The Log of Hive Fleet Hades

[Tychris1]

This is my Log of my personally made up Hive Fleet, Hades. This is a Warhammer 40K Story if it wasn't obvious from the Hive Fleet part. It will take the Point of View of the Hive Mind itself, coordinating the assault of several planets with my undead themed army, and it will also take the point of view of the prey that the Tyranid hunts. Hope you enjoy it!

What is special about Hive Fleet Hades?:

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The Hive Fleet in itself focuses on 2 tactics. The first one is Stealth/Night attacks and the other is rapid assaults via burrowing waves. The organisms that the Hive Fleet employs are especially weak to the sun and fire (More so then usual). They tend to field more Lictors/raveners/Tyrgons then a normal Hive Fleet (This coincides with the wave attacks, see later) and sparingly use Carnifex's (And when they do they are normally decked out with wings and act as lightning bruisers) instead opting for things like Harpy's.

Now for the burrowing waves part. Hive Fleet Hades is rarely seen coming forward on the ground (Unless the target is easy enough, Tunneling is impossible, and or it is a Night Attack/Stealth mission) and instead use the mass of Raveners/Lictors/Trygons to dig labyrinths in the planets crust, sometimes even using said Labyrinths as a kind of breeding chamber for the Hormagaunts/Termagaunts and if the situation is extreme enough Norn Queens. When an assault is about to happen the burrowing units will dig openings near the enemy encampments, normally in line formations and the holes themselves are big circles general 3-4 meters circumference. When the assault is about to happen Hormagaunts/Termagaunts/Warriors go through this tunnels and occupy there holes, waiting for the command to burst forward and rush the enemy. The tunnels to the surface are covered by dirt/the natural ground to keep things secret and to prevent collapsing from the holes/labyrinth all tunneling units excrete a liquid from there bodies that hardens onto non-Tyranid organism and keeps it rigid, and stable. When the command is given the Tyranids lying in wait bash through the crust/excretion and charge forward, a typical charge will include 10 rows of holes (Each row contains 30 holes each) which would equal several hundred Tyranid forces rushing towards the enemy. Most forces are taken down by pure surprise and unprepared (Since most strikes coincide with night time) and are quickly trampled by the time the next several dozen charging forces come (Normal onslaughts include several dozen charging forces popping up and charging at the same time in different locations).

The night aspect of Hive Fleet Hades is where they truly shine. Much like plants use photosynthesis to power there bodies so do the creatures of Hive Fleet Hades to increase there fighting potential. The sun's rays are converted into nutrients and products for the use of the Tyranid's extra organs and body systems increasing there durability and several other physical factors like Mythical Zombies. However when in direct sunlight they get more energy then they can process, this then forces them to alleve some of this energy as heat which leads to them steaming then leaving smoke trail, and even this isn’t enough so the extra energy strains the Tyranids and weakens them. As of such the moon acts as a filter to give just enough light to power the tyranids but not enough to strain them. As for days without the moon the Tyranids can hold enough excess power to keep there basics going for a while. But now you might ask “Well why don’t the Tyranids just adapt to allow both night and day absorption?” well that’s because all those neat tricks and extra organs/body systems cost a pretty biomass penny already, so adding the ability to be like that 24/7 is overkill.

Tyranid psykers such as Broodlords/ Zoanthropes/ Hive Tyrants are specialized in the act of hypnosis and mind control instead of psychically tearing food a new hind. This generally means that by the time the Tyranid swarm is about to fight in the climactic battle it’ll generally have a buffer swarm of slaves made up of the defenders. When enslaved a person keeps all of there traits when they were normal but are merely controlled by the Hive Mind making them very little from the Tyranids besides the fact that they can talk and are generally less durable (This means that in a Hive Fleet Hades army you can find Biovores side by side with Imperial Guard artillery or Pyrovores burning things with Burna Boyz). Sometimes the Tyranid army will even send the slaves back as refugees or reinforcements to the last defending bastions, telling them to act normal but get as close as they can to important defensive objects such as turrets, and once the order is given and the Tyranid army is approaching they go and turn on the defenders causing disarray and chaos. The downside to this is that the armys are only temporary, as a person is slowly drained away when they are under the will of the hive mind until there brains fry. The more time a Psyker dedicates to controlling them the longer they last, meaning an army quickly made can last a week but a squad of Terminators could last 3-5 months. Psykers take the longest to dominate, since the Hive Mind has to rewire there brains to use the Hive Minds will instead of the warp. This generally makes Psykers (Or regular leaders in life) the synapse creatures of the slave army, coordinating the fights, keeping the slaves in rout, and blasting people with the Hive Minds might.

