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2019/02/12 20:50:25
Subject: Update on Hive Fleet Tiamet and what they are building.
Now this is just my personal opinion but Tyranids are pathetic at the moment, you can't sell a threat like them if they lose almost every major engagement they are involved in. Reading their codex is depressing. Let's not forget in devastation of Baal, Dante facing down a swarmlord and winning, seriously? The best bioform of the nid fleet losing to an astartes? Narrative wise where can you take such a faction? Hence why I believe they changed Necrons, now is this the start of making the nids something differently entirely? Who knows, anyway this is just a speculation/theory thread after all.
The Tyranids are a far from a "pathetic" threat. They have taken huge chunks out of the Imperium. They destroyed Gryphonne IV, stated as one of the most heavily fortified worlds in the "southern" part of the galaxy.
The thing is whenever we see the Tyranids depicted in fiction, it is as antagonists and BL books have the protagonists winning usually through some deus ex machina at the end. Rare is the book that has the protagonists lose or have to really come to terms with defeat. However, for every planet defended successfully against the Tyranids, many more forgettable worlds get consumed, such as all those poorly defended agri-worlds that are mentioned only in passing in how Kraken's splinter fleets are regrowing. The Imperium could win the battle and lose the war, so to speak. Lose 1 but win 100 other battles? I think the Hive Mind would see that as an acceptable trade off.
Right, I don't want to derail the thread but my point does not change and I am going to address this once. Oh no! They devoured non-important worlds! While the narrative on the other hand is screaming/banging on at us that chaos is the main threat, we should be scared of daemons and CSM. Not the bug-monsters who are directed by a weird unknowable intelligence that seeks to eat planets and rewrite our DNA to worship it.
It was the same with the oldcrons, Oh no! They can kill all life! They are such a big threat! Yet they got no where and was beaten time and time again. Let's not forget what the Ultramarines has done to em as well.
Where can you take such a narrative? It's why I feel they injected personality in the Necrons and why I personally think they bought back GSC. You can actually write consistent and interesting stories about them. Even daemons have more personality than tyranids since they are after all walking emotions.
It doesn't matter if a codex tells me that they have eaten planet number 120340506, if in the main engagement narratives that actually matter to people they always lose. This was even a complaint about the 8th edition codex.
This is one aspect where AOS has 40k beaten in my opinion, each Grand Alliance is a equal threat to each other and the narrative treats it that way.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/02/12 20:52:47
2019/02/12 20:50:39
Subject: Update on Hive Fleet Tiamet and what they are building.
Lance845 wrote: Read any codex entry about them devouring a world. They make no waste. Every scrap of organic mater, every molecule of fluid, every atom of air is taken and recycled to breed more organisms.
Stop thinking about what a hormagaunt does to get its job done. The hormagaunt is a cell in a body not a body unto itself.
The tyranid body takes all and uses all. There is no waste. When those resources are spent to breed new organisms on the next planet if the nids win not only do they recoup 100% of the resources spent but gain every new organic scrap.
No **** sherlock, but every single tyranid organism still needs nurishment to stay alive, from hormagaunt to hive ship.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/02/12 20:52:27
Tyranid fanboy.
Been around since 3rd edition.
2019/02/12 21:04:05
Subject: Update on Hive Fleet Tiamet and what they are building.
It doesn't matter if a codex tells me that they have eaten planet number 120340506, if in the main engagement narratives that actually matter to people they always lose. This was even a complaint about the 8th edition codex.
The thing is the status quo is always going to be maintained because no company would want to actually say "Ok lets just write off a whole faction due to lore because it would advance the story." They are never going to retire ultra marines because Tyranids ate their homeworld. It just won't happen. They "MIGHT" use it as an excuse in the lore to justify a purely business choice (army isn't selling and no value can be seen in investment to try and improve sales and thus its retired*).
So yeah if Tyranids eat their way to Terra you can bet they will lose the final battle; same as if Orks built a Waaagh big enough to do it or if Chaos got a Crusade there etc... AoS is actually exactly the same, if not actually worse at this stage, because at least in the 40K setting there are known key worlds like Cadia which have a meaning and importance. Right now AoS hasn't really got any such sites save for Realmgates. As a result they can wipe out whole cities and it has little to no real narrative effect because no one even knows where the heck it is on the map; nor its political and power relations. It's actually a huge complaint about the AoS setting that isn't helped by the fact that the setting itself is spread over several hundred years (from the Realmgate Wars to re-building after which is clearly at least multiple generations to have allowed cities to form and thrive and for people and even aelves to be raised without being under the yoke of Chaos).
IT's the fate of any wargame or other product tied lore in that its going to never change dramatically. You'll never see the Imperium of Man fall to nothing; or see Chaos rise to rule all or see Tyranids eat everyone etc... Heck because marketing is so tied into many lores you won't even see vast changes like the Emperor of Man being killed. Warmachine has toyed with going further in a few places -they've had one or two heroes change sides so that they've a Version 1 in one army and a new one in a different force. So there are ways to go further, but GW has never really gone there
*Interestingly I recall that whilst the Tyranids are famous for having "Eaten" the squats homeworld its actually a bit of lore that was never official, but has been repeated so many times in the community that its almost the general argument put forth.
Lance845 wrote: Read any codex entry about them devouring a world. They make no waste. Every scrap of organic mater, every molecule of fluid, every atom of air is taken and recycled to breed more organisms.
Stop thinking about what a hormagaunt does to get its job done. The hormagaunt is a cell in a body not a body unto itself.
The tyranid body takes all and uses all. There is no waste. When those resources are spent to breed new organisms on the next planet if the nids win not only do they recoup 100% of the resources spent but gain every new organic scrap.
No **** sherlock, but every single tyranid organism still needs nurishment to stay alive, from hormagaunt to hive ship.
Nurishment implies an expenditure of energy. The tyranids dont do that. If the fleet was expending energy then there would be organic waste. They dont have that. Which makes them self sustaining. Which means they dont require nurishment. If its a no gak that they spend nothing and only harvest then its a no gak that they dont need outside sources to keep going.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/02/12 21:18:03
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
2019/02/12 21:13:42
Subject: Update on Hive Fleet Tiamet and what they are building.
It doesn't matter if a codex tells me that they have eaten planet number 120340506, if in the main engagement narratives that actually matter to people they always lose. This was even a complaint about the 8th edition codex.
The thing is the status quo is always going to be maintained because no company would want to actually say "Ok lets just write off a whole faction due to lore because it would advance the story." They are never going to retire ultra marines because Tyranids ate their homeworld. It just won't happen. They "MIGHT" use it as an excuse in the lore to justify a purely business choice (army isn't selling and no value can be seen in investment to try and improve sales and thus its retired*).
