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You seem to be implying that the forces are actually created as needed by the dominatrix or hive node from the mycetic spore clouds. I don't see it this way. I always assumed that mycetic spores were a little like drop pods - a kind of disposable creature which burns away as it passes through the atmosphere, but allows a creature inside to reach the ground mostly unscathed. Each spore contains only one creature, and not all will make it, due to some landing badly, some not providing enough protection and the ocupant being roasted as it falls, and some being shot down by enemy opportunity fire. All creatures are spawned by the norn queens on board the ships and then land in mycetic spores. synapse nodes and other creatures linked to the hive mind act like beacons that are more easily targeted, so in the heat of battle this is where they come down. Ripper swarms may be grown on-planet perhaps, but something as complex as a dominatrix, and even a tyranid warrior is not.
The other point at which I disagree (and it's a far more minor point) is where the genestealer cults emerge. Genesealer cults emerge independantly of any other tyranid forces at the point they are powerful enough to wrest control of the planet. I'm sure there is mention somewhere of a planet that had a genestealer cult totally controlling it being approached by tyranids and the cult actually trying to fight them off. Remember genestealers are the first bastion of a hive fleet and can opperate entirely independantly of any tyranid hive mind, instead creating their own. After a few generations of this their hive mind is unconnected to the hive fleet, and probably as inscruitable to any outsiders. Of course there are other stories of genestealer cults simply walking willingly into the hive fleets to be torn apart and recreated as something else....
I love the idea of a hive ship crash landing to bring large volumes of troops to the battle instantly. You just know it would do it right on top of an outlieing but important city.
Random thought about phase five - consumption: Perhaps as the nids have no groud to space craft that we know of, the largest hive nodes will grow out of the atmosphere and hive ships will kind of dock at the top so material can be brought up to the fleet like a space elevator. The roots of these nodes even burrow all the way down into the mantle and start drawing energy for all this straight from the geothermal heat of the planet, leaving the planet not only lifeless, but incapable of ever supporting life again as it is a cold, dead ball of rock that has probably even been drawn out of orbit, to eventualy fall into its sun or drift off forever into space. Hey, perhaps this is all a gigantic game of pool the Norn Queens are playing with the Slaan!
(okay, maybe not...)
Loz
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. The link thats me to a blank page.
. Thanks Hena. One major comment on crashing hiveship.
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