#ultimate Biomechanical Lifeform

[c0simo9]

Lego 90th Anniversary Tahu, aka the Ultimate Biomechanical Lifeform

[blazehedgehog]

What is your headcanon reasoning as to why the Ultimate Lifeform went from a giant lizard to a small hedgehog?

I don't think it's a headcanon at all, because it was spelled out on twitter in a way recently that it finally clicked in to place:

The Biolizard is Perfect Chaos and Shadow is Super Sonic. Professor Gerald Robotnik visited Angel Island in the course of researching immortality, read up on their culture, legends, and prophecies, and tried to replicate them in a laboratory.

We know he was experimenting with Chaos Emeralds. The Eclipse Cannon is powered by them, and we have Chaos Drives that power the military robots. Gerald could, and did, tap in to their energies.

He knew enough about Echidna culture that he built a replica of the Master Emerald shrine in the core of the ARK. It is near this shrine that Sonic and his crew find the Biolizard, who is perhaps drawn to the shrine in the same way Chaos was.

Whereas Eggman merely tried to wake up Old Gods, his grandfather was trying to recreate them from scratch, using genetic technology and biomechanical robotics. And in both cases, he created monsters

Even the Space Colony ARK itself could be considered part of this: we know the Echidna had murals for the battle between Super Sonic and Final Weapon, but did they have others? Is the classic "Eggman Face" design of the ARK based on Final Weapon, or did the Echidna also have murals of the Death Egg?

Anyway, I'm now pretty ironclad convinced that was the point of it all. The Biolizard even reuses the Perfect Chaos roar sound from the first Sonic Adventure, something I now believe was deliberate.

Though now a new question: if Gerald was researching immortality and trying to mechanically rebuild Old Gods using technology, what actually is Super Sonic?

[tenebraevesper]

Sonic the Hedgehog Analyzer, Imposter Syndrome Issue #3: Imposter Syndrome (Part 3)

Here’s the third part of our Cover puzzle, fitting in with the previous two to give us a scene of Surge and Sonic, Kit and Tails, and Starline and Eggman and Metal Sonc fighting against each other.

Admittedly, I’m more fond of this Cover, as it illustrates perfectly Surge and Kit’s situation and relationship with Starline. Despite what happens in this and the next Issue, they are still under his control, no matter how much they deny it.

We start off with Starline losing his goddamn mind over being fired by Eggman. It is clearly taking place right after Metal Sonic yeeted him through the Warp Topaz portal and before Bad Guys, as we see that Starline still lacks the Tricore on his glove. 

I guess that this is also before he started his work on Surge and Kit, as he shows off his own creation... which looks rather pathetic. Yeah, it is a prototype, but seriously, Eggman would’ve laughed him off if he had shown him that. There’s hardly any Badnik that can beat Metal Sonic considering how long he had lasted.

Honestly, the last panel is hella raw and it kind of makes me feel both disturbed and sorry for Starline, but at the same time, it shows just how unhinged he is. He can talk about his superiority all he wants, he’s just as mad as Eggman. He wants to create something that will surpass Metal Sonic and put him on top and prove himself to Eggman.

The next video log takes place after Bad Guys, with Starline narrating how his time with Zavok has opened his eyes, which genuinely sounds like he’s going in a good direction. Remember, Zavok told him that he can surpass Eggman if he stops obsessing over the latter’s approval. Starline notes how he had decided to forego machines and instead use a living being for his plans.

I had mentioned something like this when analyzing Bad Guys, where Zavok questioned Starline’s over-reliance on robots, telling him how having loyal teammates is better as they can do what robots cannot, something Starline clearly took to heart.

He then shows off his creations, stating how the solution is the other way around - instead of inserting animals into robots, he will insert robotic parts into animals; creating cyborgs.

Surge and Kit are clearly disturbed by what they learned, with Surge wondering whether Starline ever shuts up (no, he doesn’t, I checked). Kit wonders whether he should log out, but Surge tells him to keep digging as she wants more details. Kit notes how Starline’s archives are extensive, with Surge pinching her muzzle and calling him a wannabe influencer. She isn’t wrong, you know.

Kit notes how at least they know how he enhanced them, but questions whether they really should go behind Starline’s back. Surge tells Drippy to just get more deets, now.

Kit manages to find a more recent video log, where Starline explains how he had taken care of the cybernetic enhancements and how it is time for the specialization. He had basically assembled all the necessary components to emulate the biomechanical miracles of his adversaries and install them into his cybernetic enforcers. He shows us the images of Neo Metal Sonic, Sonic and Shadow, having obviously taken the bio-data Neo Metal got, followed by the Power Cores and Tails’ DNA.

Starline notes how he had only emulated them, not replicated (yeah, if you’d want to replicate The Ultimate Lifeform, you’d also need the blood of an extinct alien race). He continues to say how Kitsunami needs external support, while Surge needs electro-magnetic propulsion, but he plans to improve.

He continues to say how that power needs to be kept under control, which is why he kidnapped Belle, explaining how with her coding, he had the means of fabricating a personality, or rather overwriting existing ones. Surge and Kit will think what he wants them to think and they will do what he wants them to do. They will be who he wants them to be. Oh, and as a fail-safe, they’re particularly vulnerable to the hypno-glove.

Surge and Kit are shocked by this revelation, Surge being furious.

Oh, but we’re not done yet.

We then proceed to watch those sessions where Starline is overwriting Surge and Kit’s personalities. We can see that Surge had a lot more sessions with Starline than Kit did, where Starline tried to convince her that she hates Sonic and wants to destroy him until she was finally able to believe that for herself, without the hypno-glove. Note, that was Session 232.

As for Kit, he was told that he lives to support Surge, that he looks out for her and would do anything for her, even asking during the latest session (Session 033) whether he can see her. I assume that Starline kept these two separate until their personalities were fully overwritten.

Honestly, this is hella disturbing when you think about it. We know that Starline has kidnapped Surge and Kit around the time of Bad Guys, and we don’t know how much time has passed between that and The Trial by Fire Arc, but if it was a month or so, then Surge and Kit might as well have been exposed to Starline’s hypno-glove to no end, and that’s not even counting the tests Starline put them through.

Starline reveals how he repurposed the resilience of the Metal Virus into safe cellular supplements to enhance the cybernetics, meaning that, physically, Surge and Kit are extremely resilient (and we already saw that stuff with the Zombots; where you could throw them into an explosion and they would still survive).

There is a “but”, though, as Starline shows the video log of Surge failing her tests, and it is even implied that she may have died during some of them. Also, check the number again, she got put through at least 105 Test Sessions, day by day. No wonder she is pissed off.

Kit isn’t faring better, being put through the same stuff as Surge, and the numbers of Test Sessions rise to 601. Again, I have to ask how many of those were done in just one day.

It is absolutely horrifying, but Starline is just frustrated that he now he has to deal with psychological trauma. Dude, what hell did you think would happen if you put them through that?! I reiterate - Starline is intelligent,... but he’s also a huge idiot.

We then proceed to see more of the footage of Surge and Kit going through the tests, probably even dying to some of them (or at least, they would’ve been dead had it not been for their resilience thanks to the Metal Virus). Starline continues how he can’t erase their memories entirely, as they’re learning and improving, and with each revival (yeah, that confirms that they became chalk outlines at some point) he had to suppress and edit. They’re still making progress and he’s hoping that they’ll be soon ready for field-testing.

Kit looks just done with everything, while Surge looks like she wants to smash everything to pieces and burn the remains, but surprisingly, she keeps her cool and tells Kit to do one more search - she wants to know who they were before they taken in by Starline. They’re cyborgs, so obviously they had a life before this. Were they volunteers, kidnapped, heroes, convicts? She needs an answer.

Kit searches through everything, only to reveal that there are no records. Surge demands that he searches harder, but Kit tells her how he had done everything he could and there are none.

Surge then asks the question: “WHY NOT?!”

Her question is answered by Starline: “Because it’s irrelevant.”

Surge and Kit turn to Starline, who is surprisingly calm, scolding them like children who stayed up past their bedtime. Surge yells at him how it isn’t irrelevant and that she needs context. She has no past, all she has is this and this is nothing! She even calls herself a knockoff and everything she ever wanted, or at least thought she wanted, was a lie. She’s in tears, desperate to at least know something about her past.

I will stop the story here to bring up something I mentioned in the first Issue - the parallels between Surge and Scourge. If there are still people among you who think Surge is Scourge 2.0., this moment should disprove it.

Scourge always knew that he was a different version of Sonic. They were essentially one and the same person, but from different worlds, and Scourge wanted to prove himself to be the superior Sonic. Sonic’s words and actions influenced his own and even during their last encounter, he calls himself the superior Sonic.

