Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So, Genestealers work by infiltrating a society, rapidly reproducing as well as infecting other members, forming a cult that works under a fascade such as an Imperial Cult or political movement or something. While it's perfectly understandable that this would be a great practice for infiltrating human societies, how does it work with other species?

Orks don't reproduce sexually, Eldar do it rarely and Tau only do it under the controlled guide of Ethereals. Furthermore, Eldar and Tau both live extremely rigid, planned lives that don't exactly leave a lot of room for a genestealer cult to form. Is there some other way for Genestealers to spread among these species, do they just tend to stick more to humans, or am I missing something?

You really are not. It's possible but each race presents serious challenges for genestealers.

Orks they can infect and I believe they just corrupt the spores dropped. However orks have an uncanny ability to sense when something is not exactly Orky and would kill the infected orks for being different.

Orks are the most numerous race in the galaxy
Then it is humans (who control more planets than the orks by far)
Then there is a long long distance between them any anyone else.

Genestealers are not going to infest any eldar, tau, kroot, slyth, or necron planets becasue they arent that many non human/ork planets.


Genestealers might have been engineered by the hive mind specifically to infest humans. They might not work on almost anything else, but that doesnt matter. Most planets in the galaxy are human planets.

The short story Elucidium features an Eldar hybrid, which would imply some level of infiltration is possible in Eldar societies.

The Codex: Genestealer Cults hints at a Tau infiltration in the case of Ksi'm'yen (pg.40).

There is also an implied Ork cult on the same page (under the 'Xenos War' entry). Ork cults even had models at one time.

Here is the issues with Other races and Genestealer Infection
(RT actually had hybrid models for the races)

Ork: As orks are plants and reproduce via spores and not actual breeding. The Ork DNA most often is Stronger than the Genestealer DNA, and unless the Infected Ork is a Stronger Nob and produces Nob offspring the hybrid will not get far in Ork society as it will be killed (actually a story in a codex about a warboss with his 4 Armed garent)

Eldar: Are just as easy as humans to infect, but with their many psykers and superior sense of smell (actual fluff) and slow breeders they can identify infected and remove them. Exorite worlds are the most venerable to Infection

Dark Eldar: Very Simular to Eldar except, Dark Eldar do very little to no breeding, they primarily reproduce via cloning

Tau: Another race that can be easily infected, unfortunately the Tau have no psychic presence which makes the signal to the hivefleets weak (This doesn't stop other species within their empire, including humans from being infected)

Kroot: Kroot can actually know genetic manipulation quite well and also quite tribal. and will likely kill off anything that is against their desired path (in theory an infected shaper could lead their tribe down the road of infection, but may not be well received by other tribes)

Necron: There robots


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also more on the Necrons before the fluff rewrite

Tyranids were known to activly advoid Necron tomb worlds even unawaken ones that were lush in life.
This helped give credence to the thoery that the hivemind is actually controlled by the C'tan "The Outsider" who escaped the galaxy during Nightbringers ranpage amongst their brothers

The Doom of Malantai is a Tyranid that infected (and destroyed) a Craftworld, so there is definite interest in the Eldar on the part of the Hive.

That is, supposedly, where the Hive got the Zoanthrope gene-type from.

 Psienesis wrote:
The Doom of Malantai is a Tyranid that infected (and destroyed) a Craftworld, so there is definite interest in the Eldar on the part of the Hive.

Not quite the same thing..

Doom was a very special Tyranid that Syphoned Souls out of its prey, the elder didn't realise the danger of that particular creature amongst the Tyranid horde before it was too late

Eldar are an older and more knowledgable race than humans. They wouldl likely be able to detecet the signs of a Genestealer much sooner than human would.

Orks love to form factions and fight amongst themselves. Genestealer Ork Hybrids would make a perfect target for the Ork's us verses them mentality. Orks all over a planet would line up to fight a Genestealer Cult.

GodDamUser wrote:

Tyranids were known to activly advoid Necron tomb worlds even unawaken ones that were lush in life.
This helped give credence to the thoery that the hivemind is actually controlled by the C'tan "The Outsider" who escaped the galaxy during Nightbringers ranpage amongst their brothers

What is the quote\evidence for this? The closest to it I've read is the Tyranids veering around the Dyson Sphere which housed the Outsider.

Psienesis wrote:The Doom of Malantai is a Tyranid that infected (and destroyed) a Craftworld, so there is definite interest in the Eldar on the part of the Hive.

The Doom of Malan'tai was a special Zoanthrope which drained the Infinity Circuit (which was undefended) of a Craftworld and killed everyone it could reach on it. Appallingly bad fluff and I'm not sure if it's mentioned anywhere else.

I think there was old fluff of assimilating the Eldar leading to Zoanthropes, and assimilating Orks leading to biovores or at least an in-universe suggestion of it. Not sure of it though.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:


I think there was old fluff of assimilating the Eldar leading to Zoanthropes, and assimilating Orks leading to biovores or at least an in-universe suggestion of it. Not sure of it though.