So yeah if Tyranids eat their way to Terra you can bet they will lose the final battle; same as if Orks built a Waaagh big enough to do it or if Chaos got a Crusade there etc... AoS is actually exactly the same, if not actually worse at this stage, because at least in the 40K setting there are known key worlds like Cadia which have a meaning and importance. Right now AoS hasn't really got any such sites save for Realmgates. As a result they can wipe out whole cities and it has little to no real narrative effect because no one even knows where the heck it is on the map; nor its political and power relations. It's actually a huge complaint about the AoS setting that isn't helped by the fact that the setting itself is spread over several hundred years (from the Realmgate Wars to re-building after which is clearly at least multiple generations to have allowed cities to form and thrive and for people and even aelves to be raised without being under the yoke of Chaos).
IT's the fate of any wargame or other product tied lore in that its going to never change dramatically. You'll never see the Imperium of Man fall to nothing; or see Chaos rise to rule all or see Tyranids eat everyone etc... Heck because marketing is so tied into many lores you won't even see vast changes like the Emperor of Man being killed. Warmachine has toyed with going further in a few places -they've had one or two heroes change sides so that they've a Version 1 in one army and a new one in a different force. So there are ways to go further, but GW has never really gone there
*Interestingly I recall that whilst the Tyranids are famous for having "Eaten" the squats homeworld its actually a bit of lore that was never official, but has been repeated so many times in the community that its almost the general argument put forth.
I disagree, because if you read through the first AOS campaign books they killed off a recurring character after he thought it was a good idea to take on Archaon. I am not saying that home worlds should be devoured completely, but the Tyranids are unable to kill even ONE named character? Why do you think people were spitting curses that Dante took on a swarmlord and won?
Your whole post shows why such factions like nids and oldcrons are flawed to begin with, you can't take their narrative anywhere. They will be slapped around as a joke because of the status quo, hence why I think they changed necrons in the first place. You now see the undead robots doing interesting things, the whole threat of Tyranids and oldcrons was cool but that potential in my eyes was wasted because CHAOS is the bad guy we should be all scared of.
I don't want the ultramarines to fall or Terra to fall. But overall having such a faction that exists to be slapped by another kills their narrative on how scary they are. Show, don't tell.
Each grand alliance is getting their chance in the spot light to be a "threat" a credible one. Hence soul wars, malign portents and the aelven gods capturing slaanesh. Factions are not being overshadowed by each other, that's my point. I broke what I said in my last post but that's how I feel on the subject, this is just my opinion.
Now let's focus on nids.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/02/12 21:14:12
2019/02/12 21:42:50
Subject: Update on Hive Fleet Tiamet and what they are building.
Lance845 wrote: Read any codex entry about them devouring a world. They make no waste. Every scrap of organic mater, every molecule of fluid, every atom of air is taken and recycled to breed more organisms.
Stop thinking about what a hormagaunt does to get its job done. The hormagaunt is a cell in a body not a body unto itself.
The tyranid body takes all and uses all. There is no waste. When those resources are spent to breed new organisms on the next planet if the nids win not only do they recoup 100% of the resources spent but gain every new organic scrap.
No **** sherlock, but every single tyranid organism still needs nurishment to stay alive, from hormagaunt to hive ship.
Nurishment implies an expenditure of energy. The tyranids dont do that.
Plz give me a quote from one of the codexes that proves that statement.
"If the fleet was expending energy then there would be organic waste. They dont have that.
So what you are saying is that the tyranids use zero energy?
You do understand that the expenditure of energy has no effect on the net amount of biomass, right? In the real world anyway.
This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2019/02/12 21:52:45
Tyranid fanboy.
Been around since 3rd edition.
2019/02/12 21:46:07
Subject: Update on Hive Fleet Tiamet and what they are building.
Since they take every molecule of organic mater (and this part is me filling in the blanks) i assume they have a recycling ecosystem within themselves. At least on the hive ship level. This process uses X gas and produces Y and Z. Y is used in B process and Z is used in A process. The results of which recreate X gas.
Otherwise there would be molecules and compounds they can't use and would create waste. (Like us producing carbon dioxcide when we breath).
The hive ships/inner organisms shut down most of their processes during hibernation because they don't need to produce warrior organisms or living amunition. That doesnt mean the basic functions of the ecysystem shut down. You do know that when an animal hibernates it doesnt shut down all biological function right? It just slows it way down and or shuts down non essential functions.
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
2019/02/12 22:16:07
Subject: Update on Hive Fleet Tiamet and what they are building.
Lance845 wrote: Since they take every molecule of organic mater (and this part is me filling in the blanks) i assume they have a recycling ecosystem within themselves. At least on the hive ship level. This process uses X gas and produces Y and Z. Y is used in B process and Z is used in A process. The results of which recreate X gas.
The system you are describing would need energy from an outside source if it is to keep running forever. I think that is the part you dont seem to understand.
You do know that when an animal hibernates it doesnt shut down all biological function right? It just slows it way down and or shuts down non essential functions.
Animals hibernate to save energi. That is the whole point of hibernation. You do know that, right?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/02/12 22:17:31
Tyranid fanboy.
Been around since 3rd edition.
2019/02/12 22:23:51
Subject: Update on Hive Fleet Tiamet and what they are building.
What you just said is the argument people use to ask where the energy is coming from on earth. Not only that, but outside of our solar system ambient radiation sky rockets for unknown reasons. Its predicted that outside of the galaxy it does so again.
Voyager 1 found the drastic increase just outside our systems edge.
I suppose if you wanted to include ambient radiation as nourishment then yeah. Tyranids need "nourishment". But what they don't need is to feed on planets to sustain themselves. Only to grow their system.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/02/12 23:51:31
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
2019/02/13 03:48:00
Subject: Update on Hive Fleet Tiamet and what they are building.
Lance845 wrote: An animal hunts to survive. A animal lives to propagate. The tyranids clearly don't NEED to do any of those things.
This is an oversimplification of biology; animals do obtain food to survive but when presented with an excess of food they do not suddenly decide to stop eating & reproducing. Rats do not NEED to breed into the millions to survive, but they do it anyways because they are programmed to feth and eat our garbage.
What you just said is the argument people use to ask where the energy is coming from on earth.
Correct.
Now, will you please provide a quote on this from one of the tyranid codexes to prove your point? I have asked you 4 times now..
Up until now, this is just your fanfiction.
This is from the 4th edition.
All this is from the 8th ed codex. The only one that matters. Each codex replaces the previous with retcons and updates.
Pg 6.
They have journeyed across the unspeakable cold of the void, where time and space conspire to hold the stars apart with inconceivable distances. Yet the tyranids crossed this expanse nontheless, moving through the empty darkness for countless millenia.
I.e. without nourishment because there is none in the space between galaxies.
Pg 8.
Read up about the tyran system. Not even a bacteria is found. If any waste were produced there would be a trail. There never is.
Pg 10.
Leaving nothing but an airless tomb behind. No waste.
So on. Find any reference in any story anywhere where anyone finds some kind of trail of matter left in the wake of a hive fleet. There is none. Not so much as the faint whisper of a fart.
So lets review the facts.
1) not opinion, the nids traveled across galaxies. They survived it without any food or nourishment to replenish them. Thousands of years (over 10k minimum) with no food or water while maintaining the ability to produce the organisms needed to devour a world including warriors, feeders, and the microbes and gak needed to make digestion pools.
