The Hive Mind

I'm toying with the idea of making the Hive mind actually a twisted immortal Emperor class (originally) human psyker - one driven out long before the Imperium was formed when the Emperor was young.

With access to Dark age of technology ships he could have fled far beyond the milky way until he found the original species that he would spend millennia re-moulding into the Tyranids through the use of incredible genetic engineering techniques (similar to those the Emperor used to create the Primarchs).

Initially he sent groups of genestealers into the Imperium as scouts since he was still wary of the Emperor's strength but finding him greatly weakened he directed his hive fleets to begin their probing strikes on the Imperium.

His hatred of the Emperor and quest for vengeance lead him to alter his own dna to enhance his psychic powers and 'improve' his human form...

Transformed into a twisted inhuman monstrosity he now seeks the genocide of all humanoids while still nursing an obsessive hatred ( and fear?) of the Emperor which bodes ill for the Imperium of mankind...

The Hive mind is probably the greatest weakness of the Tyranids despite his incredible psychic strength - if he could be destroyed the Tyranid threat to the Imperium at large would melt away...

Interesting ideas

He could have disciples that might have once been human like himself and share his hatred for the "unchanged".

Are you going with the notion that the current hive fleets are merely tendrils of the "real" massive hive fleet that the imperium would barely beat away?

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Strategic_Collective

And how do players fit into this game? What role do they play? What kind of characters do they have access to? Will they play major roles or supporting ones?

Interesting ideas

He could have disciples that might have once been human like himself and share his hatred for the "unchanged".

Are you going with the notion that the current hive fleets are merely tendrils of the "real" massive hive fleet that the imperium would barely beat away?

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Strategic_Collective

The disciples thing is good - how about sons with the same warp invisibility possessed by the Sons of the Emperor? (Referring back to the original 'Realms of Chaos' ideas).

The general immunity of tyranids to daemonic possession could indicate that the DNA of these Sons is present within them somehow?

To your other point yes - the fleets so far have been probes to evaluate the strength and reaction times of the Imperium. This has been lacklustre enough that the hate filled Hive mind is likely to be drawn in to attack Terra itself along with a Hive Fleet that would completely dwarf anything that has been seen before...

Edit - this isn't necessarily a bad thing - if the Hive Mind was more wary it could just sit back and throw near limitless forces at the Imperium over several thousand years until it was worn down and eventually overwhelmed completely - the Imperium just could not survive such a war of attrition with its lousy replacement rates.

And how do players fit into this game? What role do they play? What kind of characters do they have access to? Will they play major roles or supporting ones?

In pretty much anyway you could think of from direct personal involvement thwarting the Hive mind's attack on the Terra system to completely indirect effects such as the draining off of Imperium personnel from the fringe sectors to counter a threat to Terra leaving them almost completely unguarded.

This could lead to PCs being dragged in to counter threats that take advantage of the opportunity or actually being the opportunists themselves...

For direct involvement at the high melodrama end you could have the Emperor contacting worthy PCs in their dreams sending them on a protracted and difficult quest to retrieve some weapon (almost certainly a relic used or created by the Emperor himself) that could help him to defeat the Hive Mind.

Or perhaps the Emperor decides he will not survive the coming battle and send the players on a quest to find his successor or to contact the Harlequins or xxx...

At the lower impact end you could just have the shadow in the warp effect leaving the outer fringes unscathed but now cut off from the rule of Terra.

How it all resolves would pretty much depend on how much you want to shake up and progress the WH40K storyline which has to be a decision for each GM and their players.

Personally speaking I quite like to resolve at least some things so that new things can emerge and it all gets a little less predictable which better suits an rpg.

Resolving issues doesn't make something less predictable. It resolves, hence closes some doors. That removes possibilities. Sure, you create more options from each door closed, but that can be accomplished without closing any doors at all. It seems you want to push the 40k timeline forward and play in a different galaxy. Or maybe you want your players to play in a galaxy that is spiraling out of control. Is that what your players also want?

Resolving issues doesn't make something less predictable. It resolves, hence closes some doors. That removes possibilities. Sure, you create more options from each door closed, but that can be accomplished without closing any doors at all. It seems you want to push the 40k timeline forward and play in a different galaxy. Or maybe you want your players to play in a galaxy that is spiraling out of control. Is that what your players also want?

As far as I can see barring the addition of Necrons and Tau (which despite flogging some figures haven't really had much impact) the basic WH40K universe has remained fundamentally frozen since the old WH40K Rogue Trader book came out - the Emperor is still not dead, the Imperium is still not collapsed etc. etc.

