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Post by guns on Aug 30, 2012 21:58:11 GMT
I agree with 60mm, Tyranid personalities were an enormous violation of the fundamental and long-standing Tyranid background.
PrinceRaven, your position is an interesting one, but there's no clear indication in the codex that the consciousness of the Swarmlord is a discrete, singular construct that can only inhabit one body in the galaxy at a time. You seemed to process the reabsorption aspect of the fluff as an indicator that the consciousness is a limited resource, but that's not really delineated at all by the information in the codex. The process of reabsorption and reanimation is in place to keep the Swarmlord "updated" and to add its new experiences to the old "file".
There's no reason to assume that there couldn't be multiple Swarmlords operating in different Hive Fleets, while all contribute to a recombined version of their consciousnesses when and if they're reabsorbed. If you want to throw real world science at it, a "consciousness" is just an amalgamation of brain chemistry and physiology. There's no magic self in there.
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Post by bredkooler on Aug 30, 2012 23:55:36 GMT
I guess I just assumed Swarmy to be the hive mind's personal incarnation
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Post by Raven on Aug 31, 2012 5:19:10 GMT
I agree with 60mm, Tyranid personalities were an enormous violation of the fundamental and long-standing Tyranid background. PrinceRaven, your position is an interesting one, but there's no clear indication in the codex that the consciousness of the Swarmlord is a discrete, singular construct that can only inhabit one body in the galaxy at a time. You seemed to process the reabsorption aspect of the fluff as an indicator that the consciousness is a limited resource, but that's not really delineated at all by the information in the codex. The process of reabsorption and reanimation is in place to keep the Swarmlord "updated" and to add its new experiences to the old "file". There's no reason to assume that there couldn't be multiple Swarmlords operating in different Hive Fleets, while all contribute to a recombined version of their consciousnesses when and if they're reabsorbed. If you want to throw real world science at it, a "consciousness" is just an amalgamation of brain chemistry and physiology. There's no magic self in there. I think that since the fluff in the codex constantly refers to THE Swarmlord as a single entity and describes how it gains experience from each battle it fights that it would be just a single consciousness, it isn't clear, but that's what I think the author seems to be intending. The only thing about no magic self existing is that you have the whole warp aspect in 40k, where a consciousness/soul can exist independently from a body. The fluff describing how the emperor of mankind came to be describes how the shamans/witchdoctors/etc. would be reincarnated, their souls put into new bodies, but as the Ruinous Powers grew in strength their souls were being taken by daemons while travelling through the warp. I see the reincarnation of the Swarmlord to be similar, except it goes through the Hive Mind instead of the Warp. |
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Post by guns on Aug 31, 2012 14:10:41 GMT
I agree with 60mm, Tyranid personalities were an enormous violation of the fundamental and long-standing Tyranid background. PrinceRaven, your position is an interesting one, but there's no clear indication in the codex that the consciousness of the Swarmlord is a discrete, singular construct that can only inhabit one body in the galaxy at a time. You seemed to process the reabsorption aspect of the fluff as an indicator that the consciousness is a limited resource, but that's not really delineated at all by the information in the codex. The process of reabsorption and reanimation is in place to keep the Swarmlord "updated" and to add its new experiences to the old "file". There's no reason to assume that there couldn't be multiple Swarmlords operating in different Hive Fleets, while all contribute to a recombined version of their consciousnesses when and if they're reabsorbed. If you want to throw real world science at it, a "consciousness" is just an amalgamation of brain chemistry and physiology. There's no magic self in there. I think that since the fluff in the codex constantly refers to THE Swarmlord as a single entity and describes how it gains experience from each battle it fights that it would be just a single consciousness, it isn't clear, but that's what I think the author seems to be intending. . What I take away from that is that there is only one Swarmlord "pattern". So there couldn't be a dozen different unique Swarmlords, each with a long history of unique experience, but there could be a dozen different versions of the same consciousness that all get added to the pool when each is absorbed. I know we've already touched on the "you can't apply realism to 40K" ethos, but your interpretation stretches the imagination even further than the alternative. The codex says the Swrmlord is created by a Hive Fleet as a response to a near-insurmountable challenge or enemy. For your interpretation to be true, the Hive Mind would have to have real-time communication with every portion of itself across the galaxy. Otherwise, two Hive Fleets at opposite ends of the galaxy could both spawn a Swarmlord as a stress response if they required one at the same time, because they would begin the process before a "check" could be run on whether or not there is currently an active Swarmlord anywhere else. Your version would also allow for the permanent destruction of the Swarmlord pattern, if for example he was destroyed in circumstances where a psychic obstruction prevented his pattern from being returned to the Hive Fleet. I prefer the more realistic/believable interpretation that the Swarmlord is simply a complicated creature pattern that comes with added individual consciousness on top of the usual slate of unique biomorphs/physical design. |
