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 Overread wrote:

 John Prins wrote:

 Overread wrote:

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
Tyranids suck suns dry? Where was that said please? I'm curious.

I think its in one of the older codex somewhere. And it makes sense, why consume all the gas and biomaterial and minerals from planets and leave a great big source of energy just blazing away.

Because it's a billion times bigger and a million times hotter and mostly made of hydrogen and photons.

And? It's a huge source of energy. Dyson Spheres are a known sci-fi creation and its no shock to think that Tyranids would have a method to harvest and tap into the raw energy of a sun. To syphon its energies off and use them to further the needs of the Hive. Though I can't recall how they do it.

The idea of the Tyranids is that once they are finished a galaxy is nothing but inert rock and debries - all life, all biomass, minerals, energy etc.. is gone - devoured by the Great Devourer.



Or at least that is the idea we have since that appears to be their prime and only goal that they aim for thus far. If Tyranids have any other motivations we've yet to find out. Although there is one hive fleet now building upon a single world. What the purpose of that vast megastructure is is still unknown

Tyranids do not "suck suns dry". There is no mention of it in the old codices.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
We don't really know that they need to eat to survive. They might use a warp tap for energy like the Eldar did, and simply use the biomass to create warriors and as catalogue of biological adaptations they can peruse. It's often pointed out in these threads that Tyranids could easily digest all the mass in a solar system with the techniques they have at their disposal, but they don't. Whether this is because they choose not to or because GW doesn't understand science/science fiction, we may never know...

All we really know is the Tyranids are specifically targeting inhabited worlds to process and leaving behind uninhabitable worlds.

We do know they need to eat to survive.

Do we?

The hive ships suck up all that mass, sure, but would they starve to death without it? The warriors and gaunts and all the little live things are made without unnecessary organs. I don't think they even have a digestive tract. Aren't they pretty much loaded up with the Tyranid equivalent of nectar-rich fat cells and thrown out to die fighting?

Have we seen a Tyranid starve to death in any fluff from before 5th edition?

The closest I can think of to digestive tracts is that Rippers and Haruspexes eat up loads of corpses and buildings that Pyrovores soften up before running into digestion pools. Even that doesn't need actual digestion just a sack.

 Overread wrote:


And? It's a huge source of energy. Dyson Spheres are a known sci-fi creation and its no shock to think that Tyranids would have a method to harvest and tap into the raw energy of a sun. To syphon its energies off and use them to further the needs of the Hive. Though I can't recall how they do it.

Probably because they aren't, or it's a typical "GW Author Doesn't Understand Scale" fiction.

Basically, if a hive fleet sucks off all the biomass, oceans and atmosphere of a planet, they have enough hydrogen to run fusion reactors for millions of years, and probably enough fissile materials for thousands of years. Since Tyranids seem to be only interested in moving from system to system nomming up all the biomass, hanging around to harvest solar energy doesn't get you more biomass.

Look, the Nids don't make sense from a ton of perspectives (for example, biomass is just made of atoms spread all over the any solar system that could be turned into biomass), but they're portrayed as mobile - they show up, eat a planet with biomass, and leave. Maybe they soak up a little sunshine for free energy while they're close, but they don't hang around enough to harvest even a tiny fraction of stellar mass or energy.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
We don't really know that they need to eat to survive. They might use a warp tap for energy like the Eldar did, and simply use the biomass to create warriors and as catalogue of biological adaptations they can peruse. It's often pointed out in these threads that Tyranids could easily digest all the mass in a solar system with the techniques they have at their disposal, but they don't. Whether this is because they choose not to or because GW doesn't understand science/science fiction, we may never know...

All we really know is the Tyranids are specifically targeting inhabited worlds to process and leaving behind uninhabitable worlds.

We do know they need to eat to survive.

Do we?

The hive ships suck up all that mass, sure, but would they starve to death without it? The warriors and gaunts and all the little live things are made without unnecessary organs. I don't think they even have a digestive tract. Aren't they pretty much loaded up with the Tyranid equivalent of nectar-rich fat cells and thrown out to die fighting?

Have we seen a Tyranid starve to death in any fluff from before 5th edition?

a) they need to eat to create more tyranids. b) they are biological entities so yes they need to eat to sustain themselves, all biological life needs energy and we know they eat biomass, they expel gas through their chimneys, so its safe to say they are processing some element in the same whay humans process oxygen into Carbon dioxide, to say otherwise is just silly to the Nth.

