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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Sure, there is a Hive Fleet working on something warp based - but who knows what the actual result will be? The Shadow in the Warp (the exact nature of which remains largely a mystery) doesn’t appear to weaken Daemons. It affects mortals, because it could be likened to a psychic white noise, the warp so disturbed by so much psychic chatter and activity, a single mind on its own gets swallowed up in the background hubub. Daemons, not really being sentient and literally made of warp stuff? Not so much.

Actually, The Shadow in the Warp does affect Daemons. Not in the same way as it does mortals, but by inserting psychic white nose between reality and the warp, it weakens the hold Daemons have on reality and makes it harder for them to maintain their physical forms.

Are not wraightbones always at the mercy of demons? Demons always try to invade the wriaghtbone of craftworlds. But the tiny warp spiders eat them up no? Sounds like a horrible thing to regulate for tyranids.

It is probablyu only the infinety circuit that they gard when I think about it.

 Gert wrote:
Yeaaaah I'm gonna call on that whole Nids have souls thing. At most the Hive Mind has something that might be similar that is in turn spread throughout the greater swarm but each individual Ripper having a soul? Nah.
Also OP, are you getting all your info from Lexicanum or the Tyranid Codex? Because the stuff about Nids using Astartes and Aeldari DNA is in the Lex articles and is sourced from stuff from 3rd Ed, i.e. very old background.

In a setting where mass-produced pistols and shovels are supposed to have a spirit in them, I see no reason why a space-worm-rat can't have one

 Tyran wrote:
I'm only going to point out that Tyranids not having souls is the reason why neither Chaos nor Dark Eldar can feed on Tyranids (they can feed on the suffering Tyranids inflict on others, but not on the Tyranids themselves).

The Hive Mind could be considered a massive collective soul, but individual Tyranids are soulless.

Chaos corrupted a hive ship and is using it as a titan transport so they did "feed" on it. I remember reading that it endured untold torture to become corrupted? It's been so long I'm not 100% sure about that.

 Denny wrote:
Do we know they don’t use it?

‘Nids eat stuff; they break it down and convert it into useful materials. Is it not possible this is done with wraithbone?

Of course, if it was it’s not like it would be recognisable. It would most likely be mixed with other elements and biological compounds to create something new.

It would be nothing more than another building material. It would not result in wraithbone Nids.

Tyranids digest everything before use. They can't digest daemons so there's no reason to think they can digest wraithbone which is, like daemons, warp stuff.

 Niiai wrote:
Are not wraightbones always at the mercy of demons? Demons always try to invade the wriaghtbone of craftworlds. But the tiny warp spiders eat them up no? Sounds like a horrible thing to regulate for tyranids.

It is probablyu only the infinety circuit that they gard when I think about it.

Interesting, I have not heard about this. I'll look into it.

edit: I cannot find anything by googling. Could you provide a source?

It is in the description of warp spiders. Warp spiders (aspect warriors) are build around the consepts of an aggressive defence. Inspired by the warp spiders native to the wraight bone.

I have not read in the Eldar codex since 2nd and 3rd edition.

roboemperor wrote:


Chaos corrupted a hive ship and is using it as a titan transport so they did "feed" on it. I remember reading that it endured untold torture to become corrupted? It's been so long I'm not 100% sure about that.

Chaos did that with a combination of several factors, including the Obliterator virus. That doesn't prove the existence of a soul, and plenty of other sources have stated that Tyranids are soulless.

 Tyran wrote:
and plenty of other sources have stated that Tyranids are soulless.

Devastation of Baal
Baal endured a cataclysm unfolding across the entire galaxy.

"But the sons of the Great Angel were less afflicted than their foe. Screaming warp fire crashed against the gestalt soul of the tyranids, catching it unawares. The delicate synaptic web that bound its numberless minds into one being shrivelled like thread in a fire. Never before had the hive mind been so grievously wounded. Its control over its trillions of bodies was violently disrupted. Hive fleet was cleaved from hive fleet, brood from brood so catastrophically that for a moment the hive mind ceased to be. It recovered quickly, diminished but alive, but that moment seemed to the hive mind an eternity of darkness. Trillions of its creatures permanently lost touch with the hive mind, and were reduced to unthinking animals. For the first time in its existence, the hive mind tasted death."

