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Made in gb
Junior Officer with Laspistol





The Shire(s)

Iracundus wrote:
Spoiler:
 Haighus wrote:
To properly assess Kryptman's scorched earth policy comes back to the core questions about Tyranid activity.

What can Tyranids eat?

What do Tyranids need to eat?

Why do they choose to attack some worlds/systems over others? In particular, why do they seemingly avoid lifeless systems with abundant resources?

Tyranids are noted to be able to devour a world to such a degree that they can take everything above bedrock, including minerals etc. Yet they only seem to target rocky worlds with organic life ("biomass"), and don't seem to take organic material from things like gas giants to create biomass from. This is odd, because a gas giant has enormous amounts of resources to make organic material that can be combined with minerals from rocky worlds to create biomass.

So why the focus on worlds with organic life? Individual hive fleets do seem to be able to starve and become easier to defeat, so why do they not divert from danger and nom some uninhabited systems to regain strength?

There might be some barrier to havesting material from gas giants that we don't know (like issues with the high gravity). It may simply be quicker to repurpose existing biomass and the current hive fleets are the rapid vanguard avoiding protracted campaigns. There could be something else vital about life (for example, the hive fleets may only be able to navigate to systems with life). Maybe they do eat gas giants, but it has just never been reported.

If Tyranids require specifically biomass (which they seem to), then Kryptman's cordon worked. If they do not, I think it merely appeared to help.


The Tyranids have 2 needs.

1. Biomass
2. Genetic material

Life bearing worlds meet both needs, while inorganic sources of CHNOPS don't. The other reason life bearing worlds may be targeted and stripped bare is time. It may be quicker to strip a world that has biomass than making your own biomass from inorganic sources. If one could consume 10 worlds of biomass in the time to make the equivalent of 1 world's worth of biomass yourself from inorganic sources, then stripping bare would be favored.

It's the same reason why predation exists in the first place as opposed to all life synthesizing their own stuff like plants. When you eat another creature, you get far more organic material in an easily utilized format already whereas synthesizing it yourself is slow by comparison.

The Kraken splinter fleets did regrow, though they did so by targeting weakly defended worlds far behind the Imperial defensive lines.

Surely then we would see weakened splinters "go to ground" and consuming lifeless systems to regain strength? That is the odd bit. If a fleet becomes too weak to reliable take out even lightly defended worlds, then recuperating in lifeless systems would be the quicker option in the long run than losing the fleet remnant entirely. Yet I am not aware this occurs.

It would also make Kryptman's cordon much less effective, because dead worlds would still provide nutrients for the fleets to pass, and the starvation effect would be markedly less pronounced.

Of course, the Tyranid force could be so utterly vast that it simply cares not for the loss of a mere splinter, that small amounts of suboptimal behaviour has a negligible effect.

 ChargerIIC wrote:
If algae farm paste with a little bit of your grandfather in it isn't Grimdark I don't know what is.
 
   
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If I had to take a wild guess (note that this is really only my brain child and nothing official), I assume that there are some specialized "feeder fleets" that have not yet reached the milky way that are extremely efficient at converting gasgiants, mineral worlds and other stuff that does not fight back. But these fleets are really poor at attacking or even just defending themselves.

The "first wave" on the other hand are hive fleets that are good at fighting but not optimized for "all purpose consumption" but can only efficiently diggest higher grade biomass, preferably sentient.

So again out of economics the first wave is "ordered" to focus on systems that fight back and possess sentient populations, because using them for consumption of gasgiants is on the grander scale less efficient compared to waiting for them to exterminate all resistance and afterwards send in the "feeder fleets" to graze on the gasgiants etc. All in all like thinking on the grander scale of digesting the whole milkyway as efficient as possible over some centuries or millenia instead of looking at it in a shorter timescale of mere years or decades.


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Spoiler:
Iracundus wrote:
The following is from Wraithflight by Guy Haley, which is reprinted in the latest Leviathan omnibus. 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.