This is my beloved brain child and as of such it is a constant work in progress. So if you have any suggestions for my fluff, army, and or story then feel free to post and say it. I’m all ears.

Thanks and Appreciation

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My first thanks has to go to Glyphstone, whom without his warped mind and understanding of things that would make grown make break down into useless shells of themselves I would not be able to properly illustrate the Hive Mind. I also have to thank Graymachine for his example of a speaking Hive Mind in action via the webcomic the Outsider. And lastly but not least I have to thank Zorg for showing me how to bring my hive fleet to the real world (Via warhammer 40k of course, I haven't perfected creating an actual Hive Ship..... yet).

Chapter One: The Hunt Begins (Hive Mind)

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Food running low. Hunt for new food. Send Fleet, big food ahead, move closer. Check food; drop spores, food bites hard, food hurts, pain, spores gone, darkness, avoid food there. Drop more spores. Food bites, no pain, keep going. Spores land, no food, food far away with metal shell. Too far, to open, to weak. Burrow. Get closer to food; food doesn’t notice. Wait for other tendril. Drop more spores, food bites weaker. Tendril lands where we were. Send tendril forward. Food bites hard, tendril falls apart; keep going, darkness starts to cover tendril; keep going. We’re upon the food. Merge with burrowed tendril, darkness gone, warriors connect us with us, surround food, bite food. Food is part of us now. Bits of food escaping in metal shell.

Hunt food.

The Hunt Begins (Imperial Guard)

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Do you know the worst part of being a Guardsmen on planet Romereon? Well besides the fact that we live on the fringes of the galaxy where nothing happens. It’d have to be patrol duty, it’s the most trivial and useless thing we can be assigned to do and yet platoon one nine six eight is always assigned on it. EVERY. SINGLE. DAMN. MISSION. All we ever see is grasslands, rocks, and just barely enough trees that you can stop for a whiz. I personally blame our crazed Commissar but to claim that outloud would be heresy punishable by death, atleast in his set of laws.

As I continue to stare out of the window of our Chimera I’m snapped back into reality by our Commissar trying to give a inspirational speech.

“Men! I know this was not the glorious life style you were promised when you joined the Imperial Guard. But! We do this duty so that we may forever protect the God Emperor, may he bless and protect us, against the enemy! And that, is enough of a reason to scout ahead and watch vigilantly against any threat!” he yells as he points his gun towards a bird in the sky through the window.

There’s been a rumor going around that the Commissar only joined the Imperial Guard to fight in the Horus Heresy, and upon reaching the rank of Commissar and getting a ship to fly there he was briefed that the Horus Heresy ended several centuries ago. “And if fighting is sure to result in victory then we must fight! The God Emperor said that, and I think he knows a little bit more about fighting then you do pal” he says to me as he pushes his finger onto my head “Because he invented! And then he mastered it so that no man or xeno may best him on the battle field!” The Commissar turned around to give the second half of it, which when finished brought up a snort by the Guardsmen to my left “If he mastered the art of combat how did Horus leave him as a corpse?” A hush fell upon the platoon as the Commissars face remained uncaring and normal. He raised his gun, pivoted his waist, and blew the Guardsmen’s head off. Splattered chunks flew everywhere, painting our armor’s red. “Any more questions? No? Well good because we’re here.” He says as the Chimera opens up. I pick up my sniper, being the only one in the platoon able to actually aim a gun, and walk out in a line with the rest.

We all took our positions, some were looking about with binoculars, others swiveled around with turrets or polished there guns and I was at the front lying on my belly, looking for any disturbance. Despite the boring nature of Romereon, it is host to several deadly animals that were known to migrate and destroy whole towns in there path. Though I’m fairly certain those races went extinct years ago since not a single attack has happened yet. Several hours past, and since we were bored we turned our radio on just in time to pick up a frantic faint message “Tyr~*Krzzzkt* are approaching the planet I rep~*krrzt* Tyranids are in the beginning phases of invasion” With this we quickly shut the raido off, staring at each other in disbelief of how or why Tyranids would strike here of all places. Gulping we become extra vigilant for anything that could be Tyranid. Clouds begin to gather in the far distance, not like that of a storm, but they are blanketing the area blocking the sun. Looking through my scope I notice wisps of white moving quickly through the clouds, extending them. This was getting more and more dangerous as the time passed.

