Okay, guys. I am by far and away, NOT a Warhammer fluff guru. But I enjoy the setting, and moreso, I'd like to run a Deathwatch game focusing on Hive Fleet Dagon, and more specifically, the stuff that I'm pretty sure is not explicitly mentioned anywhere. As such, I'm asking less for specific examples or mentions in the books or something, and more for ideas based on what we know.

What is the origin of the Tyranids? Why do they do nothing but consume, produce more Tyranids, and then keep consuming?

I know the basic answer to that is 'because that's what they do' and that's totally cool with me. But what if, there was something at the center of it all? As an example: Nids consume biomatter, which is used to produce more Nids. But what if they actually have a goal in mind? What if they're consuming biomatter to eventually give birth to… something else? A god, perhaps.

That's just a basic idea, but I'd love to hear stuff from fluff gurus or just any ideas in general.

Well, it's your lucky day. There's very little fluff at all, there's a smattering of fan theories, and there's a lot of room for you to do whatever you damned well want and no one can call you out on it.

What we KNOW is that the Nids come from outside of the galaxy and some version of fluff say that the Eldar believe that the final battle in the galaxy will be against the Tyranids. The Silent King, the one time ruler of the Necrontyr wandered for a time outside the galaxy and has recently run back in, trying to negotiate peace between teh various races of the galaxy and the Necrontyr empires in order to fight off a wave of Tyranids he saw incoming.

There are rumoured statements that the Nids are just stocking up in this galaxy before preparing to move on, because they are fleeing something even more terrifying.

As for fan theories, I think everyone has their own. I'll be kinda quiet on mine (although it's quite a popular one and I'm not as original as I thought I was, apparently) because I have players I think occasionally rummage through these forums. If you have a nascent god theory, develop it, run it, and let us know what it is and how it goes!

See, that's actually super helpful. I was considering linking the Omega Vault's reveals to the encroaching Nid invasion, which gives it a much more 'this is important' feel. Like I read in another thread that one of the reveals was actually a clock ticking down time, which just by itself meant nothing at all, but then two Inquisitors, one wearing a mask, actually show up to discuss it. And then the Eldar believing them to be the 'endgame' battle, and the bit about The Silent King--all awesome bits of things I did not know but helps ratchet up the tension.

Thank you sir!

Like Prof. Kylan said, they come from outside our galaxy; the implication is that they 'consumed' all available organic matter in their own galaxy, and were forced to travel hundereds/thousands/millions of years through the void to reach our galaxy and start again. Basically they are cosmic locusts, consuming everything in their path and moving on, leaving lifeless wasteland their wake.

Also they're drawn to the Astronomicon like a moth to a candle.

They are Mass Effect Reapers, made of flesh, come to kull the galaxy of advanced life… No? Okay, them someone will come up with something else. Like many things, they like to leave it necessarily vague, so you can do what you want, and so they can add cool stuff in, next edition. They might be the last weapon made by the Old Ones, to fight the Necrons, or something such a race was working on, that went terribly wrong. They are the game's resident Hive Mind, and the resident bugs, and they often get to be the Zerg-like proof that, no matter how good your tech becomes, nor how smart you think you are, you can be washed away in an instant by a swarm of mindless, thoughtless bugs, with nothing but gene-generated weapons, and massive numbers. They don't compromise, or allow diplomacy, and they show no mercy.

As much as I, personally, don't favor the new Necron fluff, I would be very interested in what might come of some "official" conflict between them and the Nids. In many ways, they are each other's antithesis, and the battles could be fun to witness. Little for tactics, just pitched assaults of attrition, as Nids swarm the eternal machines, and swathes of them disappear in a green, baleful haze, as the Gauss weapons rip them apart. Some Nids would heal, the Necrons would Come Back, and it would be teleporting borgs vs tides of chitinous death. Yeah, that would be awesome to see. Maybe not on table top, where I think Necrons would get pwned, but in fluff, or with RPG rules from DW and BC, it could really be something.

Another interesting theory is that the Tyranids are an Anti-Chaos evolution, what with the whole "Shadow in the warp" deal that messes with the Daemons.

