Comprehensive Guide to the Origin Question in the Warhammer and
Warhammer 40K Universe
[Introduction] [Part 1 - Chaos] [Part 2 - The Old World] [Part 3 - Sigmar] [Part 4 - The Tyranid]
The Origin of the Tyranid
The Origin of the Tyranid
Source Unknown
"The Tyranid thought."
What a marvelous opening to a stupendous find. The following document, the last I'll present in this origins series, is the one I can source the least. It was simply a bound copy of handwritten pages, a leather volume that I found in a second hand antiquities shop on Necromunda. No author is credited, no date is stamped on it (although I can say for certain that the volume is roughly 120 years old). And yet...
There is something very attractive in these pages. It is consistent with other facts I have discovered, and it answers a few other questions as well. Even so, I might not have presented this, except for one telling fact - and that may be a coincidence. Two days after I purchased this volume, Inquisition agents raided that shop. Neither the shop nor the shopkeeper has ever been heard from again, and I left the planet in something of a hurry. Coincidence? I suppose it's possible.
Oh yes, the author was very fond of writing in the margins. The handwriting is messier, but similar enough that I believe it to be the same person. I have reproduced many of these notations below, but moved to the main body of the text. Any paragraph beginning with a "[Margin]" notation was originally written in the margins. The copious underlining, red pen marks, and circles are omitted, as they eventually blur the story more than clarify it.
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Reflections
Author Unknown
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The Tyranid thought.
A single mind, encompassing trillions of bodies. Its thoughts run from one brain to another. A thought that begins in the brain of a termagant near Malleus is continued in a genestealer on the moons of Ymgarl, and completed by a warrior who waits outside the galactic rim.
[Margin] Each body has enough neurons to handle its own body, process sensory data, and react to a situation. Some have excess capacity that can be used for excess thought.
Some small portion of this incredibly vast capacity was given to idle though. At the same time it thought of its overall strategy, directed its bodies on 4 planets, considered modifications, or new bodies to be used in war, and other esoteric subjects I could not see. How to follow this? Its past was not considered as we would, a point at a time, but all at once - each memory carefully stored in bodies grown to do just that, all bought up at the same time, considered and disposed of in an instant. Must try.
The Tyranid was occupied with fighting wars not just here in our galaxy, but in two others besides. When it abandoned its home galaxy, after using up the entire thing, it split itself into four massive fleets, losing only one of them while accomplishing the incredible feat of crossing intergalactic space. It traveled through warp space without beacons, and crossed between galaxies! Its knowledge of warp travel exceeds our own by that much.
It reviews its situation in each galaxy. In the first, it meets with virtually no resistance. Few races have even achieved space flight, let alone sufficient might to oppose its great might. After its initial probe penetrated near to the galactic core, the ever cautious Tyranid committed two of the Hive Fleets it had kept out of the galaxy to the fight, in order to speed that galaxies conversion. Now it has fully six Hive Fleets inside there, 2 of which have been formed from native biomass.
[Margin] Conversion to Tyranid biomass is normally far more efficient, they should have tripled their size. Presumably it allows its Hive Fleets to also enlarge their size? Another sign of excessive caution?
In the second galaxy, the Tyranid faces severe difficulties. Natives, who combine organic and mechanical parts, quickly met its first Hive Fleet, intended as a probe. The Fleet was not only quickly destroyed, but the natives pursued its trail beyond the galactic rim, and the remainder of its mass there now faces attack. It fights only for time, and with the fear that these beings may yet follow the Tyranid trail to its source. The resources it gains from the first galaxy will go a long way towards aiding them, but it must conquer at least one other galaxy to have sufficient mass to ensure victory in that second galaxy.
[Margin] The Tyranid does not name galaxies.
That leaves our galaxy, where the Tyranid faces stiff, but apparently beatable opposition. It sees several space faring races, who do not fight each other as well as it. It sees creatures of Chaos who live in the warp, fighting all the other races, similar to ones it destroyed in its home galaxy long ago. It sees worlds blocked by the warp, isolated from everything else. It needs it all, to preserve itself from a far greater threat.
It saw this when it sent its probe into our galaxy. It was pleased by the probe's progress, it had nearly doubled its mass before meeting an expected defeat. Brute force, the Tyranid saw, would not be the answer here.
[Margin] Behemoth was just a probe! Some of the mass it absorbed was sent to the reserve ships outside the galaxy, 8 Fleets? Macragge was an expected defeat.
It turned to a disturbing skill it learned from a hive mind it had defeated back in its home galaxy. This other mind did not defeat its opponents so much as merge with them, changing itself in the process. >From that, the Tyranid learned how to make its genestealers, though that made it wonder if it had truly won the battle, or merely merged itself with its opponent. They were released upon us, and the devastation caused is well known.
A second form of the attack involved gaining mass from the isolated pocket worlds. The fleet sent in pods of its warriors to simply take them, and absorb the mass. The Tyranid was dismayed when it found the entrance trapped. Its mind could not extend through the change in the warp, and it lost its creatures, who were caught in a vortex that twisted time. It felt them change, and become a part of the warp itself, a solid form of warp flux, that finally impacted on the planet it had aimed for, fully 3000 years before it was sent.
[Margin] Unclear. It seems there were many isolated worlds, or maybe only one. This change still causes the Tyranid intense pain, hates thinking of that memory.
A new approach was needed, and the Tyranid again borrowed skills from defeated opponents. If it could not stretch its mind through the twists of the warp, it would grow creatures who could operate with some independence from it. It would grow creatures that were like half-changed genestealers in that regard, both a part of it, and not a part of it. It would design them to fit in with its targets, to be able to win them by charm as well as force, for it felt they would need many advantages when operating outside its purview.
[Margin] The design is odd for a friendly race. The Tyranid seems fixated on six-limbed creatures. It's big, impressive looking, though.
The new creatures were sent through successfully, and the Tyranid was still able to know what they did, even though it could not direct them. They were able to infiltrate, and join with the races there. They became allies, all the better for their eventual consumption. Pleased with their success, the Tyranid produced more of these creatures, and released them into our worlds as well.
[Margin] Birtow's Xenobiology, Advanced Text has a picture of a Zoat, now extinct. Most likely candidate for this creature.
The Tyranid's opinion of the creatures changed when some were corrupted by Chaos on the isolated world, and began serving as their fighters. Weak though the connection was, it still existed. Once the first of those creatures fell, corrupting others became easier, and more fell to Chaos. Worse, that corruption could travel back, to reach the Tyranid itself, a fate that was simply unacceptable to it. The Tyranid expended some effort, and destroyed its creations.
It turned its attention to its genestealers, terrified of meeting the same fate. That has not happened, though it feels the danger intensely. It charts their effectiveness, and sees it declining. It formulates new bodies, and new strategies to turn against all that live. It considers the problem of moving its mind through the twisted warp to the isolated worlds. Above all else, it considers its survival, and its victory.
Written by: Drew Garrett