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I was just reminded of the movie "the thing", arguably John Carpenter's best movie, by hearing of the death of one of its stars .

I just wondered what would happen if the tyranids attacked a Thing? Would they destroy it or would they tear it apart, eat it and all become infected, so the Thing takes over the hive fleet?

The Thing works on a cellular level, so I think it'd do well in the short term. But Tyranids are a hive mind, and I think it'd be pretty clear to them if one gaunt was a thing. There'd be no sneaking about for the Thing, so the Nids would win in the end.

 Insectum7 wrote:
The Thing works on a cellular level, so I think it'd do well in the short term. But Tyranids are a hive mind, and I think it'd be pretty clear to them if one gaunt was a thing. There'd be no sneaking about for the Thing, so the Nids would win in the end.

Worse still, The Thing assumes the form of a Tyranid perfectly and is instantly dominated by the Hive Mind...

The Thing never really showed much situational intelligence. It could copy almost perfectly, but always appeared unstable and very prone to irrational behaviour. I think that it never fully understood much of the behaviours it copied and the longer it remained in one form the more unstable it became.

Potentially simpler life forms were easier for it to remain in longer before it started to lose control of itself.

You can certainly see that there we several times where if it had remained hidden it could quite easily have escaped were it not for its sudden need to kill and transform and mutate.



So yes The Thing could do well against Tyranids initially, however I doubt that it could mount any kind of long term campaign. Furthermore the Hive Mind would quickly identify which of its troops were not its own once it became properly aware of the Things ability to imitate body appearance. Plus we know that the Hive Mind is perfectly willing to sacrifice its own warriors.

So the Tyranids method of destruction would likely be to simply destroy everything, at range, within X amount of area. Provided a synapse creature remained in range it could easily detect where the Thing was operating and thus focus its efforts.



The real trick would be if the Thing were to make such a good copy that it actually started to change itself at its most basic level. If the Thing gained increased and stable intelligence then it would be far more deadly.

I could totally see a Thing going voluntarly into a digestion pool and then infecting a whole fleet.
Do you remember the Nurgle infected hive-fleet ? Was it still under hive-mind controle ?

 Overread wrote:
The Thing never really showed much situational intelligence. It could copy almost perfectly, but always appeared unstable and very prone to irrational behaviour. I think that it never fully understood much of the behaviours it copied and the longer it remained in one form the more unstable it became.

Potentially simpler life forms were easier for it to remain in longer before it started to lose control of itself.

You can certainly see that there we several times where if it had remained hidden it could quite easily have escaped were it not for its sudden need to kill and transform and mutate.



So yes The Thing could do well against Tyranids initially, however I doubt that it could mount any kind of long term campaign. Furthermore the Hive Mind would quickly identify which of its troops were not its own once it became properly aware of the Things ability to imitate body appearance. Plus we know that the Hive Mind is perfectly willing to sacrifice its own warriors.

So the Tyranids method of destruction would likely be to simply destroy everything, at range, within X amount of area. Provided a synapse creature remained in range it could easily detect where the Thing was operating and thus focus its efforts.



The real trick would be if the Thing were to make such a good copy that it actually started to change itself at its most basic level. If the Thing gained increased and stable intelligence then it would be far more deadly.

Um, yeah, the thing was building a flying saucer, we found out. everything else was a distraction.

The Thing itself was poorly written (not the movie, great movie) in that there is no reason for why it should not have been able to infect everyone immediately. Something as simple as spiking the drinking water or sprinkling some dandruf on everyone's pillow would have done it since it is established that only a few cells are even needed. Even if more is needed cut off a finger and toss it in each person's bed while they are asleep.

So it's hard to do a comparison since it doesn't even make sense on a basic level.

The nids could probably mindscan what ever tyranid or lifeform the thing copied, and then confirm weather it is a thing or a tyranid.

The nids could probably do a schorched earth taktic. Perhaps they could even turn the thing onto some necron controlled planets. The thing would have real problem fighting necrons.

Most lickly the nids could concoct something that could attack the thing on a celular level. If they could do that, they could probably just fight the thing head on.

I think acid weapons would do well vs the thing.

Also, a lot os unknown about the thing. Why does it not copy bacteria?

 godardc wrote:
I could totally see a Thing going voluntarly into a digestion pool and then infecting a whole fleet.
Do you remember the Nurgle infected hive-fleet ? Was it still under hive-mind controle ?

When did that happen? Is it from the demonhunters codex?

It is from the latest nid codex I think. Or from the nurgle codex, I am not sure. They try to out biological warhfare the other one. Nids with bacterias and toxins. Nurgle with roth magic. The end result is one goiant plannet that ends up being useless to both parties. Nids lost some biomass and move on. Nurgle moves on. (So teqnicaly a winn for the demons. Probably one more reason why nids are focusing on battling them.)

