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How do!

A thought or series of thoughts which have been rattling around my pea sized brain for a few days now, and I think I’ve got them ordered enough to present them as a thread. And as the title suggests, they’ve been on the possible origins of the Tyranid Menace. But whilst new to me, I’m not gonna pretend they’re necessarily entirely new.

As we know for sure, the Tyranids have an extra-galactic origin. Whilst their vanguard organisms have been around longer than some might realise, there’s seemingly no dispute they come from elsewhere, having plodded their way across the intergalactic void in search of fresh biomass. And there’s no dispute they appear to be entirely organic, with no trace of any technology as we understand it.

It’s also established and irrefutable fact they’re highly adaptive. Novel weapons and tactics can throw the Hive Mind for a bit, but sooner or later (usually sooner) they adapt and overcome. Indeed this is what makes them so dangerous.

But how did they come to be? How does such a super organism evolve in the first place? What made it hyper adaptive? And this, Dear Reader, is where my thoughts come into play.

Capable of problem solving, presumably rapid prototyping of some kind, using whatever materials are at hand. That reminded me of something. Another legend of the 40K setting.

The STC, or Standard Template Construct Database. Reputedly a technological marvel which, at least in some instances, would take care of the assembly as well. Not just from stock blueprints, but creating novel designs and tools to suit the job required at that moment. One uses metals and minerals, the other uses organic components. But the Norn Queens and the STC Database do pretty much the same thing.

And we know that STCs were all but lost in the Dark Age of Technology, possibly as a way of cutting off production of Men of Iron, or the source of weapons capable of destroying Men of Iron.

Could this be the origin of the Hive Fleets? An organism created in a far flung galaxy as a biological STC, to provide food animals, organic chemical compounds and possibly even biological armies for war. A gribbly creature able to breakdown and recombine DNA and RNA and that into new and novel forms, each for a specific purpose or ecological niche.

This could make sense. Consider an alien creator race, who considered biological solutions preferable to manufacted solutions. Perhaps a way to terraform and populate a planet with creatures, rendering it inhabitable and able to feed a colony. Perhaps a flesh crafted example of agrarian perfection which was only later turned to war, either as an act of ecological terrorism (meat is murder, man, let’s see how you like it!), desperation against an aggressor, or other shift in that societies values.

If planned, presumably its creators would have had some kind of way to inhibit further production. Possibly enforced shortened lifespans, or other “off switch”. Which worked well until the creators were in turn wiped out (by the creatures or their foes or some other catastrophe) and so the secret of the off-switch was lost. Leaving their biological factories to run riot and hyper evolve, eventually becoming the Hive Fleets as we know them.

So. Yeah. Biological STC which one way or the other clearly got completely out of hand. Your thoughts?

We know so little of the Tyranids in the now that almost any sane theory for how they came to be works.

Their origin story is outside of the Galaxy and GW have never really explored where they came from.


Any attempt to present theory hits the wall that we just don't know enough to even make an accurate guess. You could be 100% right or wrong and there's no measuring stick so long as it results in the end-state of the Tyranids as they are now in the lore.

I really don't think there needs to be an origin story for tyranids, à la Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. My guess is that they evolved into being via the same mechanism as everything else: natural selection. Perhaps their native planet/system was subject to frequent environmental changes, which facilitated their evolution into a hyperadaptive species. Perhaps their DNA structure is more prone to random mutations: the organisms with bad mutations die out, those with useful mutations pass on their genes. Perhaps they also have short lifespans, which makes them evolve quicker via a faster shift of generations (just like bacteria and viruses vs. antibiotics).

The search for answers for everything is laudable in real life (that's the basis for scientific curiosity), but when it comes to a fictional setting, that's how you get "explanations" that no one ever asked for and everyone winds up ignoring. Let's call it Midi-chlorian Syndrome.

Tyranids don't need "intelligent design" any more than humans do. Besides, some things are scarier if left unexplained.

.

It would seem unlikely to me that the Tyranids evolved naturally. They are unsustainable in an enclosed ecosystem - they consume everything and then move on and seem to have no concept of farming or sustainability. If they evolved on a planet I don't see how they could have continued for long enough to develop interstellar travel without destroying themselves. I suppose it is possible they behaved differently in the past and adapted to a galactic slash and burn approach once no longer confined to a limited area but since their current approach is fundamental to what they are I'd say not.

They make more sense as an engineered bioweapon, one that in true grimdark fashion may have slipped their creators control and likely ended up destroying them.

