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 ProwlerPC wrote:

 raiden wrote:
Mephiston is not an alpha level psyker, ELDRAD is probably not registered as an alpha.


As for the emperor comment....


Empy, single handendly, pulps the minds of an entire ork wwaaaaggghhh. (A VERY big one) with a single thought. Without breaking a sweat.

Interesting head cannon considering that the Empy and his Primarchs have faced a big Waaaagh! before and he wasn't capable of single handedly turning their minds into pulp, indeed he couldn't even do that to their Warboss known as "The Beast" and had to be save by Horus. I'm thinking you are falling prey to the myths and legends created by the authors from the point of view of the average Imperium who is made to believe that the Empy is a god.

The Emperor wasn't threatened by the Ork. Not only is he a perpetual, but after Horus "saved" him the Emperor immediately wiped out the entire Ork force with mindbullets.

Not to mention by scaling the Emperor should also be able to use multi kilometer long flagships like Battle Barges as projectiles to be flung through space like how Khayon leveled the Emperor's Children base of operations in the Eye of Terror. Throwing an Ork Warboss into space or punting Titans is trivial in comparison. I'd simply chalk it up to few authors bothering to research what Alpha Psykers are capable of doing in 40K.

 ProwlerPC wrote:

 raiden wrote:
Mephiston is not an alpha level psyker, ELDRAD is probably not registered as an alpha.


As for the emperor comment....


Empy, single handendly, pulps the minds of an entire ork wwaaaaggghhh. (A VERY big one) with a single thought. Without breaking a sweat.

Interesting head cannon considering that the Empy and his Primarchs have faced a big Waaaagh! before and he wasn't capable of single handedly turning their minds into pulp, indeed he couldn't even do that to their Warboss known as "The Beast" and had to be save by Horus. I'm thinking you are falling prey to the myths and legends created by the authors from the point of view of the average Imperium who is made to believe that the Empy is a god.

Except for the fact that we have canon in which the Emperor's Daemons (Angels of Fire, Spirit of the Astronomicon) communicate with Abaddon. Wyzilla would know more about it than me, but still. The Emperor is far more powerful now than he was before. Something to remember is that all creatures feed energies into the Warp (except for some exceptions like the Necrontyr and Tau), and thus sheer belief in the Emperor as a God by the quadrillions of humans would be more than sufficient to empower his soul to God-level power. It's these same energies that created the Chaos Gods and their Daemons, and continues to feed them sustenance. It's these same energies that are established in many canon sources as being fed the energy of Ork WAAAAGHS!!! to give the two Ork Gods Gork and Mork a physical manifestation in the Materium, as well as the same energy as what created them in the first place.

The moment you stop to count the cost, that is the moment you fail.

Yet the Imperium despite touting such a quote, did stop to count the cost when it came to Kryptman and did shirk from the cost.

Even so, Kryptman's strategy only slowed the advance of Leviathan. Even conducting Exterminatus on worlds that were in the process of consumption did not really stop the Tyranids, only slowed them, because there were examples of Tyranids surviving the resultant firestorm:

There are two reported methods by which Tyranid creatures have survived the destruction of a world. The first, which has been confirmed at Tethris and Caelus Delta and is suspected at Lamarno, is achieved by way of smaller-bio-forms, such as Rippers, burrowing deep beneath a world''s crust, there to enter a state of hibernation until such time as the presence of life upon the surface is detected...

...The second observed manner in which Tyranid organisms have survived Extermiantus was reported to the Strategic Collective following a Deathwatch mission to the world of Ariadne IV. Following Exterminatus by way of Damnatus-pattern, mass-yield cyclonic saturation, the surface of the world was reduced to drifting ash, the atmosphere entirely seared away. Yet, pict-logs of the mission show what was at first believed to be a natural rock feature rising out of the swirling dust storms. Closer inspection revealed the truth - the structure was in fact a member of the Carnifex genus, which had survived the cataclysmic effects of the cyclonic torpedo, and entered a state of dormancy within which it could mend the grievous wounds down to it.

p. 27, 4th edition Tyranid Codex

It is also demonstrated by the FW book Anphelion Project that even a few Tyranid organisms are enough over time to re-establish new forms and reconstruct the Tyranid mobile ecosystem.

I am growing tired of all the talk about alpha psykers and their pants wettingly terrifying power. If you reread my post I wrote what the Shadow in the Warp does to normal people and normal psykers which NEWS FLASH make up the vast and overwhelming majority of imperial forces. Even with a handful of your alpha psykers that wouldn't be enough to defeat them single handedly. It would still amount to a difficult fight for both sides. Unless your alpha psyker could protect all soldiers from the shadow which even with their considerable power would be quite difficult what with trillions of people to cover. And even with your psyker argument all but these top tier psykers would be USELESS. Look what 3 maleceptors did to Mephiston who is clearly an above average psyker. Three of those is a drop in the literal interplanetary ocean of biomass the tyranids have to use.

