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Just wanted to make a thread dedicated to unanswered questions or interesting queries about tyranid lore. I personally want to hear any ideas as to what the hive mind actually is, how tyranids can make bio-plasma (how its created, how it doesn’t harm or burn their insides) and how they can so efficiently take all of the biomass from a planet. I know it has something to do with the feeder organisms (e.g. ripper swarms) and tyranid growths, but how do they get all of it from underground too. Any queries or answers are appreciated!

I suppose the first debate would be; does the Hivemind have a physical form like the Overmind from Starcraft with synapse creatures serving as conduits for this creature or is it effectively the collective intelligence of millions of synapse creatures combined?

It could be something really weird, maybe is a gargantuan starfish like creature comprised of dark matter and the Tyranids we see as individual organisms are just the tips of its feeder tendrils that consume normal matter to sustain the creature!

Oh, if we can ask questions about the Tyranids and the Hive Mind, if someone could clarify if the Hive Mind is sentient, I'd appreciate it.

I'm aware it seems to be really intelligent, but that doesn't mean it's actually sentient. We've seen animals with incredible intelligence, like ants building massive communities or big cats being able to avoid hunters and traps and do loads of stuff like that. Is the Tyranid Hive Mind like this, a creature that just does what it's evolved to do like a colony of ants or a shark?

Or, is the hive mind a sentient creature? Does it actually feel, think, hate? It's really hard to tell where the line is, and I've seen people say both things, that the Tyranids are completely amoral because they don't feel, instead just acting as a galactic predator? Or is there a sentience, a malevolence behind it?

Well the fluff states the hive mind is a cacophony of instincts and racial imperitives. A constant din of 'noise'. Although briefly, for the benefit of smurf storyline, they momentarily had a coherent mind that was understandible enough for Tigurious to connect with it, I think. Extra heresy sauce on that burger.

Devestation of Baal posited that the Hive Mind specifically targeted Baal as revenge for the Blood Angels fething up its plans. If that's the case, then I think you could reasonably call the Hivemind sentient.

As for its composition, we simply don't know. I'm inclined to think its a warp entity, like a daemon or Chaos god, made up of the psychic emanations of every synapse creature that is or was.

Sentience is one of those things where when there's only one race (humans) who define it, the definition can often be more political than factual. Indeed there's some who argue that unless the creature can speak in a clear human language to tell you its sentient, then if it can't it's not sentient.

The Hive Mind is most likely sentient, although the nature of its thoughts might well be very far removed from how humans "think".

As for what it wants or its objectives or how it thinks or what its doing - those are totally unknown. Tyranids are known to consume worlds and to destroy enemies and to make smart tactical choices. However they are also known to throw whole hive fleets at each other in vast evolutionary bio-weapons-testes.

How many, where they come from (another galaxy, born in the darkness between galaxies etc..) is unknown. Indeed very little is known about them. Even the fluff is written as point-of-view experiences and studies by other (mostly Imperial) races; so even the established lore for them can be subject to change in quite a significant way.




As for bioplasma either the Tyranid's insides resist it; or its rather like the dragons from Ring of Fire and the plasma is generated by the mixing of two or more chemicals at the mouth at the point of firing. So alone the chemicals are inert and cause no harm, but when the Tyranid fires and the two mix it forms the blob of plasma that reacts and burns through enemies.


As for consuming worlds the Hive Fleet moves into orbit and vast capillary towers form to link the ground to the ship. The base tyranids (rippers) then aid the general consumption of resources and biomass into vast lakes of liquid biomass; which is then sucked up by the towers to the vast hive ships above. Within which are housed the mighty Norn Queens, the biggest (aside from the ships) single Tyranid and generally seen at the top of the leadership/synapse ladder.

Now quite how much autonomy or thinking the Queens can do on their own is unknown. We don't know if the Hive Mind is a force that directs them or if they direct it more so; or even how orders are given or the various hive fleets linked up to each other.




Tyranids are a huge question mark which is a big part of their charm as they are such a mystery to ponder.

 Kroem wrote:
I suppose the first debate would be; does the Hivemind have a physical form like the Overmind from Starcraft with synapse creatures serving as conduits for this creature or is it effectively the collective intelligence of millions of synapse creatures combined?

It could be something really weird, maybe is a gargantuan starfish like creature comprised of dark matter and the Tyranids we see as individual organisms are just the tips of its feeder tendrils that consume normal matter to sustain the creature!

Probably a gestalt intelligence, there is little reason to repeat the Overmind's mistake of taking a physical form. In addition, the Tyranid Hive Mind is a far more solid hierarchy than its Zerg equivalent.

Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:Oh, if we can ask questions about the Tyranids and the Hive Mind, if someone could clarify if the Hive Mind is sentient, I'd appreciate it.

I'm aware it seems to be really intelligent, but that doesn't mean it's actually sentient. We've seen animals with incredible intelligence, like ants building massive communities or big cats being able to avoid hunters and traps and do loads of stuff like that. Is the Tyranid Hive Mind like this, a creature that just does what it's evolved to do like a colony of ants or a shark?

Or, is the hive mind a sentient creature? Does it actually feel, think, hate? It's really hard to tell where the line is, and I've seen people say both things, that the Tyranids are completely amoral because they don't feel, instead just acting as a galactic predator? Or is there a sentience, a malevolence behind it?

The Hive Mind is a moral because it has no use for the concept of morality. Morality is after all a social construct, and the Hive Mind is a being of one.

ProwlerPC wrote:Well the fluff states the hive mind is a cacophony of instincts and racial imperitives. A constant din of 'noise'. Although briefly, for the benefit of smurf storyline, they momentarily had a coherent mind that was understandible enough for Tigurious to connect with it, I think. Extra heresy sauce on that burger.

It is far more than instincts, after all the Hive Mind will consonantly overrides Tyranid instincts to achieve military goals. Termagants for example are very into self-preservation, but that instinct is suppressed to accomplish the swarm wave tactics that the Tyranids are famous for.

quentra wrote:Devestation of Baal posited that the Hive Mind specifically targeted Baal as revenge for the Blood Angels fething up its plans. If that's the case, then I think you could reasonably call the Hivemind sentient.

As for its composition, we simply don't know. I'm inclined to think its a warp entity, like a daemon or Chaos god, made up of the psychic emanations of every synapse creature that is or was.

Devastation of Baal also theorized that the Hive Mind is neither, that it is a being that exists between both real-space and the Warp, not truly a Warp entity but neither a physical one.

Overread wrote:Sentience is one of those things where when there's only one race (humans) who define it, the definition can often be more political than factual. Indeed there's some who argue that unless the creature can speak in a clear human language to tell you its sentient, then if it can't it's not sentient.

The Hive Mind is most likely sentient, although the nature of its thoughts might well be very far removed from how humans "think".

As for what it wants or its objectives or how it thinks or what its doing - those are totally unknown. Tyranids are known to consume worlds and to destroy enemies and to make smart tactical choices. However they are also known to throw whole hive fleets at each other in vast evolutionary bio-weapons-testes.

How many, where they come from (another galaxy, born in the darkness between galaxies etc..) is unknown. Indeed very little is known about them. Even the fluff is written as point-of-view experiences and studies by other (mostly Imperial) races; so even the established lore for them can be subject to change in quite a significant way.




As for bioplasma either the Tyranid's insides resist it; or its rather like the dragons from Ring of Fire and the plasma is generated by the mixing of two or more chemicals at the mouth at the point of firing. So alone the chemicals are inert and cause no harm, but when the Tyranid fires and the two mix it forms the blob of plasma that reacts and burns through enemies.


As for consuming worlds the Hive Fleet moves into orbit and vast capillary towers form to link the ground to the ship. The base tyranids (rippers) then aid the general consumption of resources and biomass into vast lakes of liquid biomass; which is then sucked up by the towers to the vast hive ships above. Within which are housed the mighty Norn Queens, the biggest (aside from the ships) single Tyranid and generally seen at the top of the leadership/synapse ladder.

Now quite how much autonomy or thinking the Queens can do on their own is unknown. We don't know if the Hive Mind is a force that directs them or if they direct it more so; or even how orders are given or the various hive fleets linked up to each other.




Tyranids are a huge question mark which is a big part of their charm as they are such a mystery to ponder.

Tyranid bio-plasma weapons are basically big cannons. For that to make sense then the interior of the weapon needs to be plasma-proof.

Also Tyranid synapse creature always have enough autonomy to do their respective tasks, and nothing beyond that. Regardless of how powerful and autonomous a Tyranid is, in the end it is nothing more than an extension of the Hive Mind.

You can't talk about the Hive mind in human concepts. It's the only extragalactic entity in the game. Even the chaos we know is a reflection of the emotions of sentient beings from our galaxy. So while horrible they are actually not incomprehensible.

Is the Hive mind sentient? Not as humans understand it.

But it is problem solving intelligent. It is capable to strategic genius. It is capable of controlled and purposeful genetic manipulation and adaptation.