Surge on the other hand has no clue who she is. She was molded by Starline to surpass Sonic, but she was never in control of her own destiny (same goes for Kit). She is basically a clean slate with no past and no desire except what Starline told her. She has gone through so much anger, pain and psychological trauma without knowing why except that she’s supposed to hate Sonic.

These two may be similar, but unlike Scourge, who is a bully, Surge is a victim of Starline’s own plans and I feel sorry for her and Kit. Her story, despite being simplified by Starline, is genuinely complex when you peel off the layers and get to the core; and it only gets worse from here.

Starline implies how this wasn’t the first time Surge and Kit hacked into his video logs and uses the hypno-glove on them, noting how it always ends the same way.

However, this time, things are different, as Surge and Kit attack Starline, but Starline manages to knock Kit out with his electric spurs.

Surge spin-dashes into Starline and I think Starline wanted to pick the Speed Core, but then went with the Power Core to block Surge, which explains Surge’s comment on how he can only pick one Core at the time, while she has both power and speed in her arsenal.

Starline chooses the Fly Core instead, using his poisonous spurs on her and knocking her down. Starline tells her how he invested too much into her, but he will punish her further if necessary.

Unfortunately for Starline, it is clear that he forgot that he made her to heal quickly, meaning the poison has not much of an effect on her, and second - he forgot about Kit!

As Kit lifts Starline up, Surge has managed to grab his glove. Starline tells both to... I guess not kill him? He’s the only one who knows their pasts and can maintain their enhancements, pleading with the two to let him go, but Surge shoves the hypno-glove right into his face, telling him to shut up.

Now, I will take a pause here for a moment, as there’s something else I need to address. First of all, the reason behind Surge and Kit’s rising resilience to the hypno-glove. We have seen that those with a strong will (like Zavok) can resist it, and Surge is a strong-willed person. Not to mention, I’m sure that after so many sessions, even if they were programmed to be vulnerable to it, they would eventually build up resistance to it.

The second, and more important, thing I want to address here is that, technically, Starline’s plan could’ve worked if the idiot platypus didn’t brainwash the two and instead found someone who actually does hate Sonic and would want to work for him. Or, if that wasn’t an option, at least give Surge and Kit a reason to fight against Sonic and Tails beyond “This is what you want”. They need a solid motivation.

Honestly, Starline was the one who screwed himself over in this particular regard.

After Starline goes down, Kit asks Surge what they should do, and Surge, still tearing, replies how they’ll just burn everything down. Sonic, Eggman, Starline... everyone and everything is going down. There won’t be any more heroes nor villains - Surge refuses to participate in that stupid game. If she doesn’t get a past, they won’t get a future.

Something to note here, the most dangerous people are not the ones with the most power or cunning mind, but those who have nothing to lose, and we’ll see just how bad things will get from her on.

After Kit asks her how she plans to do that, Surge replies how she doesn’t care and that maybe they should start with tormenting Starline. Kit tells her how he won’t stop her, but offers her an alternative plan - they could use Starline’s plan to bring everyone together and take it in their own direction; destroy Sonic and Tails and then destroy Eggman and Starline as well. Surge is intrigued by the idea of letting Starline go through all of that trouble only for him to set himself up for the fall and agrees.

You know, while I tend to focus on Surge more in this analysis, since she’s more vocal, I have to give it to Kit here - the whole plan where they use Starline to destroy everyone is actually his idea, and it shows just how cunning he is.

Starline wakes up from the hypnosis-induced sleep, with the videos from the test sessions playing behind him. He’s clearly confused, even nervous when he sees Surge and Kit in the room, Surge just lying around and Kit sitting and listening to him.

When he tries to make sense of the situation, Surge explains that he put himself to sleep with his own monologue and how he had just been filling them in on the details on how he made the two as part of some kind of “pre-mission prep”. She wasn’t really paying attention.

I have to say, I just love the expressions on this page, especially Starline’s. Dude looks so bewildered.

Starline clearly has a hard time believing that he did that and that Surge and Kit accepted it so easily. Surge replies that, if they weren’t, he would’ve wiped that outta their brains. She then continues telling him how he made them powerhouses, so why should they complain if they get a lifetime of hero worship as long as they turn Sonic into dust. As for Kit, he’s cool with it because Surge tells him so. Again, love the expressions here, and Kit’s empty gaze is especially unnerving.

Starline is relieved they could put that conundrum past them, with Surge and Kit just grinning at each other, and decides to move on with the plan. They will be invading Eggman’s new capital city, where Starline will upload the override program. Surge is enthusiastic, figuring they’ll just scramble Eggman with his own robots, but Starline reminds her they’ll only pacify him and that Sonic and Tails are their targets. Surge replies with a simple “My bad”.

As Starline continues explaining the plan, we see Surge and Kit glancing at each other, and Kit subtly erasing the Starline logo from the seat, foreshadowing his future.

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#Sonic the Hedgehog Analyzer (Masterlist)

[rebuiltbionicle]

Makuta Nui

This is not going to be a very professional post. This is going to be a few mostly related ideas placed down and justified and explaining my train of thought behind them in relation to the plot points and inconsistencies in the original canon.

So let’s take a look about what we know about the “lifecycle” of Antidermis. It was initially created as a byproduct of rendering Energised Protodermis (an eldritch god embodying destiny) into the inert metal used in the GSR. This byproduct was held in a pool on an island in the Matoran Universe. From this pool the Makuta species were created, whose biological components were composed of solidified antidermis. They would eventually evolve into fluidic beings of antidermis. They can also create their own solidified antidermis lifeforms called Kraata, which slowly evolve into more powerful forms and if exposed to energised protodermis become biomechanical suits of armour called Rahkshi. So that’s what’s canon, and that’s all canon in the Rebuiltverse as well.

Now there’s a theory you may or may not have heard of, that supposes that the Kraata are actually Makuta larvae. I managed to come up with this theory individually, but I’ll still credit @ghost-mantis who came up with it independently as well. This may be true in the Rebuiltverse as well, but I’m not completely convinced.

I’ll keep this post concise on what I wanted to make this post about. The Makuta’s evolution does not end with the energy being in a suit. What do they become? Who knows. Given that they’re the byproduct of a god, its very possible they’re trying to get back to that state. Certainly, Teridax thought so.

Here I have to splurt out some of the vague ideas hovering in my head I’m trying to convey. First of all is that I like many fans sort of regret the change of Makuta from a monstrous thing of raw evil lurking underneath an island into what was basically an ambitious politician. What the story team has revealed about Makuta, essentially being a dark mirror of Mata Nui, is really interesting. The lines in Mata Nui Online Game about Makuta being a force of nature are also pretty cool. Most of all, it’s a bit disappointing that Makuta wasn’t literally Mata Nui’s brother but just talking himself up (and apparently the Turaga joined in?) which Lego apparently also regretted when they hurled in that weird thing about Makuta being destined to take over the GSR.

Now I’m just going to hurl into a completely different topic here. As a child my sister and I often compared Makuta to the likes of Darth Vader and Voldemort. However, I think we can do better than that and compare Makuta to Darth Sidious. Now one of the interesting things about Darth Sidious that the expanded universe went into (before it was retconned to death) was that Darth Sidious considered himself the ultimate lifeform that no successor could ever hope to overcome, reigning over the galaxy eternally.

So, we already know that Makuta Teridax is arrogant as a character trait, but I think we can improve that a bit. Ever since the evolution of the Makuta from solid to fluidic lifeforms, they have speculated that it may not be the end of their evolution. Due to their increased strength after the metamorphosis, they speculated on what godlike powers they may obtain. Teridax, fully intending to become to sole surviving Makuta and to take over Mata Nui’s role, may have taken a bit more interest in this concept than was healthy. 

Makuta may have believed himself destined to become the supreme godlike being, en par with Mata Nui even without stealing the GSR, to the point of being absolutely sincere (in his own mind) when he describes himself as Mata Nui’s brother or as the embodiment of destruction. That’s just my speculation for the night.

[theseventhoffrostfall]

I personally don't hate Prometheus but I think there's a special place in Hell for Ridley Scott by making the ancient astronomer thing just a suit. That's one of the coolest most mysterious things in Alien, this almost Robert E Howard sort of low fantasy feel of "things were here before us who were more powerful an advanced than we can ever be" sort of vibe with this monstrosity of a creature, part man, part elephant almost. What was their empire like? How powerful were they? Why did they look like that? And they made it just a fucking space suit for albino Dr. Manhattans.

The setting makes less and less sense the more people poke at it. Xenomorphs having such a bizarre life cycle works if they're just weird aliens, because nature can produce wonky shit like that (even though the idea of alien queens is dumb and I maintain that Aliens sucked) but the second they started going for "It's the ultimate lifeform, this is the ideal way for a creature to reproduce" their world started dropping credibility like a rock.