One theory I'm fond of is that they were actually created by some surviving Old Ones as a galactic reset button to finally defeat chaos. By destroying all life in the galaxy they would deny the Chaos powers the fuel they need to survive and in doing so calm the warp. The Old Ones would then be free to re-seed the galaxy with life and start afresh. There isn't necessarily a lot to support that, although we do know the Old Ones had a skill for bio-engineering species. I just find the idea of the Old Ones looking at the galaxy, realising it is doomed and deciding the wipe the whole thing and start again terrifying in its impersonal logic.

 Unknown_Lifeform wrote:
It would seem unlikely to me that the Tyranids evolved naturally. They are unsustainable in an enclosed ecosystem - they consume everything and then move on and seem to have no concept of farming or sustainability.

I'd like to point out that humans evolved naturally on a planet and we only have a 'kind of' concept of sustainability. If we had faster than light travel and could hop to other worlds you can bet we could easily go down the path of just using a world till its resources are done with and then moving on (Aka Spaceballs time!).



One thing I find interesting to note with Tyranids is when they first appeared each Tyranid held its weapon in claws. A few had fused tubes and such to guns and weapons; but they were all grasped in a hand structure. Today we see a lot more fusion where two Tyranid are fused together fully. We've even seen it getting more and more with the likes of the Barbgaunt where the weapon has fully taken over the mobile host body.

 Unknown_Lifeform wrote:
It would seem unlikely to me that the Tyranids evolved naturally. They are unsustainable in an enclosed ecosystem - they consume everything and then move on and seem to have no concept of farming or sustainability. If they evolved on a planet I don't see how they could have continued for long enough to develop interstellar travel without destroying themselves.

Hang on . . .

I'm just pausing to think about how much of that set of statements applies to humans.

It doesn't even apply to any kind of life. Every lifeform that has ever evolved quickly expanded as much as it could until either it is outcompeted by newer lifeforms or the ecosystem changes and forces it to start again.

There is a reason why over 99.9% of every species that ever existed are extinct.

^Yah, goot point!

I can’t see Nids being entirely natural, but it’s not exactly something I can really support with strong evidence.

With regard to ecosystem? We’re seeing their appetite now, after who knows how many millions of years as a star-faring species, with the opportunity to devour entire planets.

That has to shift any natural checks and balances of appetite. If we did that? We’d go extinct as there’d be nothing left to eat. When Tyranids do that? It’s off to the next planet of tasty tidbits. What to us is our entire ecosystem, to the Nids is just the next meal.

That doesn’t mean they started off that way.

I doubt tyranids evolved naturally, and the argument that humans evolved naturally doesn’t really apply as in-universe the primates that humanity is descended from were created by the old ones, so in-universe humanity didn’t evolve naturally either.

AFAIK the old ones were a galactic race, not extra-galactic, I expect similar spiecies exist or existed in other galaxies. My theory is that one of them made the tyranids in the same way the old ones made the krork and eldar.

They either got out of control, or were deliberately driven or steered out of their home galaxy either once their usefulness was over or their task was complete. Either that or they overran their home galaxy and are now seeking more food.

the STC theory sounds reasonable but this being 40k reasonable is not an option so my guess would be that the Tyranids are the Space Marines made from the gene-seed of on of the lost Primarchs and were banned to the warp but managed to get out in different time and space now making their way back to terra

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Unknown_Lifeform wrote:
It would seem unlikely to me that the Tyranids evolved naturally. They are unsustainable in an enclosed ecosystem - they consume everything and then move on and seem to have no concept of farming or sustainability. If they evolved on a planet I don't see how they could have continued for long enough to develop interstellar travel without destroying themselves.

Hang on . . .
I'm just pausing to think about how much of that set of statements applies to humans.

and there is a good chance that we don't be there long enough to develop interstellar travel

as by 40k lore, the only reason why humanity made it was the guidance of the Emperor

It could be that they were naturally evolved with many of their traits, but not quite dialed up to 11 where they are now.

But Burke managed to sneak one past the quarantine to the bio-weapons guys, they did some tweaks in the lab, but something went wrong...

Honestly, I prefer we have more mysteries in 40k like the origins of the nids. It’s a big universe. We don’t need hundreds of books explaining every last detail. Leave big empty spots on the map. Here there be dragons...

