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So, after the Tyranids have consumed everything, they all go to Digestion Pools, get digested, and then absorbed by Hive ships ready for the next spawning-am I basically correct?

How does this work with Death Leaper, Old One Eye et al?? Does the HIve Mind "remember" them and re spawn them as they were ?? (a la Swarmlord) Or are they just not reabsorbed at all???

They get reabsorbed but the genetic mae-up is inherited and the creatures are created again to fulfil whatever role they play.

The Swarmlord/deathleaper is basically reincarnated each time he is deployed.



since all Tyranids basically share 1 mind, the memories are kept alive and the Hive Mind just respawns the physical form and places the memories into the creature.


Old One Eye simply seems impossable to kill. he dies, but the hive mind uses its psychic power to reanimate the body.

Grey Templar wrote:
since all Tyranids basically share 1 mind, the memories are kept alive and the Hive Mind just respawns the physical form and places the memories into the creature.

This.

And it's not just the unique ones, either. All Tyrants(and I assume Primes) are essentially immortal since they're just able to be reborn over and over again.

Tyranid that are rare are part of the hivemind like any other tyranid. Their genetic make-up is stored in the memories of all the 'nids. In the cases that are the; doom of Malon' tai, old one eye, the parasite of Morton, etc. are what I view as "expirimental" old one eye had the first instance of regeneration (on an extreme scale) then more and more carnifex's everywhere began to have this ability (scaled down).

The swarmlord is also regeneratable when need be. (leviathan's campaign against the ork's)

Their genetic makeup and psychic presence is preserved if they are valuable enough.

of course, it isn't like individual Tyranids have their own mind and soul so the Immortality thing doesn't really matter on a metaphysical level.

for all the other species on the other hand, not being able to remove the swarmlord from existance kinda sucks.

IIRC it's suggested that important Tyranid creatures might very well have their own minds, but it's not like they WANT to be separate from the hive mind or anything.

Melissia wrote:IIRC it's suggested that important Tyranid creatures might very well have their own minds, but it's not like they WANT to be separate from the hive mind or anything.

Yep. The book even suggests that different Hive Tyrants have different ideas to war and what we might call personalities from one another. As well, it suggests that the Hive Mind gave them a measure of individuality precisely so that it could better adapt to situations.

THat's the line of reasoning used in DoW2 Retribution too.

You could also point out though that memories can be lost simply losing that particular tyranid. For example if you lost the death leaper and your army routes the tyranids preventing them from absorbing your planet. The memories of the death leaper on that planet essentially be lost and nothing learned from it. I would also think even if they could make another copy of the death leaper it would not be as par in quality as the original one on that planet. Similar to how a copy of a music file is a fraction less quality as the original and such. but that's just me theory crafting >.<

Not necessarily.

After all, their psychic presence doesn't necessarily vanish just cause they die.

look at the war with the tau though. They are currently pursing what they believe to be the knowledge and memories of there war with them. Hence if they were to destroy that the overall tyranid race or the next fleet to invade tau space would have to learn and adapt all over again.

xlightscreen wrote:Similar to how a copy of a music file is a fraction less quality as the original and such. but that's just me theory crafting >.<

Unless you convert the file to a different format, digital music files are exactly the same quality as their progenitor. Analog audio files, however, do end up losing quality when they are copied.

... assuming that the hive mind doesn't pull that creature's psyche out of its dying body.

xlightscreen wrote:look at the war with the tau though. They are currently pursing what they believe to be the knowledge and memories of there war with them. Hence if they were to destroy that the overall tyranid race or the next fleet to invade tau space would have to learn and adapt all over again.

Nope. The book suggests that the separate Hive Fleets may be privy to what other Fleets know, hence why the Imperium keeps facing new fleets that operate differently from previous fleets.

If the fleets had to relearn how to face the same opponent, they wouldn't be as big a threat(since they could keep pulling an Ultramar on them).

I posted this in an earlier thread, but regarding special characters we must always remember that 40k exists in a timeline, past and present. Which is how we can field 'dead' special characters (e.g. tycho is dead, but can be fielded in DC and nonDC forms).

A tyranid special character is not necessarily a unique creature with a personality and traits so distinct that the hive mind remembers and resurrects them, and that the tyranids do not document history, all the history of these characters is recorded by a more history conscious race. For instance, in the case of old one eye, he is a hive mind experiment in regeneration and means no more to the hive mind than a termagaunt. However, imperial forces fought against the tyranids at some point in time, and encountered a carnifex that they named 'old one eye'. The fact that he is special is only relevant when viewed in the context of that period of history.

A fair point zero, but I'd argue that the swarmlord at least is an exception to this idea, in that he has definitely been seen more than once.
Obviously, for the sake of the game it would be unfair to allow all versions of a particular genus to have the increased capabilities of the special character (all lictors being as good as the deathleaper say), but for evolution/improvement sake, the hive mind would probably benefit from making all lictors on that template, rather than only producing a few. Unless of course this was unfeasibly uneconomical biomass and energy wise.

Reanimator wrote:A fair point zero, but I'd argue that the swarmlord at least is an exception to this idea, in that he has definitely been seen more than once.

Of course, there is ALWAYS one who decides to break from the trend!

As was the Hive Lord in Retribution. To transport him between planets, he was consumed and then spawned elsewhere, his psyche transferred to the other planet via the Hive Mind's psychic ability.

If defeated, the same thing can happen of course.

Leigen_Zero wrote:I posted this in an earlier thread, but regarding special characters we must always remember that 40k exists in a timeline, past and present. Which is how we can field 'dead' special characters (e.g. tycho is dead, but can be fielded in DC and nonDC forms).

A tyranid special character is not necessarily a unique creature with a personality and traits so distinct that the hive mind remembers and resurrects them, and that the tyranids do not document history, all the history of these characters is recorded by a more history conscious race. For instance, in the case of old one eye, he is a hive mind experiment in regeneration and means no more to the hive mind than a termagaunt. However, imperial forces fought against the tyranids at some point in time, and encountered a carnifex that they named 'old one eye'. The fact that he is special is only relevant when viewed in the context of that period of history.

I would disagree, "old one eye" survived exterminatus via cyclonic torpedo. Then was also shot by (input character name for I dont remember) who used a las pistol straight into the eye and fell off a cliff where the body was never found.

I believe that if an "experiment" proves itself with its own mind and personality it is immortalized in the same way as the swarmlord.

As to why these amazing creatures cant be mass produced is because you dont want that many creatures with their own thoughts and ideas. Termagaunts, rippers, gargoyles etc. are all mindless slaves to the hive mind that follow its objectives down to the simplest idea..... kill. These more intelligent beings are the ones that use tactics and cunning to outsmart the opponent (doom of malon' tai) or wait it out (parasite of morton). The more basic Tyranid carry out the will of the hivemind no matter what (save being seperated from synapse ) be it loss of limb or life. That is what sepparates these creatures.