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 lolman1c wrote:

RedCommander wrote:
I think it's obvious. The imperium would conquer the stars and rule the universe forever.

Why do you even ask, citizen? This sounds highly suspicious, wouldn't you agree?

Me'm sorry meeb asked! Me'll jus' git back ter mi boyz... *cough* ermmm Meeb mean uumies! An keep up mi wurk on removin' awl da weedy mek ter a secret locashun dat weeb totaley donz use ter makz trukks.

Right.

Carry on then, completely human citizen. But be vary of the ork kommandos. They could be anywhere...

 koooaei wrote:
If nids are so endless why do they bother creating bodies and actually landing on the planets? Why don't they simply consume planets with their biomass?

For the same reason they don't just harvest the Oort Cloud and asteroid belts to create quintillions of warriors or trillions of ships. This is a war game setting, so ultimately every faction must find a reason to fly across the galaxy in multi-kilometer spaceships just to disembark for a good sword fight.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
If nids are so endless why do they bother creating bodies and actually landing on the planets? Why don't they simply consume planets with their biomass?

For the same reason they don't just harvest the Oort Cloud and asteroid belts to create quintillions of warriors or trillions of ships. This is a war game setting, so ultimately every faction must find a reason to fly across the galaxy in multi-kilometer spaceships just to disembark for a good sword fight.

My justification for that is that the whole 'consuming planets for their biomass' is just the imperium misinterpreting their motives. As you say, they can get resources anywhere.

The headcanon i use is it's adaptations that they're harvesting. By their very nature, the Tyranids are incapable of innovation. They can recombine stuff they already know, but genuine new ideas are beyond them.

So, they reave across the universe consuming species to harvest novel biological adaptations with which to create the perfect suite of organisms. Why? Who knows. Evolved intergalactic apex predator? Superweapon let off the leash? Or my favourite one: they're doing it because somewhere lurking out in the blackness of the universe...there's something that scares them.

I don't see Tyranids as boring. They are merely the cold reality of life. One day, sooner or later, you will die. I will die. Everyone you love will die. That doesn't make anything we do while alive meaningless, so why does it make anything that is happening in 40k meaningless?

Then again, Orks have always been my favorite faction...its not about when you die, its about all the krumpin, bashin, and blastin you do until then!

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
If nids are so endless why do they bother creating bodies and actually landing on the planets? Why don't they simply consume planets with their biomass?

For the same reason they don't just harvest the Oort Cloud and asteroid belts to create quintillions of warriors or trillions of ships. This is a war game setting, so ultimately every faction must find a reason to fly across the galaxy in multi-kilometer spaceships just to disembark for a good sword fight.

My justification for that is that the whole 'consuming planets for their biomass' is just the imperium misinterpreting their motives. As you say, they can get resources anywhere.

The headcanon i use is it's adaptations that they're harvesting. By their very nature, the Tyranids are incapable of innovation. They can recombine stuff they already know, but genuine new ideas are beyond them.

So, they reave across the universe consuming species to harvest novel biological adaptations with which to create the perfect suite of organisms. Why? Who knows. Evolved intergalactic apex predator? Superweapon let off the leash? Or my favourite one: they're doing it because somewhere lurking out in the blackness of the universe...there's something that scares them.

In a very old (IIRC 2nd edition) short story called Hive Fleet Horror, it was explained that the Tyranids need the genetic material to keep themselves from stagnating and dying. Also they have been doing it for a lot of time, and will continue doing it for a lot of time, and are basically everywhere in the universe. If the IoM defeats the Tyranids, it doesn't really matter, another Hive Fleet will eventually visit the galaxy millions of years in the future when humanity is nothing more than dust.

The nids have a fatal flaw. They must evolve to keep up with their opponents. evolution takes time.
Every try to use pesticides...they work for a while, then by the time there is resistance, boom a new chemical or organic toxin is introduced to wipe them out.

To take on a bio enemy like the nids....all the crons or elder need to do is develop and organic devouring protein or bacteria (ala war of the worlds)....some super bug that will eat the nids down to the very last one. They would have to flee or disintegrate into small communities or suffer the tiniest devourerer to end them.
It don't even have to be bio...just some compound that breaks all organics down and continues to attached and reduce all organics to basic elements. The Nids have no scientist to take preventative measures...The nids would be helpless.

IMO, applying conscious reasoning to Nids is inappropriate, it's like asking why a fungus behaves as it does. They are an organism that has overgrown whatever boundaries they originally had, and become an invasive species on a galactic scale.