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Post by Raven on Sept 1, 2012 8:28:07 GMT
I think that since the fluff in the codex constantly refers to THE Swarmlord as a single entity and describes how it gains experience from each battle it fights that it would be just a single consciousness, it isn't clear, but that's what I think the author seems to be intending. . What I take away from that is that there is only one Swarmlord "pattern". So there couldn't be a dozen different unique Swarmlords, each with a long history of unique experience, but there could be a dozen different versions of the same consciousness that all get added to the pool when each is absorbed. I know we've already touched on the "you can't apply realism to 40K" ethos, but your interpretation stretches the imagination even further than the alternative. The codex says the Swrmlord is created by a Hive Fleet as a response to a near-insurmountable challenge or enemy. For your interpretation to be true, the Hive Mind would have to have real-time communication with every portion of itself across the galaxy. Otherwise, two Hive Fleets at opposite ends of the galaxy could both spawn a Swarmlord as a stress response if they required one at the same time, because they would begin the process before a "check" could be run on whether or not there is currently an active Swarmlord anywhere else. Your version would also allow for the permanent destruction of the Swarmlord pattern, if for example he was destroyed in circumstances where a psychic obstruction prevented his pattern from being returned to the Hive Fleet. I prefer the more realistic/believable interpretation that the Swarmlord is simply a complicated creature pattern that comes with added individual consciousness on top of the usual slate of unique biomorphs/physical design. Hmm, an interesting viewpoint. Although considering how powerful a psyker the Swarmlord is, he would have a very strong synaptic link to the Hive Mind, being a sort of main node as it were. So what obstruction would be powerful enough to break that link? |
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Post by blindmage on Sept 1, 2012 15:28:36 GMT
The Pylons the Necrons and C'tan at the start of the Great Work to seal off the Warp from the Material world would do it.
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Post by Elof Valantor on Sept 1, 2012 23:08:24 GMT
We all tend to get a bit... confused... around this topic of "unique" Tyranids and the Swarmlord in particular. I think we should take a moment to consider exactly what the Tyranids and the Hive Mind "are".
First of all recognise that without the Tyranids there would be no Hive Mind. Also recognise that without the Hive Mind the Tyranids would be very different.
Each Tyanid has its own mind. In the smaller Tyranids this mind is primitive, like an animal. It runs of basic instinct. Some of the bigger Tyranids have more complex minds. They can control the lesser minds of the smaller Tyranids but have no ability to make decisions themselves. Then there are the "commanders" like the Hive Tyrants. They have more mental control over the lesser Tyranids and can also make decisions using the knowledge inherent to the Hive Mind.
The Hive Mind is the collective consciousness of every Tyranid linked to it. For the smaller Tyranids that means very little - their minds are too puny. Bigger Tyranids like Hive Tyrants and Warriors are always linked to the Hive Mind. Their minds are complex enough and have the appropriate genetic make-up to create the perma-link. Every sight, sound, smell, experience and decision that a Tyranid experiences is shared amongst the collective consciousness. The really big Tyranids (like Norn Queens) probably have complex enough minds to actually store some of this information and process it. Deciding what works, what doesn't, what to try. A bit like a massive super computer. Every CPU doing a bit of the work all at once.
The Hive Mind filters these new commands back to whatever creature needs it. Information goes in, gets churned around and then fed back out.
The point is that the idea of "unique" Tyranids is really not that blasphemous. Every Tyranid is unique either because of their genetic template, mutations or life experiences. The Hive Mind is merely the unimaginable bowl of soup made up of all these minds being linked together and sharing their experiences.
Up until the Swarmlord however, no Tyranid had "free will". The Hive Mind (all the Tyranid minds in this weird "soup"), even Hive Tyrants, were only given reign to try new ideas and tactics that the Hive Mind had concocted (how much of an influence the Tyrant in question has in that is debatable).
