The Galaxy is Flood, Not Food
- Thread starter Jackson Fox
- Start date
- Crossover Sci-Fi Horror
Orks would welcome a fight anyway and found new enemies to attack.
Mgunh1
Not an AI, honest!
- Location
- Northern Luna Base, Module 5, Sublevel 15
Considering the Old Ones had forgotten to put an Off Switch on the Orks or Krorks at the time of the War In Heaven, yeah they thrive only on war alone.
It might not even be they forgot to, since they lost the War In Heaven. It was probably seen as a weakness that the C'tan could've exploited to disable the Korks, which is no bueno. Plus the Old Ones probably could have controlled the Krorks, had they won, seeing as they can make/uplift species and their gods. Orks are not how the Krorks were supposed to be, they're a regressed evolution that pales in comparison.
True and that since the Old Ones had lost, then the Krorks/Orks might be a case of "If we can't have the galaxy, then no one will."
Chapter 18 - The Maw
Day 16, Continued
Tide was more then a little pleased with the results thus far from the invasion of the Ork space hulk. Not only was the hulk just as filled with strange and rare technologies as he had hoped, but the Orks themselves were also genetic gold mines.
Orks tended to 'lock-in' their genetics from what he could tell. A squig was going to be a squig, regardless of outside forces. The same was true for a snotling or gretchin. Ork Boyz, Nobz, and, presumably, the Warboss were not actually different strains of Orks, but the same Orkoid unit at various stages of growth and power. However, they all came from the same source: Ork spores.
It was rather interesting, once he'd dedicated a few infected orks towards pumping out as many Flood spores as they could manage, to 'see' his Flood spores overtake the mold that covered the various walls, some even containing partially-grown orkoids within them. Ork spores, for all they were incredible at taking root and spreading endlessly, were not so great at what was essentially spore-level combat. Tide had half-expected for it to be a microscopic thunder dome in some way, but it seemed that would not be the case.
Still, the spore itself had more than a few interesting capabilities that Tide was more than pleased to incorporate into himself. Their nutrient gathering abilities were incredible, capable of growing in almost anything less than an open flame. Even snowy regions wouldn't be enough to stop them, just slow them down.
Flood spores, for all that they were paragons of infection, were not that great at simply growing on their own. Utterly shit at it, in fact. The creation of new Flood biomass without a guiding intelligence active was limited towards conversion of existing biomass. Without other life to infect and convert, the Flood spores would simply enter hibernation.
At least, that had been the case until Tide had incorporated the Ork spore's growth capabilities. He kept the changes limited to those spores on the space hulk and in the very depths of the Underhive for the moment. There were still mechanicus adepts monitoring Malum after all, he didn't want them to freak out when they realized the mold was their 'Organism-04'.
The possible combat forms he could manufacture from Orks were capable, but not really anything he hadn't seen before or couldn't create himself with Pure Forms. He'd taken a look through the memories of the various Orks he'd killed and found it was rather… strange. Their minds, while far more understandable than a daemon's, were weird in different ways. If looking into a daemon's mind was like reading the fractured portions of a sentence written in an alien language, an Ork's mind was like reading a sentence whose individual words he understood perfectly but came together into a horrific amalgamation that were an utter nonsense.
There were leaps in logic and understanding based on nothing that he could determine, beyond even the tiniest rationality that he had found in even the most zealous believers of the God-Emperor that he had consumed. He had seen such things before, in certain humans who had perished. Namely, the insane.
That the entire Ork race was literally insane was… not that surprising, to be honest. He'd kind of already known that, really.
Ork Tek was, unsurprisingly, impossible to comprehend or utilize, even by those Orks he had infected and converted. Perhaps an Altered Ork might be able to utilize a Shoota that was essentially just a tube, grip, and trigger, but he wanted a better understanding of Ork biology before he tried anything with a living Ork. Perhaps it was a needless concern, but interacting with a gestalt mind as violent as the Orks' no doubt was would not likely be a pleasant experience. He wanted to be ready for anything.
Perhaps if he believed the Ork Tek would work, he could have managed to wield it, but that wasn't something he could exactly just… do. How would one even do that?
Regardless, he wasn't really all that interested in Ork Tek anyways. As powerful as some of its higher end items could be, there were too many problems and random mishaps with it that made him less inclined to even try utilizing it. He didn't need a 'tellyporta' that only teleported half of what was desired to its target location, after all. Even if that wasn't likely to be as lethal for his combat and pure forms as it would be for the average Ork.