How hot are you at work the next morning after a horrible nights sleep? Try to imagine fighting a war like that. Now try to imagine every other man in the army has the same problem and this is the average effect against your average individual with no pronounced warp sensitivity which is more than 99 percent of all of the imperium.

 Yaavaragefinkinman wrote:
I am growing tired of all the talk about alpha psykers and their pants wettingly terrifying power. If you reread my post I wrote what the Shadow in the Warp does to normal people and normal psykers which NEWS FLASH make up the vast and overwhelming majority of imperial forces. Even with a handful of your alpha psykers that wouldn't be enough to defeat them single handedly. It would still amount to a difficult fight for both sides. Unless your alpha psyker could protect all soldiers from the shadow which even with their considerable power would be quite difficult what with trillions of people to cover. And even with your psyker argument all but these top tier psykers would be USELESS. Look what 3 maleceptors did to Mephiston who is clearly an above average psyker. Three of those is a drop in the literal interplanetary ocean of biomass the tyranids have to use.

Then provide evidence of the Shadow of the Warp having an impairment on the powers of Alpha Psykers, or Betas for that matter. Tigurius for example seems to have at the very least hacked into the Hive Mind to predict its movements. I also don't recall any notation of psykers having difficulty casting their powers. For all the hype of the Hive Mind, Librarians seem to never be given any serious trouble by it. The point of Alpha Psykers is that they can demolish an entire fleet of ships. Hell even Beta's can toss a Strike Cruiser like an asteroid, albeit demanding their full attention. The only thing that holds back humanity are the Chaos Gods and the Daemons of the warp preying upon psykers forcing their number to be monitored and frequently executed to prevent disaster.

And then there's still things like legions of Imperial Daemons, who appear to be far nastier and more powerful than the Chaos variety.

How hot are you at work the next morning after a horrible nights sleep? Try to imagine fighting a war like that. Now try to imagine every other man in the army has the same problem and this is the average effect against your average individual with no pronounced warp sensitivity which is more than 99 percent of all of the imperium.

You mean the supposed horrible nightmares that never seem to manifest in the Black Library?

The only faction I've read about causing sleeping problems is chaos.

Note on empy vs 4 chaos gods, he is not losing, he isn't winning, but he ain't losing.

Thing about the virus bomb- if used on feeder tendrils (and as such sent directly to biomass wells) the life eating virus has an extremely high chance of.shattering, if not outright killing a hive fleet and or the hive queen.

That said, its probably difficult to do, and must be administered directly to the tendrils, and multiple ones. So its likely a suicide mission.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Yaavaragefinkinman wrote:
I am growing tired of all the talk about alpha psykers and their pants wettingly terrifying power. If you reread my post I wrote what the Shadow in the Warp does to normal people and normal psykers which NEWS FLASH make up the vast and overwhelming majority of imperial forces. Even with a handful of your alpha psykers that wouldn't be enough to defeat them single handedly. It would still amount to a difficult fight for both sides. Unless your alpha psyker could protect all soldiers from the shadow which even with their considerable power would be quite difficult what with trillions of people to cover. And even with your psyker argument all but these top tier psykers would be USELESS. Look what 3 maleceptors did to Mephiston who is clearly an above average psyker. Three of those is a drop in the literal interplanetary ocean of biomass the tyranids have to use.

Then provide evidence of the Shadow of the Warp having an impairment on the powers of Alpha Psykers, or Betas for that matter. Tigurius for example seems to have at the very least hacked into the Hive Mind to predict its movements. I also don't recall any notation of psykers having difficulty casting their powers. For all the hype of the Hive Mind, Librarians seem to never be given any serious trouble by it. The point of Alpha Psykers is that they can demolish an entire fleet of ships. Hell even Beta's can toss a Strike Cruiser like an asteroid, albeit demanding their full attention. The only thing that holds back humanity are the Chaos Gods and the Daemons of the warp preying upon psykers forcing their number to be monitored and frequently executed to prevent disaster.

And then there's still things like legions of Imperial Daemons, who appear to be far nastier and more powerful than the Chaos variety.

How hot are you at work the next morning after a horrible nights sleep? Try to imagine fighting a war like that. Now try to imagine every other man in the army has the same problem and this is the average effect against your average individual with no pronounced warp sensitivity which is more than 99 percent of all of the imperium.

You mean the supposed horrible nightmares that never seem to manifest in the Black Library?

You're the one that needs to provide proof that Alpha Levels are except from the Shadow in the Warp, not the other way around. The Shadow in the Warp effects psykers, causing them to hear a ''cerebral cacophony'' , which gets a lot worse if they try to actually manifest powers. All but the strongest* turn insane. The Shadow is highly effective against Astropaths, which as we know, would stop where ever they attack calling for long distance aid. We also have provided instances were the Shadow effected powerful Psykers, in the case of Mephiston and in DOW 2 were all the Librarians of the Battle Barge Litany of Fury except Jorah Orion die when they are trying to infiltrate the Hive Mind.

