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Ice comets, gas planets full of hydrocarbons, dust and gas clouds full of ethanol, uninhabited moons where you won't get flamethrowered for sucking up the methane oceans, endless free sunlight to power you.

A canny hive fleet could probably even get paid by the IoM for clearing cosmic debris out of the star lanes.

As I said, though, it would not get an "Aliens" style army into the game.

Kilkrazy wrote:
Yes, I can.

Not really, as you're missing the point completely.

If you're trying to argue that it is more logical and efficient to avoid the resistance on planets and just eat space-stuff, then you are right, as it is more efficient. The problem is that, while that fact is true, it's irrelevant. You seem to think that if we just give them something to keep them occupied they'll leave us alone because theres more than enough space-stuff for them to eat. But that would imply that they have a certain limit on their hunger; a point at which they are happy with their supply of food. That is not the case. The Tyranids don't care if one source of food is easier to get than another. They want to eat both, and they don't care what it takes to get it all. Because their appetite is insatiable.

Let's say you're a really obese man who loves donuts and has an insatiable appetite for them. You're sitting in a donut shop eating donuts. Across the street, there is another donut shop with donuts that are only slightly better than the one you're eating. You would have to walk through the rain to get to the other donut shop. Now it may seem more logical to just be content with the supply of donuts you have right now than to go out in the rain for donuts that are only slightly better; but not if you are insatiable. You want both places' donuts. You want ALL the donuts. You'll spread yourself incredibly thin if it means you'll get more donuts, even if the lengths you go to to get those donuts don't make sense to a normal person.

As I said, the Tyranids can't be sated. They won't be happy just eating the stuff that's floating around in space. It won't be enough to sate them. They want to eat everything in the galaxy that is edible, and will go to great lengths to do it.

Kilkrazy wrote:
Tyranids don't make any kind of sense, except as an excuse to have an "Aliens" style army in the game.

Besides the looks Xenomorphs and Tyranids have almost nothing in common, so in what way do the Tyranids mirror the Xenomorph's "style" in the galaxy? They aren't an intergalactic ant colony. They're far more complicated than that.

Kilkrazy wrote:There is a lot of carbon in organic chemicals.

If the Tyranids scooped things up from space, they could drop or spit out the carbon they didn't want.

The real meaning of the song "Lucy in the sky with Diamonds"... Tyrannid poop.

Anvildude wrote:The little itty bits of stuff floating around. Interstellar Hydrogen, and bits of Carbon, and Iron, and all the rest of the elements. The thing is, even though there's maybe only one atom per lightyear, there's a whole freakin' ton of lightyears out there. There's probably more than a million times as much matter floating around in the void as there is tied up in planets and stars.

Kilkrazy wrote:Ice comets, gas planets full of hydrocarbons, dust and gas clouds full of ethanol, uninhabited moons where you won't get flamethrowered for sucking up the methane oceans, endless free sunlight to power you.

A canny hive fleet could probably even get paid by the IoM for clearing cosmic debris out of the star lanes.

As I said, though, it would not get an "Aliens" style army into the game.

The idea that there's more material floating around in the void and ice comets rather than planets is more than dubious. Planets provide the greatest concentration of the greatest variety of elements and complex compounds.
As for uninhabited planets you're assuming 'nids aren't spoiling for a fight. A powerful 'nid fleet wants to get in a fight as long as it wins. A fight means complex life and therefore delictable complex DNA. Like I said before eating for tyranids is analogous to researching for humans. They control their DNA but they don't invent new genomes they only steal genomes.

Now it would be nice for everyone if the Tyranic superorganism tranversed the void eating stray atoms like a blue whale eats plankton but that is not the way the 'nids digest. Just like how you Kilkrazy are a Man or possibly a Mandrill (reports vary) you cannot simply go eat dirt. Soil is very rich in everything we need but that's not how we obtain nutrients. First we must go through the ecosystem process. We need to turn that dirt into corn then of course turn that corn into high-fructose-syrup to obtain the soil's nutrients (I think my science teacher said the last step is the most nutritious).

