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Made in us
Fresh-Faced New User




Luzerne Cty, PA

I recently bought and read Peter Fehervari's "Cult Of The Spiral Dawn, and it's inspired me to try once again at writing a story that explores the motivation of the Tyranids beyond just "the us am hungry, the us need food" or "be the bad guys so the good guys have somebody to shoot at". 

I already have a good enough grasp of the Hive Mind to have gotten compliments for it on the Tyranid Hive forum, and I have a good plan for using a Genestealer Cult Magus as a narrator who can read the mind of his Patriarch to gain a fraction of the Patriarch's insight (as a Synapse Creature in all but name) into the mind of the Patriarch's parent Hive Fleet, and thus into the Hive Mind at large. 

And so my story opens with the origin of the Patriarch, back when he was just one body in a Hive Fleet Genestealer Brood, spawned as part of the Hive Fleet's efforts to harvest an Orkish biosphere (on a Night World / Jungle World).

The Brood in question is spawned not for vanguard infiltration, but as a tool to take over enemy-held objectives in the later parts of a battle. Slipping into fortified locations that house too many bodies for a Lictor to deal with in a timely manner, and using the weight of their numbers to their advantage. 

The thing is, I don't know much about the Orks. So I'm seeking the help of a fellow writer, who does. 

There is also an Imperial Guard presence on the world in question, so that the last surviving Genestealer of the Brood can get transport to a human world and become a proper Patriarch. But humans aren't my stumbling block. 

What follows is the first five paragraphs of my story, in the hopes of whetting somebody's appetite:

----------
As before, the dreaming ended, and the Brood was spawned. Awareness came, and the Brood knew of its numbers. Of the world to be harvested. Of the capabilities demonstrated by the life-system. Of the needs of its Overself. 

The bodies of the synaptic modulation strain were attending to the spawning pool; monitoring its functions to eliminate unwanted genetic variances. Their mind briefly touched the mind of the Brood, but the Brood already knew its purpose. It left the pool and spread out into the depths of the foliage. Moving and thinking as individual bodies, yet never forgetting their collective self and its purpose.

They were the harvest evaluation strain, but that was not the purpose of their spawning; earlier spawnings of this adjunct-self had already given their Overself knowledge of the capabilities of the life-system. Like most life-systems encountered since the end of the great journey, this one lacked the neurological capacity to appreciate the potential of becoming one with their Overself, and so their sacred purpose had again been reduced to merely a harvest of the world's life-system.

And as before, the prey strove to resist the harvest. And so the Brood was spawned again. Given the purpose to depopulate critical locations which held too many bodies for the synaptic interdiction strain to attend to in a timely manner. So they ran through the jungle, with great speed and perfect stealth. Their minds attuned to the mircoscopic spore organisms which floated in the world's air, revealing the movements of the prey passing through the invisible clouds, so that the Brood could slip past them entirely unnoticed. Their eyes receptive to the ultraviolet illumination which eluded many of the Overself's other bioforms. Their tongues tasting the prey on the air, and realizing that this world was host to two different life-systems of prey. 

That their Overself had not shared this wisdom with the Brood was of no concern to them; their instincts had been designed to understand the nature of one prey, so as to most efficiently undermine and dismantle its resistance. Knowledge of the other prey would only confuse those instincts and reduce their efficiency. And so the Brood ran, unseen and unheard by the other prey as they passed them. To fulfill the purpose for which they had been spawned.

::END OF SAMPLE TEXT::

Tongue-tied and twisted; just an earthbound misfit, I. 
   
Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

So with the Nids, you start with near mindlessness but there are millions of layers of pseudo-consciousness that build up across a field of psychic energy out of which a gestalt awareness emerges. It's like zooming out to geological time progression such that life itself seems to have direction and purpose because of its evolutionary character.

I see Orks as operating pretty much in the reverse. An individual ork is deeply self-aware to the point of extreme self-centered, anti-social behavior. But as Orks start to gather together for a fight, this sense of individuality dissolves into the static crackle of the WAAAGH!

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2018/03/27 21:34:15


   
Made in us
Fresh-Faced New User




Luzerne Cty, PA

Well, some of the Tyranid bioforms are explicitly capable of sentient reasoning -- mostly Synapse Creatures, of course, but also Lictors and Genestealers. And it's more a matter of multiple layers of being able to read each other's minds; so that the ship in orbit reads the mind of the Hive Tyrant, who reads the mind of the Warrior, who reads the mind of the Termagant, who reads the mind of its Devourer, who reads the minds of its projectile-organisms, when the ship decides to inquire how many of its shots are getting to chew through tasty biomass rather than being splattered against ceremite before they get a chance.

But as I said, understanding the Tyranids isn't my issue. And I could have been more clear about this before, but I'm not planning to include an Orkish POV in the story, unless you count the Genestealers remembering what memories their Hive Fleet's Lictors have eaten. What I'm more looking for is advice on making these Orks believable to the readers, as the main antagonists of my story's first chapter.

This world is the home of these Orks, with the Tyranids and Humans both being invaders. There are well-defended positions that hold too much manpower to be efficiently dealt with by Lictors, and for whatever other reasons (such as having opposable thumbs) the local Hive Mind has decided to use Genestealers rather than Zoanthropes or Carnifexes or Biovores or Harpies to break these defensive strongpoints.

I'm looking for advice on what sort of Ork-defended "objective marker locations" would be appropriate for Genestealers to be the tool of choice for taking control of, and what sort of Ork defenders would likely be there.

Hopefully you can help me.

Tongue-tied and twisted; just an earthbound misfit, I. 
   
Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

Orks are toughest wherever the fighting is thickest. So if we're talking about some kind of backfield objective, I'd expect some run of the mill Boyz bullying some Gretchen. But if the target is already the locus of combat, you'll find Nobz and Meganobz.

   
Made in gb
Liberated Grot Land Raida






Northern Ireland

If there are humans and orks around then it would make sense there's a big boss ork on the ground somewhere.

Genestealers are good at getting through armour. So lets add a fortification around him.

And just because its a jungle/night world lets make him a Snakebite clan wierdboy. And there you've got the numbers as weirdboys get more powerful the more ork minds they have around them. So lets give him a sizeable retinue of Nobz and boyz in his fort.

I write orks for comedy, so if you read my stuff that's the ork flavour you'll get. Some people write orks focussing on brutality or sheer bloody minded power games. Which might be more the flavour your piece is going for.
I prefer the jokes and I suspect the hive mind wouldn't find them very funny.

   
 
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