There is effectively no meta plot because the meta level stuff never changes - this currently relegates PCs to fight inconsequential battles that never really change anything - like playing the old arcade space invaders - no matter how many you shoot there are always more.

This is a rather odd basis for an RPG but fine for wargames.

Hmmm...the longest-running and most popular RPG game world I can think of was Forgotten Realms, and while they did go through a couple deity resets the original concept was to supply DMs with that unchanging world that the DMs could allow the characters to bring about change in. Of course that differs greatly from the 40k baseline whose PCs are too insignificant to affect such wide-ranging changes.

Now White Wolf did have an evolving world-plot and eventually they destroyed their world. That didn't go over so well with the fan base. So I have to respectfully disagree with your assumption that a changing metaplot is normal. I think it is the exception.

The Hive Mind

I'm toying with the idea of making the Hive mind actually a twisted immortal Emperor class (originally) human psyker - one driven out long before the Imperium was formed when the Emperor was young.

With access to Dark age of technology ships he could have fled far beyond the milky way until he found the original species that he would spend millennia re-moulding into the Tyranids through the use of incredible genetic engineering techniques (similar to those the Emperor used to create the Primarchs).

Initially he sent groups of genestealers into the Imperium as scouts since he was still wary of the Emperor's strength but finding him greatly weakened he directed his hive fleets to begin their probing strikes on the Imperium.

His hatred of the Emperor and quest for vengeance lead him to alter his own dna to enhance his psychic powers and 'improve' his human form...

Transformed into a twisted inhuman monstrosity he now seeks the genocide of all humanoids while still nursing an obsessive hatred ( and fear?) of the Emperor which bodes ill for the Imperium of mankind...

The Hive mind is probably the greatest weakness of the Tyranids despite his incredible psychic strength - if he could be destroyed the Tyranid threat to the Imperium at large would melt away...

An interesting idea. Sort of neat to see something different than "the Zerg Overmind" (I know Nids are older), or the Outsider C'Tan. Still, the Emperor isn't a powerful psyker; he's an amalgam of powerful psykers, so please be careful before you throw up another one who is "naturally occurring", but who the Ruinous Powers didn't get to long before he could pull a Khan, and run for the edges of space, to wait out the bad times.

I know DAoT stuff is usually great, but why so in a ship(s)? Did they have real hyperdrives, way back then? To the best of my knowledge, Imperial warp travel has been our Imperial warp travel for much of this time, and you Navigator might have a lot more to do with awesome than your drive. Of course, I could be missing something.

One thing; the Hive Mind never seems to have a maximum range. Now, if the Hive Mind is the gestalt consciousness of all Tyranids, then this makes sense, because as long as there are Nids, or at least upper echelons of them (Synapse Beasts, Zoanthropes, Tyrants, Norn Queens) there will be a Hive Mind, but if that force is one man, such as the Outsider, or your idea, does he have a range? Does the Conqueror even need to come into Imperial space? Sure, he might be nigh-all powerful, but killable, like the Emperor was, but if he never needs to come into the Imperium's backyard, with the way our warp travel works, and the limit of the Astronomicon's light, we'd never be able to reach him. Here's hoping one of those lost Space Marine Chapters was sent out to kill this thing, so they've had 10,000+ years to look, plan, and possibly execute.

Interesting ideas

He could have disciples that might have once been human like himself and share his hatred for the "unchanged".

Are you going with the notion that the current hive fleets are merely tendrils of the "real" massive hive fleet that the imperium would barely beat away?

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Strategic_Collective

Kerrigan who? Most of a decade ago, I had a terrible idea of Librarian who got infested, sort of a way for the Hive Mind to learn more about Mankind, in an effort to harvest us better, and also to get a Librarian with focused Warp Blast and Warp Field, but that was just to imagine a cool mini on tabletop, and because Kerrigan was cool, that way.

Interesting ideas

He could have disciples that might have once been human like himself and share his hatred for the "unchanged".

Are you going with the notion that the current hive fleets are merely tendrils of the "real" massive hive fleet that the imperium would barely beat away?

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Strategic_Collective

The disciples thing is good - how about sons with the same warp invisibility possessed by the Sons of the Emperor? (Referring back to the original 'Realms of Chaos' ideas).

The general immunity of tyranids to daemonic possession could indicate that the DNA of these Sons is present within them somehow?

To your other point yes - the fleets so far have been probes to evaluate the strength and reaction times of the Imperium. This has been lacklustre enough that the hate filled Hive mind is likely to be drawn in to attack Terra itself along with a Hive Fleet that would completely dwarf anything that has been seen before...

Edit - this isn't necessarily a bad thing - if the Hive Mind was more wary it could just sit back and throw near limitless forces at the Imperium over several thousand years until it was worn down and eventually overwhelmed completely - the Imperium just could not survive such a war of attrition with its lousy replacement rates.

