What if, the great devourer is as powerfull as its appear?

[venyak]

My question is, do you think a last alliance between human empire and xeno races (aeldari, orks, necrons, tau empire, etc) could close the cicatrix maledictum and stop the great devourer before continuing killing each other. Specially if the great devourer is as big as is depicted in some images: (as in this one https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/es/wiki/Tir%C3%A1nidos?file=Mapa_galaxia_incursiones_Tiranidas.jpg or in this fanfic https://www.quora.com/If-the-true-size-of-the-Tyranid-fleets-is-bigger-than-the-entire-Galaxy-is-it-even-possible-to-fight-them-Like-is-there-even-enough-matter-and-energy-in-the-Galaxy-to-throw-at-them-to-stop-them)- 

[MARK0SIAN]

The Tyranids have always been portrayed as this great doom hanging over the galaxy that never seem to get taken seriously enough. It should be a threat to galvanise even Chaos into unifying and even allying with the Imperium and other races to stop it. The 4 Chaos God's put aside their differences temporarily to face the threat the Emperor and his Great Crusade posed to them and wiping out all life in the galaxy is surely a threat of a similar magnitude.

 

It might be that even united though, there isn't much you can do to stop them if they truly are that big. We know that one of the Emperor's goals with his unification and crusade was to safeguard humanity's future and evolution. He saw mankind's evolution as essential to the survival of the species. It's possible he knew the Tyranid threat (or something similar) would be out there and knew that the only way humanity could truly survive it would be to evolve even further into some sort of energy based life form that can't be consumed.

 

In short, I think it's deliberately set up that Tyranids pose the greatest existential threat to the galaxy because it serves two purposes which is to have this threat lurking in the background and to highlight how futile the Imperium's many wars against lesser threats are. The only plus side for the Imperium is that GW will never allow the full hive fleets to arrive unless they want to 'End Times' 40k.

[gideon stargreave]

Is it ever stated in universe that anyone realizes? Also, remember how big intergalactic space is. It might take many thousands of years more for the main body of the tyranids to reach the edges of the galaxy.

Also, in the real world, now and past, there are plenty of examples of governments and so on ignoring looming catastrophes for whatever reason.

[venyak]

The Tyranids have always been portrayed as this great doom hanging over the galaxy that never seem to get taken seriously enough. It should be a threat to galvanise even Chaos into unifying and even allying with the Imperium and other races to stop it. The 4 Chaos God's put aside their differences temporarily to face the threat the Emperor and his Great Crusade posed to them and wiping out all life in the galaxy is surely a threat of a similar magnitude.

 

It might be that even united though, there isn't much you can do to stop them if they truly are that big. We know that one of the Emperor's goals with his unification and crusade was to safeguard humanity's future and evolution. He saw mankind's evolution as essential to the survival of the species. It's possible he knew the Tyranid threat (or something similar) would be out there and knew that the only way humanity could truly survive it would be to evolve even further into some sort of energy based life form that can't be consumed.

 

In short, I think it's deliberately set up that Tyranids pose the greatest existential threat to the galaxy because it serves two purposes which is to have this threat lurking in the background and to highlight how futile the Imperium's many wars against lesser threats are. The only plus side for the Imperium is that GW will never allow the full hive fleets to arrive unless they want to 'End Times' 40k.

 

Yeah, I agree with all that you expose. 

 

Is it ever stated in universe that anyone realizes? Also, remember how big intergalactic space is. It might take many thousands of years more for the main body of the tyranids to reach the edges of the galaxy.

Also, in the real world, now and past, there are plenty of examples of governments and so on ignoring looming catastrophes for whatever reason.

 

Sad but true...

[phandaal]

Is it ever stated in universe that anyone realizes?

 

The Necron's Silent King has an idea of the size of the threat, and it was enough to make him want to team up with Space Marines to fight it.

 

Some members of the Imperium also have guesses about the real size of the Great Devourer - it is stated that they think it would take the militarization of every citizen in the Imperium to have a chance at survival.

[The Neverborn]

There's a bunch of answers. Here's 3 off the top of my head

 

In practice, the combined forces would not be overwhelmed, essentially plot armour prevents this.

 

If it did happen it would be at a grimdark angle of the threat perpetually creeping closer but never actually reaching it's goal.

 

If the Tyranids to eat everything it would be because games workshop are doing a AoS like reboot.

 

And finally one that covers any i've not thought of....

 

The setting of Grimdark requires any threat to be both overwhelming but never so overwhelming it can actually ever totally win. So the biggest threat, be that Tryranids, Orks, Chaos, Necrons, Enslavers, C-Tan, Old-ones... whatever is just powerful enough to seem unconquerable but be just a hairs breadth at all times for achieving a victory that changes the status-quo in the broadest possible terms. So the answer is the Tyranids get beaten. However impossible OP they seem or will ever seem in any literature you read they aren't actually that powerful it's just the writing style of the setting.

 

Think of them like any romanticized accounts in our own world that's poorly documented. Their actually feats and abilities greatly magnified to what they actually are. 

Edited December 18, 2021 by Battle Brother Abderus

[Lord_Ikka]

As far as in-universe characters knowing about the threat- 

 

A ) as phandaal stated, the Silent King of the Necrons knows. In fact, that is the reason he is back, to wake the sleeping Necrons and prepare for the Tyranid invasion. He temporarily allied with the Blood Angels to stop the Devastation of Baal, so he isn't adverse to having "lesser" species helping out as long as they are the ones taking the brunt of the attacks.

 

B ) Inquisitor Kryptmann, or Excommunicated Inquisitor now, seemed to be the Imperial servant with the most insight into the Nid threat. Regardless of the morality of his Exterminatus-heavy area denial strategy, it was a strategy that looked at the hive fleets on a massive scale rather than just individual planetary/sector threats.

Edited December 18, 2021 by Lord_Ikka

[Brother Immolator]

However warent the major hive fleets been stopped (albeit with great cost) and splintered(which doesnt much in the long run but...)? Even Leviathan. Also I always had the impression that the balancing scale to the Tyranids are the necrons. Think about it they have also vast numbers, advanced tech and the nids avoid them because any battle they wage against them is a battle from ehich they cant recover biomass.

[Antarius]

I have always (well, since second edition) thought that the Tyranids were supposed to be the ultimate, unavoidable doom of the galaxy and thus the setting, even if that doom would never actually arrive (I mean, it would end the setting, so probably not a great way to go). With the way they’re presented, literally nothing short of an obvious and undatisfying deus ex machina will stop them, which makes for both a very bleak and darkly satirical (for lack of a better term) backdrop for the Imperium and all their futile totalitarianism. Worked a lot better back in the days where the philosophy behind 40k was “a setting, not a storyline”, because they always seemed JUST around the corner and you can’t really keep that up in a progressing plot, without them either losing narrative “weight” or actually arriving.

 

So, if we ever see anything, we’re going to see the obvious and unsatisfying deus ex machina.

Edited December 25, 2021 by Antarius

[gideon stargreave]

Antarius, you have it right. Honestly I'm totally done with 40k lore since it became a storyline. It's about someone else's dudes now, not my own, the tyranid threat is just one of the things that we have lost

[Antarius]

Antarius, you have it right. Honestly I'm totally done with 40k lore since it became a storyline. It's about someone else's dudes now, not my own, the tyranid threat is just one of the things that we have lost

I feel much the same way, tbh. I’m in this weird place, where I think the models are better than ever, but I’m just not feeling the storyline. So, I’ve mostly been doing either nothing at all with my hobby time or (on good days) doing Necromunda stuff.

[gideon stargreave]

I'm going to pull out my 2nd Ed tyranid codex