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I read in a prior thread about the Hive Mind telepathically assaulting some Eldar who'd just defeated a Tyranid fleet, and promising them vengeance and suffering.

This was a surprise to me, as prior to this, I thought the Hive Mind had been classed as unknowable, or animalistic. To have it vengeful and malicious seems to be a different characterisation than in the past, where it was theorised to be essentially acting on a survival instinct, and therefore kind of ethically neutral.

So, is the Hive Mind actually 'evil'? Promising spiteful torture on someone implies as such. Are there any other instances of this kind of behaviour? Even the Ultramarines Chief Librarian's interactions never specified anything resembling a personality.

Where was that source from?

The post said the short story "Wraithflight". Apparently a victorious Eldar force led by Iyanna Arienal is probed and violated by the Hive Mind after defeating a Tyranid fleet, which promises her infinite suffering in revenge.

Other than this, I'm only aware of Ultramarines Chief Librarian Varro Tigurius having any form of contact or communication with the Hive Mind. I was under the impression he was unique, and such contact was more a case of stealing vague information rather than interacting with anything apporaching a personality, or recieving massages.

Mephiston also communicated with the Hive Mind during the Shield of Baal. He does battle with it and actually survives.

So the Hive Mind is a sick ****?

Would this prove or hint towards the Hive Mind being a powerful being rather than just a Tyranid link? Maybe a mutated Father of the Old Ones, or a creation of the Old Ones, or the Endless Swarm C'tan? Or maybe just a godlike alien boss creature from a far away galaxy.

Ugggh, what an absolutely awful idea, seems BLs already dodgy quality control fails once more.....

I have kind of mixed feelings about it.

One one hand, I don't like the scenario evolving too much, but on the other, I like fluff that teases answers to previously unexplained questions. But then again, I don't want those answers if they're just going to be far more mundane than anything that'd been previously hypothesised.

The Hive Mind being just another evil, malicious villain is pretty lame. There's already about a million of those in the background. There's so much space to make the Hive Mind an interesting and unique element of the fluff, but turning it into just another cackling Saturday morning cartoon bad guy is about the most basic and lazy option you could take.

It could just be as simple as her brain interpreted the alien mind as wanting revenge and to cause suffering, also the hive mind is also always evolving, so it may be adapting it's tactics to cause terror and panic by attacking the upper echelons of its enemies minds, this is all consistent with the current Nid fluff.

Perhaps a direct quote from the story in question would help, as it seems most here are unfamiliar with it.

I would much prefer the hive mind reman unknowable. It is when you explain the unkown that it loses its terror and becomes just another thing.

My personal headcanon has always been there is no singular hive mind, each fleet generates its own gestalt conciousness, hence why fleets consume each other instead of simply merging and why tactics vary so greatly from fleet to fleet.

 Tardzan wrote:
So the Hive Mind is a sick ****?

Would this prove or hint towards the Hive Mind being a powerful being rather than just a Tyranid link? Maybe a mutated Father of the Old Ones, or a creation of the Old Ones, or the Endless Swarm C'tan? Or maybe just a godlike alien boss creature from a far away galaxy.

The Tyranids are actually the final boss for a sentient species. If you survive them, you win the game.

I hear it's a bit of a joker, but gets weepy after a few drinks.

Still loves its old progenitor unit though, and always sends her a card on her birthday.

Momotaro wrote:
I hear it's a bit of a joker, but gets weepy after a few drinks.

Still loves its old progenitor unit though, and always sends her a card on her birthday.

Also enjoys long walks on the beach and just can't resist small, fluffy dogs.

I hear it's a bit of a joker, but gets weepy after a few drinks.

G&T her main tipple so?

 Formosa wrote:
It could just be as simple as her brain interpreted the alien mind as wanting revenge and to cause suffering, also the hive mind is also always evolving, so it may be adapting it's tactics to cause terror and panic by attacking the upper echelons of its enemies minds, this is all consistent with the current Nid fluff.