Same thing with the 'engineers'. Even beyond the worldbuilding, from an artistic standpoint you'd think "Weird huge biomechanical spacefaring race" is more indicative of an unknowable and hostile universe than "Lol giant bald guys with mystical overtones."

The core problem is writing for shitty personal drama, since that's what people latched onto after alien (and god help us, aliens). There has to be a bad guy, and it's gotta be corpos or androids, because corpos are an easy sell for stupid, cartoonish villains who hate profit as much as they hate everyone else, and androids let you have hackneyed "existential" drama and "deep emotional scenes". The filmmakers think that weird asshole humans and human-adjacents are a more evocative and frightening idea than the universe simply being a vast and harrowing place inimical to human life that wasn't made for us and holds death and fear in every corner.

Honestly between the way he's handled Alien and the way he hammered Blade Runner's corpse to a degree that would make George Lucas take notes in an effort to make everyone agree with his retarded idea that Decker is a Replicant, it's very clear that Scott was kind of always a hack who got lucky working with smarter people in the industry and getting his hands on fantastic source/reference material (be that from Dick or Geiger or, uh, the Roman Empire)

[asktheadeptus]

Tyranids - History and Species

"There is a cancer eating at the Imperium. With each decade it advances deeper, leaving drained, dead worlds in its wake. This horror, this abomination, has thought and purpose which functions on an unimaginable, galactic scale and all we can do is try to stop the swarms of bio-engineered monsters it unleashes upon us by instinct. We have given the horror a name to salve our fears; we call it the Tyranid race, but if it is aware of us at all it must know us only as Prey."— Inquisitor Czevak at the Conclave of Har

The Tyranids are an extragalactic composite species of hideous xenos that is actually a space-faring ecosystem comprised of innumerable different bioforms which are all variations on the same genetic theme. The Tyranid race is ultimately dedicated solely to its own survival, propagation and evolutionary advancement. The Tyranids collectively form a monstrous superorganism that travels across the universe in their great Hive Fleets of biomechanical Hive Ships, systematically consuming all other biomatter to enable its own rapid evolution and reproduction. All Tyranid organisms are synaptic (psychically-reactive), and each Tyranid creature within a Hive Fleet shares and contributes to a communal Hive Mind, which allows the trillions of beings comprising the Tyranid Hive Fleets to communicate and organize instantaneously on a staggering scale.

The mentality of the Tyranid approach to warfare can be described with the phrase "quantity has a quality all its own". From the "lowly" Ripper, to the deadly Hive Tyrant and beyond, the signature of the Tyranid species is that they overwhelm their foes with sheer numbers, reproducing massive numbers of highly virulent organisms in record time from the biochemical soup that they derive from the biospheres of the worlds that they consume. The components of a Tyranid Hive Fleet travel almost exclusively in large groups known as swarms that possess specialized biomechanical creatures for destroying and consuming a wide variety of prey life forms. Tyranids have evolved sophisticated methods for facilitating genetic transfer across species boundaries. As a result, a significant goal of any Tyranid invasion is acquisition of useful new biological traits from other lifeforms. These are used by the Hive Mind to enhance the Tyranids' effectiveness in consuming new worlds to gain more of the necessary organic raw materials for further reproduction. All Tyranids are reproduced by a single, highly intelligent female bioform known as a Norn-Queen. A Hive Fleet's Norn-Queens are the most important Tyranids within the fleet, for if they are injured or killed the Tyranids cannot reproduce their numbers from the captured bio-mass. As a result, Norn-Queens can be found only at the heart of the largest and most-well defended Tyranid Hive Ship.

History

The first recorded contact between the Imperium and the Tyranids places their appearance in the Eastern Fringes of the galaxy in 745.M41. However, it is rumoured that the Ordo Xenos of the Inquisition had identified possible appearances of this xenos species as far back as the 35th Millennium.

The xenos emerged from the intergalactic space of the Local Group of galaxies, their Hive Mind drawn to the Milky Way by the psychic beacon of the Astronomican transmitted by the Emperor's presence in the Warp from Terra. The first officially recorded contact with the Tyranids for the Imperium of Man came during a Tyranid attack on an Ocean World called Tyran, and from there Hive Fleet Behemoth continued directly towards the center of the galaxy, consuming all the worlds in its path. The Tyranids were defeated, barely, by the efforts of the Ultramarines Chapter of the Space Marines during the Battle of Macragge, although the Ultramarines suffered devastating losses that would take centuries to replace.

In 942.M41, Commissar Ciaphas Cain, while on a mission in the Ice World Nusquam Fundumentibus, discovered hibernating Tyranids buried deep in the permafrost; the swarm was apparently carried to the planet by a Hive Ship that had crashed on the planet seven millennia earlier, prior to any human colonisation. Members of the swarm and subsequently, the Hive Mind, were awakened, but this swarm was eventually defeated. However, the Inquisition was unsettled by the fact that the Tyranids had developed a presence in the galaxy possibly before even the start of the Age of the Imperium; it is not known whether the crashed bio-ship was on a scouting mission when it was lost, was a casualty in a pre-Imperium Tyranid invasion force that was defeated by unknown adversaries, or part of a plan by a Tyranid super-intelligence that may have "seeded" the galaxy with many such slumbering broods.

In 993.M41 the Tyranids returned to the galaxy with Hive Fleet Kraken which, instead of assaulting its targets as a single massed Hive Fleet, split into countless smaller fleets, each enveloping whole star systems before reinforcements could arrive. The brunt of this new attack was borne by the Space Marine Chapters known as the Scythes of the Emperor and the Lamenters; the former Chapter was almost completely destroyed. Though the backbone of the Hive Fleet was broken by its defeats at the Battle of Ichar IV and at the Eldar Craftworld Iyanden, the cost to the Imperium was still great and many splinter fleets broke off from the Kraken to later wreak havoc deep within Imperial space, even reaching as far as the fringes of the Tau Empire.

Only a few years later, in 997.M41 Hive Fleet Leviathan unexpectedly appeared from "below" the plane of the galaxy (on the Z axis) and attacked from two points, cutting off large portions of the galaxy from reinforcements. Just as it seemed the defenses of the Segmentum Solar and perhaps Terra itself would be tested, the Tyranids were distracted by being deflected into the star system of a powerful Ork empire. While the Orks are managing to stall the main Tyranid Hive Fleet's advance, they are likely to reemerge from these battles, victorious and stronger than ever after having absorbed potent Orkoid genetic material into their own genome pool.

The Great Devourer

The Tyranids are actually an extragalactic species, born somewhere beyond the void that separates the galaxies of the Local Group. Tyranid Hive Fleets travel through space by using gigantic, organisms genetically engineered to travel through a vacuum known as Hive Ships, which move in groups which can be likened to very large locust swarms. Typically, Tyranid Hive Fleets move in ad hoc formations known as Tendrils, migrating to nearby inhabited planets after consuming all the biological and organic material on a recently invaded planet and breeding, often reproducing many times their original number. Hive Fleets travel with superluminal speed, though they never enter the Warp. Instead, by using the specialized psychic power of a selectively evolved Hive Ship, they manipulate the gravity fields of star system to achieve faster-than-light travel. The massive Warp presence of the Tyranid Hive Mind, however, manifests itself in that realm through the Shadow in the Warp phenomenon. The current collection of Tyranid Hive Fleets have migrated to the Milky Way Galaxy, presumably after overpopulating or overfeeding in other nearby galaxies of the Local Group. Given that each Tyranid Hive Fleet has approached the Milky Way from a different direction, this may imply that the Tyranids have consumed a disturbingly large number of nearby galaxies.

The Hive Fleets

The Tyranids are a space-borne race that have inveigled their way into the realms of Man, as well as those of other xenos, like a disease spreading through a healthy body. The Tyranids travel in great fleets of gigantic living creatures that serve as spacecraft, each of which is home to countless lesser Tyranid organisms grown in the bubbling organ-sacs of the vessel’s reproductive chambers. All of these creatures are born to serve the single entity that is the ship, and the ship itself exists only as part of the entity that is the hive fleet.

When a hive fleet encounters a prey world, it does not invade for territorial gain or out of a sense of pride or vengeance. Indeed, it is doubtful the Tyranids even comprehend such concepts. Rather, they invade to harvest valuable biomass and feed their insatiable hunger. The Tyranids require an endless supply of food, not only to nourish the hive fleets, but to grow new organisms. Therefore, when a hive fleet invades a planet rich in life, every action of every Tyranid creature is honed to a single goal - the total and rapid absorption of that world’s population, ecosystems and bio-resources. To this end, the hive fleet creates an army with the express purpose of overcoming the prey world’s defenders before the planet is stripped of every scrap of biomatter and devoured.

