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Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






How do!

So came up in another thread, but was kind of off-topic there. However I figured it’s an interesting enough bit of lore for a thread all it’s own. I’ll kick off with a super potted version of what it actually was, and a link to a Wiki type article. And I’ll do my best to steer clear of offering my own opinion for now, lest the conversation become about my opinion and not the wider lore.

Ready?

Link to info on the man himself and his plan. https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Fidus_Kryptman#Kryptman's_Cordon

Super potted version.

In an effort to halt Leviathan’s approach, Inquisitor Lord Kryptman came up with a plan for a Scorched Earth Policy, essentially blowing up whole planets just as the Hive Fleet was about to feed. The concept was one of starvation. With the prey world lost, and no doubt some damage to the stocks of Hive Gribblies, the Hive Fleet would be denied new resources.

The second wing was coaxing Leviathan to attack Octarius, a system long held and riddled with Orks. With any luck, the two species would absolutely maul each other. Not only would this remove at least one of them from the overall equation, but both being able to rapidly replace losses, be a grinding war of attrition, during which The Imperium could recover, rearm and redeploy etc.

The downside? Both Orks and Tyranids kind of thrive on conflict. So whatever emerged from that war? Wasn’t going to be a push over. Either a reinvigorated Hive Fleet, gorged on untold biomass, or a Waaagh of incredibly experienced and therefore tougher and inherently more dangerous Orks, absolutely in a mood to keep that really great party they’ve been having for decades or centuries going.

So. Super potted version done, link to a more in-depth article done. Time for the discussion

   
Made in hu
Pyromaniac Hellhound Pilot





I'm actually kinda surprised that this is considered a "gambit" in the setting not just another boring Monday when an Inquisitor blows up a few hundred planets because reasons and nobody gives a flying gak about it for a colorful variety of reasons. Other than the people living on those planets but they are completely irrelevant and the one thing that matters even less than the Inquisitori's motivation is those people's opinion on the act.

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Made in gb
Bryan Ansell





Birmingham, UK

 AtoMaki wrote:
I'm actually kinda surprised that this is considered a "gambit" in the setting not just another boring Monday when an Inquisitor blows up a few hundred planets because reasons and nobody gives a flying gak about it for a colorful variety of reasons. Other than the people living on those planets but they are completely irrelevant and the one thing that matters even less than the Inquisitori's motivation is those people's opinion on the act.


Insert Syndrome GIF here.

Yeah, This has to be seen through the lens of a smaller 40k universe, Where 'epic' confrontations were starting to be fleshed out.

Setting Orks VS Nids against each other is exactly the grimdark thinking the Imperiums most powerful cleverest indoctrinated dogmatic individuals would come up within order to 'buy time'.

Now we know that Leviathan would feast on the mineral content of the planets, so that aspect is taken care of. Scouring succession of planets of life before the nids could consume the tender bits means that the Hive looses minimal organic assets if at all.

So much better to destroy the planets as the Hive are expending material resources to claim then prepare to strip them. And so much more Grimdark to expend millions/billions of lives in that scheme in order to 'weaken' the fleet.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/06/05 09:32:36


 
   
Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






I think it’s because it wasn’t, in itself, A Proper Solution.

Compare to blowing up a planet when you know Abaddon is on it, it has no warp gates and his fleet has been driven off. Take out the planet, take out the guy largely responsible for the successful herding Chaos’ cats. Significant pillar removed, the overall threat drops.

Kryptman however bought time, but at the expense of unpredictable consequences, other than them Not Being Pleasant, and absolutely ending up as something you need to deal with, and it won’t necessarily be better in the long run.

   
Made in gb
Bryan Ansell





Birmingham, UK

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I think it’s because it wasn’t, in itself, A Proper Solution.

Compare to blowing up a planet when you know Abaddon is on it, it has no warp gates and his fleet has been driven off. Take out the planet, take out the guy largely responsible for the successful herding Chaos’ cats. Significant pillar removed, the overall threat drops.

Kryptman however bought time, but at the expense of unpredictable consequences, other than them Not Being Pleasant, and absolutely ending up as something you need to deal with, and it won’t necessarily be better in the long run.



Yeah, never a proper solution. One made of lack of knowledge of their enemies abilities and an overestimation of their own?


