Adeptus Ridiculous - THE HORROR AND HATE OF THE TYRANID HIVE MIND | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: September 20, 2023

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousThe Tyranids, also known as The Great Devourer are an extragalactic alien race, whose sole purpose is the consumption of all forms of genetic and biological material in order to evolve and reproduce. Tyranid technology is based entirely on biological engineering. Every function is carried out by living, engineered creatures, each of which collectively forms the Hive Fleet, directed by a single Hive Mind. Support the show

Welcome, everyone, to another episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous Podcast. My name is D.K. Diomonti's. His name is Bricky. And what a wonderful morning to bathe in the grim darkness of 40K. But before we do, if you enjoyed today's episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous podcast, consider maybe supporting us over at patreon.com slash Adeptus Ridiculous. We can get access to our Discord, bloopers if they happen. The $15 tier gets you access to all of the digital HD poster. it's wonderful consider patreon.com

slash adeptus ridiculous. Bricky tell them about the book and the merch and Well, we're reading Eisenhorn, good old Zeno, so better read that book because it's great stuff. I actually have two big merch announcements I'd like to say. Ooh. The first one is that for those of you who did not get a chance to pick up one of the

music of the third mats. They have been restocked. Hell yeah. You can now grab yourself a music of the third mat. And if you'd like, they also come in poster and apparel form. So if you want to grab one of those, you may. And the second one is interesting. So we have finally acquired an embroidery machine.

No. We are going to. begin production on possibly some hats and headwear. Oh, let's go! We are doing a quick test run. So on the store, you will find the Adrick hat. It says Adrick, nice and embroidered the whole thing. We are selling 50.

5.0. And that's it. Just to test out the shipping parameters, what to ship it in, make sure quality is good, all that. So if you want to grab one of the new AdRick hats, there are 50 currently available. Once those go through and we make sure we really nail down

the process, we might have more in other varieties and variations. Hell yeah, exclusive first run, let's go. So check it out in the store at Orchidate.com down in the description.

Hell yeah. Oh, that's high. year. That's hype. There's so many designs that we'd be like, ooh, wouldn't this be great on a hat? We should do a hat. Oh, that's going to open up so many merch possibilities. Let's go. Speaking of, we might have a, I haven't told you to, well, I've shown you a little bit, but Halloween is, is shaping up to be quite the time. I know what you're talking about. Let's, yeah. Okay, okay, okay. So everyone, you know, just get prepped for some Halloween stuff. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

All right. So, D.K. Yes, sir. I hope you will be happy to hear that I don't really have a quote for you today. Oh, those are my favorite words. When you say those words, it is just, there's like a weight that just lifts off my shoulders, because I know that, well, I'm probably going to sound like an idiot today at some point, but at least, you know, not for me.

the quote. Not for the quote. I mean, there are many, you know, there's actually a pretty famous quote that is from the Tyrannids, which this is what is about the Tyrannids, by the way. Spoilers! Yeah, I know. I realized that after I said it and I was like, shit! I'm going to guess this quote is about the Tyrannins. Are we talking about Tyrannids today? Tyrannins? If you remember the good old, what is it, the, um, the first like Tyran War, There's that quote from the Adeptus Mechanicus guy who's like mankind cannot survive this

by the machine god death death is here. Yeah. Appropriate for the Tyrannids too. Yeah. Just a way of death. With 10th edition that has rolled around along with the newest big bad being high fleet

Leviathan coming to the world and causing problems for the, well just everyone. if I'm being perfectly honest. The first ever codex of 10th edition has been released. Oh. And it would be the Tiritid codex. Oh, okay.

So they've got a bunch of new rules, a bunch of, I'm assuming there's some lore in the codex. Cool, cool. Yes. So remember back when we would do a couple episodes on me grabbing the codex, kind of rifling through it, seeing there's any cool, interesting lore,

personally, one of my favorite ones that we did for that was the World Leaders one. Just really fun. Yeah, I'm assuming that's what today's episode is going to be. We're going to rifle through this codex and make a stopping point on all the interesting markers. Little bits, a little bit of that, a little bit of just talking about nids in general. And also some fun excerpts I've found along the way. Cool. Also, maybe a bit of complaining.

Uh-oh. Complaining because they're too good? Or complaining because stuff doesn't make sense lore-wise? Neither, actually. Complaining at some games workshop stuff. Okay.

You know how all the codex art in 9th edition was really good? Oh, yeah. Well, they didn't get any new art for this edition. Oh, so it's all like reused assets that they've already shown off and it's just kind of all recycled. The codex tyranids for 10th edition

is the exact same artwork as 9th edition. It is identical. They did not get anyone to make new art. And what is even more infuriating is that if you look at the tyrannid codex, there is, I looked at the front and the back and the side. There is not a single part of it that says 10th, edition.

