Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is the Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focusing in non mythical creatures, ideas and monsters in time. On this special omnibus episode, we'll be sharing the three previous Monster Fact episodes dealing with the Great Zenos threat to the imperium of man, the Tyrannis. Now. I want to stress that since these were originally published, Games Workshop has put out a new edition of Warhammer forty thousand and some new lure regarding the Tyrannic Wars. The new material is not reflected in what's to follow, but I believe most of what is discussed here still holds true, so please enjoy, especially if you're currently painting up your new Leviathan miniatures or simply awaiting the release of the new video game Space Marine two upburst. Let's cover Tyrannid basics. In the fictional world of Warhammer forty thousand, the entirety of the Milky Way Galaxy is consumed by warfare, destruction, and decline everywhere you look. Militant spacefaring civilizations wage crusades of brutal expansion while fighting off doom and corruption from without and within. With war raging on every front, one final threat presents itself an invasion from beyond the galaxy itself, the Tyrannid high Fleets. As related in Games Workshop's ninth edition of the Tyrannid's Codex, the Tyrannids are an entirely biological threat. They take many physical forms, ranging from foot soldiers and walking tanks to enormous hive ships and biotitans, all of it under the sway of the unified hive mind. Their weapons, too, are biological. They cleave into their enemies with sights and bone swords, and their ranged weapons blast a vast array of squirming, writhing, and piercing bio munitions in addition to venom and bioplasma. High Fleet after high Fleet enters into the galaxy were told conquering planets and harvesting the entirety of each planet's biomass, which is then incorporated into the next generation of Tyrannid Hordes. They advance continuously like a viral infection of the Milky Way itself. In the forty first millennium, a time of interplanetary fascist empires, chaos gods, and robotic resurgencies. The Tyrannids seem to pose the greatest and most monstrous threat of all. But why is this? Author Ben Woodard explos the question in his twenty twelve biological philosophy books Slime Dynamics, Generation, Mutation, and The Creek of Life. The answer, he explains, may be found in the entirely biological nature of the Tyrannids. Widard argues that, unlike with human beings of our world and most of the civilizations of the forty K universe, the Tyrannids have no separation between technology and the body. He writes, quote, the horrible extended internalness of the tyrannid, that is, the revolting extension of the biological to the level of what is commonly thought of as removed from US technology, war machines, etc. Becomes only a natural extension unquote. So while the robotic necrons of forty K have lost all organic being, all organic drive, and organic origin to technology, the Tyrannids are the reverse. The Tyrannids are the advancement of the biological beyond all perceived limits, while the factions of the Milky Way are driven by nationalistic, xenophobic, religious, and expansionist ideologies. The Tyrannids seem driven by sheer biological hunger, divorced from any semblance of rational intent. They lack all individuality, save the unfathomable individuality of the extragalactic or perhaps transgalactic hive mind itself that commands its every movement. It is pure organic impulse, unchecked by individual free will, culture, or traditional technology. And for the strife ridden denizens of forty K's Milky Way galaxy, the Tyrannids are something else, entirely alien. They are absolute unity. Their home universe is conceivably a realm of absolute peace and order, albeit an entirely inhuman one. Next, let's take a deeper book at the Tyrannic wars themselves. Last week on the Monster Fact, I discussed the Tyrannids of the fictional Warhammer forty K universe, an extra galactic invasion fleet of biological horror and hunger that seems posed to consume all the biomass in the Milky Way galaxy. Indeed, this might well be the ultimate doom awaiting the various civilizations in forty K. But that doesn't mean they're going to go down without a fight. Heck, as Game's Workshop is quick to remind us, quote, in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war. The Imperium of Man is especially well suited for such a conflict. This interstellar human empire covers a great deal of territory in the Milky Way and commands vast legions of military might the Imperial Guard, a powerful imperial navy of starships, the Almighty Space Marines, and various other militant orders and planetary defense forces. By the time of the forty K game setting, the Imperium has fended off two separate high fleet incursions and are struggling with a third. The Imperium's tactics are worth discussing here, especially as they reference real world military tactics and scenarios. Both examples I'm going to discuss here involved. According to the forty K lore in Games Workshop's ninth edition Tyranids