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.

You guys should maybe start your own thread as this is widely off-topic. Geller Fields are completely unrelated to tyranids or their ability to consume gas giants.

No need Rob. Neither of them have a case to make and you can't beat logic.

We're all done here.

New thread for anyone who cares about Gellar Fields.

A: Maintaining is not the same thing as generating

B: Gellar fields aren't pure realspace physics, as they require psykers to generate/operate. They have "something" to do with the intersection of realspace and warpspace, and that's enough.

Delete

 Insectum7 wrote:
A: Maintaining is not the same thing as generating

B: Gellar fields aren't pure realspace physics, as they require psykers to generate/operate. They have "something" to do with the intersection of realspace and warpspace, and that's enough.

A) Derp

B) Also Derp.

Roberts84 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
A: Maintaining is not the same thing as generating

B: Gellar fields aren't pure realspace physics, as they require psykers to generate/operate. They have "something" to do with the intersection of realspace and warpspace, and that's enough.

A) Derp

B) Also Derp.

Response in new thread.

Response from new thread.

Insectum7 wrote:Would it surprise you to learn that this was already bought up?

Edit: and ignored?

Well not now that I've read the unread posts in the Shield of Baal thread.

Or else you mean the "how does it maintain reality in unreality?" "By maintaining reality" back-and-forth that went on there. To be honest that didn't seem well-explained to me either, at least not in this thread. It's a whole 'nuther set of rules, not just mixing mediums like pushing a plastic bubble of air under water. It's a kind a' water where plastic and air make no sense.

How does the psyker maintain that bubble? What makes it stable in an existence that is the definition of unstable? Off the top of my head, I'd say rather than a specific psychic power or even undefined psyker energy, it could be the psyker's warp presence - bigger than a, er, normie's warp presence - projected by the gellar device. The warp is swirling chaos but warp presences can maintain individuality and cohesion, especially those souls of living, physical beings. For a time, at least, daemons and warp eddies can't break through the gellar field because it's actually another, separate warp entity (the psyker). Ships can travel within the psyker's warp presence not because it traps a bubble of reality, but because the psyker creates their own warp-version of reality within their warp self, through concentration, hypnotic suggestion, or sheer inability to comprehend anything else. (Latter unlikely, maybe) [To keep in with this thread: like the psyker's own personal little 'shadow in the warp'] The ship is hitching a ride through a psyker's dream...

Losing a ship in the warp would be less the gellar tech breaking down, more the psyker's stretched mind finally succumbing to the increased battering from the warp. Many wards and rituals needed to safeguard. Maybe even a crude, miniature version of the golden throne, used to project the Emperor's psychic presence as the astronomicon?

 Vermis wrote:
Response from new thread.

Insectum7 wrote:Would it surprise you to learn that this was already bought up?

Edit: and ignored?

Well not now that I've read the unread posts in the Shield of Baal thread.

Or else you mean the "how does it maintain reality in unreality?" "By maintaining reality" back-and-forth that went on there. To be honest that didn't seem well-explained to me either, at least not in this thread. It's a whole 'nuther set of rules, not just mixing mediums like pushing a plastic bubble of air under water. It's a kind a' water where plastic and air make no sense.

How does the psyker maintain that bubble? What makes it stable in an existence that is the definition of unstable? Off the top of my head, I'd say rather than a specific psychic power or even undefined psyker energy, it could be the psyker's warp presence - bigger than a, er, normie's warp presence - projected by the gellar device. The warp is swirling chaos but warp presences can maintain individuality and cohesion, especially those souls of living, physical beings. For a time, at least, daemons and warp eddies can't break through the gellar field because it's actually another, separate warp entity (the psyker). Ships can travel within the psyker's warp presence not because it traps a bubble of reality, but because the psyker creates their own warp-version of reality within their warp self, through concentration, hypnotic suggestion, or sheer inability to comprehend anything else. (Latter unlikely, maybe) [To keep in with this thread: like the psyker's own personal little 'shadow in the warp'] The ship is hitching a ride through a psyker's dream...

Losing a ship in the warp would be less the gellar tech breaking down, more the psyker's stretched mind finally succumbing to the increased battering from the warp. Many wards and rituals needed to safeguard. Maybe even a crude, miniature version of the golden throne, used to project the Emperor's psychic presence as the astronomicon?

My guess is that it's something like a Force Weapon. Both are pieces of technology that a psyker trains to work with and use to amplify their awareness/ability etc. A "normie" can't use a Force Weapon, and iirc Gellar Fields are the same type of situation. But the size/power/drain of the Gellar field system drains out psykers rather often. So much so that there are several on standby who can take over operation. Or maybe they all work together in a mini-celestial choir setup. The online reference I quickly perused wan't clear.

Guys, don't get this thread locked too.

Tyranids
Tyranids
Tyranids

I'm happy that Tyranids can at least eat 75% of the galaxy.

Tyranids.

roboemperor wrote:
Guys, don't get this thread locked too.

Tyranids
Tyranids
Tyranids

I'm happy that Tyranids can at least eat 75% of the galaxy.

Tyranids.

And don't need Gellar fields.

Prior to the 'narwhal' rubbish, I rather liked the concept that the shadow in the warp was essentially an organic analogue to a gellar field: a massive area-effect that dampens psychic and daemonic effects, as well as 'warp turbulence', eliminating the need for a navigator equivalent by removing the need to steer around stuff.


