Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
2019/11/18 22:52:26
Subject: Did anyone ever communicate with the tyranid hive mind?
I'd love to read about this. Did any human ever establish a psychic connection to the hivemind? As in... Had a small insight into the combined thoughts of the tyranid race? Did it ever talk to anyone in some abstract way?
If someone knows please provide a source, thank you.
Astra Milit..*blam* Astra Milliwhat, heretic?
2019/11/18 23:14:55
Subject: Did anyone ever communicate with the tyranid hive mind?
Weren't the zoat speaking for the tyranid race ? I mean they were an intelligent species and were communicating and all but were still part of the hive mind
Genestealers are also intelligent and able to communicate with the Hive Mind and non-hive creatures. However they also show that the Hive Mind is a complicated concept to understand.
Many people think of it a bit like the Overmind from Starcraft - a single brain and conscious thought that controls and guides the rest.
Tyranids appear more complex than even that with the Hive Mind being likely closer to a collective pool of thinking and ideas. So you might "communicate with it" but only be talking to one part of it; whilst its greater whole is almost impossible for most species to fully understand and communicate with in direct sense.
Overread wrote: Genestealers are also intelligent and able to communicate with the Hive Mind and non-hive creatures. However they also show that the Hive Mind is a complicated concept to understand.
Many people think of it a bit like the Overmind from Starcraft - a single brain and conscious thought that controls and guides the rest.
Tyranids appear more complex than even that with the Hive Mind being likely closer to a collective pool of thinking and ideas. So you might "communicate with it" but only be talking to one part of it; whilst its greater whole is almost impossible for most species to fully understand and communicate with in direct sense.
Its like youre trying to talk to an entire food ball stadium of Senators and Congressmen. But it is still in fact, a single entity if that makes sense
Kryptmann. Inquisitor kryptmann. Several published short stories in BL stuff.
Several astropaths tried to make a "connection" but were driven mad by it instead.
I'm OVER 50 (and so far over everyone's BS, too).
Old enough to know better, young enough to not give a ****.
That is not dead which can eternal lie ...
... and yet, with strange aeons, even death may die.
2019/11/19 21:44:06
Subject: Re:Did anyone ever communicate with the tyranid hive mind?
I dont think anyone has been able to communicate directly with the hive mind, but both Tigurius and Mephiston seem to be able to "listen" in on the tyranids communication.
Mephiston was able to do so in "Dante" and " the devastation of baal" , and I believe that the Tigurius bit is from the 5th(?) edition SM codex (and used in shadow of the leviathan?)
chromedog wrote: Kryptmann. Inquisitor kryptmann. Several published short stories in BL stuff.
That sounds pretty interesting. What are they called?
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/11/19 22:10:31
Tyranid fanboy.
Been around since 3rd edition.
2019/11/19 23:01:34
Subject: Did anyone ever communicate with the tyranid hive mind?
I believe Mephiston manages to in the forthcoming book. He discovers that it has more emotion than previously suspected and has adopted a particularly vengeful (almost spiteful) attitude towards the Blood Angels after being driven back from Baal.
I stand between the darkness and the light. Between the candle and the star.
2019/11/19 23:27:04
Subject: Re:Did anyone ever communicate with the tyranid hive mind?
Karhedron wrote: I believe Mephiston manages to in the forthcoming book. He discovers that it has more emotion than previously suspected and has adopted a particularly vengeful (almost spiteful) attitude towards the Blood Angels after being driven back from Baal.
Andersp90 wrote: I dont think anyone has been able to communicate directly with the hive mind, but both Tigurius and Mephiston seem to be able to "listen" in on the tyranids communication.
Mephiston was able to do so in "Dante" and " the devastation of baal" , and I believe that the Tigurius bit is from the 5th(?) edition SM codex (and used in shadow of the leviathan?)
chromedog wrote: Kryptmann. Inquisitor kryptmann. Several published short stories in BL stuff.
That sounds pretty interesting. What are they called?
