The Tyranids are actually an extragalactic race of evolving creatures. Traveling in vast hive fleets in the voids of space, they are likened to galactic locust swarms, too powerful to stop and too fast to deal with. They migrated from other galaxies in search of more resources of bio-mass to consume, as their hive fleets 'devour' entire planets at a daily basis.
Their hive fleets consist of millions of living crafts, each serving as the home of untold numbers of tyranids. These monstrosities evolve from bubbling geno-organisms in the ships' reproductive chambers. All these creatures are born to serve the ship, and the ship in turn exists only to serve the hive fleet.
The Organism
All tyranids are held in a common psychic bond. This bond enables the forces of Tyranid to think, perceive and act as a great whole, allowing complete command over its constituent parts.
From the smallest feeder organisms to the huge tendril-like shoals of the hive fleets, every Tyranid is bound to the will of the Hive Mind. The lesser and smaller creatures are mindless and instinctive, while larger more complex creatures can make decisions appropriate to the situation.
Psychic Web
They function in perfect unison, coordinated by powerful psychic imperatives transmitted by a communal sentience. Their fleets, hordes and broods do not have a single commander, instead, a synaptic web of psychic influence controls them.
For this reason, should the influence of the larger Tyranid organism be removed, the lesser creatures will revert to animalistic behavior.
The creatures that channel the commands of the Hive Mind are mostly, if not all, potent psykers. They communicate with their brethren not by language, but a kind of instinctive telepathy. How this is done without drawing clouds of the daemons of Chaos into the material universe is a mystery. Some say it is the tyranid's lack of souls that prevent this.
what? It's funny
GeneralCoreyvous 3 years ago