 Niiai wrote:
It is from the latest nid codex I think. Or from the nurgle codex, I am not sure. They try to out biological warhfare the other one. Nids with bacterias and toxins. Nurgle with roth magic. The end result is one goiant plannet that ends up being useless to both parties. Nids lost some biomass and move on. Nurgle moves on. (So teqnicaly a winn for the demons. Probably one more reason why nids are focusing on battling them.)

That story has nothing to do with a nurgle-infected hive fleet.

I think it is that story where the nids shoot down their own ships to not spread the infection, no?

 Niiai wrote:
I think it is that story where the nids shoot down their own ships to not spread the infection, no?

They shot down one ship, yes. The rest of the fleet was not affected.

That still falls within the parameters of godardc phrasing,

 Niiai wrote:
That still falls within the parameters of godardc phrasing,

The hive mind was in controle of the fleet. That is why it destroyed the "infected" hive ship.

So it is probably not the story he is referring to.

 Niiai wrote:
The nids could probably mindscan what ever tyranid or lifeform the thing copied, and then confirm weather it is a thing or a tyranid.

The nids could probably do a schorched earth taktic. Perhaps they could even turn the thing onto some necron controlled planets. The thing would have real problem fighting necrons.

Most lickly the nids could concoct something that could attack the thing on a celular level. If they could do that, they could probably just fight the thing head on.

I think acid weapons would do well vs the thing.

Also, a lot os unknown about the thing. Why does it not copy bacteria?

Ok i'll field this one. I'm going to assume the thing needs a certain minimum mass to be fully functional. The blood samples didn't have intelligence, not enough cells to form a brain of any real use, it just had instincts.

There seems to be some sort of incubation period before you become "Thing", so depending on how long that is it could spread quite far before being noticed.

And ofc, the Tyranids use living ships - good luck fighting the Thing when it's your ship and everything around you. Every soldier-creature spawned to fight it would be infected from birth. Nope, if the Thing gets into a Hive Fleet it's game over for the bugs.

Spetulhu wrote:
There seems to be some sort of incubation period before you become "Thing", so depending on how long that is it could spread quite far before being noticed.

And ofc, the Tyranids use living ships - good luck fighting the Thing when it's your ship and everything around you. Every soldier-creature spawned to fight it would be infected from birth. Nope, if the Thing gets into a Hive Fleet it's game over for the bugs.

The tyranids proved able to overcome all of nurgels diseases in the battle of shaowbrink. I dont see how the thing would fare any better against the tyranids.

Spetulhu wrote:
There seems to be some sort of incubation period before you become "Thing", so depending on how long that is it could spread quite far before being noticed.

And ofc, the Tyranids use living ships - good luck fighting the Thing when it's your ship and everything around you. Every soldier-creature spawned to fight it would be infected from birth. Nope, if the Thing gets into a Hive Fleet it's game over for the bugs.

It would have to reach every ship at the same time for that. It could take one Hive Fleet at most.

Spetulhu wrote:
There seems to be some sort of incubation period before you become "Thing", so depending on how long that is it could spread quite far before being noticed.

And ofc, the Tyranids use living ships - good luck fighting the Thing when it's your ship and everything around you. Every soldier-creature spawned to fight it would be infected from birth. Nope, if the Thing gets into a Hive Fleet it's game over for the bugs.

Does the thing keep its synapse abilities? Because if not, the hive troops are useless. In fact that's an even more interesting question. Does a Tyranid ship even function well without being connected to the hive mind? Thing becomes a hive ship annnd... you have a gimped hive ship spawning gimped tyranids. Imo a Thing hive ship is a pretty minor threat to the Tyranids.

Spetulhu wrote:
There seems to be some sort of incubation period before you become "Thing", so depending on how long that is it could spread quite far before being noticed.

And ofc, the Tyranids use living ships - good luck fighting the Thing when it's your ship and everything around you. Every soldier-creature spawned to fight it would be infected from birth. Nope, if the Thing gets into a Hive Fleet it's game over for the bugs.

Wouldn't it be incredibly easy to find an intruder in a hive mind? Considering it would be the only organism not responding to it?
Also, there is a entire tyranid liveform whose modus operandi is infecting other beings with its genetic material, to turn them into hybrid creatures under its control. So they should know if their own methods are uses against it.

Tyranids are written in such a way, that basically no other biological live form will win against them on that level. GW wrote them as the ultimate op predatorial being.

Well I think the flood could give then a run for their money. Provided there was a critical mass of dead thingsvto reanimate so they could snowball it.

I think it would be like Alan Moore's Swamp Thing. Is the Thing assimilated into the Tyranids making them the more perfect lifeform? Or are the Tyranids consumed by the Thing allowing it have greater reach than ever before?