Oh. If you get this, you will have no idea if this is for the correct edition of Warhammer unless you look on the back and you see the photo of the Norn emissary and the Death Leaper in the minis, which you will only know as 10th edition because they came out in 10th edition. Oh, that is unfortunate. That's, ooh. What is even more unfortunate is that in the Codex, there is about half the lore in it than there was in the prior ones.

Ooh. They have massively cut down on the lore. Now, granted, the tyranids are a low lore army because they're the tyranids. Yeah, and you have to get the lore from the perspective of something that was killed by it, right? It's not like you're getting, you're not going to get a first person POV lore of the Nids, which actually would be kind of cool if you could get that because you'd have to like, it'd be like a hive mind

where it was like singing the songs of color from like Mass Effect or something, but yeah. I will say that the lore that is in here is relatively decent. Their writers still remain excellent. And I mean, granted, their artists are excellent also. The Tyrannid cover art is good. It's just reused.

That's annoying. Yeah. There is some interesting stuff here, and there's also an excerpt from a book I wanted to mention. But one of the things that they start off with is actually exactly what you referred to, which is the visual point of view of someone who has been invaded by the tyrannids. We know the classic tyrannid ammo. They arrive. They shadow in the warp, cut off all communication, and then they slowly kill you all.

It's just a wave of death. in an interesting way it kind of reminds me of mass effect like you know the usual Reaper M.O. is take over the Citadel, shut off all the mass relays, and then slowly,

slowly make their way to every single world and then kill them all. The Citadel is the big trap, right? Because every, every, they all just like, oh, this is going to be our hub. This is going to be the control point. This is where everybody gathers for intergalactic

law and then they shut down the hub. Right. Which they don't do in Mass Effect 3 because Uh Uh Oh wait, no, they don't arrive to Um, they don't take the sit

I don't think. They don't arrive to it. We're, are we kind of protecting it? Isn't that the reason why? I, you know, actually, I don't remember why. Wait, yeah, why would you Why would you attack Earth instead this? Oh, wait.

No, they attacked Earth because it was on the fringe of the galaxy because they were moving from the Batarian space. They were just so tired of Shepard thwarting their plans on the Citadel. They were like, ah, let's try something else. Yeah, when they did attack the Citadel, they did take it over in like literally 15 minutes. And then we all mass relay in for a cool space battle instead of them turning off the real. You know, Shai, Mass Effect 3, we can be on this for a while. We're going to. Oh, boy, yeah.

We're gonna, we're gonna, let's let's put this down for a sec because, oh no. So the first little excerpt that starts off here is actually pretty fun. It is from the planetary governor or, or the former governor of an area, maybe the planet, but like of an area that was taken over by the Nids. And it's actually a pretty, it's a pretty fascinating read because it's kind of like the general diary of this governor guy. He talks about how It's been four months since they came Two since I abandoned my wife and daughter to save myself I do not pray for forgiveness

For I am unworthy of it I only beseech the most holy God emperor That this record may survive The death that now rapidly engulfs my world It was talking about signs Of the tyrannid's arrival Inconspicuous deaths and murders That kind of sounded like gags

violence but weren't. Gene Steelers. Gene Steelers, acts of sabotage, vanguard organisms, which are like lictors and like the initial are like tendrils. Oh, yeah.

Because one of the tyrantids main things is to fire out like lictors and death lepers because predator allegory. And then gene stealers and just yeat them everywhere into the galaxy. And once they arrive, I kind of probe the planet for biomass. Yep. And then once they arrive, you're kind of screwed. You're, mm-mm-mm. Also, this governor, what a piece of work, abandoning his wife and children.

He is pretty melancholy in this whole excerpt. He's very much like, yeah, I deserve it to rot in hell. He's my cowardice. Yeah, yeah, self-aware, but yeah, he's still probably going to rot in hell. or whatever 40K's hell is. I guess it's the warp, but... It's the warp, yeah. Yeah. So as they went, eventually he mentioned,

the shadow descended, lost contact with neighboring worlds and naval bases, relationships with staunch friends, built up over centuries were gone with ear-bleeding astrophath screams and servitors scraped. Ooh. The, he kept this all from his people,

didn't tell any of them. Oh, it's just like the typical, well, I don't want to cause a panic. Imagine if people found out that there were maybe tear and it's coming. Everybody would lose their mind and there'd be no control. So ironically, that's what happened anyway because the shadow and the warp affects regular humans still, you know? And they begin to panic, have paranoia. And then he eventually wasn't able to hide the bioships literally in atmosphere. Yeah, kind of hard to hide that one.