At any rate, going with the assumption that Nids 'win' and eat everything there would be other survivors. Eldar Craftworlds would still be around, Commoragh would still be around, any ships or even planets lost in the warp during the period Nids swept through would also survive, meaning probably any faction that uses warp travel. The funny thing is it would probably be easier to count the factions that wouldn't survive in some way. But they would all lose to Necrons at that point, since they wouldn't at all be reduced in strength while all others would be largely crippled. So somewhat ironically the strictly biological race winning would also mean the strictly robotic race winning.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
If nids are so endless why do they bother creating bodies and actually landing on the planets? Why don't they simply consume planets with their biomass?

For the same reason they don't just harvest the Oort Cloud and asteroid belts to create quintillions of warriors or trillions of ships. This is a war game setting, so ultimately every faction must find a reason to fly across the galaxy in multi-kilometer spaceships just to disembark for a good sword fight.

My justification for that is that the whole 'consuming planets for their biomass' is just the imperium misinterpreting their motives. As you say, they can get resources anywhere.

The headcanon i use is it's adaptations that they're harvesting. By their very nature, the Tyranids are incapable of innovation. They can recombine stuff they already know, but genuine new ideas are beyond them.

So, they reave across the universe consuming species to harvest novel biological adaptations with which to create the perfect suite of organisms. Why? Who knows. Evolved intergalactic apex predator? Superweapon let off the leash? Or my favourite one: they're doing it because somewhere lurking out in the blackness of the universe...there's something that scares them.

Originally, they were more interested in wiping out competition than in eating everything. Reminded me of one of those Discovery Channel nature shows. The other motivations can still apply. The Hive Mind was also fully sapient and capable of communication, even deception, although it rarely saw a need for it.

I just hate the simplistic "Hunnnnngry, omm nom nom" route the fluff has taken.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
If nids are so endless why do they bother creating bodies and actually landing on the planets? Why don't they simply consume planets with their biomass?

For the same reason they don't just harvest the Oort Cloud and asteroid belts to create quintillions of warriors or trillions of ships. This is a war game setting, so ultimately every faction must find a reason to fly across the galaxy in multi-kilometer spaceships just to disembark for a good sword fight.

My justification for that is that the whole 'consuming planets for their biomass' is just the imperium misinterpreting their motives. As you say, they can get resources anywhere.

The headcanon i use is it's adaptations that they're harvesting. By their very nature, the Tyranids are incapable of innovation. They can recombine stuff they already know, but genuine new ideas are beyond them.

So, they reave across the universe consuming species to harvest novel biological adaptations with which to create the perfect suite of organisms. Why? Who knows. Evolved intergalactic apex predator? Superweapon let off the leash? Or my favourite one: they're doing it because somewhere lurking out in the blackness of the universe...there's something that scares them.

The hive mind is just the insane remnants of a former museum curator obsessed with the collection and archive of genetic adaptions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
"I must record the species data of everything on this planet before they are wiped out by a disaster"

*wipes out the planet to accomplish this goal*

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Chaos isn't limitless in its resources. Its power is derived from the minds of mortals. We are its resource.

Kill us and they diminish in power. It's why the Chaos Gods should be very, very worried about 'nids and 'crons...

Of course chaos isn't particularly interested about that since ultimate goal is destruction of reality which leads, funny enough, death of everything in the reality. Imagine what happened on FB but on galactic realm.

nareik wrote:
The hive mind is just the insane remnants of a former museum curator obsessed with the collection and archive of genetic adaptions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
"I must record the species data of everything on this planet before they are wiped out by a disaster"

*wipes out the planet to accomplish this goal*

So you mean the completely sane remnants of a former museum curator? That's how I would do it too!

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:


Originally, they were more interested in wiping out competition than in eating everything. Reminded me of one of those Discovery Channel nature shows. The other motivations can still apply. The Hive Mind was also fully sapient and capable of communication, even deception, although it rarely saw a need for it.

I just hate the simplistic "Hunnnnngry, omm nom nom" route the fluff has taken.

Agreed, which I sort out by headcanoning that 'consume all biomatter' is what the Imperium has (wrongly) deduced their motives as being

tneva82 wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Chaos isn't limitless in its resources. Its power is derived from the minds of mortals. We are its resource.

Kill us and they diminish in power. It's why the Chaos Gods should be very, very worried about 'nids and 'crons...