I am not saying this is necessarily a good change. I think it would be akin to a human paying personal attention to a particularly troublesome bacterium (not a species, but a single bacterium). While individual Tyranids or even individual fleet Norn Queens might be aware of specific individuals opposing them, I personally don't think the Hive Mind of all Tyranids should be aware, any more than a human is aware of their immune system fighting off an infection. As a god scale entity, I think the Hive Mind could be aware, just as the Chaos gods seem to pay attention to their Champions, at least in passing, but the Tyranid Hive Mind does not have that kind of interest in the triumphs or failures of any individual. In my head canon, the Hive Mind is aware of battle fronts, at sector, subsector, and at star system level, but even that is a form of focused attention. I think the Hive Mind is aware there are equivalent scale entities in the Milky Way, and by entities I mean political units like the Imperium in the material universe and gods in the Warp such as the Chaos gods, the Ork gods, and the Emperor.


This puts me in mind of Iyanna as a bug or tick, getting a meal from a human body.

At first, we may not notice it. We feel it’s presence sure, scuttling up our leg or the bite. But it still takes a moment or two for our brain to single that sensation out for further attention. It could be a thorn or spiky seed casing. Once our attention is more focussed, it takes time for us to process and decide what we want to do.

Granted we’re talking maybe a second or two at first, longer if the first decision is “give that area a quick scratch to deal with the tickle”. But from there? Said bug or tick needs to fear our full attention. And until that full attention is given, we may well seem unreactive, unfeeling, uncaring to it.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/06/07 15:52:34


   
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Longtime Dakkanaut




 Haighus wrote:
Iracundus wrote:
Spoiler:
 Haighus wrote:
To properly assess Kryptman's scorched earth policy comes back to the core questions about Tyranid activity.

What can Tyranids eat?

What do Tyranids need to eat?

Why do they choose to attack some worlds/systems over others? In particular, why do they seemingly avoid lifeless systems with abundant resources?

Tyranids are noted to be able to devour a world to such a degree that they can take everything above bedrock, including minerals etc. Yet they only seem to target rocky worlds with organic life ("biomass"), and don't seem to take organic material from things like gas giants to create biomass from. This is odd, because a gas giant has enormous amounts of resources to make organic material that can be combined with minerals from rocky worlds to create biomass.

So why the focus on worlds with organic life? Individual hive fleets do seem to be able to starve and become easier to defeat, so why do they not divert from danger and nom some uninhabited systems to regain strength?

There might be some barrier to havesting material from gas giants that we don't know (like issues with the high gravity). It may simply be quicker to repurpose existing biomass and the current hive fleets are the rapid vanguard avoiding protracted campaigns. There could be something else vital about life (for example, the hive fleets may only be able to navigate to systems with life). Maybe they do eat gas giants, but it has just never been reported.

If Tyranids require specifically biomass (which they seem to), then Kryptman's cordon worked. If they do not, I think it merely appeared to help.


The Tyranids have 2 needs.

1. Biomass
2. Genetic material

Life bearing worlds meet both needs, while inorganic sources of CHNOPS don't. The other reason life bearing worlds may be targeted and stripped bare is time. It may be quicker to strip a world that has biomass than making your own biomass from inorganic sources. If one could consume 10 worlds of biomass in the time to make the equivalent of 1 world's worth of biomass yourself from inorganic sources, then stripping bare would be favored.

It's the same reason why predation exists in the first place as opposed to all life synthesizing their own stuff like plants. When you eat another creature, you get far more organic material in an easily utilized format already whereas synthesizing it yourself is slow by comparison.

The Kraken splinter fleets did regrow, though they did so by targeting weakly defended worlds far behind the Imperial defensive lines.

Surely then we would see weakened splinters "go to ground" and consuming lifeless systems to regain strength? That is the odd bit. If a fleet becomes too weak to reliable take out even lightly defended worlds, then recuperating in lifeless systems would be the quicker option in the long run than losing the fleet remnant entirely. Yet I am not aware this occurs.

It would also make Kryptman's cordon much less effective, because dead worlds would still provide nutrients for the fleets to pass, and the starvation effect would be markedly less pronounced.

Of course, the Tyranid force could be so utterly vast that it simply cares not for the loss of a mere splinter, that small amounts of suboptimal behaviour has a negligible effect.


I would ascribe it to a cold playing of the odds. The Hive Mind may have concluded that a splinter fleet is still likely to win more often than not against such lightly defended worlds, and the resulting regeneration of the fleet and the disruption to the enemy logistics outweighs the cost and probability of defeat. If 9 out of 10 splinter fleets succeed and only 1 splinter fleet gets destroyed, then the Hive Mind would IMO take those odds, all the way down to 6:4 odds, even though I doubt weak worlds would be able to pose such a risk.
   
