Genestealers and Aliens (40k/Aliens)

[R.O.A]

My freind and I were having this disscussion on a bus ride home:

Who would win between the Genestealers of WH40K and the Aliens from Aliens in a battle? Lets assume that both sides have equal intel and have the same number of forces, the Genestealers are lead by Patriarchs and the Aliens have a Queen. The battle takes place in a large metropolitan area, giving both sides the ability to sneak around and infiltrate at will.

Note that this is a straight Genestealer/Alien battle (No Hive Fleets)

Also, what would happen if a Genestealer got ahold of a facehugger? Or the other way around?

Thoughts?

[Gullible Jones]

A Patriarch is the originator of a brood[2]. As the first Genestealer of the group, all other members are psychically linked through it; this leads it to attain a level of intelligence much higher than that of other Genestealers. Over time, it can become a very powerful psyker, and it grows much larger than an average Genestealer, becoming much stronger and more resistant to damage.

Reality-bending magical powers -> xenomorphs lose.

(Seriously, as nasty as they are, xenos are not very tough. I really have no idea why people wank them so much.)

[Vendetta]

For a direct standup fight we'd need to quantify Genestealer strength and durability. Some of the 40k Fluff Librarians might be able to provide some data there. Aliens get taken down by small arms fire, whereas Stealers stand up to 40k weapons to a certain extent.

In a battle of insidious takeover schemes, the Aliens have the initial advantage, due to their fast reproductive cycle, whereas Genestealers have to wait for their initial infection host to breed before the first hybrids start appearing, but when the hybrids do come out, they have the advantage of using whatever local weapons are available and working in tightly planned co-operative groups by design, whereas Aliens tend only to succeed against inept morons or the chronically unprepared, so the longer that scenario goes on, the more likely the Genestealers are to simply use the Aliens as a catspaw to distract the local populace and weaken it for the hive fleet to arrive.

[Sidewinder]

In one of the WH40K short stories (William King's 'In the Belly of the Beast', from Let the Galaxy Burn), a genestealer rips off a space marine sergeant's head. Considering how wanked space marines are, that suggests genestealers have INCREDIBLE physical strength. I doubt xenomorphs can match that. Their acid blood is unlikely to help them, because it's blood-- a xenomorph has to be wounded to use it against a genestealer, unless it can spit the acid, and we've only seen one xenomorph do this (in 'Alien: Resurrection'), and only once.

[Sidewinder]

I'm curious: if a facehugger plants a chestburster in a genestealer, would the resulting hybrid be loyal to the queen alien, or to the Tyrannids?

[Imperial Overlord]

Genestealer armoured carapaces has a limited ability to deflect bolter fire, are extremely fast (fast enough that Terminators with automatic weapons and targeters can have difficulty scoring hits on them, have claws that can shred steel, and are capable of destroying 40K armoured vehicles in hand to hand combat. They are also sentient and a few of them possess 40K grade psyker abilities.

I'm going with the stealers.

[Vendetta]

unless it can spit the acid, and we've only seen one xenomorph do this (in 'Alien: Resurrection'), and only once.

Technically, the one in Alien 3 does it as well, but it was a juvenile at the time.

[Tasoth]

This makes me think of space hulk. It's stated somewhere in there that when dealing with space hulks, they send in space marine terminators because of the fight they can face. This ranges from crazy daemon spawn, orks, or Genestealers. And why are 'stealers so bad? Because they can literally shred suits of combat armor that can survive being stepped on by a battle titan. Yes, you heard it, space marine sized armor that can come through being squashed by a multistory war machine even if they're embedded in the ground being shredded by an organic entity. If the alien's acid blood has no effect on them, the 'stealers take this in one brutal sweep.

To make it interesting, are hybrids around and, if so, are they far enough along to produce human looking ones?

[Vendetta]

It should be pointed out that Space Hulk significantly nerfs the Terminators in the name of game balance, and most of the time Stealers would have a great deal more trouble against them even in other game balance situations.

(And I always found it hilarious that when they did Advanced Space Crusade, where you're actually boarding a Hive Fleet ship, they don't send Terminators. No, they send Scouts. You end up praying for a blip to be Genestealers, because if it isn't that means it's a Tyranid Warrior, and you're fucked.)

[Sidewinder]

unless it can spit the acid, and we've only seen one xenomorph do this (in 'Alien: Resurrection'), and only once.

Technically, the one in Alien 3 does it as well, but it was a juvenile at the time.

I forgot about that scene. Thanks. Now if only I can forget the rest of that awful movie...

