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So, I'm making a genestealer cult. Cheers all around, I know.

Anyway, my 40k fluff-fu isn't what it could be, even with Lexicanum tutelage. This is what I've got sketched out:

Sometime after the close of the Great Crusade, a space hulk infested with genestealers crashes on a habitable planet. Without local fauna that can support their life cycle, the 'stealers go into hibernation.
Later, the planet is colonized by the Imperium. It's a livable world with just enough natural resources to attract settlers, but on the edge of livable. (That is to say, it's worth enough to plop down some colonists and defenses, but not enough to care about in the grand scheme of things.)
At some point, the local populace discovers the space hulk; genestealers implant their gene-seed, and we're off to the races.
Coincidentally (?!??!?!?), about the same time that the genestealers are infecting locals, the governor begins to increase quotas for resource-harvesting.

Some details about the planet:
- Due to the planet's slow axial rotation, any given point is in darkness for 85% of the solar year; it's then in total sunlight for 15% of the year, resulting in an annual explosion/blooming of life.
- Its largest natural predators are about the size of foxes, and they're not particularly intelligent.

On the cult:
- The cult positions itself as a "back to the land" or "Mother Nature" group. It uses genestealer attacks strategically – that is, it tries to connect the sudden appearance of a mysterious predator to recent increases of harvest quotas. ("We're disturbing the natural order!")
- The cult's a Chaos cult, as well; I'm harking back to the original genestealer cults, and I wanted an excuse to use beastmen. Fluff-wise, it's Chaos undivided; Khorne is nature red in tooth and claw, Slaanesh is a fertility idol; Tzeentch is emblematic of the planet's brief, but productive spring; and Nurgle is representative of the lengthy night.
- Using its economic connections and some opportune genestealer attacks, the cult's got some Astra Militarum weapons and gear at its disposal; my army would represent its core cadres, given the best of the gear the cult has on hand.
- I'll be using tyranids and Astra Militarum codices (pref. as unbound, mostly to avoid the morale problems, but following force orgs in case my opponents aren't down).

Most problematic fluff:
- I really want to use melee 'fexes because carnifexes, feth yeah. I want to use them as mutated, barely controlled F5 / "pure" genestealers that have been tainted by Chaos. I know this directly contradicts the "Shadow in the Warp" bits. (I'm kind of thinking the SitW is mostly a hive mind thing, buuuut ... how much pushback should I expect on this? Is it just a bridge too far?)

Anyway, any glaring fluff problems? Anything I should be aware of as I build lists?

This seems plausible, although a carnifex is much larger than even a Genestealer prime, or whatever the leader of the cult is called. so that may present problems. i think as long as you obey the "Come the apocalypse" rules and have your tyranid forces deployed at least 12 inches from your guard it would not be a problem because its a legal deployment that an opponent cannot argue with. However, if i am not mistaken there is a serious rumor that Genestealer Cults are getting their own supplement/codex

Mewens wrote:

Some details about the planet:
- Due to the planet's slow axial rotation, any given point is in darkness for 85% of the solar year; it's then in total sunlight for 15% of the year, resulting in an annual explosion/blooming of life.

That's not how day and night work, regardless of the speed of rotation, 50% of the planet will always be facing it's sun.

Most problematic fluff:
- I really want to use melee 'fexes because carnifexes, feth yeah. I want to use them as mutated, barely controlled F5 / "pure" genestealers that have been tainted by Chaos. I know this directly contradicts the "Shadow in the Warp" bits. (I'm kind of thinking the SitW is mostly a hive mind thing, buuuut ... how much pushback should I expect on this? Is it just a bridge too far?)

Anyway, any glaring fluff problems? Anything I should be aware of as I build lists?

Shadow in the Warp is an effect of the Tyranid Hive Mind, Genestealers, while having a brood hive mind, are not part and are not protected by the Tyranid Hive Mind. So there is no contradiction.

Although by fluff avoid playing against other Tyranid armies, as by fluff the Tyranid Hive Mind would take control of the Genestealers.

Could your "Carnifexes" not just be Genestealers that infested a local giant predator species?

Like some giant space bears got the Genestealer's Kiss and their offspring are huge, heavily built Genestealers five meters tall...

 Tyran wrote:

Mewens wrote:

Some details about the planet:
- Due to the planet's slow axial rotation, any given point is in darkness for 85% of the solar year; it's then in total sunlight for 15% of the year, resulting in an annual explosion/blooming of life.

That's not how day and night work, regardless of the speed of rotation, 50% of the planet will always be facing it's sun.

There are certainly ways this could work, just needs more explanation. Maybe the inhabited parts of the planet rest along a part of the planet's surface that experiences this long-night phenomena, like the arctic regions here on Earth?

 Jambles wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

Mewens wrote:

Some details about the planet:
- Due to the planet's slow axial rotation, any given point is in darkness for 85% of the solar year; it's then in total sunlight for 15% of the year, resulting in an annual explosion/blooming of life.

That's not how day and night work, regardless of the speed of rotation, 50% of the planet will always be facing it's sun.

There are certainly ways this could work, just needs more explanation. Maybe the inhabited parts of the planet rest along a part of the planet's surface that experiences this long-night phenomena, like the arctic regions here on Earth?