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 Haighus wrote:

Surely then we would see weakened splinters "go to ground" and consuming lifeless systems to regain strength? That is the odd bit. If a fleet becomes too weak to reliable take out even lightly defended worlds, then recuperating in lifeless systems would be the quicker option in the long run than losing the fleet remnant entirely. Yet I am not aware this occurs.

It would also make Kryptman's cordon much less effective, because dead worlds would still provide nutrients for the fleets to pass, and the starvation effect would be markedly less pronounced.

Of course, the Tyranid force could be so utterly vast that it simply cares not for the loss of a mere splinter, that small amounts of suboptimal behaviour has a negligible effect.


It's possible this behavior does occur, but we just don't see it because it would happen in systems undiscovered or unmonitored by the Imperium. Remember, the first hints that the Tyranids existed was because life-bearing words around Tyran started becoming lifeless.

Another reason is that Tyranids might not have time to explore each and every system in the galaxy. Space is big. There's lots and lots of stars in space, and Tyranids interstellar travel is inconsistently explained (some sources say it's sublight but that makes zero sense at this scale where it would take hundreds or thousands of years to get from system to system). A big, possibly only, reason Tyranids attack other systems is the presence of vanguard organisms, psychic beacons by GSC's, or perhaps psychic activity (astropaths, etc.) that act like flares to draw them in.

If you think about it, the average asteroid belt should contain enough inorganic materials to keep a hive fleet going for a very long time, including the rarer naturally occurring materials.

One of the reasons I imagine they even both to attack worlds is that, for them, it's easy. Remember, Tyranids are not like us. When Tyranids invade a planet, every creature, from the lowest ripper to the most complex hive tyrant, is effectively already dead. If they conquer the planet, those creatures throw themselves into digestion pits to be slurped up and recycled in the ships. So from that view, very few resources are actually expended in (successfully) taking a planet--even the capillary towers that feed the hive ships are grown from the hyper-growth taken from the planet. It's part of why Kryptman's Gambil was so effective--he not only scorched a cordon, he instructed the Imperial forces to, if possible, Exterminatus the planet just as the hive fleets were descending to feed on the biomass. It denied them both the planet and the resources they had expended to capture it.

The other reason to attack a world is, of course, that if the Tyranids are here to eat the galaxy, it's infinitely easier to do so if you eat the enemy at their hard points than allow them to fly out and do things like Kryptman did to you.

And if Tyranids are essentially just one organism, what's a few splinter fleets here and there? If they died, it was because they didn't evolve to deal with their circumstances. It's not like it matters regarding the survival of the species, because that's not really a concern for them. It's not like the destruction of a splinter fleet makes an enemy stronger--on the contrary, it weakens them further.

That's the horrible thing about the Tyranids. Even with poor writing, even without any sort of tactics beyond more bodies at the problem, or a strategy beyond float around and eat targets of opportunity, they really can't be stopped. Every battle (apart from Necrons--maybe) sees them either stronger than when they entered or their opponent weakened, if not both. Every time Tyranid fleets meet each other, the stronger absorbs the weaker with few loss of resources but now access to the genetic diversity of the inferior force, making the surviving fleet even stronger.

Honestly, it kind of makes Kryptman's Gambit the best way to handle Tyranids for the Imperium--throw the Tyranids at your enemies while you build up your forces. I imagine that would be the only way the Imperium could contain the Tyranid threat. By the time the Tyranids have eaten all the xenos, traitors, and mutants in the galaxy, the Imperium would have to devote itself to forever culling hive fleets and splinter fleets before they grew out of control. Only war indeed.
   
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Dakka Veteran





I blame Kryptman for the 9th edition Nid Buffs....darn evolution.

I like my kid's solution to big bads in 40K: "I zap you with the grot ray. It instantly turns you into a grot." Man I wish that were a real ork weapon

"Iz got a plan. We line up. Yell Waaagh, den krump them in the face. Den when we're done, we might yell Waagh one more time." Warboss Gutstompa 
   
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 Dekskull wrote:
I blame Kryptman for the 9th edition Nid Buffs....darn evolution.

I like my kid's solution to big bads in 40K: "I zap you with the grot ray. It instantly turns you into a grot." Man I wish that were a real ork weapon


Warhammer Fantasy Battle’s Wurrzag could stare people into turning into Squigs.

That was always a laugh.

   
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Servoarm Flailing Magos




Germany

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
 Dekskull wrote:
I blame Kryptman for the 9th edition Nid Buffs....darn evolution.

