The Tyranids were an extremely aggressive species of, native to the Fop'lla Universe, they were actually a space-faring ecosystem dedicated solely to its own propagation and evolutionary advancement. The Tyranids collectively formed a monstrous superorganism that travels 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 were Synaptic (psychically-reactive), and each Tyranid creature within a Hive Fleet shares in a communal Hive Mind, granting the ability for trillions of beings 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 force 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 Ships.
History[]
War against the Combine[]
The Tyranids first encountered the Empire of the Combine Race centuries before years the Hive Fleet Kraken entered the Milky Way galaxy, the Hivemind saw them as new potential prey and tempted to consume their ships’ techno-organic technology and even their biological traits to their own. However, the Hive fleets soon learn their new ‘prey’ were far more powerful than they realised, struggling to overpower them despite their vast numbers and ability to adapt. They continued to swarm all over the Milky Way, invading and consume as much bio matter from the prey worlds they can to overpower their enemies and even the Combine
The Multiverse War[]
The Tyranid Hive sensed numerous dimensional rifts close to the Hive Fleets in 1426 NE, the Hive Fleet Jormungandr discovered a rift built by the Combine within the Ghoul Stars region, there they discovered another reality after reading the minds of their victims. The Tyranid Hive discovered vast numbers of universes beyond their own, worlds teaming with biomass to devour and evolve. However, they were unable to travel through these rifts on their own and given the need to survive, they would only send splinter fleets to bring back the biomass for the Hive queens to create new Stronger Tyranids and expand the hive. Many attempts have been made to invade those universes to seek out fresh new feeding grounds but with their new foes’ ores the and lack the basic ability to cross through the rifts was imposisble. The Hive fleets sent out minor fleets to attack while learning much about them as they can for several decades.
Several hive of the Tyranids soon engaged with the Alliance of Nations aiding the Imperium, Aeldari and the T'au, with their more advance technologies combined prevented the Tyranids from gaining new grounds and slowing their advances. Allied scientists from various allied states had conducted research on their behaviour and biology in an attempt to find certain weaknesses to attack the Tyranids. Using technologies and weapons, the Hive fleets never encountered among the other races
Chimera Bio-Weapons[]
The Tyranids discover another threat that has begun to hunt minor hive-fleets, other than the Combine, this new foe were the Chimera, using their technology to capture and turn those they converted into their own weapons to attack their own kind while the Chimera fought the Genestealer Cults to slow down their efforts of consuming biomass and converting world to their own. Their ability to adapt and evolve gained the interest of the Revolutionary Chimera, the founding species of the Horde started to capture several Hive Ships, inserting them with cybernetic implants and injecting them with Chimeran virus to alter their genetic traits and serve the Chimera as the living fortress and weapons to attack the Axis and the Alliance for the assault on target worlds for invasions. While also creating hybrid bio-weapons for their experiments and plans.
Those that were converted by the Chimera were used as the main weapons for the Chimera against the Imperium, as well as the Alliance and the Axis of Empires for the newly founded Coalition of Independent States.
Weakened Hive[]
By the end of the First Great War, the Hive was weakened to be considered less of a threat to all life within the known Multiverse and retreated back to their home universe, rumour has it the Tyranids contracted a mysterious biological virus that has affected their ability to adapt fast or their feeding state, many found outside their reality were cut off from the rest and devolved into feral beasts adapting to their natural new environments. The Alliance now considers studying the feral Tyranids to prevent any attempts to become a menace once more, also to see if this virus the Tyranids contracted could have been a natural organism, or created by someone. Some reports believe before the war, the hive fleet was actually running from something, something that even they feared but could be the results of their biological evolution.
Possible Future Evolution[]
According to the time traveller, Endea, through their hyper evolution, a new species of Tyranids will evolve into something that would create new life in the distant future alongside theIr ancient rivals, the Zerg.
Biology[]
A Ripper Swarm attacking a Combine outpost.
The Tyranids were actually an extragalactic species, born somewhere beyond the void that separates the galaxies of the Local Group. Tyranid Hive Fleets travelled through space by using gigantic, organisms genetically engineered to journey through a vacuum known as Hive Ships, which move in groups which can be likened to very large locust swarms. Typically, Tyranid Hive Fleets moved 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 entered the Warp. Instead, by using the specialized psychic power of the a selectively evolved Hive Ship, they manipulated the gravity fields of star system to achieve faster-than-light travel. The massive Warp presence of the Tyranid Hive Mind, however, manifested itself in that realm through the Shadow in the Warp phenomenon. The current collection of Tyranid Hive Fleets had migrated to the Fop’lla Milky Way Galaxy, presumably after overpopulating or overfeeding in other nearby galaxies of the Local Group. Given that each Tyranid Hive Fleet had approached the galaxy from a different direction, this may imply that the Tyranids had consumed a disturbingly large number of nearby galaxies. Tyranid Hive Fleets consisted of millions of biomechanical craft, each served as host to an untold number of symbiotic organisms. These creatures evolved and spawned from a variety of geno-organisms in the ships' reproductive chambers. All these creatures were born to service the ship, and the ship in turn existed only to service the needs of the Hive Fleet.
Whereas other armies like the Empire of the Combine Race fight for conquest or self-defence, the Forces of Chaos and the Ork clans battle merely for the chance to wreak violence and havoc, the Tyranid Hive Fleets were driven only by the will of the Hive Mind, which itself was 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 mobilized 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 metapredator 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.
Military[]
Foreign Relations[]
Notes[]
- The Tyranids were unable to travel to other universes and only relied on the Horde or the Genestealer Cult to open a portal for their scouts to bring potential bio-matter. Any that crossed over would be cut off from the hive mind, reducing them to nothing but aggressive beasts.