2) no waste.
3) leviathan showed up from bellow the galactic disk fully stocked on biomass to produce warriors across thousands of worlds in a single sweeping attack that just about split the galactic disk. I.e. they didn't loose or need to replenish that biomass after their pan galactic trip
4) Every statement that mentions their hunger. Their nourishment. Its all conjecture. Statements from a 3rd party that are not the nids describing what the other races think of the nids while not knowing anything about them.
And then like i said, i fill in the blanks. If they are not producing waste and taking everything then they must have some kind of recycling internal system that keeps the matter doing what they need it to do without any real loss. Otherwise we would find tyranid gak. And since they travel in fleets that can blot out the stars there would be a lot of it. But there isn't.
Find ANY other reasonable explanation for this. Any. Anywhere.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/02/13 06:23:30
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
2019/02/13 07:45:04
Subject: Re:Update on Hive Fleet Tiamet and what they are building.
Maybe the nids have found a way/are working on a way to utilize blanks/pariahs, since blanks would normally disrupt the hiveminds connection to the bugs, having a way around this while still proving effective against the demons of any warp entity would be a big help to the hive fleets. Could be they are seeding the GSC that visit the planet with the pariah gene and seeing what succeeds and what fails miserably. The fact the necrons came up with the gene for the exact same counter to the warp is just a good setup for a Necron vs Nids showdown to me
2019/02/13 07:59:39
Subject: Re:Update on Hive Fleet Tiamet and what they are building.
CheerfulChump117 wrote: Maybe the nids have found a way/are working on a way to utilize blanks/pariahs, since blanks would normally disrupt the hiveminds connection to the bugs, having a way around this while still proving effective against the demons of any warp entity would be a big help to the hive fleets. Could be they are seeding the GSC that visit the planet with the pariah gene and seeing what succeeds and what fails miserably. The fact the necrons came up with the gene for the exact same counter to the warp is just a good setup for a Necron vs Nids showdown to me
Blanks and pariahs don't disrupt the hive mind. The hivemind does not use the warp to communicate through the synapse network. The shadow is a byproduct of the hive mind. Not the hive mind itself. Tyranid individual organisms have no presence in the warp to be disrupted because they have no souls.
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
2019/02/13 10:01:25
Subject: Re:Update on Hive Fleet Tiamet and what they are building.
CheerfulChump117 wrote: Maybe the nids have found a way/are working on a way to utilize blanks/pariahs, since blanks would normally disrupt the hiveminds connection to the bugs, having a way around this while still proving effective against the demons of any warp entity would be a big help to the hive fleets. Could be they are seeding the GSC that visit the planet with the pariah gene and seeing what succeeds and what fails miserably. The fact the necrons came up with the gene for the exact same counter to the warp is just a good setup for a Necron vs Nids showdown to me
Blanks and pariahs don't disrupt the hive mind. The hivemind does not use the warp to communicate through the synapse network. The shadow is a byproduct of the hive mind. Not the hive mind itself. Tyranid individual organisms have no presence in the warp to be disrupted because they have no souls.
I always thought souls, emotions, psychic abilities and presence in the warp were all different aspects of the same phenomenon. If not, then what the heck is a soul?
2019/02/13 12:15:31
Subject: Update on Hive Fleet Tiamet and what they are building.
What you just said is the argument people use to ask where the energy is coming from on earth.
Correct.
Now, will you please provide a quote on this from one of the tyranid codexes to prove your point? I have asked you 4 times now..
Up until now, this is just your fanfiction.
This is from the 4th edition.
All this is from the 8th ed codex. The only one that matters. Each codex replaces the previous with retcons and updates.
Pg 6.
They have journeyed across the unspeakable cold of the void, where time and space conspire to hold the stars apart with inconceivable distances. Yet the tyranids crossed this expanse nontheless, moving through the empty darkness for countless millenia.
I.e. without nourishment because there is none in the space between galaxies.
Pg 8.
Read up about the tyran system. Not even a bacteria is found. If any waste were produced there would be a trail. There never is.
Pg 10.
Leaving nothing but an airless tomb behind. No waste.
So on. Find any reference in any story anywhere where anyone finds some kind of trail of matter left in the wake of a hive fleet. There is none. Not so much as the faint whisper of a fart.
So lets review the facts.
1) not opinion, the nids traveled across galaxies. They survived it without any food or nourishment to replenish them. Thousands of years (over 10k minimum) with no food or water while maintaining the ability to produce the organisms needed to devour a world including warriors, feeders, and the microbes and gak needed to make digestion pools.
2) no waste.
3) leviathan showed up from bellow the galactic disk fully stocked on biomass to produce warriors across thousands of worlds in a single sweeping attack that just about split the galactic disk. I.e. they didn't loose or need to replenish that biomass after their pan galactic trip
4) Every statement that mentions their hunger. Their nourishment. Its all conjecture. Statements from a 3rd party that are not the nids describing what the other races think of the nids while not knowing anything about them.
And then like i said, i fill in the blanks. If they are not producing waste and taking everything then they must have some kind of recycling internal system that keeps the matter doing what they need it to do without any real loss. Otherwise we would find tyranid gak. And since they travel in fleets that can blot out the stars there would be a lot of it. But there isn't.
Find ANY other reasonable explanation for this. Any. Anywhere.
Just because Tyranids can completely strip the useful resources from a planet does not mean they have no waste. For a start, we know that Tyranid fleets are most vulnerable when they first enter the galaxy, and they usually try to avoid heavily-fortified worlds in this time to replenish... something. Perhaps it is just energy, not biomass.
Secondly, a scorched earth strategy has proven effective at slowing down Hive fleets and weakening them- Kryptmann got excommunicated for it, but his strategies did weaken and damage much of Hive Fleet Leviathan. This suggests that without constant resupply of... something, Hive fleets do weaken, apparently in particular after long interstellar journeys. It can't be simply energy, because they could replenish from a dead world that has received exterminatus, or any number of lifeless solar systems. We also know that Tyranids prioritise high-yield worlds over other options if possible, even though they can still strip plenty of useful resources from a lifeless world- Hive fleets even leech minerals out of the crusts of planets they devour.
Elements vital to life- carbon, hydrogen etc- are far more abundant in the galaxy than life using them. Why do Hive fleets not just nom a bunch of lifeless, undefended worlds in the depths of space to gain organic materials to grow their fleets before they finally overwhelm the life ofbthe galaxy with unstoppable numbers?
All their actions suggest a sense of urgency, or they would play the long game and nom lifeless systems instead of defended high-yield systems. This suggests two things. Either the Tyranids do need to eat regularly to maintain a growimg fleet, and the crossing of the void between galaxies seriously hurts them, or they are runing from something even more nasty and cannot afford to hang around systematically nomnoming every last scrap.
As a hypothetical, perhaps they loose biomass and energy whilst they do their gravity jump thing, so they are in a constant battle against that.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Further to the above, we also know that Tyranids avoid certain situations if they can help it, at least until they are strong enough to deal with it efficiently or, presumably, the risk-reward ratio is sufficiently in their favour.
