At the same time the Death Star was destroyed, the Galactic Empire is invaded from below the galactic plane by all of the hiveswarms that invaded the IoM. They appear near Nat Hutta. (Just because I hate hutts.) What does the GE do when the hutts come running for their lives?
A relevant post of mine from a while back. One Hive Fleet at low-end calcs (albeit the largest Hive Fleet to date) took roughly 400 Hive Ship casualties (Hive Ships are some of the larger ships too) in under a year and was not noticeably effected. Considering this is at least three Hive Fleets, things could go very poorly for SW. I'm not going to go on the record right now and say 'Nids "OM NOM NOM" everything. SW might be able to repel the forces, as I bet even the Rebel Alliance would put their agenda on hold to a Tyranid Invasion.
The SW galaxy might be able to (barely) hold back the Tyranid space forces (and I have doubts about that should the 'Nids get close), but SW is poorly suited towards handling the Genestealers and Genestealer Cults, not to mention the Tyranid ground units. So outside of long range bombardment, SW is fucked. =/
It depends......... Huttspace in this era is under the influence and control of the Galactic Empire nominally. However, even here, Imperial politics play a murky role, as seen in Hutt Gambit. Similarly, the Imperial response forces seen here were paltry. A few dreadnoughts, bulk cruisers and light cruisers, and this was the Moff expeditionary force. Given the semi-soverignty of the Hutts, Imperial forces would be very thin on the ground here. The loss of Tarkin and his role in Oversector Outer Rim would also play havoc with Imperial coordination of the Outer Rim defences. Afterall, as Grand Moff and governer, it was his job to cut a path through Imperial bureacracy and politics to coordinate Imperial response to the Rebels. I hate to imagine how bad things might get before an Imperial response is made.....
Genestealers will have taken Hyperspace capable craft and spread themselves far and wide before anyone even notices they're there. More than likely, they'll bring along some 'bodyguards' as well.
Agreed, especially as Lictors are appearing to be found with Genestealer cults in the newer fluff instead of just pure genestealers.
It is not like the Empire has any problems facing internal threats, it does so constantly. Once they get noticed Stormtroopers will arrive to clean house. And as the Imperial fleets starts to get mobilized thats when the real action begins. GE has far more larger industrial base scale and manpower then Imperium of Man has, not to mention more natural resources. If the war keeps going on for years the Emperor grows in power on the dark side till the scale where the Tyranid threat will no longer be an issue as Palpatine will send World Devastators at them and hurl Dark side force powers as Force storms engulfing entire Hive fleets.
I do not think you understand the threat of Tyranids. If the 'Nids are on the ground, your best bet is to consider the ground they're on as "lost," and start blasting it from orbit. Seriously, Nids > Every SW Armed Force on the Ground.
ROFLMAO And they all die or are taken 'control' of by the Purebreeds. These things cut apart Space Marine Terminators and resist Bolter Shells. They are dangerous to the point that only the Inquisition and Astartes are sent in to deal with them if at all possible. That is the only real danger to the Tyranids. But if they aren't checked early it won't be enough. Que pure wank.
Nah, I'd say the Empire has the industry to beat back the Tyranids. Tyranids do have incredibly poor FTL, after all. Empire ships match the Imperium's, and they can crank them out much faster. With their vastly superior speed, communications, and overall logistics, they can win this. It will be bloody, but I would predict that the Tyranids are contained. The Tyranids' best weapon here is sending genestealers, well, everywhere, on every hyperspace-equipped ship they can find. I'm predicting that the hive fleets are crushed after several years of bloody war, but the Empire is stamping out genestealer cults for decades to come. And yet the solid number we have on Hive Fleet Behemoth tells us that only a bit over a thousand ships comprised the entire fleet. A 'hive fleet' is a very variable number. (Of course, more plausible is the idea that GW writers screwed up; the Behemoth figure dates back to 2nd ed., before GW went around inflating everything by factors of ten to make it look more 'grimdark'...)
All the bigger reason to bring in more heavier fire power right? From my memory IG troops can also be sent in to deal with the numbers while the Space Marines cuts off the heads. I agree. Sure the hell is wank but it is canon.
*Imperial Fleet arrives over Nar Shaddaa* "Stand-by to engag- are they eating the buildings?!" "Sir, the entire western hemisphere is flat! There's nothing there but the xenos lifeforms." "Wait, I see a large... ocean? Wait, since when did Nar Shaddaa have open body of green water?" "Looks like they're chucking everything from rubble to themselves into the liquid!" "Is that spaceship drinking from it?! How the hell does that work!"