Yep. So this is actually really interesting because it goes through a few of the other things that are lesser known talked about stuff in the Nids. It first off started with orbital bombardment of trillions of tons of spore matter being launched at the atmosphere. Ew. Including, you know, in bump, like, you know, screeching acids, spines, or just gestation pods filled with tyrannids. But a great portion of it would screw around with the atmosphere of the world. The southern tundras doubled in humidity and temperature. Oh, boy.

The sand flats, the devoid of all life, began to team with like alien creep, kind of like Zerg, covered in the, in Tiranid stuff. Oh, God, that sounds so gross. But so, so on par for the TIRG. and it's just so, just raining disease, basically, and just, they would continue to billow more clouds of spores. Crop fields would stop producing food

because it couldn't grow in the temperatures anymore. That makes sense. Oh, I thought you were going to say that, well, the temperature end because you know the spores and all of the death and the nids that are landing everywhere. And the, bleh. It mentioned how upon the high walls, turrets with automated

servitor slaves would fire until the barrels melted and then they couldn't fire anymore because of just the never-ending onslaught of beasts. Artillery beast. It seems like a common theme with the nids is people literally firing their gun until it just

dies out, barrel explodes, melts, no more ammo, yeah. They was talking about like, oh, yes, see the stupidity of the alien as they would like mind them to death. but then eventually they just right out of mines and they kept going and then they started bringing in

thicker larger creatures to deal with the larger guns and they adapted like within days. Yep, that's their thing. They adapt and then you die. So they eventually boarded some aircraft to fly out over to the ocean and a various couple fortresses there which they found to be a quick mistake as the team Tyrannids would rise from the water and start attacking them.

I was going to say how cute. They think flying to the water is going to save them. Adorable. They started using aircraft as a way to bomb down the Tyrannids. And then the Tyrannids responded in kind with their own winged creatures. I was going to say taking to the air is not going to save you from the nids. They have plenty of flyers to deal with your shenanigans. And it just kept on going.

But I found the most interesting part being where him and like five people survived on one of the highest mountains in the on the planet. One of them had cut themselves on a mountain rock that left the pilot screaming in agony as the wound was immediately infected. Oh no. by just the air, the spores in the air. Oh, my God, that's... It's something I never thought of. Yeah, I never thought of literally just like the air was filled with spores and bacteria from the nids to the point where one little cut,

and bha, immediate, instant infection that just leaves you writhing in agony. Oh, that's awful. I hate that. It's such a weird thing to think about, but like, yeah, a viral disease. created by the Tyrannis by bombing with spores across the planet would make a lot of sense. Yeah, it

makes sense. It tracks with the Tyrannets and it's just so... Yeah. Yeah. The, uh, a few of the other people were dragged away by other like Lictors and, and various different beasts up top.

It says, quote, a justly deserved end will soon be mine. I have failed on every possible level. We were not even able to send word. An alien disease has me within its grasp. My limbs are numb. My tongue is dry

as sand and my head throbs. Even at these chilled heights, I sweat profusely. Below me is the Rattahern ocean. The water level is visibly dropping hour by hour. They will not even

leave our water. Dang. I may be at high altitude, but the air is thinner here than it should be. I know enough about mountaineering to know that. They won't even leave our air. Oof. Yeah, they eat everything.

They take it all. It doesn't matter. Oh, man, but he is, he is, I don't want to say I'm glad he's suffering, but he, he's right. It is a well-deserved death that he's getting, because,

whew, I mean, it's just crazy to assume that, Like, yeah, if it has biomass, it must be taken. And like, yeah, the air has microorganisms. Yep, and they're going to take it. And they're going to put it in the soup. It's cream.

Soups on. Soaps on, boys. I have shown boundless weakness these past months. Even with that, oh, sorry, I see the power of our foe. And though I have shown boundless weakness these past months, I do not see how we could ever have won. that is true like there's no way they could

there's no way this planet would have survived like unless unless they had like spotted the gene stealers early been super suss of them and sent word to the Imperium

and the Imperium like brought a full force or something maybe but what are the chances of that happening blow themselves up yeah oh that's true

they could have just you know nuked the planet and just, yeah, I guess. Even that doesn't always work. That's true, the Nids would probably just adapt to the radiation and whatever. The whole, it's just, the idea that, like, okay, the Nids arrive, and they scrap the planet of everything.

It is a rock in space. It has no atmosphere or air. It has no water. It has no anything. It's just a floating asteroid. It literally becomes a moon. Jeez. That's...

Man, like, you know the tyranids eat everything, but just, I don't know. When you hear about the governor being like, yeah, they're eating the air. It's just like, that's crazy. It's, it's, and it's a really, um, creepy way to realize that. Like, I've been a mountaineer for a bit. I know the air should not be this thin. Yeah, they won't even leave the air alone. It's a really panic-inducing thing to think about.