The technology he could salvage from the various ships of the space hulk that were left emptied as more and more Orks were drawn towards the invading forms was much more interesting to him. Almost all of it was in some state of disrepair and all of it could have benefited greatly from a deep cleaning, but there were a few gems there. The various components of power weapons, plasma weaponry, even a few pieces of what looked like an organically grown sword made of what he believed to be wraithbone. Some of it, like the wraithbone, was unusable to him at the moment, but he gathered anything and everything of value to the cargo hold within the armored cylinder.
He lacked the ability to retrieve the cylinder or the items contained within it for the moment, as skimming the multiverse with any accuracy required a Gravemind at the very least, however keeping it in a safe space would still be useful.
That safety was enforced by half of the combat forms infected by his boarding party, with the other half joining in the assault or acquiring additional technology, seemingly useful items, or even just scrap that looked interesting.
At first, he had simply intended to gather everything into the cylinder, but even the tube's spacious interior began to fill up with all the trinkets he'd been gathering. Simply stuffing everything inside would likely be damaging, especially if something more volatile that he hadn't noticed was dislodged, which was a distinct possibility.
So, he decided he might as well use some of the more common stuff and keep the real goodies in the cylinder. His numbers on the space hulk were already growing, so he could spend a bit of the gathered biomass on a new Mind Form.
One of the 'goodies' he'd found was a small plasma forge, about two meters in diameter, with an internal power source that, while by no means infinite, was shockingly efficient. Not to mention the fact that it was capable of being moved around with relative ease. He also had no idea how its internals functioned and, given it was the only one he'd found so far, he had not dared to take it apart to try and reverse engineer it, as tempting as that thought was.
The Orks had been using it as a grill for cooking squigs in the middle of what looked like the bridge of some cruiser. Oddly enough, the technology of the rest of the cruiser was substandard in comparison to the forge. Presumably, the Orks had dragged their ad hoc grill from somewhere else, since the forge was highly advanced from what his, admittedly limited, knowledge could tell. He had yet to see any ships that contained similarly high-grade technology, but he suspected the vessel of origin was simply elsewhere in the hulk as he had only seen a dozen vessels of what must have been hundreds, if not thousands.
Regardless, he had a good use for the forge as the central component of his newest mind form, which he dubbed the Maw. Mostly for the fact that it had a giant 'mouth', but also because it would be the 'mother' of many future Flood Tech forms. Heh, puns.
The Maw was eight meters tall, with a cavernous mouth, the interior of which was filled with mechadendrites and tentacles equipped with a variety of salvaged tools. At the bottom of its mouth rested the forge, where scrap would be fed and then reshaped into the required form by heat-resistant, and purely mechanical, manipulators.
His newest Mind Form rested on hundreds of powerful, centipede-like legs. It was slow and not remotely nimble, but then it wasn't exactly meant for combat anyways. Its sides were capable of absorbing new biomass and rapidly converting it into new Pure Forms that it would then equip with the gear it had manufactured or repaired. It also had four powerful tentacles on its sides that could grab anything within two dozen meters with any amount of force from holding an egg without cracking the shell or enough to break rockrete and dent ceramite. Useful for gathering nearby salvage without causing unnecessary damage.
The Maw wasn't exactly an entire factory unto itself, but it was still pretty good. It was also more advanced than anything he had access to in Malum, even those factories run by the Imperium above the underhive. It wouldn't pump out an army in days, but he didn't really need it to.
One of the useful things it could do was produce multiple units simultaneously. The Rogue, Fighter, and Barbarian all took some time, with the Ranger taking the longest due to how much mechanical equipment it required. Chainblades were rather intensive in their requirements. Most of the time taken by the Maw was the production of that equipment. By comparison, he could shape both biomass and simple plating at a far higher speed. In other words, flesh and unpowered armor were easy to make in bulk.
In fact, the forge was so good at making the simpler equipment, that he was hemorrhaging efficiency only producing the four Tech-Flood units he'd fashioned thus far. In other words, to maximize his efficiency, he needed something small and cheap which could benefit from armor but didn't need more complicated parts beyond the biomass itself.
