Why do you all assume the cult uprising and civil war will be victorious? It is no means certain and I'm sure the first cult uprising will provide the empire with plenty of evidence of the threat.
But once they know what to look for and find half-breeds among GE police forces and on starships wouldn't they act against them?
@TheMuffinKing: I don't think anyone has said they'd be successful. And they only tend to rise once the Hive Fleet arrives and takes control of the Brood (at which their secret is out anyway) all they have to do is destroy any planetary shields and maybe STO Weapons. (Or even the Golan Stations if they get anyone aboard them.) @Entilza: Assuming (for reasons sake and speaking to the standard pattern of behaviours) that the Genestealers have been operating for (picks a nice round number) 5'000 years before the Tyranid Hive Fleets arrive. They are going to be so numerous and well entrenched in society that acting against them would be like trying to excise all the humans from positions of power. Could it be done? Sure probably. But would it leave oceans of blood in their wake? Certainly.
The OP just says the Hive Fleets attack, it says nothing about the Stealers having arrived 5,000 years before. While I don't doubt that if they had been operating that long they could be a big problem if they weren't found by chance.
I know, but the REASONABLE people in this thread are assuming Normal Tyranid operations instead of OH NOES MAGICAL TELEPORT ATTACK AGENST DE HUTTS!
Now that would be something that could really hurt the Empire when the Tyranids came around, assuming the stealers were in place.
It would be entirely unreasonable to assume Palpaltine could be a a cultist. If he was he would have disarmed after the clone wars and become a pacifist. Also have a feeling it would be very difficult to infect him, and if they did it could tip the empire off to the whole scheme.
Not even close. In fact many if not all of Palpatines activities and methods are DIRECTLY reminiscent of a Genestealer Cult Magus. No he wouldn't have. A: Genestealer Cults are, as a rule, very well armed. In fact the original Genestealer Cult lists included LAND RAIDERS as well as Leman Russes etc. B: Genestealer Cults actually don't know anything about the Tyranids, they don't even know or understand the beacon they emit once in large concentrations. The Tyranid Hive mind just takes control when it gets within range, there is no exchange of information.
If he was a random planetary governer it might make sense not to disarm, but he's the head of the empire and its military (the main opposition to the tyranids). Also, I still have no idea how they would infect Palpatine, unless he just happened to be born into it.
What bit aren't you getting? Genestealer Cultists have NO knowledge of the Tyranids. He isn't going to disarm, he's going to cement control for the Cult.
Even as the head of an Empire it would make no sense to disarm. A Genestealers work is also eliminating as much possible resistance as it can before the Hive Fleets arrive. Not to mention that they're still scheming bastards out for personal power and glory. (Before the Hive Fleets arrive, take control of them and either "recycle" them or send the purebreeds back out. Cultists do not survive.) The latter is the most likely, as for the former we know that the Genestealer Hypnosis is funky and not like "real" hypnosis. Could be some funky warp-based crap going on.
Thanks for the clarification, for some reason I was under the impression otherwise, but upon further re-reading this scenario falls in line what you clarified.
No probs mate, while most other 40k factions would be a massive pain (such as my thread dumping all the Milky Way Orks into the SW galaxy) the Tyranids own natures and abiltiies work against them. The fact they can consume a significant part of a planets mass is staggering. But them being stuck there for a little over three months feeding on a planet works against the Tyranids in this scenario. And we can't even begin to speculate on HOW the Tyranids would adapt and evolve their fleets without descending into the realms of pure speculation and wank.
Are you being deliberately dense, or just plumb stupid? The post I was replying to was along the lines of 'How would the Empire work out that nids and 'stealers are connected' - it was a perfectly valid response to that; as long as they manage to bag a single stealer, and put its autopsy in a database, then as soon as the 'nids show, it wouldn't be hard to work out that they've a common origin. And that's ignoring that the hive-fleets come with their own genestealers, too.
Yeah, debates are only interesting when people use ranges of firepower that match (since pretty much everything has examples that go from gigajoules to teratons). GT firepower in Wars vs. 40K doesn't bother me, but it's hard not to when people claim an ISD would take out half the UFP or something like that.
Oh yeah. Fantastic. I'm torn between ignoring the CGI show for its embarrassing implications, and trying to puzzle this up with the rest of the EU and what we see in the movies. Then of course, if bolts can pass through, why can't communications?...
Hmm, didn't notice this one until now... I never said Imperial ships can't do it. In fact, I say that exact same thing in the post you're responding to. To begin with, we don't even know if the ship's shields were up at all. Needa had to order Avenger's shields to be raised, and this after coming out of the asteroid field. Anyway, we know from ROTJ that Executor, at least, has a seperate bridge shield arc. It's certainly possible that ISDs do as well, that the captain of the unfortunate ISD dropped the bridge shield to speak with Vader, and that stray asteroid got past its guns. Keep in mind, too, that shields being up doesn't preclude ship-to-ship communications simply via radio, or whatever SW equivalent there is.