*Note Strongest, in my opinion, is not based on Power, but in fact based on willpower and discipline. I would argue the reason Librarians have a better time under the Shadow then any other psykers is there extreme mental conditioning, they still hear the horrible scratching inside their brain but they are better at ignoring it. Similarly i would argue Tigarius didn't intercept the Hive Mind because he was powerful, but because he had the willpower to listen to the sounds in his head (which is basically the Tyranid version of the Radio) and decipher them without going insane. Will power, not Psyker level seems to be the best diffence against the Shadow in the Warp. Moreover, it is stated that Alpha and Beta Level Psykers are almost without exception not mentally sound. With Broken, shattered minds already you think that they are the Imperiums greatest weapon? God no! Whenever an Alpha tries to manifest his power, he will feel the hunger and the scratching and skittering and it will break him. Then what happens when you have an Alpha + psyker in the middle of your starfleet, who was your ace in the whole, starts thinking he has bugs under his skin and crawling up his back? Yeah...Boom. As far as i know, only Librarians and Inquisitors would be able to reliably manifest without going insane, everything else is a time bomb waiting to happen. Unless of course you can provide me a good argument that Strong actually means Psyker Level, however i can't find any other fluff to support that claim.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
Strongest, in my opinion, is not based on Power, but in fact based on willpower and discipline. I would argue the reason Librarians have a better time under the Shadow then any other psykers is there extreme mental conditioning, they still hear the horrible scratching inside their brain but they are better at ignoring it. Similarly i would argue Tigarius didn't intercept the Hive Mind because he was powerful, but because he had the willpower to listen to the sounds in his head (which is basically the Tyranid version of the Radio) and decipher them without going insane. Will power, not Psyker level seems to be the best diffence against the Shadow in the Warp. Moreover, it is stated that Alpha and Beta Level Psykers are almost without exception not mentally sound. With Broken, shattered minds already you think that they are the Imperiums greatest weapon? God no! Whenever an Alpha tries to manifest his power, he will feel the hunger and the scratching and skittering and it will break him. Then what happens when you have an Alpha + psyker in the middle of your starfleet, who was your ace in the whole, starts thinking he has bugs under his skin and crawling up his back? Yeah...Boom. As far as i know, only Librarians and Inquisitors would be able to reliably manifest without going insane, everything else is a time bomb waiting to happen. Unless of course you can provide me a good argument that Strong actually means Psyker Level, however i can't find any other fluff to support that claim.

You've admitted that it's your opinion. Why should someone need to find evidence to counter an opinion?
Strength can be measured in willpower, but also in potential psyker abilities too. As there is no data to say otherwise, in a similar way to what you stated, you can't find any fault.
Also mentioning Astropaths, they are some of the weakest forms of psyker. Hardly a massive achievment there.

Just throwing it out there, do we know what effect Nulls and Culexus Assassins have on the Tyranid Psykers? As far as gameplay is concerned, they seem to be affected like normal psykers, but gameplay isn't always right.

Ah, forgive me, replace the word opinion with interpretation.

The reason someone would need evidence to discredit my interpretation is that my interpretation is backed by that Librarians seem to be less effected by SiW while weaker willed Psykers seem to be heavily effected.

So unless my interpretation is discredited with an equally plausible theory then my theory will be the going one.

Based on Ciaphias Cain books, Blanks have an effect that cuts the Synapse links between warrior organisms which seems to disorientate them. According to Aberly this has never been tested on a large scale. A more powerful Blank such as a Culexus would have a more profound effect, but what is anyones guess.

Neurothrope vs mephiston is NOT the shadow in the warp, it is a direct confrontation between mephiston and the CHANNELD hive mind power.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And no one is arguing hive mind> mephy in the pure psychic power/presecne dept. However. It still couldn't kill him

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:

You're the one that needs to provide proof that Alpha Levels are except from the Shadow in the Warp, not the other way around.

No, the burden of proof belongs to all who make a claim based upon fluff. If you do not substantiate your claim, then your claim is worth nothing, and should therefore be cast aside. All must provide fluff if they want to win the argument. I've honestly been combing the internet for ages looking for fluff, and I'm starting to get pissed.

Figured I would add a couple drops in the bucket.

Firstly as to the discussion of Alpha psykers: I may have missed a reference but only one source was ever posted as to their abilities; lexicanum-The assignment. So that is all the info I have to go off of about them, given that until now I had never heard of them. That and they don't show up at all in lexcanums regular descriptions about psykers.