Brilliant

 Selym wrote:

 Tardzan wrote:
So the Hive Mind is a sick ****?

Would this prove or hint towards the Hive Mind being a powerful being rather than just a Tyranid link? Maybe a mutated Father of the Old Ones, or a creation of the Old Ones, or the Endless Swarm C'tan? Or maybe just a godlike alien boss creature from a far away galaxy.

The Tyranids are actually the final boss for a sentient species. If you survive them, you win the game.

If the Hive Mind is indeed a extremely powerful warp using creature than i can see the Tyranids reaching to threat level of Chaos. Either of them could be the final boss. Still i thought the Hive Mind was chill until this thread makes him look like a sick son of a *****.

I'll field this since it was me that brought it up in the other thread.

There are several fairly good Tyranid-centric stories that were released around the time the Shield of Baal campaign was released, and a couple of them talk a bit about "The Hive Mind".

Wriathflight is full of interesting statements from the perspective of Iyanna Arienal (Spiritseer).

As she leads a fleet of Eldar ships to attack a Leviathan tendril heading towards an Imperial world (and overwhelming an Imperial fleet):

"Beyond the shield she saw the Great Dragon's true form. Not the hideous intrusions into the mortal realm that swam the black star sea, nor as a Farseer might see it, as a great and braided cable of malicious fate dominating all the skein. The first was merely a part of the whole, and the second psychic abstraction. What Iyanna saw was the reality of its soul.

It was a great shadow when seen from afar, a wave of dread and psychic blindness that preceded the hive fleet's arrival. But the greatest shadows are cast by the brightest lights, and seen closely, the soul of the hive mind shone brighter than any sun.

She was so close now that she perceived the ridged topography of its mind, larger than star systems, an entity bigger than a god. It contemplated thoughts as large as continents, and spun plans more complex than worlds. It dreaded dreams that could not be fathomed. She felt small and afraid before it, but she did not let her fear cow her defiance.

Against this vista flickered the souls of eldar, their jewel-brightness dimmed by the incomparable glare of the Great Dragon. And this was but a tendril of the creature. The bulk of it stretched away, coils wrapped tight about the higher dimensions, joining in the distance to others, and then others again, until at a great confluence of the parts sat the terrible truth of the whole. She stared at its brilliance. Unlike her passionless dead warriors, who felt nought but the echoes of wrath at the sight, she was fascinated by the beauty on display. She thought, if only such a thing could be tamed it would drive out She Who Thirsts forever. If only its hunger was for things other than the meat and blood of worlds...

She ceased her speculation. Such an entity was entirely other, inimical to all life but its own, a giant animal intent only on its prey. There was no thought to its doings, no intellect. It was cunning. It exhibited signs of an emergent, mechanical intelligence, as evolution might appear to possess if sped to the rate of change the hive mind evinced. But there was no true intelligence to it. The hive mind was non-sentient."



They then go on to kill the norn ships in the tendril, and are about to celebrate their victory by leaving the human fleet to be killed by the remaining (much weakened) Tyranid ships.



"Iyanna was triumphant again. Fifteen worlds had been denied the ravening hunger of the Starving Dragon by the deployment of the Firehearts, funneling it away from the eldar towards...

Something was wrong. A sensation at the back of her mind. The sensation grew teeth, became pain.

Her soul was gripped by agony.

Iyanna screamed, falling from the edge of the couch. The pain abated, then squeezed her anew. She vomited.

The dead were dismayed. The blo against her raced out across her attack group, leaping from mind to mind. Wraithbomber engines guttered out. The Wraithborne's sleek cruisers turned viciously, wallowing in psychic swell.

Bright light burned at Iyanna's soul. A long tunnel telescoped away, encompassing infinite distance. A tube stabbed through the fabric of the world. She felt its ripples in the warp. She felt its ripples in the webway.