Tyranids don't need to have an intelligent designer just because they're complex now. All they need to have been is a biological grey goo that absorbs and controls other organisms

Your grey goo eats something that can fly:
congrats! you now have flying goo

Your flying grey goo eats something that breeds at an insane rate:
Congrats! You now have an ecosystem swarming with flying grey goo

Your planet of flying grey goo contained a species with a Hive Mind:
Congrats, your swarms of flying grey goo can now act in concert toward a shared goal

Your planet of hive mind flying grey goo is investigated by an intelligent spacefaring species who are wondering what happened to the planet's biosphere:
Congrats: You've introduced reasoning and higher thought to your Hive Mind

and so on, and so forth. Spacefaring megafauna visits the world? Now you have hive ships and an infinite variety of lifeforms to absorb. All it takes is encountering a single species capable of manipulating genetically inherited traits (and we know these kind of things can evolve naturally - look at the Kroot!) and your hive mind can now custom-make creatures to suit its purposes

None of this requires, or even suggests a need for an artificial organism. You just repeat the process of absorption and adaptation a billion times and your species now has the ability to engineer its own offspring for specific tasks. Even bees can manipulate the characteristics of larvae to make what the hive requires, engineering whole lifeforms is just that on a macro scale, and Tyranids have been at this for an inconceivably long time, through an unknowable number of planets. if anything, them being an engineered race is the easy option

One of my personal theory it's some kind of side effects of the War in Heaven.

Sone of the last Old Ones escapes beyond the galaxy while being seriously injured. It starts a self preserve system in a pinch to heal/cure/regenerate or renewn their numers but dies before being able to properly set it. (some kind of Biological Vonn Neuman probe)

The Tyranids thus beging to gather Biomass to *fix* the Old ones who are dead (or the Nyds escape from their given purpose) so they remain stuck in gather all Biomass non stop while being unable to *finish* their mission.

This is also the reason why the The Silent King goes beyond the galaxy just to finish the last remaining Old Ones who made it away but is forced to return after witness the Tyranid coming to this Galaxy.

Charax wrote:
Tyranids don't need to have an intelligent designer just because they're complex now. All they need to have been is a biological grey goo that absorbs and controls other organisms

Your grey goo eats something that can fly:
congrats! you now have flying goo

Your flying grey goo eats something that breeds at an insane rate:
Congrats! You now have an ecosystem swarming with flying grey goo

Your planet of flying grey goo contained a species with a Hive Mind:
Congrats, your swarms of flying grey goo can now act in concert toward a shared goal

Your planet of hive mind flying grey goo is investigated by an intelligent spacefaring species who are wondering what happened to the planet's biosphere:
Congrats: You've introduced reasoning and higher thought to your Hive Mind

and so on, and so forth. Spacefaring megafauna visits the world? Now you have hive ships and an infinite variety of lifeforms to absorb. All it takes is encountering a single species capable of manipulating genetically inherited traits (and we know these kind of things can evolve naturally - look at the Kroot!) and your hive mind can now custom-make creatures to suit its purposes

None of this requires, or even suggests a need for an artificial organism. You just repeat the process of absorption and adaptation a billion times and your species now has the ability to engineer its own offspring for specific tasks. Even bees can manipulate the characteristics of larvae to make what the hive requires, engineering whole lifeforms is just that on a macro scale, and Tyranids have been at this for an inconceivably long time, through an unknowable number of planets. if anything, them being an engineered race is the easy option

This.

No conspiracy theories or convoluted explanations necessary. Plus it furthers the insignificance of humanity and everything within the Milky Way galaxy. None of the personal dramas, grievances, hatreds, and plans of the other factions mean anything against this force of nature that renders all these other motivations meaningless, next to its primal drive of eat, survive, grow, reproduce.

I’d like to find out that the kids were the revenge of some group like the diasporex.

There’s been a number of posts from people trying to obtain some evidence that there is goodness in the Imperium or some people living an idyllic life but the primarchs killed all the good humans societies during their conquest of the galaxy. Now the primarchs are coming back to 40K it’s would be nice for the. To be reminded of that.

Personnaly, I'll stick with nids being natural.

I like that the universe lets room for conspiracy theories and stuff, as that really fleshes it out, but in the end, I love the idea that this is a fictional universe so messed up something like the Tyranids can evolve in it and come ruin your lawn just because they consider you a big biomasse jambon-beurre sandwich.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
How do!

A thought or series of thoughts which have been rattling around my pea sized brain for a few days now, and I think I’ve got them ordered enough to present them as a thread. And as the title suggests, they’ve been on the possible origins of the Tyranid Menace. But whilst new to me, I’m not gonna pretend they’re necessarily entirely new.

