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Hi all,

Was just reading an article about how gene stealers set up their cults.

It seems to me that considering the variety of worlds that they could land on they are able to assess the local community too then overlay a standard template for a cult.

Identify and capture working class or slave class people and indoctrinate/inseminate cult ideology. Then institute some level of control over the captured people to get them to slowly spread ideas of rebellion and so on leading to a a full blown civil war.

So it seems there must be some level of intelligence or sentience going on that quite sophisticated considering that they are so far from a/the hive mind that isn’t seen in other tyrananids

Genestealers are relatively intelligent (like the raptors in Jurassic Park), but the establishment of cults isn't as 'designed' as that.

Spores are shot out in all directions by hive fleets. Most won't reach planets. Of those which do reach planets, only a few will harbour suitable host species. And of those worlds which are suitable, many genestealers will fail to encounter or implant suitable hosts to establish a cult. And of those nascent cults which do form, many will die out before growing large enough to create a psychic signal capable of attracting a hive fleet.

Cults are more like mould growth...

Given the humans infected are psychically dominated by the Patriarch, I’d guess that’s where their knowledge of social structure comes into it.

This would further be added to once you have “human enough” 3rd and 4th Gen Hybrids, who can properly go out in the wider society to start sussing it out, and finding high priority targets for infection.

Tyranid organisms have the intelligence and independence they need to achieve the objectives for which they are created.

It's an alien intelligence, but genestealers can certainly be very smart. Though it generally seems that Broodlords/Patriarchs are where the real brains are, whilst the regular stealer is more of a shock-troop. Smart but more of a killer than a plotter.

The real trick is that the genetics for that intelligence are built into the stealer anyway. When they infect and start developing a cult it "grows" a patriarch to lead them. Once grown that one takes over the direction of the Cult and its organisation

 Lord Damocles wrote:

Spores are shot out in all directions by hive fleets. Most won't reach planets.

Where is that stuff about shooting spores randomly into space from?
The lore I've read indicates a much more efficient approach, where hive fleets send out far roaming vanguard ships, which stealthily investigate worlds and drop off organisms like lictors and genestealers.

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Vanguard_Drone_Ship


From there, genestealers are quite capable of spreading by themselves by hitching rides on other races ships. Or even just by infected individuals doing the same.

The first stages can surely be instinctive. Stay hidden, pick off those at the fringes, and hope that the planetary security organisations are not monitoring everyone at all times.

I’m not sure about spores versus roving scout forces, but either way if enough seeding units are sent out, some will work out. The cost is pretty negligible for a few genestealers and some kind of transport. I have always been fond of the space hulk delivery method though. Hulks are the ultimate high risk/high reward draw, that seeding them with genestealers is a great idea. Infect the treasure hunters, and use them as a train horse into whatever civilisation they come from.

<Flips open RT rulebook>

The answer is “3"

Is the patriarch a genestealer or a infected/mutated human/host?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Flinty wrote:
The first stages can surely be instinctive. Stay hidden, pick off those at the fringes, and hope that the planetary security organisations are not monitoring everyone at all times.

I’m not sure about spores versus roving scout forces, but either way if enough seeding units are sent out, some will work out. The cost is pretty negligible for a few genestealers and some kind of transport. I have always been fond of the space hulk delivery method though. Hulks are the ultimate high risk/high reward draw, that seeding them with genestealers is a great idea. Infect the treasure hunters, and use them as a train horse into whatever civilisation they come from.

Staying hidden and stealthy hunting can be instinctive, I agree, like a cat hunting. But the way I read it the GS a being much more selective about where they hide, who they capture in the first instances, and I assume, letting them back into general population.

For example the start of a GSC would see workers in important infrastructure like energy production or manufacturing rather than the person who scrubs the toilets (or much much worse) that no one will listen to if they start talking to about rebellion.

RTFBM, mrFickle. We're not Google, and that's a question you can find in two minutes with a reasonable search string.

Patriarch is the Genestealer first responsible for infecting a human.