The Swarmlord however is allowed to do whatever he wants. He can ignore the Hive Mind if he wants to (or rather, disconnect from it?). He can make decisions without the help of all those other minds in his head. Is this a blasphemy? Or is this the Hive Mind recognising that sometimes you need a bit of revolutionary genius to replace the tried and tested methods of millennia of warfare?
I like to think the latter. They gave the Swarmlord an exceptional blueprint and invest incredibly rare materials in his growth. This is because they need him to be able to go into the toughest situations and think of something completely revolutionary. They don't want him getting killed before he can have an epiphany. They also only ever have one of him around at any one time.
Why? Well maybe it's because it takes a lot of effort to produce such a powerful beast with such a massive and complex brain. Maybe it's because the Hive Mind doesn't want lots of Swarmlords running around thinking for themselves. One is manageable. Hundreds? You're just asking for trouble (Tyranid civil war? lol). Maybe it's the effort of saving his consciousness when his body is killed? Maybe it's a mixture or all of these reasons?
Maybe there are loads of Swarmlord type Tyranids around. Maybe the Imperium is unable to tell them apart and so treats them like one entity? Who knows...
The point is that I don't think it's bad or against the fluff. I think it's a bit of a tangent. Something we haven't seen before. But I think it adds to the race. Stop thinking about it like an Imperial and start thinking about it like a borg (don't take the borg reference too far... while similar I think the Tyranids/Hive Mind have some subtle but important differences).
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Post by Raven on Sept 2, 2012 5:20:27 GMT
Eloquently put, Elof. We all have our different views regarding the fluff of the Swarmlord, and until Games Workshop expand on the fluff we really can't know for certain how accurate we are. I think we should be willing to embrace the new fluff rather than clutch feebly to our old preconceptions. Are we not, after all, Tyranids? The race designed to adapt and evolve?
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Post by Psychichobo on Sept 2, 2012 20:24:01 GMT
The only part about that interpretation of the Tyranids and the swarmlord that genuinely bothers me though is this idea that the Hive Mind thinks in such human terms.
To suddenly decide that it requires an individual separate entity to leads its army and produce innovative and risky ideas is not only bizarre, but also creates similarities to the more conventional armies wherein there are individuals arranged in a cohesive military structure. It just seems to me like they were struggling to figure out just how they'd incorporate Unique characters into the Nid fluff (and also to explain Nid warfare and tactics), and just gave up and described them like any other army.
I'm all for new things, but it does feel like a loss of a certain unique aspect of the Nid army.
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ziggythetrygon
Genestealer
Teeth and claws over guns and spores.
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Post by ziggythetrygon on Sept 3, 2012 16:45:09 GMT
If it helps, Psychichobo, don't actually consider the Hive Mind as thinking, because the collective consciousness is not technically a consciousness at all. The supercomputer image fits extremely well. The Hive Mind is not actually thinking, but simply acting and reacting upon stimulus. The way it does this mimics thought, but it's actually about as thoughtful as you reflexively dodging a punch to the face.
You have to remember something about Evolution here: it is actually controlled by outside forces. No animal intentionally evolves (forgive me for not delving into the concsiousness issue currently present in modern science here). The Tyranids are a beautiful illustration of this Life Science principle. Let's take, for example, the earliest cells. These organisms cannot think, but they mutate randomly and whatever pattern of mutations is more efficient in the environment becomes to the new norm. Selection pressure has caused reactive change in the cell population. This is true for all of Evolution. While many folks (even Dawkins, sadly, though he does know what he's talking about) accidentally refer to Evolution as random because of the mutation element, even this is not random. The mutation will occur based on some sort of environmental issue like radiation of the chemical bonds of the genome being unstable for various reasons.
Enter the Tyranids. Whatever they were initially, they had to have fairly unstable genetic material and an environment to allow for heavy flux in that material. So you can speed the above reactive process up a trillion-fold and finally reach the Hive Mind where it is today. It still is not intentionally evolving, but reacting to the situations unthinkingly due to selection pressures on the Battlefield. The Swarmlord is one of those reactive "efforts", and it simply mimics the intelligence and individuality of Men to a greater degree than other Tyrants. The same holds for the Deathleaper: selection pressure forces a lictor's genetic material into a role that makes it seem like it's intentionally being a super-assassin, and this works extremely well. The genetic code is stored because it was effective. Not because it was given a place of honor for its efforts. That's like saying a bacterium with a heat resistant shell survived and propagated because the other bacteria respected it.