   
Made in gb
Pestilent Plague Marine with Blight Grenade





Oh if anyone's fully aware of the Tyranids' capabilities, it's Kryptman. This is the same guy who realised Tyranid bioweapons were psychicly bonded to their hosts before anyone else *and* successfully had someone make contact with one (Devourer, I believe)

The goal was never to wipe either side out, it was always to slow the advance and give the Imperium time to bolster its defences, and it definitely, 100% achieved its objective. He couldn't have predicted Cawl and Guilliman and the Primaris marines, but the fact 10e is called "Leviathan" and not "Omnomnom everyone is lunch" is largely due to Kryptman

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Charax absolutely nailed it.
 
   
Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






This is what I think makes it such an interesting bit of Lore.

The plan itself is something so inherently 40K. Taking a real world, successful tactic (scorched Earth denial of resources to the invader) but turning the threat, response and consequences up to 27, when the dial should only go to 5.

But, the method is also not really that unusual with The Imperium. Whilst not a daily occurence, Exterminatus is always an option on the table. And one usually justified after the fact.

The scale however is bonkers, even for The Imperium. And it’s not necessarily the lives saved that were the problem, it was the resources and productivity lost.

But…what was the alternative? Making a stand up fight of it could’ve worked. Sure. But even a decently solid victory could’ve left that area open to an Orky Waaagh!. If it failed, not only have you lost those planets and productivity regardless, but there is at least an argument Leviathan would’ve been so glutted it could’ve rolled over Octarius anyway, resulting in a super fleet whichever way you buttered it.

Please note I’m not endorsing these arguments, only presenting a perspective as food for thought, and framing Kryptman’s overall plan as “a crap idea, but still the least worst option, at least for now”.

That being said, I’m not up on modern lore, so perhaps the Octarius books have painted a much grimmer Right Now than I’m allowing for?

   
Made in de
Boom! Leman Russ Commander






Overall I agree, it's just a bit... unfortunate to pit two enemies of the imperium against each other that quite likely get stronger by fighting each other. The Orks by finding a real challenge, the Nids by exploiting the very productive biomass of an orkoid ecosystem. It would have been a better ideo to goad them into, lets say, a Necron Dynasty where the Necrons don't have anything to gain from killing all those Nids, while the Nids also don't gain ressources that are worth the expenditure to get them.

Or at least something like T'au or Eldar where you could hope for them to get out victorious, but weakened.

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Well Necrons and Tau are out because you'd need a huge psychic beacon to divert the fleet. Eldar would qualify but their method of war isn't to tarpit an enemy, so they would probably just get out of the way.

Also kind of hard to bait nids into attacking a tomb world as it's the one thing in the galaxy they go out of their way to avoid.

Had to be Orks

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/06/05 11:47:34


 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Charax absolutely nailed it.
 
   
Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






There’s also the argument Orks are the only species to want to commit ever more forces to the scrap - so massive as their presence in Octarius is? A Big Scrap is still going to call more Orks from outside it’s immediate boundaries.

   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




Great bit of lore and I'm rooting For the orks.
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut





 Pyroalchi wrote:
It would have been a better ideo to goad them into, lets say, a Necron Dynasty where the Necrons don't have anything to gain from killing all those Nids, while the Nids also don't gain ressources that are worth the expenditure to get them.

Charax wrote:
Also kind of hard to bait nids into attacking a tomb world as it's the one thing in the galaxy they go out of their way to avoid.

Enemy dead represent an insignificant amount of the resources that Tyranids seek and/or need. Planets are what have the juice.

There is no source for the idea that Tyranids avoid Necrons.

iirc not all Tomb Worlds are dead worlds. Baiting the Tyranids to a Tomb World would be insufficient; they would need to be baited to a dead Tomb World. But that's likely to be difficult because how do you give them a reason to fight for a dead world? That's like saying "the Imperium should goad Abaddon into committing suicide." Like, sure, great idea, but how they gonna do that? Produce a step-by-step or it's ultimately meaningless.

Boosykes wrote:
Great bit of lore and I'm rooting For the orks.

iirc the Tyranids already won. But there are still forces on the planet, so there's nothing stopping an 11th (and a half) hour comeback macguffin.