Codex, the Machinations of Imperial Inquisitor fight as Cryptman during the Third Tyrannic War against high Fleet Leviathan. The authors of the codex tell us that Cryptman, understanding the needs and aims of the Tyrannids devised a horrific means of slowing them down and weakening their invasion fleet. Since the Tyrannids required living worlds to harvest in their path of conquest, Kryptman ordered the eradication of life on multiple occupied planets in the enemy Fletat's path. If the Imperium was able to keep these planets devoid of biomass, Kryptman realized the enemy would have nothing to grow on in, no fresh biomass out of which to rebuild its forces. But of course this strategy doomed trillions of innocent people on those unlucky worlds. It was apparently even too harsh for the Imperium, resulting in Encryptman's excommunication. The Tyranids, again, are entirely organic, and while they seem to boast amazing hibernation abilities, their voyages across the intergalactic void must leave them in a hungry state upon arrival in the Milky Way. Even if, according to the lore, they benefit from some manner of space folding travel during intergalactic travel, they're still traveling at the very least tens of thousands of light years to get here, and then tens of thousands more within the galaxy proper without the aid of space folding or faster than light travel. One is reminded of real world accounts of invading Western during the Age of Sails. Upon arrival in new Lands and the New World, nourishment might not be forthcoming, and even if it could be stolen, scavenged, or bartered for it was likely somewhat different from what they were accustomed to. While the concept of eradicating worlds ahead of the Tyrannet advance is a whole new sort of hardor the basic scorched earth strategy here has been used throughout the history of war. In general, it is the punitive destruction of enemy resources, and in particular it generally entails something like the wholesale destruction of agriculture, the destruction of homes, and the poisoning of wells. Anything to prevent an advancing army from successfully foraging for resources, even if it means decimating your own territory in the process. The Gauls used this tactic against the Romans during the Great Gallic War, and the Romans use this tactic against the Carthaginians during the Second Punic War. As ancient warfare expert doctor Devereaux discusses on his excellent A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry blog the availability of food and water greatly influenced where pre industrial armies could go and how long they could tarry in a given region. He also points out that while an army famously marches on its stomach, other resources were sought after as well, including fodder for animals and firewood. Timber might also be desired in general in order to construct siege machinery upon reaching a fortified destination. Deny the advancing army this timber, and you might deny them their more ferocious siege engines. For the Tyrannids, biomass provides everything their sustenance, as well as the material out of which their living war engines are born. Within the narrative of Warhammer forty k Kryptman's choice was horrifying, but perhaps strategically sound. Prevent an army, even a weird extragalactic one, from feeding and fueling itself, and you limit where and if it can go. Still, while the Tyrannid high fleet slowed, we are told it kept coming. Gripman's excommunication didn't stop him from fighting the war. According to the Codex. His next act was to intentionally ceed a Tyrannid presence in Orc occupied space, drawing the Tyrannids into what would be known as the Octarius War. This was also a decision that at best only bought the Imperium time and at worst made both enemies, the Orcs and the Tyrannids stronger due to quirks of their individual biologies. Now, since the Imperium did not actually aid the Orcs in their war with the Tyrannids, I don't think this would constitute a true proxy war, but there do seem to be examples from Warhammer fiction in which Orcs and say the Imperial Guard find themselves in a shaky alliance against the Tyrannids. So perhaps either way, the Octarious War eventually overflows and drags in army of the Imperium and other enemy factions. It is, after all, a dark millennium. In closing, I think the Third Tyrannic War is a very smartly constructed Sci fi military scenario. I do appreciate it when an author takes a fantastic warfare scenario seriously, and as long as they involve monsters, I would be happy to discuss them on future episodes of The Monster Fact. We have one more episode next week dealing with the Tyrannids on the Monster Fact, so tune in for that. Also, if you want to hear Brett Devereaux weigh in on the imperium of man itself, he was a guest on the February twenty twenty one episode of Chapter Tactics number one ninety four how the imperium of Man compares to other empires in history. This is a fun podcast. It's quite a good listen if you are into either ancient warfare or Warhammer forty thousand. Finally, let's consider the infiltration efforts of the Tyrannic menace the Gene Stealer cults. Over the