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And it's this: what if the core personality of a Tyranid bio-organism was constantly in both a healing trance and/or battle meditation?

My idea is for a kind of Zoanthrope 2.0 - taking some cues from cephalopod physiology, because the Nids are all based off H.R. Giger and he based all his creepy ideas from stuff in the deep and weird parts of the ocean. Rather than the current massively centralized brain seen in the typical Zoanthrope, what we instead get is a lot of "synaptic ganglia", for want of a better term, spread out through the entirety of the organism's body, but primarily in its head and its many, many, many tentacles. These tentacles allow it to conduct both its Warp powers and its Force powers, each operating semi-independently while the prime personality concentrated in the head focuses on the battle meditation or healing trance as needed. Additionally, it would doubtless act as a relay node for the Hive Mind as well, since Zoanthropes already do and this is a Zoanthrope on steroids.

My internal nomenclature for this thing is the Tentathrope, to represent... well, take a wild guess. It's a psychic Tyranid bio-titan with a bucket of Force powers thrown in for good measure. It can blast ground units with the powers of the Warp and probably take out air units and vehicles with supercharged Force lightning.

Be afraid.

Be very afraid.

=]

Have a pile of multi-coloured pens.

All the questions to ask have been asked, so... Have a pot of black-hole coffee and my welcome.

I'm sure he'll do a bit more digging in the Professor's waste paper basket and find something lucrative along those lines. =]

One is that elves - for whatever reason - don't seem to write the nice stuff down. The Silm jumps over several hundred years because Morgoth wasn't attacking at that point, so who cares? They never wrote out the history of Doriath prior to the First Battle, either. Maybe they remember the good times in some other way, or maybe it's a religious belief - that in Arda Marred, recording things that could come from Arda Unmarred is almost blasphemous.

Secondly, elves are really bad at /doing/ stuff. There were no elf-organised attempts to infiltrate Angband and steal the Silmarils, even though they had hundreds of years and Beren threw one together in a season or two. No elven army marched on Sauron through the entire Second Age - even when he invaded them! (The Last Alliance was clearly a Dunedain idea.) The four times the Noldor took the initiative are the three Kinslayings, and the Battle of Unnumbered Tears. Elves aren't about 'doing' - they're about 'being'.

I bet the /dwarven/ history of the First Age would be much more exciting.

hS

I'm going with 'the least depressing from a really terrible Age'.

A replica of basketball that Kuroko plays. Does not allow you to be invisible, but have fifteen seconds of distractive cuteness when employed, with a minute of cooldown. Use it well. Effect is muted with those possessing Hawk, Eagle, Emperor Eyes, and in some cases, Perfect Copy.

Eragon isn't very good, but if you enjoy, it does not have to wreck you with guilt. In fact, starting from the very bottom allows to soar to the skies, right?

If I get too specific in describing my old Sue, I'll probably unearth a truckload of memories that I've been trying to block out of my brain for the past five years. So, let's see...

She was a night elf death knight, part dragon, part nightsaber, knew draconic, and she wore a lot of awful outfits. There was a point where she was able to get a drop of blood from the dragon queen. She also godmoded a lot, but that I partially blame on my 12-year-old self for not knowing how to RP. I didn't have anyone to tell me what to do, so a lot of my RP learning was just figuring it out by trial and error as I went.

Actually, she originated from an even older fanfiction trilogy that I wrote, so old in fact that it's written on actual paper! Each story took up one spiral notebook and had illustrations. They are hidden at the back of my closet because if I see them, I will scream.
This character prototype was a draenei death knight who united the Alliance and Horde against the Lich King, killed said Lich King, and was redeemed into a half-ish paladin.
In the second story, it takes place some time after the first where the main characters are all half-bred teenagers who mastered the elements and came from Feralas: the blood elf/night elf fire hunter who trained a dragon, the tauren/draenei water shaman who died at the end of the third story, the troll/something wind rogue who I didn't care about, the human/blood elf earth paladin who was the love interest of the hunter, and a god-freaking cat girl from Sholazar Basin. I don't remember what happened in the third story, just that it ended in Wintergrasp and Sylvanas fell off a cliff or something.

I need to go... lie down... on the floor...

Hey, Newbie!

Welcome to the PPC, you don't have to be insane, but it does help. I'm the resident Other Person With A Pretentious Name, and a fearsome, 8-foot-tall sorcerer serving a sinister god-

((Suuure.))

...Also, I am crazy liar. Pay no attention to the voices. Anyways, nice to see you. Take a Bolter and a flask of Fenrisian Ale (I'd be careful drinking that stuff if I were you), and gather round the fire. Feel free to tell us more about yourself. Or don't.

Have one of my own shed feathers and a Golden Snitch with a Pokeball engraving!

Haha! Interesting that you do most on YouTube - guys, this might be a sign that The PPC Channel might be a good prospect to look into after all! (I have a better idea of how it would work now - if anyone wants the explanation, I can give it to them.)