   
Made in de
Boom! Leman Russ Commander






Why a dead Tombworld?
"Alive" makes more sense, doesn't it? I meant if you HAVE to goad a hivefleet somewhere an active enemy that will fight the hive fleet without getting stronger while simultanously giving them as little to feed on as possible seems advisable.

But the arguments regarding the Orks willingness to commit are quite convincing

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By alive/dead I mean the condition of the planet.

So not a dead Tomb World in the sense of "a Tomb World that has died and no longer functions as a Tomb World", but rather a dead Tomb world in the sense of "a Tomb World that also happens to be a dead world".

Some Tomb Worlds are on thriving planets, and many others are on dead worlds (ie. barren worlds bereft of a biosphere).
   
Made in us
Impassive Inquisitorial Interrogator






I feel like the initial plan at least of clearing out worlds ahead of the Tyranids might have worked as well. Like, it's basically what we call backburning in the real world, deliberately burning the fuel for an out of control fire, intending to choke it out. Now, evacuating the planets you intended to clear might have been a smarter move, but Kryptman obviously didn't do that. The only real issue is that there's no way to know how much stores the nids have and how much they need before it becomes a problem.

Like, the difference between backburning and scorched Earth is that an enemy army can be reasoned with. You can convince them to give up and go home. You can't do that with a fire/nids. Nids will go where the fuel is, and all you can do is direct them and try to burn them out.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/06/05 14:14:07


 
   
Made in at
Longtime Dakkanaut




The gambit worked, end of story. Kryptmann bought the imperium precious time. The imperium was just, as always, waay too slow to really capitalize from it.

It's always funny to me when people (not in this thread necessarily, but in general) make kryptmann (and Inquisitors on general for that matter) out to be either crazy and/or incompetent. Blowing up planets is not a typical monday for the Inquisition and anyone claiming that probably only knows the lore from memes or youtubers whose knowledge of the lore is equally superficial.
   
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Killer Klaivex







 Altruizine wrote:

Enemy dead represent an insignificant amount of the resources that Tyranids seek and/or need. Planets are what have the juice.

There is no source for the idea that Tyranids avoid Necrons.



There was actually, back in the first Necron codex IIRC (or one of the earlier Tyranid ones - fifth edition perhaps?)

It was explicitly stated that Tyranids avoided tomb worlds. This seems to have been subsequently retconned around the time Necrons got remade from soulless unknowable Terminators into 'TOMB KINGS IN SPAAAACE!' - we suddenly started getting stories of Necrons and Nids duking it out.


 
   
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 Ketara wrote:
 Altruizine wrote:

Enemy dead represent an insignificant amount of the resources that Tyranids seek and/or need. Planets are what have the juice.

There is no source for the idea that Tyranids avoid Necrons.



There was actually, back in the first Necron codex IIRC (or one of the earlier Tyranid ones - fifth edition perhaps?)

It was explicitly stated that Tyranids avoided tomb worlds. This seems to have been subsequently retconned around the time Necrons got remade from soulless unknowable Terminators into 'TOMB KINGS IN SPAAAACE!' - we suddenly started getting stories of Necrons and Nids duking it out.


IIRC it was the Outsider’s Dyson Sphere they specifically avoided rather than tomb worlds in general, though a lot of the latter tended to be dead worlds as well which didn’t hold much attraction to them.
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka







The problem with the Kryptman gambit was that it didn't go far enough - once things had gotten rolling there, and drawing in both Ork and Tyranid reinforcements, Kryptman really should've been seeding information that there was an important Chaos MacGuffin on the world, too.

Either you do further damage to all three enemies, or Abaddon comes along and blows up the planet, which at least deals with the Orks getting stronger, and potentially gives the Hive Fleet a sharp stabbing pain in the stomach.

And if we're really lucky, Abaddon ends up getting eaten by some Rippers...

2021-4 Plog - Here we go again... - my fifth attempt at a Dakka PLOG

My Pile of Potential - updates ongoing...

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 Kanluwen wrote:
This is, emphatically, why I will continue suggesting nuking Guard and starting over again. It's a legacy army that needs to be rebooted with a new focal point.

