Thanas wrote:
Sure. Probably even more because the Vong certainly did not have the resources to crack a lot of city-worlds or high population centers, or heavily armored and automated worlds like Anaxes, which they could not take. Still, even if we say that 5-10% of the core worlds and/or their industrial capacity (a fair estimate IMO) are gone, that still is quite a lot to make up for. Though, granted, the loss of population was probably less heavy in relative numbers than in the outer rim, for we know that core worlders can and do own quite a lot of civilian ships. For example, we know that a lot of people fled Coruscant.
I think they could have cracked them if it weren't for the fact they wanted territory. THey did smash Sernpidal after all, and shields can't stop momentum.
And yeah they do own alot of civilian ships. That isnt neccesarily a *good* thing mind, since that means a huge volume of traffic and infiltration can become a danger. (though not guaranteed, we know SW has medical sensor technology to scan or detect even disguised lifeforms, although I believe the Vongue and their Masuqers gave those defenses a bit of trouble early on til they adapted.)
The new atlas does support this point of view, at least partly. It says specifically that in general the Rim provides raw materials, the colony region inbetween the core and the rim is a sort of middle ground and the core is the wealth and industrial powerhouse. However, it does not say whether the resources are drawn from the rim specifically because they are cheaper from there or whether there simply are no more resources to be found in the core. Still, we do know that the core is the center of agricultural production so at least they won't starve and I suspect that the deep core has a lot of undiscovered minerals as well. Plus, the fact that worlds survived for years seems to suggest that there is at least some local resource hording or gathering.
There have to be at least SOME resources in the Core, since the Imperial remnants under Daala (and the Warlords before her) and were largely self sufficient. I suspect even the Core hasn't totally depleted their resources anyhow (I vaguely remember Coruscant has asteroid fields). But I suspect its more abundant in the Rim, possibly in some cases even easier to get at (Hyperdrive travel, even if we allow for lower grade stuff, ought to allow rapid enough transport for their purposes, and the supply line would almost certainly be constant.)
I think it might very well be similar to first/third world for many materials. One can theoretically get them in the first world (core) or in the second world (colonies) but it is much cheaper to just rip the third world (rim) of. Culture might also play a role in that - the snobbish core worlders probably do not very much like investing or even working in low-status jobs.
Agreed. I think its cheaper to get at stuff in the Rim than the Core. I am sure all core worlds can use their influence to gain an economic advantage over the Rim, and thus get cheaper materials. Or they could just take them - its not like the Rim could do anything to stop them. Whereas in the Core I'm sure everryone has pretty much staked out any available resources and to get hold of them would require dealing with someone on equal terms.
It may also simply be that the Core worlds are saving whatever resources they have left. They could even represent some sort of "strategic reserve" for some sort of emergency (War, or whatever.)
However, we know that the deep Core can sustain major ship production on its own resources, so the Core worlds might make do without rim worlds. One should note that the CIS, despite holding several of the most important resource manufacturers (the mining guild, for example), did not manage to outproduce the core or outmatch them. If we further assume they keep stock for several years, that might very well be enough to produce large enough fleets to secure the most important resource planets, which should be pretty easy to do since the trade routes offer quick access to them.
Or they might fortifying new resource planets or restart new operations.
True, especially given the fact the Speratists had something like a decade of military buildup prior. Although quality DOES offset that (most Separatist hardware was utter crap compared to what the Republic had.). but I have no doubt they could turn the Core even more fortress like with the resources they have, given time.
There is questions of things like agriculture and the economy. While they probably COULD do away with the Outer Rim, that would almost cretainly have an impact on galactic trade and transport, and that's going to cut into profits (and war does cost money) - nevermind that you have to convince people of the importance of this (and as I've said, the GE and evne the Republic have alot of parallels ot the US - they won't neccesarily do what is intelligent.) Does the atlas say anything about the providence of food and water (agriculture and such) and where much of that is located?
The other problem is that ceding the outer Rim would be almost certainly giving a ton of resources to the Tyranids - although it woudl take them quite awhile to assimilate it all and they might launch raids to disrupt things even - so it might not be a good idea to write it off totally unless they had to (but then again they may just write it off because of their view of the Rim anyhow. Alot of the "filthy aliens" are in the Rim after all...) And if they hav those resources on hand, that may give them an edge in outlasting the Core (I say "may" because how long it takes to outlast the 'Nids is one of those things being debated..)
Agreed. However, I do not know whether the Tyranids will fare any better against an Empire that has not wrecked most of its forces. In the time of the Vong, the galaxy was severely undermilitarized and the vong themselves admitted that the empire would have crushed them quite easily.
We dont even know or have yet to establish just how big a Tyranid force would be attacking, nevermind agreement on tactics. We can't even agree as to the exact usage of the resources they acquire from a planet (in brief, they tend to consume all the ocean ant atmospherea nd a fair chunk of the minerals in the upper part of the planet and carry it off, but to what purpose they put that is debated, but its still significant no matter how you spin it.) As far as size tho, we know they've launched millions/tens of millions of ships with billions/trillions of nid troops over a course of centuries (with greater numbers skewed towards the last decade or so) spaced over nearly a score of "fleetS" of varying size and speed. We only know that its been a small part of the overall force (basically just the scouting/fringe elements) but how big the rest is isnt known - it could be 10%, 1%, a perecent of a percent..