Tyranid Hive Fleets consist of millions of biomechanical craft, each serving as host to an untold number of symbiotic organisms. These creatures evolve and spawn from a variety of geno-organisms in the ships' reproductive chambers. All these creatures are born to service the ship, and the ship in turn exists only to service the needs of the Hive Fleet. Whereas other armies like those of the Imperium and the Tau fight for conquest or self-defense, and the Forces of Chaos and the Ork clans battle merely for the chance to wreak violence and havoc, the Tyranid Hive Fleets are driven by the will of the Hive Mind, which itself is motivated by the most ineradicable instinct inherent to all lifeforms - reproduction, and through reproduction and the acquisition of new genetic traits, evolution to a better adapted form.

A fully mobilised Tyranid Hive Fleet strikes shock, awe, and terror into even the most stalwart of humanity's defenders. Even when the xenos threat is eliminated (at great cost), it will not be long before another Tyranid migration emerges to take advantage of the situation. This is what makes the Tyranid species such a threat: it is an evolved meta-predator capable of out-producing, out-consuming, and out-lasting all other species it encounters, having done so on a disquietingly unknowable number of prior occasions across a vast swathe of intergalactic space.

The Hive Mind

The Magos Biologis of the Imperium categorizes each Tyranid hive fleet as a separate force, an individual entity that competes with other hive fleets for resources. Indeed, each is self-sufficient, appearing to exhibit different strategies and developing unique creatures to overcome its prey. However, the truth is more complex, for each hive fleet is but a splinter of one greater assemblage. The Tyranids’ numbers are vast beyond counting, swarms so large that they block out the very stars, yet each and every creature is but a single cell in the living body of a single super-organism.

Every thought and action, every spark of life in the Tyranid race, is bound and interlinked into a single unfathomable consciousness, a great entity that stretches across hundreds of light years of space. This gestalt sentience is known as the Hive Mind. It holds all Tyranids in a psychic bond that enables them to act together in perfect unison. Under the influence of this ancient consciousness, the Tyranids have fed on countless planets and devoured civilizations since time immemorial.

The majority of Tyranid organisms have no distinct minds as a human would understand it, having been created to perform a single task to the exclusion of all else. Unless the implacable will of the Hive Mind instructs them to do otherwise, these organisms simply fulfill the functions for which they were created, acting on nothing more than instinct. Larger, more complicated, Tyranid beasts have been grown to make limited decisions appropriate to current stimuli and situations, but even these actions are subordinate to the goals of the Hive Mind.

The Hive Mind’s influence is strongest in the vicinity of creatures such as Tyranid Warriors and the feared Hive Tyrants. These beings are able to communicate with their kin, not through language, but by a synaptic form of telepathy through which they relay and channel the will of the Hive Mind. Under the command of such creatures, the Tyranids operate in perfect unison, slaved to the psychic imperatives of a single communal intelligence. However, should the synapse creatures be slain, the link between individual creatures and the Hive Mind will be severed - many of the lesser organisms will revert to their baser, animalistic behaviors. For this reason, the Tyranid swarms do not have only a single commander, but many, to ensure the Hive Mind’s synaptic control is maintained across the entire Tyranid race.

The Shadow in the Warp

The coming of a Tyranid hive fleet is preceded by a smothering psychic signal that envelops entire star systems and disrupts all forms of Warp travel and communication. Swallowed up by psychic-static, whole worlds suddenly go deathly silent, giving no clues as to what is unfolding on the surface below, or of what terrors are about to befall. This is the Shadow in the Warp, and it heralds imminent invasion and horror.

It is unknown if the Shadow in the Warp is created deliberately by the hive fleets, or if it is simply a by-product of the Hive Mind’s innate synaptic control. In any case, the Shadow in the Warp creates fear and panic wherever it falls, instilling a pervasive dread into the minds of a prey world’s defenders, plunging entire planets into misery and despair. For highly psychic races, such as the Eldar, or for luckless psykers caught within this enervating effect, the malaise is magnified tenfold. Should a psyker attempt to use his otherworldly abilities, the cerebral cacophony worsens even further; the psychic sound of a billion alien thoughts scratch at his mind, and unless he is particularly strong-willed he will be pitched into an insanity where he will repeatedly utter phrases in a tongue too alien to properly pronounce.

For races such as the Imperium of Man, whose means of interstellar communication and travel rely upon highly specialized psykers such as Astropaths and Navigators, the Shadow in the Warp is one of the deadliest facets of the Tyranid menace. Bereft of their means to call for reinforcements or safely navigate surrounding space, the worlds of the Imperium are easily isolated from the wider galaxy. This means that, by the time the Shadow in the Warp falls, it is already too late; these beleaguered planets are effectively on their own. They must fend for themselves and face the Tyranid swarm with the weapons they have to hand, or die in the attempt.

The Super-Organism

All Tyranids possess a common psychic bond, known as the Synapse. This bond enables the Tyranid swarms to think, perceive, and act as a single great super-organism, providing nearly seamless co-ordination and control within a Tyranid invasion force so numerous and extensive as to be completely uncontrollable otherwise.

From the smallest feeder organisms, to the microbes that decompose new biomass; from the sessile and rooted flora-like forms, to the huge tendril-like shoals of the Hive Fleets, every Tyranid organism has a place within the will of the Hive Mind. The lesser and smaller creatures are mindless and instinctive animals, plants and bacteria, performing functions with no conscious oversight or commitment, while larger and more complex creatures can make decisions appropriate to the situation and form an integral if minuscule part of the Hive Mind's distributed sentient awareness.

Synaptic Web

Functioning in perfect unison, coordinated by powerful psychic imperatives transmitted through the Tyranid communal sentience that is the Hive Mind, Tyranid fleets, swarms, and broods do not have a singular command structure, but rather form a synaptic web of psychic influence and feedback. Situated within this tangled web are specialized Synapse Creatures whose slightly more advanced brains function as psychic routers, buses, and hubs, coordinating and policing the riotous cacophony of the collective brain power of a mass organism that is sometimes larger than most planets. Without the localized control provided by these organisms, the swarm can quickly falter, and some Tyranid creatures may revert to animalistic behaviors, when individual will and situational instincts come into conflict. Often swarms will subdivide into smaller packs of creatures still capable of consensual behavior among themselves. The Synapse Creatures that channel the commands of the Hive Mind are mostly, if not all, potent individual psykers. How any of this is done without drawing the attention of countless daemons of Chaos or the other psychic predatory entities of the Warp into the midst of the Tyranid swarm is unknown and possibly unknowable to the humans of the Imperium.

The Narvhal

Tyranid Hive Fleets do not travel through the Warp like Imperial starships. Yet, the Hive Fleets' incredibly fast rate of advance into the galaxy belies the argument made by some that they do not possess a mode of faster-than-light travel. Whilst it is true that the Tyranids are forced to remain at sublight speeds while within the gravitic boundaries of a planetary system, they are capable of superluminal velocities when travelling through interstellar space. This capability is the result of a small Tyranid bio-ship classified by the savants of the Imperium of Man as a Narvhal. Unlike most Tyranid bio-ships, the Narvhal is almost completely defenseless, and possesses almost no bio-weaponry and only a very thin protective carapace. A cluster of monofilament spines on the Narvhal's bow allow it to take in a wide variety of sensory input, including a broad spectrum of gravimetric and electromagnetic signals. Using these sensors, the Narvhal can detect new planetary systems at extreme interstellar distances. In some unknown manner it then makes use of the origin star system's own gravity and creates a compressed space-time transit corridor through which the Narvhal and other Tyranid bio-ships can traverse interstellar distances. This form of space-warping travel cannot be used near strong gravitational sources as they overwhelm the Narvhal's hypersensitive navigational sensors. As a result, a Tyranid Hive Fleet must use more conventional forms of biologically-induced reaction-based propulsion during the final approach to a new star system, which can slow their arrival by years or even entire decades. Whilst this form of propulsion is ultimately slower than a reliance upon the Warp-Drive, it is a great deal more reliable and allows the Tyranids to move slowly, if implacably, across the galaxy. However, the Narvhal's manipulation of a star system's gravity does sometimes produce unintended side effects. A destination world can suffer from earthquakes, solar flares, tidal waves and other natural disasters produced during the interval during which the Hive Fleet is in transition through the space-time transit corridor. This chaos only further benefits the Tyranids' invasion, however, as the defenders of the target world will have their resources bound up in dealing with these problems when the swarm finally arrives in orbit and the first Mycetic spores begin to fall.

Tyranid Combat Doctrine

Tyranids often attempt to first conquer a planet through subterfuge and infiltration. Space Hulks and other derelict spacecraft are infested with Genestealers, which quickly familiarize themselves with the layout of their new home, then enter hibernation.