You say silly to the Nth, but you are making a lot of silly (to the Nth) assumptions on your own. They might be biological entities, although constructs might be more accurate, yet they can travel faster than light and utilize a parallel dimension to enable synaptic gestalt consciousness and to power their hovering telekinetic monstrosities. I don't see how it is any stretch to assume they use this same canonical power source to power their vessels.

What is a stretch is assuming space borne, multi-cubic-kilometer creatures capable of faster than light travel must have a metabolism similar to our own. A biotitan would need to spend every minute of its life eating (or drag around a whale sized fat lump) if it survived on digested chemical energy. And that's not even getting into the square-cube law. The only way Tyranids make any kind of sense, even in universe, is if they (or at least the big ones) are a race of psykers using their psychic talents to hold their bodies together, propel themselves, power their "bio" plasma weapons, strengthen their chitin, and make their rending claws rending enough to tear through supermaterials like ceramite and plasteel.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
You say silly to the Nth, but you are making a lot of silly (to the Nth) assumptions on your own. They might be biological entities, although constructs might be more accurate, yet they can travel faster than light and utilize a parallel dimension to enable synaptic gestalt consciousness and to power their hovering telekinetic monstrosities. I don't see how it is any stretch to assume they use this same canonical power source to power their vessels.

What is a stretch is assuming space borne, multi-cubic-kilometer creatures capable of faster than light travel must have a metabolism similar to our own. A biotitan would need to spend every minute of its life eating (or drag around a whale sized fat lump) if it survived on digested chemical energy. And that's not even getting into the square-cube law. The only way Tyranids make any kind of sense, even in universe, is if they (or at least the big ones) are a race of psykers using their psychic talents to hold their bodies together, propel themselves, power their "bio" plasma weapons, strengthen their chitin, and make their rending claws rending enough to tear through supermaterials like ceramite and plasteel.

We've seen them starve to death before, the entire point of the Tyranid race is that they are constantly on the run from starving in the void of space, and ping between galaxies like demented pacmen gobbling up planets.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
You say silly to the Nth, but you are making a lot of silly (to the Nth) assumptions on your own. They might be biological entities, although constructs might be more accurate, yet they can travel faster than light and utilize a parallel dimension to enable synaptic gestalt consciousness and to power their hovering telekinetic monstrosities. I don't see how it is any stretch to assume they use this same canonical power source to power their vessels.

What is a stretch is assuming space borne, multi-cubic-kilometer creatures capable of faster than light travel must have a metabolism similar to our own. A biotitan would need to spend every minute of its life eating (or drag around a whale sized fat lump) if it survived on digested chemical energy. And that's not even getting into the square-cube law. The only way Tyranids make any kind of sense, even in universe, is if they (or at least the big ones) are a race of psykers using their psychic talents to hold their bodies together, propel themselves, power their "bio" plasma weapons, strengthen their chitin, and make their rending claws rending enough to tear through supermaterials like ceramite and plasteel.

" I don't see how it is any stretch to assume they use this same canonical power source to power their vessels." they power their vessels through biomass.

The concept is silly because they get sustenance from biomass. If they didn't eat biomass then it would be reasonable to think they got their energy from somewhere else. What do you think they eat biomass for, do they do it for kicks. I never made any assumptions, I made points from the lore, this is the first time I've ever heard someone suggest they don't need to eat to survive. Space marines are an impossible concept, but its sci-fi, as are Tyranids being massive. Its not a stretch to say they get there energy from somewhere else, its just silly when they 'eat' biomass to 'survive'. lol I mean listen to what you are saying.

This makes me wonder... Do tyranids poop? If they're powered by biomass, there has to be some sort of byproduct once all the potential chemical energy has been extracted from their food.

Either they run on impossibly-efficient nuclear power or logic-bending warp energies... or the void contains a lot of tyranid dung.

Tiennos wrote:
This makes me wonder... Do tyranids poop? If they're powered by biomass, there has to be some sort of byproduct once all the potential chemical energy has been extracted from their food.

Either they run on impossibly-efficient nuclear power or logic-bending warp energies... or the void contains a lot of tyranid dung.

We know they expel gas, through their chimney's, doubt they gak, I never say no donkey-caves on them lol

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Tiennos wrote:
This makes me wonder... Do tyranids poop? If they're powered by biomass, there has to be some sort of byproduct once all the potential chemical energy has been extracted from their food.