No idea off-hand. There was a piece in an old WD about when the tyranid plastic warriors came about (the newer scary looking ones, not the old bucktoothed ones), with an illustration of a deathspitter that accompanied it. Quite a few years ago (getting nigh-on a decade if not more).
I'm OVER 50 (and so far over everyone's BS, too).
Old enough to know better, young enough to not give a ****.
That is not dead which can eternal lie ...
... and yet, with strange aeons, even death may die.
2019/11/20 07:35:50
Subject: Re:Did anyone ever communicate with the tyranid hive mind?
Karhedron wrote: I believe Mephiston manages to in the forthcoming book. He discovers that it has more emotion than previously suspected and has adopted a particularly vengeful (almost spiteful) attitude towards the Blood Angels after being driven back from Baal.
Karhedron wrote: I believe Mephiston manages to in the forthcoming book. He discovers that it has more emotion than previously suspected and has adopted a particularly vengeful (almost spiteful) attitude towards the Blood Angels after being driven back from Baal.
That sounds ridiculous. So it's probably going to happen....
tremere47-fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate, leads to triple riptide spam
2019/11/20 14:12:49
Subject: Did anyone ever communicate with the tyranid hive mind?
Karhedron wrote: I believe Mephiston manages to in the forthcoming book. He discovers that it has more emotion than previously suspected and has adopted a particularly vengeful (almost spiteful) attitude towards the Blood Angels after being driven back from Baal.
That sounds ridiculous. So it's probably going to happen....
This has already been mentioned in "The devastation of baal", so they would just be expanding on that fact.
Tyranid fanboy.
Been around since 3rd edition.
2019/11/20 14:17:11
Subject: Did anyone ever communicate with the tyranid hive mind?
Karhedron wrote: I believe Mephiston manages to in the forthcoming book. He discovers that it has more emotion than previously suspected and has adopted a particularly vengeful (almost spiteful) attitude towards the Blood Angels after being driven back from Baal.
That sounds ridiculous. So it's probably going to happen....
This has already been mentioned in "The devastation of baal", so they would just be expanding on that fact.
That an incomprehensible intelligence has a baseless grudge against Blood Angels? Silly indeed.
tremere47-fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate, leads to triple riptide spam
2019/11/20 14:23:54
Subject: Did anyone ever communicate with the tyranid hive mind?
Karhedron wrote: I believe Mephiston manages to in the forthcoming book. He discovers that it has more emotion than previously suspected and has adopted a particularly vengeful (almost spiteful) attitude towards the Blood Angels after being driven back from Baal.
That sounds ridiculous. So it's probably going to happen....
This has already been mentioned in "The devastation of baal", so they would just be expanding on that fact.
That an incomprehensible intelligence has a baseless grudge against Blood Angels? Silly indeed.
Yeah, this really sounds stupid. Even if the Hivemind would actually have grudges (which it totally shouldnt) Blood Angels aren't the only ones causing massive losses to the Tyranids
Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like soup. Now you put soup in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put soup into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now soup can flow or it can crash. Be soup, my friend.
2019/11/20 14:51:42
Subject: Did anyone ever communicate with the tyranid hive mind?
Karhedron wrote: I believe Mephiston manages to in the forthcoming book. He discovers that it has more emotion than previously suspected and has adopted a particularly vengeful (almost spiteful) attitude towards the Blood Angels after being driven back from Baal.
That sounds ridiculous. So it's probably going to happen....
This has already been mentioned in "The devastation of baal", so they would just be expanding on that fact.
That an incomprehensible intelligence has a baseless grudge against Blood Angels? Silly indeed.
Im not saying that its quality fluff. Just that its there.
Tyranid fanboy.
Been around since 3rd edition.
2019/11/20 15:28:57
Subject: Did anyone ever communicate with the tyranid hive mind?