You then correctly argued that the Tyranid themselves are an ecosystem all in their own. That's right! but then you said that's why they don't need to do the above. In fact its the complete opposite. That's exactly why they do need to do it. Tyranoforming is the process by which this militant ecosystem digests and makes available everything in the atmosphere and planet's crust. The base materials still need to be turned into biomatter for digestion. Before the invasion a planet is prepped by having its plant fauna goes so ballistic that soil depletion is acheived in 2 weeks. Further scary tendril stalk thingys sprout up too. Basically the whole planet gets turned into goo then eaten. All that stuff you mentioned about bacteria breaking down this and plants breaking down that is done by the tyranic ecosystem; and its done for an entire planet in a couple weeks. Not too shabby if you ask me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
p.s. and they get some new shiny DNA to use too.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:

Anvildude wrote:The little itty bits of stuff floating around. Interstellar Hydrogen, and bits of Carbon, and Iron, and all the rest of the elements. The thing is, even though there's maybe only one atom per lightyear, there's a whole freakin' ton of lightyears out there. There's probably more than a million times as much matter floating around in the void as there is tied up in planets and stars.

Kilkrazy wrote:Ice comets, gas planets full of hydrocarbons, dust and gas clouds full of ethanol, uninhabited moons where you won't get flamethrowered for sucking up the methane oceans, endless free sunlight to power you.

A canny hive fleet could probably even get paid by the IoM for clearing cosmic debris out of the star lanes.

As I said, though, it would not get an "Aliens" style army into the game.

The idea that there's more material floating around in the void and ice comets rather than planets is more than dubious. Planets provide the greatest concentration of the greatest variety of elements and complex compounds.
As for uninhabited planets you're assuming 'nids aren't spoiling for a fight. A powerful 'nid fleet wants to get in a fight as long as it wins. A fight means complex life and therefore delictable complex DNA. Like I said before eating for tyranids is analogous to researching for humans. They control their DNA but they don't invent new genomes they only steal genomes.

Now it would be nice for everyone if the Tyranic superorganism tranversed the void eating stray atoms like a blue whale eats plankton but that is not the way the 'nids digest. Just like how you Kilkrazy are a Man or possibly a Mandrill (reports vary) you cannot simply go eat dirt. Soil is very rich in everything we need but that's not how we obtain nutrients. First we must go through the ecosystem process. We need to turn that dirt into corn then of course turn that corn into high-fructose-syrup to obtain the soil's nutrients (I think my science teacher said the last step is the most nutritious).

You then correctly argued that the Tyranid themselves are an ecosystem all in their own. That's right! but then you said that's why they don't need to do the above. In fact its the complete opposite. That's exactly why they do need to do it. Tyranoforming is the process by which this militant ecosystem digests and makes available everything in the atmosphere and planet's crust. The base materials still need to be turned into biomatter for digestion. Before the invasion a planet is prepped by having its plant fauna goes so ballistic that soil depletion is acheived in 2 weeks. Further scary tendril stalk thingys sprout up too. Basically the whole planet gets turned into goo then eaten. All that stuff you mentioned about bacteria breaking down this and plants breaking down that is done by the tyranic ecosystem; and its done for an entire planet in a couple weeks. Not too shabby if you ask me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
p.s. and they get some new shiny DNA to use too.

These points have been made before.

In addition, removing the oceans and the ice would cause massive upheaval in the earths crust. The crust mind you. In our own time, Greenland has "risen" quite a bit as the ice recedes. This has caused earthquakes etc...

Imagine removing the oceans at a swipe. Billions of tons of water removed quickly would cause massive fracturing.

A "neat" way of strip-mining a world.

What the tyrannids are said to would not just leave a barren moon-like world as in the fluff, but it would be a molten, heaving mess instead. Rife with volcanoes.

As far as humans eating dirt, once again...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geophagy

Dang-it... I hate editing.

Maybe Tyranids do eat the materials floating in space. The theory that there is a massive Tyranid force looming out there would support this.

Plus eating planets would be comletely conter-productive

But Tyranids are organics and eat organics. Why would they eat precious materials at all? For their survival they only need a planet full of life, not an asteroid full of Iridium...

Darth Bob wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:
Yes, I can.

Not really, as you're missing the point completely.

If you're trying to argue that it is more logical and efficient to avoid the resistance on planets and just eat space-stuff, then you are right, as it is more efficient. The problem is that, while that fact is true, it's irrelevant. You seem to think that if we just give them something to keep them occupied they'll leave us alone because theres more than enough space-stuff for them to eat. But that would imply that they have a certain limit on their hunger; a point at which they are happy with their supply of food. That is not the case. The Tyranids don't care if one source of food is easier to get than another. They want to eat both, and they don't care what it takes to get it all. Because their appetite is insatiable.

