Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-6589306-20130228113457/@comment-6078851-20150111150002

@aldaron, there was mention of the various xeno forms vs various tyranid forms way back near the start of this thread.

@ sanguiniuslives, i havn't read any cain novels but that's very interesting. your 4 points make sense but did the novels stipulate if the old gaunts were under the control of a separate hive mind? i'm thinking maybe the interfering telepathic signals didn't so much interfere with the hive mind but instead interfered with the synapse bioforms, and maybe they were simply feral tyanids that had been separated from the hive mind for so long that they couldn't re-integrate to the modern hive mind.

i'm not sure about the limits of the hive mind's influence though: the hive mind (or at least the hive mind controlling 'our' tyranids :P) exists wherever there are tyranids. when devouring a galaxy genestealers are sent to scout other galaxies and even over inter-galactic distances the hive mind retains it's connection (otherwise it wouldn't know if a galaxy is suficiently biomassed). also, it could be relative to the 'awake-ness' of the hive mind - as tyranids leave a galaxy and begin to enter their inter-galactic hibernation the hive mind will also begin to reduce in conciousness, thereby resulting in a disruption from galactically-distant bioforms to hive mind, which could continue to be tenuous until the hive mind regains full conciousness.

it could also be that there are multiple hive mind-fleets scattered throughout the universe. i've always been of the opinion that there are far, far, far more tyranids in the universe than the 'paltry' few :P who are heading our way. i used to think that they were all controlled by a single hive mind but the fact that our hive mind is still waking up is very indicative that it only controls those who are about to make themselves at home and the few who are already here. the hive mind is "unfathomably intelligent" so i've always found it hard to think that after devouring a galaxy it would just have every tyranid head to one galaxy rather than have multiple fleets head to multiple galaxies. after which once they have spread far enough, which would have to be beyond a single galaxy of distance, the connection from tyranids to originating hive mind becomes so weak as to disappear allowing a new hive mind to coalesce. that would then raise the extrapolation of: if the hive mind is the amalgamation of every tyranid in it's sphere of influence, then there may be an uber-hive mind which is the amalgamation of all hive minds (just to be clear this isn't even conjecture anymore but simply speculation :P).