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Hey guys,

I'm not entirely sure what the hive mind is... I see two possibilities:

It is the collective consciousness created by such a large number of beastial creatures thinking as one... But this creates the "chicken and the egg" arguement.

Or

It is a consciousness that existed beforehand and designed the tyranids (an original race, perhaps?)

Now, I assume that the hive mind doesn't act on instinct and is capable of making strategic decisions, coordinating every tyranid's actions as part of a greater strategy

So what I wonder is if this is simply a practice honed over time or if the mind UNDERSTANDS everything that's going on.

Can the Hive Mind, through a tyranid, operate a computer terminal?
Can the Hive Mind use human devices such as elevators, etc?
Does every Tyranid within Synapse exhibit intelligence?

Interesting thoughts imo!

Hmm, this is a harder debate but hopefully I can shed some light on your questions at least.

1. I am fairly certain this is a big fat no. As Tyranids, even the Hive Mind, don't use such tech and are completely organic run, such functions would be unnessecary and not exist. That, and the fact that their hands and limbs are weapons and there'd be no way it could even work a keyboard.

2. I'd say no once more. I'm sure overtime it could figure it out, but really what's the point? The Genestealers inside the building are going to get into the air vents and use them as their own railway throughout the area. No point in learning anything as the Nids dropping in will home on these guys.

3. Creatures WITH Synapse don't even experience true intelligence. They do not have true freedom of thought as their thoughts are all towards killing and efficiency. So no, the little bugs just know they have a bigger bug with em so they have enough intelligence not to run. That, and the fact that the big bug is probably running their thoughts to some extent.

Also, as to WHAT the Hive Mind even is, I'd lean towards either. We have no definite fluff, but I'd lean FURTHER to it being a collective conciousness. My reasoning behind this is a spoiler so here:



This is all a hunch though.

How about codex Tyranids page 6 "the Hivemind" ?

Can the Hive Mind, through a tyranid, operate a computer terminal?
Can the Hive Mind use human devices such as elevators, etc?
Does every Tyranid within Synapse exhibit intelligence?

NO x3

The hive-mind is highly psychic, intelligent enough to learn and use strategy to some extent.
Intelligence may not be an indicator of psi power and vice versa.
The hive-mind made several mistakes and fields a simple tactic of overwhelming numbers.
If the tyranids can reabsorb biomatter and info, this may work, but it will fail if one of both is stopped.
Would see this hive-mind as a clever predator.
Enough intelligence to adopt to opponents strengths. Too dumb to invent any tactic to preserve its own little critters.
So its a one trick pony IMO.

Lorgar's_Blessed wrote:Also, as to WHAT the Hive Mind even is, I'd lean towards either. We have no definite fluff, but I'd lean FURTHER to it being a collective conciousness. My reasoning behind this is a spoiler so here:

Spoiler:

In one of the Space Wolf novels, a group of the grey armored vikings are in a Space Hulk. After fighting stealers and I believe some regular gaunts, they reach the heart of the mass of metal and find a Hive Mind, literally a GIANT BRAIN in this thing. They kill it and the surviving nids flee or something. The Mind they find is most likely a node used simply to relay commands over long distances, since lesser beings don't have the thought capability or mental capacity to do so.

This is all a hunch though.

I think that the thing in your spoiler is a Norn Queen (Tyranid codex page 45), basically they are huge 'tyranid factories' that spawn lots of different kind of nids and help to adapt them etc.

IMO tyranids adapt but that is not to say they cannot learn. Read the entry in the nid dex on the swarmlord, he seems to posses tactical ability similar to that of calgar himself. Whether this was through learning or just adapting i dont know.

Henners91 wrote:Hey guys,

I'm not entirely sure what the hive mind is... I see two possibilities:

It is the collective consciousness created by such a large number of beastial creatures thinking as one... But this creates the "chicken and the egg" arguement.

Or

It is a consciousness that existed beforehand and designed the tyranids (an original race, perhaps?)

Now, I assume that the hive mind doesn't act on instinct and is capable of making strategic decisions, coordinating every tyranid's actions as part of a greater strategy

Spoiler:

(for example, over Tarsis Ultra Tyranids used the Imperials' strategy of throwing explosive refineries at their fleet right back at them)

So what I wonder is if this is simply a practice honed over time or if the mind UNDERSTANDS everything that's going on.

The individual tyranids are unto the tyranid race as your brain cells are unto your brain. Individually, they have little or no function. As a whole, they form an advanced intelligence comprised of the whole of every living member of its race. I would imagine the actual consciousness functions a tad differently though because of physical latency between organisms. It’s one thing for a brain cell in your head to send a signal to another brain cell right next to it. It’s another thing for a hive ship to send a signal to another hive ship half a galaxy away.

Henners91 wrote:Can the Hive Mind, through a tyranid, operate a computer terminal?

I don’t think electrical technology is something the hive mind comprehends. It’s not that it couldn’t, it just wouldn’t. Suppose a computer terminal held a gate to an imperial stronghold closed. The hive mind wouldn’t think “If I can operate this terminal, I can get inside.” It would instead think “is it most efficient to infiltrate the ventilation system with genesteelers, burrow beneath the structure with Trygon, Mawloc’s, and Raviners, or should I simply besiege the gate with unstoppable carnifex.

To create an analogy, if you need to get to the store you have a set of tools at your disposal. You can drive yourself, walk, or ask someone to take you. You could even contemplate the idea of someone bringing you the things you needed from the store or even stealing them. You don’t ask yourself “How does a bumblebee or fish get to the store? It flies or swims up through the sewer! I know. I’ll fly or swim to the store!”