Of course chaos isn't particularly interested about that since ultimate goal is destruction of reality which leads, funny enough, death of everything in the reality. Imagine what happened on FB but on galactic realm.

In Fantasy the gods' motives are the destruction of reality. The chaos gods' motives of 40k appear to be quite different.

In 40k, their ultimate goal appears to be 'perpetuate chaos, and by doing so their own existence'. It fits with all of their actions so far. Why did they not provide Horus enough power to actually finish off the Emperor? It's certainly within their combined might at that moment, and yet they let their champion fall. The gods won the Heresy, in that their end goal was to instigate and perpetuate misery and suffering throughout the galaxy in perpetuity, which is what feeds them.

If they did actually destroy reality, there's nothing there to sustain them and they wither and die, which is quite different from the chaos gods of the Old World which appear to be freestanding entities of pure magic.

It also explains why beings with such colossal power don't simply walk all over us. It's not necessarily because they're incapable of doing so, we're ants to them. It's because they're farming us...

If they destroy 40k a dragon catches it and starts everything again...

like okay we'll all die what's the point then

This is pretty much the essence of the 40k background.

Well, the Orks and Tyranids pretty much do this:

But I would expect Tyranids to eventually clear all biomass off of planets and will over time push out the Orks.

Eldar in general will move off into the dark trying to find anywhere to start new or die out.

Dark Eldar will eventually have nothing to hunt and will see fit to focus on feeding on themselves to eventual extinction.

Necrons will continue to awaken and wipe-out anything they come across and will eventually join the Tyranids and Orks in a similar Rock/Paper/Scissors battle since they ultimately are "happy" with barren and dead worlds.

Tau with their inability to travel far into the warp would be preyed upon by the big 3 to extinction.

Humanity will eventually "awaken" and become beings of the warp and those that fail would be fodder for the big 3.

Chaos and Humanity would have a true battle of "Heaven and Hell" within the warp and only echoes of them would remain in "reality" and the warp storms would subside.
The chaos gods would eventually be destroyed and "cast off" since the collective psyche of humanity would no longer be feeding them.
All they could do is try to corrupt what souls they can to their cause.

Anything else is details.

 Aaranis wrote:
I hate the Tyranid fluff for this reason, I don't like the fact that they really are endless and that the hive-fleets we've seen so far are just scouts and that we'll all get eaten eventually. To me it's lazy and it breaks the immersion for me, like okay we'll all die what's the point then ? It's like you're playing a D&D campaign and you struggle with your party to beat the evil dude and then the DM just decides it won't go with his scenario if they win so he makes him invincible and immensely powerful.

Especially when the Tyranids don't do anything remotely interesting, they just eat everything and go away... That's such a nihilist point of view in the lore that I prefer not to think about it. The fact that I dislike their design and all of that makes me even more resentful towards that faction.

How is that lazy?...
This is a grimdark universe (or was) if you can't handle the hopelessness of the human race, well, Age of Sigmar is right around the corner on lazy street and boring avenue

123ply wrote:

 Aaranis wrote:
I hate the Tyranid fluff for this reason, I don't like the fact that they really are endless and that the hive-fleets we've seen so far are just scouts and that we'll all get eaten eventually. To me it's lazy and it breaks the immersion for me, like okay we'll all die what's the point then ? It's like you're playing a D&D campaign and you struggle with your party to beat the evil dude and then the DM just decides it won't go with his scenario if they win so he makes him invincible and immensely powerful.

Especially when the Tyranids don't do anything remotely interesting, they just eat everything and go away... That's such a nihilist point of view in the lore that I prefer not to think about it. The fact that I dislike their design and all of that makes me even more resentful towards that faction.

How is that lazy?...
This is a grimdark universe (or was) if you can't handle the hopelessness of the human race, well, Age of Sigmar is right around the corner on lazy street and boring avenue

It's lazy because there is no story arc. If all the actions of both sides have no consequences, none of the characters have any choices that can change the story. There IS no story, just setting.

 Formosa wrote:
Dont count on it, if the gods unite the nids are screwed pure and simple, if they become more than a nuisance to them, if the gods direct the entire eye to empty (actually command it directly) and go for the nids, they are dead.

I think that's a drastic over estimation of the power of choas. More or less - Nids make chaos useless because of the shadow in the warp.

