A little 40K WI: infesting a Tyranid hive mind

[Ran Exilis]

After reading around for a bit on wh40k.lexicanum.com, I came across this (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Grendal-machine); an experimental device that allowed the user to tap into the Tyranid hivemind and disrupt nearby groups of Tyranids.

The device, which initially seemed to work rather well, turned out to have the little side-effect of essentially making the user part of the hivemind itself, relaying all the user's knowledge to the Tyranids as well.

Now, that got me thinking; daemonically possessed psykers can become living portals for daemons, right?

So, suppose such a possessed psyker gets hooked up to a Grendal machine or similar device - would it be possible to funnel a few thousand daemons and other warp creatures into the collective consciousness of a Tyranid hive fleet?

And if it is (Tyranid fleets have weird effects on the Warp, right?), then what kind of... interesting situations could we get out of this?

[Admiral Canaris]

IIRC the Tyranid hive mind is actually a super psyker itself, which is why the Tyranids have so comparatively little problems with Chaos possession and shit. Its psychic force defends it against them. IMO it should be able to do so here as well.

Also I'm not sure how many daemons you can get through one psyker. The one in Farseer burned up his psyker host pretty much immediately.

[Ran Exilis]

IIRC the Tyranid hive mind is actually a super psyker itself, which is why the Tyranids have so comparatively little problems with Chaos possession and shit. Its psychic force defends it against them. IMO it should be able to do so here as well.

I agree that the Tyranid hivemind functions as a particularly powerful psychic entity. That said, it's still a hivemind that consists of a massive cluster of small entities, rather than one big singular entity.

And evidently, this Grendal device allowed a human mind to disrupt the minds of the nearby Tyranids and the local segment of the hivemind, suggesting that the hivemind's defenses against psychic infiltration can be bypassed this way.

And wether or not one has the ability to bypass natural barriers/defenses matters a lot - for comparison: having a skin that bacteria cannot penetrate doesn't really matter anymore when you start injecting said bacteria directly into the bloodstream. And I'm getting the feeling that this could be a similar way to bypass the hivemind's main defenses against psychic entities.

Also I'm not sure how many daemons you can get through one psyker. The one in Farseer burned up his psyker host pretty much immediately.

I'm not sure about that either, to be quite honest.

But still, we could always throw in more than one psyker and some kind of improved Grendal device that can be used by more than one person.

[Gulag]

well, on lexicanum, it says that the Tyranids are drawn to our galaxy because of the astronomicon...suppose one could put a filter or one-way flow system on the Grendal device, back them up to the Astronomicon and flip the switch.

Instant Astronomicon-powered Anti-Tyranid Psychic impulse - a GO AWAY sign rather than an ALL YOU CAN EAT BUFFET sign as it were.

[Alex]

Sorry to perform an act of thread necromancy, but... Khornate Tyranids? Imagine THAT... or perhaps a Chaos Legion specifically using infected Tyranids for their own devices. Possessed Chaos Tyranid Astartes... are you scared yet?

[Gulag]

Sorry to perform an act of thread necromancy, but... Khornate Tyranids? Imagine THAT... or perhaps a Chaos Legion specifically using infected Tyranids for their own devices. Possessed Chaos Tyranid Astartes... are you scared yet?

Reminds me of Storm of Iron where the Warsmith had a Tyranid vessel infected with the Obliterator virus to transport titans.

There's some potential there, eh?

[Alex]

Reminds me of Storm of Iron where the Warsmith had a Tyranid vessel infected with the Obliterator virus to transport titans.

There's some potential there, eh?

Totally forgot about that... there is a lot of potential there!

[Ran Exilis]

Sorry to perform an act of thread necromancy, but... Khornate Tyranids? Imagine THAT... or perhaps a Chaos Legion specifically using infected Tyranids for their own devices. Possessed Chaos Tyranid Astartes... are you scared yet?

To name but a few possebilities: I can see Fabius Bile do a few nice little experiments involving Tyranids...

And what if some careless splinter fleet unwittingly ate a Nurgle-infested world?

Something not unlike that happened in Warhammer Fantasy, when a troll warband decided to eat the corpses of a defeated Nurglesque army. Suffice to say, the results weren't pretty (http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer/Warhammer_Monsters/NURGLE-BILE-TROLLS.html) - now imagine that happening to Tyranids instead...