At first, he thought of the B1 battle droid from Star Wars, possibly with its blaster replaced by some Flood-based projectile weapon. However, even that seemed needlessly complex for what was supposed to be a chaff unit. Then, he had it. The MOA from Warframe was perfect. A pair of legs with a gun on top. Simple, cheap… possibly effective.
He created a 'proof-of-concept' swiftly. Its vitals were contained within its thighs, protected by cords of powerful muscles and shaped plasteel. Its shins were similarly protected. The legs themselves were less than a meter in length, but still capable of delivering kicks of bone-shattering force. They were fast and nimble, not too strong, but still dangerous, or so he hoped.
The weapon that was its 'head' was similar to the Ranged pure form's spike projectile thrower. The kinetics used were similar in sheer strength to a round from a stubber, propelled entirely by muscular force, though they lost their power much faster than bullets did and were less effective at penetrating armor. Still, in the mostly confined spaces of the interiors of ships, their range was sufficient. Not to mention the fact the spikes they fired, while limited in number, were infectious and its ammunition could be replenished from gathered biomass out in the field. A trio of Flood Stalks underneath the 'nozzle' of the weapon, which he dubbed the Spiker, provided sensation to the form.
He named it the Corpus, since he felt it fit given the MOA's origins and was still in a punny mood.
In comparison to the other Flood Tech forms, which each took several hours to produce, he could finish a Corpus in less than one. At maximum production, in four hours the Maw produced a Barbarian, a Fighter, a Ranger, two Rogues, and four Corpus'.
Oh yeah, it was all coming together.
With each four-hour group produced, he sent the Corpus' out with the Rangers he produced alongside them, with one of the Rogues bringing up the rear, infecting any of the dead missed by the fireteam. The other rogue would join those units scouting out the surrounding halls and corridors that had transformed the space hulk in a labyrinth of epic proportions. The Barbarian and Fighter would simply join in the rampage across the countless decks of the hulk, drawing greater and greater numbers of Orks in response to his invasion.
He'd also had a thought. He had already done the Elites, so why not make some of the other Covenant races as well? Especially when he had forms and functions for them that were practically perfect. With a thought, he transformed the appearances of the Rogue and Fighter forms.
The Fighters grew thick hair, dark grey and black, as well as a dark hide. Their faces, previously similar to a human's in appearance, were altered to be more feral and ape-like. Thus, he created the Brutes or Jiralhanae.
The Rogues grew even scrawnier, while their faces became longer and more angular and bird-like, complete with a sharp beak. Although they lacked the shields their people commonly wielded for the moment, Tide felt he'd done well in recreating the Jackals or Kig-Yar.
He would probably do others in the future, but for the moment these three were all he needed. He could already think of a few ideas. Perhaps he could use the Lekgolo as a front for his Flood Tech forms that more obviously used biomass that couldn't be easily changed to appear like a type of xeno. The Barbarian already wasn't far off in general shape from a Hunter, after all. The Hunter's integrated fuel rod cannon actually gave him an idea, one he swiftly implemented.
Grunts and Prophets weren't likely to make an appearance, he felt. The role of grunts would more effectively be filled by the Corpus and Prophets… well, he didn't really see the point outside of some leader caste, if he chose to go that route in the future. Not needed for the moment, in any case.
Then again, he sort of preferred the Banished as a faction and in terms of aesthetics. Especially their equipment. If he decided to create some xenos puppet faction in the future to interact with the wider galaxy openly, he'd probably go for their design aesthetic. Halo Infinite had some good-looking vehicles, after all.
Still, that was something for future Tide to think on. For the moment, he had bigger fish to fry. Or, in this case, bigger orks.
Namely the orks falling through the skies of Monstrum drop pods by the hundreds to thousands.
He'd tried to gain some insight on the forces of this Ork horde through the memories of the Orks he'd infected, but it seemed math wasn't a strong suit of the Orks. 'Lots' was essentially the general vibe he got.
In other words, he had no idea. Then again, neither did the orks, but they didn't really care about something like numbers. No one bothered to count something like that and it was debatable whether any of them could even count that high to begin with. Certainly, none of the Orks Tide had consumed showed the knowledge to do so, but he couldn't say if some of the higher ranking Orks had the capacity for simple addition beyond ten.