Oh, yeah, definitely. So going through this codex, they talk about the psychic warfare, the shadow in the warp. Shadow in the warp, of course, normally astropaths, like, it's already bad for you in like a mental state. But, you know, the regular people often experience extreme. fear, paranoia, outrage. So even before the Nids arrive, they'll often be, like, rioting and, like, doomsday cults breaking apart the entirety of the planet to begin with. Oh, so it's even worse because, like, the populace is completely paranoid and already

turning against themselves. And then the Nid show up. And then the Nid show up. Oh, great. It's a two-for-one special, everybody. Of course, using psychic powers in general is a pretty quick way to blow your head up. Astropaths try to send word sometimes it works, so they like really push themselves. What was the one in the Leviathan thing?

The astropath sent word and burst every blood vessel in their body. Oh, I don't remember that, but holy. They did it, but oh, God. Yeah, but obviously, you know, there are variations to it, like a space marine psycher is different than a,

oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of the psychic warfare is pretty, pretty nasty. Yeah. There's an interesting... There's a really interesting, fascinating thing here, though,

and it's titled Inexplicable Phenomena. And it says that the longer the scholars of the galaxy study the tyranan menace, the more bewildered they become of the Xenos interactions with the warp. In some ways, the tyranids appear

empirically inert. They have, order of Zenos have seen at times where splinter fleets will be swallowed by warp rents only to emerge from the imiterium completely unfazed in a different region of the galaxy.

Oh. Just randomly get swallowed up by the warp because of random warp stuff. and appear elsewhere unchanged. Not like nothing going on. Wow, that's, that's a, that's a pretty impressive little thing. Because when you get swallowed into the warp, isn't it just like, oh, here's just a flood of demons everywhere. Don't have a Gellerfield?

Too bad. Here's the demons. Yeah, which is kind of, yeah, kind of weird though, because obviously in lore, there are times in which the nids do fight demons. has happened before. Yeah, yeah. It's not like they're immune to demons and the warp. It's just the shadow of it, right? Well, the shadow of the warp is like the unhealthily gigantic psychic signal that is sent.

Yeah. Which obviously, like, obviously the Tirenids utilize the warp. Like, it has to go through that if you're going to mess with psychers. Yeah. The question is, why are they unaffected? Yeah. But also in a weird way, you know, yeah, they hate fighting demons because demons provide zero biomass. Oh, yeah, I guess that's true because they just end up respawning back in the warp at some point.

Do demons just, like, disappear when you kill them? In real space? Yeah. Yeah, like their warps stuff just gets sucked back into the warp again. Oh, I guess I didn't, I guess I just thought like when a demon died, it just like, it was like a whole rebirth. like their old body would still be there but they would just get, you know, respondent.

I think they're like implode. They're like, oh, okay. I never, yeah, okay. Yeah, then yeah, the tyranids would absolutely hate demons and fighting them because, yeah, no food, no biomass.

They just implode on themselves and disappear. Yeah, they'd hate that. Though, I wonder, like, why, because, because it looks like a corn, right? corn would probably despise the tyranids because there's no real martial prowess in it

there's not really like a like a this sport of murder it's just kind of instinct I think Nurgle probably would love them because of the amount of toxins and stuff Oh yeah Nergel and the Nids probably go hand in hand like Nurgle just

man I am eating good when the nids are around actually I guess you might consider Nurgle not like them. Really? Because yeah, because there's no like true death or rot or decay because everything is reused and reutilized. Oh, well that's true. Everything just kind of just gets turned into a slurry. So it just kind of gets repurposed into Biomaster turned into more nids and more stuff. There is actually a fascinating little bit, an excerpt here of the Death Guard fighting the

Tyrannids. Oh, that would be an interesting. fight. It says the doom of Hess Victorian's fourth and seventh engaged in the Tyrannid's High Fleet amidst the seeming jungle when the swarms deploy toxic greens and venomthropes to poison the environment, the death

guard respond with plague spells, virus bombs, and demonic diseases. With neither side willing to back down, the atmosphere of Hess becomes even more toxic until the jungles and even the warring armies are reduced to a gory, bubbling soup. The first

Tyrannid hive ship to taste this poison slurry recoils, its probosciscus melting, and is bombarded into oblivion by the rest of the fleet. Oh, wow. Hesph is left an endless sea of toxic slime too virulent for even the hive fleets to devour. Which is hilarious.

Wow, it's so toxic. It's so gross that even if the tyranids drank the biomass, like, What is it? It's a prank. That's pretty great, actually. Or it's rank. It's just a prank, bro.