I like my kid's solution to big bads in 40K: "I zap you with the grot ray. It instantly turns you into a grot." Man I wish that were a real ork weapon


Warhammer Fantasy Battle’s Wurrzag could stare people into turning into Squigs.

That was always a laugh.


In 40k Old Zogwort could too, and Wurrboyz can as well Squigformation is a trope that's alive and well everywhere ork-kind is present in the worlds of Warhammer

Altima wrote:
 Haighus wrote:

Surely then we would see weakened splinters "go to ground" and consuming lifeless systems to regain strength? That is the odd bit. If a fleet becomes too weak to reliable take out even lightly defended worlds, then recuperating in lifeless systems would be the quicker option in the long run than losing the fleet remnant entirely. Yet I am not aware this occurs.

It would also make Kryptman's cordon much less effective, because dead worlds would still provide nutrients for the fleets to pass, and the starvation effect would be markedly less pronounced.

Of course, the Tyranid force could be so utterly vast that it simply cares not for the loss of a mere splinter, that small amounts of suboptimal behaviour has a negligible effect.


It's possible this behavior does occur, but we just don't see it because it would happen in systems undiscovered or unmonitored by the Imperium. Remember, the first hints that the Tyranids existed was because life-bearing words around Tyran started becoming lifeless.

Another reason is that Tyranids might not have time to explore each and every system in the galaxy. Space is big. There's lots and lots of stars in space, and Tyranids interstellar travel is inconsistently explained (some sources say it's sublight but that makes zero sense at this scale where it would take hundreds or thousands of years to get from system to system). A big, possibly only, reason Tyranids attack other systems is the presence of vanguard organisms, psychic beacons by GSC's, or perhaps psychic activity (astropaths, etc.) that act like flares to draw them in.


That's a point where the Nid's methods of infiltration and intelligence gathering (on a strategic scale) work in their favour: once their vanguard organisms, and especially Genestealer cults, take root in a population center like a hive world, their sub-cults tend to spread back through its supply chain, since their spread most likely happens along much-frequented trade routes and travel networks. A well-infiltrated world seeds cults upon dozens of trade partners, which in time will start to emanate the psychic signal that attracts the fleets.
   
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I think both aspects of the plan make sense when you consider:

1.) the limited knowledge the Imperium had on Tyrands at the time (and still has), they couldn't really predict the outcome.

2.) the generally human-centric thinking of the Imperium, i.e., the plan of pitting two enemies against each other in a war of attrition would work when human worlds are at war. So, why wouldn't it work against Xenos that the Imperium routinely underestimates because they perceive all Xenos as inherently inferior to mankind? They assume Orks basically savage animals but they have some of the most advanced tech in the entire setting. They casually use a miniaturized warp engine to make a buggy go faster. I mean, think about that! They tear holes in reality for a wheeled vehicle to get somewhere quicker.

3.) The Imperium is not a well-organized or rational place. It is a horribly oppressive, theocratic state not because they chose it but because it is the best they can do. It's highly fragmented between openly warring parties that makes cooperation difficult at the best of times. But, they do have obscenely powerful weapons. So, if you need a rapid response to face a threat as big as a Tyranid hive fleet, the odds are it would take entirely too long to marshal traditional military resources to combat it (that's even before taking in consideration how unreliable warp travel is). It is quite literally easier and vastly quicker for the inquisition to blow up planets than to organize a military campaign on the scale necessary to fight a hive fleet. So, when that failed, what options did they really have apart from stalling for time by pitting two Xenos threats against one another?

Active armies, still collecting and painting First and greatest love - Orks, Orks, and more Orks largest pile of shame, so many tanks unassembled most complete and painted beautiful models, couldn't resist the swarm will consume all
Armies in disrepair: nothing new since 5th edition oh how I want to revive, but mostly old fantasy demons and some glorious Soul Grinders in need of love 
   
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The “fun” with the Imperium is kind of the problem we see with modern science and woo peddlers.

See, Kryptman himself probably knows the most about the Tyranid Hive Fleets. He is a de facto expert within The Imperium.

This is similar to being one of three scientists in the world researching something incredibly niche - a niche which has emerged from the works and papers of many iterations of study, each in turn generating its own niche within a niche within a niche.