When the Hulk is eventually discovered by Imperial authorities, the Genestealers attack the exploration crew, sometimes killing some crew members, but always leaving at least one survivor who is implanted with a seed, a form of Genestealer reproductive virus that contains specially-engineered Tyranid DNA. This infestation is never fatal, but instead the virus' genetic material subtly alters the victim's DNA, producing in them a strong urge to mate created by the stimulation of the individual's sex hormones. The Genestealer DNA will be incorporated into the host's germ cells and so any child that results from this union will be a Genestealer Hybrid, which now has the complete loyalty of its parents through a psychic bond. The Hybrids continue to breed and multiply among the population of the host species, eventually forming a Genestealer Cult. As the Cult grows in numbers, it begins to spread its influence throughout the planet's political and social structure, placing its members in positions of power within the government and the military. At the same time, the Cult's Hybrid members begins to emit a collective psychic signal through the Warp that acts as a beacon for the approaching Tyranid Hive Fleet.

As the Tyranid Hive Fleet nears the doomed world, the Genestealer Cult, potentially numbering in the millions by this point, goes into action, instigating a worldwide rebellion with the goal of weakening the planet's defenses against the approaching Hive Fleet. The Hive Fleet will also seed the planet with Tyranid organisms, which will begin to biologically alter the planet's climate, surface and ecosystems to make it easier to consume. If the Hive Fleet is victorious, the fleet will descend to the planet, inhaling the atmosphere, drinking the seas, and basically consuming all organic biomass until nothing more than a lifeless ball of rock remains.

On the battlefield, Tyranid tactics are based around the notion of superior numbers, as they generally try to outnumber the enemy fifty to one. Tyranids overrun opposition in close combat, closing faster than most armies. They possess few ranged weapons, but their sheer numbers and close combat specialization makes up for the slaughter if they are led by a capable commander.

Biomechancial War Machines

The Tyranids do not build their starships and weapons from metal and plastic like the other intelligent races of the Milky Way Galaxy; instead, they use gene-splicing and bioengineering to grow them from the organic biomatter harvested from the planets they consume. Every weapon, gland and projectile used in their armies is a bioengineered Tyranid organism in its own right, from the spores polluting the atmosphere, to the grotesque spires that burst from the tortured ground during an invasion.

Creatures of the Swarm

Tyranid warrior-organisms are creatures of visceral horror, implacable monsters with razor-sharp claws, which can tear a man apart in the blink of an eye, and grotesque bio-cannons that fire hungry, parasitic projectiles into their prey’s flesh.

Every weapon and projectile used by the hive fleets is a living organism, grown from the reconstituted biomatter of previous invasions. The Tyranids have no form of mechanical technology and, instead, harness an advanced form of biotechnology to create organic equivalents of the tools, weaponry and ammunition used by other races. These creatures live in a highly symbiotic fashion, fusing into each other’s flesh so that it is often impossible to say where one Tyranid creature ends, and another begins. In this way, Tyranid warrior-beasts wield living weapons that are literally extensions of their own bodies, each one a killing machine, perfectly adapted to slaughter its victims.

The bio-construct nature of the Tyranids makes them a terrible foe to face, for their armies contain a creature specialized for every conceivable facet of warfare, which can be altered and re-grown to suit a battle’s needs in a short span of time. Thus can a hive fleet adapt to generate a force capable of overwhelming any opposition, unleashing a vast throng of ferocious alien monsters that can fly, run, burrow and stalk through the defenses of any foe.

Planetary Devastation

The Tyranid threat is unprecedented in its ability to transform a planet thriving with nature’s bounty into a barren orb of lifeless rock. While this process occurs at a voracious pace, there are several characteristic stages required before the xenos can complete the task:

A Tyranid Ripper Swarm Brood scout the area.

Reconnaissance - The earliest stages of a Tyranid infection are best characterized by their subtlety. At this stage, the xenos evaluate the planet’s viability for attack and begin to infect the native life forms. The three Tyranid species most active during this stage are Vanguard droneships, Lictors, and Genestealers. These bioforms share two critical characteristics for identifying new target planets and performing infiltrations: stealth and independence. All of the organisms involved have physiological abilities that are focused upon concealment. These talents are exploited to the utmost, so that they can initially observe the native environment safely. As there are often a very limited number of Tyranids involved at this stage, these specimens exhibit an uncharacteristic degree of self-preservation. The creatures are clearly aware that they must survive and propagate before the invasion may proceed. These specimens are distinctive from most of the Tyranid horrors in that they are also capable of stable independent action. The vast majority of known Tyranid organisms are incapable of coordinated activity when separated from the psychic emanations of the Hive Mind. As these creatures must be capable of acting when light-years distant from the swarm, they manifest a greater degree of intelligence and animal cunning than would otherwise be expected. This becomes most evident in the often unexpected subtlety of their plans. Vanguard droneships depend upon speed, their relatively small size, and their reduced psychic and propulsion signatures to enable them to quietly scout out new star systems. In many cases, a Vanguard droneship will deposit a portion of its cargo onto the surface of a likely planet, and then quickly leave the system to scout out targets in other systems. As their time in the system is both brief and stealthy, Imperial agencies may remain completely unaware of the foreboding intrusion. In those cases when a droneship is identified, it must immediately be considered the highest priority target in the system, as destroying it before it can deploy its cargo may significantly delay any Tyranid intrusion. Lictors are masters of unseen reconnaissance. After insertion from a droneship, these xenos immediately begin scouting the wilds of the newly identified planet. Using their feeder tendrils, they analyse the atmosphere, mineral availability, and the characteristics of all life forms. In addition, these fierce predators also target isolated animals and even sapiens to absorb their memories as they devour them. This information is compiled and sent back to the Hive Mind as soon as a node within range is available. Any Lictor that can be eliminated prior to the start of a full Tyranid invasion can substantially slow the attack, as the invading xenos are less optimized for the planet’s ecosystem. Genestealers are the most insidious of these early invaders. As they scout out the planet, they also infect the planet’s fauna with Tyranid genetic material. The corruption of the planet’s native gene-code eventually results in hybrid native-Tyranid creatures that are subject to the will of a Broodlord or other representative of the Tyranid Hive Mind. It is also believed that Genestealers may use their cunning and stealth to infiltrate planets without the aid of a droneship. Specimens have been found on abandoned Space Hulks and hidden among the cargo holds of Warp-capable vessels. These creatures must be eliminated with extreme prejudice, before they establish a breeding nest and a community of dedicated hybrid organisms. Once Tyranid species have established a toehold on a planet, their strategy soon changes. Successful integration of the planet’s wildlife triggers these infiltrators to emit a psychic call to the swarm. This call draws a fleet of vessels, including a Hive Ship to the system. The arrival of the Hive Ship and its escorts heralds the next phase of the invasion.

Infestation - The arrival of the Hive Ship and its escort vessels heralds the next stage of a Tyranid system invasion. As a powerful node of the Hive Mind, the Hive Ship disrupts the Warp in a radius of several light years. By the time one of these massive voidfaring creatures has arrived, it is often too late for a planet to send out an astropathic cry for help. Even vessels sent to defend a system under threat of Tyranid attack may be unable to exit the Immaterium in a system that has come under the influence of the Shadow in the Warp. Once the Hive Ship has come into range of a target planet, it immediately begins to launch a rain of Mycetic Spores into the atmosphere and towards the planet’s surface. Some of these pods are filled with microbial life. These hostile micro-organisms immediately begin to change the planet’s atmosphere, oceans, soil, flora, and fauna. Complex organic molecules are broken down and recreated in formats that are best suited for absorption by the swarm. Other spores bear more complex Tyranid creatures. Some of these, including the various strains of Gaunts and Gargoyles, immediately begin preparing for the assaults that are to come. Other strains begin to burrow deeper into the planet’s crust. These may include Mawlocs and Trygons. As these creatures burrow, they plant the spores that can later grow into Capillary Towers. Other organisms may use the tunnels these massive bioforms create to access a planet’s mineral wealth and subterranean life in the shelter of the tunnels. At the same time that this rain of devastation begins, those Genestealers and Lictors which have already infested the planet reveal themselves. Using the knowledge that they have obtained and the hybrid fauna they have spawned, these creatures sow confusion through the ranks of the defenders. By selectively targeting officers and communications hubs, the infiltrators can effectively delay or even compromise a planet’s defences. During this phase of the encroachment, a planet’s defenders must take rapid and decisive action or all hope may be lost. Cutting the attack off at its source is the optimal solution. If the Hive Ship can be destroyed, the remainder of the Tyranid fleet may lose its cohesion, falling into confusion. This presents the defenders with an opportunity to divide and conquer the remaining forces. While less effective, destroying Mycetic Spores as they fall to the planet may also help the cause. Even the massive bulk of a Hive Ship has a limit to its resources. Each spore destroyed may mean greatly fewer organisms to face on the ground. The Tyranid Hive Mind possesses the ability to make a tactical assessment and modify its strategy. On admittedly rare occasions, a fleet facing unexpectedly stiff resistance may break off the assault and retreat to attack an alternative target. Countermeasures against Genestealers and their ilk are crucial to this stage. With astrotelepathy restricted, any additional loss of communications on the planet could quickly doom the defenders. Extensive security measures must be taken to preserve the integrity of all communication and command centers.