past two weeks, we've looked at the Tyrannid invaders of the Warhammer forty k universe, biological armies and high fleets from beyond the limits of the Milky Way on an inhuman quest to consume all biomass in their path. They constitute an outer threat to the imperium of Man like none other, but they also pose a terrifying inner threat as well, as described in the ninth edition Gene Stealer cults codex from Games Workshop. The Tyrannids have a means of corrupting a host world ahead of a high fleet's arrival, ripening it for the plucking. We're told that a form of tyrannid known as a gene stealer initiates this corruption, stealthily stowing away in cargo or aboard darylic spacecraft in order to reach a new human occupied world. Once there, the creature will begin to infect members of a planet's agricultural or industrial workforce with its genetic material via an ovipositor in its tongue. This act initiates a multi generational process that introduces a variety of human Tyrannid hybrids. While initial generations are monstrous and remain below ground, later generations are essentially humanoid in appearance and can actively infiltrate different segments of the human society. Collectively the gene stealer hybrid stage and underground resistance and eventual violent rebellion against imperial planetary rule, all of which is time to converge with the arrival of an invading high fleet, which is drawn to the gene stealer cult like a beacon in the vast night. This darkly fantastic scenario invokes various accounts of natural world parasitism and mimicry, but I think it especially mirrors the manipulation of use social insect communities by certain organisms. Ant colonies and beehives, after all, aren't too different from the notion of an imperial forage world, where vast populations toil to supply the imperium with its armor and its weaponry. For ants, especially, their warlike nature is also reminiscent of the forty K setting. But at heart, the main comparison is that we have a complex social order within one species that is deceived and manipulated by another organism for its own ends. For example, there's the death's head hawk moth, a genus of moth famous for both its skull like markings and its ability to infiltrate and raid honeybee hives by mimicking their smell. For a similar ant world example, certain spiders also use chemical mimicry to enter the colony unopposed and eat whatever larvae they desire. But these are both cases of rating and predation. What about bending the system to the outsider's will? I think we might well compare the gene stealer cult to many forms of brood parasitism. The classic example we're all familiar with is, of course, the cuckoo bird, which doesn't care for its own egg, but rather places its egg in the nest of another bird species, an act that is both stealthy and violent. The gene stealer cult certainly grows within a civilization on a given host planet, but it's of course a bit more complicated than that, so they also remind one of particular examples of social parasitism in the world of ants, termites, and bumblebees. The bumblebee Bombas bohemchis, for example, the species neither builds its own nest nor produces its own workers. Instead, a queen invades a host nest of another Bombas species and defeats the existing queen. Afterwards, the workers identify her as the queen and they raise her young. This is an example of mass usurpation, which is at least thematically fitting when compared to the revolutionary gene stealer cults. But here's another thing to think about. As the gene Stealer Codex points out, the whole gene stealer hybrid enterprise might begin with monster attacks and end with the arrival of a world consuming high fleet. But before the uprising and the so called Day of ascension, third and fourth generation gene stealer hybrids, who again are humanoid enough in appearance to fully infiltrate human societies, may contribute greatly to the host's civilization. They work hard, and they perform their duties to the imperium quite well, at least until it's time to rise up. During that pre revolutionary period, we might be tempted to think of the gene stealer hybrids as inkoline parasites, in that they're not actively harming the host civilization while residing within it. Again, members of the cult might well be beneficial to the host civilization, at least in the short term, though I think we'd be pushing it to call his mutualism. After all, if the gene Stealer Cult has its way, the rebellion will be bloody and the arriving high fleet will consume everything, including the hybrids themselves. Biologist EO. Wilson famously described parasites as quote predators that eat prey in units of less than one quote. The cult's desired end meal is somewhat larger. For a more thematic introduction to the gene stealer cults, I highly recommend the short story The Child Foretold by Nicholas Kaufman. It's a mild spoiler to reveal that it's a gene stealer story, but it still packs a horrific punch. Tune in for additional episodes of The Monster Fact each week. As always, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is the Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focusing