Tyranids aren't eating the stuff floating around in space. That refutes your argument.

If you think the Tyranids weren't inspired by Aliens, you obviously are unaware of the film and game history of the 1980s.

I only mentioned the Dominatrix to highlight the fact that no one in this thread has discussed the malicious nature of the Nids. Anyone who's seen Alien knows that they hate all other life forms. So fluff wise the armies that fight any defenders are all about pain and suffering NOT planet devouring. This is done with a mixture swarms, biological agents and space hoovers.

In Alien, the Aliens are speculated to be an artificially produced biological weapon.

I used to think that the Tyranids must be the same, however of course since they control their evolution, they would swiftly evolve away from a way of life that involves get lasered to death all the time.

We know that Tyranids don't drain the suffering of their victims -- that is Deldar and Necrons.

Besides, if they did, it would be easy to create their own sacrificial victims, since they control evolution, etc.

The stuff floating in space however is probably very spread out and hard to find. IN the grand scheme of things it is very close, but for Tyranid ships to gather even a cluster of floating water and what-not would take a LONG time.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Darth Bob wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:
Yes, I can.

Not really, as you're missing the point completely.

If you're trying to argue that it is more logical and efficient to avoid the resistance on planets and just eat space-stuff, then you are right, as it is more efficient. The problem is that, while that fact is true, it's irrelevant. You seem to think that if we just give them something to keep them occupied they'll leave us alone because theres more than enough space-stuff for them to eat. But that would imply that they have a certain limit on their hunger; a point at which they are happy with their supply of food. That is not the case. The Tyranids don't care if one source of food is easier to get than another. They want to eat both, and they don't care what it takes to get it all. Because their appetite is insatiable.

Tyranids aren't eating the stuff floating around in space. That refutes your argument.

If you think the Tyranids weren't inspired by Aliens, you obviously are unaware of the film and game history of the 1980s.

No, I am aware of the fact that they were inspired by Aliens, but over the years they have very much become an independant entity with little to no relation (other than aesthetics) to the Xenomorph species. Arguing that the Tyranids are just in there for Alien fanboys (like me) is a bit silly, as, like I said, Tyranids are a far more complicated bug than that.

Why would you outline the details of Tyranids devouring space debris when it's far more interesting to focus on the planets. Your argument doesn't work because even if they DID go after Space debris, that wouldn't replace the planets. The reason GW doesn't specifically acknowledge Tyranids eating the stuff in space is because it's really not interesting for fluff development, nor is it that important.

Besides, they've already stated that the Tyranids won't stop until there's nothing left to eat. Which would imply they eat EVERYTHING that is edible. The reason specific mundane stuff such as them eating space debris hasn't been mentioned is either:

A) It isn't significant enough to waste ink on.
B) Slipped the authors minds.

If you try to blend science fiction with science fact then you're always going to find plotholes. The stuff is very unlikely to exist or ever exist, and hence it is "fiction". For instance, in Predator, when Dutch covered himself with mud he was able to avoid the infra-red detection of the Predator. Well, in reality, that mud isn't going to help you at all. How about the sound effects you hear during the space battles in Star Wars and most other scifi shows/movies? Also, not possible in the real world. When you get down to the nitty-gritty, and over-analyze, most of the stuff you find in 40k and other things in the scifi genre don't make much sense. Overall though, I think the idea of the Nids is a pretty solid one as far as 40k stuff goes. It's got its flaws, but I wouldn't venture to say it "makes no sense at all".

I was going to start a new thread to ask this, but this thread seems to be on my line of thinking, so I'll just ask here:

What happens to the materials that the Tyranids don't assimilate? We know that they avoid Necron Tomb Worlds if at all possible, so that says that they don't care to digest just any matter, but they want biomass. Well, let's say they're fighting a legion of Space Marines on a distant world and the tyranids finally overcome them - what happens to all the power armor, power swords, thunder hammers, storm shields? Are they left out in the dust of a barren planet? Are there worlds out there devoid of life, but rich in material treasure?

