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Assuming that the hive mind is a singular organism, wouldn't some tyranids need to be photosynthetic to serve as permanent conduits for the hive in the areas of galaxies where all the biomass has been consumed? This is my main question.

Secondary question- would tyranids ever decide to create photosynthetic ground organisms? I could definately see genestealers being like this in a very sparcely populated planet with low biomass to grow suitable sized organisms to eat.

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
Assuming that the hive mind is a singular organism, wouldn't some tyranids need to be photosynthetic to serve as permanent conduits for the hive in the areas of galaxies where all the biomass has been consumed? This is my main question.

Secondary question- would tyranids ever decide to create photosynthetic ground organisms? I could definately see genestealers being like this in a very sparcely populated planet with low biomass to grow suitable sized organisms to eat.

I know little of biology, but seems to me that you could not sustain a very big or very active creature on photosynthesis alone. Or even a very small one.

Anyway, I don't think Nids leave anything behind once they've harvested all the biomass they can, so there wouldn't be the need. Nids probably do use photosynthesis in one way or another, just not to keep alive those that remain behind.

Here is a piece on photosynthesizing cows.

http://what-if.xkcd.com/17/

Tl; dr -its better to eat other things than to try and photosynthesize.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
Assuming that the hive mind is a singular organism, wouldn't some tyranids need to be photosynthetic to serve as permanent conduits for the hive in the areas of galaxies where all the biomass has been consumed? This is my main question.

Secondary question- would tyranids ever decide to create photosynthetic ground organisms? I could definately see genestealers being like this in a very sparcely populated planet with low biomass to grow suitable sized organisms to eat.

I know little of biology, but seems to me that you could not sustain a very big or very active creature on photosynthesis alone. Or even a very small one.

Anyway, I don't think Nids leave anything behind once they've harvested all the biomass they can, so there wouldn't be the need. Nids probably do use photosynthesis in one way or another, just not to keep alive those that remain behind.

So the tyranids expand in a ring like fasion?

That statement makes no sense to me. Also photosynthesis is just a means to get energy. In space where there is no atmosphere the nids would only be using it to process chemicals they already have. Much easier to use anaerobic bacteria or similar. Also also unless the nids were really rather close to a star they wouldn't get much out of it anyway, what with electromagnetic energy like light reducing in intensity in relation to distance to the power 4.

Sorry, I just don't think its a good idea

Photosynthesis doesn't really give enough energy for such active creatures as Tyranids.

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:


So the tyranids expand in a ring like fasion?

Not really, because they tend to avoid areas that are devoid of enough biomass to warrant the invasion, and those few eco-system that would be to hard to harvest.

You have to keep in mind that the nids have just ended a ridiculously long trip across the galaxies, and thus are more fragile then ever because each swarm have used an enornous amount of biomass getting here.

Maybe once they have (hypothetically) devoured the Astronomican, then they would start expanding in ring, devouring every little eco-system they have deemed wasn't worth it when they were more fragile, and then proceed to another inter-galactic trip, but for the moment they are pretty much travelling in a spear formation.

And get tricked in to entering one of the most dangerous areas for them to enter-- Ork-held space near the core, which is grinding them up and spitting them out.

People need to realize that no one in the game is infallible-- no one in the Imperium is, no one in Chaos is, and certainly the hive mind isn't.

 Melissia wrote:
And get tricked in to entering one of the most dangerous areas for them to enter-- Ork-held space near the core, which is grinding them up and spitting them out.

People need to realize that no one in the game is infallible-- no one in the Imperium is, no one in Chaos is, and certainly the hive mind isn't.

The latest Nid codex got that re-written so that it's only one tendril of Leviathan that goes into Octarius - Tendril Ghorala. It loses (badly) the space battle, with only one bio-ship surviving and crashing on a planet. Ghorala then wises up and adopt the same assassination method the Imperium seems to prefer when dealing with orks, that is, kill the bosses and attack when the Whaag turns on itself. The Tendril then rebuilt it's own forces and continued to plunge through Octarius.

The Orkish warlike culture is itself an advantage to Ghorala now. The prospect of a great fight attracts more and more Orks, which, when properly dealt with by generous application of Lictors to Boss, translate into more and more bio-mass.