Either they run on impossibly-efficient nuclear power or logic-bending warp energies... or the void contains a lot of tyranid dung.

We know they expel gas, through their chimney's, doubt they gak, I never say no donkey-caves on them lol

They likely have a recycling system like any self contained biosphere.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Tiennos wrote:
This makes me wonder... Do tyranids poop? If they're powered by biomass, there has to be some sort of byproduct once all the potential chemical energy has been extracted from their food.

Either they run on impossibly-efficient nuclear power or logic-bending warp energies... or the void contains a lot of tyranid dung.

We know they expel gas, through their chimney's, doubt they gak, I never say no donkey-caves on them lol

They likely have a recycling system like any self contained biosphere.

Logically some Tyranid organism feed of other waste. It's also very possible that some of hte Tyranid warrior organism like Tyranid warriors or the various types of gaunts don't eat as they are supposed to have a very limited life cycle and their only function is to kill things. They thus live off their reserves and die in a matter of days a bit like some flies.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
You say silly to the Nth, but you are making a lot of silly (to the Nth) assumptions on your own. They might be biological entities, although constructs might be more accurate, yet they can travel faster than light and utilize a parallel dimension to enable synaptic gestalt consciousness and to power their hovering telekinetic monstrosities. I don't see how it is any stretch to assume they use this same canonical power source to power their vessels.

What is a stretch is assuming space borne, multi-cubic-kilometer creatures capable of faster than light travel must have a metabolism similar to our own. A biotitan would need to spend every minute of its life eating (or drag around a whale sized fat lump) if it survived on digested chemical energy. And that's not even getting into the square-cube law. The only way Tyranids make any kind of sense, even in universe, is if they (or at least the big ones) are a race of psykers using their psychic talents to hold their bodies together, propel themselves, power their "bio" plasma weapons, strengthen their chitin, and make their rending claws rending enough to tear through supermaterials like ceramite and plasteel.

We've seen them starve to death before, the entire point of the Tyranid race is that they are constantly on the run from starving in the void of space, and ping between galaxies like demented pacmen gobbling up planets.

When have we seen them starve? What book?

And no, starving is not a point of the Tyranids. Yes, they eat. But they also use the genetic material of their prey to adapt. I don't recall starvation being their thing at all.

Technically speaking the Tau have had access to safe warp travel for awhile. or more precisely the Kroot in the form of Kroot warsperes. the Kroot dont need navigators as they seem to have a natural abiity to navigate the warp to inhabited planets. witch means that if the tau realy wanted to they could just copy a warp drive from a warsphere and use kroot as crude navigators. why they dont do this I havnt the faintest fracking clue

@Bob: That's kind of like saying Guardsman must never poop because it isn't stated in the fluff--any setting only operates because one makes basic assumptions that things work the same way as reality unless given reason otherwise. I do not recall them ever saying Tau have to eat, drink, smeep, or even breathe; do we assume they do none of those? The basic assumption is that an organism requires energy and thus Tyranids must derive that energy from consumption like other biological organisms do, in absense of another explanation.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
On a separate note, Tyranids do not make sense from human reasoning but their actions and motivation fall into place when one thinks of them as non-sentient. Giving a colony of ants hyper-adaptive powers and a gestalt hive mind makes it very good at reproducting, eliminating competition, and eating everything, but does not teach it the merits of sustainable farming.

Obviously the Tyranids were not leafcutter ants.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
@Bob: That's kind of like saying Guardsman must never poop because it isn't stated in the fluff--any setting only operates because one makes basic assumptions that things work the same way as reality unless given reason otherwise. I do not recall them ever saying Tau have to eat, drink, smeep, or even breathe; do we assume they do none of those? The basic assumption is that an organism requires energy and thus Tyranids must derive that energy from consumption like other biological organisms do, in absense of another explanation.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
On a separate note, Tyranids do not make sense from human reasoning but their actions and motivation fall into place when one thinks of them as non-sentient. Giving a colony of ants hyper-adaptive powers and a gestalt hive mind makes it very good at reproducting, eliminating competition, and eating everything, but does not teach it the merits of sustainable farming.

Obviously the Tyranids were not leafcutter ants.

Exactly, the writers never wrote that in the lore because they'd never think someone would be saying 'they don't need food or energy to survive.'