But even in those regions it is 50% day and 50% night per year.

the only way this could work is if the planet was shaped funny (which would violate some pretty serious laws of physics) or if the rotation of the planet wasnt standard (like it sped up and slowed down, also a pretty major physics violation) and only part of the planet was inhabitited.

So, if you really wanna make this work, then...the warp made a planet that was shaped like a red blood cell and all the people live in the concave part. Or the warp makes it so that the planet slows down its rotation when the inhabited bit is in the "shade" and speeds it up when it is in the sunlight (also the warp keeps this change in momentum from casusing awful things like earthquakes and tidal waves every time this happened....and it keeps everyone from being cast off into space/crushed by the monumental accel/deccel that would take place when this happens)

Other than those 2, I don't see any way that you can have a planet without a 50/50 ratio, unless there is some other warp theory that someone has, im sure it isnt an exhastive list.

Edit: I suppose if it looked something like this (maybe a bigger hole) and everyone lived in the hole it could be viable

Ha ha ha, figures that the most obvious flub would be real-world physics. I was so worried about the other things that I didn't even stop to think about the rotation at all. It's so obvious (once someone points it out!).

You could get unequal night-day time through binary orbiting bodies though, yeah? Like, the twin planet/planetoid is in the sun for most of the time? (Edit: It'd have to be in a wobble in the binary orbit, assuming their rotation keeps the habited planet on the dark side of its twin, if I'm imagining it correctly. That'd mean only sun at the polar regions, but it'd allow you to have unequal day/night at those points.) I'm really more concerned with having the lopsided day/night cycle than how it works, exactly, so I'm not married to any given explanation (though that breakdown was above and beyond, taurising. Thanks!).

@GKTiberius: The rumors are what got me interested, ha ha ha. It's mostly a kitbashed counts-as army, so any models I end up with are likely going to be compatible. As far the the 'fexes – I handwaved away their massive size with the excuse that their mutation also renders them nearly mindless; my patriarch uses the model for Spawn of Crytpus and the tyranid prime profile, so I'm using synapse to represent its psychic control over the beasts. (This also meets the HQ requirement for allies so I always have a legal army for the tabletop. I miss broodlord HQ choices!)

As for the other stuff – thanks for the replies, guys! I needed a gut check on the basic outline before I committed to it.

 Tyran wrote:

 Jambles wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

Mewens wrote:

Some details about the planet:
- Due to the planet's slow axial rotation, any given point is in darkness for 85% of the solar year; it's then in total sunlight for 15% of the year, resulting in an annual explosion/blooming of life.

That's not how day and night work, regardless of the speed of rotation, 50% of the planet will always be facing it's sun.

There are certainly ways this could work, just needs more explanation. Maybe the inhabited parts of the planet rest along a part of the planet's surface that experiences this long-night phenomena, like the arctic regions here on Earth?

But even in those regions it is 50% day and 50% night per year.

Yeah I cannot think of a orbit that make it such that the planet as whole is 85% of time in Darkness. I think the best way to do this is to say that the planetary's orbit is inclined (akin to that of our system's ex-planet's) in such a way that 85% of time they receive far less heat from the system's star whereas 25% of time the planet experience an prospering amount of heat. Therefore 85% of the time the planet's indigenous lifeforms are in hibernation and the population declines greatly in the months leading to the long winter. Fauna and human corps would suffer in this period therefore the colonists will either have to cope with it or have some other way around a famine.

In regards to a Carnifex: a Genestealer cult generally does not realize its role in the grand scheme of the Hivemind. They can do whatever they wish, as long as it ensures the survival of their line AND they are disrupting the local order (as is part of their coded purposes). On the other hand, a Carnifex is dropped or grown only during a Tyranid invasion, so unless your Genestealer cult is set at the exact moment when a Tyranid Invasion takes place, I don't think it's fluff-compatible. And as for a highly mutanted Chao-fex: that's interesting, I say go for it, I'd like to see you do some really awesome conversions like huge claws growing out of the Mutant's back or something... would be nice to see that level of effort

Couldn't you have the planet's rotation be in a funky direction compared to the direction of orbit?

Failing that, the semi-permanent eclipse would probably be best.

 Jambles wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

Mewens wrote:

Some details about the planet:
- Due to the planet's slow axial rotation, any given point is in darkness for 85% of the solar year; it's then in total sunlight for 15% of the year, resulting in an annual explosion/blooming of life.

That's not how day and night work, regardless of the speed of rotation, 50% of the planet will always be facing it's sun.

There are certainly ways this could work, just needs more explanation. Maybe the inhabited parts of the planet rest along a part of the planet's surface that experiences this long-night phenomena, like the arctic regions here on Earth?

Agreed. I'm no expert on these things, but in the 40K universe, pretty much any type of planet is possible. It could be said to be influenced by Chaos, a long forgotten artifact of the Old Ones, etc.

Perhaps it could have a moon which had a revolutionary cycle that was poorly timed with the planets own revolutionary cycle that eclipses the planet a lot?

The other idea being perhaps it is a moon itself, orbiting a gas giant that blocks the light much of the time.

Though it seems it would have to be a pretty convoluted rotation/revolution regardless.