in non mythical creatures, ideas and monsters in time. On this special omnibus episode, we'll be sharing the three previous Monster Fact episodes dealing with the Great Zenos threat to the imperium of man, the Tyrannis. Now. I want to stress that since these were originally published, Games Workshop has put out a new edition of Warhammer forty thousand and some new lure regarding the Tyrannic Wars. The new material is not reflected in what's to follow, but I believe most of what is discussed here still holds true, so please enjoy, especially if you're currently painting up your new Leviathan miniatures or simply awaiting the release of the new video game Space Marine two upburst. Let's cover Tyrannid basics. In the fictional world of Warhammer forty thousand, the entirety of the Milky Way Galaxy is consumed by warfare, destruction, and decline everywhere you look. Militant spacefaring civilizations wage crusades of brutal expansion while fighting off doom and corruption from without and within. With war raging on every front, one final threat presents itself an invasion from beyond the galaxy itself, the Tyrannid high Fleets. As related in Games Workshop's ninth edition of the Tyrannid's Codex, the Tyrannids are an entirely biological threat. They take many physical forms, ranging from foot soldiers and walking tanks to enormous hive ships and biotitans, all of it under the sway of the unified hive mind. Their weapons, too, are biological. They cleave into their enemies with sights and bone swords, and their ranged weapons blast a vast array of squirming, writhing, and piercing bio munitions in addition to venom and bioplasma. High Fleet after high Fleet enters into the galaxy were told conquering planets and harvesting the entirety of each planet's biomass, which is then incorporated into the next generation of Tyrannid Hordes. They advance continuously like a viral infection of the Milky Way itself. In the forty first millennium, a time of interplanetary fascist empires, chaos gods, and robotic resurgencies. The Tyrannids seem to pose the greatest and most monstrous threat of all. But why is this? Author Ben Woodard explos the question in his twenty twelve biological philosophy books Slime Dynamics, Generation, Mutation, and The Creek of Life. The answer, he explains, may be found in the entirely biological nature of the Tyrannids. Widard argues that, unlike with human beings of our world and most of the civilizations of the forty K universe, the Tyrannids have no separation between technology and the body. He writes, quote, the horrible extended internalness of the tyrannid, that is, the revolting extension of the biological to the level of what is commonly thought of as removed from US technology, war machines, etc. Becomes only a natural extension unquote. So while the robotic necrons of forty K have lost all organic being, all organic drive, and organic origin to technology, the Tyrannids are the reverse. The Tyrannids are the advancement of the biological beyond all perceived limits, while the factions of the Milky Way are driven by nationalistic, xenophobic, religious, and expansionist ideologies. The Tyrannids seem driven by sheer biological hunger, divorced from any semblance of rational intent. They lack all individuality, save the unfathomable individuality of the extragalactic or perhaps transgalactic hive mind itself that commands its every movement. It is pure organic impulse, unchecked by individual free will, culture, or traditional technology. And for the strife ridden denizens of forty K's Milky Way galaxy, the Tyrannids are something else, entirely alien. They are absolute unity. Their home universe is conceivably a realm of absolute peace and order, albeit an entirely inhuman one. Next, let's take a deeper book at the Tyrannic wars themselves. Last week on the Monster Fact, I discussed the Tyrannids of the fictional Warhammer forty K universe, an extra galactic invasion fleet of biological horror and hunger that seems posed to consume all the biomass in the Milky Way galaxy. Indeed, this might well be the ultimate doom awaiting the various civilizations in forty K. But that doesn't mean they're going to go down without a fight. Heck, as Game's Workshop is quick to remind us, quote, in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war. The Imperium of Man is especially well suited for such a conflict. This interstellar human empire covers a great deal of territory in the Milky Way and commands vast legions of military might the Imperial Guard, a powerful imperial navy of starships, the Almighty Space Marines, and various other militant orders and planetary defense forces. By the time of the forty K game setting, the Imperium has fended off two separate high fleet incursions and are struggling with a third. The Imperium's tactics are worth discussing here, especially as they reference real world military tactics and scenarios. Both examples I'm going to discuss here involved. According to the forty K lore in Games Workshop's ninth edition Tyranids Codex, the Machinations of Imperial Inquisitor fight as Cryptman during the Third Tyrannic War against