Gestalt Soul by definition is the sum of lesser souls that aren't merged but working together.

Orks are gestalt too. How are their souls handled in the lore? I have little interest in orks so I wouldn't know.

The tyranid codex has sitations from chaos warrors who complain they have no soul and only vile ichor.

I do not know if DE can eat Tyranid souls?

 Niiai wrote:
The tyranid codex has sitations from chaos warrors who complain they have no soul and only vile ichor.

I do not know if DE can eat Tyranid souls?

Yeah, always with the conflicts. Books say tyranids nom metals. Codices say Tyranids can't. Books say Tyranids have souls. Codices say they don't.

Anyways, this is irrelevant for the discussion about wraithbone, and I don't think there is a way to resolve this discussion given the amount of conflicting sources.

Maybe Tyranids are so alien and complex that their soul stuff also makes no sense so maybe they both have and don't have souls at the same time.

roboemperor wrote:

Gestalt Soul by definition is the sum of lesser souls that aren't merged but working together.

I do not think there is an official definition for Gestalt Soul.

And I did say that the Hive Mind could be considered one massive collective soul, while individual Tyranids would still be considered soulless.

We also have to consider that it might be a different kind of soul. That every thing about the Tyranids is so alien that even their very soul is something hard to identify, interact with or understand.

Oh I just remembered a quip about intercine tyranid battles.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think they explicitly say that there is 0 loss in biomass when tyranids fight each other. So I think there's enough to say Kryptman is completely wrong and hive fleets are powered by the warp exclusively.

Which edition had the quip about intercine tyranid battles? It's in gladius but I'm also pretty sure that quip is a copy and paste of a codex.

You’re also assuming that Tyranids (and the authors) follow real science.

That assumption doesn’t seem accurate.

 JNAProductions wrote:
You’re also assuming that Tyranids (and the authors) follow real science.

That assumption doesn’t seem accurate.

Which part? Are you talking about the warp energy vs biomass burning for energy?

Biomass burning for energy is from kryptman's cordons (deny the biomass prize after expending tremendous energy).
No Biomass burning for energy is the intercine Tyranid wars (full scale wars result in no loss in biomass), quip about Kronos stealing psyker energy (tyranids are in fact warp powered), and Hive MInd having awesome energies.

What's your vote?
Or were you talking about something else?

Where's there any evidence that Tyranids can grow wraithbone, use it, or for that matter care what it is? That seems to be the entire premise of this thread, and it seems a bit like wondering why Tyranid warriors don't use bolters, instead of those weapons just going in the digestion process.

"But I looked it up, and wraith bone is made from warp energy, and there are psychic tyranids". So? After eating half an opposing army, look at all the discarded weapons and equipment that's just scattered about that they're not using, either. And they've eaten plenty of things with fingers, so it's not like they couldn't do it if they wanted to.

Neato idea. I would go with the idea that they would use the wraithbone like a shell(along the lines of a hermit crab), growing an orginisim inside of it for use, instead of a bio-titan that has a pilot that gets out to stretch the legs.

Maybe using slavaged bits from the eldar titans? I just don't know how the bugs would bring the pieces back to be reused. if the digestion pools don't destroy the "shell" not to sure how they would take it back to transport to new location- unless it flew?

roboemperor wrote:

 Gert wrote:
You're taking a game mechanic and calling it canon background. Jesus wept.

Also, you're taking info from wiki articles that use many sources, often contradicting ones, to write the articles. Have you got the Tyranid Codex where you can support your claims with actual quotes from the latest publication?

"You do all the work. Show me stuff. No the stuff you showed me are unreliable because I say so. Now show me more other stuff. You can't because latest codices don't address or mention the topic at all? Ha ha I win. I'm right and you're wrong."

Yeah... I'm gonna stop talking to you.

You have to do the work because you're the one who has an argument to support.

 JNAProductions wrote:
You’re also assuming that Tyranids (and the authors) follow real science.

That assumption doesn’t seem accurate.

I do believe tyranids use CRISP. They can not develop their own new things to some degree. They incorperate new DNA strands that they can find. They probaly have a big back catalog.