A good example is Tomb worlds- Hive fleets generally try to avoid these. They must be low yield, as Tomb worlds are often barren, and the weapons of the Necrons likely irreversible cost attacking fleets biomass.
I see no reason why Tyranids can recover all of their biomass losses when taking a world either. We know Tyranids to not consume everything, because they leave a ball of rock. Therefore there are resources that Tyranids cannot consume, are not worth the effort to consume, or simply are not useful to Tyranids. So everytime a 'Nid gets hit by a sufficiently powerful weapon from basically any race, the 'Nid biomass is going to undergo some nuclear reactions and some of it will become unrecoverable elements. Plasma weaponry is likely to do this, as well as fusion and fission weapons, and potentially even very high-powered laser weapons, like Titan-grade ones. Vortex and distortion weaponry will also obviously cause irretrievably biomass loss.
Therefore, every engagement is going to result in some Tyranid biomass being converted into useless forms. Particularly stubborn planets could even result in a net loss for an attacking fleet if they have devasting weaponry on hand. Fleet actions are likely to be especially costly- not only is almost every ship-grade weapon going to be of sufficient power to cause biomass loss (Imperial ships routinely using fusion-plasma warheads, fissile warheads and even vortex weaponry), but some debris will be scattered into the void and become impractical to recover. This may explain why Tyranids are extremely aggressive in fleet actions, because firepower duels hurt them far more in the long run than boarding actions and melee.
Essentially there is no guarantee Tyranid forces can recover lost biomass upon victory within a system, and this risk is increased in some scenarios (Necrons, Eldar, void battles for example). This provides another incentive to feed.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/02/13 12:48:41
ChargerIIC wrote: If algae farm paste with a little bit of your grandfather in it isn't Grimdark I don't know what is.
2019/02/13 13:53:51
Subject: Re:Update on Hive Fleet Tiamet and what they are building.
CheerfulChump117 wrote: Maybe the nids have found a way/are working on a way to utilize blanks/pariahs, since blanks would normally disrupt the hiveminds connection to the bugs, having a way around this while still proving effective against the demons of any warp entity would be a big help to the hive fleets. Could be they are seeding the GSC that visit the planet with the pariah gene and seeing what succeeds and what fails miserably. The fact the necrons came up with the gene for the exact same counter to the warp is just a good setup for a Necron vs Nids showdown to me
Blanks and pariahs don't disrupt the hive mind. The hivemind does not use the warp to communicate through the synapse network. The shadow is a byproduct of the hive mind. Not the hive mind itself. Tyranid individual organisms have no presence in the warp to be disrupted because they have no souls.
I always thought souls, emotions, psychic abilities and presence in the warp were all different aspects of the same phenomenon. If not, then what the heck is a soul?
Ish. The Tau have emotions but are not the least bit psychic and thus have no real presence in the warp to sustain deamons. Their souls are small and insignificant.
But the Nids don't have little. They have none. And the hive mind is not a psychic network in the way that other races are psychic. Nids even used to have a rule where they could not fail/take damage for manifesting powers because their powers were not warp based. Then they just explained it as not being a backlash from the Warp but instead being a surge in the hive minds synaptic web. Mentions of that in the codex have just kind of dropped off now. But it's not super important. What is important is that the Hive Mind does not exist in the Warp. It simply casts a shadow into it.
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
2019/02/13 14:19:27
Subject: Update on Hive Fleet Tiamet and what they are building.
Just because Tyranids can completely strip the useful resources from a planet does not mean they have no waste. For a start, we know that Tyranid fleets are most vulnerable when they first enter the galaxy, and they usually try to avoid heavily-fortified worlds in this time to replenish... something. Perhaps it is just energy, not biomass.
No, before Leviathan humanity ASSUMED that. But Leviathan proves it false. Leviathan entered the galaxy ready to go.
Secondly, a scorched earth strategy has proven effective at slowing down Hive fleets and weakening them- Kryptmann got excommunicated for it, but his strategies did weaken and damage much of Hive Fleet Leviathan. This suggests that without constant resupply of... something, Hive fleets do weaken, apparently in particular after long interstellar journeys. It can't be simply energy, because they could replenish from a dead world that has received exterminatus, or any number of lifeless solar systems. We also know that Tyranids prioritise high-yield worlds over other options if possible, even though they can still strip plenty of useful resources from a lifeless world- Hive fleets even leech minerals out of the crusts of planets they devour.
Kryptman did not weaken or slow down the tendril of Leviathan. He redirected it into the orks where they have been fighting in Octarius non stop since. Yes. Tyranids DO prioritize high yield worlds. That doesn't imply hunger. That implies intelligent gathering of resources. See the mining iron explanation. The Hive Mind CHOOSES to strip mine worlds since we now know it's NOT strip mining some. And we know it CHOOSES to strip mine worlds with lots of resources over worlds with little resources. It sounds like a driving intelligence with a galactic scale plan. Not a ravenous beast.
Elements vital to life- carbon, hydrogen etc- are far more abundant in the galaxy than life using them. Why do Hive fleets not just nom a bunch of lifeless, undefended worlds in the depths of space to gain organic materials to grow their fleets before they finally overwhelm the life ofbthe galaxy with unstoppable numbers?
In the past they have simply gone after whatever source was best/closest. A galactic scale predator doesn't seam particularly put off by planetary civilizations. And then again, the Hive mind is so alien that trying to figure out WHY it does the things it does is one of the problems.
All their actions suggest a sense of urgency, or they would play the long game and nom lifeless systems instead of defended high-yield systems. This suggests two things. Either the Tyranids do need to eat regularly to maintain a growimg fleet, and the crossing of the void between galaxies seriously hurts them, or they are runing from something even more nasty and cannot afford to hang around systematically nomnoming every last scrap.
Having hive fleets trickle in over centuries isn't much of an urgency. But good repeating of humanities theories about what they think the nids are doing.
As a hypothetical, perhaps they loose biomass and energy whilst they do their gravity jump thing, so they are in a constant battle against that.
It's a hypothetical with no real evidence to back it up.
A hypothetical. Perhaps grass is not really green but red, it's simply our minds that perceive it as green?
Further to the above, we also know that Tyranids avoid certain situations if they can help it, at least until they are strong enough to deal with it efficiently or, presumably, the risk-reward ratio is sufficiently in their favour.
A good example is Tomb worlds- Hive fleets generally try to avoid these. They must be low yield, as Tomb worlds are often barren, and the weapons of the Necrons likely irreversible cost attacking fleets biomass.
Again, this implies a strategic intelligence. Not hunger. If the nids loose in a battle over a planet they actually loose resources until they can overwhelm and take that planet back. If the Nids WIN on a planet, they loose nothing and gain everything. If the ships were starving, if the great devourers ravenous endless hunger was actually what drove them the way that the 3rd party implies then these decisions would be based in that hunger. They don't appear to be.
