Thanas wrote:Yes, but if the Vong could have replicated that trick easily, I wonder why they did not do so when their backs were against the wall and they pulled out all stops otherwise. From the sources, this sort of operation seems to require a Vong presence on the target of the surface, in fact a giant gravity generator. Setting these up on a rim world like Sernpidal is possible, but I do not think this would remain undiscovered by a core world.
The way they did it carried certain logical implications (it was stealthier for one than having ships in orbit pushing a frigging asteroid like that.) We know Dovin Basals can be used to provide propulsion, all they would need is something to push against (another planet inthe system, a larger moon, etc.) Failing that they just get a mass of ships together and accelerate whatever they fling at the planet.
Sure, but on the other hand it might also alert them to a Tyranid attack if ships start disappearing or people start behaving funnily. It is worth noting that a succesful infiltration of a shield system is the exception in star wars, not the norm.
Depends on what you term "disappearing" or "behaving funny". SW, even the GE, isnt nearly as xenophobic or prone to "destroy filthy aliens" the way 40K is (partly because of the difference in propoganda and the nature of the populations, partly because many of those alien races are just as warlike and prone to doing horrible things to humans as humans may do to them.) SW harbors and tolerates (broadly) alot of alien races, and a number remain unknown or unrecognized by the galaxy at large, and some can be quite dangerous or predatory even for a "civilised" race. As for disappearing ships, well, that depends - ships disappear due to piracy and other reasons (terrorism, mishaps, etc.) so I would imagine that this all depends on what sorts of patterns emerge. Note though I wans't specificially thinking of infiltration ot sabotage the shield system - simple infiltration of the planet itself could be useful.
Nitpick: That is the deep core, but they do have safe trade lanes. In fact, with those trade lanes being few and heavily guarded, I submit that potentially the core could ward itself off and use the deep core for resources to supply them.
Granted.
Coruscant has not only resouces, it has a whole lot of planets insystem that are unsettled.
I suppose if they start using World Devastator like technology that would count, but as a rule they don't seem all that interested in breaking up planets. Hell asteroid mining doesnt seem all that common either (not exactly *rare* either...) they seem to be biased towards planetary mining.
Or to prevent the outer rim from suddenly dictating terms to them (for example, what if the mining guild decides to strike etc). In fact, the more I think there are plenty of reasons for the core worlds to stack up, last but not least the possibility of being under siege by a fellow core power for several years. It would make sense to be able to rebuild your forces under a planetary shield.
I'm not so sure the Outer Rim could dictate terms to the core, considering they control the bulk of the military and economic power, but I do see your point.
The atlas mentioned that the majority of agri-worlds are located in the core itself. In fact, the atlas outlines that several major core worlds gained their power specifically through exporting foodstuff to other core powers. The atlas also mentioned that core agricultural worlds are pressuring rim worlds to let them export more food to them iirc.
Again, most likely a first world/third world paralel - the industrially manufactured food destroys local food production (with the case that the core worlds can apparently do so without subsidies).
True. Although I would note that while they have agri planets in the core, the means of producing food would have to be altered if they decided to go bunker. They couldn't rely on the natural enviroment anymore, for example, so you'd probably see hydroponics farms, animal cloning, etc. Long term planetary shielding use would likely involve significant changes in their strategic and tactical thinking.
I think replacement rates would also factor into this. If the core can potentially train several trillions of beings every year just based on a standard population growth rate and once they learn the aliens are a huge freaking threat that wants to eat them and assuming they have the manufacturing capacity to actually build enough ships to crew them, would they be able to outproduce the nids? If they launch massive rainds intent on BDZ'ing the rim worlds that have been taken over by the NIds, every battle lost is a major blow to the nids, for they are essentially fighting on the defensive.
As a short term goal that might work, but they'd have to turn to cloning and/or droid production ultimately to be effective for any truly long period of time, assuming they could overcome prejudices and biases over such (or bans on the use of technology, cloning was outlawed as I recall post Clone Wars, as were droid armies.)
That they can crew trillions of warships I have no doubt - the standing navy alone is trillions, and although I am not sure they have them all working warships, I suspect they intend most if not all to be able to crew warships if need be (partly based on Domus Publica analysis of the Empire, partly on my own researches, etc.) The Economic and resource factors imply they could also afford it sasuming they went with just ISDs (a rough benchmark, mileage may vary depending on fleet composition.). Sustaining or maintaining such fleets might be a problem, although having the core as a base of operations could mitigate that. Worse comes to worse they rely on droid or slave rig automation to make up crew numbers (at the cost of some redundancy, but oh well.)