Anyway, hi, I'm Twistey, and I'm not going to judge you at all for liking the Inheritance series! I actually read Eragon and was okay with it, but well, usually I don't read books I don't like and I almost always like any book I read. (Guys, put the knives down! Put the knives down!) My biggest fandom (outside of my own written worlds) would have to be Wolfenstein 3D or anything else made in the 90s by iD Software. I'm a lightly-used-bie, as I usually say, with a few agents-to-be.

About that Mary Sue you made, can you describe her for me? I'm kind of interested to hear about her. Maybe we can compare childhood Sues, that would be fun.

Ah, yes! I almost forgot your newbie gift! Let's see. *rummages through a bag*. Aha! Since Halloween is coming up, I'm going to give you a truckload of fabric and other stuff to make costumes with, as well as a bottomless face paint palette and a shapeshifting wig! I can use a sewing machine, so if you need me to sew something together for whatever costume you end up creating, just ask me! ;)

Nice to meet you, and welcome! I wish you a wonderful career as a PPCer!

-Twistey

Steinbeck is all like "Mass production and working in groups is destroying our creativity. Nothing good can come out of collaboration."

and I'm like "Oh yeah?! I can debate that! *shoves Warriors series in his face, or at least pretends to in the form of annotating in the margins that I would do so*".

But the actual story bits are decent. I've gotten to love some of the characters (especially Sam Hamilton. I loooooove crazy inventor characters), and the one borderline Sue there is isn't 100% Sueish. I think...

But yeah, Steinbeck is a bit opinionated indeed.

(Okay, good, you did. Hahaha! I plan to make more of that meme.)

-Twistey

Pronounds are she/her.

As for favorite mission, I can't quite decide. It's probably a many-way tie between Cupcakes, Forbiden Fruit, the Rose Potter series, Unholy Lich-Bunnies, Celebrian, and Harry Potter and the Butt Coffee. I actually had to go back and reread that last one when I realized that the Agents were pokemon.

>>

<>

*spikes the punch with the void*

I've read the Constitution, yes. Most of the rules seem like common sense but I'm not surprised if I missed something.
I also finished the entire TIANATDATPPC last night.

And, Alliance. I still lost in most of the Horde cities.

Certain Tyranid organisms can draw information out from brains, so it is possible that whichever Jedi got captured would give up all their skills to the Tyranids before it got processed. And at worst, the Tyranids would probably start experimenting with possible uses for the powers.

You'd start seeing Zoanthrope type units that are basically massive Force batteries, and the more powerful units like Tyrants would start displaying force sensitivity in general.

Though, in the particular case of the healing trance, they likely wouldn't care. Most Tyranid organisms are completely expendable, and time in a trance would be time not spent advancing and killing. The Hive Mind wouldn't bother on anything less than Tyrants.

She set a bad example, being all proud and aloof (until she got old and crazy and decided running off into the wilderness after her dumb kid was a great idea, for which I don't blame T). She never taught him how to deal with other people properly.

"Túrin, why are you watching your little sister like that? It's creepy. Just go play with her."

"Túrin, why are you hanging around old Sador so much? Surely there are kids your own age to interact with somewhere in this holding? Go socialize!"

"Túrin, I know you don't want to leave home, and neither do I, but sometimes we have to bow to wisdom and do what's best for others rather than please ourselves."

Right?

Re. Khîm and Mîm, I get the impression from CoH that Mîm turned traitor because he got jealous of the friendship of Túrin and Beleg. Speaking of which, I'm not sure what T ever did to deserve Beleg. Was he so pretty that Beleg fell for him, too? That just about explains it.

Maybe if he'd realized that Finduilas' feelings for him were the reason Gwindor cooled toward him, and made more intelligent decisions about Gwindor's advice. I mean, probably not, because he's a headstrong idiot, but maybe.

Will have to do more research into Ard-galen/Anfauglith, I guess. I do wonder what differences there are between CoH and the Silm.

I wonder if Tolkien didn't like Túrin so much as Túrin's story, which is a classical-feeling Oedipus Rex sort of tragedy with a dash of Romeo & Juliet thrown in at the end. And T did slay a dragon. Not too many people can say that.

Tolkien also really liked Beren & Lúthien, who have a much better (if still tragic) story.

Do Elves like depressing stories, or are these actually the least depressing from a really terrible Age?

~Neshomeh, rambling.

I don't think 'don't know about the Force = resist it' is a valid reading of the Vong; they were biologically immune to it, while there's (obviously!) no indication that the Tyranids are. So I think it would make for more interesting fiction to have them initially vulnerable to Jedi Battle Meditation (to steal a phrase)... but then, like you say, to adapt.

In this particular war (starting between the destruction of Alderaan and the destruction of the Death Star), Jedi would be scarce in the Alliance. Luke, Leia, Yoda... it's not like they'd go hunting for more in the midst of the Empire/Imperium war! (Well, maybe they would, at that...) But what they could get their claws on is one of those Chaos-corrupted Inquisitors I mentioned somewhere. So the result is the same.