We could assume TYRANID ships have massive, specialized digestive systems that are engineered to produce vast amounts of highly volatile gas, making them essentially powered and propelled by huge, powerful farts.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
You say silly to the Nth, but you are making a lot of silly (to the Nth) assumptions on your own. They might be biological entities, although constructs might be more accurate, yet they can travel faster than light and utilize a parallel dimension to enable synaptic gestalt consciousness and to power their hovering telekinetic monstrosities. I don't see how it is any stretch to assume they use this same canonical power source to power their vessels.

What is a stretch is assuming space borne, multi-cubic-kilometer creatures capable of faster than light travel must have a metabolism similar to our own. A biotitan would need to spend every minute of its life eating (or drag around a whale sized fat lump) if it survived on digested chemical energy. And that's not even getting into the square-cube law. The only way Tyranids make any kind of sense, even in universe, is if they (or at least the big ones) are a race of psykers using their psychic talents to hold their bodies together, propel themselves, power their "bio" plasma weapons, strengthen their chitin, and make their rending claws rending enough to tear through supermaterials like ceramite and plasteel.

We've seen them starve to death before, the entire point of the Tyranid race is that they are constantly on the run from starving in the void of space, and ping between galaxies like demented pacmen gobbling up planets.

When have we seen them starve? What book?

And no, starving is not a point of the Tyranids. Yes, they eat. But they also use the genetic material of their prey to adapt. I don't recall starvation being their thing at all.

Short story involving the Emperor's Scythes Scouts skulking around the guts of a dying Hive Ship birthing a new generation from its carcass. Nevermind endless comments about the ravenous hunger of the Hive. Tyranids are quite plainly at risk of starvation if you are not being purposefully obtuse on ridiculous matters.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Tiennos wrote:
This makes me wonder... Do tyranids poop? If they're powered by biomass, there has to be some sort of byproduct once all the potential chemical energy has been extracted from their food.

Either they run on impossibly-efficient nuclear power or logic-bending warp energies... or the void contains a lot of tyranid dung.

We know they expel gas, through their chimney's, doubt they gak, I never say no donkey-caves on them lol

They likely have a recycling system like any self contained biosphere.

A "recycling system" requires energy to turn crap into food. That's basically how plants work in our ecosystem: take energy from sunlight to turn water and carbon dioxyde into tasty sugar. Then anything digesting the plants is basically doing that same process in reverse. The point is whatever energy you get from eating biomatter came from sunlight at one point and once you've expended that energy, it can't just go back into food on its own...
So are tyranids working through photosynthesis? In that case, all their energy needs could be filled by flying near a star and soaking up the rays for a while. Which would imply that eating worlds is done primarily to expand their numbers.

But if they just eat planets to power themselves, then they have to excrete something at some point. I like the gas-powered idea, by the way

Tyranids certainly require energy to function so if a ship were left without access to resources it could well starve. It is likely that they can enter a hibernation state of extreme energy conservation to allow them to navigate the dark empty space between universes, but that might require them to setup a specific biology that isn't needed once they invade. Therefore your standard warriors and termagaunts are not designed to survive without some form of food.

To say nothing of the fact that many times tyranids render down most their warriors to goop once they leave a world rather than keep them alive.

Tiennos wrote:

 Techpriestsupport wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Tiennos wrote:
This makes me wonder... Do tyranids poop? If they're powered by biomass, there has to be some sort of byproduct once all the potential chemical energy has been extracted from their food.

Either they run on impossibly-efficient nuclear power or logic-bending warp energies... or the void contains a lot of tyranid dung.

We know they expel gas, through their chimney's, doubt they gak, I never say no donkey-caves on them lol

They likely have a recycling system like any self contained biosphere.

A "recycling system" requires energy to turn crap into food. That's basically how plants work in our ecosystem: take energy from sunlight to turn water and carbon dioxyde into tasty sugar. Then anything digesting the plants is basically doing that same process in reverse. The point is whatever energy you get from eating biomatter came from sunlight at one point and once you've expended that energy, it can't just go back into food on its own...
So are tyranids working through photosynthesis? In that case, all their energy needs could be filled by flying near a star and soaking up the rays for a while. Which would imply that eating worlds is done primarily to expand their numbers.

But if they just eat planets to power themselves, then they have to excrete something at some point. I like the gas-powered idea, by the way

Well, when in a system consuming biomass they could power themselves by solar energy to process waste into new material. They go into a form of low energy mode when traveling , Possibly generating waste, which is stored and recycled when it enters a new star system and can photo synthesize again.

