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So, what exactly were the original purposes for the Pharos devices? Did the Slann use them to navigate the Warp (or were the Slann retconned into the Old Ones)?

 Lord_Inquisitor_Doge wrote:
So, what exactly were the original purposes for the Pharos devices? Did the Slann use them to navigate the Warp (or were the Slann retconned into the Old Ones)?

Warp beacons, used by some pre-Imperial xenos race. It was also the thing that attracted the 'Nids to our galaxy.

I thought that was the Astronomicon?

pm713 wrote:
I thought that was the Astronomicon?

The Astronomican is what's drawing them toward the Segmentum Solar and Terra currently. But it's range is limited (50,000 light years) despite being more "bright" than the Pharos Device.



When the loyalist Iron Warrior Barabas Dantioch overloaded it to defeat the traitorous Night Lords, causing the device to shut down during the Heresy, it attracted the Hive Mind in intergalactic space.

 oldravenman3025 wrote:

pm713 wrote:
I thought that was the Astronomicon?

The Astronomican is what's drawing them toward the Segmentum Solar and Terra currently. But it's range is limited (50,000 light years) despite being more "bright" than the Pharos Device.



When the loyalist Iron Warrior Barabas Dantioch overloaded it to defeat the traitorous Night Lords, causing the device to shut down during the Heresy, it attracted the Hive Mind in intergalactic space.

Where is the source for this? I'd love to read more about the nids coming to our galaxy!

So, if this is what attracted them, the tyranids traveled for 10 thousands years before reaching our galaxy.
Do we have any idea of their speed ?
They don't travel through the Warp anymore, so it must not be quick.
So we could know from where they come.

NG77 wrote:Where is the source for this? I'd love to read more about the nids coming to our galaxy!

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Pharos_(Device)
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Sotha

^ Those two links would provide a solid start on the matter. Hope they help!

godardc wrote:So, if this is what attracted them, the tyranids traveled for 10 thousands years before reaching our galaxy.
Do we have any idea of their speed ?
They don't travel through the Warp anymore, so it must not be quick.
So we could know from where they come.

It was significantly less than that IIRC. I can't remember where I read it (probably on the W40K Wikia or Lexicanum), but apparently some of the earliest Tyranids were seen somewhere in the 35h or 36th Millenium. I'd have to double check this, but I'm pretty sure this is right(is).

As for knowing their speed and finding out where they came from, that would be practically impossible. As for where they came from, that is impossible to know as well, even if we knew their speed capabilities, because we don't know whether or not their attentions were caught while they were in another galaxy which they finished off before coming here, or whether they were in transit to another galaxy, or whatever other options there are.

We know they do have FTL travel through some weird gravity manipulation so it would be a decent speed.

pm713 wrote:
We know they do have FTL travel through some weird gravity manipulation so it would be a decent speed.

Doesn`t matter. The intergalactic void is impossible big. And it depends, where they started. One of the Magellanic clouds or Andromeda would be a relative short trip. Pegasus or Ida or something like that would be unimaginable, even with FTL or any similar as that.
With only sub-light, the Tyranids must be M31 realy close to our galaxy. If they have realy a gravity-slipstream-drive, that could mean, that they are still from our local cluster, but it would still take a huge amount of time and energy to get to us.
And than there is the weird, old rumour about the Outsider and the Tyranids, but I think, its got retconned by the dreaded Cruddacce....

I agree with Oldravenman's comment about that ....

Tyranid FTL works better away from gravitational wells, so they should be far faster in the intergalactic void.

 Tyran wrote:
Tyranid FTL works better away from gravitational wells, so they should be far faster in the intergalactic void.

Plus as they are heading for a general direction, surely they could create the gravity tunnel using the gravity of the galaxy as a whole, or the black hole at the centre of the galaxy, instead of the small well of a planet as they do in galaxies?