As we know for sure, the Tyranids have an extra-galactic origin. Whilst their vanguard organisms have been around longer than some might realise, there’s seemingly no dispute they come from elsewhere, having plodded their way across the intergalactic void in search of fresh biomass. And there’s no dispute they appear to be entirely organic, with no trace of any technology as we understand it.

It’s also established and irrefutable fact they’re highly adaptive. Novel weapons and tactics can throw the Hive Mind for a bit, but sooner or later (usually sooner) they adapt and overcome. Indeed this is what makes them so dangerous.

But how did they come to be? How does such a super organism evolve in the first place? What made it hyper adaptive? And this, Dear Reader, is where my thoughts come into play.

Capable of problem solving, presumably rapid prototyping of some kind, using whatever materials are at hand. That reminded me of something. Another legend of the 40K setting.

The STC, or Standard Template Construct Database. Reputedly a technological marvel which, at least in some instances, would take care of the assembly as well. Not just from stock blueprints, but creating novel designs and tools to suit the job required at that moment. One uses metals and minerals, the other uses organic components. But the Norn Queens and the STC Database do pretty much the same thing.

And we know that STCs were all but lost in the Dark Age of Technology, possibly as a way of cutting off production of Men of Iron, or the source of weapons capable of destroying Men of Iron.

Could this be the origin of the Hive Fleets? An organism created in a far flung galaxy as a biological STC, to provide food animals, organic chemical compounds and possibly even biological armies for war. A gribbly creature able to breakdown and recombine DNA and RNA and that into new and novel forms, each for a specific purpose or ecological niche.

This could make sense. Consider an alien creator race, who considered biological solutions preferable to manufacted solutions. Perhaps a way to terraform and populate a planet with creatures, rendering it inhabitable and able to feed a colony. Perhaps a flesh crafted example of agrarian perfection which was only later turned to war, either as an act of ecological terrorism (meat is murder, man, let’s see how you like it!), desperation against an aggressor, or other shift in that societies values.

If planned, presumably its creators would have had some kind of way to inhibit further production. Possibly enforced shortened lifespans, or other “off switch”. Which worked well until the creators were in turn wiped out (by the creatures or their foes or some other catastrophe) and so the secret of the off-switch was lost. Leaving their biological factories to run riot and hyper evolve, eventually becoming the Hive Fleets as we know them.

So. Yeah. Biological STC which one way or the other clearly got completely out of hand. Your thoughts?

Well there's two types of Origin. There's the Alien movie ripoff origin that's more technical than fictional. And hey, as long as we're doing it, lets fold in a little Star Trek Borg, and some Robotech Masters in: A bunch of super smart humanoids from beyond the void created the Tyrannids to be their Zentraedi soldiers, and in a borg-like manner, collect more biometric data for the far off Masters who actually are The Hive Mind.

I've always been of the opinion that they are sort of the Terminator/Skynet trope. An AI created the perfect superweapon, that then became self aware, and then turned on it's creator, and is now running around unstoppably across the galaxy trying to achieve a goal it was created for, but can never truly achieve now. It's a pretty common trope in Sci-Fi. The Fungus in Interstellar Pig, the Xenomorph from Alien, the terminator from well, Terminator. It's a common trope because it's one of man kinds greatest fears since the creating of the nuclear bomb. We now possess the power not only to destroy ourselves, but all live as we know it, entirely, on our planet. That power is represented as uncontrolled knowledge. Left unchecked, the desire to use it will not only destroy us, but everything. Like I said. Common fear trope made manifest in Sci-fi.

Na, they just space bugs that want to nom nom nom.

Doc, I would check out the books by Adrian Tchaikovsky; Children of Time and Children of Ruin specifically.

Not only are these bloody brilliant books in their own right (think they have won the Arthur C Clarke awards and the like), but Tchaikovsky is apparently an acquaintance of Aaron Dembski-Bowden, and he has now (I am not sure if as a result of this) written some BL short fiction and also the (again, bloody brilliant) Day of Ascension for Black Library - which had a very original spin on Genestealer cults.
Relating to Children of Ruin, I wonder if thoughts of Tyranids (and their genesis) prompted the route he took with Children of Ruin - and how that sort of organism might first originate and develop. There are some really cool ideas in there, which I won't give away here at risk of spoiling the story.