So to start lets look at numbers: delta and gamma psykers occurs in approximately one per billion human births. That is pretty rare already and we're only talking about delta/gamma. Alpha psykers occur in even less numbers and here's a quote from the cited lexicanum that was linked here:

" Beta // Alpha
Exceedingly rare and dangerous. Mainstream Medicae Imperialis discussion agrees that current human beings do not possess the necessary evolutionary development to contain Beta and Alpha levels of psionic talent. As such, the great majority of those discovered at this Assignment rating usually suffer from mental instability."

Ok so we have no numbers for how many alphas there are out there but we can assume that it is rarer than 1 in a billion. That leaves few alpha level psykers and of those that are alpha level how reliable can they be given their mental instability? I don't know the answer to this but just looking at this info it would seem that alpha level psykers may not be as reliable a counter-measure as the IoM would hope.

Lastly the big dogs: Alpha-plus, these are the big guys that have the theoretical (note theoretical) power to snap a titan in half. Even more rare than Alpha psykers here is what lexicanum had to say about them:

"Alpha-Plus
In the rarest of all cases, the twenty-four point scale of the Assignment does not adequately characterize a being of indescribable ability. Such individuals, for all intents and purposes, pass beyond the scale entirely. These subjects are known as Alpha-Plus psykers.Uncontained, Alpha-Plus psykers represent an immediate and catastrophic threat to the Imperium. In theory, there is nothing that a trained Alpha-Plus psyker cannot accomplish through force of will; from snapping a Titan in half to summoning a legion of Greater Daemons. Representing such a great danger, the Inquisition usually executes Alpha-Plus psykers on sight unless the possibility for capture is nearly assured."

So You take the rarest of all psykers, possibly dogged by insanity, given that that is a problem for the psyker level beneath them I'm going on the assumption that they possibly suffer from it aswell. On top of all this the IoM has a tendency to shoot them on sight (also inferring that they aren't invincible in any way, shape or form).

Let's throw this all into the universal war scale and here is the glaring issue I see: Even if the alpha and alpha-plus psykers are as powerful as people are claiming them to be, and even assuming they are stable and of sound enough mind to combat the nids there just simply won't be enough of them. They can't be everywhere at once, in all systems and all threatened planets. One may even be in the right system but if the nids attack the system they won't stop at just one planet within that system, they'll attack all planets with any useable biomass. How many planets can one psyker watch over effectively? I see no reference to an alpha or even an alpha-plus psyker being able to implode an entire fleet in space with his mind before said fleet makes planetfall. Only reference to him being able to snap a titan in half, and no reference to how much exertion it takes or if that takes a toll on his body/mind. With that in mind I'd say he could wreak havoc in a pitched battle and kill bio-titants in 1v1 (note again this is alpha-plus NOT alpha, regular alpha has no reference I could find about them being able to destroy titans with their mind). Even on a planetary scale this isn't enough, he could hold a tide on one battle, one location. if the defenses of the rest of the planet crumple then the planet will be lost with or without that alpha-plus psyker.

All of this with no mention of shadow in the warp. I admit at the scale of this nid invasion I have no idea how the shadow in the warp would function against the imperium so I won't debate it's effectiveness, only state that it exists and that it would cause problems for the imperium.

As for da emprah, last I checked he's a quasi-corpse sitting in a chair on terra with the craziest life-support system ever. I'm not entirely convinced that he's in any shape to do any real fighting from where he's at. As for his psychic potential, to my knowledge he's a glorified lighthouse. A lighthouse powered by a thousand dead psykers a day, how much of that psychic energy is his then at that point of they have to sacrifice that many psykers to keep his beacon going? Without some referenced info on what the emprah can do now I just have a hard time seeing him being of any real use. Horus heresy references are a far-shot too cause he was a different person back then. 10,000 years of bed-sores I'm sure have wreaked havoc on him.

Here's a final point that I find worthy of note. The IoM is the GW posterboy. That is to say that if this were a movie, they are the good guys, you know the type, the ones that despite all odds, against any foe they always win the day AND the girl. Something around like 80% of all the fluff and black library stuff is about the IoM, they have almost as many army factions within the IoM as there are other factions in the entirety of 40K. IoM are the good guys and they are written to win. the nids are the perfect example of faceless henchmen. That enemy you can kill by the billions and not feel bad cause none of them wear nametags. Not even their great leaders generally have names (looking at you Hive Tyrants). So of course in almost every bit of fluff the nids will always lose. Who wants to see a universe infested by roaches anyways? I just feel it's worth noting that almost every novel you read involving the nids they will more than likely lose because they are never protagonist. the fluff is already skewed against the nids, and so are the numbers. Nids is one faction in 40k and IoM is atleast 10. So anyone playing guard, marines, blood angels, SoB, mechanicus, wolves etc. are more likely to simply side with the IoM and say they would win because: reasons. This bias is expected, no one wants to see their army wiped out, but it does exist and I'm sure will affect the numbers in this poll. there are simply more IoM players than there are nid players.