The Cult itself is a gestalt consciousness, like a localised version of the Hive Mind. So, like The Borg, once a human is infected and under its sway? Their knowledge is added to that of the collective Cult.

Now there is an open question as to how a mind as alien as a Genestealer would interpret or understand knowledge gained. But, that may be where the Hybrids really come into their own, with successive generations (first to fourth) serving as useful translation steps?

For the first few generations I don’t see them being that choosy. Get the dregs and the outcasts and the forgotten, and when there is enough momentum on the cult, then the strategic choices happen. NOw they might luck out early and catch low rung security services early, ut that might be a double edged sword as those individuals might be under greater scrutiny.

A Patriarch will oversee an entire cult as it grows. Cults can just keep growing as well, if the Hive Fleet never comes the Cult will just keep expanding over whole worlds, whole system, whole regions. In theory they will just keep going and expand and expand under they control all or the Tyranids come to feed.

The Patriarch is also a cornerstone of the cult, acting like a nexus of the local HiveMind that the cult uses. Lose the Patriarch and its left in reeling chaos until a new one arises from the Cult.



This all suggests that the Cult and Genestealers are very intelligent. That said I think that we miss that aspect because GSC always look at the half-breeds of human and Genestealer; whilst the stealers are often just shown in combat as killers.

Another thing to consider is that a lot of the knowledge that the Cult amasses is basically useless to the Tyranids. They don't care if you can develop a new steel reinforcing method to improve structural integrity. The Tyranids don't build with steel in that way.

 Overread wrote:
A Patriarch will oversee an entire cult as it grows. Cults can just keep growing as well, if the Hive Fleet never comes the Cult will just keep expanding over whole worlds, whole system, whole regions. In theory they will just keep going and expand and expand under they control all or the Tyranids come to feed.

The Patriarch is also a cornerstone of the cult, acting like a nexus of the local HiveMind that the cult uses. Lose the Patriarch and its left in reeling chaos until a new one arises from the Cult.



This all suggests that the Cult and Genestealers are very intelligent. That said I think that we miss that aspect because GSC always look at the half-breeds of human and Genestealer; whilst the stealers are often just shown in combat as killers.

Another thing to consider is that a lot of the knowledge that the Cult amasses is basically useless to the Tyranids. They don't care if you can develop a new steel reinforcing method to improve structural integrity. The Tyranids don't build with steel in that way.

That’s interesting, they don’t absorb knowledge and use it in the future, so let’s say a GSC got pretty big on a planet that was privy to imperial military plans, that info wouldn’t make it back to the hive fleet somehow? They really are just making it easier for the hive fleet to consume the biomass of the planet.

That again suggests to me that there is a pretty high level of intelligence in a genestealer but they don’t really have the concept of free will

Oh I think they'd use military information, but perhaps not in the way we'd think of it. It might even be "useless" because the Swarm might not care about local military movements and really only cares about the grand scale of things.
We do know that they've focused on things like attacking Space Marine homeworlds so the Tyranids are very much aware that one of their greater challenges come from those worlds and they specifically target them

And yes free will is a debateable term in the Swarm. The Swarmlord appears to have some and Tyranids separated from the Swarm and Hive Mind appear to operate quite well on their own.

The interesting thing is that when two separated groups rejoin they appear to accept the will of the Hive Mind very freely. The only parts that don't are the still more human parts of something like the Genstealer Cult - and even then it will vary. Some will accept it outright others will deny it and even try to fight them (though typically by that stage the Cult has smashed up defences and let the gates open wide to welcome to the Swarm).

I can see the Hive Mind using any intelligence gathered by a Cult to ensure it’s deploying suitable bugs planetside.

From a resource expenditure point of view, that’s makes for greater efficiency than trial and error, threat and response.

For instance, a world like Valhalla or Tallarn has its major population centres houses underground. Such a world is going to call for tunnellers, and lots of them. That’s local intel a Hive Fleet could come equipped with, rather than having to figure it out for itself with initial waves. And so we may see the initial vanguard composition altered. Certainly one could argue the necessity of Lictors and other infiltration organisms being reduced, because the Cult has already done much of that legwork, up to and including initial assassination of bigwigs and organisers.