However if you have arachnophobia I would not recommend

Iracundus wrote:

Charax wrote:
Tyranids don't need to have an intelligent designer just because they're complex now. All they need to have been is a biological grey goo that absorbs and controls other organisms

Your grey goo eats something that can fly:
congrats! you now have flying goo

Your flying grey goo eats something that breeds at an insane rate:
Congrats! You now have an ecosystem swarming with flying grey goo

Your planet of flying grey goo contained a species with a Hive Mind:
Congrats, your swarms of flying grey goo can now act in concert toward a shared goal

Your planet of hive mind flying grey goo is investigated by an intelligent spacefaring species who are wondering what happened to the planet's biosphere:
Congrats: You've introduced reasoning and higher thought to your Hive Mind

and so on, and so forth. Spacefaring megafauna visits the world? Now you have hive ships and an infinite variety of lifeforms to absorb. All it takes is encountering a single species capable of manipulating genetically inherited traits (and we know these kind of things can evolve naturally - look at the Kroot!) and your hive mind can now custom-make creatures to suit its purposes

None of this requires, or even suggests a need for an artificial organism. You just repeat the process of absorption and adaptation a billion times and your species now has the ability to engineer its own offspring for specific tasks. Even bees can manipulate the characteristics of larvae to make what the hive requires, engineering whole lifeforms is just that on a macro scale, and Tyranids have been at this for an inconceivably long time, through an unknowable number of planets. if anything, them being an engineered race is the easy option

This.

No conspiracy theories or convoluted explanations necessary. Plus it furthers the insignificance of humanity and everything within the Milky Way galaxy. None of the personal dramas, grievances, hatreds, and plans of the other factions mean anything against this force of nature that renders all these other motivations meaningless, next to its primal drive of eat, survive, grow, reproduce.

thirded.

It is IMO far more menacing and soul destroying for the other species if this all consuming destroyer is just a naturally evolved species, than if it was created. Too much destiny-plot in fiction makes things boring.


Complexity evolves naturally. There are organisms on earth that have very complex life cycles, or specialised ones that rely on specific other organisms to function.

Bacteria send out plasmids with genes in them that can be picked up by other bacteria. They spread genes laterally, even across species.


On earth, the immune system is one of the key limiters. If you evolve genes that give you immune cells that are able to selectively accept non self, you start the process of incorporating other tissues and genes into you.

Examples where this happened before immune systems are mitochondria and chloroplasts, which are bacteria that were subsumed by our protist-like ancestors and have continued on in symbiotic relationship for hundreds of millions of years.


A modern example of a complex cell that can be passed from one organism to another is the tasmanian devil facial tumour. The cells are passed to the face of another devil and they start to grow and propagate, despite not being self. This means that no tumour tissue in any devil is actually genetically the same as the host its in, it's all tissue from the ancestral devil that first got the tumour, propagating through the bodies of every devil that passes it on.

This intersection of biological concepts makes it entirely possible (if unlikely) that tyranids could evolve.


Imagine a devil facial tumour-like disease that affects the immune system and is passed along until all organisms possess it, and you've got proto tyranids.

I reckon they are a weapon of the old ones gone wrong.

The old ones weapons all have something in common.

Inherent psychic power
built in genetic knowledge and ability to "respawn" (Eldar lost this ability)
ability to bring their own ecosystem with them

With the Orks especially they are very similar to the Tyranids when in sufficient numbers.

Shadow in the warp
Heavy resistance to Demons
Genetic memory
ability to come back from the dead (Ghazghull novel with Makari)
Brings its own exo system to "orkiform" the planet
Gestalt psychic field linking all orks

like when you look at the work of an architect you can see in their work things that come up often that suits their thinking and style even if it manifests in a different manner, this is what I see when I look at Nids, Orks, Eldar and even humans though in the case of humans I would say they deviated more than the rest due to Necron tech and the dreams of the Dragon heavily impacting their evolution.

Personally I don't want them to be anything to do with the "Old Ones". It just makes so much related to them. It's nice to have something that isn't/wasn't part of their great plan or a race they tried to kill off or such. Something just from totally outside of everything that its fully alien.

Yep, as much as it has been rumoured to be an old ones' creation, that'd be sad, too much focus on them. Let the nids bé tgheir own master

Let the 'nids remain a mystery IMO. They could be natural, they could have been created by the Old Ones, they could have been created by someone else. Who knows?

I hope it is never stated as closing down these kind of mysteries in 40k tends to cheapen the lore rather than enrich it. See, the entire HH book series which now boils down to all these supposedly-hyper-intelligent super beings having the social intelligence of immature schoolkids, rather than being an epic event wreathed in mystery and legend.

I've always considered them to be a horrific naturally evolved species.

Agree with keeping it a mystery, better for the setting and the players (who can choose head canon) that way.