I don't want to say the IoM is destined to lose but I think it's at least acknowledging that the nids will be one hell of a fight and the nids are well prepared to stand toe-to-toe. this won't be the one-sided slaughterfest that some people seem to believe it's going to be.

Sorry I have no proper references to quote right now as I am at work currently. Here is the link again to that lexicanum page I was referencing though.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/The_Assignment

Remember, 1 billion is not all that large a number.

It's safe to assume the imperium has 1 million worlds, give or take a few hundred at a time, and its not a stretch to say on average, each world would contain equivalent numbers to about 8-9 billion each. (Ofc, hive worlds would have more than feral/death worlds) so, minimum of around 7-10 psykers per world x 1 million worlds.

Another quote from a wiki-


"There are different grades used to incrementally rank the power of a psyker within the Imperium of Man, ranked from the most powerful to least powerful, top to bottom:

Alpha Plus
Alpha
Beta
Gamma
Delta
Epsilon
The grades continue on down through the letters of the Greek alphabet. Grade Sigma and below are levels of "anti-psychic power". Such people are more commonly known as "psychic blanks" since they cannot be detected, manipulated or affected by psychic means and possess the pariah gene.

The psychic power the top four grades represents is immense. A high Delta level can read the minds of all the people in a good-sized town simultaneously, or crush a man to death against a wall in seconds. High-grade psykers are extremely powerful, and not to be taken lightly.

An Alpha Plus grade psyker, however, is a being of almost grotesque power. They are described as being able to "turn a man inside-out with a glance", "snap a Battle Titan in half with a flick of the wrist", and "a muttered syllable can turn an army upon itself in a frenzy of blood lust". They are capable of destroying entire worlds -- sometimes unintentionally."

I just skipped about 3 pages so someone has probably already said this but I saw people ranting about alpha psykers. Shadow in the warp? kind of messes with psykers in a similar way to old necron pariahs or culexus assassins (who's anti psyker powers came from aforementioned pariahs). It would deny not only communication in the front lines but would also seriously weaken/debilitate most psykers. An example being that astropaths and navigators can hear an immense chittering sound, and that's outside of the shadow.

On a note of hive fleet sizes, after consuming a planet, be there great quantities of biomass or not, they will use what they find to create more organisms. In a similar vein a war of attrition would also be futile as the nids would use there own dead alongside the dead of the guard and astartes etc. Splinter fleets that slip through any defensive net could if undetected due to shadow could build up into a full hive fleet again.

The only way I see the IOM coming out of this with a victory is blitzkrieg, the tyranids are far too good at attrition, numbers increasing from both sides dead and being able to evolve new methods of attack/defense. Also exterminatus would have very mixed results, in the BFG books it tells of an imperial fleet encountering a splinter fleet. they then precede to viral bomb it. The next tyranid spore attack a few hours later caused symptoms that where analogous to those caused by the viral bombs used in that method of exterminatus. Also whilst psykers don't need to worry about demonic possetion and whatnot they do still have to maintain control of the ridiculous amounts of energy that they are channeling. If their concentration wavers too greatly they could just explode and cause a bit of a ruckus among their own lines.

Also if I've made any glaringly obvious mistakes feel free to correct me, I'm just contributing that which I remember.

Then don't virus bomb it, use cyclonic torpedoes. Hard to become resistant to getting blown the feth up.

 Psienesis wrote:
Then don't virus bomb it, use cyclonic torpedoes. Hard to become resistant to getting blown the feth up.

As I posted already above and repeated below, the Tyranids already have done so.

There are two reported methods by which Tyranid creatures have survived the destruction of a world. The first, which has been confirmed at Tethris and Caelus Delta and is suspected at Lamarno, is achieved by way of smaller-bio-forms, such as Rippers, burrowing deep beneath a world''s crust, there to enter a state of hibernation until such time as the presence of life upon the surface is detected...

...The second observed manner in which Tyranid organisms have survived Extermiantus was reported to the Strategic Collective following a Deathwatch mission to the world of Ariadne IV. Following Exterminatus by way of Damnatus-pattern, mass-yield cyclonic saturation, the surface of the world was reduced to drifting ash, the atmosphere entirely seared away. Yet, pict-logs of the mission show what was at first believed to be a natural rock feature rising out of the swirling dust storms. Closer inspection revealed the truth - the structure was in fact a member of the Carnifex genus, which had survived the cataclysmic effects of the cyclonic torpedo, and entered a state of dormancy within which it could mend the grievous wounds down to it.

p. 27, 4th edition Tyranid Codex

That would be an author not actually understanding what a Cyclonic Torpedo does.

Cyclonic torpedoes don't just burn off the surface with fire, the way the Life-eater Virus does (and seems the author team believed), it Alderaans the entire fething planet.

 Psienesis wrote:
That would be an author not actually understanding what a Cyclonic Torpedo does.