Simply put, the Hive Mind is a giant Pseudo-mind, really. It's a beautiful and amazing super-organism made up of a network of trillions upon trillions of bodies. It has actually evolved to become unbelievably susceptible to selection pressures, and I'm surprised the enemies that have faced it haven't taken advantage of that weakness. Force it to adapt strongly in one direction and then hit it in the weakness you created yourself.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 3, 2012 17:30:45 GMT
I don't even question the idea of having a single badass leader for swarms like the Swarmlord. I'm just saying that an entity like the Hive Mind would pump out all of it's Tyrants with the Swarmlords knowledge and mental capabilities at a minimum. There is no reason not to as all the Tyranids, Swarmlord included, just come out of biomass from digestion pools. There's no special crystal mining for the bone sabres or anything, just biomass. There's no reason (outside of sales) for Tyranids to ever have a unique creature. To work it in you have to make up fluff that goes against the fluff we have and all reason.
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Post by Elof Valantor on Sept 3, 2012 21:50:16 GMT
I'm surprised the enemies that have faced it haven't taken advantage of that weakness. Force it to adapt strongly in one direction and then hit it in the weakness you created yourself. Isn't that what Kryptman did in a way, by baiting Hive Fleet Leviathan into Ork space to prevent Leviathan making a run deep in Imperium space (Terra, basically)? He knew to fight Leviathan head on was impossible, so used the Hive Minds own instinct against it and sent genestealers into ork space, whereby the genestealers quickly infest many ork worlds and draw the Hive Mind (and so Hive Fleet Leviathan) into ork space instead of further into the Imperium. Of course that is going to back fire because of what the Hive Mind will learn from consuming lots of Ork DNA (not to mention all that juicy quick-growing Orky biomass which the fleet will gorge on!). |
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Post by guns on Sept 4, 2012 17:14:39 GMT
Some interesting new posts on this page, although I'm not sure I entirely agree with either of the long ones on the nature of the Hive Mind and Tyranid evolution.
Regarding the Hive Mind, the background has never really decided if it wants the Hive Mind to be a pure collective consciousness, or a collective consciousness that got so massive and advanced that it attained a sort of central, inviolable agency or even personhood. The different codexes over the years have sort of fluctuated on this, and not set it out in complete terms, so there's still room for both interpretations (although I tend to agree that the newest book is weighted in the favour of pure collective consciousness).
Regarding evolution, there are some key differences in the Tyranid background that separate their path of evolution from earthly, "real world" evolution. For one thing, I believe real world evolution can produce vestigial traits and adaptations that are artifacts of earlier evolution which are no longer utilized or required by the organism. Given the efficiency of the Tyranid machine, I can't imagine this being true for them; useless biomorphs or forms would be purged and put on ice. Additionally, some of the harmful genetic trends (like a certain human beings inherited predisposition for cancer) would be eradicated. So, in a sense, Tyranid evolution is controlled or deliberately, consciously governed. Of course, the exact nature of this depends on your personal view of the first question, and whether or not you think the Hive Mind can make decisions or is just a massive checklist/spreadsheet.
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ziggythetrygon
Genestealer
Teeth and claws over guns and spores.
Posts: 85
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Post by ziggythetrygon on Sept 9, 2012 19:22:30 GMT
Regarding evolution, there are some key differences in the Tyranid background that separate their path of evolution from earthly, "real world" evolution. For one thing, I believe real world evolution can produce vestigial traits and adaptations that are artifacts of earlier evolution which are no longer utilized or required by the organism. Given the efficiency of the Tyranid machine, I can't imagine this being true for them; useless biomorphs or forms would be purged and put on ice. Additionally, some of the harmful genetic trends (like a certain human beings inherited predisposition for cancer) would be eradicated. So, in a sense, Tyranid evolution is controlled or deliberately, consciously governed. Of course, the exact nature of this depends on your personal view of the first question, and whether or not you think the Hive Mind can make decisions or is just a massive checklist/spreadsheet. That's an excellent point, and brings up something I skipped over. In normal evolution, things happen at a much slower rate, so vestigial organs are readily apparent to us. Assuming a (qualitatively speaking) high level of instability for Nid genetic material would indicate that a few generations, or sets of stimuli, would be all that was needed for an old adaptation to disappear. We don't see vestigial anything on the models because the models are a sort of "final product", if anything so volatile can be considered such. |
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