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Hello er'ebody!

I was recently thinking of some fluff concerning my home-brewed Chapter (just like grandma used to make), and I came across..a quandry!

Can Tyranids live (at least for a short time) in space? I'm not talking about hive fleets or ships, I'm talking about the Tyranids you would use in a regular 40k game. Is the vacuum of space too much to handle? What about Genestealers? Surely they have some form of resistance against the cold, seeing as how they are found all too often in derelict, and often damaged, space hulks.

So, you Tyranid guys, can you help a battle-brother out?

Well I'm not a Tyranid guy, but I know they do have more space-born creatures than just gigantic hive ships; they have down to fighter size and even mines and stuff, which couldn't be much bigger than some of the bigger land beasties. So it's at least possible. On the other hand, cold isn't the only problem with space; nids tend to be pretty mono-task critters, and it seems like the ones designed to land on planets would need to breathe to some extent. I seem to recall some mentions of climatic terraforming to make planets more hospitable to nid landing forces. So your average stealer or gaunt is probably more resistant than a squishy human, but I doubt they're immune to the void. Nothing to say that specialized variants wouldn't develop though...

Pretty sure tyranids, even some of the ones which would seem unlikely can live in the vacuum of space, genestealers on space hulks for instance seem to be content just to wait for someone to pop along.

"Genestealers are stronger and hardier than Humans, able to withstand even the most hostile environments unprotected, including hard vacuum, and are capable of living for centuries " - Lexicanum (also in their codex I believe)

I'd be surprised if alot more than just genestealers didn't have this capability.

Since genestealer and tyranid physiology is basically the cream of the cream of all the species they've nom nommed. I doubt the cold is too much of a bother when you're wearing space marine tbh.

I believe they use mycetic spores as their go to delivery system for planet invasion and ship boarding. I'd think that they may be able to survive a short time in space, but not extended durations like genestealers.

You could work it into Fluff by explaining that the Hivemind adapted various breeds to survive in the vacuum of space due to some kind of important mission.

So, it's generally excepted that at LEAST genetstealers can exist in space? And possibly others?

I imagine the hivemind would modify existing species to survive servive space very easily.

Have you read Warriors of Ultramar?

A splinter fleet attacks a planet protected by the Ultramarines in the dead of winter. The organisms die within a few minutes, their fat reserves burnt out and their bodies frozen.

The Hive Mind adapted, creating creatures with more powerful circulation systems, thicker fat deposits and allowed them to live for longer, but still not enough. So, instead, it evolved them over minutes and hours and days to die out and rot rapidly, causing unimaginably large amounts of greenhouse gases to flood the atmosphere and warm up the very climate itself, until its creatures could begin to wage war.

What I'm saying, essentially, is that the Hive Mind will always find a way.

Miraclefish wrote:Have you read Warriors of Ultramar?

A splinter fleet attacks a planet protected by the Ultramarines in the dead of winter. The organisms die within a few minutes, their fat reserves burnt out and their bodies frozen.

The Hive Mind adapted, creating creatures with more powerful circulation systems, thicker fat deposits and allowed them to live for longer, but still not enough. So, instead, it evolved them over minutes and hours and days to die out and rot rapidly, causing unimaginably large amounts of greenhouse gases to flood the atmosphere and warm up the very climate itself, until its creatures could begin to wage war.

What I'm saying, essentially, is that the Hive Mind will always find a way.

Oh my god.
Must be a pretty small planet indeed...humans pollute the atmosphere for like a century and almost nothing happened ( at least not THAT fast).

But as a fluff-story, the concept is AWESOME!

As previously said, genestealers can pretty much survive in the vacuum of space (notably because they need to survive over long peridos of time in derelict space hulks).

I'm not sure for the rest of the land tyranids we all know, like gaunts, carnifexes, trygons, etc.

AFAIK, most of these creatures are spawned for each planetary invasion, so I don't see why they would need to survive in space.

Of course, each bio-ship always keeps a few big beasties (like carnifexes, hive guards...) in its body to help repel any boarding party. But these organisms are kept in hibernation and awaken if any non-tyranid organism enters the bio-ship. In addition, the inside of a bio-ship's body is not really vaccum, so I doubt even the big tyranid land creatures can survive alone in space.

it wasn't the decay of the bodies IIRC.

it was the standard Tyranid procedure of sending down spores that begin the alter the Atmosphere for digestion.


the Hive Ships then land and begin to literally eat the planet.

Carnifexes can survive in a vacuum as well. The 4th edition codex has paragraph about a Carnifex surviving exterminatus by cyclonic torpedo and still being alive on the planet after the atmosphere was stripped away.

Grey Templar - that process is what is done first, and the hive ships don't start drinking up the biomass until that is all thats left. The hive ships also never land, capillary towers reach into orbit, they attach to them, and drink the biomass through them like a straw.

Ahem, Tyranid 5th edition codex:

Chitin: even the most basic Tyranid life forms have tought leathery hides and a beetle-like carapace that covers the creature's vital spots. This chitinous material is tough enough to turn aside blades and even glancing small-arms fire. The outer body of a Tyranid is coated in a waxt slime that allows the organism to survive for short periods of time in a vacuum.

Reinforced Chitin (useful portion anyway): This material has also proven effective in attenuating the worse effects of intense heat and radiation.

The rest just go on about how they are impenatrable and blah blah blah blah blah.

So, even gaunts and rippers can survive in space, albeit only for a little while...

Genestealers can survive short periods in the vacuum of space but it's not enough to last the centuries that Hulks drift in the warp which is why they hibernate on them. When in more comfortable conditions they can last hundreds of years which they tend to do when infiltrating a society.

Hence the Genestealer cults.

Cool, that would be the info I'm looking for, thanks fellas!