Cyclonic torpedoes don't just burn off the surface with fire, the way the Life-eater Virus does (and seems the author team believed), it Alderaans the entire fething planet.

It depends of the type of the cyclone torpedo, but most of them don't do that. And even then they are not even a fraction of what happened to Alderaan.

 raiden wrote:
Remember, 1 billion is not all that large a number.

It's safe to assume the imperium has 1 million worlds, give or take a few hundred at a time, and its not a stretch to say on average, each world would contain equivalent numbers to about 8-9 billion each. (Ofc, hive worlds would have more than feral/death worlds) so, minimum of around 7-10 psykers per world x 1 million worlds.

Another quote from a wiki-


"There are different grades used to incrementally rank the power of a psyker within the Imperium of Man, ranked from the most powerful to least powerful, top to bottom:

Alpha Plus
Alpha
Beta
Gamma
Delta
Epsilon
The grades continue on down through the letters of the Greek alphabet. Grade Sigma and below are levels of "anti-psychic power". Such people are more commonly known as "psychic blanks" since they cannot be detected, manipulated or affected by psychic means and possess the pariah gene.

The psychic power the top four grades represents is immense. A high Delta level can read the minds of all the people in a good-sized town simultaneously, or crush a man to death against a wall in seconds. High-grade psykers are extremely powerful, and not to be taken lightly.

An Alpha Plus grade psyker, however, is a being of almost grotesque power. They are described as being able to "turn a man inside-out with a glance", "snap a Battle Titan in half with a flick of the wrist", and "a muttered syllable can turn an army upon itself in a frenzy of blood lust". They are capable of destroying entire worlds -- sometimes unintentionally."

I know that real numbers can be very hard to come by given the broad and vague descriptions GW likes to write their universe in but I think we may be able to draw some inferences from some numbers we have been given. The 1 in a billion psykers number applies for gamma and delta psykers. I don't know the number of worlds in the 40k universe so I will defer to your numbers for number of worlds, populations of hive worlds and death worlds etc.

So I'll go with the high end of the spectrum and say there are 10 gamma/delta psykers per planet. Multiply that by a million planets and you now have 10,000,000 gamma/delta. The problem comes in that we don't know the ratio of alpha/beta psykers in comparison to this. A couple psykers that are theorized to be of Alpha level are Ahriman and Eldrad. I can't see psykers of those levels being made very often, especially since neither of them are human in the pure sense of the term. I know I have no basis for this next number, so it is pure conjecture on my part but I have a hard time seeing there being more than 1 alpha psyker per 10 billion citizens. That leaves one alpha level psyker per populated IoM planet. I can't even hazard a guess at the rarity of Alpha plus at this point and sadly that's the important one we need because they are the only ones that theoretically could swing the tide if the war was predicated on the IoM having powerful psykers. Ahriman or Eldrad alone could not change the tide of the whole war on their own if there was was a million of them. It's worth noting too that of the extremely rare cases that Alpha-plus psykers do pop up the IoM has a tendency to put a round in their head. All I have to go on at the moment is a discussion I read (I believe it was on relicnews) where they were speaking about alpha-level psykers. By the discussion it seems that the Eisenhorn novels may be a decent source to read up on alpha-plus level psykers, apparently most of those psykers were evil though and wanted to destroy the Imperium.

References from the web for the above: http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Psyker (I know it's 1D4 chan, apply salt) http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?54938-Alpha-Level-Psykers (Where they mention the Eisenhorn novels)

The crux of this is despite how powerful the alpha-plus level psykers may be I just don't think there can be enough of them to adequately stave off the nid invasions. They may be all-powerful but they are certainly not omnipresent. I think it's also worth noting that if the IoM is able to bring all these fluff weapons to the fight (there are no alpha-plus level psykers on the tabletop) then what about the nids bring their own super-psyker too? How much damage could the hive mind wreak against the IoM? I don't think there is enough nid fluff out there to truly explore the capabilities of the hive mind beyond directing the nid forces.

Realistically what I see happening is the IoM losing the war of attrition and then going for one big hail-mary attack to locate and shut down the hive mind using a hyper-elite-hand-picked-hero-team led by Stalone... errr someone. This team infiltrates deep into nid space while the main bulk of the IoM fights the nids on an open front in a do-or-die assault. The team locates Hive mind, detonates super-psychic-mega-bomb-plot-device and make their daring escape riding the shockwave of the bomb to safety in their crippled shuttle. Hive mind dies, nids go berserk and eat themselves, cheers all around and the hero kisses the girl. Thanks Hollywood. I just don't see the nids being beat in a war of attrition, at least not in any meaningful way where they won't get a sequel titled "IoM Vs Nids 2; Hero of the federation" that will get terrible ratings.

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:

 raiden wrote:
Remember, 1 billion is not all that large a number.