Malum's skyfire defenses opened up with everything they had, flak batteries and lascannons filling the air with flashes of yellow and red. Missiles launched and sped upwards, disappearing behind the planet's perpetual cloud cover. The giant rocks and other craft of the Orks couldn't actually be seen, but the light of explosions bled through the dark clouds, like flashes of lightning. And those flashes were growing brighter and brighter as, despite the best efforts of the planet to create a dome of death around their hives, the enemy continued to get closer and closer.
In the upper echelons of the hive spires, beyond the cloud cover, the defenses were even more heavily concentrated than anywhere else in Malum, but also more limited in where they were designed to protect. It wasn't even a matter of its defenders choosing to ignore the bulk of the enemy in favor of only those that neared the spires, it was something long ago decided by the rulers of Malum in how they constructed and distributed their defenses. The nobility cared little for the rest of the hive, even if that was a foolish and short-term notion.
Regardless, their selfishness had left the hive spires themselves untouchable to any ork forces, though this had the inadvertent effect of drawing more and more of the green tide towards the areas with the heaviest defenses. Tide couldn't say if the Orks might actually break through, so heavy were the defenses concentrated in so small an area, but they were going to make an effort at it, that much was clear.
At first, the only thing to fall through the clouds was debris, the shattered remnants of Ork Roks and scrapped together drop craft falling in chunks, not one piece of which was larger than a few meters across. They were flaming meteorites, most too small to survive the speeds they were travelling at, burning up before even reaching the ground. The larger pieces were more dangerous, but any damage they could deal to the hive was considered negligible by the Imperium. Tide could do little to change this consideration without hampering the entire city's defenses, so he was forced to accept it. For now.
He was aware of the Ork spores that each destroyed drop craft spread with their explosions, but the hives were so layered with Flood spores that he doubted any orks would begin growing inside the hive. Hopefully, the Inquisitor's surveyors would take notice of the violent reaction of 'Organism-04' towards ork spores and report to their master.
He encouraged the minds of the people to take shelter from the fiery rain. There were not many shelters capable of withstanding a piece of debris the size of a small car outside the spires, but he did what he could to guide them away from areas where he noticed larger pieces of debris falling, giving them feelings of danger and doom if they neared such an area or had been hidden in one.
It wasn't perfect, not even close. But it was all he could do for the moment.
Finally, the first of the Ork drop craft began to break through the cloud covers. These were the largest and sturdiest of the initial waves, spread beyond the outer edges of the hive where the defenses were less focused and not able to concentrate enough fire to break them apart. These slammed down into the wastes that surrounded Malum, bristling with heavy guns, instantly transformed into forward operating bases. The Orks didn't even bother to wait for the rest of their comrades to land, already disgorging from their Roks by the hundreds.
A growing roar could be heard at the edges of Malum, a collective cry of excited bloodlust.
"WAAAAAAAAGH!"
Delobar felt the click of the fresh ammo in his stubber more than he heard it. It was hard to hear much of anything, with the sounds of battle and blood pumping in his ears. Only his sergeant's orders seemed to cut clear through the cacophony of war.
"Target their eyes."
Delobar wasn't that great of a shot. He was average, below average even when it came to the firing range. If he were thinking clearly, he'd probably have told the sergeant that shooting something as small as an greenskin's eye at a hundred paces was more than a little difficult, especially if said greenskin was rushing towards him brandishing an oversized knife that looked like it weighed heavier than he did.
As it was, he was most certainly not thinking clearly. Everything seemed to move almost like a dream, slowed down as though everyone was moving through coolant gel.
He was on the outskirts of Malum, farther out than he had ever been in his life, on the frontlines. He should have been terrified. Scared shitless. Perhaps it was the God-Emperor's courage that filled him or maybe he had something inside of himself that he'd never known was in there before, but he wasn't afraid in the slightest. Just determined to keep himself and his squad alive. Even creepy Jurt.
Thousands of PDF troopers, tens of thousands even hundreds of thousands, stood alongside him. The numbers were only vague concepts really, he had no conception of how many men and women were really standing with him in the series of swiftly dug trenches and erected defenses surrounding the hive city. None of that mattered though.
He leveled his autogun once more at the approaching green mass, let out a long breath, and then squeezed the trigger.
The first shot went wide of the greenskin he'd been aiming at, but that only meant it struck the side of another of the brutish xenos elsewhere in the mass. His second shot, however, took the Ork dead-on, dropping the wailing beast to the ground, the xenos quickly being swallowed under the approaching horde.