[white_rabbit]

In a battle of insidious takeover schemes, the Aliens have the initial advantage, due to their fast reproductive cycle, whereas Genestealers have to wait for their initial infection host to breed before the first hybrids start appearing,

Actually, Genestealers it could be argued do a chestburster still on non-sentient hosts.

Before they were discovered to be Nids, they were considered indigenous lifeforms of the Ygmarl moon/s who parasitised Cssith, which are big worm thingies with tendrils.

There was no cycle of hybrids, they just popped a baby Purestrain.

As infiltrators, they have a different imperative.

[Peptuck]

In both Ciaphas Cain novels that deal with Tyranids, Cain describes purestrain Genestealers as able to rip open Terminator armor like it was paper. Even when one considers that he's possibly exaggerating, he has cleared a space hulk with Space Marines and has witnessed combat with Genestealers first-hand.

[Zablorg]

Genestealers are pretty much everything that Xeno's are*, wanked out a fraction and given a bit more powers. So the Genestealers win.

*Seriously, don't they even reproduce like the Xenomorphs?

[NecronLord]

*Seriously, don't they even reproduce like the Xenomorphs?

Yes and no. They do implant people, but those people then go on to breed conventionally; Genestealer numbers are not limited by available hosts.

[Ford Prefect]

And when a person gets ovipositored by a Genestealer, they fairly quickly come under the influence of the 'stealers - so not only do their offspring produce awful half-alien mutants, eventually leading to a Purestrain, they can also continue to function as people ... albeit with the inclination to support the efforts of the Tyranids. Like one big happy family.

[Zablorg]

But in order for the family line to become more and more tyranidy, each generation would have to be infected, methinks.

Man, that's some haxorz genetics, right there.

[NecronLord]

But in order for the family line to become more and more tyranidy, each generation would have to be infected, methinks.

IIRC, the hybrids mate with each other to produce more-hybrid-y hybrids.

[Imperial Overlord]

Actually its really weird. The hybrids implant other humans and the result is more human looking hybrids. The fourth generation looks completely human. The people the 4th Generation implant give birth to purestrain stealers.

At that point the network of hybrids and their telepathically bound human relatives is large enough to attempt an insurrection on most worlds.

[Ford Prefect]

Man, that's some haxorz genetics, right there.

Uh, yeah dude. We're talking about Tyranids. Genetics doesn't come into it.

[NecronLord]

Uh, yeah dude. We're talking about Tyranids. Genetics doesn't come into it.

See Xenology, where they've found to have strung DNA together with other genetic strings that are entirely different - quadruple helixes and things.

[Zablorg]

I think it's a little redundant to have a human tyranid hybrid operation going on when they could just as easily kill the human and bring him to their DNA pool. Maybe it's for stealthily living among humans while the invasion force arrives or something.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Genestealers are used to infiltrate all of the species in the galaxy capable of defending themselves from the Tyrannids (except for the Necrons) and set up a fifth column. For the Emperor features a genestealer cult attempting to start a war between the Tau and the Imperium in order to weaken all the defenses in a particular region of the galaxy, for example. Usually, the cults spend centuries spreading throughout the target planet at all levels of society so they can completely hamstring any defense against the hive fleets.

[Tasoth]

So what happens when an Alien facehugs a 'stealer host? Don't the bugs absorb a portion of their hosts DNA? So would these newborns be a part of the alien hive or the genestealer brood?

[Bob the Gunslinger]

So what happens when an Alien facehugs a 'stealer host? Don't the bugs absorb a portion of their hosts DNA? So would these newborns be a part of the alien hive or the genestealer brood?

If a hugger latches onto a purestrain, he'll probably just use his 'implanter' to kill it. This of course leads to questions like "what do you call genre in which monsters french kiss each other to shove their ovipositors down each other's throats?" and "why is there already a manga for it?"

If you mean a human host... Well, the genestealers use warpy telepathic powers to control their human breeders, so if the resulting chestburster has enough genestealer traits, it would probably be susceptible to the Patriarch's influence. Otherwise, I guess it would probably be more like an oversize xenomorph drone, or possibly some fugly hybrid like the predalien. I propose we call the chustburster a "genealien" no matter how it turns out.

[Zablorg]

Well I assume so, but only to an extent. I'm not sure whether the resulting Xenomorph is fertile. As far as I know, only the facehuggers can infect or otherwise reproduce.

How different would your average tyranid be compared to a tyranid which has been created through Xenomorph DNA? They fairly similar.

Also, all a tyranid hive would have to do is gather a variaty of genetic material from various planets and start mixing and matching it until it finds something that can work effectively against the Xeno's, anyway. (incidentally, I wonder why they can't create their own independent DNA to work with without having to mooch of other species)