True. I guess then it depends whetehr the Tyranids can secure both the outer rim and the deep core/UR resource production centers (and the latter will be unknown to the galaxy at this point) to manage to starve the core industries.
Truthfully I doubt they'd bother initially. They mostly go after the biomass, but they'll destroy anything that resists or anything artificial if they're getting at it (Crews onboard stations, or shipyards.) But ther'es a good chance they'd leave the materials or infrastructure intact unless something occured to give them an idea that attacking it might be a good idea (They don't seem to innovate on their own, but they're capable of adapting their tactics to fit new information they obtain)
Can the Tyranids:
- take enough of these systems (who are pretty spread out) to starve out the imps before they fortify those systems?
No clue. I'm not even sure how to figure out how long it would take them to fortify against the Nids. Alot of this is still speculative at this point because there's a ton of information to sift through.
- take protected key resource systems?
If those are what I am thinking of (core systems) probably not. I'm fairly certain that a direct assault on the Core without assimilating the resources of the Outer Rim would be suicide, although this is based on my own gueses about how big the entire Tyranid force might be.
- survive against a mobilizing empire which might enjoy 1-5 years (probably closer to three though) of production before running out of resources?
It might. Part of the problem is that the Empire can probably fend off any individual fleet attack (even one of millions of ships) but they wouldn't neccesarily annihilate the entire Tyranid fleet. Given the way Tyranid fleets act, the Empire could face years or decades between assaults.
alot of this is me guessing at it from what I know about the Tyranids, but its not really different than guessing at the sorts of forces the Empire could throw back given what we can imply from their logistical or industrial capability.
- take the backup resource systems the empire will try to develop?
Maybe not right away, although if they're manned they might get attracted to them eventually.
Note that all of this also hinges on the idea that resource production in the core is impossible rather than impractible or not done for cultural reasons.
True.
I would submit the first two EU examples to be not applicable due to a) the first case being a case in which the IMP fleet destroyed several key defence buildings before the shields were up and us not knowing enough in general, b) the second example being somewhat idiotic and going against established canon. As for Star by Star, the vong would most likely not have taken the planet had the NR not been colossal whimps - guess what Vader would have done - and the shields did take a tremendous beeting iirc.
Perhaps. I'd have to look at the exact cases again, but that just gets put on the back burner with other things. Like I said, this is a huge fucking issue, and part of what has been driving my 40K analysis has been a comparison of how they'd fare against the Empire. As it is, I'm several years in and I still don't have a definitive answer if that tells you anything.)
Hell, 90% of this debate has been deciding on what does and doesnt constitute "accuratE" repreesnstations of Tyranid capabilities and tactics.
I had not considered that, I have to admit I know little of Tyranids besides "they have gigantic swarms, are reptilians and generally very nasty".
They're not reptilian per se, but some resemble them. They're just your general "organically grown terror race" like the Aliens from Aliens or the Zerg from STarcraft. Only not nearly as retarded. Cerrtainly less retared than the Vong. But still magical.
Will they even be able to capture the Oswaft?
Possibly. The Oswaft can ceratinly stay away if they want, but they won't abandon the Starcave IIRC, so they could be forced into a battle. Then again, the Oswaft can also destroy fully shielded Imperial warships with their voices, so that wouldn't necesarily be a pushover. and there's a fuck ton of oswaft. I also vaugely recall the Oswaft as being a bit curious, nonviolent and rather trusting.
And I apologize if this was covered before in the thread, but what makes you certain they will be able to get Ysalamir characteristics? In any case, I doubt Ysalamiri characteristics do really help them much against Imperial fleets. It might protect them against Palpatine's force storm, but not much against a fleed lead by Thrawn or some other non-force-user genius.
Tyranids came to the 40K galaxy from another one and havent had difficulties assimilating their genetics, so I dont see much reason to assume they would have problems with Star Wars lifeforms (that's not neccesarily all to an advantage. I mean if they assimilate Force sensitive creatures, they start exhibiting Force powers, they can probably be more easily detected now via the Force.) I do agree that Ysalamiri would be of limited benefit, but that was just an example, really.
And of course, I am a bit curious what would happen if Palpatine decided to go the seperatist way redux - spread out across the rim and manufacture a lot of automated ships/weapons/droids. Combine that with a full manufacturing burst from the core and the situation looks even worse for the Tyranids.
My guess? If the GE went all out on nothing but automated mass produced droid tech like they possibly could, they'd almost certainly win no matter how long it took, simply because there are more inorganic resources than organic even if the Tyranids suck up all available organic matter in the gaalxy.
That siad, I dont consider the "all out" option too terribly likely, since it represents an "ideal" response, and that largely devolves into "tactical considerations" (as in, how long before he might figure it out, why they never used this before, etc. etc. etc. which just introduces a whole nother layer of complexity to the issue..)