As for BDZing 'Nid held worlds, well, they hold worlds as it is until they finish sucking the resources off of them, a process which can take months (or possibly years, or less) depending on how long they need to conquer the planet and how many ships they have there (and how they intend to cart off the resources.) Then they abandon the world. If the Imperials hit Nid worlds while they're occupied I don't doubt they could BDZ them (although you'd want to go with a "hit and run" type BDZ attack or some death ray laser of doom, a missile of some kind ideally rather than conventional warship bombardment) cuz the Imperium has done that too (its actually been a doctrine employed more than once, although they had to use saturation or stealth to do it under the Nid's nose.) If its a small Hive fleet (or a fleet made up of smaller component fleets a'la Kraken) they probably pull that off on a local scale if its not too many planets (hundreds or thousands, maybe?) or if the Tyranids take years to claim the world and its resources. If the tyranids take lots of worlds at once, or they take less than a year to do it) they probably can't buidl ships enough to do those raids (though their standing fleets might be able to do it if they're prepared to risk them - although resupply would become a bitch having to jump back and forth from the core to the rim so often - Hyperdrive and BDZ are very energy intensive events, not even factoring in the possibility of fighting. and BDZ missiles would be HUGE.)
And what is even more worrying for the nids is that with the core-centric empire, they might just as well have the willpower to do so. I defer to your knowledge on the nids, but to me the side that has a potential manufacturing disadvantage and loses even more of that advantage every time a battle is lost is at a clear strategic disadvantage and will usually lose the war. (kinda like strategic bombing campaigns by the US. They lose planes but the enemy cannot touch the industrial centers).
Well in terms of resources? they take a planet's organic matter, up to and including the atmosphere and oceans and (probalby) the upper few kilometers of crust (or at least most of it.) That much mass alone is worth a DS's mass (if not dozens or hundreds of DS's depending on the DS you talka bout and the calcs you use) so their potential resources woudl be huge. Some of those resources arguably go towards what we might term as "maintenance" (feeding or "repairing/regenerating" ships to keep them in shape) but by and large much of it seems to go towards building new ones (Most small Tyranids end up getting consumed at the end of any conflict they are used in along with anything on the planet as it is -the 'Nids rebuild them after for the next battle.) So as long as they can take even a small numer (relatively speaking, the Empire has 80+ million inhabited worlds - even if they can only use a fraction of what they take for shipbuilding (say 1% and the other 99% is used totally for "maintenance") thats a huge amount of material compared to the Empire (unless the Empire starts using World Devastators to eat up planets and moons, which they could.)
Even reducing organic matter to ash may not totally deny them resources though - some Tyranid forms used to assimilate biomatter can even eat cremated bodies (going by the 5th edition Pyrovore entry, at least.) so they can get at least some use out of it. Likely you need to remove the biomass (water, atmosphere, etc.) from the planet completley to render it unusable. (Some of the larger Tyranid forms have been noted to be resistant to forms of Exterminatus - the 40K version of BDZ - that trigger global firestorms but do not melt significant portions of the crust, for example.) Speed of building is unknonw - they can build smaller forms to replace losses (and they can deploy billions in a battle) during the battles (hours or days maybe), but not bigger creatures as rapidly (liekly days or weeks to replace those - their armour and artillery analogues.) They cna probably build starships faster than 40K, but probably no faster than SW, possibly even a bit slower.
On the other hand, the Tyranids are perfectly content to take a long view on battles, so they could simply outlast the Imperial's "will to fight" if a direct confrontation would prove too costly. They have demonstrated the capability (again 5th edition example) to withdraw against an unassailable adversary, bide their time, and secretly build up forces before attacking again. They also employ a number of means for infiltration and/or assasination, so that tactic isnt unknown to them either. They could also go into hibernation and wait decades or centruies before trying again - they used hibernation to survive crossing between galaxies before, and that is the only feat I can recall where they used up significant amounts of their resources in something other than waging a war and that happened over millenia. Could the Empire maintain preparation for decades or centuries expecting an attack?
For the sake of argument, let us assume the nids can invade with 100 million ships and a total of 10 trillion troopers. This should still be less than the core worlds combined, even the standard birth rate of the core worlds should outnumber the entire nid force in one or two years. All they really need is to manufacture enough ships. I have no doubt the core worlds could manufacture that much in a few years. So the question is whether the nids can double their ship/population numbers in three years. Because this battle will be decided in space, there is no way that the nids will win this by ground troops.
Well like I said, if you assume a sufficient amount of ruthlessness and pragmatism on the Empire's part (IE that the populace won't screech in anger at the idea of whole planets and moons being eaten up and thrown into a war effort, or the usage of clone and droids again) then there's likely no way the Nids could win in a straight up fight no matter how you contrive it. As I said there's simply more inorganic matter than organic matter on planets and in systems - unless the Tyranids develop the ability to somehow suck up all the random hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon in the galaxy (possible, but they'd never come up with it on their own.)
And finally the biggie - assuming this is the empire, can the nids stop a death star? What about ten or fifty of them? Conceivably, the core worlds could build several squadrons, if not hundreds of them.
Which kind of Death Star? If we're talking DS1 probably, although it would take a large hive fleet (millions of ships) and employing technobabble warp-based weaponry (which they have, technically) to do it and even then the fleet would be effectively demolished in the process. A DS2 owuld likely take the equivalent of a whole planet's worth of organic resources (for the Nids) to stop. At that point we're talking Culture level type conflicts really - trading planet for planet in terms of resources, anda gain the Imperium has the advantage here.
Hmmm. That leaves them at another disadvantage methinks.