I see no reason why Tyranids can recover all of their biomass losses when taking a world either. We know Tyranids to not consume everything, because they leave a ball of rock. Therefore there are resources that Tyranids cannot consume, are not worth the effort to consume, or simply are not useful to Tyranids. So everytime a 'Nid gets hit by a sufficiently powerful weapon from basically any race, the 'Nid biomass is going to undergo some nuclear reactions and some of it will become unrecoverable elements. Plasma weaponry is likely to do this, as well as fusion and fission weapons, and potentially even very high-powered laser weapons, like Titan-grade ones. Vortex and distortion weaponry will also obviously cause irretrievably biomass loss.
They consume all ORGANIC matter. Inorganic matter is left behind. Pull out your periodic table of elements and go over organic elements vs inorganic elements. Even if a necrons gauss weaponry breaks down a nid into it's base elements those elements are still organic. Boil away a nid into a cloud of gasses and those gasses are still made up of all the base organic elements needed to make a new nid.
Therefore, every engagement is going to result in some Tyranid biomass being converted into useless forms. Particularly stubborn planets could even result in a net loss for an attacking fleet if they have devasting weaponry on hand. Fleet actions are likely to be especially costly- not only is almost every ship-grade weapon going to be of sufficient power to cause biomass loss (Imperial ships routinely using fusion-plasma warheads, fissile warheads and even vortex weaponry), but some debris will be scattered into the void and become impractical to recover. This may explain why Tyranids are extremely aggressive in fleet actions, because firepower duels hurt them far more in the long run than boarding actions and melee.
Essentially there is no guarantee Tyranid forces can recover lost biomass upon victory within a system, and this risk is increased in some scenarios (Necrons, Eldar, void battles for example). This provides another incentive to feed.
The space battle part you have right at least but for only some of your reasons. First, and chunk that flies off into space DOES become less likely to be recovered any time soon. (but eventually... eventually). But the real reason for the aggression is that the troops don't matter. The hive ships that make the troops do. All the drama of the ultramarines fighting tooth and nail for every inch of land on maccragge is nonsense. Because none of it matters as long as the hive ships are still in the air.
It's what is happening in octarius. The orks fight the nids in x battle field while the nids use feeder organisms to gather biomass over in Y. Then they lead the battle over to Y while they gather up all the biomass from x. As long as they can recoup the losses (AND gain the orks biomass) they can do this forever. Unless the Orks decide to fight them in orbit they are not actually fighting them at all.
This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2019/02/13 14:25:04
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
2019/02/13 14:48:01
Subject: Update on Hive Fleet Tiamet and what they are building.
CheerfulChump117 wrote: Maybe the nids have found a way/are working on a way to utilize blanks/pariahs, since blanks would normally disrupt the hiveminds connection to the bugs, having a way around this while still proving effective against the demons of any warp entity would be a big help to the hive fleets. Could be they are seeding the GSC that visit the planet with the pariah gene and seeing what succeeds and what fails miserably. The fact the necrons came up with the gene for the exact same counter to the warp is just a good setup for a Necron vs Nids showdown to me
Blanks and pariahs don't disrupt the hive mind.
Jurgen disrupted their synapse in one of the Cain novels. He is/was a blank..
Not the hive mind itself. Tyranid individual organisms have no presence in the warp to be disrupted because they have no souls.
Weeeellllll actually...
"Codicier Laertamos, Brothers of the Red,’ the herald skull announced.
Scaraban shook his head. ‘I am sure its origins are in this realm of being. We are not alone in holding this opinion of its nature. The reports of Inquisitor Kryptmann, others in the Inquisition and the Magos Biologis suggest so, at least those that support this interpretation. Perhaps what we are seeing is a creature part-way to spiritual transcendence, a gestalt made of the minds of billions of brute animals trapped half in and half out of the warp by unending hunger?’ ‘You suggest we fight a god?’ scoffed a Space Marine of cadaverous appearance. His eyes were sunken in skin that looked dry as dust.
‘Carnifus, third captain, Blood Drinkers.’
‘Is there a better word for such a thing?’ said Mephiston.
‘Blasphemy,’ muttered Carnifus.
‘Then should we not take the fight to it psychically? Destroy the mind and the bodies will follow.’
‘Dammanes, seventh captain, Brothers of the Red,’ said the herald skull.
‘We cannot fight it in the warp, my brothers. Its presence there is so overwhelming that the Emperor himself would not prevail,’ said Dante. ‘When these things are separated from their mind, as has happened in my wars against them, be it by psychic or physical means, they remain alive, and savage, with a will and intelligence of their own to fall back on until they are enslaved again. The Leviathan must be killed in the flesh, then the mind will die, for the mind is generated by the creatures it guides. It is a thing of this world that is half in the next. That is its weakness. Its creatures seem endless, but kill enough of them, and the hive mind is weakened. Kill all of them, and it is over.’
‘But then it will not die until every last one of its vile spawn is destroyed!’"
Pg 6.
They have journeyed across the unspeakable cold of the void, where time and space conspire to hold the stars apart with inconceivable distances. Yet the tyranids crossed this expanse nontheless, moving through the empty darkness for countless millenia.
Yes, and on the same page its stated that ""Perhaps the Tyranids have already consumed everything of worth in their home galaxy and must find new feeding grounds or starve."....
I.e. without nourishment because there is none in the space between galaxies.
Hense why they need to hibernate on their journey...
4) Every statement that mentions their hunger. Their nourishment. Its all conjecture. Statements from a 3rd party that are not the nids describing what the other races think of the nids while not knowing anything about them.
No. This is the problem. YOU are making assumptions. NON of the gak you are CLAMING is stated in the fluff. The fact that they need nurishment/energy is stated again and again. End of story.
This will be my last respone, becaue you are clearly not going to change your mind, no matter what is stated in the actual fluff we have available...
This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2019/02/13 15:06:24
Tyranid fanboy.
Been around since 3rd edition.
2019/02/13 15:07:59
Subject: Update on Hive Fleet Tiamet and what they are building.
Lance845 wrote: Since they take every molecule of organic mater (and this part is me filling in the blanks) i assume they have a recycling ecosystem within themselves. At least on the hive ship level. This process uses X gas and produces Y and Z. Y is used in B process and Z is used in A process. The results of which recreate X gas.
Otherwise there would be molecules and compounds they can't use and would create waste. (Like us producing carbon dioxcide when we breath).
The hive ships/inner organisms shut down most of their processes during hibernation because they don't need to produce warrior organisms or living amunition. That doesnt mean the basic functions of the ecysystem shut down. You do know that when an animal hibernates it doesnt shut down all biological function right? It just slows it way down and or shuts down non essential functions.
The codexes say that the hive fleets absorb all the stuff on the planet. I don't recollect them saying that the hive fleets don't poop.
Eating everything and not having waste are extremely different things.
Automatically Appended Next Post: 100% use of material is in fact physically impossible.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/02/13 15:09:20
2019/02/13 17:49:20
Subject: Update on Hive Fleet Tiamet and what they are building.