The hive mind simply does not problem solve based on a theoretically possible but out of context solution.

Henners91 wrote:Can the Hive Mind use human devices such as elevators, etc

Again, the hive mind doesn’t regard it’s goals outside the context of itself. An elevator would be unto the hive mind as a rabbit hole is unto you. It’s there – but it doesn’t have any value to you as a tool to achieve your goals.

Henners91 wrote:Does every Tyranid within Synapse exhibit intelligence?

Again. The hive mind doesn’t regard it’s goals outside the context of itself. An elevator would be unto the hive mind as a rabbit hole is unto you. It’s there – but it doesn’t have any value to you as a tool to achieve your goals.

Eldar Own wrote:

Lorgar's_Blessed wrote:Also, as to WHAT the Hive Mind even is, I'd lean towards either. We have no definite fluff, but I'd lean FURTHER to it being a collective conciousness. My reasoning behind this is a spoiler so here:

Spoiler:

In one of the Space Wolf novels, a group of the grey armored vikings are in a Space Hulk. After fighting stealers and I believe some regular gaunts, they reach the heart of the mass of metal and find a Hive Mind, literally a GIANT BRAIN in this thing. They kill it and the surviving nids flee or something. The Mind they find is most likely a node used simply to relay commands over long distances, since lesser beings don't have the thought capability or mental capacity to do so.

This is all a hunch though.

I think that the thing in your spoiler is a Norn Queen (Tyranid codex page 45), basically they are huge 'tyranid factories' that spawn lots of different kind of nids and help to adapt them etc.

From the novels description, it was a giant brain, not a Norn queen, though I thought that at first myself.

I think the Hive Mind is like Cthulu. We can't understand its motivations because its plans could stretch far across space and time, further than we can comprehend.

Personally I believe the tyranid hive mind to be a Gestalt consciousness. That it is made of the intelligences of everything in it and that it relays instruction down via a cascade of highly complex to complex to simple life forms in the hive fleet. That it is motivated not by secret agendas or high intellect, but rather of low predatory cunning and the relentless program of assimilation of all life.

It is vast, powerful, yet entirely simple. The 'Shadow in the Warp' is actually like a colossal game of tetris, wherein the order the tyranid hive mind brings, the lack of any emotion or reason or conflict effectively shuts down the sea of souls, and like a sea without movement and cloaked in darkness devoid of emotions, it cannot support life and so is anathema to the daemons and powers of chaos.

The perceived intellect of individuals in the hive, like tyrants, to me can be seen in the film Aliens, where the queen understands weaponry, threats to her offspring and even 'calling off her troops'. I can certainly see a genestealer or lictor, programmed to exist far from the hive fleets, learning to use doors, elevators etc to get from A to B. The Swarmlord for example, it isn't an individual, it's a specific type of hive tyrant that was first developed by a hive fleet attacking the Ultramarines therefore encountering heavy heavy resistance and rapidly burning it's self out and depleting resources so in the extreme circumstance, produced an extreme hive tyrant. The fluff says that since that 'prototype' was tested, others have been very rarely produced to send forth, usually when the hive fleet is encountering extremely difficult prey, the conciousness afforded to it is downloaded each time.

The Outsider is another possibility

Not very smart considering most of the people I see playing nids.

Lorgar's_Blessed wrote:

Spoiler:

In one of the Space Wolf novels, a group of the grey armored vikings are in a Space Hulk. After fighting stealers and I believe some regular gaunts, they reach the heart of the mass of metal and find a Hive Mind, literally a GIANT BRAIN in this thing. They kill it and the surviving nids flee or something. The Mind they find is most likely a node used simply to relay commands over long distances, since lesser beings don't have the thought capability or mental capacity to do so.

This is all a hunch though.

Do you know which novel this is? It seems like it would be a cool thing to read.

I'm thinking like AvP, they know/understand tech but all they're interested in is bypassing it. ala when 6 smahes specific things to let lose her sisters, or when the aliens in films/books/games cut the power for an advantage. that sort of thing

The hive mind is an uber intelegent being that coordinates all the major movements of the hivefleets.
It extends it's intellegence to the larger creatures of the race, so they can solve problems independently and guide the lesser creatures.

I'm on the Gestalt Consciousness bandwagon. I envision a Skynet-esque virtual mainframe wherein one finds millions of files, each responsible for some aspect of the Hive Fleets. There's an .exe file for all the functions of all the biological components of any given Tyranid organism, and the appropriate files get "downloaded" as MGStompa put it, into the organisms when they're fabricated. And just like in your computer, there's plenty of chaff files, old stuff that's been replaced but you never deleted, highly specialized stuff that only gets used once in a while. I like to think that there's a big batch file somewhere called "Hive Tyrants" with a bunch of standard builds, with a subfolder full of add-on options. Pesky Space Marines got you down? Just build a Swarmlord! Get that Hive Tyrant Template, delete the pair of Scything Talon and Lash Whip default files and replace them with three copies of the Bonesword file, but don't forget to include the Bonesabre macro with the blade parry workpath.

The Hive Mind would be like a web-developer too; if some old source code from a design started to get corrupt or out-of-date, it could write an update or a replacement file, which it could then download to all end-user organisms that were running that code through the file-hosting Synapse Creatures.

...

...

Wait... the Hive Mind is the Internets!!!!111!! ONNOEZ!!!

Btw:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:The 'Shadow in the Warp' is actually like a colossal game of tetris

quoted!

-Dis.

Wow, that actually made the most sense. I actually get how the tyranid hive mind funtions. Thanks Dis!

2nd one dude

I gotta go with dis too it seems to make the most sense and prolly even the easiest to understand.