Like the damn, the damn of death. They spiked the soup. That is a gigantic Nergel W right there. Oh, that's a huge Nergel W that they made the soup so gross that even the nids couldn't drink it. And the nids that did drink it died. that's great All the death guard like died too

all the Nergal force The atmosphere was so toxic They just bubbled to a soup That's Yeah a fight between the Nids And the Death Guard is just Oh You wouldn't want to be on the

On the planet While that's happening That is true Uh Shai makes a great point Nids did You want to read this one? Go ahead Sure

Nids figured out a way To fight chaos though They have specialized anti-chaos that have lots of cycor bugs to counter warp and Leviathan fleet collects food from other non-chaus worlds

and feeds anti-chaos force cool yeah it's interesting the um chronos do because I know that the high fleet still has to deal with chaos because chaos is the gigantic realm of the immaterial

you know it's the end of the yang um but I think it's just like I don't think either force really likes fighting the nids, and the nids don't really like fighting demons for the most part. I do sometimes wonder, because we discussed the hive mind, right? Yeah. And there's a little excerpt on the hive mind in this book, and it basically says what we think it says,

which is, we have no idea what it is. Of course. No one's ever actually seen the hive mind or the hive queen or, or whatever's at the center of the timeline, right? Oh, have we? I believe, I always say one space marine, but I think there's two. I always get this screwed up, and I'm always corrected on it. I believe our chief librarian Tigarius, and I think Mephiston of the Blood Angels.

Oh, Mifistin Red. Yeah, there might be another one. I may missing, I think I do this every time, but I believe they are the only psychers to have ever peered into the hive mind for a very short, and I mean a short period of time. Yeah, I got to believe if you peer too long into the hive mind, it is just going to blow your head clean off. You just, you just evaporate into a mist like that. Which is kind of what I wonder, because like, what do we refer to the hive mind as? Because there's the, it's a very short excerpt in this book, but it's like,

The magist biologists can't really determine what it is, even though the swarm makes its way towards the galactic core. Some say it is a synaptic control web by, well, it is a synaptic control web, specialized by the node beasts and stuff and the synapse creatures. But is it like, is the alien senties,

is it a god? Is it a galactic metapreditor, gestalt psychic presence? Is it just the combined psychic, might of the Norn queens together does every creature have like a psychic power much like the Eldar

and therefore but unlike the Eldar who have kind of have their own gods is this all just one really big god not really know who knows you think they'll ever say

you think we'll ever find out what the hive mind actually is you think they'll ever do that so it's hard to determine One, I don't know if they should because it kind of removes a little bit of the intrigue of the nids. Yeah, and mystique, and it's not like it's not like you're ever going to be able to field

the hive mind because why would you? It's not like they're going to make a mini for the damn thing. So as a lore piece, it probably would be better if it just stayed a mystery. That being said, I guess one of my theories is that, so the nids are fiercely intelligent. We're aware of this. Mm-hmm.

And if the Nids have this level of psychic power and mental and mental like the shadow and the warping on stuff, like, I want to make this clear. The Nids know, like can know what humans are doing. Oh, yeah. Because they have this level of psychic power. If the hive mind and the Nidz wanted to literally communicate, they could. This isn't the alien doesn't understand English. Like, with this psychic power, it makes complete sense that if the hive mind wanted to communicate, it absolutely can. I had never thought about that.

And just the fact that it's like, oh, yeah, if the high of mind wanted to, it could talk to us. But no, it chooses to eat everything and you and your family because it probably thinks you are just a low level intelligence that is not worthy of being communicated with. Oh, hell yeah. Oh, I never thought about that at all. Shai and I were literally sharing the same brain cell. You want to read this? Sure. In the short story shadow of Leviathan,

Tigarius is confronted by a malseptor, which was seemingly sent by the hive mind specifically to assassinate him. Tigerius kills it and looks into its mind. His thoughts were ground under the relentless clamor of an alien intelligence far older and crueler than he had ever suspected. This intelligence was nothing like the others. The Leviathan was stronger than the behemoth and more dangerous than the kraken. Worse, he'd been wrong.

There was a mind there amidst the hunger, a true mind, a fierce self-awareness that put the torch to every assumption and scrap of knowledge about the tyrannids that he'd possessed. And that mind hated him. It wanted vengeance. It wanted him. For the first time, Varro Tigerius felt the first stirrings of fear. Such a thing could not be defeated. His will was as nothing next to that of the hive mind. It would devour him and then Kenterpure. And after that, the subsector, it could not be stopped.

Even Holy Terra would fall. Ooh. So, I mean, it makes sense. there is a question, you know, like, does the mind hate him for basically murdering this Malicepter? Does it hate him as in the humanity, the species? It's, you know, it's obviously, like, there's obviously something here with with sentience and understanding. Based on what we know about the warp, there is no way for us to doubt that it could

communicate with us if it wants to, but it will not, it refuses to, and it decides instead to just murder us. Well, I mean, I guess to the hive mind, we are

not the top of the food chain, right? We're kind of somewhere in the middle and they're at the top of the food. It'd be like if we tried to communicate with chickens, right? We could. We're not gonna. I'll take a six piece meal.

