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I always thought the idea of a Tyranid Hive fleet that somehow lost its link with the Hive mind and went rogue would be interesting. What if they tried to start their own way of life? Like establishing a planet and defending it from all other forces as a utopia just for themselves. Or they could even become rebels in the Tyranid army, working to free their fellow mind controlled brethren from the grasp of the Hive, potentially allying with other armies to further their goals. Is anything like this even remotely possible?

When removed from the hive minds control most tyranids resort to their instinctive behavior.
Not sure about the current codex but there was a fluff story about it in the previous book where they went feral and just became hyper predators and top of the food chain on the planet they were on.

No, this isn't possable. The Hive Mind reaches through all Synapse creatures, which in turn goes through the Norn Queen on a Hive Ship.

If that is cut, the basic Tyranid forms revert to basic animal instincts. And eventually they can reproduce till they create a new Norn Queen and Hive Ship. And so the fleet is reborn.


All Nids have very specific programming to reestablish the Hive Mind link, even if it can take a long time.

Tyranids are bound by the will of the Hive Mind. If they lose contact with the Hive Mind, they resort to animalistic behavior. They lose any cognitive strategy or united combat prowess and become little more than animals. Incredibly dangerous animals, but animals nonetheless. Tyranids would never, ever, in any situation, ally with any other army. They don't think that way. All they think is "feed". That's their only goal. That's their only purpose.

Depends on the Tyranid. Gaunts, Rippers, and other lower forms don't actually have reproductive organs or a digestive tract, so they'd die out pretty quickly.

A previous edition of the 'Nid codex said that there's cases where Tyranids have lost their contact with the hive mind for various reasons. They surmise that they turn into a feral state and develope their own eco system amongst themselves and the local fauna. Its suggested that races of animal found on certain worlds may in fact be descended from lost fleets, having changed so much from their original selves that only when the Tyranids arrived in the galaxy proper that people made the link. Creatures like the Chatachan Devil, Necromunda's Ripper Jacks, or the Leviathans of Fenris don't have any evolutionary basis within the local eco system, its like they just showed up one day and became super developed predators.

Sources; Tyranid 4th ed codex, White Dwarf Chapter Approved Creature Feature Vol: 2. =P

Ancient reference i know, but back in the day Tyranids had these guys....

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Zoat

I don't see why not. It's your fluff and fiction

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Depends on the Tyranid. Gaunts, Rippers, and other lower forms don't actually have reproductive organs or a digestive tract, so they'd die out pretty quickly.

Termigants are actually capable of reproducing, they lay eggs by the thousands that mature quickly.

I am pretty sure that is exactly what happened to Ymgarl genestealers. The hive fleets flat out refuse to reabsorb them. They won't even kill them and take in their genetic material. And yet the Ymgarl genestealers keep trying. Placing themselves in the paths of incoming hive fleets and then helping out in the destruction. Then they are left alone to sneak on the ships of whoever comes to the planet after the hive fleet moves on and keep trying.

Synapse creatures can't go rogue, and none synapse creatures aren't very smart. Lictors are the smartest non-synapse creatures, but they aren't nearly as smart as human. They know about hunting, survival, and almost nothing else. Gaunts would probably be like super dangerous dogs.

They would consume the planet too quickly to "settle down" and raise kids. They would starve.

 Greedfeed wrote:
I always thought the idea of a Tyranid Hive fleet that somehow lost its link with the Hive mind and went rogue would be interesting. What if they tried to start their own way of life? Like establishing a planet and defending it from all other forces as a utopia just for themselves. Or they could even become rebels in the Tyranid army, working to free their fellow mind controlled brethren from the grasp of the Hive, potentially allying with other armies to further their goals. Is anything like this even remotely possible?

It would be interesting, however, they are not civilized. The few bioforms that can reproduce, would, and the rest would die out. Now, moving onto each scenario, they wont establish a planet. They will simply survive, and kill everything they come across, depending on the bioform. Termagants would just hide amongst the rocks. If you land on that planet, and your not fighting a termagant... you better bring a quadlinked lascannon and heavy flamers. Now, on the subject of rebels, thats impossible, because as soon as they restablished a stronger connection with the hive mind, they would just revert into mindless bioforms in the grand host of the tyranid invasion fleet. Sorry, but it is true. Its like a ratling trying to pass itself off as an ogryn.

I recall a while back a group of gene-stealers lost connection to the hive mind and became independent hyper pack hunters. They wanted to re-join the hive mind and actively searching for the hive mind to re join it the hive mind didn't allow it because if they did it would give more freedom to synapse creatures would realize they can think for themselves and start mass revolts

 Lord General Cheese wrote:
I recall a while back a group of gene-stealers lost connection to the hive mind and became independent hyper pack hunters. They wanted to re-join the hive mind and actively searching for the hive mind to re join it the hive mind didn't allow it because if they did it would give more freedom to synapse creatures would realize they can think for themselves and start mass revolts

I think you are confusing things with the Ymgarl Genestealers. They actively search for the hive fleets in order to rejoin the fold. However, they have a genetic abnormality that makes the hive mind terrified of them, so it will never reassimilate them into its own forces, for fear that the unstable genetic codes will pass on to the rest of the swarm. It won't risk the swarm for the sake of the few. In fact, every time that the swarm encounters the Ymgarl strain, it actively leaves them behind to die, though they just go dormant and then someone lands on the planet to investigate, and they hijack the ship and fly it into the path of yet another hive fleet.