Another interesting thing to note it that The tyranids are also moving towards the Eye of Terror. The Imperium may just be unlucky enough to be directly in the way.

Another theory is that the tyranids are attracted by the light of the Astronomican.

Maybe the Hive Mind is lonely and seeks another? (Edit: Regarding seeking the Astronomican)

Seems like the Tyranids might embody what happens if a psychically capable species becomes too centrally controlled and messes around with genetics too much - sort of a genetic hive singularity.

Anyway, just a random thought.

(Edit: Oops, hit Reply when I meant Quote. Oh well.)

But maybe they're zerg! And some race of genetically overconfident xenos created them to be the perfect new aliens! Wait…

Have you seen StarCraft II zerg? The zerg aren't nearly as hyperfocused and mindless as the original game and Brood War made them out to be. The named units have a lot more individual personality than any named tyranid. That comes with the territory of characters, and the Zerg Swarm isn't near comparable to a single Hive Fleet. There are some stylistic comparisons but IMO ultimately the tyranids are more like xenomorphs than zerg in mindset.

I'm actually pretty interested in the idea of this 'Anti-Chaos' thing. Can a Tyranid be corrupted by Chaos, or would possibly the Hive Mind corrupt Chaos (which sounds weird, but, we're throwing around hypotheticals here). What would happen if Dagon got to the Hadex Anomaly?

I think canonically they cannot be corrupted by chaos due to the Shadow in the Warp.

Hm.

I've had this theory that the Warp in other galaxies is not near as messed up as that in the Milky Way. Like perhaps out there there are barricades of a "do not enter - contamination zone" erected by the Warp-denizens who don't want to be contaminated by the Chaos Gods.

Certainly in another galaxy (let's say Pegasus), the Tyranids could have evolved or been made by something to combat a similar Warp-intrusion as we in the Milky Way have experienced…then they went out of control.

Food for thought.

I always sort of figured that the hive fleets were a tool for a larger being or power, like the Flood or the necromorphs (Halo and Dead Space, respectively.) I sort of like the idea that they are anti-Chaos engines, though. The problem that I routinely run into is this: If there is a larger objective to the hive fleets than simply consuming bio-matter for survival, then why do they display so little strategy or tactical acumen? It seems like, if they were working to advance some sort of god, there would be more movement of armies, transportation of bio-matter, etc. I don't know, but it's intriguing.

I believe one of the Iron Hands novels (Storm of Iron?) mentions a Hive Ship corrupted and controlled by the Obliterator virus.

The Lexicanum wiki states fairly explicitly (though I'm not sure of its source) that the 'nids have devoured several dozen galaxies before the Milky Way, and that Imperial projections show that what has been seen in the tabletop so far is simply the vanguard of an absolutely unstoppable force. This means in terms of the 'official' Deathwatch setting with Hive Fleet Dagon that this is only the beginning of the endless swarm of nids.

As to Chaos Corruption, I'd have thought not - they're basically one vast mind that, while psychic, blocks warp access like an untouchable. Also, pretty much all they apparently want is to eat and to gain biomass - it's hard to tempt someone with more power when they've already got tonnes of it anyway.

And yes, the Warp probably is not as screwed up in other places - the Warp only became the mess it is now because of the war between the Old Ones and the Necrons and C'tan. The Old Ones were so psychically powerful that their collective racial terror of destruction screwed the warp over and led to the Enslavers. As the Warp is emphatically linked to the real world, presumably in other galaxies where similar events didn't happen, the Warp wouldn't be so bad.

I just realized I typed in "Iron Hands" instead of "Iron Warriors", and it won't seem to let me edit it just now. How embarassing.

AlphariusOmegon7 said:

Maybe its just me who wants to be positive, but I don't think that the Tyranids are unstoppable although they will be hard to defeat and will in the coming centures probably replace both the Orks and Chaos as the most widespread source of war and misery in the galaxy. Although of course just because the Tyranids CAN be stopped don't mean that the Imperium will be able to do it.