CheerfulChump117 wrote: Maybe the nids have found a way/are working on a way to utilize blanks/pariahs, since blanks would normally disrupt the hiveminds connection to the bugs, having a way around this while still proving effective against the demons of any warp entity would be a big help to the hive fleets. Could be they are seeding the GSC that visit the planet with the pariah gene and seeing what succeeds and what fails miserably. The fact the necrons came up with the gene for the exact same counter to the warp is just a good setup for a Necron vs Nids showdown to me
Blanks and pariahs don't disrupt the hive mind.
Jurgen disrupted their synapse in one of the Cain novels. He is/was a blank..
Not the hive mind itself. Tyranid individual organisms have no presence in the warp to be disrupted because they have no souls.
Weeeellllll actually...
"Codicier Laertamos, Brothers of the Red,’ the herald skull announced.
Scaraban shook his head. ‘I am sure its origins are in this realm of being. We are not alone in holding this opinion of its nature. The reports of Inquisitor Kryptmann, others in the Inquisition and the Magos Biologis suggest so, at least those that support this interpretation. Perhaps what we are seeing is a creature part-way to spiritual transcendence, a gestalt made of the minds of billions of brute animals trapped half in and half out of the warp by unending hunger?’ ‘You suggest we fight a god?’ scoffed a Space Marine of cadaverous appearance. His eyes were sunken in skin that looked dry as dust.
‘Carnifus, third captain, Blood Drinkers.’
‘Is there a better word for such a thing?’ said Mephiston.
‘Blasphemy,’ muttered Carnifus.
‘Then should we not take the fight to it psychically? Destroy the mind and the bodies will follow.’
‘Dammanes, seventh captain, Brothers of the Red,’ said the herald skull.
‘We cannot fight it in the warp, my brothers. Its presence there is so overwhelming that the Emperor himself would not prevail,’ said Dante. ‘When these things are separated from their mind, as has happened in my wars against them, be it by psychic or physical means, they remain alive, and savage, with a will and intelligence of their own to fall back on until they are enslaved again. The Leviathan must be killed in the flesh, then the mind will die, for the mind is generated by the creatures it guides. It is a thing of this world that is half in the next. That is its weakness. Its creatures seem endless, but kill enough of them, and the hive mind is weakened. Kill all of them, and it is over.’
‘But then it will not die until every last one of its vile spawn is destroyed!’"
Pg 6.
They have journeyed across the unspeakable cold of the void, where time and space conspire to hold the stars apart with inconceivable distances. Yet the tyranids crossed this expanse nontheless, moving through the empty darkness for countless millenia.
Yes, and on the same page its stated that ""Perhaps the Tyranids have already consumed everything of worth in their home galaxy and must find new feeding grounds or starve."....
I.e. without nourishment because there is none in the space between galaxies.
Hense why they need to hibernate on their journey...
4) Every statement that mentions their hunger. Their nourishment. Its all conjecture. Statements from a 3rd party that are not the nids describing what the other races think of the nids while not knowing anything about them.
No. This is the problem. YOU are making assumptions. NON of the gak you are CLAMING is stated in the fluff. The fact that they need nurishment/energy is stated again and again. End of story.
This will be my last respone, becaue you are clearly not going to change your mind, no matter what is stated in the actual fluff we have available...
As stated already. The novels = officially published fan fiction. Until its in a codex its not really canon. But the bit from your book you quoted is a bunch of people discussing what they THINK it is. Not what they KNOW it is.
Also your quote from the codex starts with "perhaps". Meaning its speculative. Meaning its meaningless.
Lance845 wrote: Since they take every molecule of organic mater (and this part is me filling in the blanks) i assume they have a recycling ecosystem within themselves. At least on the hive ship level. This process uses X gas and produces Y and Z. Y is used in B process and Z is used in A process. The results of which recreate X gas.
Otherwise there would be molecules and compounds they can't use and would create waste. (Like us producing carbon dioxcide when we breath).
The hive ships/inner organisms shut down most of their processes during hibernation because they don't need to produce warrior organisms or living amunition. That doesnt mean the basic functions of the ecysystem shut down. You do know that when an animal hibernates it doesnt shut down all biological function right? It just slows it way down and or shuts down non essential functions.
The codexes say that the hive fleets absorb all the stuff on the planet. I don't recollect them saying that the hive fleets don't poop.
Eating everything and not having waste are extremely different things.
Automatically Appended Next Post: 100% use of material is in fact physically impossible.
If they made waste people would find it and have evidence of the tyranids being there. They dont.
Know what else is impossible? Going to a realm made of thoughts and dreams and having those thoughts and dreams become sentient and attack real space. Its fantasy.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/02/13 17:51:41
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
2019/02/13 18:01:40
Subject: Update on Hive Fleet Tiamet and what they are building.
So, FWIW, you're both kinda right and you're both kinda wrong. You're also both using quotes to make points that go far beyond what is actually provided for in the said quotes.
IMO, it seems obvious that this new angle represents an uncompleted shift in the fluff, of an unknown magnitude. It also seems obvious that trying to explain the Tyranids, who are described as utterly alien and utterly incomprehensible, by making analogies to contemporary wildlife is necessarily futile and doomed.
Making concrete statements about any of it at this point is massively premature.
Excommunicatus wrote: So, FWIW, you're both kinda right and you're both kinda wrong. You're also both using quotes to make points that go far beyond what is actually provided for in the said quotes.
IMO, it seems obvious that this new angle represents an uncompleted shift in the fluff, of an unknown magnitude. It also seems obvious that trying to explain the Tyranids, who are described as utterly alien and utterly incomprehensible, by making analogies to contemporary wildlife is necessarily futile and doomed.
Making concrete statements about any of it at this point is massively premature.
Yup this is my opinion after watching the debate.
2019/02/13 21:43:30
Subject: Update on Hive Fleet Tiamet and what they are building.
Lance845 wrote: An animal hunts to survive. A animal lives to propagate. The tyranids clearly don't NEED to do any of those things.
This is an oversimplification of biology; animals do obtain food to survive but when presented with an excess of food they do not suddenly decide to stop eating & reproducing. Rats do not NEED to breed into the millions to survive, but they do it anyways because they are programmed to feth and eat our garbage.
An extremely small enclosed environment with no threats and food provided eithout effort is not at all similar though.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Excommunicatus wrote: So, FWIW, you're both kinda right and you're both kinda wrong. You're also both using quotes to make points that go far beyond what is actually provided for in the said quotes.
IMO, it seems obvious that this new angle represents an uncompleted shift in the fluff, of an unknown magnitude. It also seems obvious that trying to explain the Tyranids, who are described as utterly alien and utterly incomprehensible, by making analogies to contemporary wildlife is necessarily futile and doomed.
Making concrete statements about any of it at this point is massively premature.
I don't think it's a shift in the fluff any more than Cadia blowing up is a shift; it's just part of the continuing plot.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/02/13 21:45:12
Just because Tyranids can completely strip the useful resources from a planet does not mean they have no waste. For a start, we know that Tyranid fleets are most vulnerable when they first enter the galaxy, and they usually try to avoid heavily-fortified worlds in this time to replenish... something. Perhaps it is just energy, not biomass.