This means the knowledge he has very, very specific. And simply may not be something you can translate into layman’s terms, because the base level of understanding needed to truly comprehend what’s being done is such a high bar, you can’t reasonably expect the layman to understand it.

Both the scientist and Kryptman then face the menace of some dumbass saying “nuh-uh” and offering a conveniently simple answer. Such as “my rock am cure the cancur”, who then spouts a load of old word salad, saying nothing whilst appearing Just As Wise to the layman (well, idiot). And that neither Kryptman nor the Scientist’s works can be easily explained becomes a sign of incompetence.

After all, you can be completely 100% correct in your field, but when the counter argument to your dozens of research papers is a single moron on YouTube claiming “am not grabity it am Beyoncé”, you’re just never going to get the majority to read, let alone comprehend, just how thoroughly you truly understand what you’re on about.

   
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Wait, the Tyranids are Beyonce?
   
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It would explain her popularity.

Nah I can’t actually back that. Woman can definitely sing and works hard. Just the end product isn’t my jam.

   
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Longtime Dakkanaut




 Grumblewartz wrote:

3.) The Imperium is not a well-organized or rational place. It is a horribly oppressive, theocratic state not because they chose it but because it is the best they can do. It's highly fragmented between openly warring parties that makes cooperation difficult at the best of times. But, they do have obscenely powerful weapons. So, if you need a rapid response to face a threat as big as a Tyranid hive fleet, the odds are it would take entirely too long to marshal traditional military resources to combat it (that's even before taking in consideration how unreliable warp travel is). It is quite literally easier and vastly quicker for the inquisition to blow up planets than to organize a military campaign on the scale necessary to fight a hive fleet. So, when that failed, what options did they really have apart from stalling for time by pitting two Xenos threats against one another?


Denying biomass to the Tyranids and the cordon that Kryptman constructed did not fail. It was actually working and slowing Leviathan's advance to a crawl. The Imperium just balked at the cost, showing that all their propaganda statements of "survival justifying any cost" or "no cost too high for survival" was just empty propaganda. Kryptman was exiled for a successful strategy.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/06/09 23:42:50


 
   
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 Gert wrote:
Wait, the Tyranids are Beyonce?


Still waiting for the Starcraft Kerrigan Rip Off model to come out. Will 10th be the right time?

"Iz got a plan. We line up. Yell Waaagh, den krump them in the face. Den when we're done, we might yell Waagh one more time." Warboss Gutstompa 
   
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The Shire(s)

Iracundus wrote:
 Grumblewartz wrote:

3.) The Imperium is not a well-organized or rational place. It is a horribly oppressive, theocratic state not because they chose it but because it is the best they can do. It's highly fragmented between openly warring parties that makes cooperation difficult at the best of times. But, they do have obscenely powerful weapons. So, if you need a rapid response to face a threat as big as a Tyranid hive fleet, the odds are it would take entirely too long to marshal traditional military resources to combat it (that's even before taking in consideration how unreliable warp travel is). It is quite literally easier and vastly quicker for the inquisition to blow up planets than to organize a military campaign on the scale necessary to fight a hive fleet. So, when that failed, what options did they really have apart from stalling for time by pitting two Xenos threats against one another?


Denying biomass to the Tyranids and the cordon that Kryptman constructed did not fail. It was actually working and slowing Leviathan's advance to a crawl. The Imperium just balked at the cost, showing that all their propaganda statements of "survival justifying any cost" or "no cost too high for survival" was just empty propaganda. Kryptman was exiled for a successful strategy.

Genuine question- was the slowing of the hive fleets to a crawl confirmed?

It tells us something about the capabilities and limitations of Tyranid attack fleets.

 ChargerIIC wrote:
If algae farm paste with a little bit of your grandfather in it isn't Grimdark I don't know what is.
 
   
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I guess that like any hunter animal, the Hive Fleets can only have so many failed or unsuccessful hunts.

They need biomass. Not just to reproduce, but to properly fuel the ship sized organisms.

Maybe they can use solar radiation as a form of photosynthesis, but you still need water or similar (I mean, who knows what a a Hive Ship can use as an alternative).

The longer you deny a given fleet a Slap Up Feast, the more it would need to carefully husband its resources. Potentially one might assume to the point of cannibalising warrior organisms to keep the interstellar ship organisms going, because it’s less effort and requiring of resources and time to spawn new warrior organisms once fresh biomass than it is a new ship organism?