Moving my scope down to where the wisps were leading to I picked up a tail and some claws moving around in the forest. But the habitants of this planet are reptilian in design. Do I tell this to my squad, and risk running away and missing an actual Tyranid threat to warn the planet of? Or do I say nothing and wait for more evident Tyranid presence before warning the planet? After a bit of deliberation I decide that it’s not possible to tell whether it was Tyranids or not and just stay quiet. After half an hour of waiting I see more white wisps from the clouds, this time they don’t lead into the forest, but instead lead to the large expanse of grasslands that separate us from the forest. Looking through my scope I see a sight that practically gives me and every body with binoculars an aneurysm.

Spore Pods.

We begin to yell and panic to the rest of our squad. But the spore mines moved fast and released broods of Hormagaunts, Warriors, Raveners, and some Genestealers. The sudden group of Tyranids was evident even to the naked eye and the turrets began to pour round after round towards the group. A lot of rounds missed but enough hit to cause an obvious effect towards the rushing mob. The entire mob was soon covered in a red mist. And we were thinking that we might have wounded this force enough to handle it. But as the mist settled we saw that the mob was the exact same size, they were wounded, some of them grievously, but they seemed to keep coming. Some were decapitated, some lost a limb or two, a Hormagaunts was even dragging its body via its talons. We continued to fire into them, the turrets trying to handle the Hormagaunts, and me trying to take head shots at the Warriors. I popped 2 of the 6 warriors head’s but they only seemed to move slightly slower from the deathly blow. They just wouldn’t die. As they got closer and closer the clouds started becoming less and less evident, sun soon began pouring onto the Tyranids, the Hormagaunts that dragged themselves from there torso’s started to stop moving and only a scarce few still dragged themselves. One of the Headless Warriors fell dead, this started to happen across the whole mob and something even more peculiar started to happen; they began to steam up and burn? With new vigor from the enemies weakness I continued to pop heads, soldiers readied the battlements up front unleashing there lasguns, and the turrets on the forefront began swiveling madly to hit as many targets as possible.

50 feet, 45 feet, 36 feet, 29 feet. The bugs kept getting closer and closer, almost suicidal; only one warrior remained to kill by the time they got 14 feet from us. The warrior’s control was breaking, and the Tyranids began to disperse little by little, but once they got to the 14 foot mark something changed. That one warriors control seemed to quadruple, as the entire mob was snapped back into control. By the time I put two and two together it was too late. Literally right below our feet, the ground started to collapse on a few soldiers, screaming as they fell, claws dragging them in. I instantly grabbed my sniper and ran towards the Chimera. More of the holes popped in filled with Hormagaunts, Warriors, Raveners, and Genestealers. They were rushing out of it like water out of a pipe. The group we were firing at was upon the few stragglers as they were washed over in a sea of bodies.

Only 5 people made it to the Chimera in time: Me, Our Commissar, two binocular scouts, and a soldier that had to go whiz on the chimera. The Commissar rushed towards the driver seat, shot the driver, pushed his corpse out, and began to madly drive the vehicle forward while pressing random buttons to slow the Tyranids down. Looking out through the rear window slit I saw the Tyranids gruesomely tear my fellow soldiers apart, they were almost healing themselves from the flesh and blood of the corpses. They quickly ate everything there, leaving only the weapons, and began to run rapidly towards us.

This wasn’t us setting up a perimeter against the Tyranid scouts anymore.

This was them toying with us.

[Tychris1]

-Reserved-

[graymachine]

Not intending to nitpick, but you have your guardsman entry occurring just after the Horus Heresy, which is millennia before the first Tyrannid Presence in the galaxy.

[Tychris1]

What?

Where did you read that/Where did I say that?

I had forgotten what the time was inbetween the Horus Heresy and the the current "Time" for Warhammer 40K so I stayed on the safe side and just said several, allowing someone who knows the time to put it in (Since several is no specific time) and someone who doesn't to know that it happened a while ago.