The heavy stubber opened up on the horde, and Delobar spared a glance at its gunner. 'Creepy Jurt' was a recent recruit, having joined the PDF only days earlier, a man barely more trained than a civillian, but Delobar had to admit the man knew his way around a weapon. Almost every round of the heavy stubber from the man seemed to be almost perfectly placed, dropping a dozen greenskins in seconds.
Delobar and some of his other squadmates had honestly wondered if the man wasn't secretly some former guardsman or even an Inquisitorial agent. Certainly, Jurt wasn't like any fresh recruit Delobar had met before. He was large and tough looking, with better reflexes than any other man in the squad. But, he was also distant and… freakishly calm, constantly. Even now, he went about the work of mowing down greenskins with the same look as a trooper cleaning their weapon or an assembly line worker clocking in their shift.
Still, Delobar was glad to have the man with him in a fight, secret inquisitorial agent or not.
Delobar fired again, this time at one of the smaller, scrawny looking greenskins. He got the feeling he should leave the larger enemies to those with larger guns. Autoguns didn't do much to the larger greenskins, beyond annoying them it seemed, unless he got a lucky shot in one of their eyes. The smaller ones though, they weren't too much trouble by comparison.
A sudden string of explosions tore through the horde, and Delobar vaguely wondered if the higher ups had set up a minefield or something in the land surrounding Malum. He wouldn't complain if they had.
The greenskins kept getting closer and closer to their trench, despite more explosions tearing through their ranks. In the distance, he could see more and more of their drop craft falling towards the ground, feeling the shuddering through the ground as they landed. No matter how many they killed, they kept coming closer.
Out of the corner of his eye, Delobar thought he saw one of the smaller greenskins fall to the ground and begin to convulse, but his weary mind barely noticed. Then it happened again, to another of the small ones elsewhere in the horde, then another, and another. Then it wasn't just the small ones.
Greenskin after greenskin collapsed, clutching their lungs or stomachs, hacking up dark red blood. More and more rushed in to replace them, uncaring of their compatriot's deaths, but more and more fell.
Delobar stopped firing for a moment, simply staring in confusion and awe as line after line of greenskin charged their lines… only to collapse, convulse for a few moments, then go still, dead. The others in his squad similarly lowered their weapons, unable to believe what they saw. Only Creepy Jurt kept firing, still calm, only now targeting the largest orks that were still able to move even after starting to convulse.
"What in the Throne's name…" Delobar heard his sergeant mutter in abject confusion.
Rug stomped down the corridor, jostling and elbowing with his mates as he tried to push forward to the front of the group. His armor clanked loudly against the bulkheads and his fellow Boyz, filling the dark halls of one of the hulk's countless wrecks. The sound was overshadowed by the noise produced by the Orks themselves, nearly thirty voices all boasting, chanting, and making all kinds of ruckus as they moved into the wreck.
Someone or something had gotten aboard their turf and Warboss Grinhide wasn't having it. So, even as the Big Boss led the fight groundside, a few mobs had been left behind to deal with whoever or whatever had been stupid enough to board a hulk filled with Orks.
Rug had already heard the stories from a couple of Orks that had seen the boarders and it had gotten him excited to join in the fun. Big monsters, little monsters, Orks that turned into monsters, it was like a dream come true. Weird that the Boyz who'd fought the monsters and survived hadn't seemed to think so, whimpering like snotlings, but Rug didn't really care too much about that. He just wanted a good fight and if he couldn't have one on the planet below, he was more than happy to fight here.
Apparently, the monsters a few of the Orks had taken to calling Rotters had some good scrap with them and Rug was excited to see what he might be able to palm. He wanted a shiny new choppa to go with his new shoota.
Suddenly, the Nob leading their mob, a brute named Ug Rok, halted in his tracks, the foremost Boyz halting just before they collided with the larger Ork's back. Unfortunately for said Orks, those Boyz behind them did not come to a stop so quickly, shoving one Ork forward, straight into Ug's backside.
The larger Ork didn't even tilt forward, but snarled angrily at the offending Ork, who cowered under the annoyed gaze.
"Quiet, ya gits!" Ug spat and in moments the Orks were silent, even the sound of their armor clanking against one another subsiding. "I smell somethin'."