   
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 Haighus wrote:
Genuine question- was the slowing of the hive fleets to a crawl confirmed?

It tells us something about the capabilities and limitations of Tyranid attack fleets.

It is true that the tendrils that targeted the worlds Kryptman destroyed were slowed down due to the lack of biomass available. But it didn't stop Leviathan's advance entirely and the gambit against the Orks was a mistake. His plan was for the Orks and Tyranids to destroy each other but it turned into a massive war that drew in millions of Orks, Craftworld strike forces, and even Chaos Warbands (largely Khornate looking for the biggest skulls). The whole thing went from a nuisance Ork empire to a second holy land for the Orks and the perfect environment for Leviathan to gain huge amounts of biomass while adapting new bioforms.
Anyone with a brain could have told Kryptman that sending the most adaptable and highly evolutionary species mankind had encountered into a stronghold of a species that thrives on warfare was a bad move.
   
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Tacoma, WA, USA

Iracundus wrote:
 Grumblewartz wrote:

3.) The Imperium is not a well-organized or rational place. It is a horribly oppressive, theocratic state not because they chose it but because it is the best they can do. It's highly fragmented between openly warring parties that makes cooperation difficult at the best of times. But, they do have obscenely powerful weapons. So, if you need a rapid response to face a threat as big as a Tyranid hive fleet, the odds are it would take entirely too long to marshal traditional military resources to combat it (that's even before taking in consideration how unreliable warp travel is). It is quite literally easier and vastly quicker for the inquisition to blow up planets than to organize a military campaign on the scale necessary to fight a hive fleet. So, when that failed, what options did they really have apart from stalling for time by pitting two Xenos threats against one another?


Denying biomass to the Tyranids and the cordon that Kryptman constructed did not fail. It was actually working and slowing Leviathan's advance to a crawl. The Imperium just balked at the cost, showing that all their propaganda statements of "survival justifying any cost" or "no cost too high for survival" was just empty propaganda. Kryptman was exiled for a successful strategy.
That's one of the great ironies of 40K. There is not cost too high for survival, but the question is who gets to decide when? Kryptman was exiled because the powers that be didn't like him deciding when and where to expend their resources.

As for the gambit being successful, it seems to have been. It definitely succeeded in buying time. The Tyranid Hive Mind operates like a predator. A highly specialized one at that. It wants living planets to consume unless it finds an irritant that needs dealing with. This explains both why the cordon diverted Leviathan and why the Hive Mind also is willing to expend so much resources to destroy and absorb those red-armored foes on their irradiated world.

I also like how different protagonist who have looked at the Hive Mind at a psychic level can't agree on what it is. The Hive Mind is simply too vast and complex for a single small mind to fully comprehend. The only things they can agree on is that it is vast, hungry, and full of malice.
   
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It’s not even ‘the powers that be’. In a super rare departure from my Dirty Lefty Ideals, Kryptman fell foul of a jury of his peers - mostly through jealousy.

And that’s exactly where the nonsense and pettiness of 40K is writ large.

Kryptman made the hard choice. He even at least tried to evacuate some worlds.

And for now? It…it worked,

But those peers? Either too egotistical or daft to see the admittedly dubious wisdom. I’d comfortably argue that the cost of Kryptman’s gambit is the closest 40K will get to the Law Of Large Numbers,

Whilst I can’t be bothered to research the exact numbers? Yes I get the irony. Kryptman’s plan may well have cost billions of Imperial lives. But when weighed against the potential trillions it gave at worst a fighting chance to?

   
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Longtime Dakkanaut




There was not even a choice. There was no viable alternative plan presented. The Imperium could not simply stand and try to fight in a head on slugging match as the Tyranid Codex explicitly described the Imperial fleets as already battered and needing time to rebuild and recover. Those billions on the 300 or so worlds that Kryptman destroyed would have still died if he had done nothing as there just weren't enough spare forces to realistically contest those worlds. Feeding them into a futile defense of those worlds would have been a waste and would have just fed the Tyranids more biomass in the end for negligible extra time gained.

Nor could the Imperium evacuate the entire populations of those worlds. At best the elites and useful might be skimmed and salvaged but the rest were still doomed. Kryptman ensured their deaths and futile resistance would mean a little more by denying Leviathan the reward for finally subduing those worlds.