I sort of assumed Nids were immune to possession because they lacked individual souls. They are like animals, and without the spark of real sentience, and a certain amount of free will, with which to sin, they are sort of untouchable to the Ruinous Powers. Also, they are all sort of soul-bound, in a way, to the Hive Mind, and it's noise, maybe also its Shadow, protects its critters, while you have to decide how their "psychic powers" are, or are NOT connected to the Warp, at all. This isn't to say that Chaos has no effect on the Tyranids; the Nid Codex for 6th-7th ed is crap, because the Nids are, right now, but one of the best blurps in it is p.28, with the Fall of Shadowbrink. If you hate Grey Knights (I pity you, because they are awesome, and I'm saying that pre this most recent codex, back when Daemonhunters and Witch Hunters were codexes), they get their noses bloodied a bit, and the rest is a wonderfully written struggle between the Nids and Daemons, while one weakens the other, while having its own forces mutated into dead crap. You should read it, if only to warrant the expense of the codex.

Resolving issues doesn't make something less predictable. It resolves, hence closes some doors. That removes possibilities. Sure, you create more options from each door closed, but that can be accomplished without closing any doors at all. It seems you want to push the 40k timeline forward and play in a different galaxy. Or maybe you want your players to play in a galaxy that is spiraling out of control. Is that what your players also want?

As far as I can see barring the addition of Necrons and Tau (which despite flogging some figures haven't really had much impact) the basic WH40K universe has remained fundamentally frozen since the old WH40K Rogue Trader book came out - the Emperor is still not dead, the Imperium is still not collapsed etc. etc.

There is effectively no meta plot because the meta level stuff never changes - this currently relegates PCs to fight inconsequential battles that never really change anything - like playing the old arcade space invaders - no matter how many you shoot there are always more.

This is a rather odd basis for an RPG but fine for wargames.

It sits there the same way our own lives sort of sit there. We set out to topple an enemy regime, and another takes its place (hail Hydra?) We go to work, the job rarely gets better, but what will you do? The Emperor can't really die, or the Imperium will change, and then the people will have to argue as to how that change will happen, which is worse than it just continuing on. The Eldar won't fade, the Orks aren't going anywhere, the Newcrons will continue to be "waking up", because they could eat whole sectors, otherwise, and on. So many people say they want the meta-plot to proceed, but no one seems to know, or at least agree, where that meta-plot should go. Do you want Creed to fail, and Abaddon to seize Cadia? Do you want the Emperor to succumb, or wake up, and watch the Imperium die either way? Do the Orks, Eldar, or Tau even really HAVE a true meta-plot? They just sort of exist, and occasionally interact with Mankind, often to their detriment.

Hmmm...the longest-running and most popular RPG game world I can think of was Forgotten Realms, and while they did go through a couple deity resets the original concept was to supply DMs with that unchanging world that the DMs could allow the characters to bring about change in. Of course that differs greatly from the 40k baseline whose PCs are too insignificant to affect such wide-ranging changes.

Now White Wolf did have an evolving world-plot and eventually they destroyed their world. That didn't go over so well with the fan base. So I have to respectfully disagree with your assumption that a changing metaplot is normal. I think it is the exception.

Yep, whether Mystra is dead (gods I hated 4th ed), or whether you're in the Underdark, things in FR really didn't change. Elminster didn't go kill Szass Tam, and you probably weren't going to, either, nor was the Sage of Shadowdale likely to die, love him or loathe him. Most people weren't too pleased with the death of Khelban "Blackstaff", to the point the story he died in had caveats for Arunsun to come back in. One of the great things, to me, about Forgotten Realms was all the spaces were filled in. You might not've liked it, and I can certainly see why, as it can stifle creative adventures (pirate maps were great because all the spaces WEREN'T filled in ,and who knows what might be where?), but if I didn't have any creativity at that moment, it was nice of FR to tell me what city was there, who was in charge, and on, but to maintain that accuracy, it didn't change much, unless your players caused it (their job?), and then you had best take notes, such as if you married Alusair Obarskyr, and became Prince Regent of Cormyr, just to make something big up. The elves did their retreat, as all variants of Elves/Eldar are sort of required to do, thanks to Tolkien, but they sort of came back, because Elf is a great race to play. It had some options for shifting meta-plot, but even were you playing Epic D&D, and I don't wholeheartedly suggest you ever do that, the world is so vast, and filled with so many subplots, your ability to really change everything, even anything , is limited. The same is true in 40K. I know several things I would gladly change, were the plot to move forward, and know many people would hate them.

