Chaos affecting Tyranids...?

[Duke111]

If Nids were to devour a world where a Nurgle daemonic incursion had taken place, would the Nids get infected? Wouldn't that infection spread extremely quickly if it did, with the Hive ships redigesting ll the Tyranid organisms? Or are Nids immune to the effects of the Ruinous Powers? The Daemonhunters Codex leads me to believe they are not, so how come we aren't seeing fleets of Tyranids carrying Nurgle's Rot or something similar?

[Archnomad]

Nids and tzeentch. A very popular thought for me. Second are nurglitch nids, I like em too.

Dont think theres a reason it wouldnt happen, but I doubt they would have any "gifts". As they dont actively worship chaos.

Fluff expert *blows whistle*

Assemble?

[Montyhaul]

I thought about this a while when I first read how Tyranids worked. If it could happen to the degree where it would affect an entire hivefleet, or large community, it probably would have by now.

I guess it comes down to how the disease is defined. Is it a disease as we understand a disease to be; simply nasty little microscopic organisms? If so, we know from Tyranid fluff that life will not survive the rendering process. Samples of the Rot will join the genetic bank of the Tyranids.

However, in 40k there's much more to Nurgle's nastiest diseases than a few troublesome bacteria. Like the Zombie plague, Nurgle's Rot is as much a spiritual plague as a physical one - this brings about the question; do the Tyranids even have a soul to infect? My guess would be that if they do, it would not be one in the conventional sense, and would be exempt from the usual Faustian concerns. If this is the case, then the spiritual aspect of the disease might not be able to come into play.

Thus; the disease is nullified on two fronts.


Last point of all, let's play Devil's advocate and say that a Tyranid, or a community of Tyranids, have something that might be related to a 'soul' that would make viable Nurgle Snacks. The following explanation of how Nurgle gains from Nurgle's Rot should explain why Nids wouldn't do him much good;

shamelessly stolen from Lexicanum;

'When a mortal dies from Nurgle's Rot, his soul is forfeit to Nurgle, and from that soul-stuff Nurgle fashions his daemons, the Plague Bearers. Many sufferers undertake death quests in order to be killed and avoid this fate.'

Nids don't have the same problem as us humans. They don't have to worry about what they're going to do after the battle, because they're going to get re-digested. Hive ships re-use the organic matter from their own troops at such a high rate, that they would be dead and reprocessed way before the Rot would not have time to kill and claim any 'soul stuff'.


I hope that helps

[Duke111]

Yeah, sorry I should say any Chaos gods affecting Nids, not just Nurgle; I was just using it as an example. Tzeentch nids would be pretty ballin.

[Wolf Lord Herby]

I do remember in one of the Space Wolf books, Grey Hunter (I think), they come across a bunch of 'Nids in a Space Hulk that have been infected by Nurgle.. But all it did was make them a bit sickly and blotchy. They didn't actively worship nurgle, they just got a bit ill. Still very killy, though.

So, in the same way that contact with anything Chaotic can contaminate humans, it can contaminate Tyranids. I doubt it'd help the particular God concerned, though.

[Leech]

As far as I know Chaos can affect Tyranids and vice versa. Tyranids can be turned into Chaos spawn by the psychic power that turns people into spawn. Anybody can in theory be affected by Nurgle. Often there are lots of people who are affected by Nurgle's plagues that don't in any way worship him and may not even know of him. Tyranids won't worship Chaos as they can't understand the point of worship and they can't understand the basic idea. Tyranids are a collective group, nobody is superior there are just different Tyranids with different jobs which indicate how important they are. Because of this Tyranids would never percieve anything as superior neither would they care if they did percieve it and as such not worship it.

If a Hive fleet was infected by Nurgle it wouldn't just sit there. The infected parts would be isolated and purged. Liquefying, boiling the infected bio-mass would deal with Nurgle type infection. Nurgle or any Chaos power needs worship, it is in many ways their life blood. A lack of worship will render Nurgle's plagues or other Chaotic influence weak and eventually gone. This is because the concepts that give the Chaos gods their power are alien to the Tyranids.

Chaos zappy powers, daemon weapons etc can use their power against Tyranids just like anything else. Tyranids can also melt Daemons with their various acids etc. Daemons also have limited defences against Tyranid venoms, implant attack stingers, toxin sacs, venom cannons are all effective against daemons. This can probably be explained in that Tyranid venom is often full of it's own tiny microscopic Tyranids which adapt to the daemon's unnatural bodies. Though a Malanthrope's poison isn't effective. When it comes to Tzeentch pulling strings I think there isn't much point, schemes don't work well on something with no thought of gossip.

[Warmaster Phthisis]

Remember, the Imperium has already used germ warfare against the Tyranids and it was VERY successful. They also commonly use poison gas to clean out Space Hulks from Stealer infestations. The Tyranids do adapt and have nasty germs themselves, but it takes them a while to react. If the Imperium can come up with a virus that will wipe out Tyranids, then Nurgle could definitely come up with a daemonic plague capable of wreaking havoc through a hive fleet.

My roommate plays Tyranids and I play Death Guard so we have thought about this a lot. As far as who would get the upper hand, I'd say that it all depends on whose turf the fight was on. If the Tyranid's were to attack a daemonic plague world, I'd say they wouldn't survive for long. However, if a Plaguefleet were to engage the Tyranids far away from any warp rift, the shadow in the warp would make daemonic summoning and sorcery very difficult to say the least. A deep enough shadow might start to sever Nurgle's touch and maybe his servants would start to die off from his plagues without his rejuvenating touch.

The most ironic thing about a Nurgle vs. Tyranids bout is that the Tyranids are the perfect embodiment of the cycle of death and life that Nurgle represents.

[Malebranche]

I remember having this conversation years ago, when old one eye and my tyrant managed to kill a friends' bloodthirster. Sure, tyranids are just plain too hungry to waste time with worship, but what would the hive mind make of daemon DNA? (If they even have DNA- I dont know how it works)

[Hashulaman]

Well from what I gathered, If a splinter fleet was being infected or mutated, The Hive Mind would cut that fleet off much like surgeons in the past would cut out an infected piece of flesh or a diseased Limb. As for spiritual corruption, the nids don't have a soul per say. They do however pick up in the Warp, hence how that shadow works. Im sure if the Chaos gods could they could infect enough nids and the corruption could not take out an entire hive fleet, but since we do not know where the Hive mind is, or even if it is a tangible creature and not a warp entity. it's kinda up in the air.

[Visitor Q]

As far as I am aware daemons don't have DNA that Tyranids could digest. They are beings of pure psychic energy......

As well as isolation of the infected parts remember that the Tyranids that are isolated are, outside of the Hive Mind and hence fairly useless. They aren't sentient beings as such they can't reproduce by themselves and they certainly can't get off whatever planet they get infected on. As soon as a Chaos 'Shadow' appears within the hive Mind the Tyranids could simply abandon that part of the hoard.

In short the Chaos gods probably has little interest in devoting the time and effort to corrupting a few hundred thousand tyranid troops.

On the other hand the Hive Fleets themselves might be a viable and interesting target.


Finally the sheer size of the Tyranid menace means that a small section of the Tyranid fleet might be infected but it would be quickly swallowed by the greater whole.