 JimOnMars wrote:

123ply wrote:

 Aaranis wrote:
I hate the Tyranid fluff for this reason, I don't like the fact that they really are endless and that the hive-fleets we've seen so far are just scouts and that we'll all get eaten eventually. To me it's lazy and it breaks the immersion for me, like okay we'll all die what's the point then ? It's like you're playing a D&D campaign and you struggle with your party to beat the evil dude and then the DM just decides it won't go with his scenario if they win so he makes him invincible and immensely powerful.

Especially when the Tyranids don't do anything remotely interesting, they just eat everything and go away... That's such a nihilist point of view in the lore that I prefer not to think about it. The fact that I dislike their design and all of that makes me even more resentful towards that faction.

How is that lazy?...
This is a grimdark universe (or was) if you can't handle the hopelessness of the human race, well, Age of Sigmar is right around the corner on lazy street and boring avenue

It's lazy because there is no story arc. If all the actions of both sides have no consequences, none of the characters have any choices that can change the story. There IS no story, just setting.

That's the whole point of 40k. It's a setting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Dont count on it, if the gods unite the nids are screwed pure and simple, if they become more than a nuisance to them, if the gods direct the entire eye to empty (actually command it directly) and go for the nids, they are dead.

I think that's a drastic over estimation of the power of choas. More or less - Nids make chaos useless because of the shadow in the warp.

That's not a drastic over estimation either....

 JimOnMars wrote:

It's lazy because there is no story arc. If all the actions of both sides have no consequences, none of the characters have any choices that can change the story. There IS no story, just setting.

Well, welcome to Warhammer 40000, it is a setting, not a story.

But to be honest, I'm not sure how you spent 3 years in the the hobby without noticing that.

Tyran wrote:

 JimOnMars wrote:

It's lazy because there is no story arc. If all the actions of both sides have no consequences, none of the characters have any choices that can change the story. There IS no story, just setting.

Well, welcome to Warhammer 40000, it is a setting, not a story.

But to be honest, I'm not sure how you spent 3 years in the the hobby without noticing that.

More to the point, they designed it that way so people can make up their own stories. Don't like the main Space Marine chapters? Create your own! Don't like the current Chaos fluff? Start your own warband! It is meant to be vague, so that we can all create.

pm713 wrote:

 JimOnMars wrote:

123ply wrote:

 Aaranis wrote:
I hate the Tyranid fluff for this reason, I don't like the fact that they really are endless and that the hive-fleets we've seen so far are just scouts and that we'll all get eaten eventually. To me it's lazy and it breaks the immersion for me, like okay we'll all die what's the point then ? It's like you're playing a D&D campaign and you struggle with your party to beat the evil dude and then the DM just decides it won't go with his scenario if they win so he makes him invincible and immensely powerful.

Especially when the Tyranids don't do anything remotely interesting, they just eat everything and go away... That's such a nihilist point of view in the lore that I prefer not to think about it. The fact that I dislike their design and all of that makes me even more resentful towards that faction.

How is that lazy?...
This is a grimdark universe (or was) if you can't handle the hopelessness of the human race, well, Age of Sigmar is right around the corner on lazy street and boring avenue

It's lazy because there is no story arc. If all the actions of both sides have no consequences, none of the characters have any choices that can change the story. There IS no story, just setting.

That's the whole point of 40k. It's a setting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Dont count on it, if the gods unite the nids are screwed pure and simple, if they become more than a nuisance to them, if the gods direct the entire eye to empty (actually command it directly) and go for the nids, they are dead.

I think that's a drastic over estimation of the power of choas. More or less - Nids make chaos useless because of the shadow in the warp.

That's not a drastic over estimation either....

It's really not drastic. Tyranids have already consumed countless galaxies. Chaos controls basically nothing and they hide out in their alternate dimension plotting plans that always fail epicly.

That really seemed to be the tone in 4th edition. The Imperium was focused on Chaos, the faction of own-goal scoring cat-herders instead of the very real threat of the Necrons and the Outside Context Problem of the Tyranids. Apparently GW decided to fix the issue by neutering the Necrons and Nids until they were as pathetic as Chaos, and trying really, really hard to pretend that Chaos are an existential threat.

 Xenomancers wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 JimOnMars wrote:

123ply wrote:

 Aaranis wrote:
I hate the Tyranid fluff for this reason, I don't like the fact that they really are endless and that the hive-fleets we've seen so far are just scouts and that we'll all get eaten eventually. To me it's lazy and it breaks the immersion for me, like okay we'll all die what's the point then ? It's like you're playing a D&D campaign and you struggle with your party to beat the evil dude and then the DM just decides it won't go with his scenario if they win so he makes him invincible and immensely powerful.

