Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-6589306-20130228113457/@comment-6078851-20150110162025

@master, you're right about the genestealers - about 10,000 years ago they were first encountered in this galaxy so obviously the hive mind would be directing them, which is why i said it would've been 'mostly' asleep back yonder. even now the hive mind is still mostly asleep as the vast bulk of tyranids are still in their inter-galactic slumber, and as more and more re-awaken the hive mind 'wakes up' a little more. remember the hive mind is tyranids, and if the bulk of tyranids are unconcious then the hive mind too will be 'mostly' unconcious.

as for the oldest, yeah that goes to the c'tan but i was meaning corporeal life. no-one knows how old tyranids are but the time frame implicit in their migrations implies they, at the very least, are as old as the old ones (although i will point out that no-one knows how old the old ones were), but i see no reason why they couldn't be unimaginably older: again this is just conjecture but if they have in fact consumed dozens of galaxies (which is implied in their codex) then that would make then, by default, the oldest race in 40k with the sole exception of the c'tan: it would've taken tyranids billions of years to consume and travel between dozens of galaxies, which could make them the oldest lifeform in the universe.