-time plague or something and murders the entire hive fleet). They've just been, for the most part, unsuccessful. The only thing they're holding back is the Life-eater virus.

Edit: actually, it might not have a been a novel, it's the battle of Tarsis Ultra, ironically, it was a lightly defended agri-world, that just so happened to have an Ultramarine company.

Tarsis Ultra was a semi-hive world.
There were some guard regiments and a Mortifactors company to help the Ultramarines.
The plague they used was genetically engineered to kill the Tyranids. In theory if the IoM did that every time they could begin to fight the Nids effectively... however we cannot.

Pro-Human here.

If a full on attack came at us, like the one that hit Macragge.
Sure I think we all can agree that we are done for.

But when I think of these things I look at it on a much smaller scale, as if say the Nids somehow droping a a few 100.000 guys in some part of the world. Or even a few mill. Nids for that matter. Say some giant bio-ship crash lands in some part of the world.
Sure they would destroy much of the land and its people. And depending on where they made landing they may even kill the entire nation.
But look at how they make war once they invade.
Massed wave attacks,and lots of them. Yea they got some sneaky bits but...they just are not to smart in how they fight.

They would in the end get destroyed if not by nukes in the 1st few days<--and I think if one only take a few days for the 1st one to drop. And It prob would not take more then one, Then by our massed arms we can bring to the fight.
I do think the nids would be the worst army to fight as they are indeed monsters of nightmare.

Someone said that our weapons are week when compared to the ones the IPM use.
I just don't see it that way, the fluff of the 40k game does not ad up. Its just that--fluff. Or better said propaganda.
In 20 years of playing this game I have never seen a Space Marine live up to his hype.
Do you have any idea what a fully loaded B52 would do to ANY army from the 40k game. Or even a C130
With there massed formations and there WW1 tactics.

They just dont have the targeting systems to take these things out, yes I know they fight space battles and its darn hard to hit something in space, but once these armys make land fall they seem to lose all there uber space tech and revert back to a WW1 or even a Civil War status of fighting and that seems to go for the tech as well.

But thats just how I see in on a "small" scale invasion.
As said, I agree that if it was a big one or even a mid size one we would go down in the 1st few days.
But id go fighting with my redneck friends.

Leigen_Zero wrote:The way I see it, we wouldn't make it to the end of the sentence 'Oh shi.....'

The only reason it would take more than a day or so to wipe out the entire planet would be because the 'nids still have to walk most of the way, and that could take a while...

This

Our general population would freak, completely, even ignoring the psychic assault. We have no foundation to accept alien life forms with that kind of lethality. Even the Aliens and Predators are bipedal humanoids, and can be dealt with using current tech. Against something that would require main battle tank rounds to kill, outnumbers us 10,000 to 1, and is lethal in every possible way, we would be nothing more than food.

And don't put much faith in nukes, the Imperium uses weapons far more powerful than our nuclear arsenal on a daily basis. Look at the second battle for Macragge, they detonated a multi-mile-long promethium tanker in the middle of the hive fleet, and barely scratched it. They had to incinerate planets just to slow the Nids down!

Everyone would have gone mad with the shadow in the warp . We wouldn't last a day.

Humanity is pretty adaptable? Nah we can't even make a decent electric car yet despite global warming.

Mind you Tyranids are more scary.

That should be the new push for it. Stop global warming or the Nids will eat us

TheRedDevil wrote:

Irrelevant when we're talking about something like the "Life-Eater Virus". It kills whatever it comes into contact with, then boils off the corpse gases and uses it as a 'wick' that the orbiting Imperial forces can use to start a flamestorm consuming everything.
That is what the Tyranids would have to adapt to.

I brought up Imperium capability as a comparison to ours. Even we could devise a Life-Eater Virus, we'd have no way to us it without killing EVERYTHING...which is exactly what I said.

Again, untrue.

The reason the Imperium doesn't use biological warfare?

They don't want the Tyranids to be able to adapt themselves to it...while also incorporating that weapon into their new beasts.
If even a single Lictor, Genestealer, Gaunt, or Ripper survives the biological holocaust unleashed upon it and is later reabsorbed? The Hive Mind has a brand, spankin' new weapon that it is completely immune to but your troops are not.

That's the real, terrifying fact of the Tyranids, at its core.
They don't just kill you and take your homes. They break you down and use what distinctly made you you against your people on another world.

Actually, the imperium has attempted numerous times to devise biological ways to kill tyranids (and succeed once, one of the novels they use a one-time plague or something and murders the entire hive fleet). They've just been, for the most part, unsuccessful. The only thing they're holding back is the Life-eater virus.

So basically, exactly what I said.

They have to engineer the biological weapon to exacting specifications just for that specific Hive Fleet.

Oh, and as a sidenote? Biological weapons are not used against Tyranids for the reasons I in the post you're "disagreeing" with. Kryptmann put down an Inquisitorial Mandate stating that if you're going to commit a world to Exterminatus, you're to use the standard weaponry such as Cyclonic Torpedos or Lance Barrages.
Biological weapons are withheld because they're usefulness pales in comparison to the potential danger from the Tyranids adapting those weapons into their own forms.

I'm pretty sure that we as a race wouldn't have the means of accurately detecting/identifying an Alien Invasion at this point in time anyway, especially something the size of a 'Nid Invasion.

Even if the military/NASA could, they'd withhold the information until it was too late.

Now not knowing much 'fluff' about the Tyranids I'm assuming they'd start off any planet fall with some sort of bio-weapon in order to turn the atmosphere to suit their breathing requirements? That alone would nuke a good part of us.

I'd say we'd last a week max at best. Probably not even that. They'd faceroll over our military efforts as we'd be too busy arguing about who was to lead the defence etc.

If all else fails I'd send up Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith in a UFO and see what they could do ^^.

With the Tyranids, they don't need to turn the atmosphere to suit their breathing requirements ala "Evolution".

They just adapt themselves to the environment. But, they do have some kind of genetic abnormality that flakes off their carapaces that makes it so the flora of a planet go into hyperactive growth.

So at best, we'd have the rain forests taking back all kinds of territory

As Clubber Lang would say we'd be "Deaaaaaad meat".

AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Except the entire population of Earth currently are psychic nulls. Now that I think about it, that might actually make them avoid us! Yay!

This has no proof. A psychic null is not the same as a non-psyker. A null has zero warp signature, essentially soulless. It is is said that a null is as rare amongst psykers as psykers are amongst normals. Just because we can't use psyker abilities does not mean we are nulls.

I +1 to nukeing ourselfs out of spite!

Why bother debating this?

2012 is right around the corner...we'll all find out firsthand.

if the TYRANIDS were real then the TAU and IMPERIUM and OTHER RACES would be real..... and i wouldn't want to be a tyranid then....

Billinator wrote:Hours... Nothing more. Added nukes, tanks, and what anyone is able to think of, or imagine the world hasn't yet seen or can be invented.

The Tyranids invade planets by the billions. Alone their mycetic spores, gargoyles etc. is so vastly numerous, that is blocks out the sun.

Then we will fight in the dark.