high Fleet Leviathan. The authors of the codex tell us that Cryptman, understanding the needs and aims of the Tyrannids devised a horrific means of slowing them down and weakening their invasion fleet. Since the Tyrannids required living worlds to harvest in their path of conquest, Kryptman ordered the eradication of life on multiple occupied planets in the enemy Fletat's path. If the Imperium was able to keep these planets devoid of biomass, Kryptman realized the enemy would have nothing to grow on in, no fresh biomass out of which to rebuild its forces. But of course this strategy doomed trillions of innocent people on those unlucky worlds. It was apparently even too harsh for the Imperium, resulting in Encryptman's excommunication. The Tyranids, again, are entirely organic, and while they seem to boast amazing hibernation abilities, their voyages across the intergalactic void must leave them in a hungry state upon arrival in the Milky Way. Even if, according to the lore, they benefit from some manner of space folding travel during intergalactic travel, they're still traveling at the very least tens of thousands of light years to get here, and then tens of thousands more within the galaxy proper without the aid of space folding or faster than light travel. One is reminded of real world accounts of invading Western during the Age of Sails. Upon arrival in new Lands and the New World, nourishment might not be forthcoming, and even if it could be stolen, scavenged, or bartered for it was likely somewhat different from what they were accustomed to. While the concept of eradicating worlds ahead of the Tyrannet advance is a whole new sort of hardor the basic scorched earth strategy here has been used throughout the history of war. In general, it is the punitive destruction of enemy resources, and in particular it generally entails something like the wholesale destruction of agriculture, the destruction of homes, and the poisoning of wells. Anything to prevent an advancing army from successfully foraging for resources, even if it means decimating your own territory in the process. The Gauls used this tactic against the Romans during the Great Gallic War, and the Romans use this tactic against the Carthaginians during the Second Punic War. As ancient warfare expert doctor Devereaux discusses on his excellent A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry blog the availability of food and water greatly influenced where pre industrial armies could go and how long they could tarry in a given region. He also points out that while an army famously marches on its stomach, other resources were sought after as well, including fodder for animals and firewood. Timber might also be desired in general in order to construct siege machinery upon reaching a fortified destination. Deny the advancing army this timber, and you might deny them their more ferocious siege engines. For the Tyrannids, biomass provides everything their sustenance, as well as the material out of which their living war engines are born. Within the narrative of Warhammer forty k Kryptman's choice was horrifying, but perhaps strategically sound. Prevent an army, even a weird extragalactic one, from feeding and fueling itself, and you limit where and if it can go. Still, while the Tyrannid high fleet slowed, we are told it kept coming. Gripman's excommunication didn't stop him from fighting the war. According to the Codex. His next act was to intentionally ceed a Tyrannid presence in Orc occupied space, drawing the Tyrannids into what would be known as the Octarius War. This was also a decision that at best only bought the Imperium time and at worst made both enemies, the Orcs and the Tyrannids stronger due to quirks of their individual biologies. Now, since the Imperium did not actually aid the Orcs in their war with the Tyrannids, I don't think this would constitute a true proxy war, but there do seem to be examples from Warhammer fiction in which Orcs and say the Imperial Guard find themselves in a shaky alliance against the Tyrannids. So perhaps either way, the Octarious War eventually overflows and drags in army of the Imperium and other enemy factions. It is, after all, a dark millennium. In closing, I think the Third Tyrannic War is a very smartly constructed Sci fi military scenario. I do appreciate it when an author takes a fantastic warfare scenario seriously, and as long as they involve monsters, I would be happy to discuss them on future episodes of The Monster Fact. We have one more episode next week dealing with the Tyrannids on the Monster Fact, so tune in for that. Also, if you want to hear Brett Devereaux weigh in on the imperium of man itself, he was a guest on the February twenty twenty one episode of Chapter Tactics number one ninety four how the imperium of Man compares to other empires in history. This is a fun podcast. It's quite a good listen if you are into either ancient warfare or Warhammer forty thousand. Finally, let's consider the infiltration efforts of the Tyrannic menace the Gene Stealer cults. Over the past two weeks, we've looked at the Tyrannid invaders of the Warhammer forty k universe, biological