I suspect why his peers got upset was his cold calculation of the futility of even trying to put up more of a fight on those worlds. He could have been condemned as defeatist and giving up the Emperor's worlds without a fight, but he was just a realist. Even if somehow the Inquisition somehow dredged up enough special resources and their heroic efforts saved 1, or let's call it 5 worlds, that would still mean the loss of 295. The Hive Mind would accept that trade.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/06/10 17:07:45


 
   
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Preparing the Invasion of Terra






I'd like to point out that in the Wiki article (god I can't believe I'm about to use it as a reference), Kryptman was only exiled after Orks claimed a score of the worlds he had evacuated and razed.
If that article is accurate then the point could be made that Kryptman wasted time, resources, and lives on a plan that didn't work. He killed billions of Imperial citizens only for those worlds to be refilled with biomass when the Orks showed up.
If he had already made enemies with the genocide and loss of planets then it would be pretty easy for those enemies to claim his plan failed anyway and that the destruction was all for naught when the Orks rocked up.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/06/10 18:31:16


 
   
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The Shire(s)

Iracundus wrote:
There was not even a choice. There was no viable alternative plan presented. The Imperium could not simply stand and try to fight in a head on slugging match as the Tyranid Codex explicitly described the Imperial fleets as already battered and needing time to rebuild and recover. Those billions on the 300 or so worlds that Kryptman destroyed would have still died if he had done nothing as there just weren't enough spare forces to realistically contest those worlds. Feeding them into a futile defense of those worlds would have been a waste and would have just fed the Tyranids more biomass in the end for negligible extra time gained.

Nor could the Imperium evacuate the entire populations of those worlds. At best the elites and useful might be skimmed and salvaged but the rest were still doomed. Kryptman ensured their deaths and futile resistance would mean a little more by denying Leviathan the reward for finally subduing those worlds.

I suspect why his peers got upset was his cold calculation of the futility of even trying to put up more of a fight on those worlds. He could have been condemned as defeatist and giving up the Emperor's worlds without a fight, but he was just a realist. Even if somehow the Inquisition somehow dredged up enough special resources and their heroic efforts saved 1, or let's call it 5 worlds, that would still mean the loss of 295. The Hive Mind would accept that trade.

I agree on the whole.

However, I think it is too absolutist to say there was no other option, albeit we don't know what the other options might have been. It is presented that way, but who knows how things might have turned out differently if someone like the Lion or Guilliman was leading the Imperial campaign?

As a side note, I do suspect the Lion would also back a scorched-earth policy, but probably with a greater conservation of resources.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2023/06/10 18:37:07


 ChargerIIC wrote:
If algae farm paste with a little bit of your grandfather in it isn't Grimdark I don't know what is.
 
   
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Preparing the Invasion of Terra






I think if we're talking about the plan specifically, it largely worked but the higher-ups of the Imperium and more specifically the Inquisition needed to make sure that they could keep their operatives under control. Kryptman's plan worked but at a huge cost to the Imperium and he needed to be sacrificed so that other Inquisitors wouldn't get any ideas. Kryptman was a hero until it became politically problematic for him to be so. If one hero had to be sacrificed so that the rest of the Inquisition got reminded who was in charge, then so be it.
   
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One thing I can say is we finally had a cool story line about two xenos fighting it out and the orks losing an important world. WAAAGH we'll git revenge.

I wish they would do more of it though. Can the Hive Fleet just eat one of the Chaos gods? There's too many and they need to make room for that scary looking robot guy.

"Iz got a plan. We line up. Yell Waaagh, den krump them in the face. Den when we're done, we might yell Waagh one more time." Warboss Gutstompa 
   
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Preparing the Invasion of Terra






Gods can't die. They can be supplanted by other Gods or more can show up but they can be destroyed.
   
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Longtime Dakkanaut




 Gert wrote:
I think if we're talking about the plan specifically, it largely worked but the higher-ups of the Imperium and more specifically the Inquisition needed to make sure that they could keep their operatives under control. Kryptman's plan worked but at a huge cost to the Imperium and he needed to be sacrificed so that other Inquisitors wouldn't get any ideas. Kryptman was a hero until it became politically problematic for him to be so. If one hero had to be sacrificed so that the rest of the Inquisition got reminded who was in charge, then so be it.


Kryptman was an Inquisitor Lord and therefore one of the higher-ups of the Imperium. He was the Tyranid expert. He just got outvoted by his peers.

 Dekskull wrote:
One thing I can say is we finally had a cool story line about two xenos fighting it out and the orks losing an important world. WAAAGH we'll git revenge.

