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-Loki- wrote:
The 5th edition codex leaves no doubt about it. It makes several solid statements about them not being from the Milky Way, and have crossed from another galaxy. It also makes some claims that they have devoured many galaxies, and gives them other names they they were known by in other galaxies. It's not really a grey area in their fluff.

Considering the amount of time for anything to cross the galactic void at sub-light speed, then considering doing this many times before reaching the Milky Way and the time it took to devour the galaxies it passed, they're older than even the Milky Ways Old Ones. Maybe not the oldest race in the universe, but older than anything in the Milky Way.

Numbers aren't something you can count with the Tyranid race though, since the majority of the ground forces are reduced to raw biomass after a world is consumed, and they spend more time in transit than they do consuming a world.

Wow, i didn't know that they had explained all that. Makes me wonder what else they explained in the last 5 years...
Hmm, and that part about raw biomass is a good point.

Seems to me what it all boils down to is, tyranids have the potential to consume all life in this galaxy, just like they did in others (apparently^^). Question is, would that "kill" the Gods of Chaos, if all their followers, and food, died? I don't see how the 'nids could actually inflict harm on them any other way, the gods not actually existing in the strictly material realm.

...or am I incorrect there too?
I always understood the Warp to be basically the same as Hyperspace(tm), that is, "the space between space." Kinda like the way Hell was in Doom 3.

Once life is gone, the warp gods would cease to exists or become almost unnoticeable.

The idea of the Chaos gods ceasing to exist because life in the Milky Way vanished is argued a lot.

There's no reason for them to be isolated to this galaxy - the fact that Tyranids used the warp for mass communication before even entering the Milky Way shows that it exists in some form elsewhere.

However, the Horus Heresy books talk about the Chaos Gods trying to stop the Emperor because his crusade would stop worship of them, and thus end them. Only GW can clarify this, but they seem content having contradicting fluff.

Retribution wrote:Any sufficiently powerful warp entity has to be summoned and sustained while in the material realm, they can't exactly cross-over whenever and wherever they want

You're right, of course. However, if a sorcerer had the willpower to conduct the summoning, I see no reason why it would be impossible, especially considering that Chaos-aligned sorcerers are tapping directly into the Empyrean.

Owain wrote:

Retribution wrote:Any sufficiently powerful warp entity has to be summoned and sustained while in the material realm, they can't exactly cross-over whenever and wherever they want

You're right, of course. However, if a sorcerer had the willpower to conduct the summoning, I see no reason why it would be impossible, especially considering that Chaos-aligned sorcerers are tapping directly into the Empyrean.

My point being that the shadow would disrupt most attempts at summoning, making it much more difficult for the Chaos Gods to go all deus ex "we're so powerful-stomp"

^Point taken. At this point I'd love to hear if anyone's seen evidence either way in any BL novels or codices. Good thread.

The fluff for the Shadow in the Warp says that all but the strongest psykers go insane and/or die when touched by it. I'd say any battle ready librarians and sorcerers would be strong enough to at least not die while touching it. Tigerius can actually read it.

As for daemons not being able to be summoned - not so. There's fluff in the 5th edition codex about a Hive Fleet invading a daemon world, and the Imperium standing back and letting them kill each other.

There's also badass artwork in the Daemon codex with a Bloodthirster taking on a Carnifex.

^ I think I've actually seen that picture somewhere...

This is a very tricky subject, GW needs a special hotline you can call where you can ask questions like this.

Edit: Found it! http://www.40konline.com/community/index.php?topic=172048.0
And it looks like we're not the only ones discussing this topic...

As other Races have given birth to a Warp Deity, why couldn't the 'nids. The 5th Chaos God "Warp Shadow" "The god of Hunger" the god of evolution and the mortal enemy of Nurgle.

The 'nids use the warp in the form of 'thorpes etc, They would be awesome as they cannot be possessed. Equally Khorne would love the carnage they cause, Nurgle would love the decay and stripping of Biomass, Tzeentch would love the chance to play with another strand of fate. And Slaanesh....Well he would probably get all jealous of the size of Bio Titans reproductive organs..maybe...

-Loki- wrote:The fluff for the Shadow in the Warp says that all but the strongest psykers go insane and/or die when touched by it. I'd say any battle ready librarians and sorcerers would be strong enough to at least not die while touching it. Tigerius can actually read it.

As for daemons not being able to be summoned - not so. There's fluff in the 5th edition codex about a Hive Fleet invading a daemon world, and the Imperium standing back and letting them kill each other.

There's also badass artwork in the Daemon codex with a Bloodthirster taking on a Carnifex.

Would summoning be required if it's already a Daemon world itself? I imagine their would already be plenty of daemons inhabiting it :]

I'm wondering if Tyranid telepathic communication wouldn't break down on a daemon-world. As powerful as the hive-mind is, it can't match the potency of the raw Warp.

Owain wrote:I'm wondering if Tyranid telepathic communication wouldn't break down on a daemon-world. As powerful as the hive-mind is, it can't match the potency of the raw Warp.

It's in the raw warp and blanketing it out. It doesn't exist anywhere but inside the warp. Also, considering that fluff doesn't say anything about the hive minds communication breaking down, I'd say no, it doesn't break down.

Retribution wrote:Would summoning be required if it's already a Daemon world itself? I imagine their would already be plenty of daemons inhabiting it :]

Likely no - but if the hive mind had any effect in stopping daemons from appearing, it would conceivably dispel them as well, which it apparently doesn't. Summoning daemons while under the shadow in the warp would jsut require the psykers doing the summoning not do go insane and/or die due to touching the shadow.

For some reason I think it would be a draw, even if Tyranids ate the whole galaxy the Chaos Gods would continue to exist; they just wouldn't have anything left to corrupt. But the 'nids would move on to a new Galaxy, maybe the gods would follow them and try to corrupt any other intelligent life they found. And it would just continue like that, until either the Nids encountered a race capable of completely obliterating them, or the Universe burned out as a result of Entropy winding down. And then it would just be the Chaos Gods that were left, unless the Hive Mind could exist inside the warp without physical energy to sustain it.

Boba Fex wrote:For some reason I think it would be a draw, even if Tyranids ate the whole galaxy the Chaos Gods would continue to exist; they just wouldn't have anything left to corrupt.

Well no - the Chaos Gods need worship and emotion to exist. If there's no one left to worship them and feed them emotions, they'd cease to exist. However, this now becomes a discussion of...

Boba Fex wrote:But the 'nids would move on to a new Galaxy, maybe the gods would follow them and try to corrupt any other intelligent life they found. And it would just continue like that, until either the Nids encountered a race capable of completely obliterating them, or the Universe burned out as a result of Entropy winding down. And then it would just be the Chaos Gods that were left, unless the Hive Mind could exist inside the warp without physical energy to sustain it.

... whether or not the Warp is localized to the Milky Way, which it isn't (since the Tyranids whole communication network was based on it before they even arrived in the Milky Way), and whether or not the Chaos Gods are localized as well. Which they may well be - they certainly didn't want the Emperor to succeed in his Crusade, and they made some telling references to the Emperors Crusade destroying them in the warp, which would be attributed to the Crusade replacing arcane worship with science.

This could point to the Chaos Gods being localised to the area where the emotions are. Once the emotions - and those with the motions are gone, they would be gone. They wouldn't be able to follow the Tyranids anywhere. However, this is all speculation territory, which I don't like, since you can basically make anything up due to how convoluted GW's fluff is.