Thank you. It would be like the chicken, like trying to communicate with us. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's like, no, I'll just take a KFC bucket. I'll take a family meal. Thanks. See, it says, that's, yeah, it is not able to be communicated with.

We are simply prey to be found and devoured. But how it hates us, who knows, it's, we know. We know that the Tyrannids come from the galactic void, the dark between stars. Interestingly enough, there is an excerpt on the silent king, good old Zeric, where he talks about quickly rising up the necrons on the fringes of space, hundreds of worlds, and they are entirely dedicated to keeping the nids at bay. So there is a part of space That is full to the brim of Cron's And they are all being directed by the king To deal with the tyrannid one of the tyrannid tendrils

Oh boy That is That's a lot That is a whole lot of just everything That's a lot The Silent King is not a great guy But he seems to be one of the few altruistic people for his own species

where he's like if the TIRNids eat everything we'll never get our bodies back Yeah and you'll never get your empire back You'll never be able to take anything back If the Nids turn everything into biomass soup So other than that And you know actually what last thing

On the warp question If the hive mind is just a It could be a god far as we know it could be just the insane might of all the Norn queens together. Who knows? I wonder if the demons are like, whoa, now, okay, a big man on campus,

I'm just not going to touch that. Because there's just no point. Like, why would I even bother dealing with the Tyrannid bioships? Yeah, although, I mean, chaos probably has the, I don't want to say chaos has the best chance of fighting the Nids because, like, the Nids

can't eat them. But... The best chance is, the necrons, I honestly think. Yeah, the necrons seem... Well, you need a lot more necrons. You need a lot more tomb worlds to wake up, right? Because then you can sort of even out the numbers a little bit.

I think it's mainly because once a necrone dies, it's translocated back to the monolith and then can be remade. Oh, true, true. Or... Does it technically, like, do Niz eat necrons? Because they can turn them into biomass, yes? No, they're just metal shells. That's true.

Well, I mean, metal, you could still break that down into something, right? It leaves something behind. You could probably. They'll eat probably the water and the air, but I don't think you can turn necrons into anything. Oh, okay. Though I will say, I think orcs might be an okay chance. Remember the orc battle with Cripman where the two of them fought each other for so long, the orcs kept getting stronger and bigger, and the nids kept more phyomass.

Pretty hilarious. The orcs might have an okay chance. Yeah, I guess the orcs would. Orks too stupid, though. So they actually have a really interesting excerpt about Tyrannid bio ships as well. More particularly, so a Tyrannid bio ship, Shai can post a picture or two. These are like colossal, gigantic ships with huge maws covered in tentacles that like, We'll reach out and grab ships and break them apart.

Yeah, yeah, it's the, I saw the trailer for that one game, the cinematic one, and it has the bio ships that are literally eating and taking chunks out of other ships. Yeah, the Battlefleet Gothic, I think, is what it was. Yeah, oh, those are, those are very cool, very gross. But yeah, I love those. And that was a hell of a cinematic, too. There is a part, uh, there's a segment in here talking about not just bio, and what they are, but also the act of boarding one.

Oh, yeah, that'd probably be pretty gross because it's a living ship. Right, so the interior is horribly dark, but what's interesting is that it's very difficult to know where you're boarding. So sometimes you'll board one area, and it'll turn out to be a sack of assum, or a spotting chamber for mallocks, and you're like, oh, God, Oh yeah, you don't want to be there. You definitely don't want to spawn in on the on the Mollock breeding tubes.

It's apparently just covered in viscous, dark conditions, encounters with pulsating encephalic matter, creeping tentacles with black orbs for eyes, nests of needle-like teeth, and chambers filled with choking spores and toxic miasma. Furthermore, survivors tell a bizarre gravidic and sonic effects, as well as clouds of biostatic

screwing with rendering, scanning, render scanning, navigational and targeting equipment. The worst thing, so survivors say, is that the bioship itself knows its insides

have been invaded and reacts like a physical body trying to inspell an infection, sealing and opening channels within itself, the beast corrals its invaders where it wills. Those who escape entrapment

and the crushing of the walls like an arterial passageway will find themselves, soon covered in corrosive iCore, digestive juices, choking gases, or vicious warrior organisms flooding the chambers they occupy. Ew. That's so gross. But so on point for the Tion.