Especially when the Tyranids don't do anything remotely interesting, they just eat everything and go away... That's such a nihilist point of view in the lore that I prefer not to think about it. The fact that I dislike their design and all of that makes me even more resentful towards that faction.

How is that lazy?...
This is a grimdark universe (or was) if you can't handle the hopelessness of the human race, well, Age of Sigmar is right around the corner on lazy street and boring avenue

It's lazy because there is no story arc. If all the actions of both sides have no consequences, none of the characters have any choices that can change the story. There IS no story, just setting.

That's the whole point of 40k. It's a setting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Dont count on it, if the gods unite the nids are screwed pure and simple, if they become more than a nuisance to them, if the gods direct the entire eye to empty (actually command it directly) and go for the nids, they are dead.

I think that's a drastic over estimation of the power of choas. More or less - Nids make chaos useless because of the shadow in the warp.

That's not a drastic over estimation either....

It's really not drastic. Tyranids have already consumed countless galaxies. Chaos controls basically nothing and they hide out in their alternate dimension plotting plans that always fail epicly.

It is because you make it sound like they automatically shut down all Chaos forces near them. They did a really bad job ruining the Imperium and they control much more than the Tyranids do.

Source for the countless galaxies?

pm713 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 JimOnMars wrote:

123ply wrote:

 Aaranis wrote:
I hate the Tyranid fluff for this reason, I don't like the fact that they really are endless and that the hive-fleets we've seen so far are just scouts and that we'll all get eaten eventually. To me it's lazy and it breaks the immersion for me, like okay we'll all die what's the point then ? It's like you're playing a D&D campaign and you struggle with your party to beat the evil dude and then the DM just decides it won't go with his scenario if they win so he makes him invincible and immensely powerful.

Especially when the Tyranids don't do anything remotely interesting, they just eat everything and go away... That's such a nihilist point of view in the lore that I prefer not to think about it. The fact that I dislike their design and all of that makes me even more resentful towards that faction.

How is that lazy?...
This is a grimdark universe (or was) if you can't handle the hopelessness of the human race, well, Age of Sigmar is right around the corner on lazy street and boring avenue

It's lazy because there is no story arc. If all the actions of both sides have no consequences, none of the characters have any choices that can change the story. There IS no story, just setting.

That's the whole point of 40k. It's a setting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Dont count on it, if the gods unite the nids are screwed pure and simple, if they become more than a nuisance to them, if the gods direct the entire eye to empty (actually command it directly) and go for the nids, they are dead.

I think that's a drastic over estimation of the power of choas. More or less - Nids make chaos useless because of the shadow in the warp.

That's not a drastic over estimation either....

It's really not drastic. Tyranids have already consumed countless galaxies. Chaos controls basically nothing and they hide out in their alternate dimension plotting plans that always fail epicly.

It is because you make it sound like they automatically shut down all Chaos forces near them. They did a really bad job ruining the Imperium and they control much more than the Tyranids do.

Source for the countless galaxies?

The warp is a multi dimentional scape, so are the chaos gods, the best you can do is shut them out of the 40k universe, they cannot be killed in the conventional meaning, you can starve them out of the 40k universe that would just kill that aspect of them, they are also not limited to the milky way, they are everywhere in the universe.

So IF the nids kill off all life in the milky way, so what, plenty of other universes and galaxies to exploit.

pm713 wrote:

Source for the countless galaxies?

Here is a quote for thousand.

White Dwarf 145 by Andy Chambers and Jervis Johnson
The Tyranid hive mind hungers for fresh genetic material, gene-stocks that can be used to create new bio-construct creatures and organic machine-slaves. Their own galaxy is exhausted, its creatures long since absorbed into the hive mind, their flesh turned to unfathomable purposes or discarded as useless. With its billions of humans and countless other creatures the Imperium offers the Tyranids an almost inexhaustible stock of flesh and genes which will invigorate the hive mind and enable it to embody itself in new forms.

Humanity will be absorbed, broken into strands of DNA to be used to create a new generation of bio-technology. It will be the death of the human race, but to the Tyranid hive mind this is of no more consequence than the mining of ores or the harvesting of crops. For the Tyranids have no sense of pity or compassion, they are as utterly beyond human understanding as humans are beyond their comprehension. To them man is just an inefficient and primitive lifeform, something to be consumed and turned to a higher purpose. Such has been the fate of a thousand galaxies, of millions of intelligent species, since time immemorial.

Tyran wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Source for the countless galaxies?