Not so much fluff as something stated in the old army release/design articles they used to do in White Dwarf - way back when the 3rd ed. Tyranid codex was released.

Iirc it was Eldar = Zoanthropes for design, Orks = Biovores and Space Marines = Tyrant Guard. Nothing directly stating that X became Y but more design nods in the models that were released at the time.

 adamsouza wrote:
Eldar are an older and more knowledgable race than humans. They wouldl likely be able to detecet the signs of a Genestealer much sooner than human would.

Orks love to form factions and fight amongst themselves. Genestealer Ork Hybrids would make a perfect target for the Ork's us verses them mentality. Orks all over a planet would line up to fight a Genestealer Cult.

Agreed. Except, Orks don't love to fight. They HAVE to fight. It's literally in their DNA. Which is a conundrum for the Ork GSC. The Cult must stay secret until it becomes strong enough to dominate. But, it can't become strong unless it fights (other Orks. or, something). But, it can't fight other Orks and remain secret.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

GodDamUser wrote:

Tyranids were known to activly advoid Necron tomb worlds even unawaken ones that were lush in life.
This helped give credence to the thoery that the hivemind is actually controlled by the C'tan "The Outsider" who escaped the galaxy during Nightbringers ranpage amongst their brothers

What is the quote\evidence for this? The closest to it I've read is the Tyranids veering around the Dyson Sphere which housed the Outsider.

It was a between the lines theory.

There was several fluff piece when they started doing Hive Fleet Leviathan about the Fleets avoiding known tomb worlds, or ones that were discovered to be tomb worlds after the fact. (but there are some instances of them hitting worlds close to tomb worlds like in the tau codex where there was a Necon base hidden on a planets moon), when added that the Outsider left the Galaxy and that the Tyranids Appear to have the same goal as the Necrons of whipping out life

but with the main Necron side of things, they greatly changed the Fluff when Matt Ward redid the Codex (including Tyranids hitting a tomb world, with Necrons and Blood Angles becoming BFF's) to make the Necrons more then just mindless slaves which kinda put a damper on the theory

Ork genestealer cults exist. Read Redemption Corps. Eldar cults would be exceptionally difficult due to the ease of detecting the psychic signature of an infected individual.
Tau, as we all know, lay eggs, but they would have to rely on technological means to detect the cult.

I could see a cult on a tau world where an infected ethereal uses the caste breeding system to spread their cult quicker...

Also, could i take this opportunity to go off on a tangent and say how much i dislike the new necron fluff. They've taken what was a really good 'ancient unknowable evil threat' and turned it into 'robot family squabbles'

GodDamUser wrote:
Here is the issues with Other races and Genestealer Infection
(RT actually had hybrid models for the races)

Ork: As orks are plants and reproduce via spores and not actual breeding. The Ork DNA most often is Stronger than the Genestealer DNA, and unless the Infected Ork is a Stronger Nob and produces Nob offspring the hybrid will not get far in Ork society as it will be killed (actually a story in a codex about a warboss with his 4 Armed garent)

Eldar: Are just as easy as humans to infect, but with their many psykers and superior sense of smell (actual fluff) and slow breeders they can identify infected and remove them. Exorite worlds are the most venerable to Infection

Dark Eldar: Very Simular to Eldar except, Dark Eldar do very little to no breeding, they primarily reproduce via cloning

Tau: Another race that can be easily infected, unfortunately the Tau have no psychic presence which makes the signal to the hivefleets weak (This doesn't stop other species within their empire, including humans from being infected)

Kroot: Kroot can actually know genetic manipulation quite well and also quite tribal. and will likely kill off anything that is against their desired path (in theory an infected shaper could lead their tribe down the road of infection, but may not be well received by other tribes)

Necron: There robots


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also more on the Necrons before the fluff rewrite

Tyranids were known to activly advoid Necron tomb worlds even unawaken ones that were lush in life.
This helped give credence to the thoery that the hivemind is actually controlled by the C'tan "The Outsider" who escaped the galaxy during Nightbringers ranpage amongst their brothers

You have 2 false statements here.

1) It doesn't matter if the Tau are psychic. The nids are. By adding Nid genetic material they begin to fall under the sway of the hive mind and introduce psychic potential to spawn a magus regardless. Each member of the cult adds to the hive mind beacon. The tau are just less prepared to deal with it because their lack of psychic potential means they cannot detect it.

2) The Nids don't avoid tomb worlds covered in life. The nids just avoided that one dyson sphere out in space where the outsider was supposedly imprisoned. They seem to avoid that C'tan but not the crons themselves.

The GSC codex contains a story about eart caste tau scientists capturing a genestealer, implanting its genes into a worker and then studying the resultant hybrids with fascination.