No i do recall them quite clearly and checked they aren't the ones im talking about cant find them. They were a short story in a BL novel

I don't think it would happen without intervention, one could conceive of a really powerful psyker or perhaps genetic manipulation by one of the non-nid factions cutting off a group of synapse creatures from the hive mind and modifying them to think for themselves.

Mind you, that would probably end just like in the Aliens comic books or any Resident Evil game with an even worse thing happening after tinkering with the deadly killing machines.

You could always have a heretical Techpriest working on a means of enslaving Tyranids, only for the beasts to break out of the lab and form their own roving band free of the hive mind.

How would they "go rogue"? Would they suddenly repress their need to constantly convert biomass into more 'nids, become sentient and develop culture and philosophy?

The overarching "goal" of the tyranid race is to consume and to multiply. Even if a splinter-fleet got cut off from the main-hive, the splinter would just keep doing what 'nids do. Consume and spawn.

Tyranids going rogue from the hive mind is the equivalent of your hand going rogue from your brain and proceeding to slap you. Tyranids are the organs, muscles, vessels, limbs and so on of the hive mind. Lost tyranids that rejoin fleets are like getting limbs reattached. Sorry for all the analogies lol.

 Zande4 wrote:
Tyranids going rogue from the hive mind is the equivalent of your hand going rogue from your brain and proceeding to slap you. Tyranids are the organs, muscles, vessels, limbs and so on of the hive mind. Lost tyranids that rejoin fleets are like getting limbs reattached. Sorry for all the analogies lol.

Aaaactually, there are people who have had that happen to them. They had a section of their brain severed and it lead to a second personality in their heads that caused one of their hands to try and kill themselves. A number of people have had that happen. The people have no control over that hand and the hand will try to kill themselves, people that try to study them, and so on. If I remember right, there were something like 30 cases of this happening.

Just saying.

That's bloody hilarious...

Well, if you desperately want tyranids that are more civil you could argue that genestealers could evolve or infect organisms that a superior to the existing hybrids.
I could certainly envision a "Greater Broodlord" of doom that somehow decided that he was better off not being biomass for the hive fleets.

What if a Mekboy designed some form of mind control device and stuck nodes on the noggins of the Tyranids or created some way to countermand and bypass the synapse bond to the Hive Mind, recognising the Mekboy as the Hive Mind. I say Ork but any race might be able to do it, just seems like an Orky thing to do.

 Pilau Rice wrote:
What if a Mekboy designed some form of mind control device and stuck nodes on the noggins of the Tyranids or created some way to countermand and bypass the synapse bond to the Hive Mind, recognising the Mekboy as the Hive Mind. I say Ork but any race might be able to do it, just seems like an Orky thing to do.

I completely agree, but since a lot of things are orky its a slippery slope to go down... I can imagine orks taking control of every single army in the 40k universe because their technology is so random, but you have to ask yourself: Would it make the theme and feel of the other army irrelevant or tame? If the answer is yes, then why do it in the first place.
We have seen so many watered down concepts over the years, why add another one?

 tarnish wrote:

 Pilau Rice wrote:
What if a Mekboy designed some form of mind control device and stuck nodes on the noggins of the Tyranids or created some way to countermand and bypass the synapse bond to the Hive Mind, recognising the Mekboy as the Hive Mind. I say Ork but any race might be able to do it, just seems like an Orky thing to do.

I completely agree, but since a lot of things are orky its a slippery slope to go down... I can imagine orks taking control of every single army in the 40k universe because their technology is so random, but you have to ask yourself: Would it make the theme and feel of the other army irrelevant or tame? If the answer is yes, then why do it in the first place.
We have seen so many watered down concepts over the years, why add another one?

Is it really a different concept though, or just an expanded one? We have already seen the likes of looted Carnifex so what's the difference really?

 Pilau Rice wrote:

Is it really a different concept though, or just an expanded one? We have already seen the likes of looted Carnifex so what's the difference really?

Well yes, but that was not my cup of tea either

Expanded yes, but it takes some of the danger and menace out of the tyranids when you make them into brain-dead gimps doing an orks bidding.

 tarnish wrote:

 Pilau Rice wrote:

Is it really a different concept though, or just an expanded one? We have already seen the likes of looted Carnifex so what's the difference really?

Well yes, but that was not my cup of tea either

Expanded yes, but it takes some of the danger and menace out of the tyranids when you make them into brain-dead gimps doing an orks bidding.

Oh yeah, certainly, but in terms of this threads purposes it's a suggestion that might work.

Finding a way to sever the synapse link could also be away to actually defeat the Tyranids, imagine the repercussions if you were able to do this to a whole fleet.

Yes it seems to be their only weak spot. I imagine some kind of psykic event would be devastating to them if it disrupted the hiveminds link in a significant way, or even made them bow to other masters.

As for orks, they dont colaborate with anyone in a meaningfull way for long. They would never be able to coordinate something like this unless it was to utterly destroy the hivefleet in question.

Nah, if their link to the hive mind ever failed they would just revert to instinct.