 IllumiNini wrote:
It was significantly less than that IIRC. I can't remember where I read it (probably on the W40K Wikia or Lexicanum), but apparently some of the earliest Tyranids were seen somewhere in the 35h or 36th Millenium. I'd have to double check this, but I'm pretty sure this is right(is).

The Catachan Devil might be related to tyranids. Maybe. I'm not sure when they were first mentioned - it would be very interesting if they were mentioned in the Horus Heresy books.
Fenris has krakens that may be proto-tyranid organisms, and may have been around at the time of the Great Crusade - there's a legend of Fenris throwing one around* when fishing.
There's also the Kraken's Egg, which may have come from a Kraken. The egg is most certainly of tyranid origin, but we don't know exactly when it appeared - or even if it is related to a Kraken.**

So, you could interpret the above as having proto-tyranids within the Galaxy as early as the Great Crusade. However, this is based on legend, conjecture, ignoring other parts of the fluff, and a string of "maybes" long enough to give a lawyer an aneurysm. Besides, even if there were Tyranids in the galaxy during the Great Crusade doesn't mean that the Pharos device wasn't the trigger that first attracted them. It could be that the device attracted them, they arrived thousands of years later, and then time travel weirdness displaced a few of them.


* The kraken's size would be measured in kilometres, so take it it with a grain of salt.
** Note that even if the Kraken's egg is genetically related to a Crusade-era Kraken (rather than a tyrannocyte), it doesn't mean that the Kraken was a tyranid. It could be that the tyranids encountered a Kraken and used its genes to create kraken-like organisms/eggs (similar to the way that eldar genes could be used to create zoanthropes, or ork genes biovores). This means that the kraken could predate the tyranid incursion and thus the creation of the kraken egg, even if there are geneic similarities.
Yes, we could have finally solved the age-old question - "which came first, the Kraken or the egg?"

The Imperium has records of Tyranid contact (including the first contact with Genestealers on Ymgarl) stretching back to M35. There was also a dormant Hive Fleet that was discovered to have been sleeping since M34. This was, of course, before the Imperium knew the level of threat they posed or even knew them as "Tyranids". They never expected this one xeno race to be such a colossal threat to life in the galaxy back when contact with them was minimal. The Tyranids have been seeding and probing the Milky Way galaxy for a while now, they're just coming in full force by M41.

These early indicators of Tyranid activity might be representative of scouting parties. Most of these recorded instances took place in the millennia since the Pharos Device became a big neon sign flashing, "OM NOM NOMS HERE!"


There is another interesting instance that was lost to history, the near mythological tale of the "Legion of Ouroboris" in the 36th Millennium. The descriptions of the Legion, the still-evident damage patterns to a Warlord-Class Battle Titan (the Mechanica Cranus), and the Space Wolves little collection of Tyranid-like trophies from that war (the "Kraken's Egg") seem to point at 'Nid involvement. The real mystery is how a scout fleet got so close to the Eye of Terror, when most of the early reports of Tyranid activity were on the Eastern Fringe, and Segmentum Tempestus.

Maybe leftover tyranid genetics are something to do with the missing/erased primarchs?

Genestealer cult Primarch anyone?

SirDonlad wrote:Maybe leftover tyranid genetics are something to do with the missing/erased primarchs?

Genestealer cult Primarch anyone?

Darth Bob wrote:The Imperium has records of Tyranid contact (including the first contact with Genestealers on Ymgarl) stretching back to M35. There was also a dormant Hive Fleet that was discovered to have been sleeping since M34. This was, of course, before the Imperium knew the level of threat they posed or even knew them as "Tyranids". They never expected this one xeno race to be such a colossal threat to life in the galaxy back when contact with them was minimal. The Tyranids have been seeding and probing the Milky Way galaxy for a while now, they're just coming in full force by M41.

They discovered the seeds of the Xenos, then they found out that the Nids were pne of the most (if not, the most) over-powered race (fluff-wise) that GW ever created! haha

^^^^^^


Seriously though, it would explain why they got removed from records and the ones which turned to the gods of chaos and tried to destroy the imperium are still remembered....