The Nids lose, baring crazy acts of plot. Geenstealers are a threat, but they are hardly one that is going to break the Galaxy. The SW Galaxy is made up of hundreds of thousands of sentient races and Galactic level technology is quite capable of telling them all apart -and biowar technology to boot. Hybrid and Purestrain stealers are not exactly the most subtle of things to get past bioscanner technology into secure areas/positions. For basic infiltration and the like, sure. But when you start looking to make use of them beyond low level infiltration, the game is going to be up rather quickly. Even the patehtic NR managed eventually to start flooding the Galaxy with mouse droids equipped with hyper-sensitive sensors that were capable of sniffing out YV-Infiltrators, which COULD fool almost any sensor system. I can see Imperial Intelligence taking a much more riggerous approach once the scale of the threat really becomes known. Though used smartly, especially when using SW technology and weapons, infiltration cells could really be a big problem for some time. Unlike Rebels however, their biology is a red flag that is impossible to hide. The Vong debated the same issue I recall, with their Warmaster wondering about what would have happened had they invaded during the Empires reign. And they are also just as happy on the infiltrate and divide idea, but Nom Annor flatly told the Warmaster that they would have been crushed like a bug on a windshield had they tried it. Hell, you'd probably give Palpitine the green light to go nuts with superweapons and everyone, 'publicly' sobbing that he saw this day coming a long time ago, and the whole Imperial military buildup after the Clone Wars was to deal with these alien invaders...and just to be safe, he is going to be building a dozen or so 'Justice Star Mobile Deep Space 'Peacekeeper' Stations', which of course will be destroyed after the aliens are...
I recall people decided that the 'stealers would take over the entire galaxy while their point of origin is the Death Star.
Genestealers can be stopped by Stormtroopers: One of the methods for wiping out Genestealer cults once found is sending in the Imperial Guard. The problem is finding the cults before they get dug in - can you imagine a Genestealer cult with access to theatre shields and thermal detonators? @Unhappy: Leviathan is the largest Hivefleet to date, so 400 being unnoticeable isn't that big a stretch from 1,000 ships on the first assault. Plus, as you said everything was less numerous a few editions ago (3rd Edition putting the IoM at roughly 10,000 worlds, or in other words Great Crusade-era IoM having 6.4 FLEETS for every world).
Lets take the Tyranids once more, people seem to forget just why they are so dangerous, even in verse that has faster FTL. 1) You can't track them unless you have somebody/thing that can *see* into the Warp realm. the importance of this is not insignificant. 2) Genestealers don't *just* infiltratet, they subhume and dominate absolutely any and all they get a hold over, even to the extent that mothers will torture their children to death if that is what is needed. (Never happens in 40K, they actually LIKE children and protect tham when they can, they are after all part of greater whole) 3) Lictors which follows with many Genestealers cults are devastating on the ground and livng terror weapons, only the very most powerful individuals have even ½ a chance against them. (In game terms 3 SM with standard load out lose to a Lictor 2 out of 3 times even chances with CC Marines) 4) Genestealers psychic powers in a verse that don't really have all that many *psykers* can and will be even more devastating in SW verse. 5) Bio weapons vs Tyranids? the only Bio weapons that would be of use would be Thalaron radiation from ST verse, and 'The Thing' which i consider a living Bio weapon. 6) Even ONE Tyranid lifeform landing on a verdant planet would be potentially devastating since it would begin to change the biosphere around it (Most active Death worlds in 40K verse was createt like that). IE A Tyranid group landing on Endor (Which have loads of deadly lifeforms on its lower levels), would make it into a nightmare planet in fairly short order, maybe as little as a couple of years depending on the Biospheres resistance and adaptability. 7) The Genestealers infection and Tyranids would spread like locust in SW verse, not least since the Tyranids would in very short order have access to pretty much any and all technologies outside the Black projects. like the Death star et al. What would the SW verse have to do, they would have to adapt to an enemy that makes the Vong seem like amateurs and one which they can NEVER be sure they can extingious completly UNLESS the develop the same mindset the 40K verse has as standard. The greatest mobilization and millitary buildup ever seen in SW verse have to be adoptet AT ONCE. and ALL the societies would have to develop into Warrior/soldier socities in short order, otherwise SW verse WOULD LOSE.
A better example might be the Deathleaper variant sneaking up on a Space Marine Devastator Squad and butchering the lot of them in an invisible orgy of violence. Though to be fair to the Devastators, they were busy at the time unloading into a never ending tide of Chitin.
There is no warp in SW. Only the Force. So using that technology is going to be harder then they thought.
In these sort of threads, unless OP says otherwise, users are often expected to assume everything works as normal. This is so as to prevent Jedi from becoming powerless in Star Trek-verse, Naruto ninjas from losing all their powers when they go to Berserk-verse, etc.
Unlike the IoM, the Empire actually has the capacity to *evacuate* a planet that is being attacked, rather than having to defend it with ground troops. After it's evacuated, it can be glassed from orbit, killing all the tyranids who are happily eating trees and rabbits and whatever else organic is left after everyone else GTFO. There wouldn't be much emphasis on ground combat unless it was a world like Coruscant or Kuat.
On the contrary. IoM has impressive capacity to evacuate. In one instance they evacuated billions off a world, though they had to leave behind a few hundred million.
I doubt the Empire would even bother to evacuate worlds the Tyranids attack. They glassed worlds that fell to the New Republic. You think the'll bat an eyelash about glassing worlds overrun with hordes of nightmarish space monsters?
That wasn't the same Empire. They were desparate at that point. We are talking about the original Empire that controlled the entire galaxy. On the whole, I think the galactic empire is actually a bit LESS brutal, repressive, and genocidal than the IoM.
The Empire has not had to face what the IoM. The IoM has been fighting for over 10000 years, far more then the amount of time that the Republic AND the Empire has existed combined. IoM faces untold horrors to survive, of course the IoM is more brutal and repressive.