The Hive mind if not one entity. It's the sum total of the networked senses and mind of uncountable organisms. It's always been described as a gestalt intellect. Which means while a single termagant or hormagaunt is only a dumb animal, their entire dumb animal brain is only one cell in the macro brain structure of the hive mind.

How do they strip a planet?
When Hive ships enter orbit they began to dump all kinds of gak into the atmosphere. Tons of microorganisms begin to adapt the atmosphere to be optimized for digestion. Other hit the ground and begin to convert planet matter for processing. Some are like fungus and began to eat up organic compounds from the ground. Some burrow like worms and eat out useful minerals.

Basically everyone is busy fighting, and yeah, rippers are running around consuming the dead, but the heavy lifting is being done on a molecular scale as the nids literally turn the planet against them while it's being prepped for consumption.


Bio-Plasma. It's important to remember that Nid organisms are created only to fufill their intended purpose. A Exocrine for example has no internal organs or digestive track that isn't needed to have it live out it's maybe couple day long life (more likely hours). Most of it's insides are then specialized organs designed to produce, store, and discharge the bio plasma. This includes the alien microbes, bacteria, and enzymes needed to concoct it and stabilize it before discharge.

Tyran wrote:
Tyranid bio-plasma weapons are basically big cannons. For that to make sense then the interior of the weapon needs to be plasma-proof.

Not necessarily. See bombardier beetle - it's most definitely not proof to its own weapon, but it works.

Regardless of how powerful and autonomous a Tyranid is, in the end it is nothing more than an extension of the Hive Mind.

Weren't there hints the Hive Mind doesn't spawn Swarmlords everywhere because it's too 'individual' for its liking and needs to be much more strictly controlled than other parts of Hive?

Also, in new Tyranid book, the swarm apparently tries to convert one planet into one gigantic organism. That might be something like overmind, a gigantic synapse creature/hive mind made flesh. We just don't know, and there is no telling if GW just made that short story to tease fans or if they actually want to do something with it later...

 Irbis wrote:

Tyran wrote:
Tyranid bio-plasma weapons are basically big cannons. For that to make sense then the interior of the weapon needs to be plasma-proof.

Not necessarily. See bombardier beetle - it's most definitely not proof to its own weapon, but it works.

Regardless of how powerful and autonomous a Tyranid is, in the end it is nothing more than an extension of the Hive Mind.

Weren't there hints the Hive Mind doesn't spawn Swarmlords everywhere because it's too 'individual' for its liking and needs to be much more strictly controlled than other parts of Hive?

Also, in new Tyranid book, the swarm apparently tries to convert one planet into one gigantic organism. That might be something like overmind, a gigantic synapse creature/hive mind made flesh. We just don't know, and there is no telling if GW just made that short story to tease fans or if they actually want to do something with it later...

There are also reports of swarmlords popping up all over the place simultaneously.

There is no solid information on what the hive mind likes/doesn't like/prefers. All of that stuff is speculation by in universe people trying to figure them out.

Just what the hive is building on the planet is currently totally unknown and there are loads of theories (and it might be a multi role thing)

Some think it could be a huge anti-warp structure; something that projects the power of the Shadow in the Warp so that Tyranids within the planets region are protected from the Warp. Esp after the recent events where a whole fleet was lost to warp influence. And of course such a huge structure could project the effect further away from itself - protecting distant fleets

Others speculate that it could be Tyranids forming a staging ground where fleets can retreat too to recover after the defeat.

It could also be a huge beacon; currently the Emperior is a huge draw like a moth to a flame for the Tyranids; this planet could be Tyranids attempting to draw even more hive fleets from the depths of space

A huge bioweapon; a Tyranid organism beyond measure of anything the Imperium has encountered before. A physical manifestation of the Hive Mind; a huge Tyranid; a world consumer etc... Whatever its just a vast Tyranid


Whatever it is its a new twit on the mysterious Tyranids.

The questions seems to have all been answered above in this thread. As for he hivemind there's a few theories, new and old, that's been floating around about what it is. Here's six theories I've seen pop up over the years.

1: It's simply the collection of the tyranids thought traffic. This theory has been around for a long time and holds up very well with all the 'nids hivemind does. It states that there is no such thing as a single unified hivemind, but rather it's a collection of every single tyranids organisms thought. It states that there is no single entity holding control over the tyranids but rather all the 'nids are constantly talking and helping each other for peak effeciency. The shadow in the warp is simply the sheer ammounts of thoughts going back and forth, blocking all other warp users ability to percieve anything else. Anyone claiming to have found a single consciousness is actually only seeing a vast ammount of thoughts that seem to make a whole.

