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[MetalSlimeHunt]

Lexicarnium suggests that the typical hive ship is comparable in size to an Imperial battleship. However, it also says that there are reports of far, far more massive ships appearing in areas that the Tyranids have established to total control over, which is probably what that image references.

[nenjin]

Someone is clearly overcompensating.

[sprinkled chariot]

Someone is clearly overcompensating.

Phalanx fortress builders?

[Rolepgeek]

That is the actual weakness of the Tyranids, that for all their numbers if they can't keep their biomass reserves up the entire hive fleet will fall into a cannibalistic spiral. They're only undefeatable in traditional warfare.

Their hive ships have solar wings. I'm fairly certain that they have ways to stay alive through the Void. Not forever, or without a star, perhaps, but to build up actual energy reserves, rather than just matter, which can be recycled? They have means. They probably do have 'Dyson spheres' of a sort, but you can only store so much energy via hydrocarbons.

I can imagine Tyranids seeding gas planets with giant balloon organisms that process and draw out the planet's atmosphere for use as energy/fuel/biomass.

Though, speaking of that massive ship...I believe that would be an addled Rogue Trader's reproduction of said ship, though I'm certain there are hiveships many times larger than Imperial Battleships. Tyranid hiveships have no purpose for claws at that size. Unless, of course, you choose to believe the rumors about the reason they're coming to the Milky Way. Or they fight other Tyranids.

[sprinkled chariot]

That is the actual weakness of the Tyranids, that for all their numbers if they can't keep their biomass reserves up the entire hive fleet will fall into a cannibalistic spiral. They're only undefeatable in traditional warfare.

Their hive ships have solar wings. I'm fairly certain that they have ways to stay alive through the Void. Not forever, or without a star, perhaps, but to build up actual energy reserves, rather than just matter, which can be recycled? They have means. They probably do have 'Dyson spheres' of a sort, but you can only store so much energy via hydrocarbons.

I can imagine Tyranids seeding gas planets with giant balloon organisms that process and draw out the planet's atmosphere for use as energy/fuel/biomass.

Though, speaking of that massive ship...I believe that would be an addled Rogue Trader's reproduction of said ship, though I'm certain there are hiveships many times larger than Imperial Battleships. Tyranid hiveships have no purpose for claws at that size. Unless, of course, you choose to believe the rumors about the reason they're coming to the Milky Way. Or they fight other Tyranids.

Or they had reason to have such claws in the previous galaxies.

[miauw62]

That is the actual weakness of the Tyranids, that for all their numbers if they can't keep their biomass reserves up the entire hive fleet will fall into a cannibalistic spiral. They're only undefeatable in traditional warfare.

Their hive ships have solar wings. I'm fairly certain that they have ways to stay alive through the Void. Not forever, or without a star, perhaps, but to build up actual energy reserves, rather than just matter, which can be recycled? They have means. They probably do have 'Dyson spheres' of a sort, but you can only store so much energy via hydrocarbons.

Hydrocarbons are actually a very efficient way of storing energy, though.

[Grim Portent]

I can imagine Tyranids seeding gas planets with giant balloon organisms that process and draw out the planet's atmosphere for use as energy/fuel/biomass.

If I recall correctly they do something similar to this, but with modified capillary towers that suck the atmosphere up like a straw into the hive ships, the same way consume normal planetary atmospheres.

[Rolepgeek]

That is the actual weakness of the Tyranids, that for all their numbers if they can't keep their biomass reserves up the entire hive fleet will fall into a cannibalistic spiral. They're only undefeatable in traditional warfare.

Their hive ships have solar wings. I'm fairly certain that they have ways to stay alive through the Void. Not forever, or without a star, perhaps, but to build up actual energy reserves, rather than just matter, which can be recycled? They have means. They probably do have 'Dyson spheres' of a sort, but you can only store so much energy via hydrocarbons.

Hydrocarbons are actually a very efficient way of storing energy, though.

Yeah. But there's a reason we use Hydrogen-Oxygen as our Rocket Fuel, and not octane. :p

[Radio Controlled]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biohydrogen

[Loud Whispers]

Tfw you realize the Imperium wasting copious amounts of materiel is stunting the growth of the nids

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Though the other element is that, as the Yrmal Genestealers and Catachan Devils demonstrate, even were the main body of the Tyranids to be utterly defeated they could still restart from any of the worlds that they've seeded with Tyranid life and spared/lost access to. They're all but invincible, species-level.

[Loud Whispers]

Basically like Orks, given that they're both biologically engineered living weapons designed to endure

I like that one story where the underhive of some hive world was somewhat infested with gaunt remnants, adding to the local arbites' joy

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Plot twist, humanity is a Tyranid seeding organism and everything up to this point was an instinctual resource-concentration strategy.

[Rolepgeek]

Plot twist, humanity is a Tyranid seeding organism and everything up to this point was an instinctual resource-concentration strategy.

Actually, when I was thinking about super-organisms/collectives and the way cooperation/predation relationships end up working, something like that is what I concluded would probably happen. Farmers win out over hunters, over time. Seed planets with life, have them progress technologically and store energy in various forms, concentrate and collect it, all without you stepping in, have them be nice and helpful to each other so they don't waste those resources fighting, then subsume them into the collective for whatever inventions, energy, art/minds/other things your collective value they've built up. Preferably peacefully.

As such, if we were an example of such a race, aliens could totally be interested in earth, even know. They'd probably be fighting each other more than us, while we'd still get trampled in the process, though. Raiding farms tends to result in a lot of burnt down grain, after all.

Plot Twist; Tau were actually a farm project that got co-opted/out of hand and became a (literally) invasive species. That's why they're bovine in origin.

[Loud Whispers]

Wait, isn't it canon that humans, back when they were still literal mon keigh, were tampered with specifically to make the Universe more harvestable? Granted this was oldcron pariah fluff, and they were talking about soul harvesting and not so much biomass harvesting, but it's a similar principle

And we all know the true masters of the 40k universe are rats

40k rats > ripper swarms
40k rats > baneblades
40k rats > demons

How many rats do you think scurry around the golden throne? I bet there's one snoopin around the Emperor's eye sockets, he shall be the golden rat