Assault - Once the Tyranid forces have established a foothold on the planet’s surface, they quickly begin the process of eliminating any resistance. Endless swarms of the smaller breeds—including Gaunts, Gargoyles, and Genestealers—rampage through the skies, across the land, and under the oceans. Interspersed with these creatures, the larger bioforms—including Carnifexes, Tyrannofexes, and even Hierophant Bio-Titans—accompany their smaller brethren, sowing endless destruction across the planet. These varied breeds come together in large hordes, that sweep forward to create battlefronts that may be hundreds of kilometers in length. Behind the battlefront, Capillary Towers, many thousands of meters in height, burst forth from the planet’s crust. These towers consolidate the biomass that the swarm has already absorbed, using it to breed additional organisms to assist in the assault. While the towers may appear to be a Tyranid plant analogue, they are no less aggressive than the more mobile bioforms. Capillary Towers extend tendrils throughout the planet that can absorb indigenous species—both plants and any small or slower moving organisms. As they do this, the towers also filter the planet’s atmosphere, absorbing the biomass of microbes and small flying creatures. Along the battlefront, Termagants use their ranged weapons to lay waste to opposition, while Hormagaunts boldly engage any opposition in close combat. These xenos, along with other variants of the Gaunt genus, may be found in swarms of hundreds coordinated by Tyranid Warriors. In those instances when sheer numbers prove inadequate to overcome the planet’s defenses, the Hive Mind may direct larger strains to assist in the battles. For those planets with extensive defenses, the swarm may grow exceptionally large creatures. Specimens of the Dominatrix and the Hierophant strains have been observed which are comparable in size and strength to Imperial Titans. In cases when a defensive point seems insurmountable, the Hive Mind is quick to adapt its strategy. In many cases, Raveners and Trygons may be used to burrow under defenders, attacking from behind or beneath enemy lines. In other cases, Shrikes or Harpies may make strafing runs from above. While the swarm will readily sacrifice thousands of bioforms to take a single meter of ground, it will not waste them needlessly. Alternative strategies are consistently employed, as the Tyranids are clear masters of adaptation. It is worth noting that the battlefront swarms that cross the planet’s surface do not typically devour the planet’s defenders. Rather, they leave a swathe of refuse in their wake to be consumed by the next wave of organisms. This carpet of the dead may, of course, also include those Tyranid organisms that the defenders have managed to overcome. Their deaths hold little meaning to the Hive Mind. They have served their purpose, and will serve the swarm once more after their corpses are devoured. In the skies over the planet, Gargoyles and Harpies swarm in numbers large enough to block out the light of the system’s star. While they may assist in land-based battles, they also serve two additional purposes. Like the Capillary Towers, these flying organisms devour the biomass of the skies, returning it to the Tyranid swarm upon their deaths. They also serve to block out the sunlight from any photosynthetic life. Over time, this can have an effect on the planet’s atmosphere and climate as plant life is unable to synthesize oxygen. The only effective recourse at this stage of the invasion is all-out war. By this stage, the invading forces have firmly established a presence on the target planet. Eliminating the Hive Ship would not avert the damage done. Further, depending upon the numbers and types of creatures on the surface, the Hive Mind might still persevere. Even if the Hive Mind were overcome and the majority of the xenos were eliminated, the battles to cleanse the planet completely could continue for millennia. The Tyranid taint extends to the microbial level, and all of these xenos are strongly resistant to biological and chemical toxins. Even the tiniest Tyranid organism could have the potential to spawn more dangerous organisms given time and opportunity.

Subjugation - Even as the more militant bioforms continue to battle the planet’s defenders, others begin sweeping up behind them, collecting all available biomass. Some of the substrates collected are used to generate additional Tyranid creatures. In this manner, the planet’s natural resources are turned against it, providing additional tools for the swarm. The majority, however, is set aside to feed the Hive Ships orbiting the planet. Those massive creatures generally delay their feeding until after the planet has been secured. Near the battlefront, untold thousands of maggot-like Rippers are deployed from the sky to form massive, tightly packed swarms. With fang-filled jaws, they devour every organic substance they can find—living or dead. Once these abominations have eaten all they can, they slowly drag their bloated bodies towards digestive pools formed by the Capillary Towers. Rather than spewing the devoured biomass into the pools, the Rippers hurl themselves in, to be digested along with all that they devoured. New Rippers are continuously created to propagate the cycle of gluttony. As the planet’s surface is depleted, similar bioforms deplete all of the life in the oceans and within the planet’s crust. Eel-like Rippers swarm through the oceans in massive swarms devouring all of the native sea life. Burrowing variants expand the tunnels dug by Trygons and Raveners, consuming subterranean fungus, root systems, and any burrowing fauna. Mineral reserves are also depleted, particularly rare ores that may be incorporated into the exoskeletons of the various biomorphs. Massive Capillary Towers develop in even the deepest parts of the planet’s oceans. These towers, which may stretch several kilometres up through the sea, are capable of withstanding the crushing pressures of the depths and thriving in even the coldest of waters. As they grow, they may even modify the planet’s tidal flow as their powerful metabolic filtration systems draw in all biomass. The only effective recourse at this stage is Exterminatus. Planets which have been subdued are no longer salvageable. The only hope for the Imperium is to destroy the feeding system before the biomass can be used to feed the fleet for further attacks. The one positive aspect is that at this stage, the Tyranid fleet may have expended their resources in preparation for the gluttony they expect as the planet’s biomass is absorbed. Attacking the voidfaring bioforms and annihilating the planet may be easier than it would have been at an earlier stage of the invasion.

Absorption - As the last of the system’s defenders fall, the Capillary Towers begin to feed biomass back to the Hive Ship and its escorts. The massive living vessels extend tendrils through the atmosphere which make contact with the Capillary Towers, as they grow to pierce the edges of the atmosphere. Biomass is drawn up the towers, through a combination of massive pumping organs and suction. Once the last of the defenders have fallen, the surviving creatures of the Tyranid hordes hurl themselves into the digestive pools near the Capillary Towers. Their bodies are broken down and devoured so that the biomass may be returned to the fleet to be recycled into new creatures for future conquests. Along with their biomass, their memories, genetic innovations, and the gene patterns of all of the planet’s life forms are also absorbed. After the last vestiges of life have been absorbed, the Capillary Towers begin to absorb the planet’s water systems. All of these liquids are transferred into the voidfaring organisms, some of which may grow dramatically in size as their storage vesicles expand to accommodate the newfound resources. As this happens, many of the Capillary Towers are also broken down so that their biomass may be reabsorbed. Finally, the planet’s atmosphere, and then the last few massive Capillary Towers are absorbed into Hive Ships. Some Magi Biologis theorize that this may require even more massive voidfaring Tyranids than those previously identified. Others postulate that the ships use previously unseen techniques to compress the atmosphere into a solid state. Though the precise mechanism is unknown to the Imperium, the outcome is certain: nothing is left behind but a barren, airless rock of little value. As it travels between systems, the Hive Mind analyses the new genetic patterns it has identified. Some of these may be used to develop new bioforms. Of course, these new strains may not appear immediately. The Hive Mind may save them for deployment at a time when a new strategy is required. Clearly, adaptation is a key factor in the Tyranids’ long-term success and survival. By this point, the battle is well and truly lost. Any defenders who arrive are far too late to save the planet. Their only possible hope is to spread word to neighboring star systems, in the hopes that they might arrive before the Tyranid threat. Attacking the voidfaring bioforms immediately after they have fed on a world is to attack them at the height of their power.

Tyranid Species

Tyranids appear in a multitude of genera, and all have an extremely rapid rate of evolution directed by the Hive Mind, adapting to threats in direct response to their presence. Tyranid matter is constantly reabsorbed into biomass reclamation pools to create new species and adapt existing ones to suit the Hive Mind's immediate purpose.

Hive Tyrants - The Hive Tyrants are large and enormously strong Tyranids, who act as the leaders of the swarm and a synaptic conduit for the smaller creatures. They are highly psychic and highly mutable, and have a closer connection to the Hive Mind than most other genera of Tyranids. They are skilled at both close combat and ranged attack, more so than most other Tyranid organisms. Sometimes they are spawned with wings. Imperial Techno-Magi believe that Hive Tyrants are the repository of a Hive Fleet's collective consciousness, which means they completely embody the Hive Mind, yet their destruction does not in any way diminish its presence.

Broodlords - The Broodlords are another Tyranid synaptic organism, regarded as the epitome of the Genestealer breed. The Broodlord is one of the first Genestealers to make planetfall on a victim world. They are devastating in combat and are specifically adept at infiltration on the battlefield to get closer to the enemy. They are very adaptable and highly intelligent. Broodlords are also the center of Genestealer Cults, and they coordinate the cult's attacks. If the Broodlord is killed, then one of the purestrain Genestealers will eventually evolve into a new Broodlord after a period of time.