One possibility -

Successful infection and domination of a victim, or a small group of victims, triggers changes in the soon to be patriarch, causing it to become physically larger and more intelligent.

Eumerin wrote:
One possibility -

Successful infection and domination of a victim, or a small group of victims, triggers changes in the soon to be patriarch, causing it to become physically larger and more intelligent.

Agreed, adding more minds to the Brood must cause the "server" to expand.

That’s a known. The Cult itself needs to expand to the point the Patriarch is psychically powerful enough to summon a Hive Fleet, essentially acting like a Niddly Astronomican.

This was most physically notable in the original Patriarch models and background, where it would physically bloat.

The Genestealer Patriarch seems to have more personality and can even mock its enemies. In Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work, one of the protagonists is infected by the Genestealers but uses some special tech to keep from being fully taken over. When facing the Patriarch, he tries to shoot his bolter at the Patriarch but finds he cannot pull the trigger no matter how hard he tries due to being partially under the influence of the GSC broodmind and thus the Patriarch. The Patriarch mocks the character by getting closer and slowly deliberately pressing its forehead right up to physically contact the barrel of the bolter, as if daring the character to shoot, but the character still cannot pull the trigger.

That raises the question whether such behaviour is inherent to Genestealers, or another result of the growing Cult influencing the Patriarch’s behaviours and expression.

But dialling it right back. Genestealers are possibly the only Tyranid species known to act entirely independently not just of the Hive Mind, but their own Broodmind. Yes typically where there’s one, there’ll be more, but that’s not universal. And even a single Genestealer can stowaway and begin growing its own cult.

They also have enough sense not just to hide, but to do so effectively.

Now, is that intelligence or just highly developed instinct? I honestly couldn’t say, as I don’t really know where modern science starts drawing a line between the two - and we see quite incredible things from animals. I mean, look at Ants. They’re crazy!

But being able to act independently and even operate simple machinery like doors suggests intelligence - or at least well developed mimicry.

The science of intelligence is an absolute minefield for... lets say historical reasons. It is likely to break forum rules to go into more detail.

For the purposes of the thread, I think it is sufficient to acknowledge that there probably isn't any meaningful difference between true intelligence* and highly honed instinct in this context, and using intelligence in the colloquial sense is fine.


*If such a thing exists.

That a Genestealer, pre-cult, can learn to operate doors, that suggests problem solving skills. As does rapid adaptation to effective hideyholes pre-cult establishment.

And yes I agree “let’s not go too deep”, but problem solving is associated with intelligence, as it can involve a leap of logic and change in overall behaviour?

We smelly hoomans can do that on the regular, learning cause and effect and applying novel solutions and jury rigging tools to get a job done. The difference between knowing blatting a nut between two suitably shaped rocks will open it with minimal fuss, and actively shaping rocks to be even better at it.

 Haighus wrote:
The science of intelligence is an absolute minefield for... lets say historical reasons. It is likely to break forum rules to go into more detail.

For the purposes of the thread, I think it is sufficient to acknowledge that there probably isn't any meaningful difference between true intelligence* and highly honed instinct in this context, and using intelligence in the colloquial sense is fine.


*If such a thing exists.

to dodge the dodgy question of intelligence as it exists in humans, it might be easier to compare this to the intelligence that various animals portray. for example, with how much tyranids are based on insects, and that's clearly where their hive mind comes from. but something like genestealers feel less like an insect and more like a crow, dolphin, or elephant. intelligent enough to be adaptable, to learn and socialize, even with things outside their species, but how much it can directly compare to human experience is vague at best

I think adaptability was really the first thing that made me ask about intelligence. It’s not just knowing who to infect but also how to keep infection under the radar

If a patriarch is trying to establish a cult on an agricultural world there could be a whole host of people to start with as a large portion of the population may just live in relative poverty and only know how to farm the crops they are there to farm along side millions of others.