Would the force-sensitive Tyranids be able to use abilities they hadn't seen? I mean, assume they never saw a Jedi healing trance - would they be able to intuit its existence, or would they have to be informed it was possible first? (The latter opens up interesting possibilities of rationing, but not if it dun't work. ^_^)

hS

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Glad to have you onboard, Pasty Greens!

It takes a lot of courage to go back and confront the demons of your own past. I highly respect and value that, and look forward to seeing it.
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While the idea that the Force could counter the Hive Mind is a good one, this underestimates the Tyranids' adaptability, which is their primary trait. For one, they would naturally resist the Force like the Vong did, because they don't understand that it exists. But as the fighting continued, they'd start to understand that a new type of ability was being used. It's at this point where things go bad for the Alliance, because the Tyranids would dedicate everything to feeding on a Jedi. And once they do, that Norn-Queen will start making force-sensitive Tyranids.

The usual risks of the Force would not apply to them. They have no emotions to feed the Dark Side, and their mental strength would allow them to channel those abilities even if they shouldn't be able to. Despite being soulless, they have enough mental power to brute force warp powers, so it is within their power.

Hullo newbie! Here, have some chocolate and don't worry, we don't bite... hopefully.

But there are records from the Burning Moon War and similar things (which occurred well prior to the setting) of Battlesuit pilots pushing their mechs to the absolute limit and getting them into orbit. If you built them for that purpose, then you'd absolutely be able to have jump-capable battlesuits. The Ghostkeel suit is already designed for stealth missions and rapid insertion - and yeah, it says quite a lot about both Tau adaptive stealth tech and the 40K setting in general that a thirty-foot giant robot armed to the teeth can be considered stealthy - and the central design's been around since the beginning of the Third Sphere Expansion, so giving it some really uprated vectored thrust arrays and a really low-rated hyperdrive (I'm fairly certain that Tau computing tech can handle it, given that it can handle bouncing off the surface of the Warp) so that they can get in, inflict a decapitation strike, and bug out with relative impunity.

I can even think of a proper designation: XV97-0 Knightguide Battlesuit. This name is a shortening of the phrase "Guide of heroes' strength", referring to both the suit's array of drone-controlled weaponry and also to the people commonly piloting it: the word in Tau is Re'b'el. =]

... I think ten years is long enough for the Rebels to convince the Tau of the viability of Ethereal-Jedi commando teams, no? :D It doesn't matter if the other Tau will lose it if you don't bring the army in the first place, and like theit cousins in Trek, the Rebels have no problem putting all their most important people on a ground mission.

I like the idea of cribbing Rebel power sources (though I'm not positive they're actually stronger), but why not take the next step and create jump-capable armour? Tie a combat suit that can survive atmospheric entry to a Clone Wars-era hyperspace ring, and you can jump your team directly from the home fleet to enemy ground. Admittedly they can't get back /out/, but as an infiltration tactic it's superb. And it's not like the Tau mind suicide missions for the Greater Good.

(Of course, that should also be possible in Star Wars proper, but no-one's that desperate I guess.)

hS

Hello, and welcome aBoard! For your newbie gift, take this plate of freshly-made SPaGhetti!

You've already answered all my usual questions save one: Have you read the Constitution?

Also! Alliance or Horde? My heart lies with the Alliance, but my guildies are all on the Horde side, so that's where I spend most of my time now.

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*offers newbie a bowl of fruit punch*

Hullo there! Glad you found our lil' madhouse :D I'm Cipher, the local cheap comic relief. What about you? Pronouns? Favourite mission read so far (let's be honest, it's one of Iximaz's stuff, isn't it? She's amazeblogs! :D)

Hello! For the past few years, I've found strange enjoyment in bad fanfiction. To be specific, I quite like listening to it on YouTube. About four or five days ago, I was googling "Forbiden Fruit" again for God knows what reason and discovered the PPC wiki. The idea of going into a fic and killing the Sues inside is something that I've loved and the fact that the PPC exists is one of the most amazing things I have found. Since then, I have read a potentially alarming amount of the wiki, missions, and I'm currently making my way through the Original Series.
Harry Potter was part of my childhood, but Eragon was what got me really into the fantasy genre. Due to the parts of the internet that I tend to visit, I didn't learn that the Inheritance series is awful until very recently and I have since read the sporkings to try and disillusion myself. My childhood is founded on lies.
I started roleplaying before I knew what I was doing and as a result, the Mary-est of Sues was born. If I ever decide to try work up the guts to write for the PPC, my first order of business is to make my character go back in time and spork herself.

Fandoms of choice include Harry Potter, World of Warcraft (current roleplay medium), the Zamonia books by Walter Moers, Pretty Cure, and most of Inheritance.

Please don't hit me.