There is no "naturally evolved Species" like the Nids. It would be impossible by the laws of evolution. It would be like saying a "Dark Sun" or a "Dry Puddle". Nothing would "Evolve to naturally destroy itself. It's fairly clear the nids are a weapon gone amuck. The End state of evolution is the best possible off spring, while co-existing in the natural order of it's ecosystem. The end state of the hive mind fleets is the total destruction of all not life not part of itself, as food. It's kind of a mockery of the Necrons. Nids are to Necrons what Dark Eldar are to Eldar. A Pervsion of the same idea, dialed to 11, in the complete opposite direction.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
There is no "naturally evolved Species" like the Nids. It would be impossible by the laws of evolution. It would be like saying a "Dark Sun" or a "Dry Puddle". Nothing would "Evolve to naturally destroy itself. It's fairly clear the nids are a weapon gone amuck. The End state of evolution is the best possible off spring, while co-existing in the natural order of it's ecosystem. The end state of the hive mind fleets is the total destruction of all not life not part of itself, as food. It's kind of a mockery of the Necrons. Nids are to Necrons what Dark Eldar are to Eldar. A Pervsion of the same idea, dialed to 11, in the complete opposite direction.

No?

Evolution is not a positive force. Unintelligent species don't go "We'd be better off with spines, let's evolve spines."
It's a negative force-if you don't have spines, you die, so only those with spines survive.

 JNAProductions wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
There is no "naturally evolved Species" like the Nids. It would be impossible by the laws of evolution. It would be like saying a "Dark Sun" or a "Dry Puddle". Nothing would "Evolve to naturally destroy itself. It's fairly clear the nids are a weapon gone amuck. The End state of evolution is the best possible off spring, while co-existing in the natural order of it's ecosystem. The end state of the hive mind fleets is the total destruction of all not life not part of itself, as food. It's kind of a mockery of the Necrons. Nids are to Necrons what Dark Eldar are to Eldar. A Pervsion of the same idea, dialed to 11, in the complete opposite direction.

No?

Evolution is not a positive force. Unintelligent species don't go "We'd be better off with spines, let's evolve spines."
It's a negative force-if you don't have spines, you die, so only those with spines survive.

Yes, evolution is a a probability system that describes the frequency of genes in populations over time.

The presence or absence of those genes being based entirely on whether they are passed to descendent generations. There are a myriad of ways they might not be, but death is the most common.

Evolution is basically the pattern of death across generations.


The idea of evolution as having a motive is one of the most pernicious in society and forms the basis for most strawman arguments against it. Evolution is effectively a mathematical model of gene frequencies in populations..

At any one time an organism's genetics are more or less compatible with its situation, but environmental change, the co evolution of competitors/predators, all shift and change frequency, making their particular lottery numbers more or less closer to winning (in this context, winning in evolution is surviving long enough to pass on the genes that allowed you to survive long enough). But there is no end state, no direction. There is only what genes you have now and what genes increase your survival and reproduction, which in turn increases the frequency of those genes in the population, until environmental change, or competitor/predator gene change occur and those numbers that were doing so well are no longer doing well.

An organism's inability to destroy their environment has nothing to do with their desire or need, and everything to do with the wider ecosystem and environment also changing in realtime. This is why when we discuss ecosystems we talk about them as interconnected webs. Not because they have any intrinsic relationship to one another, but because all their actions are connected to consequences and outcomes for one another simply by being in proximity.

There are plenty of studies on how an organism can affect its environment when external pressures are reduced.

The Soay Sheep of St Kilda on Hirta for example, are an example of a closed system with no external factors to the species and a stable environment. We see here that their population expands and crashes through over population and starvation. The pattern shows that they are getting smaller, simply by dint of the larger hungrier ones dying of starvation and taking their genes with them.

This is the underpinning concept behind why invasive species are problematic. They have not evolved in the ecosystem and are thus not part of the web. They can be highly destructive because nothing has evolved alongside them, as competition or predator.

In long enough timescales, all species become invasive by migration, continental drift, or sea level change. But they don't normally do it as suddenly and quickly as human introduction. It happens gradually over time and they and the native species will either equilibrate, change, or go extinct.


You also only have to look at humanity to see an organism that evolved a set of genes that force multiplied its impacts on the environment beyond the interconnected web of cause and effect the rest of the environment exists in. We are a product of evolution, our genes and our behaviours have all been selected by the pressures of survival and reproduction. We are doing to our world in micro what the tyranids do to worlds in Macro.