Tyrant Guard - The Tyrant Guards are a special species of Tyranid spawned in small broods for the sole purpose of defending the Hive Tyrant. They are large, tough, and difficult to harm, and it is nearly impossible to surpass their defense. Tyrant Guard are completely blind, utterly controlled by the synapse creatures they protect. On occasion Carnifex also benefit from the Tyrant Guard's protection. Tyrant Guard are believed by some Adeptus Mechanicus Magi to contain the DNA of the defeated Space Marine Chapters, but the Imperium considers this blasphemy and denies its very likely possibility.

Tyranid Warriors - The Tyranid Warriors are synaptic foot troops for the swarm. In between the size of a Hive Tyrant and a Gaunt, they serve as psychic resonators and assist in guiding the lesser Tyranid troops into battle. They are fast and powerful, with the capability to be strong at ranged combat or in close quarters in a similar fashion to the Hive Tyrant.

Lictors - The Lictors are large, deadly organisms bred for their stealthy qualities. A Lictor is basically chameleonic in nature, allowing it to blend with its surroundings to hunt and later kill its prey. Lictors are usually only seen when the Tyranids are springing a deadly ambush onto an unsuspecting army, unleashing a bio-engineered killing machine within their own ranks. They range ahead of the swarms, performing commando raids of sorts, and gathering information by devouring their victim's brains. The Lictors possess stealth and cunning of an unprecedented scale - to a point where they can best the famous Catachan fighters in jungle combat. Many Imperial Guard commanders have lost their troops in the shadows as they blink for a second; that is the terrifying undetectable Lictor at work.

Gaunts - The Gaunts are the basic staple combat unit of a Tyranid swarm. They are smaller and less physically powerful than most other Tyranid organisms, but they are extraordinarily adaptable and always attack in large numbers. They are a fully mutable species, and some are grown with extra wings, adrenaline/venom sacs, and even bizarre biomechanical weaponized symbiotes, including the dreaded spike rifle.

Gargoyles - The Gargoyles are essentially winged variants of the Gaunt genus. They possess many similar traits, including a smaller size and physical prowess than most Tyranid organisms. Gargoyles retain most of the physical traits of Gaunts, however, and their lower legs have atrophied to little more than stumps. Like their cousin, the Gaunt, they are capable of being armed with a large host of biomechanical, symbiotic weaponry.

Rippers - The Rippers are small, snake-like organisms designed to devour biomatter so that new DNA and nutrients can be absorbed by the Hive ships. They are released in the final stage of a Tyranid invasion.

Genestealers - The Genestealers are ferocious humanoid creatures, supposedly derived from human DNA, that are used as a vanguard to the Tyranid invasions of the Imperium. They infiltrate human societies, creating Genestealer Cults, as described under the tactics section above. They are also used as shock troops on the battlefield, where their sharp claws and instinctive close combat skills allow them to tear heavily armed opponents to shreds.

Carnifexes - The Carnifexes are originally known as screamer-killers – are huge, hulking, living battering rams, armed with a variety of biomechanical, symbiotic weaponry. Even stronger than the Hive Tyrants, they are used for assaulting fortified positions and as armor formations, such as during boarding actions. Carnifexes are the Tyranid equivalent of tanks or Space Marine Dreadnoughts - and the monstrous creatures can be mutated into a multitude of different sub-species, some designed for tank hunting, others built to produce acid and toxins ideal for anti-infantry combat.

Raveners - The Raveners appear to be related to both Rippers and Tyranid Warriors. These large beasts are designed for fast assaults against lighter enemies, and dig through the ground to perform surprise raids.

Zoanthropes - The Zoanthropes are a type of psychic artillery, whose highly evolved brains swell out of proportion with their bodies. Through their use of psychic powers they can perform a number of roles on the battlefield. Some evidence points to later incarnations of Zoanthropes being improved by the Hive Mind's assimilation of Eldar DNA following the Hive Fleet Kraken Tyranid assault on the Craftworld Iyanden.

Biovores - The Biovores are sluggish, sessile creatures, whose only task is to grow and launch Spore Mines towards the enemy. The Spore Mines grow inside the Biovore's body, and are then hurled across the battlefield through a muscle spasm. Biovores are supposedly evolved from Orkish gene-stock.

Bio-Titans - The Bio-Titans are enormous organisms, evolved as a response to other races' Titans and other super-heavy war machines. They are (as of yet) the largest land-based Tyranid creatures encountered. They range from nine to thirty meters tall, and can single-handedly take out an entire squad of Space Marines.

Norn-Queens - The Norn-Queens are gargantuan organisms that are essentially biomechanical wombs that give birth to all of the other known Tyranid life forms. They can biochemically and genetically manipulate biomass in infinite ways to create new organisms to serve any function the Tyranid race requires. The Norn Queens are housed in huge rooms aboard the Hive Ships. Each room is hundreds of meters high, filled with a single Norn Queen.

Dominatrixs - The Dominatrixs are the Norn-Queen's link to the Tyranid ground forces. They are huge monsters, almost as large as a Bio-Titan and the stronger, more psychically-powerful female Hive Tyrant. They are symbiotically fused with a smaller (Warrior-sized) entity which acts as a psychic, synaptic link to the linked Norn-Queen aboard her ship.

Trygons - The Trygons are powerful serpentine organisms that tunnel behind enemy lines. Towering over even a Carnifex, Trygons are one of the most powerful Tyranids breeds in existence. Trygons can also become synapse creatures to control other Tyranids. Trygons can lead a force of Tyranids known as a 'Tunnel Swarm'. This swarm is usually comprised of Lictors and Hormagaunts. The armour of a Trygon vibrates as it moves, thus creating a bio-electric current which can be released at will on a group of foes.

Mawlocs - The Mawlocs are a subspecies of the Trygon. They are worm-like and blind, though they are incredibly agile despite their size. Their short claws are not suited for close combat, rather to tunnel efficiently under the battlefield, although they are by no means defenseless. They prefer to swallow their prey whole to be digested alive for several days. Despite being blind, the Mawloc can gather information of the surface through pressure waves since they can travel through solid and fluid objects below ground. When a Mawloc begins to home in on the enemy, severe tremors erupt on the surface, which can tell the Mawloc where its prey is with more accuracy. If the sound is regular and rhythmic, it is easier for the Mawloc to home in on. Even a heartbeat will tell it where its next meal is.

Hive Guard - The Hive Guard are charged with protecting Tyranid structures and are capable of unleashing salvo after salvo of intense firepower. Essentially gun-beasts, they are heavily armoured in a shell-like carapace and have a body designed to be a stable firing platform for the massive impaler cannon bonded to their forelimbs. Physically linked to the shard-beasts that comprise the ammunition of their cannons, Hive Guard can target enemies with unerring accuracy - even those who they cannot see because they can receive sensory impressions from the shard bests in mid-flight.

Source: http://warhammer40k.wikia.com

[mkdremareriser]

Additional Kyuranger OC Notes

So I came up with some more information about the Kyuranger OCs I made. I’ve also been came up with other Kyurangers (Ikkakujyuu/Monoceros, UmiHebi/Hydra, MizuHebi/Hydrus, Ya/Sagitta, Pump/Antlia, Koto/Lyra Ryuukotsu/Carina, Tomo/Puppis, and Ho/Vela, plus the Kyuranger team that Kirrn was originally a part of (sorta debating whether or not I should make all of them, but I do want to at least make the Kirrn Kyurangers, Pump, and UmiHebi), but I’ll make a post for them later. Anyways, here are the notes for the ones I’ve already came up with.

WARNING: There’s some mild spoilers in the notes since I’m including information after people had hacked the Seiza Blaster toy to see what sounds they had.

Kirrn/RoFlame I

Despite how he became in the modern day, Kirrn was truly a hero before going mad with power and desiring more and more Kyutamas. He was even seen as a hero on his home planet before they discovered how far he had fallen.

Kirrn was initially supposed to be the Orion Kyuranger but I decided to do something different since people hacked the Seiza Blaster toy and found out that there will be an Orion Kyuranger, and I honestly didn’t want to make one anymore if only because it’d end up clashing with the official Orion Kyuranger.

Both Kirrn and Blast are biomechanical lifeforms, having a mechanical shell with organic insides. Basically they’re Bionicles.