But I do kind of love the fact that it reacts the way anybody would to, like, a foreign entity. It walls off where you are, and then it sends in, like, the white blood cells to just crush you because you're you're a foreign matter in the body I kind of dig that that's cool there's a great excerpt later on about a commissar who fights one of those new tiernan models

the neuro tyrant like the floating brain bug and as it slowly makes its way towards her and her guardsman like it's an ear shredding migraine just impossible to handle but when it gets really close to her

she just can't move her entire body is completely limp and she's staring out with her eyes and the thing just kind of grabs her very slowly and just bites her head off. Oh man, that's that, God, the tyranids are brutal. They're really brutal. Oh, God, they're so skin-crawlingly brutal. The, we talked about a little bit of the Norn emissaries as well. Those new models, which look just so nominal, yeah.

Oh, my God, looks so good. and they're being one of the more interesting new tyrannid bioforms because they seem to be made as a extension of the hive mind of the Norn queen specifically. Yeah, yeah. But they are known for having a singular purpose. That's actually one of their rules is called singular purpose. The idea is that they go out and they commit assassinations. Um, right. Uh, resource gathering,

artifact stealing. Just really interesting, bizarre stuff. And for such a giant model, they're incredibly lithe and fast, and they kind of stalk. Yeah. You would send an Norn emissary up for resource gathering? Yeah.

They, so they sent some to, um, uh, I think they sent them to the gene vaults. So, if the one chapter, like, take the genes. Oh. Okay. See, when you said resource gathering, when you said resource gathering, for some reason

my mind immediately went to like, oh, you're sending them to go farming? Like, oh my. What, you're going to sweep along some corn and, like, pick apples and stuff? Like, I feel like they might have, you know, better use somewhere else doing something important. But yeah, retrieving gene seed and stuff like that. Important resource gathering. in a fun way

when you run a Norn emissary on the tabletop, their ability's singular purpose is one of two options. You either pick an objective marker on the battlefield, and if you're standing on it, you just have like,

you can become way tougher and also have a huge amount of control, so it'll take like 20 models to take you off of it if you're not dead. I was going to say Norn emissaries are already strong as it is. Or, You pick one enemy unit in the enemy army, and you get full re-rolls to hit a wound against it.

So it's like assassination or gather. Ooh. It's pretty cool. It seems like, I don't know, on the tabletop, I would rather have the gather one that makes you, like, super tanky when you're on, like, objective. Because isn't that, like, a big part of the tabletop is, like, capturing and holding objectives? It is. Though, you know, you might argue that, ooh, the enemy has Magnus. Maybe we should get rid of him quickly.

True, true, true. It'd be a good way to table your opponent too if you wanted to just, you know. Right. It all depends. It all depends. Now for some reason I can't imagine the Norn emissary without like a

farmer straw hat and overalls on. The corn emissary. Yeah. Quite literally, the corn emissary, yeah. The last little segment in this book that was rather fascinating, I think,

was the talk about an inquisitor. The inquisitor was surrounded by data slate, servo scrolls, like parchments, etc. And they were finished playing the final Vox recording of that governor who had died earlier. Mm-hmm. And it's interesting. This person is centuries old.

Rejuvenate surgery, all kinds of stuff, entirely focused to studying the tyrannid situation for the Ordo Zenos. Mm-hmm. and the whole excerpt is them going over these data slates and scrolls. Even speaking with like Eldar Corsairs and people about the Tyrannid menace. He's just like, he's, you know, listening to this stuff.

His discipline is hard to maintain against such a horrifying foe, as many of the men are driven of terror. In several reported instances, entire sectors have disappeared beneath it. The consumption of the planet under attack is continuous from the moment the high of ships achieve low orbit, etc., talking about commissars and so on. This inquisitor always has a bottle of Amosek on their hip. Yep, yep.

Just to always make sure that they're, just to keep themselves down a little bit from their stress. Got to have that little little bottle of Amersack. Got to have your boozeck, sure, sure. It was basically the entire excerpt is this inquisitor being like, I have no idea what to do. I've studied this for like 300 years. I can't find a single way we survive this.

In the entire excerpt, he's looking over at his Las Pistol, promising him a quick way out. Oh, wow. That's, that, that, that is, that is, that's one hell of a way to, I'm assuming that's like the end-ish of the codex is just him being like, well, there's nothing we can do. Like, we can't. There's no way we win against the tyranids.

So, the last part goes like this. Every night Uzir, has his name, was haunted by the terrible conclusions the collective had reached. He would not have been surprised if now these estimates were already too hopeful. Dataslate quote. Number of instances in which tyrannid

bioforms have survived the exterminatus. Dash. The high fleets we have thus far and counter-represent but the vanguard of a larger force. Dash. There may, in fact, be more high fleets than there are worlds. Dash. Current mobilization levels will be needed to increase to a minimum of 500%.