Confirmation of why no-one should listen to Kanluwen when it comes to the IG - he doesn't want the IG, he want's Kan's New Model Army...

tneva82 wrote:
You aren't even trying ty pretend for honest arqument. Open bad faith trolling.
- No reason to keep this here, unless people want to use it for something... 
   
Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






 Ketara wrote:
 Altruizine wrote:

Enemy dead represent an insignificant amount of the resources that Tyranids seek and/or need. Planets are what have the juice.

There is no source for the idea that Tyranids avoid Necrons.



There was actually, back in the first Necron codex IIRC (or one of the earlier Tyranid ones - fifth edition perhaps?)

It was explicitly stated that Tyranids avoided tomb worlds. This seems to have been subsequently retconned around the time Necrons got remade from soulless unknowable Terminators into 'TOMB KINGS IN SPAAAACE!' - we suddenly started getting stories of Necrons and Nids duking it out.


Thing there is not all Tomb Worlds are equal. Some are dead worlds, with little but mineral content and I suppose some gases of appeal to the Hive Fleet. Given they’d face stiff resistance, the Hive Mind Calculus may simply peg them as “not worth the bother, expenditure exceeds gain, leave it Dave, Davey leave it man!.

Others are….regular Imperial Worlds. With plenty of biomass for devouring. Indeed, pretty much nobody really knows some a Tomb Worlds until a big war kicks off and the Necrons demand to know what that racket is, and don’t you know they’re on the night shift.

   
Made in de
Boom! Leman Russ Commander






I'm not into Tyranid lore, but still there intentions why they target some worlds might not be entirely economic.
Because when you think about it, under this point of view attacking Forgeworlds (like Lucius or Gryphonne IV) is pretty... dumb. There is quite likely not enough Biomass there to make it worth the effort. And for a number of hiveworlds (without intact Biosphere) that will likely put up a lot of resistance while "only" offering some billion humans instead of a thriving biosphere with jungles etc. I also doubt the net win is really worth it.

Would they only consider economics, they would likely focus purely on the Agriworlds, Pleasureworlds, Gardenworlds, maybe some deathworlds like Catachan that are deathworlds due to their excessive Biosphere while putting up (relatively) little resistance.


On that same note: even a living Tombworld would not be a bad "bait". If the Necron Presence is strong enough it might still come to the point, that the planet looked tasty enough for the Nids to swarm in but gets an overall net-loss due to attrition from our beloved Tomb Lords in space.

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Removed - rule #1 please

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/06/06 18:58:37


 
   
Made in nz
Longtime Dakkanaut





Auckland, NZ

Lord Zarkov wrote:
 Ketara wrote:
 Altruizine wrote:

Enemy dead represent an insignificant amount of the resources that Tyranids seek and/or need. Planets are what have the juice.

There is no source for the idea that Tyranids avoid Necrons.



There was actually, back in the first Necron codex IIRC (or one of the earlier Tyranid ones - fifth edition perhaps?)

It was explicitly stated that Tyranids avoided tomb worlds. This seems to have been subsequently retconned around the time Necrons got remade from soulless unknowable Terminators into 'TOMB KINGS IN SPAAAACE!' - we suddenly started getting stories of Necrons and Nids duking it out.


IIRC it was the Outsider’s Dyson Sphere they specifically avoided rather than tomb worlds in general, though a lot of the latter tended to be dead worlds as well which didn’t hold much attraction to them.

Yeah that was one of the cases. Not much wants to get anywhere near the Outsider, apparently including the nids.
Another case called out in an early codex was that they dodged Solumnace (Trazyn's tomb world). But that was later semi-retconned in War in the Library, which said the nids were inbound and would have attacked the planet, but Trazyn deployed lure devices to get the fleet to move in a different direction.
   
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Longtime Dakkanaut




 Pyroalchi wrote:
I'm not into Tyranid lore, but still there intentions why they target some worlds might not be entirely economic.
Because when you think about it, under this point of view attacking Forgeworlds (like Lucius or Gryphonne IV) is pretty... dumb. There is quite likely not enough Biomass there to make it worth the effort. And for a number of hiveworlds (without intact Biosphere) that will likely put up a lot of resistance while "only" offering some billion humans instead of a thriving biosphere with jungles etc. I also doubt the net win is really worth it.