One thing, I'm not so fond of putting such a singular mind behind the Nids. I'm one of those rare breed members who liked the Necrons a lot more before they were de-Schwartennegared, and became "Tomb Kings in Spess". They didn't need a lot of background, and story; they were just a force that time forgot, and now they're back. To have them be suave, diplomatic, fearful, and all that other crap sort of took something away, for me, from the cold army that "just showed up", and ate all of your tanks. They weren't necessarily the ancient enemy of the Eldar, who have several "ancient enemies", nor were they teaming up with Space Marines, or any of that. No real goal, no friends; just an overarching desire to kill all life, because it was there, and the Masters were hungry (and still their masters, then). Do you ever play sports games? Remember the old days, when you didn't build your dream team, crippling every other team, by taking their best, and trading them crap? You didn't need to play a whole season, and see how your team did; you could just play a quick match against a buddy, whatever teams you wanted, and see who won. I looked at Oldcrons the same way. This game I am playing is a stand-alone match. It neither imports anything from a previous episode, nor exports anything to an upcoming one, and I don't care about their ham-fisted fluff while I'm trying to just murder a unit of IG, of whom we never discussed what world we were on, what actual regiment they were, or why the Guard were there; that's the job of Dawn of War, or some other thing. Trying to make the force behind the Nids have character, when a force of nature usually doesn't...well, it is your thing, certainly, so if it works for you, just ignore my pointless rambling, and sorry, I went off into "is he still talking about this crap?" land, somewhere along the way.

You should be aware that your idea of giving the hive mind human motivations will also strip the Tyranid race of all its scary aspects. What makes the Tyranids so interesting and so frightening is that they are so alien to us. They are a force of nature that can't be reasoned or negotiated with, one that destroys galaxies for no purpose that we can truly understand. Once you put a human in charge, they become understandable, or even relatable in some distant way. Ironically, your attempt at making Tyranids more interesting is likely to make them less interesting in your game, even though you and your players may not be able to quite figure out why that is.

Not everything needs to be explained or understood. Some things work much, much better when they aren't.

Yes, it kind of turns the Tyranids from a grisly force of nature into a mere tool. What's more, a tool wielded by yet another human in a universe that seems to consist of 2/3 of humans when it comes to background. Not to mention the close proximity to Kerrigan's Zerg both in tactics as well as vengeance as the ultimate goal (although true to 40k, of course in this concept it had to be yet another male human ).

That being said, preferences will differ. Obviously, OP likes the idea, so chances are others will too. It certainly is the kind of stuff I'd run by the players in my group first, though, as it will undoubtedly be a somewhat controversial interpretation.

If you are into anime; Suggested watching would inlude Knight of Sidonia(both seasons, but especially the second) the Gauna (hive minded alien species, with montrous adaptability) and the plans of Oschiai (human scientist researchin them smack right at Tyranid alley). One of the questions in story is that is it even possible to communicate between species. A guaranteed Tsumotu Nihei weirdness (Blame!, Biomega etc). Also the Gargantia, might prove some ideas about how far posthumans could genengineer themselves.

./At0miclich

... although the 2nd season sadly dives head first back into a whole array of horrible clichés the series managed to avoid at first. From the overused harem trope to a near-complete loss of its aspirations to Grimdark and hard sci-fi. Personally, I was rather disappointed, given how great the series started out. :/

Still, there's some cool ideas in there.

... although the 2nd season sadly dives head first back into a whole array of horrible clichés the series managed to avoid at first. From the overused harem trope to a near-complete loss of its aspirations to Grimdark and hard sci-fi. Personally, I was rather disappointed, given how great the series started out. :/

Still, there's some cool ideas in there.

Nailed it head on. And the backround really has strange wonkiness "photosynthesizing" transhumans living on starlight :/

There couple older serieses that i might recommend but a the at moment I scratching my head which they were.

./At0miclich

And the backround really has strange wonkiness "photosynthesizing" transhumans living on starlight :/

That part I actually found fascinating. It seems pretty clear to me that it was inserted mainly for fanservice (naked chicks), but there is some scientific background here. If a series spends some thought on how stuff like this can be explained, I usually let it slide. Much like how the spacesuits' urine-to-water recycling was a clever way to appeal to some people's "pee fetish" whilst still maintaining a totally straight face in that one scene . Makes me wonder if Space Marines would do something similar now.

Usually I also criticise anime when its cast is too young and there are next to no "proper" adults around, but here, too, the series has delivered a rather clever excuse.

There couple older serieses that i might recommend but a the at moment I scratching my head which they were.

Blue Gender? Or even Neon Genesis Evangelion, considering how the "Angels" work.