But if you are on a world that specialises in administrations or as a trade hub changes in behaviour are going to be noticed more quickly, people with a better quality of life will be less resistant to ideas of rebellion and probably heretical ideas will be dealt with more swiftly in a more organised society.

So there must be some analogy to interpret the behaviour of aliens (humans are alien to nids I mean) and Infact if a human were dropped into densely populated sentient alien society they probably wouldn’t have a clue what’s going on.

So although genestealers can’t understand music, for example, maybe they have higher intelligence than humans, where it counts.

The stealth is at least at first instinctual. They’re infiltration organisms, and so the first round of infections is done all sneaky like.

Once there are infected humans, they’re loyal to the nascent Patriarch, and so aren’t able to blow the whistle.

In terms of identifying infection? That’s where the general ignorance of The Imperium is a big help. The mark left by the ovipositor on a human is described as being a small welt. Which given health and safety isn’t really a thing? Is easily lost among other nicks, scars and buboes.

Where the sneaky really comes in is for those early generation hybrids, which clearly aren’t even close to being able to pass as human.

But, knowledge of Genestealers isn’t terribly widespread. So any 4th or 3rd Gen found/killed may well just be put down in the absence of an Inquisitor or someone else in the know as a particularly heinous mutant. Which is enough for a “no questions asked” killing at the hands of the local populace.

And so provided only a relative few are discovered? The cult is likely fairly safe.

Figuring out who’s who in a given human society likely comes from the already infected humans, with targeted infection following to better protect the cult.

Add in the cult will actively help out in industry, and how uncaring The Imperium is so long as the tithe is met? That’s solid safety in itself. Keep the crops/ore/whatever coming, even a bit over quota? And few are especially minded to ask “why”.

"Can use doors"

I mean in many future world depictions the doors all open automatically when someone comes near one, and if not then genestealers are well equipped to open doors permanently...

And then there is mimicry. Concealed in the shadows and watch what the prey does to get past seemingly solid barriers.

As soon as a few "converts" to the cause have been made, then actual lived-in experience kicks in.

40K is pretty consistent in showing keypad locks for doors.

Which suggests the Genestealer would need to make the association between keypad and door open, then comprehend specific combination of button presses is required.

Yes they’re perfectly capable of forcing the issue and simply shredding their way through, but we’re talking a situation where the Genestealer is being stealthy. Leaving a shredded door behind you is….kind of a clue something hinky might be going on.

Iracundus wrote:
The Genestealer Patriarch seems to have more personality and can even mock its enemies. In Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work, one of the protagonists is infected by the Genestealers but uses some special tech to keep from being fully taken over. When facing the Patriarch, he tries to shoot his bolter at the Patriarch but finds he cannot pull the trigger no matter how hard he tries due to being partially under the influence of the GSC broodmind and thus the Patriarch. The Patriarch mocks the character by getting closer and slowly deliberately pressing its forehead right up to physically contact the barrel of the bolter, as if daring the character to shoot, but the character still cannot pull the trigger.

It is actually a point plot in the Shield of Baal: Deathstorm (the novella supplement to the rules supplement to the battlebox, if things weren't confusing enough) that the Spawn of Cryptus is able to temporally resist assimilation into the Tyranid hive mind out of sheer hatred towards his half-brother (who happens to be a planetary governor and a supposed potential cure for the Red Thrist that GW kinda forgot about) for killing their parents.

And IIRC in the Cult of the Spiral Dawn, it is specifically noted that a Genestealer's intelligence exponentially grows as part of their metamorphosis into a Patriarch to the point it develops a personality, individuality and sense of self.

A Patriarch gaining human-level self awareness and individuality was part of the reason they used to be able to worship Chaos (which is why the seated Patriarch's throne has a chaos star on it)

Nevelon wrote:<Flips open RT rulebook>

The answer is “3"

relative to what?
honest question. never read the old RT books, so not familair with the scale it used. for example, what is the intelligence score for humans? orks?