Waaaghbert wrote: Yeah, this really sounds stupid. Even if the Hivemind would actually have grudges (which it totally shouldnt) Blood Angels aren't the only ones causing massive losses to the Tyranids
It doesn't really imply that the Blood Angels are the only thing the Hive Mind has a grudge against. Shadow of the Leviathan for example has the Hive Mind personally recognise and engineer the attempted assassination of Tigurius, because it's aware he can predict it's moves. Wraithflight likewise has the Hive Mind recognise Iyanna Arienal on a personal level has feels intense hatred towards her.
2019/11/20 15:39:51
Subject: Re:Did anyone ever communicate with the tyranid hive mind?
Also keep in mind that "grudge" is how it is viewed from a human lens. To the Hive Mind it is probably more like a really irritating itch that it just HAS to scratch.
2019/11/20 15:40:23
Subject: Did anyone ever communicate with the tyranid hive mind?
It might not be that the Hive Mind has a "Grudge" but that those who manage to interface with the part of the Hive Mind operating in the BA area can detect an element of focus of the Hive Mind against them and the best way they can interpret it with their limited human minds is as a grudge.
Basically its the same way people interpret pet actions and emotions based on casual observation and putting it into a context that they understand and can relate too even if a better understanding shows it to be false. (this isn't say animals don't have emotional feelings, but that how we interpret them can be wrong)
Karhedron wrote: I believe Mephiston manages to in the forthcoming book. He discovers that it has more emotion than previously suspected and has adopted a particularly vengeful (almost spiteful) attitude towards the Blood Angels after being driven back from Baal.
That sounds ridiculous. So it's probably going to happen....
This has already been mentioned in "The devastation of baal", so they would just be expanding on that fact.
That an incomprehensible intelligence has a baseless grudge against Blood Angels? Silly indeed.
Yeah, this really sounds stupid. Even if the Hivemind would actually have grudges (which it totally shouldnt) Blood Angels aren't the only ones causing massive losses to the Tyranids
They didn't even really do it. IIRC it was the Daemons that made the Nids lose there.
tremere47-fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate, leads to triple riptide spam
2019/11/20 16:01:14
Subject: Re:Did anyone ever communicate with the tyranid hive mind?
ikeulhu wrote: Also keep in mind that "grudge" is how it is viewed from a human lens. To the Hive Mind it is probably more like a really irritating itch that it just HAS to scratch.
Overread wrote: It might not be that the Hive Mind has a "Grudge" but that those who manage to interface with the part of the Hive Mind operating in the BA area can detect an element of focus of the Hive Mind against them and the best way they can interpret it with their limited human minds is as a grudge.
Basically its the same way people interpret pet actions and emotions based on casual observation and putting it into a context that they understand and can relate too even if a better understanding shows it to be false. (this isn't say animals don't have emotional feelings, but that how we interpret them can be wrong)
We got it (for the first time) from the hive minds point of view.
Spoiler:
"The Imperial scholars were wrong. The hive mind knew. The hive mind thought, it felt, it hated and it desired. Its emotions were unutterably alien, cocktails of feeling not even the subtle aeldari might decipher. Its emotions were oceans to the puddles of a man’s feelings. They were inconceivable to humanity, for they were too big to perceive.
The hive mind looked out of its innumerable eyes towards the dull red star of Baal. It apprehended that this was the hive of the warriors that had hurt it so grievously, who had burned its feeding grounds and scattered its fleets. It hated the red prey, and it coveted them. Tasting their exotic genomes it had seen potential for new and terrible war beasts.
And so it drew its plans, and it set in motion its trillion trillion bodies towards the consumption of the creatures in red metal, so that their secrets might be plundered, and reemployed in the sating of the hive mind’s endless hunger. This was deliberate, considered, and done in malice.
The hive mind was aware, and it desired vengeance."
Tyranid fanboy.
Been around since 3rd edition.
2019/11/20 16:33:52
Subject: Re:Did anyone ever communicate with the tyranid hive mind?
ikeulhu wrote: IIRC that is an Astartes interpretation of the Hive Mind's view, not the actual view of the Hive Mind. The distinction matters.