He was on a team with four other Kyurangers. They were Kordo the Kirn/Camelopardalis Kyuranger, Zerda the Kogitsune/Vulpecula Kyuranger, Amami the Usagi/Lepus Kyuranger, and Brorga the Tsuru/Grus Kyuranger (they don’t have colors ‘cuz I haven’t thought of them yet, though I will eventually). As you can tell from his current antagonistic personality, he betrayed and killed all four of them, though he was only able to pilfer the KirinKnife, the KogitsuneStaff, the UsagiHammer, and the TsuruTonfa (all four of their transformation devices), since they managed to sent their Kyutamas into space to avoid being taken. This is why Kirrn does not have any of their Voyagers.

While he does have access to the other Kyuranger weapons he stole, he mainly uses the KirinKnife as his side weapon since it’s the smallest and able to combine with his RoGunnon for its bayonet mode.

Blast/RoFlame II

The reason why Blast can’t use the Ro Kyutama on the Seiza Blaster was because it was linked to the RoGunnon, which it could summon when needed, unlike the other Kyuranger transformation devices, since the RoGunnon is a pretty hefty transformation device (sorta like how Ken from Gekiranger could summon his Saiblade).

Blast is the last of my current Kyuranger OCs to join the team, since I plan on having Rook, Pytha, Apys, and Canvas joining first and defeat Kirrn together with the official Kyurangers.

Blast’s wish (which I hadn’t specified in his information last time) was less a wish and more of a statement, in that he was going to fight alongside the Kyurangers, whether he could use the Ro Kyutama or not. This was proof enough for the Ro Kyutama to activate and summon the RoGunnon for him to become RoFlame II.

Blast temporarily leaves the team to find the new owners of the Kyutamas belonging to Kirrn’s team. He comes back with Masai the new Kirin Kyuranger, Corsa the new Kogitsune Kyuranger, Teporin the new Usagi Kyuranger, and Monacha the new Tsuru Kyuranger.

Rook/CruxCrimson

Since he’s a tinkerer, he becomes the Orion’s main mechanic, and helps with repairing the robotic members of the team as well when they need it. He shows off his skills when he repairs Champ’s right arm and Raptor’s left leg, since Kirrn had damaged them pretty badly in the fight where Chryshiro died, and had been forced to remain on the Orion since their repairs were slow. Rook even rebuilds what was left of Lucky’s old space bike, and makes it even better, essentially turning it into a Sentai bike.

The reason why he’s become a great mechanic/tinkerer/inventor was because he idolized Professor Anton, and had bought many of his books on robotics whenever intergalatic merchants came with them in their stock. Because of this he and Champ get along great.

Rook’s the best at bargaining, having managed to convince merchants and storeowners to sell him things at cheap prices in order to build all of the machines he makes. Because of this, Spada likes to take him along for grocery trips so that they can get the best ingredients at good prices.

Rook regularly improves the Orion, having expanded it to fit the new Voyagers they get. He accomplishes this by using CrossOh and KyurenOh to build them quickly.

Despite being from a desert planet, Rook’s pretty pale, since he usually remains inside his house, really only leaving to shop for parts and to socialize with his friends. And when he is out, he’s pretty much covered head to toe with a cloak (like Stinger really).

Pytha/SankakuTeal

Pytha, being a tutor, basically turns part of the Orion into a school, taking in any illiterate orphans she comes across to turn into students. In fact, she started it because the wealthy kids she had taught all ran away with her because they love her, plus some of the street beggar children came too. Rook pretty much helped make the school/orphanage for her.

Believe it or not, she’s had her memory reprogrammed multiple times by her planet’s Daikaan before. The reasons are all basically similar, in that she learned something unsavory about her planet, her Daikaan, and the wealthy. Despite this, her desire to teach everyone equally remained no matter how hard her Daikaan tried to remove it. The Daikaan would explain this as that she had a temporary crash and needed to be rebooted, and told the kids and her that excuse over and over again.

Pytha’s has a “bob haircut”, which contrasts with Raptor’s “hair-bun”. Likewise, she has a yellow triangle on the back of her “hair”.

After the Kyurangers defeat Jark Matter, Pytha plans on finding an abandoned space colony and/or spaceship and starting a massive school for people for all ages.

Apys/HaeAmber

Apys, like Balance and Lucky, has her own catchphrase of “That’s so fly!” and variants of that. She also makes a bunch of fly/bug puns when she can.

She’s super energetic, and often fidgets when she’s sitting or standing in place, usually by tapping her foot.

An aspect of her wish to be a part of the BN Thieves and the Kyurangers is that she never had any friends on her home planet. She was usually alone and ignored, even by her family, especially since she’s a SUPER middle child of 28 kids. In fact, her entire career pretty much started so that she could get some sort of attention. When Balance and Lucky actually want her to join, it really pumps her up to do her best, and she feels like she failed when the Daikaan she’s robbing nearly beats her to death (though when she became HaeAmber she returns the favor).

Even with her ability to strange her body’s dimensions, she can’t stay huge for long, as it wears her out. It’s much easier to become flat or small for her.

Canvas/GakaJet

Canvas is the descendant of a great artist on his home planet, who had painted a famous mural in the capital city that captured the beauty his planet originally had before it was almost completely drained of its Planesium.

He’s perfectly capable of using a Seiza Blaster with his Gaka Kyutama, but has it taken apart and rebuilt into his personal Pictor Belt to stand out, since he saw Rook transform with the Cruxaber. Likewise he designs the Pictor Set after deciding he didn’t like any of the KyuTheWeapon forms.

He can come off as snobbish at times, and can be pretty rude (for instance he insulted Hami’s skirt and Spada’s hat after permanently joining the Kyurangers), but he ultimately means well, since he wants everyone to look amazing. This trait of his does get him into some minor squabbles with the others, though they’re solved as quickly as they’re started.

After each mission is completed, Canvas paints a picture capturing the beauty of each planet, being able to complete them thanks to his super photographic memory. He shudders at the thought of making actual portraits of people though thanks to having to paint them for his Daikaan all the time, his latest portrait having been number 4,524. They were all destroyed when KyurenOh and CrossOh had killed the Daikaan and blew up his ship (not that he’s complaining).

The original deal he had with his Daikaan was that before the planet was due to be destroyed, he would be allowed to leave to paint whatever he wanted, though the Daikaan actually intended to take Canvas with him to the next planet due for Planesium draining.

Canva’s home planet is one of the planets that has taken years for its Planesium to be drained. It started long before he was born, and it was only nearing completion when he was in his twenties before the Kyurangers came and stopped it.

[blazehedgehog]

One of those dumb things that drives me nuts about Shadow is how he boasts about speed when his jet shoes do the hardest part for him. On that note, let's say you took away every buff provided by rings, emeralds, and equipment from both parties. Would Shadow actually stand a chance in a knock-down, drag-out brawl against Sonic?

I know there are people out there who disagree with that because they think Shadow is the coolest character in the Sonic franchise and willingly embrace his identity as this super powerful God-like being. Especially in this recent stint of "Shadow is a very aggressive rival to Sonic" personality shift.

But I do think if you compared full-power Sonic to full-power Shadow, Sonic wins out. Shadow is, bare minimum, a "biomechanical" copy of Sonic. That means that, deep down, Shadow is kind of an android. That's why the whole thing in Sonic Heroes and Shadow with the vats of Shadow Android clones mattered so much, because to some degree, Shadow can be mass produced.

Shadow was made based on Gerald studying the ancient echidna prophecy in Hidden Palace Zone. And in Sonic Adventure 2, we see Shadow struggling to maintain his super form as easily as Sonic can. Shadow himself even realizes this, because if you let the final boss run long enough, he'll tell Sonic that he's the real Ultimate Lifeform. He understands who he is and how he was created.

But that's the thing. I think the reason Shadow appears to be so powerful is because he's sort of just permanently locked in a low-level Super Sonic state. When Sonic fully taps into the emeralds, he can hit higher highs than Shadow can, but for average, every day tasks, Shadow is just naturally strong at all times.

To put it another way, Sonic would actually have to exert effort to match Shadow's average level of strength, but if Sonic really wants to, he can actually beat Shadow.

But that's with the emeralds. Take all that away...

I do think it is tough. I don't think Shadow is especially fast without his boots on, but he has other abilities Sonic doesn't. Sonic would be good at avoidance. Shadow naturally has things like Chaos Spear that Sonic can't really do (presumably), which gives him a range Sonic doesn't have, but it doesn't matter if he can't land a hit. Sonic's innate speed is something that's always let him cheat any and all danger.

Sonic could wear Shadow out by playing keep away, and while I think Shadow is smarter than that, he's also prone to outbursts of anger. Especially recently. Sonic would probably be able to bait him out pretty easily if it came to that. I could imagine a scenario where, if they were forced to fight to the death, Sonic would silently apologize to himself and just start talking about Maria. Shadow seems like the kind of guy where it would be very easy to get inside his head like that.

It would be a long, possibly tedious fight, but I think Sonic would come out on top. Shadow is smarter and stronger than Sonic in their base level forms, but Sonic loves to run his mouth and his speed has always been his number one asset.