Here is a quote for thousand.

White Dwarf 145 by Andy Chambers and Jervis Johnson
The Tyranid hive mind hungers for fresh genetic material, gene-stocks that can be used to create new bio-construct creatures and organic machine-slaves. Their own galaxy is exhausted, its creatures long since absorbed into the hive mind, their flesh turned to unfathomable purposes or discarded as useless. With its billions of humans and countless other creatures the Imperium offers the Tyranids an almost inexhaustible stock of flesh and genes which will invigorate the hive mind and enable it to embody itself in new forms.

Humanity will be absorbed, broken into strands of DNA to be used to create a new generation of bio-technology. It will be the death of the human race, but to the Tyranid hive mind this is of no more consequence than the mining of ores or the harvesting of crops. For the Tyranids have no sense of pity or compassion, they are as utterly beyond human understanding as humans are beyond their comprehension. To them man is just an inefficient and primitive lifeform, something to be consumed and turned to a higher purpose. Such has been the fate of a thousand galaxies, of millions of intelligent species, since time immemorial.

Hasnt that been retconned? the taking of genetic material part I mean, as since 3rd/4th I havent even seen a mention of it.

 Formosa wrote:


The warp is a multi dimentional scape, so are the chaos gods, the best you can do is shut them out of the 40k universe, they cannot be killed in the conventional meaning, you can starve them out of the 40k universe that would just kill that aspect of them, they are also not limited to the milky way, they are everywhere in the universe.

So IF the nids kill off all life in the milky way, so what, plenty of other universes and galaxies to exploit.

Very interesting. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that victory in the milky way is assured for them. The promary weak point the Gods have is that they need mortals to be able to affect the world. To be able to breach through into our universe. Without mortal minds they're powerless here.

Agreed that they have functionally limitless power as any good lovecraftian entity should, but their ability to exercise that power is limited.

White Dwarf 145 by Andy Chambers and Jervis Johnson
The Tyranid hive mind hungers for fresh genetic material, gene-stocks that can be used to create new bio-construct creatures and organic machine-slaves. Their own galaxy is exhausted, its creatures long since absorbed into the hive mind, their flesh turned to unfathomable purposes or discarded as useless. With its billions of humans and countless other creatures the Imperium offers the Tyranids an almost inexhaustible stock of flesh and genes which will invigorate the hive mind and enable it to embody itself in new forms.

Humanity will be absorbed, broken into strands of DNA to be used to create a new generation of bio-technology. It will be the death of the human race, but to the Tyranid hive mind this is of no more consequence than the mining of ores or the harvesting of crops. For the Tyranids have no sense of pity or compassion, they are as utterly beyond human understanding as humans are beyond their comprehension. To them man is just an inefficient and primitive lifeform, something to be consumed and turned to a higher purpose. Such has been the fate of a thousand galaxies, of millions of intelligent species, since time immemorial.

Interesting. I've emphasised the point that i think is interesting. The notion that the Imperium offers almost limitless supply of biomass compared to their native galaxy implies that the other galaxies they have consumed have been much smaller.

It's these possibilities. The chance that the Tyranids might actually be beatable, and that even though Chaos' power is limited its ability to influence the world most certainly isn't, is what gives the faintest glimmer of hope that is what makes the grimdark not become cloying for some people.

Is it likely humanity will beat either of these two let alone both? Hell no.

Might it just, faintly, be possible? Maybe...

There is also this quote from Hive Fleet Horror:

They knew that every system, whether mechanical or biological, eventually runs down. Most species lasted only a few million years. A few - like some Earth ants - managed to survive for up to a hundred million years. But sooner or later they perished as their DNA either failed to adapt or simply deteriorated through natural wear.

The tyranids had found the only possible remedy for this. They moved from galaxy to galaxy, harvesting fresh, newly evolved DNA with which to renew and reinvigorate their own. They were the universe's ultimate life form. Quite possibly they had existed forever, and would continue to exist forever. Quite possibly the universe contained an infinite number of hive fleets.

The Imperium of Man had beaten off one hive fleet. Perhaps it could beat off others. It would be a rare reversal for the tyranids, but that did not matter at all. In a few million years the Imperium would be gone, the human race would be gone, and some other hive fleet would arrive, meeting weaker resistance, and would leave the galaxy lifeless and desolate.

Then, a few billion years later, life would evolve all over again, on millions of planets.

And again a hive fleet would move in....

Aside from the woeful misunderstanding of DNA and evolution, that is interesting...