Would they only consider economics, they would likely focus purely on the Agriworlds, Pleasureworlds, Gardenworlds, maybe some deathworlds like Catachan that are deathworlds due to their excessive Biosphere while putting up (relatively) little resistance.


On that same note: even a living Tombworld would not be a bad "bait". If the Necron Presence is strong enough it might still come to the point, that the planet looked tasty enough for the Nids to swarm in but gets an overall net-loss due to attrition from our beloved Tomb Lords in space.


The Hive Mind is intelligent so we must not assume it is only considering one set of metrics in its assessment of which worlds to attack. Sure, there is the economic reason but the Hive Mind is also capable of strategic considerations such as recognizing certain worlds as major centers of resistance or production for the enemy, and decide to neutralize them to prevent a thorn in their side when they go after more vulnerable richer worlds. Gryphonne IV was described as one of the most heavily fortified worlds in the southern galaxy. Its destruction would have been a bitter material and psychological blow to the Adeptus Mechanicus. The Hive Mind is not unaware of the value of psychological warfare.

Also, forge worlds would be rich in metals (either native or imported from mining worlds), other industrial chemicals and resources including hydrocarbons, and the menial labor force that the hive fleets may use so they are not entirely devoid of value. Perhaps that is what makes the difference versus a biologically sterile Necron Tomb World. That and it seems many Necron Tombs remain inactive or still mostly isolative and tending to their local affairs, so hardly likely to interfere if the Tyranids go after nearby life bearing worlds.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/06/07 10:15:15


 
   
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Boom! Leman Russ Commander






Even if it somewhat digresses from the original question it still seems strange to me that the hivemind does not focus a lot more on Agriworlds and the like.
Why bother fighting a Hive- or Fortress world when you can instead attack the 1-3 Agriworlds feeding it. Those worlds are not fortified and even if the Hive/Fortressworld is dedicated to defend it and somehow manages to arrive in time, it is much easier to fight a defender that has to travel a large distance, keep up the supply lines and has to fight on a not fortified world.

And after you nomnomnomed one or two Agriworlds you basically just have to wait a little bit befor the resistance of the Hive/Fortress world diminishes sharply due to starvation.

But then again, as you said: who really understands the way of thinking of the hive mind.

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 Pyroalchi wrote:
Even if it somewhat digresses from the original question it still seems strange to me that the hivemind does not focus a lot more on Agriworlds and the like.
Why bother fighting a Hive- or Fortress world when you can instead attack the 1-3 Agriworlds feeding it. Those worlds are not fortified and even if the Hive/Fortressworld is dedicated to defend it and somehow manages to arrive in time, it is much easier to fight a defender that has to travel a large distance, keep up the supply lines and has to fight on a not fortified world.

And after you nomnomnomed one or two Agriworlds you basically just have to wait a little bit befor the resistance of the Hive/Fortress world diminishes sharply due to starvation.

But then again, as you said: who really understands the way of thinking of the hive mind.


That is what the Kraken splinter fleets did after the two main fleets were shattered at Ichar IV and Iyanden. The splinter fleets penetrated deeper past Imperial defensive positions and picked off isolated vulnerable worlds like Agriworlds, and grew back into full hive fleets again. We probably could imagine lesser forge worlds and hive worlds being weakened by this manner. The more important ones probably would have enough political clout to requisition shipments and shipping routes to be diverted to them, possibly causing the hardships that other more minor worlds experience.
   
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Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






I think it’s the last point that’s possibly the most telling.

We don’t really know whether the Hivemind is sentient as we would understand it, or simply driven by a higher form of instinct.

If the former, we might expect to see it doing stuff against its nature or immediate self interest, or be more discerning as to where it feeds rather than “Huge Blob Over There, Smaller Blobs there….Huge Blob first”

But if it is sentient? That doesn’t mean it’s anything we could ever truly understand. I mean, Dogs are self aware, but to a much lesser degree than their Hoomans. We do stuff which probably completely baffles Doggos. So the Hive Mind could be intelligent far beyond our Ken.

   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




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 message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/06/07 14:05:42


 
   
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The Shire(s)

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.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/06/07 14:09:04


 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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 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.
   
 
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