It's safe to assume the imperium has 1 million worlds, give or take a few hundred at a time, and its not a stretch to say on average, each world would contain equivalent numbers to about 8-9 billion each. (Ofc, hive worlds would have more than feral/death worlds) so, minimum of around 7-10 psykers per world x 1 million worlds.

Another quote from a wiki-


"There are different grades used to incrementally rank the power of a psyker within the Imperium of Man, ranked from the most powerful to least powerful, top to bottom:

Alpha Plus
Alpha
Beta
Gamma
Delta
Epsilon
The grades continue on down through the letters of the Greek alphabet. Grade Sigma and below are levels of "anti-psychic power". Such people are more commonly known as "psychic blanks" since they cannot be detected, manipulated or affected by psychic means and possess the pariah gene.

The psychic power the top four grades represents is immense. A high Delta level can read the minds of all the people in a good-sized town simultaneously, or crush a man to death against a wall in seconds. High-grade psykers are extremely powerful, and not to be taken lightly.

An Alpha Plus grade psyker, however, is a being of almost grotesque power. They are described as being able to "turn a man inside-out with a glance", "snap a Battle Titan in half with a flick of the wrist", and "a muttered syllable can turn an army upon itself in a frenzy of blood lust". They are capable of destroying entire worlds -- sometimes unintentionally."

I know that real numbers can be very hard to come by given the broad and vague descriptions GW likes to write their universe in but I think we may be able to draw some inferences from some numbers we have been given. The 1 in a billion psykers number applies for gamma and delta psykers. I don't know the number of worlds in the 40k universe so I will defer to your numbers for number of worlds, populations of hive worlds and death worlds etc.

So I'll go with the high end of the spectrum and say there are 10 gamma/delta psykers per planet. Multiply that by a million planets and you now have 10,000,000 gamma/delta. The problem comes in that we don't know the ratio of alpha/beta psykers in comparison to this. A couple psykers that are theorized to be of Alpha level are Ahriman and Eldrad. I can't see psykers of those levels being made very often, especially since neither of them are human in the pure sense of the term. I know I have no basis for this next number, so it is pure conjecture on my part but I have a hard time seeing there being more than 1 alpha psyker per 10 billion citizens. That leaves one alpha level psyker per populated IoM planet. I can't even hazard a guess at the rarity of Alpha plus at this point and sadly that's the important one we need because they are the only ones that theoretically could swing the tide if the war was predicated on the IoM having powerful psykers. Ahriman or Eldrad alone could not change the tide of the whole war on their own if there was was a million of them. It's worth noting too that of the extremely rare cases that Alpha-plus psykers do pop up the IoM has a tendency to put a round in their head. All I have to go on at the moment is a discussion I read (I believe it was on relicnews) where they were speaking about alpha-level psykers. By the discussion it seems that the Eisenhorn novels may be a decent source to read up on alpha-plus level psykers, apparently most of those psykers were evil though and wanted to destroy the Imperium.

References from the web for the above: http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Psyker (I know it's 1D4 chan, apply salt) http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?54938-Alpha-Level-Psykers (Where they mention the Eisenhorn novels)

The crux of this is despite how powerful the alpha-plus level psykers may be I just don't think there can be enough of them to adequately stave off the nid invasions. They may be all-powerful but they are certainly not omnipresent. I think it's also worth noting that if the IoM is able to bring all these fluff weapons to the fight (there are no alpha-plus level psykers on the tabletop) then what about the nids bring their own super-psyker too? How much damage could the hive mind wreak against the IoM? I don't think there is enough nid fluff out there to truly explore the capabilities of the hive mind beyond directing the nid forces.

Realistically what I see happening is the IoM losing the war of attrition and then going for one big hail-mary attack to locate and shut down the hive mind using a hyper-elite-hand-picked-hero-team led by Stalone... errr someone. This team infiltrates deep into nid space while the main bulk of the IoM fights the nids on an open front in a do-or-die assault. The team locates Hive mind, detonates super-psychic-mega-bomb-plot-device and make their daring escape riding the shockwave of the bomb to safety in their crippled shuttle. Hive mind dies, nids go berserk and eat themselves, cheers all around and the hero kisses the girl. Thanks Hollywood. I just don't see the nids being beat in a war of attrition, at least not in any meaningful way where they won't get a sequel titled "IoM Vs Nids 2; Hero of the federation" that will get terrible ratings.

That's not how the Hive Mind works.

My fluff knowledge on exactly what the Hive mind is and how it functions is sorely lacking. I apologize for any error I'd make in the assumptions of it's capabilities. Would you please elaborate on how I messed up the Hive mind stuff?

Please note the above is not sarcasm.

 Tyran wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
That would be an author not actually understanding what a Cyclonic Torpedo does.

Cyclonic torpedoes don't just burn off the surface with fire, the way the Life-eater Virus does (and seems the author team believed), it Alderaans the entire fething planet.