Exactly. The Tyranid Hive Mind clearly has a will and objectives, but any interpretation of it and the Tyranids has to go through the filter of the observers. Even in the part quoted they note that its feelings and thoughts are almost unfathomable and utterly alien. What we get is the closest understanding that a human mind can interpret the Tyranids will as. The Hive Mind might not desire vengeance in the way a human would; but its desire to destroy something that threatened and beat back a major hive fleet is clearly an important thing for the Hive Mind to focus upon.
Also lets not forget that world which the Tyranids have built; for purposes that we've yet no idea about. So far I think the only use of it we've seen is Genestealers visiting it and gaining increased awareness and infestation within their bodies. Driving the leaders to seek out more worlds with redoubled effort to infest and bring the Will of the Swarm too.
ikeulhu wrote: IIRC that is an Astartes interpretation of the Hive Mind's view, not the actual view of the Hive Mind. The distinction matters.
No, its being told by an all knowing narrator. The same goes for a lictor later in the story. I have added the full tekst below.
Spoiler:
"Across the central deeps of the Ultima Segmentum the Red Scar spread its sanguine pall. A stellar desert tinted bloody, hard and inimical to man. The suns imprisoned within its bounds were all red in colour, whether senescent supergiants or early sequence infants. Deadly radiation bathed this benighted subsector, rendering its worlds uninhabitable by any sane measure.
The Imperium had long passed the point of sanity.
Perhaps because of their situation, the planets of the Scar were rich in exotic resources, and so generations of humanity had lived out brief lives under baleful stars, toiling at the will of the High Lords of Terra. Sustained by elixirs manufactured on Satys, the inhabitants of the Cryptus, Vitria and other systems afflicted by the Scar’s poison lived a life, of sorts, in service of the species.
Against all the odds, by human ingenuity and for human greed, there had been billions of humans in the Red Scar region. So it might have been for generations more, but nothing is permanent and mankind no longer held sway.
The tyranids had come to the Scar, scouring every world they encountered down to the bedrock to feed an ancient and powerful hunger, extirpating humanity in the process.
The invader was Hive Fleet Leviathan, by Imperial designation, though the governing intelligence of the hive mind made no such distinctions between the component parts of its body. To its incomprehensibly vast intellect, Leviathan was a limb, a foot or an arm. If the hive mind regarded Leviathan as distinct from the other fleets devouring the galaxy in some way, it was by categories too alien for men to understand.
From across the cold gulfs of intergalactic space the hive fleets had come, moving from one feeding ground to the next. The hive mind did not know and did not care what its food called itself, but noted, in its alien way, the strangeness of this prey-cluster; an environment where the realities of the mind and form were intermingled. There was risk there, but good hunting in the dangerous shoals. The galaxy teemed with life, and the hive mind glutted itself on a staggering array of biological abundance.
From the human point of view, the tyrannic wars had raged for close to a half millennium. In that time, hundreds of Imperial worlds had been devoured. Several minor races had been consumed. Thousands of unknown planets outside the Imperium’s notice had been turned from living orbs to rocky spheres that would never bear life again. Had the High Lords of Terra known how devastating the tyranids truly were, they may have acted sooner.
Like the mythical plagues of locusts of Old Earth, the tyranids stripped everything they came across bare. With each feast the hive mind became stronger, absorbing the genetic profiles of everything it devoured and adding their strengths to its own. With every new creature eaten, its repertoire of genetic tricks grew. When it encountered a threat, it adapted. Its methods became more efficient, its fleets more numerous. Its creatures proliferated and multiplied, the essences of the galaxy’s worlds converted into yet more elements of the never-ending swarms. So overwhelming was the threat it posed, the race had been declared Periculo Summa Magna, and was deemed by many departments within the Imperium’s higher echelons as the most serious challenge to mankind’s continued existence.
They were wrong about that, but only by a little. These were dangerous years, well blessed with horrors.
Nevertheless, the hive mind did not advance unopposed. There were brave men and women, heroes all, who stood against it no matter that the odds were impossible, and death was their only reward.