It ends by saying that only by uniting against the Nids can the various civilisations of the galaxy hope to survive. Of course, cue mandatory remark about in-codex bias.

But yeah, no race is infallible. Nids don't have it auto-won, in fact they are more vulnerable now then ever. But I don't think Orks are the answer to Nids. Necrons are.

Orks only provide biomass if the Tyranids win a quick fight. If there's a stalemate, a long war, a loss, etc, they're at a disadvantage. The entire Tyranid fighting style is based off of quick, overwhelming strikes, because whenever they get bogged down they suffer and aren't able to recuperate biomass anywhere near as fast.

 Melissia wrote:
Orks only provide biomass if the Tyranids win a quick fight. If there's a stalemate, a long war, a loss, etc, they're at a disadvantage. The entire Tyranid fighting style is based off of quick, overwhelming strikes, because whenever they get bogged down they suffer and aren't able to recuperate biomass anywhere near as fast.

More or less, they still recuperate the biomass of their dead, so it's not as if they absolutely need to win by rushing. They can also win on the biomass front if the Orks beat them but don't bother to recuperate their own dead, secure the charnel ground and destroy the dissolution pit. Nids can actually come on top of a loss, if their enemy don't bother with securing the remains on the battlefield. The Hive Mind only has to keep loads of Rippers in reserve, and once the enemy has left the battlefield, send them to eat everything.

A bright enemy will torch the remains of everything left dead on the battlefield, and pursue immediatly to make sure the Hive doesn't have the time to harvest any biomass and replenish the ranks. A brighter enemy will avoid any confrontation (if possible) and do everything to assassinate the big Nids (Fexes, Tyrants & Dominatrix) and will (again) torch their remains.

The fact that a single planet (admittedly crawling with Orks) was sufficient to fuel the entire Octarius war effort is proof that Nids can overcome even catastrophic losses (losing an entire tendril minus one ship).

By ring like fasion, i mean intergalactically, because after they take all the biomass, they can no longer live there(the point of origin). And for photosynthesis, i mean relays to keep the hive mind linked together in space, in order to avoid having to deal with the ring like deployment plan or to add resiliency to the hive mind synapse network.

I hate people bringing up reinforcements being "More biomass".
They strip the entire worlds oceans, atmosphere and landmass down to bare rock, how big an army do they think is needed to be equal to an entire planet.

Quite bit bigger considering how much chemical energy they have to use up just getting from point A to point B.

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
By ring like fasion, i mean intergalactically, because after they take all the biomass, they can no longer live there(the point of origin). And for photosynthesis, i mean relays to keep the hive mind linked together in space, in order to avoid having to deal with the ring like deployment plan or to add resiliency to the hive mind synapse network.

Nope, still not understanding what you are trying to ask. Do you mean photosynthesizing, so they can make energy from sunlight, or do you mean photosensitive so they can communicate using light? (Or something else entirely?)

If there is no energy from biomass in an area, they need to photosynthesise in order to keep from starving, so that the tyranids can survive to serve as a mental link to the rest of the hive.

Ivan Issaccs wrote:
I hate people bringing up reinforcements being "More biomass".
They strip the entire worlds oceans, atmosphere and landmass down to bare rock, how big an army do they think is needed to be equal to an entire planet.

Not sure what you mean. Are you saying that Nids are taking things too far and build armies too large? Because they are on a pan-galactic devouring spree, they clearly don't have a concept of restraint. Anyway, it doesn't matter, because they eat their own swarms before moving to another feeding ground.

Or did you mean something else?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
If there is no energy from biomass in an area, they need to photosynthesise in order to keep from starving, so that the tyranids can survive to serve as a mental link to the rest of the hive.

Well, the nature of the link to the Hive Mind is weird, mostly because GW doesn't know the meaning of the terms it uses when describing it. They say it's a gestalt consciousness, meaning that it's purely the result of the existence of the sum of all Nids, and that this result takes on 'emerging properties' none of the lesser entities had. But then, the whole Node thing doesn't make sense.