Meanwhile - Tyranids, Tyranids - to be honest, the need to invade Earthlike worlds is questionable at best. Water, Methane, Ammonia, etc can be found in some ice asteroids and moons. Unless there's something 'special' there's little practical reason for a hive not to go around hoovering up uninhabited systems: yes, it's probably less efficient but it's also going to offer no resistance.

Attacking populated worlds only makes sense if either they get something unique from it (as per necron or chaos arguments about souls), or they have an instinctive drive to do so. The latter is perfectly possible, but of course we don't really know why the Tyranids do what they do or where they ultimately 'began'. Imagining them as a legacy doomsday weapon, for example.

Technically I'd argue that most of the lower life forms within Tyranid hives do actually use real instinctive behaviour. In fact even the upper life forms are built on instinctive behaviour. Tyranids don't have to go to school nor grow up as such as we'd understand it. So yes the bulk of their operations are instinctive.


However instinctive is a term that is dangerously loaded. On Earth we tend to use it to refer to less intelligent life forms and more automatic/lifesaving reactions from more intelligent ones. Ergo we look down on instinctive behaviours.


Now Tyranids by and large are born for a specific role with all the instinctive behaviour that they need to achieve that role in the swarm. They only achieve a greater level of tactical and military conquest by linking together and having smarter Tyranids within the swarm to give overall direction. Gaunts without a synapse node nearby are still deadly; they are still build to hunt and kill; but they lack the greater tactical awareness to position themselves in regard to the overall battleplan. So they are more likely to blind charge into enemy fire; whilst with synapse they link up to the greater swarm and use that to guide their advance.
Hive Guard area great example of this - technically the best sniper in the tyranid army has no eyes of its own. It relies entirely upon other Tyranids seeing things for it to then pick them out, target them relative to their own position in the swarm and then fire. A unit that, on its own, would be significantly weaker.




I guess my point is that at the lower level Tyranids are highly variable in performance and intelligence, but when added together there's clearly a lot of upper level thinking going on. So yes they run to the instinctive feed and grow. However you can argue that humans, orks and basically most living life follows that same pattern of behaviours.

Insectum7 wrote:naughty off-topic things

I like that.

roboemperor wrote:Tyranids
Tyranids
Tyranids

"It's showtime!"

Original topic? I don't have the energy to argue whether tyranids eat rocks or not. At this point I'm willing to fall back on the notion that if tyranids didn't attack inhabited worlds, GW would have trouble selling tyranid minis.

^Sick Broodlord+Beetleguise reference. That your paint job?

I think the idea that Tyranjds can *eventually* consume raw silicates is fine, personally. But it's totally plausible that they don't because they don't need much of it to build the majority of their organisms, in the same way thay that we consume iron, just not in ingot form. We don't need much of it.

 Insectum7 wrote:
^Sick Broodlord+Beetleguise reference. That your paint job?

I think the idea that Tyranjds can *eventually* consume raw silicates is fine, personally. But it's totally plausible that they don't because they don't need much of it to build the majority of their organisms, in the same way thay that we consume iron, just not in ingot form. We don't need much of it.

Tyranids can and do consume silicates and metals. Past Tyranid Codices have described carapaces with silicates and tusks with adamantium, and there was a short story in the 3rd edition Codex about Tyranid flora rendering down an Imperial base and a destroyed Leman Russ tank.

A human body has trace metals and minerals in it, and contains as much iron as about 1 iron nail. A Tyranid fleet's "trace minerals" would still amount to many tons.

Here's the thing; no fluff suggests the Tyranids NEED to eat inhabited worlds. Bar theories that the Tyranids are running from something (and some snippets of long-obselete fluff), there is nothing to imply that survival is even a consideration which enters the picture. The Tyranids eat worlds because that is their goal. The Imperium wants to conquer the galaxy, Chaos wants to despoil it, Orks just want a good fight, Tyranids want to eat worlds carrying life. Sitting around to suck up gas giants probably slows things down more than the benefit is worth, but if a case arises where it IS beneficial the Tyranids would naturally do so.

Two other important points to consider;

1) BL is pretty poor on lore for other races that aren't Imperials/Marines. Most stories revolve around them and whilst there are various lore books and codex over the years; by and large most stories are very Imperial focused. This means that not only are there fewer considerations for background elements of other races that might not appear in a battlefield (where Imperials would turn up) but also that many of the lore points are filtered through Imperial understanding.

2) Tyranids don't have any "voice" (which is not inherently a bad thing) which means that there is no story about Tyranids written by Tyranids. Most are either lore details of events or, most often, Imperial accounts of encounters.

This twists the lore around them somewhat. Tyranids might well have eaten gas giants, but unless they eat one Imperials care about and eat one that Imperial's see then it might never get reported on. It might be rare that the Imperium has just never seen it; or its common, but its a detail they don't care to mention.

That along with Imperials getting things wrong can all account for a degree of fuzzy natures within the lore ;without even accounting for variation through time and evolution/adaptation/unique behaviours.

 Overread wrote:
This twists the lore around them somewhat. Tyranids might well have eaten gas giants, but unless they eat one Imperials care about and eat one that Imperial's see then it might never get reported on. It might be rare that the Imperium has just never seen it; or its common, but its a detail they don't care to mention.

What? I provided a quote on the very first page that directly says Tyranids have eaten gas giants the imperials care about and they have multiple reports on such incidents.