I wish they would do more of it though. Can the Hive Fleet just eat one of the Chaos gods? There's too many and they need to make room for that scary looking robot guy.


Doing something similar was my personal idea for a solution to the whole "so many threats at 1 second to midnight" scenario at 999.M41. The Tyranids and the Necrons were both being played up as unstoppable threats to the whole galaxy. One way to resolve that and keep the status quo going would have been to have the two fight each other to a stalemate.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/06/11 01:05:45


 
   
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Hull

For me, the problem with Kryptman's gambit isn't the sacrifices made or the strengthening of whichever victor comes out of it... it's the lack of a plan for that eventuality.

The plan boils down to, buy time for the Imperium to recover and rebuild... which, scaled against the empowered growth of the victor of the Octarius conflict, leaves the Imperium, relatively, in the exact same spot of bother if not even worse (any buildup in forces will surely be siphoned away until the Octarius issue spills forth once again).

Kryptman needed another part of that plan to make it truly valid; buy time to...
1. Develop, produce and disperse specifically anti-tyranid or anti-ork munitions and tactics?
2. Produce and stockpile non-exterminatus grade WMD's?
3. Turn the border region of Octarius into Fortress worlds?
4. All of the above?

It just feels like he panicked for a solution and decided on buying time but couldn't finish the idea and so is hoping someone else will dig the Imperium out of that hole. (I mean, Guilliman has with Indomitus but... he didn't know that).

   
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Preparing the Invasion of Terra






Iracundus wrote:
Kryptman was an Inquisitor Lord and therefore one of the higher-ups of the Imperium. He was the Tyranid expert. He just got outvoted by his peers.

The High Lords are higher and there are Inquisitors with more clout than Kryptman. He might have had standing with the Ordo Xenos but that doesn't make him untouchable and even the Inquisition has its limits.
When you have a noted hero going around atomising worlds, with or without good reason, and then losing swathes of territory to not one but two Xenos species, an example needs to be made. Kryptman's plan worked but that doesn't mean he was right about everything nor does it mean he deserved to be free from reprimand. Even the Emperor sanctioned Conrad Kurze after all.
   
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Longtime Dakkanaut




 Otto Weston wrote:
For me, the problem with Kryptman's gambit isn't the sacrifices made or the strengthening of whichever victor comes out of it... it's the lack of a plan for that eventuality.

The plan boils down to, buy time for the Imperium to recover and rebuild... which, scaled against the empowered growth of the victor of the Octarius conflict, leaves the Imperium, relatively, in the exact same spot of bother if not even worse (any buildup in forces will surely be siphoned away until the Octarius issue spills forth once again).

Kryptman needed another part of that plan to make it truly valid; buy time to...
1. Develop, produce and disperse specifically anti-tyranid or anti-ork munitions and tactics?
2. Produce and stockpile non-exterminatus grade WMD's?
3. Turn the border region of Octarius into Fortress worlds?
4. All of the above?

It just feels like he panicked for a solution and decided on buying time but couldn't finish the idea and so is hoping someone else will dig the Imperium out of that hole. (I mean, Guilliman has with Indomitus but... he didn't know that).


Kryptman has sharply curtailed resources so his ability to make new plans of great enough scale to work would be limited. Nevertheless, the Octarius warzone book seemed to hint Kryptman was still keeping tabs on the situation and that he might be trying to do what the other Inquisitor failed to do: take and use the Ork Mek's special "crown" that seemed to disrupt the Hive Mind synaptic network at least on a local scale.
   
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Rexford NY, USA

Not a tyranid fan following the latest lore, so take it with a grain of salt:

I always assumed (with the old genestealer beacon lore and the comments about tyranids following the Emperors lighthouse) that the tyranids needed a psychic component to consume as well.

That is, they choose worlds based on three criteria:

1) Biomass
2) Genetic potentials
3) Psychic potentials

#3 would explain why they avoid gas giants and lightly populated but biomass rich agriworlds in favor of overpopulated but heavily defended worlds.

Also why they strip down to lifeless rock but dont eat the rock as well. The soil organisms have some shadow in the warp, even if miniscule.

And it would make sense of Kryptmans gambit. If biomass and genetics are all that's needed, exploding worlds just scatters it, it doesn't destroy it. Exploding it does remove any psychic signals though when all life dies.
   
 
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