No, before Leviathan humanity ASSUMED that. But Leviathan proves it false. Leviathan entered the galaxy ready to go.
You know this how? We know Leviathan entered from below the Galactic plain, but it was only discovered by the wider Imperium after noming a bunch of unimportant little frontier worlds, that were only noted to be in a patter by Kryptman's statistical analysis. We have no information of their strength at arrival beyomd the wide front they attacked on. The galaxy is not a disc, it bulges in the middle. There are still frontier worlds above and below the plane.
Secondly, a scorched earth strategy has proven effective at slowing down Hive fleets and weakening them- Kryptmann got excommunicated for it, but his strategies did weaken and damage much of Hive Fleet Leviathan. This suggests that without constant resupply of... something, Hive fleets do weaken, apparently in particular after long interstellar journeys. It can't be simply energy, because they could replenish from a dead world that has received exterminatus, or any number of lifeless solar systems. We also know that Tyranids prioritise high-yield worlds over other options if possible, even though they can still strip plenty of useful resources from a lifeless world- Hive fleets even leech minerals out of the crusts of planets they devour.
Kryptman did not weaken or slow down the tendril of Leviathan. He redirected it into the orks where they have been fighting in Octarius non stop since. Yes. Tyranids DO prioritize high yield worlds. That doesn't imply hunger. That implies intelligent gathering of resources. See the mining iron explanation. The Hive Mind CHOOSES to strip mine worlds since we now know it's NOT strip mining some. And we know it CHOOSES to strip mine worlds with lots of resources over worlds with little resources. It sounds like a driving intelligence with a galactic scale plan. Not a ravenous beast.
Elements vital to life- carbon, hydrogen etc- are far more abundant in the galaxy than life using them. Why do Hive fleets not just nom a bunch of lifeless, undefended worlds in the depths of space to gain organic materials to grow their fleets before they finally overwhelm the life ofbthe galaxy with unstoppable numbers?
In the past they have simply gone after whatever source was best/closest. A galactic scale predator doesn't seam particularly put off by planetary civilizations. And then again, the Hive mind is so alien that trying to figure out WHY it does the things it does is one of the problems.
All their actions suggest a sense of urgency, or they would play the long game and nom lifeless systems instead of defended high-yield systems. This suggests two things. Either the Tyranids do need to eat regularly to maintain a growimg fleet, and the crossing of the void between galaxies seriously hurts them, or they are runing from something even more nasty and cannot afford to hang around systematically nomnoming every last scrap.
Having hive fleets trickle in over centuries isn't much of an urgency. But good repeating of humanities theories about what they think the nids are doing.
As a hypothetical, perhaps they loose biomass and energy whilst they do their gravity jump thing, so they are in a constant battle against that.
It's a hypothetical with no real evidence to back it up.
A hypothetical. Perhaps grass is not really green but red, it's simply our minds that perceive it as green?
Further to the above, we also know that Tyranids avoid certain situations if they can help it, at least until they are strong enough to deal with it efficiently or, presumably, the risk-reward ratio is sufficiently in their favour.
A good example is Tomb worlds- Hive fleets generally try to avoid these. They must be low yield, as Tomb worlds are often barren, and the weapons of the Necrons likely irreversible cost attacking fleets biomass.
Again, this implies a strategic intelligence. Not hunger. If the nids loose in a battle over a planet they actually loose resources until they can overwhelm and take that planet back. If the Nids WIN on a planet, they loose nothing and gain everything. If the ships were starving, if the great devourers ravenous endless hunger was actually what drove them the way that the 3rd party implies then these decisions would be based in that hunger. They don't appear to be.
I see no reason why Tyranids can recover all of their biomass losses when taking a world either. We know Tyranids to not consume everything, because they leave a ball of rock. Therefore there are resources that Tyranids cannot consume, are not worth the effort to consume, or simply are not useful to Tyranids. So everytime a 'Nid gets hit by a sufficiently powerful weapon from basically any race, the 'Nid biomass is going to undergo some nuclear reactions and some of it will become unrecoverable elements. Plasma weaponry is likely to do this, as well as fusion and fission weapons, and potentially even very high-powered laser weapons, like Titan-grade ones. Vortex and distortion weaponry will also obviously cause irretrievably biomass loss.
They consume all ORGANIC matter. Inorganic matter is left behind. Pull out your periodic table of elements and go over organic elements vs inorganic elements. Even if a necrons gauss weaponry breaks down a nid into it's base elements those elements are still organic. Boil away a nid into a cloud of gasses and those gasses are still made up of all the base organic elements needed to make a new nid.
Therefore, every engagement is going to result in some Tyranid biomass being converted into useless forms. Particularly stubborn planets could even result in a net loss for an attacking fleet if they have devasting weaponry on hand. Fleet actions are likely to be especially costly- not only is almost every ship-grade weapon going to be of sufficient power to cause biomass loss (Imperial ships routinely using fusion-plasma warheads, fissile warheads and even vortex weaponry), but some debris will be scattered into the void and become impractical to recover. This may explain why Tyranids are extremely aggressive in fleet actions, because firepower duels hurt them far more in the long run than boarding actions and melee.
Essentially there is no guarantee Tyranid forces can recover lost biomass upon victory within a system, and this risk is increased in some scenarios (Necrons, Eldar, void battles for example). This provides another incentive to feed.
The space battle part you have right at least but for only some of your reasons. First, and chunk that flies off into space DOES become less likely to be recovered any time soon. (but eventually... eventually). But the real reason for the aggression is that the troops don't matter. The hive ships that make the troops do. All the drama of the ultramarines fighting tooth and nail for every inch of land on maccragge is nonsense. Because none of it matters as long as the hive ships are still in the air.
It's what is happening in octarius. The orks fight the nids in x battle field while the nids use feeder organisms to gather biomass over in Y. Then they lead the battle over to Y while they gather up all the biomass from x. As long as they can recoup the losses (AND gain the orks biomass) they can do this forever. Unless the Orks decide to fight them in orbit they are not actually fighting them at all.
Before Kryptman created the Octarius war, he created the galactic cordon, which "slowed Leviathan's advance to a crawl". This was a policy of using Exterminatus on worlds invaded by the Tyranids to destroy the biomass invested, and in the path of the Tyranids in general. Together, this seems to have notably weakened Leviathan. The primary reason this policy was dropped is it was also weakening the Imperium in the process by killing billions.
I wasn't arguing the Tyranids weren't intelligent? Only that they have some notable limitations on their behaviour which pushes them to seek high-yield worlds over eating everything.