I don't think it's ever said that being linked to the Hive Mind takes energy in any form. If Nids are in an area that doesn't have any ressources, they'll set course for somewhere else, and hibernate until they get there. Possibly die from starvation while on route.

Well, since all the tyranids are moving away from their point of origin, they are going to need to leave behind nodes in order to more efficently communicate with the other side(diameter vs circumference) Since all energy sources are exhausted, photosynthesis is the only answer.

Unfortunately, photosynthesis isn't a magic "power from sunlight and everything's good" kind of thing.

It's just a method of producing organic matter (hey, biomass isn't a bad term!), from inorganic molecules. It needs lots of carbon (from CO2 in the atmosphere), as well as things like nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (like the stuff in fertiliser) all mixed together with the sunlight producing the juice to get it going.

So, if the swarm has stripped all the useful stuff from a planet, the sunlight isn't going to produce much. As far as energy for moving and stuff... it would be like trying to run a car off a watch battery.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

Ivan Issaccs wrote:
I hate people bringing up reinforcements being "More biomass".
They strip the entire worlds oceans, atmosphere and landmass down to bare rock, how big an army do they think is needed to be equal to an entire planet.

Not sure what you mean. Are you saying that Nids are taking things too far and build armies too large? Because they are on a pan-galactic devouring spree, they clearly don't have a concept of restraint. Anyway, it doesn't matter, because they eat their own swarms before moving to another feeding ground.

Or did you mean something else?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
If there is no energy from biomass in an area, they need to photosynthesise in order to keep from starving, so that the tyranids can survive to serve as a mental link to the rest of the hive.

Well, the nature of the link to the Hive Mind is weird, mostly because GW doesn't know the meaning of the terms it uses when describing it. They say it's a gestalt consciousness, meaning that it's purely the result of the existence of the sum of all Nids, and that this result takes on 'emerging properties' none of the lesser entities had. But then, the whole Node thing doesn't make sense.

I don't think it's ever said that being linked to the Hive Mind takes energy in any form. If Nids are in an area that doesn't have any ressources, they'll set course for somewhere else, and hibernate until they get there. Possibly die from starvation while on route.

I mean that ten billion orks are going to be a mere fraction of the biomass on any habitable world. Reinforcements are just going to slow down the nids eating the bigger meal of the an entire damn planet.

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
Well, since all the tyranids are moving away from their point of origin, they are going to need to leave behind nodes in order to more efficently communicate with the other side(diameter vs circumference) Since all energy sources are exhausted, photosynthesis is the only answer.

They don't leave anything behind, as far as I can tell. It's Om nom nom everything, then find another something else to Om nom nom.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ivan Issaccs wrote:

I mean that ten billion orks are going to be a mere fraction of the biomass on any habitable world. Reinforcements are just going to slow down the nids eating the bigger meal of the an entire damn planet.

Depends on the planet, really. I mean, I know very little about biology, but seems to me that 10 billion Orks would be a hell of a lot of biomass. And if they can beat them here, it saves them the effort of having to go there. Nids are most vulnerable in space, so the most opposition they can take on the ground, the better it is.

 Chillreaper wrote:
Unfortunately, photosynthesis isn't a magic "power from sunlight and everything's good" kind of thing.

It's just a method of producing organic matter (hey, biomass isn't a bad term!), from inorganic molecules. It needs lots of carbon (from CO2 in the atmosphere), as well as things like nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (like the stuff in fertiliser) all mixed together with the sunlight producing the juice to get it going.

So, if the swarm has stripped all the useful stuff from a planet, the sunlight isn't going to produce much. As far as energy for moving and stuff... it would be like trying to run a car off a watch battery.

Well, they could probably make a self contained ecosystem nid for that to work, leaving it in space, and use it to reduce hive mind lag time from all around, because if the hive is truly a single organism, it needs some way of communicating, and having self contained ecosystems to fuction as nodes isn't a very bad idea, because it would reduce lag time.

It's not moving, its functioning as a floating ball of tyranid matter that decreases circuit size.