armies and high fleets from beyond the limits of the Milky Way on an inhuman quest to consume all biomass in their path. They constitute an outer threat to the imperium of Man like none other, but they also pose a terrifying inner threat as well, as described in the ninth edition Gene Stealer cults codex from Games Workshop. The Tyrannids have a means of corrupting a host world ahead of a high fleet's arrival, ripening it for the plucking. We're told that a form of tyrannid known as a gene stealer initiates this corruption, stealthily stowing away in cargo or aboard darylic spacecraft in order to reach a new human occupied world. Once there, the creature will begin to infect members of a planet's agricultural or industrial workforce with its genetic material via an ovipositor in its tongue. This act initiates a multi generational process that introduces a variety of human Tyrannid hybrids. While initial generations are monstrous and remain below ground, later generations are essentially humanoid in appearance and can actively infiltrate different segments of the human society. Collectively the gene stealer hybrid stage and underground resistance and eventual violent rebellion against imperial planetary rule, all of which is time to converge with the arrival of an invading high fleet, which is drawn to the gene stealer cult like a beacon in the vast night. This darkly fantastic scenario invokes various accounts of natural world parasitism and mimicry, but I think it especially mirrors the manipulation of use social insect communities by certain organisms. Ant colonies and beehives, after all, aren't too different from the notion of an imperial forage world, where vast populations toil to supply the imperium with its armor and its weaponry. For ants, especially, their warlike nature is also reminiscent of the forty K setting. But at heart, the main comparison is that we have a complex social order within one species that is deceived and manipulated by another organism for its own ends. For example, there's the death's head hawk moth, a genus of moth famous for both its skull like markings and its ability to infiltrate and raid honeybee hives by mimicking their smell. For a similar ant world example, certain spiders also use chemical mimicry to enter the colony unopposed and eat whatever larvae they desire. But these are both cases of rating and predation. What about bending the system to the outsider's will? I think we might well compare the gene stealer cult to many forms of brood parasitism. The classic example we're all familiar with is, of course, the cuckoo bird, which doesn't care for its own egg, but rather places its egg in the nest of another bird species, an act that is both stealthy and violent. The gene stealer cult certainly grows within a civilization on a given host planet, but it's of course a bit more complicated than that, so they also remind one of particular examples of social parasitism in the world of ants, termites, and bumblebees. The bumblebee Bombas bohemchis, for example, the species neither builds its own nest nor produces its own workers. Instead, a queen invades a host nest of another Bombas species and defeats the existing queen. Afterwards, the workers identify her as the queen and they raise her young. This is an example of mass usurpation, which is at least thematically fitting when compared to the revolutionary gene stealer cults. But here's another thing to think about. As the gene Stealer Codex points out, the whole gene stealer hybrid enterprise might begin with monster attacks and end with the arrival of a world consuming high fleet. But before the uprising and the so called Day of ascension, third and fourth generation gene stealer hybrids, who again are humanoid enough in appearance to fully infiltrate human societies, may contribute greatly to the host's civilization. They work hard, and they perform their duties to the imperium quite well, at least until it's time to rise up. During that pre revolutionary period, we might be tempted to think of the gene stealer hybrids as inkoline parasites, in that they're not actively harming the host civilization while residing within it. Again, members of the cult might well be beneficial to the host civilization, at least in the short term, though I think we'd be pushing it to call his mutualism. After all, if the gene Stealer Cult has its way, the rebellion will be bloody and the arriving high fleet will consume everything, including the hybrids themselves. Biologist EO. Wilson famously described parasites as quote predators that eat prey in units of less than one quote. The cult's desired end meal is somewhat larger. For a more thematic introduction to the gene stealer cults, I highly recommend the short story The Child Foretold by Nicholas Kaufman. It's a mild spoiler to reveal that it's a gene stealer story, but it still packs a horrific punch. Tune in for additional episodes of The Monster Fact each week. As always, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

Stuffed Blow your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Stuffed Blow your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.