She had the sense of an eye, slave to a great power. An intellect that dwarfed the Great Wheel of the galaxy. She opened her second sense, to find the Dragon looking at her with terrible regard.

For aeons it seemed it held her gaze. And there was fury in that examination.

The Dragon was angry, and it was angry with her. Not with the galaxy, or this sector, or her species. But with her personally. The promise of endless torment came from it, her very being enslaved to its ends and used against others, her body rebuilt over and over again so that it might suffer the Dragon's revenge.

Terror of a kind she could not have conceived flooded her mind. She screamed again, and this time every eldar in the fleet screamed with her."



Make of it what you will. It's all through the eyes of a psyker (admittedly a powerful one), and you can easily put a lot of it down to her mind trying to make sense of what she is seeing. None of it is presented as "word of god", but rather as an eye-witness perception.

Still, for me it's a nice little exploration of the Hive Mind, and ramps up the terror by talking about the monstrous reality of the Tyranids without just making it into "another Chaos God".

Yeeeesh, Im no writer by far but ugggh

A long tunnel telescoped away, encompassing infinite distance. A tube stabbed through the fabric of the world.

Terror of a kind she could not have conceived flooded her mind. She screamed again, and this time every eldar in the fleet screamed with her.

An interesting idea poorly executed imho.

 Ratius wrote:
Yeeeesh, Im no writer by far but ugggh

A long tunnel telescoped away, encompassing infinite distance. A tube stabbed through the fabric of the world.

Terror of a kind she could not have conceived flooded her mind. She screamed again, and this time every eldar in the fleet screamed with her.

An interesting idea poorly executed imho.

I liked the quote. The pacing needs to be iterated verbally, however. It doesn't quite work in a direct written format, but I can imagine someone reading this aloud and making it work.

YMMV

Should never have doubl alliteration within two sentences especially when the last word has another "T and the next sentence has two more. Reads so badly.

The second quote is just ultra cliched banality.

Dont critique me by the way, Im drunk

They could have carried off that interaction so much better if they'd just had the Hive Mind say "I'm gonna rek you m8, swere on me mum!"

It's probably an evolutionary trait that was found to be beneficial in other galaxies/ their original galaxy. Just like a bacteria or a virus, the random changes which become beneficial will be carried to next generations, so it probably isn't evil, since it's non-sentient. If it increases chances of domination/survival, then it's a good idea to keep doing it.

Only a guess though.

The Hive Mind has spoken before, the following are quotes from second edition:

The meat things seek to destroy ourselves. They hunt us as we hunt them but they are weak and uncertain. Trap the inferior flesh and then our strength will consume them.

The inferior flesh will be entirely destroyed, all fragments will be smashed. Ourselves will fight to the last, all weak flesh must be consumed.

The hive mind seeks to terrorise the inferior creatures resisting it. Bring them understanding of the power of ourselves through our strength and their fear.

Gives some insight.

Thanks for typing that up Xyptc!

After considering it, I don't think it's too bad as it's all written in the language of Eldar cultural metaphor ("The Dragon" and so forth), so is left a little ambiguous. You're left in no doubt she's trying to explain the inexplicable the best she can, but is overwhelmed by the terrible awe of it all.

It's how Chaos should be, really, but they've humanised the gods and their foibles far too much for that. Chaos feels evil, but it doesn't feel threatening, other than in an abstract sense. It's all too absurdly over the top and cartoonish and cackling to take seriously at times. I like the subtle, no-nonsense terror of how the Hive Mind is portrayed there. Chaos has a symbiotic/parasitic relationship with Humanity and the Eldar, but you get the impression the Hive Mind is utterly inimical to our existence. That's far more scary.

The earlier fluff is horrible though. It's all very Borg-ish and terminally uninspired, written in a quasi-religious style. You get the impression the Hive Mind is a small-minded fanatical vicar conducting a Sunday mass for the Hive Tyrants.