2: Every hive fleet is its own hivemind. This theory states that the hiveships themselves are the hiveminds. They order all the organisms living in them around like cells to a body. This holds some weight seems lore has undeniably shown that certain hive fleets are rivals or hate each other, whilst some are co-operating. It could be that the ships and fleets themselves have certain relationships to one another with this theory.

3: It's the outsider. This is a very old theory that one of the ancient C'tan escaped being put into shards, fled and fashioned the tyranids. it then took a place as their gestalt consciousness and fashioned a race that could destroy the necrontyr. This theory held more weight in earlier edition with hints to the location of the missing C'tan "the outsider", as well as how the tyranids came from "outside" the galaxy. Today it doesn't make as much sense as the other two above.

4: It's an old one. Similar to above. The old ones took place as living full time in the warp (which was calm at the time, no deamons). The old ones had a knack for creating races. They fashioned the orks and eldars. One such old ones went ahead and created biological perfection in the form of the tyranids. It then fed on the tyranids (hunger) desires and thoughts, becoming a chaos entity powerfull enough to rival the four gods. This theory is also kind of old. It doesn't hold up perfectly but better then the outsider one IMO.

5: The hive mind is simply chaos reflecting the tyranids. Everything gets black because like how the tyranids consume things in realspace the hivemind consumes in the warp. it's a "living" chaos god that's in constant communication with the tyranids, directing them to where it senses souls to be devoured.

6: It's a gigantic brain that holds some manner of so far undiscovered physical form.

 Lance845 wrote:
There are also reports of swarmlords popping up all over the place simultaneously.

It's still 'maybe it was on several planets at the same time at once' stuff though. If Swarmlord was really just unimportant bit of the larger whole, there should be thousands of Swarmlords leading assault on every planet given how effective it is. The fact only one ever appears shows there is some limit to hive mind control,whatever that is.

 Irbis wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
There are also reports of swarmlords popping up all over the place simultaneously.

It's still 'maybe it was on several planets at the same time at once' stuff though. If Swarmlord was really just unimportant bit of the larger whole, there should be thousands of Swarmlords leading assault on every planet given how effective it is. The fact only one ever appears shows there is some limit to hive mind control,whatever that is.

I view it as the Swarmlord is a threat response. When the battle reaches a point where the Hive Tyrant there is struggling the Swarmlord emerges. So it's on multiple worlds at once but not all because they're not worth having everywhere.

 Lance845 wrote:
You can't talk about the Hive mind in human concepts. It's the only extragalactic entity in the game. Even the chaos we know is a reflection of the emotions of sentient beings from our galaxy. So while horrible they are actually not incomprehensible.

Is the Hive mind sentient? Not as humans understand it.

But it is problem solving intelligent. It is capable to strategic genius. It is capable of controlled and purposeful genetic manipulation and adaptation.

The Hive mind if not one entity. It's the sum total of the networked senses and mind of uncountable organisms. It's always been described as a gestalt intellect. Which means while a single termagant or hormagaunt is only a dumb animal, their entire dumb animal brain is only one cell in the macro brain structure of the hive mind.

How do they strip a planet?
When Hive ships enter orbit they began to dump all kinds of gak into the atmosphere. Tons of microorganisms begin to adapt the atmosphere to be optimized for digestion. Other hit the ground and begin to convert planet matter for processing. Some are like fungus and began to eat up organic compounds from the ground. Some burrow like worms and eat out useful minerals.

Basically everyone is busy fighting, and yeah, rippers are running around consuming the dead, but the heavy lifting is being done on a molecular scale as the nids literally turn the planet against them while it's being prepped for consumption.


Bio-Plasma. It's important to remember that Nid organisms are created only to fufill their intended purpose. A Exocrine for example has no internal organs or digestive track that isn't needed to have it live out it's maybe couple day long life (more likely hours). Most of it's insides are then specialized organs designed to produce, store, and discharge the bio plasma. This includes the alien microbes, bacteria, and enzymes needed to concoct it and stabilize it before discharge.

This.

'Problem-solving intelligent' is a much better way of putting it than 'sentient'. 'Sentient' seems to imply for most people that it has something in common with the way people think, which is astronomically unlikely for the overriding gestalt intellect behind an extragalactic planet-consuming superswarm.

 Irbis wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
There are also reports of swarmlords popping up all over the place simultaneously.

It's still 'maybe it was on several planets at the same time at once' stuff though. If Swarmlord was really just unimportant bit of the larger whole, there should be thousands of Swarmlords leading assault on every planet given how effective it is. The fact only one ever appears shows there is some limit to hive mind control,whatever that is.