High yield systems = life, which generally means combat and biomass losses. I am fully aware that the Tyranids seek organic compounds, but life is only a minute proportion of organic material within the galaxy. If efficiency was the main concern, the Hive fleets would avoid systems with life, and just target the lifeless systems to leech the methane and hydrogen present within them. Organic compounds do not need to come from life- they exist all over our own solar system currently for example, as well as the building blocks. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the Milky Way, with carbon the 4th most abundant. Tyranids have absolutely no need to target worlds with life- they can get all their resources from dead systems easily. Methane fixation is present in our own biosphere, it will definitely be something the Tyranids are capable of. In this manner, the Tyranids could devour the majority of the galaxy before even getting into significant engagements, and their Hive fleets would be correspondingly bigger as a result when they finally steam-roll the sentient species.
I don't assume the Tyranids are dumb. Therefore, the very fact they are not adopting a strategy of eating lifeless worlds, but instead flit from high-risk-high-yield worlds bearing life (the entire purpose of GSCs being to mark out such worlds) suggests there are some severe time limitations on Tyranids, or they would play the slow game.
The piecemeal nature of the fleets arriving further supports this. A force with no time limitations would wait to gather all the fleets together at the edge of the galaxy, then attack as one unified mass. Yet the fleets rush in to attack as soon as they arrive? Considering various weapons and engagements do cause permanent biomass loss, this seems extremely foolhardy for such a vast intelligence if there are no time constraints on gathering biomass.
Regarding those weapons, I was specifically referring to weaponry that either pulls targets into the warp, or can change them at the atomic level. Plasma weaponry, for example, is typically described as harnessing the power of a small sun. Whilst this is hybedbolic, there is no reason to assume that the plasma weaponry does not cause some atomic reactions in targets. Especially in starship-grade weapons, which essentially fire fusion reactors at enemies- any biomass hit by these is going to suffer a degree of nuclear reactions resulting in different elements. Many of which will be of limited use to the Tyranids at best. Each fleet engagement is guaranteed to cause biomass-loss through the devastating weaponry employed.
Gauss may not be sufficient if it only pulls apart the target to the atomic level, true.
Also, there is absolutely no way a Hive fleet can sweep the entiriety of a system to recover biomass blasted into space. The volume that would need to be filtered is mindbogglingly vast even within a certain proximity to a fleet engagement, and some of the fragments will be moving at relativistic speeds. Totally unfeasible. The Tyranids have not shown any desire whatsoever to absorb every last bit of biomass, organic material, and other useful resources available, only the choicest morsels.
The Tyranids are an extremely grave threat, but they are not invincible, and a requirement to constantly engage in high-yield biomass harvesting does seem to be a weakness. Otherwise, there is no way to explain such risky behaviour for such an intelligent organism- the only other alternative is that it is some kind of sport or entertainment.
ChargerIIC wrote: If algae farm paste with a little bit of your grandfather in it isn't Grimdark I don't know what is.
2019/02/13 23:34:45
Subject: Update on Hive Fleet Tiamet and what they are building.
Excommunicatus wrote: So, FWIW, you're both kinda right and you're both kinda wrong. You're also both using quotes to make points that go far beyond what is actually provided for in the said quotes.
I have - very simply - stated that the hive fleets need nurishment/energy to stay alive/keep going. And I have provided quote after quote like the one below. How is that "going far beyond what is actually provided for in the said quotes"?
What Lance845 is doing is going FAR beyond what is stated in his quotes - or rather the lack thereof.
When he claims that the tyranids clearly produce no waste just because it is not mentioned anywhere in the fluff, its an ASSUMPTION - because we dont know.
When he claims that the tyranids have no need of energy because they are probably getting it from the sun - although it is not mentioned anywhere in the fluff - its an ASSUMPTION.... etc..
I am not making any assumptions. I am LITERALLY REFRENCING what is stated in the ******* dexes/BL novels.
This message was edited 8 times. Last update was at 2019/02/13 23:56:09
Tyranid fanboy.
Been around since 3rd edition.
2019/02/14 02:50:40
Subject: Update on Hive Fleet Tiamet and what they are building.
Excommunicatus wrote: So, FWIW, you're both kinda right and you're both kinda wrong. You're also both using quotes to make points that go far beyond what is actually provided for in the said quotes.
I have - very simply - stated that the hive fleets need nurishment/energy to stay alive/keep going. And I have provided quote after quote like the one below. How is that "going far beyond what is actually provided for in the said quotes"?
What Lance845 is doing is going FAR beyond what is stated in his quotes - or rather the lack thereof.
When he claims that the tyranids clearly produce no waste just because it is not mentioned anywhere in the fluff, its an ASSUMPTION - because we dont know.
When he claims that the tyranids have no need of energy because they are probably getting it from the sun - although it is not mentioned anywhere in the fluff - its an ASSUMPTION.... etc..
I am not making any assumptions. I am LITERALLY REFRENCING what is stated in the ******* dexes/BL novels.
Relax guy. For what it's worth, you're winning the debate, but it's probably not worth getting worked up over.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/02/14 02:51:04
2019/02/14 04:15:27
Subject: Update on Hive Fleet Tiamet and what they are building.
Excommunicatus wrote: So, FWIW, you're both kinda right and you're both kinda wrong. You're also both using quotes to make points that go far beyond what is actually provided for in the said quotes.
I have - very simply - stated that the hive fleets need nurishment/energy to stay alive/keep going. And I have provided quote after quote like the one below. How is that "going far beyond what is actually provided for in the said quotes"?
What Lance845 is doing is going FAR beyond what is stated in his quotes - or rather the lack thereof.
When he claims that the tyranids clearly produce no waste just because it is not mentioned anywhere in the fluff, its an ASSUMPTION - because we dont know.
When he claims that the tyranids have no need of energy because they are probably getting it from the sun - although it is not mentioned anywhere in the fluff - its an ASSUMPTION.... etc..
I am not making any assumptions. I am LITERALLY REFRENCING what is stated in the ******* dexes/BL novels.
It's not enough to provide quote after quote if the quotes don't mean anything. Black Library is nonsense. Stop using it.
Older codexes are equally nonsense (though MILES better then BL) since each edition likes to retcon stuff.
And any quote that begins with "Perhaps" or poses a question or throws out theory after theory about what the nids COULD be doing or why is more nonsense.
For instance, every codex poses the theory that the nids could be running from an even bigger threat. They are not. The Pharos Device is canon. It woke them up from hibernation and drew the attention of the hive mind. They were not running when it went off. They are not running now that they have arrived. The running bit is just conjecture. You could quote it from 20 sources it still wouldn't give it any weight.
I didn't say Nids get their energy from the sun. I said the Nids probably have their own internal eco system on the hive ship level. A ecosystem does suffer from entropy. So... like the earth, in order to maintain a constant they need an external source of energy. (as was pointed out by someone else) Radiation from our sun is what does it for us. Background radiation in space COULD explain it for nids. I have been quick to point out where I fill in the blanks and where I get my basic facts to fill in those blanks from.
There are a FEW constants that are corroborated from multiple sources. Not theories. Things that we know are happening/happen in the fluff. The Nids leaving no evidence but dead husk worlds is one of those things. So.... ? Whats the obvious conclusion to that? 2 + 2 man.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/02/14 04:17:08
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