Ok, here is a metaphor. You have a ring circuit, that is expanding out at a constant rate. (tyranids) Does it take longer for energy to go through the whole circumference of the ring and back again(communicating in the hive mind on an intergalactic scale) or on a wire to go through the center?(the photosynthetic self contained ecosystem nids who don't do anything except function as the "wire")

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
Well, since all the tyranids are moving away from their point of origin, they are going to need to leave behind nodes in order to more efficently communicate with the other side(diameter vs circumference) Since all energy sources are exhausted, photosynthesis is the only answer.

They don't leave anything behind, as far as I can tell. It's Om nom nom everything, then find another something else to Om nom nom.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ivan Issaccs wrote:

I mean that ten billion orks are going to be a mere fraction of the biomass on any habitable world. Reinforcements are just going to slow down the nids eating the bigger meal of the an entire damn planet.

Depends on the planet, really. I mean, I know very little about biology, but seems to me that 10 billion Orks would be a hell of a lot of biomass. And if they can beat them here, it saves them the effort of having to go there. Nids are most vulnerable in space, so the most opposition they can take on the ground, the better it is.

A fair amount yes, but not anything compared to a planet.

Remember that the nids don't just eat plants and animals, they also eat up all the soil, water, and gas on the planet. They literally eat it down to bedrock. All of that stuff can be turned into biomass too.


So comparitivly, a bunch of orks arn't a whole lot of biomass.

Plus the Nids won't always be able to collect the dead, especially if the dead are dying in an active warzone. They would actually have to keep the front line moving forward to access the dead bodies.

Grey Templar wrote:

Remember that the nids don't just eat plants and animals, they also eat up all the soil, water, and gas on the planet. They literally eat it down to bedrock. All of that stuff can be turned into biomass too.


So comparitivly, a bunch of orks arn't a whole lot of biomass.

Plus the Nids won't always be able to collect the dead, especially if the dead are dying in an active warzone. They would actually have to keep the front line moving forward to access the dead bodies.

I imagine that meaningful consumption of the biosphere, e.g. soil, gas, oceans etc is a lot harder to do when there is an active war going on. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that the brood nests, spawning grounds etc that start growing almost from the moment the Tyranids first make planetfall start leaching from the planet right away and slowly churn out new bioforms, but it's certainly not on the scale of what comes afterwards. A ready supply of meat and plant matter is likely already "mostly cooked" so to speak, and easier to work with.

There's actually an interesting look at some of this in one of the Ciaphas Cain novels of all places; the infiltration swarms make it a priority to attack and consume a local population of giant dinosaurs as a ready-to-use source of biomass that could quickly turn the war in their favour. The Guard make it a top priority to stop the swarm from seizing those dinosaurs (and it comes complete with a wonderfully described mental image of a hundred metre tall Diplodocid being completely covered by thousands of Hormagaunts, reducing it to jelly in moments).

So going back to the Tyranid vs Ork debate, I suspect that those 10 billion Ork bodies would be pretty valuable in the short term. On the bright side for the Tyranids, the Orks seem like one of the less likely races to secure the charnel house once a battle is over (loot it and move on). The Tyranids would if anything quickly learn that they could engage the Orks in a costly battle for both sides, lure the Orks away after the Orks "win" and then have pre-placed Rippers devour the whole place. In fact, that's exactly what they did on Ghorala... and it worked perfectly.

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
Well, since all the tyranids are moving away from their point of origin, they are going to need to leave behind nodes in order to more efficently communicate with the other side(diameter vs circumference) Since all energy sources are exhausted, photosynthesis is the only answer.

No, they don't. There's nothing behind them to communicate with, and the individual organisms of a given Hive Fleet share a universal consciousness, that's what the Hive Mind is. Most of the bugs are virtually mindless anyway, they have no need to communicate with anything or anyone. The Synapse Creatures will share battlefield data with the Hive Mind, so that successive waves can adapt new tactics to succeed where previous waves failed. Once they've destroyed a planet, though, any bug left on the ground dives into a digestion pool to get sucked up into a Hive Ship. When 2 different Hive Fleets meet, they attempt to consume one another, building a stronger single fleet out of the remains of the 2.