It depends of the type of the cyclone torpedo, but most of them don't do that. And even then they are not even a fraction of what happened to Alderaan.

No, they do create an asteroid field. A cyclonic torpedo dropped on a moon by Talos of the Eighth Legion 10th Company blew it up like a fragmentation grenade.

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
My fluff knowledge on exactly what the Hive mind is and how it functions is sorely lacking. I apologize for any error I'd make in the assumptions of it's capabilities. Would you please elaborate on how I messed up the Hive mind stuff?

Please note the above is not sarcasm.

The Hive Mind doesn't has a "center" that you can blow up. As long as the Tyranid race exist the Hive Mind will exist (and it is impossible that the IoM could eradicate the Tyranids, regardless of the outcome of this thread)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
That would be an author not actually understanding what a Cyclonic Torpedo does.

Cyclonic torpedoes don't just burn off the surface with fire, the way the Life-eater Virus does (and seems the author team believed), it Alderaans the entire fething planet.

It depends of the type of the cyclone torpedo, but most of them don't do that. And even then they are not even a fraction of what happened to Alderaan.

No, they do create an asteroid field. A cyclonic torpedo dropped on a moon by Talos of the Eighth Legion 10th Company blew it up like a fragmentation grenade.

Moon can mean a lot of things, from a few kilometers wide to Earth sized or larger. But I was referencing to the fact that the Death Star puts far more energy than needed to mass scatter Alderaan.

Actually to be more precise the Hive Mind exists and controls tyranids within range of the ones that have the synapses. Not all do. However these numbers are still staggering at a macro level if intent on killing the hive mind. But withiin the pitch of battle up close it's a good tactic to take out the synapses cause the less complex tyranid forms to lose coherency after losing contact with the hive mind.

The best way to imagine the Hive Mind is to picture a Beowulf Cluster.

For those not in the know, a Beowulf Cluster is an older type of super-computer that's made by linking hundreds of off-the-shelf processor units together and programming them to operate as a single computer.

The Hive Mind is kind of like that. The indivudual CPUs are the minds of the Synapse Creatures. The Hive Mind is the sum of all those Synapse brains working together and parralel-processing.

In theory, that means that every time you kill a synapse creatures, the Hive Mind gets a little bit less intelligent... in practice, there are so many synapses that the real effect is negligible, as a Hive Tyrant is at least as intelligent as a smart human on its own.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
That would be an author not actually understanding what a Cyclonic Torpedo does.

Cyclonic torpedoes don't just burn off the surface with fire, the way the Life-eater Virus does (and seems the author team believed), it Alderaans the entire fething planet.

It depends of the type of the cyclone torpedo, but most of them don't do that. And even then they are not even a fraction of what happened to Alderaan.

No, they do create an asteroid field. A cyclonic torpedo dropped on a moon by Talos of the Eighth Legion 10th Company blew it up like a fragmentation grenade.

It's worth keeping in mind that Talos used more than one torpedo, and that the moon's size was not specified.

There's also the Ariadne Effect which was detailed in one of the Planetstrike stratagems, a method by which any Tyranid creature can survive Exterminatus by simply burrowing Zerg-style.

Also I just remembered some critical fluff. All you need to do to severely cripple the Nids is pop the Synapse, more specifically the Swarmlord. As Marneus Calgar showed in his rematch with the Swarmlord, kill him and the rest of the Nids can be casually mopped up with little fuss.

A few Tyranid organisms surviving Exterminatus is not a victory for them in any case. All the harvestable biomass has been burnt off the planet and it's not worth the resources to recover the survivors.

Thank you guys for your descriptions of how the hive mind works. I appreciate it. That Beowulf cluster description was a realy kool way of describing it too, really helped solidify the concept.

Wyzilla- "Pop the synapse" has been a big strategy when fighting nids for a long time now. On an individual battle scale it's a great tactic, it's proven to be effective numerous times. It's even fairly well represented on the tabletop even though it doesn't necessarily mean an auto-lose for the nid player. Nids to function on a small amount of auto-pilot for those who are reliant on synapse. Not all of them are reliant on synapse though so that's worth remembering.

The problem is that this discussion isn't about one battle, it's about an entire universe at war. It's not reasonable to assume that every imperial outpost on every planet in every sector will without fail pop every single synapse creature systematically for an easy mop-up of the gribblies. They'll win some, they'll lose some, it's the nature of war, you won't win every battle. You just need the sum of your victories to overshadow those of your opponent.

Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't have a nid codex with me but isn't the Swarmlord a special character? There wouldn't be a swarmlord at every battle then right? And doesn't he have a special rule that if he dies the damage to the synapse is worse than if a Hive tyrant dies or am I just confusing that with the rules for a tervigon dying near termagaunts?

"Pop the synapse" will also work (theoretically) on the macro-scale, too, but that is at such a scale as to be unfeasible from a resources standpoint.