I mean earth is largely a closed ecosystem except for energy from an external source, the sun. But the ecosystem recycles organic material ad infinitum from plant to animal to excrement to plant, and decomposing animals and wood even. I'd guess the 'nids had something like it in their main ships. Again, mooching free solar energy in a system. Remember in space with no air they get a lot more continuous solar power than you do on a planet like earth.

Yeah, a biological ship using farts for propulsion, it's kinda obvious. But still funny.

 Overread wrote:
Tyranids certainly require energy to function so if a ship were left without access to resources it could well starve. It is likely that they can enter a hibernation state of extreme energy conservation to allow them to navigate the dark empty space between universes, but that might require them to setup a specific biology that isn't needed once they invade. Therefore your standard warriors and termagaunts are not designed to survive without some form of food.

To say nothing of the fact that many times tyranids render down most their warriors to goop once they leave a world rather than keep them alive.

Its kind of a perfect system. They are able to spit out warriors and eater organisms to take a planet, absorb all their biomass, then they turn all their warriors and eater organism to energy for traveling through space, rather than wasting energy on keeping the warriors and eater organisms alive during transit.

Yes we know that gaunts don't have disgestive system, I read it so others must have read it too (but I don't recall where, obviously ....)
And yes, the tyranids are always descirbed as "starving" or with words such as "hunger" etc. or being exhausted by their long travel.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
If this TYRANID ftl has a clear effect on worlds before they get to them one possibility in fighting 'nids is to preform extreme exterminatus on planets kid fleet's are approaching. Life eater virus, cyclonic plasma torpedoes, etc. Leave as little bio ass, water, etc as possible. Burn worlds before 'nids can eat them and try to starve their fleets into spending tremendous energy in traveling and getting nothing in return.

That exactly what inquisitor Kryptman did !

 godardc wrote:

That exactly what inquisitor Kryptman did !

I thought his plan was to let the Nids commit their forces to the surface, THEN turn the planet to ashes, making the Nids actually lose biomass, to the point where after 2-3 systems they'd have nothing left but barren empty ships that were easy pickings for the Imperial Navy.

 John Prins wrote:

 godardc wrote:

That exactly what inquisitor Kryptman did !

I thought his plan was to let the Nids commit their forces to the surface, THEN turn the planet to ashes, making the Nids actually lose biomass, to the point where after 2-3 systems they'd have nothing left but barren empty ships that were easy pickings for the Imperial Navy.

Thing is its only a short term tactic.
The Imperium can only destroy so many worlds and retreat back from them so many times before they are also losing. Production and breeding are critical to the Imperium and if the Tyranids learn that all they have to do is move toward a world - or make it out they are moving toward a world. Then the Tyranids can force the Imperium to retreat and retreat.

Plus there's no known limit on the number of Hive fleets and hive fleets have been seen to feed each other too (as well as compete). So Tyranids could very easily just have one fleet mincing on Orks, Eldar and others to generate food - transporting a bulk of it to fleets charging into the Imperium whilst the Imperium performs a Russian style retreat and burn of worlds.

Short term it would work; long term it favours the Tyranids. Remembering that event a dead world still has mineral resources of value to the Tyranids and Imperium.

 Overread wrote:

 John Prins wrote:

 godardc wrote:

That exactly what inquisitor Kryptman did !

I thought his plan was to let the Nids commit their forces to the surface, THEN turn the planet to ashes, making the Nids actually lose biomass, to the point where after 2-3 systems they'd have nothing left but barren empty ships that were easy pickings for the Imperial Navy.

Thing is its only a short term tactic.
The Imperium can only destroy so many worlds and retreat back from them so many times before they are also losing.

Note that it doesn't have to be IMPERIAL worlds. Infect some Orks with genestealers, drop them on an Ork world and wait. Or any other Xenos. Kills 2 birds with one stone and doesn't affect an imperial world at all.

Additionally, if you can't save an imperial world from a Tyranid swarm (not every world is MacCragge), it's far better to raze the planet while the Nids are on the surface than to not do it. IIRC the problem with Kryptman was he was luring Nids to worlds that they might have otherwise missed, simply because those worlds were placed to be easy lures for the swarm. It's theoretically possible for the Nids to miss those worlds entirely as they focus on worlds that have genestealer infestations further on.