 Psienesis wrote:

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
Well, since all the tyranids are moving away from their point of origin, they are going to need to leave behind nodes in order to more efficently communicate with the other side(diameter vs circumference) Since all energy sources are exhausted, photosynthesis is the only answer.

No, they don't. There's nothing behind them to communicate with, and the individual organisms of a given Hive Fleet share a universal consciousness, that's what the Hive Mind is. Most of the bugs are virtually mindless anyway, they have no need to communicate with anything or anyone. The Synapse Creatures will share battlefield data with the Hive Mind, so that successive waves can adapt new tactics to succeed where previous waves failed. Once they've destroyed a planet, though, any bug left on the ground dives into a digestion pool to get sucked up into a Hive Ship. When 2 different Hive Fleets meet, they attempt to consume one another, building a stronger single fleet out of the remains of the 2.

That might well be the simplest and "best" explanation for "why Tyranids fight Tyranids" that I've ever seen you know. They fight to test themselves to the extreme, knowing that the bulk of the losses are going to be recovered anyway and used to make something stronger (which hopefully out-weighs the lost biomass).

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
Depends on the planet, really. I mean, I know very little about biology, but seems to me that 10 billion Orks would be a hell of a lot of biomass. And if they can beat them here, it saves them the effort of having to go there. Nids are most vulnerable in space, so the most opposition they can take on the ground, the better it is.

Not quite. Tyranids also use a ton more energy on planet than off. After all, they have to actually get all that biomass off planet-- and that means getting the equivalent of the biomass of 10 billion orks (minus the energy it takes to process them, which probably cuts the effective energy down by at least a fifth of its nominal value) to the escape velocity of at least 11.2 kilometers/second. It takes exponentially more energy to accelerate a large mass than a small one.

It's the problem that one has with very, very large warships and things like the Death Star-- moving them is exceedingly more expensive in terms of energy spent than moving a frigate or fighter, resulting in the need to have exponentially larger power supplies. And of course, it takes the same amount of energy to DECELERATE as it does to accelerate.

Eventually, once you get to a certain point in mass, you have to dedicate more energy to move it than is actually feasible in its design.

Though the Tyranids get around this, to an extent, through a very large-scale version of peristalsis. Getting the biomass off the planet is more an aspect of fluid dynamics than it is acceleration. They don't need to achieve escape velocity, simple flex it up a tube to a waiting bio-ship.

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:

 Chillreaper wrote:
Unfortunately, photosynthesis isn't a magic "power from sunlight and everything's good" kind of thing.

It's just a method of producing organic matter (hey, biomass isn't a bad term!), from inorganic molecules. It needs lots of carbon (from CO2 in the atmosphere), as well as things like nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (like the stuff in fertiliser) all mixed together with the sunlight producing the juice to get it going.

So, if the swarm has stripped all the useful stuff from a planet, the sunlight isn't going to produce much. As far as energy for moving and stuff... it would be like trying to run a car off a watch battery.

Well, they could probably make a self contained ecosystem nid for that to work, leaving it in space, and use it to reduce hive mind lag time from all around, because if the hive is truly a single organism, it needs some way of communicating, and having self contained ecosystems to fuction as nodes isn't a very bad idea, because it would reduce lag time.

It's not moving, its functioning as a floating ball of tyranid matter that decreases circuit size.

Ok, here is a metaphor. You have a ring circuit, that is expanding out at a constant rate. (tyranids) Does it take longer for energy to go through the whole circumference of the ring and back again(communicating in the hive mind on an intergalactic scale) or on a wire to go through the center?(the photosynthetic self contained ecosystem nids who don't do anything except function as the "wire")

Your entire idea only makes sense if they expand in more than one direction at once. Nothing written has ever suggested that.

We have no idea how the Nids operate outside of this galaxy because we were not there. It more efficiant to beleive they finish a galaxy, and the Hive Mind points somewhere and yells next. All of the hive fleets make for the new galaxy at their own pace (and starting distance since they are spread out). This would explain why new fleets are still reaching our galaxy.

Leaving Nodes and relays behind is counter to EVERYTHING the Nids are. They don't operate the way anyone else does. They are a locust swarm that consumes, and moves on.