Imperial losses were many. Victory was rare. At many junctures the Blood Angels Space Marines had defied Hive Fleet Leviathan, stealing away its food, and in some cases destroying its splinter fleets in their entirety. The hive mind responded to them as it did to other threats in the prey-cluster, creating new beasts to beat the defences of its prey, improving those it already possessed, and devising new strategies. All to no avail. Though pushed back, the red prey warriors fought on. At Cryptus the Blood Angels performed one last supreme effort, destroying a tendril of the greater whole, in truth a trivial victory at the cost of a rich system.
Nothing could halt Leviathan’s encroachment on the Red Scar. After Cryptus there was Baal, home world of the Blood Angels, lying directly in the swarm’s path.
This was not accidental.
The sages of the Imperium thought the hive mind a non-sentient intelligence. They believed the actions of the myriad creatures in its swarms were performed instinctively, and that the sheer numbers of interactions between them gave rise to complex behaviour. At the very highest level these behaviours were remarkable, but only had the semblance of thought. Ultimately instinct drove the hive fleets, they said, not free will. Similar false intelligences had been witnessed so very many times in social animals across space, after all, from the ants of ancient Earth to the thought-trees of Demarea. The hive mind’s actions could be ascribed to sentient consideration, but the sages insisted they were nothing of the sort.
The biologans held the hive mind to be only a complicated animal, a supreme predator driven by a devastatingly powerful reactive mind, nevertheless devoid of soul. It was an automaton, they said. Unfeeling. It was as unaware of what it did as the wind is unaware of the cliff whose face it scours away, grain by grain. The hive mind was biological mechanics writ large. Mind from mindlessness.
The Imperial scholars were wrong. The hive mind knew. The hive mind thought, it felt, it hated and it desired. Its emotions were unutterably alien, cocktails of feeling not even the subtle aeldari might decipher. Its emotions were oceans to the puddles of a man’s feelings. They were inconceivable to humanity, for they were too big to perceive.
The hive mind looked out of its innumerable eyes towards the dull red star of Baal. It apprehended that this was the hive of the warriors that had hurt it so grievously, who had burned its feeding grounds and scattered its fleets. It hated the red prey, and it coveted them. Tasting their exotic genomes it had seen potential for new and terrible war beasts.
And so it drew its plans, and it set in motion its trillion trillion bodies towards the consumption of the creatures in red metal, so that their secrets might be plundered, and reemployed in the sating of the hive mind’s endless hunger. This was deliberate, considered, and done in malice.
The hive mind was aware, and it desired vengeance."
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2019/11/20 17:10:16
Tyranid fanboy.
Been around since 3rd edition.
2019/11/21 04:20:16
Subject: Did anyone ever communicate with the tyranid hive mind?
Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios
godardc wrote: Weren't the zoat speaking for the tyranid race ? I mean they were an intelligent species and were communicating and all but were still part of the hive mind
In the old fluff yes. But that's pretty well been deleted as canon with all the changes to how the Hive Mind works.
I always viewed the hive mind like this,
Its not really possible to communicate with the Hive Mind. Not at least in any way we would call communication. The Hive Mind is intelligent yes, but it isn't simply an intelligent being that exists in billions of different bodies. It is something "other". It doesn't think like a normal person. It is only driven by the primal urge to feed, consume, and survive. It is a Lovecraftian thing whose only emotion is hunger. It is utterly above any conversation with a mortal being, or indeed perhaps the gods themselves. In some sense, it is nothing more than an animal. A primal consuming force only capable of reacting to its environment. It isn't really self-aware, such a thing is unfathomable to something that only hungers.
The best a mortal could achieve with the Hive Mind is what Tiberius has done. See what its next target is. See what it has locked on to as its next meal, and maybe a few meals after that as well. But getting a coherent thought out of the hive mind would be impossible. It isn't an intelligent being that one could rationalize with. It is an utterly alien thing. Incomprehensible and unfathomable.
Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines
Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.
godardc wrote: Weren't the zoat speaking for the tyranid race ? I mean they were an intelligent species and were communicating and all but were still part of the hive mind
In the old fluff yes. But that's pretty well been deleted as canon with all the changes to how the Hive Mind works.
I always viewed the hive mind like this,
Its not really possible to communicate with the Hive Mind. Not at least in any way we would call communication. The Hive Mind is intelligent yes, but it isn't simply an intelligent being that exists in billions of different bodies. It is something "other". It doesn't think like a normal person. It is only driven by the primal urge to feed, consume, and survive. It is a Lovecraftian thing whose only emotion is hunger. It is utterly above any conversation with a mortal being, or indeed perhaps the gods themselves. In some sense, it is nothing more than an animal. A primal consuming force only capable of reacting to its environment. It isn't really self-aware, such a thing is unfathomable to something that only hungers.
The best a mortal could achieve with the Hive Mind is what Tiberius has done. See what its next target is. See what it has locked on to as its next meal, and maybe a few meals after that as well. But getting a coherent thought out of the hive mind would be impossible. It isn't an intelligent being that one could rationalize with. It is an utterly alien thing. Incomprehensible and unfathomable.
The following is from Wraithflight by Guy Haley. The POV is Iyanna using her psychic senses while fighting a hive fleet. While an in-character POV and thus potentially fallible, it does pretty strongly point towards the Hive Mind as an entity:
Beyond the shield she saw the Great Dragon’s true form. Not the hideous intrusions into the mortal realm that swam the black star sea, nor as a Farseer might see it, as a great and braided cable of malicious fate dominating all the skein. The first was merely a part of the whole, the second psychic abstraction. What Iyanna instead saw was the reality of its soul.
It was a great shadow when seen from afar, a wave of dread and psychic blindness that preceded the hive fleet’s arrival. But the greatest shadows are cast by the brightest lights, and seen closely, the soul of the hive mind shone brighter than any sun.
She was so close now that she perceived the ridged topography of its mind, larger than star systems, an entity bigger than a god. It contemplated thoughts as large as continents, and spun plans more complex than worlds. It dreamed dreams that could not be fathomed. She felt small and afraid before it, but she did not let her fear cow her defiance.
Against this vista flickered the souls of eldar, their jewel-brightness dimmed by the incomparable glare of the Great Dragon. And this was but a tendril of the creature. The bulk of it stretched away, coils wrapped tight about the higher dimensions, joining in the distance to others, and then others again, until at a great confluence of the parts sat the terrible truth of the whole. She stared at its brilliance. Unlike her passionless dead warriors, who felt nought but the echoes of wrath at the sight, she was fascinated by the beauty on display. She thought, if only such a thing could be tamed it would drive out She Who Thirsts forever. If only its hunger was for things other than the meat and blood of worlds…
She ceased her speculation. Such an entity was entirely other, inimical to all life but its own, a giant animal intent only on its prey. There was no thought to its doings, no intellect. It was cunning. It exhibited signs of an emergent, mechanical intelligence, as evolution might appear to possess if sped to the rate of change the hive mind evinced. But there was no true intelligence to it. The hive mind was non-sentient.
...
She had the sense of an eye, slave to a great power. An intellect that dwarfed the Great Wheel of the galaxy. She opened her second sense, to find the Dragon looking at her with terrible regard. For aeons it seemed it held her in its gaze. And there was fury in that examination. The Dragon was angry, and it was angry with her. Not with the galaxy, or this sector, or her species. But with her personally. The promise of endless torment came from it, her very being enslaved to its ends and used against others, her body rebuilt over and again so that it might suffer the Dragon’s revenge.
So from this story, it seems Iyanna was mistaken in thinking the Hive Mind had no true intelligence or sentience. Though the Hive Mind normally does not seem to concern itself with individual enemies, it seems to have noticed and formed a particular vendetta (or so Iyanna at least perceives) after Iyanna scores yet another victory against the Tyranids. Iyanna's repeated presence at Iyanden victories over Tyranids seems to have been noticed.