It could be as simple as the hive mind not doing things until it feels like it needs to do things. It won't change a hive fleets coloring to camouflage unless it deems it worth doing even though it would be easy to adapt and obviously better than not. The Swarmlord shows up when overwhelming numbers arn't working and they need a more nuanced stratagem on the ground. Mostly not needed.

 LeviathanSwarmlord wrote:
Just wanted to make a thread dedicated to unanswered questions or interesting queries about tyranid lore. I personally want to hear any ideas as to what the hive mind actually is, how tyranids can make bio-plasma (how its created, how it doesn’t harm or burn their insides) and how they can so efficiently take all of the biomass from a planet. I know it has something to do with the feeder organisms (e.g. ripper swarms) and tyranid growths, but how do they get all of it from underground too. Any queries or answers are appreciated!

Simply put, it's the psychic, gestalt collective consciousness of the entire Tyranid race. All Tyranids are subservient to the Hivemind, including the self-aware/sentient bioforms.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
You can't talk about the Hive mind in human concepts. It's the only extragalactic entity in the game. Even the chaos we know is a reflection of the emotions of sentient beings from our galaxy. So while horrible they are actually not incomprehensible.

Is the Hive mind sentient? Not as humans understand it.

But it is problem solving intelligent. It is capable to strategic genius. It is capable of controlled and purposeful genetic manipulation and adaptation.

The Hive mind if not one entity. It's the sum total of the networked senses and mind of uncountable organisms. It's always been described as a gestalt intellect. Which means while a single termagant or hormagaunt is only a dumb animal, their entire dumb animal brain is only one cell in the macro brain structure of the hive mind.

How do they strip a planet?
When Hive ships enter orbit they began to dump all kinds of gak into the atmosphere. Tons of microorganisms begin to adapt the atmosphere to be optimized for digestion. Other hit the ground and begin to convert planet matter for processing. Some are like fungus and began to eat up organic compounds from the ground. Some burrow like worms and eat out useful minerals.

Basically everyone is busy fighting, and yeah, rippers are running around consuming the dead, but the heavy lifting is being done on a molecular scale as the nids literally turn the planet against them while it's being prepped for consumption.


Bio-Plasma. It's important to remember that Nid organisms are created only to fufill their intended purpose. A Exocrine for example has no internal organs or digestive track that isn't needed to have it live out it's maybe couple day long life (more likely hours). Most of it's insides are then specialized organs designed to produce, store, and discharge the bio plasma. This includes the alien microbes, bacteria, and enzymes needed to concoct it and stabilize it before discharge.

This.

'Problem-solving intelligent' is a much better way of putting it than 'sentient'. 'Sentient' seems to imply for most people that it has something in common with the way people think, which is astronomically unlikely for the overriding gestalt intellect behind an extragalactic planet-consuming superswarm.

In the background about the Tyranids over the RL years, there have been 2 competing themes by authors. One portrays the Hive Mind as a warp entity, arising from the collective of all Tyranids (articulated from about Epic Hive War and 2nd edition onwards). The other that it is "merely" a communication network or static generated by the communication activity of the Tyranids (first articulated in the 3rd edition Tyranid Codex, as this viewpoint was Sherman Bishop's). Over the years the fluff has see-sawed between these two depending on the author. More recently it seems we are heading back to the first one.

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.

My view is the Hive Mind is an entity, akin to the gods of other races. The supernatural effects generated by Tyranids are ultimately warp based, but drawn through the filter of the Hive Mind. If using psychic powers on one's own is like jumping into the ocean and scooping a cup of water (i.e. warp power), and running the risk of nasty sea creatures, a Tyranid using its power is like doing the same but in a filtered pool that draws its water from the ocean. No nasty sea creatures (i.e. daemons) affecting the individual Tyranid as they have been filtered out by the Hive Mind. The 5th edition Tyranid Codex described individual daemons being unable to make any inroads or even fleeing before the massed gestalt of the Shadow in the Warp/Hive Mind of a Tyranid fleet.

If the books didn't contradict themselves constantly I would put more stock in them. But they all amount to officially published fan fiction since each author changes things willy nilly.

Iracundus wrote:

The other that it is "merely" a communication network or static generated by the communication activity of the Tyranids (first articulated in the 3rd edition Tyranid Codex, as this viewpoint was Sherman Bishop's).

Humans are "merely" a communication network of cells. Every form of intelligence that exists and that can exist arises from a collective. The Hive Mind exists on an unimaginable scale, but to deny its status as an individual entity is human hypocrisy.