Well, first off, if the 'nids have managed to defeat them, then most of that stuff is probably not in very good condition. But yeah, I think a lot of that might be lying around, depending, of course, on whether or not they can digest it. Since they can spit acid that will go through ceramite, I'd imagine when they drag the bodies (without bothering to strip them) to the, what are they called? Feeder Pools? and dunk them, everything just dissolves.

The more I think about it the more I realize GW has been very consistent in saying the only eat biomass - just like most lifeforms. They cannot consume raw materials in space, unless it's a space-whale or something like that.

I assume Tyranids drink water.

Kilkrazy wrote:I assume Tyranids drink water.

An odd assumption to make, many animals on earth don't drink water as they get it solely from eating biomass so there is little reason for nids to do it.

Kilkrazy wrote:I assume Tyranids drink water.

I do too. I also think they're solar powered for the most part.

corpsesarefun wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:I assume Tyranids drink water.

An odd assumption to make, many animals on earth don't drink water as they get it solely from eating biomass so there is little reason for nids to do it.

I agree, the amound of fluidds, esp. blood, in what they eat would probably be sufficient.

I would imagine a basic gaunt is only given enough food and fluids to last a couple of hours of war. Then, it either finds its own, or synapse is still around and it is willed into the biomass pools to be reabsorbed.

Mewiththeface wrote:I would imagine a basic gaunt is only given enough food and fluids to last a couple of hours of war. Then, it either finds its own, or synapse is still around and it is willed into the biomass pools to be reabsorbed.

The 5th edition codex basically describes Hormagaunts like this. Basically, they land, emerge from their pod, lay eggs, and find something to kill. Because of their hyperactive metabolism, they burn out quickly. By the time they burn out, the eggs have hatched, matured and form the second wave, laying eggs of their own. So while Hormagaunts do die droves, they at least don't take up as much biomass since they provide their own following waves of attack through laying eggs. Which in turn provides more biomass to be recovered when the ripper carpet reaches them bodies.

corpsesarefun wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:I assume Tyranids drink water.

An odd assumption to make, many animals on earth don't drink water as they get it solely from eating biomass so there is little reason for nids to do it.

It's not at all an odd assumption.

Few animals get their water solely from consuming plants or animals, compared to millions that drink liquid water.

By few you mean the majority, right?

Mind you, most of these are small insects, but so are the majority of species of Animalia/Metazoa.

I think to be fair it comes down to the codex writing, If 'nids did just eat a whole planet, the codex would be one page, and would consist of one entry:
HQ
Tyranid Planet Eating Monstrosity - 100% of points limit
Special rules: Takes up 1 HQ and 2Troops choices
Wargear: Planet Eating Jaws - Each turn roll a d6, on a 2+ you win the game

I kind of think GW wants their moneys worth out of the rules writers.

Besides, everyone knows that things large enough to eat planets are vulnerable to robots that are more than meets the eye...

I honestly believe that Tyranids can digest whatever they want in the way of material. What dictates what they cant though is temperature really. Water is H20, stars run on Hydrogen and fuse it together and make much more dense material. If stars weren't insanely hot I believe they could eat them as well. Same goes with the core of a planet..... its really hot.

Given an unfeasible amount of time, resources, or energy, anything can be broken down into its constituent parts. The argument is more about whether or not Tyranids do such things.

Melissia wrote:Given an unfeasible amount of time, resources, or energy, anything can be broken down into its constituent parts. The argument is more about whether or not Tyranids do such things.

I think that they can do that. But their primary goal is to consume all available bio-matter and that's it. I have never heard of a Tyranids consume entire planet ( but I reckon that that will be more troublesome because planet size + gravity effect) or raw materials ( if that was the case they will also attack Necron Tomb Worlds because Necrons are largely covered in metal ). So the answer to your question is they can, but they won't - because they do not do this kind of things. ( it's like asking can a Space Marine to raise a child, they can do that but they won't - because they are built for war. ).

The feasability of the Tyranid race shouldn't really factor into it - yes, it's unfeasable for a race to slowly digest a planets biosphere and suck it up through large straws.

But so is a race of fungal man-apes that make technology work through latent psychic ability. So is an alternate dimension with four rival Gods that is used for fast interstellar travel.

Tyranids aren't any more ridiculously unfeasable than pretty much everything else in 40k.

Unsure if this has been said before, but 'Nids don't eat non-biological matter. That's why it's called BIO-mass.