If we are even to stand a chance of slowing the advance of the hive mind, every able-bodied man and women on every world in the ultimate segmentum, segmenta Pacificus, and segmentum solar will be needed to be drafted into the Imperial Guard. And that was before the Great Rifted. had opened. Oh. Uzir thought, and I'd Polentier,

his mastercrafted Las Pistol, it promised him oblivion, it promised him escape. All it would take was one pull of the trigger. Oh, man. And that's the last bit of lore of the codex. Oh, boy, that is, that is, that is a hell

of a way to end the codex. Jeez. I mean, I, I, I, I knew the Tyrannid threat was looming, and it was big, but God damn. I think they wanted that as the sticking point of being like, not only, you should not have any idea how to deal with this. You should have an uncountable level of pure dread. Oh, yeah. When dealing with the nids, it's just, there's nothing you can do.

You might be able to survive encounters, but. you're not winning the war against the Nids. Damn. I love that. That's great. It's a really cool excerpt. And it's a really great way to instill that like pure existential fear and dread. Yep.

That once they show up, you might as well just do it yourself. Would you like, uh, would you like to hear a little bit of pristine horror before we end? I always love to hear pristine horror. Please, please, waiter. Bring me my meal. So there is an excerpt in a White Scars book called The Last Hunt in which a auger station, which is like, you know, auger is like a, what would you call that? Like scanning equipment, that kind of stuff.

A little orbital auger station is. out to, you know, pings where enemies are and maps and that kind of jazz. It has been assaulted by the tyranids. And a, this is an excerpt of a tyrannid bioship that eats their station. Oh. Like, I'm talking like a gigantic tyrannid bioship flies towards them, opens its mouth as large as them hole. It swallows the entire station hole. All right. Cool. Cool. Cool. It's just a

all right. All right. It's really awful. This is a horrendous excerpt. It is just, it is so, so awful. So it doesn't even chew them. It just swallows them whole and they're just sitting in this thing's belly. So, uh, it's, so the excerpt goes, oh God, Emperor, Ancum stammered over and over. Corday was quietly sobbing, his head in his hands. And Serene just stared, the image of the view screen reflected in her wide, dark eyes. Only Crassus, the commander, turned away from the display, walked to his worn leather of his command chair, and sat down. Crew members, in the past decades of service, it shames me to admit that I have not to this enough.

Regardless, there was ever a time. Throne knows it has been an honor to man this station with you. People were unresponsive. breathing was labored. Without any more orders to give, he simply sat there on his chair watching the view screen. Part of the crew was having a panic attack. Yeah. I imagine almost everybody else on the crew was having a panic attack because, yikes. One of them had slumped to the deck, shaking and weeping uncontrollably,

as the lights of all the stars went dim as the mouth collapsed over the auger station. and it started quiet and then it was thrown with excessive force slam like a bunch of things you know broke and explode that kind of stuff and it got really quiet for a second and said do you hear that they they plan to board us on the on the hole and right then a giant stream of green acid came from the ceiling landing directly on the crew captain's tear slothing off all of his flesh and bone immediately

it's splashed all across the deck onto some of the crew members eating through the skin getting to the bone and then came the maggots in the slime Oh no No

No Little Little things with hard black shells Began eating away At all of the individual Crew members Eyes Would ran like liquid

From sockets As the acid Would rip the meat From the bone Of the crew members One of the dudes Who was crying uncontrollably Just

Just literally dived Into all the acids and killed himself. Yeah, probably going to be much quicker that way than letting all of the little maggots eat you. And the one of the final guys, Davrik died slowly, on his knees, eaten up inch by inch by the bile

and the sightless, burrowing things that swam in it. They eventually flooded his throat, choking and suffocating him as they ate out his eyes and bored through his nose, ears, and into his brain. Oh, my God. I'm going to link this if you want to read the whole thing,

because it is, I gave you the easy version. This thing is awful. God, oh my God, that's, and that dude probably felt like all of it. Like, almost all of it. Like, oh, my God, that is just, yeah, that is pristine grim, dark horror. I am unsettled.

It is awful. It is one of, I gotta say, out of all of the, like the disgusting horrible things that happen in grim, dark books, this is one of the worst.

Yeah. It's just, it's just the description. And the calm before the storm of everyone like panicking and crying. It's just like, it's so real feeling in an awful, awful way.

Like everyone's stuck in a sinking ship. Yeah, and you can't just bail, and it's just, and it is as terrifying as they thought it would be. Like, they were not unjustified to panic like they did, because, oh, my God. Yeah, that's going to stay with me for a little bit today. That's the shenanigans we've got today. Yeah, ooh. I didn't think the nids could get any grosser, creepier, or scarier, and congratulations. they have wonderful.

Yay! Yay! Existential dread! I do like... I think I saw like a knit with a top hat, and I don't know why. Oh, no, no, we were talking about the corn emissary. Oh, yeah, yeah, with the straw hat. I like that.

The One Piece is real. The One Piece is... The Hive Mind is real! The hive mind is real!