I don't know. But to the outside observer, I think it would look the same.

The Tyranids would just assimilate it.

The Tyranids are a physical presence, but the Hive Mind is far beyond that. The massive psychic presence that guides the Tyranids is beyond the power of the Thing to control. The assimilation of the Thing would likely allow the Tyranids to easily steamroll the entire galaxy save the Necrons, who are inorganic. Now the Tyranids wouldn't have to collect biomass, because every single glancing cut would infect you and turn you into a Tyranid.

If it gets onto a tyranid ship while it’s still in hibernation then I think it’s got a chance to infect enough biomass to win, like the Borg the nids take time to respond to any presence on their ships while hibernating.

The 'nid hivemeind seems to be able to screw with warpy stuff. Nurgle and associated diseases are warpy stuff. Since the thing doesn't use warpy stuff would the hive mind be able to mess with it? The thing could assimilate memories and everything, maybe it could act enough like a normal bug to avoid detection.

Wait, how have we got this far without having Peter Watt's short story yet? It's John Carpenter's movie from the point of view of the Thing.

Tastyfish wrote:
Wait, how have we got this far without having Peter Watt's short story yet? It's John Carpenter's movie from the point of view of the Thing.

People should read this story . It's pretty mind blowing.

The Thing is absolutely one of the most terrifying alien organisms I have ever encountered in any kind of fiction whatsoever. Worse than the Tyranids, who need a gestalt hivemind to guide their actions and become little more than animals without that control.

Let's start off with what the thing is:
-A parasitic cellular organism capable of absorbing any kind of biological matter and expanding itself by "eating" that biomass.
-Capable of advanced cellular manipulation to mimic other lifeforms that it has "eaten". (One of the characters described it as a "chameleon")
-Capable of reproduction by splitting like an amoeba or an earthworm. If you cut the thing in half, now you have two things. This makes it pretty much impervious to physical attacks. (Unknown if one thing can absorb another after a split)
-The only way to truly kill it is through complete cellular destruction (Fire, chemicals, or energy... Unknown if radiation effects it)
-Intelligence is based on size, where a thing the size of a finger has little more than animal intelligence, while a thing a little bit bigger than a human was implied to be trying to build a space ship.

The thing's only downside is that it requires physical contact to spread itself, but I can see that changing if it eats something capable of shooting biological ranged attacks. However, it seems that the thing doesn't like fighting, and only kills in self-defense, it seems much more content to use it's mimicry instincts to hide itself rather than try to murder or "eat" everything in sight. Although, that could just be the chosen strategy of the thing in the very limited situation in the book/movie.

The thing would absolutely devour an entire tyranid hive fleet if it got the chance and become insanely powerful because for the thing bigger = more intelligent. If the hive mind was smart enough to catch on and kill the thing before it got too far it might have a chance, but tyranids (even bioships) are all about melee weapons for the most part which is a distinct disadvantage against the thing.

w1zard wrote:
The Thing is absolutely one of the most terrifying alien organisms I have ever encountered in any kind of fiction whatsoever. Worse than the Tyranids, who need a gestalt hivemind to guide their actions and become little more than animals without that control.

Let's start off with what the thing is:
-A parasitic cellular organism capable of absorbing any kind of biological matter and expanding itself by "eating" that biomass.
-Capable of advanced cellular manipulation to mimic other lifeforms that it has "eaten". (One of the characters described it as a "chameleon")
-Capable of reproduction by splitting like an amoeba or an earthworm. If you cut the thing in half, now you have two things. This makes it pretty much impervious to physical attacks. (Unknown if one thing can absorb another after a split)
-The only way to truly kill it is through complete cellular destruction (Fire, chemicals, or energy... Unknown if radiation effects it)
-Intelligence is based on size, where a thing the size of a finger has little more than animal intelligence, while a thing a little bit bigger than a human was implied to be trying to build a space ship.

The thing's only downside is that it requires physical contact to spread itself, but I can see that changing if it eats something capable of shooting biological ranged attacks. However, it seems that the thing doesn't like fighting, and only kills in self-defense, it seems much more content to use it's mimicry instincts to hide itself rather than try to murder or "eat" everything in sight. Although, that could just be the chosen strategy of the thing in the very limited situation in the book/movie.

The thing would absolutely devour an entire tyranid hive fleet if it got the chance and become insanely powerful because for the thing bigger = more intelligent. If the hive mind was smart enough to catch on and kill the thing before it got too far it might have a chance, but tyranids (even bioships) are all about melee weapons for the most part which is a distinct disadvantage against the thing.

Good points but Blair thing wasn't trying to build a spaceship, just a ship that could reach a viable climate.