Pretty much. The big problem the Tyranids always face is that tactically and strategicially, they are baiscalyl fighting "the last war." They have shown great speed and cleverness in adapting to enemy tactics, but rarely if ever actually anticipate them, whereas the Empire has that facility in theory (evne if they don't alway use it.)
I think its quite possible for the 'Nids to grasp the concept of attacking industry or supply lines, but they won't bother considering it until something forces them to or they are made "Aware" of this in any way. Chalk it up to alien mindsets. Another crazy example is that its known that two different hive fleets will actually fight each toher. The point of this is darwinian - the stronger fleet emerges and claims the biomass and resources (and the genetic info) of the victor. And the Hive Fleets the Imperium and the galaxy in general in 40K have faced up to this point have, despite failures, also managed to provide a great deal of vital intel to the Hive Mind.
That said, the 'Nids do have a number of advnatages over the Empire. They don't need to really hold or defend territory, they aren't hampered by political, economic, or personal agendas, and they can be very, very patient if required to.
Hmmm. Then this gets down to nid replacement rates and how quick they can built up their forces.
Or they may try attacking the Core a few times, get their asses kicked, and decide to look for a new method other than direct assault to take them. As I said, they're basically inesntive to losses when it comes to tactics that will work in (for them) a cost effective manner (if they grab the planets biomass at the expense of their whole army, for example) but they won't keep throwing resources into the same tactic over and over if it proves its not working. They'll keep trying things til they find something that does work or they run out of resources.
Problem is though, I cannot think of any biological force which, if they assimilate it, gives them a great enough power to negate the industrial advantage. Unless they assimilate the Vong, but given the Vongs talent at genetics and the resillience of their genetic engineereing (see Coruscant), I am not sure the nids can pull that off.
They dont really need their industrial advantage "negated" really, it would work as long as they are careful about how they employ it. The real problem isn't so much that any single biological entity in SW might give them some single overriding advantage, it just give sthem a whole lot of new ideas and tactics to play with. Think about how they might assimilate and employ Mynocks, for example, as a sabotage weapon if they re-engineered them (bigger mynocks).
Alternately, what happens if they gain access to the Force. Tyranid psyker organisms, the Zoanthropes, tend to be highly specialized and highly powerful. I could see them eventually doing similar with the Force (although what they can do with them and what they learn to do with them isnt neccesarily instantaneous, so how useful they could immediately be is debatable.) The real scary thing about that is what we know from the Swarm War novels with the Killiks - the one Jedi dude they assimilated into their culture was INSANELY powerful due to his ability to tap into the latent force potential of the Killiks, and something similar could happen with the 'Nids. Imagine large groups of 'Nid force users generating force storms (a capability that could be used as a weapon OR a means of transport.)
However, we also know that creating biological weapons that are specifically targeted at one species can be done relatively cheap and within months in SW (heck, a single doctor could do so with a droid lab) - can the nids resist such attacks?
Quite possibly. 40K can target bio attacks at specific aliens, specific subsets of humanity (mutants), or even just hair color. They also have virus attakcs that can reduce all organic matter on the planet to a pile of stinking organic sludge in a matter of minutes/hours and trigger massive global firestorms. They've hit Nids with Virus attacks only to have those attacks thrown back at them as new weaponry in a matter of days.
The only consistent weapon they've maanged to use against the 'nids is "mutagenic' acid, and that I suspect is a chemical weapon and they have to deliver it via projectile weapons for it to work. and the Nids have, I believe, developed their own "mutagenic acids" they also use (or maybe they had it first and the Imperium adopted it against them, I don't remember exactly.)
Agreed. My personal guess is that Palpy might very well decide to sacrifice a few systems in order to study them or to shore up support behind his ideas.
Which might work for some Hive Fleets, until or unless the 'Nids decide to change tactics. They can study the imperium as well. Palpy has been known to disregard the big picture for his pet projects of course, particularily towards the later and crazier stage of things (ROTJ and Dark Empire in particular.) and there is of course the way he set up the Empire in general to fail without his personal attention (not really the smartest of moves)
Ultimately it comes down to whether the Tyranids can counter the GE enough to eat them all befor they run out of available biomass, vs the GE's ability to deny them that biomass and how intelligently they fight (and how long it takes them to figure ou thow to fight intelligently.) But ther'es alot of wiggle room in teh discussion even for that.
Then again we could do "both sides fight intelligently and utilize capabilities to utmost, and both sides know about the other" in which case it comes down more to resourcs and time, but that is in its own way highly speculative.
Anyhow, I'm not arguing that they can't intercept such attacks, but planetary shields create interesting problems with that (you have to open gaps up to communicate and attack with anything beyond them, for one.) and they only hit stuff that's in orbit. Depending on the size of the forces involved (attacking and defending) its conceivable they just pick off the defenders outside the shield and then bombard it from a range if they chose to do that. Of course the whole "sterilizing the planet" bit comes to mind, but I suppose its technically possible they might crush or buckle a generator via momentum transfer, though it would take awhile, and you still risk the whole sterilization thing (up to a certian point of mass and velocity KE is going to get to extinction levels)