It was a moment before Rug smelt it as well over the grease of the ships and the stench of green and he was astonished at the sharp nose of their Nob. Now that it was quiet, in the distance, somewhere beyond the illumination of their gloworbs, there were heavy footsteps. Very heavy footsteps, which sent shivers through the floor with its gait. And it was getting louder. Closer.
The Boyz shifted, suddenly nervous. Something felt… off to them. Beyond the approach of a large enemy, there was some underlying dread they felt in the very core of their being. Of course, the reaction of an Ork towards such a feeling was quite different from what most beings would have.
"GET GOIN'!" Ug roared and the Orks joined their shouts and taunts to their leader's, suddenly even louder than before, as though in an attempt to establish dominance over the noise of the enemy.
A piercing howl, like the deathrattle of a hundred beings, sliced through their cacophony and the steps thundered forward. From out of the darkness, a hulking monstrosity barreled towards them, bone and metal claws glistening in the light of their gloworbs, a soft blue light emitted from its palms.
The Orks roared and let loose with their shootas, filling the corridor with dakka. Most shots went wide, not even close to reaching their marks, but many hit home. The kinetic rounds ripped holes through the frame of the monster, but did nothing to slow it down, seemingly having no effect.
The Orks abandoned their shootas in favor of their choppas and rushed forward to meet the howling creature, wordless warcries of their own meeting its constant scream. Ug was the first to reach the monster, his longer legs granting him greater speed. The Nob's choppa flashed through the air, tearing a long gash through the chest of the creature, but it seemed to have as much effect as the dakka had.
The Rotter's own limbs flexed with terrible strength, its claws returning the slash across the chest of the Nob. There was a screech of metal as deep gouges ripped apart the large Ork's armor, the force of the blow flinging the Ork back like a ragdoll, alive but wounded.
A trio of Boyz, including the one that had bumped into Ug, leapt at the Rotter, burying their choppas into its flesh, releasing some viscous yellow liquid. The Boyz cried out in triumph a moment before two of them were slashed to ribbons by a pair of claws. The third was ripped off the Rotter by one massive clawed grip, held by his chest. The blue light in the palm of the Rotter built up into a blinding flash and there was a wave of searing heat. When the light subsided, everything of the armored Ork save for his charred legs and arms, along with a few scraps of blackened metal, was gone. Vaporized in an instant.
As the Rotter tossed aside its victim and moved to engage the rest of the Orks, the two that had already fallen to its claws began to shake, despite being thoroughly dead and in pieces. The remnants of their upper halves forced themselves upright, resting on their arms, which began to break and reshape themselves, the crack of bone and tearing of flesh able to be heard even over the sound of battle. A trio of tentacles exploded out of them in a gory haze, hooked on the ends with razor sharp talons. The dead faces of the Orks were twisted in visages of rage and their arms clawed towards their former comrades, tentacles whipping around the air wildly.
The Ork in front of Rug rushed one of the reanimated dead, firing his shoota as he went, blowing the skull of the first dead Ork clean off, causing it to drop and lay still once more. The second shoved itself off the ground however, leaping at the Ork, its tentacles already stretching out to wrap around the git's neck.
Almost like a chainblade's teeth, sharp bones tore through the flesh of the tentacles and embedded themselves in the Ork's neck, biting deep. The creature's tentacles tugged and with almost awe-inspiring ease, the Ork's head was almost completely removed from the body, only his spinal cord keeping him relatively intact.
Rug leveled his shoota, having noticed that dakka seemed good enough for these forms at least, and opened fire. Both Orks, undead and almost certainly dead, were ripped apart by the spray of bullets. They collapsed and laid still, but Rug kept one eye on the corpses, just in case, even as he turned towards the Rotter.
In the time it had taken him to kill one of the infected Orks, the Rotter had slain a dozen more Orks with incredible ease and was now once more engaged in a close-quarters fight with Ug. One the Nob was clearly losing.
With a final, vicious thrust forward, the Rotter's claws punctured deep into the Nob's chest, piercing the weakened armor. There was another flash of light and then the Nob was gone, along with an unlucky Ork that had been in the middle of rushing forward to assist.
More and more of the slain Orks were starting to shake and sprout new, mutated limbs and Rug had a sinking feeling this fight was not going to end their way. But, Rug knew, Orks always won.
Just maybe not today.
With that, Rug turned around and high-tailed it out of there, swearing he'd come back and beat the Rotter. Later. At some point.
Probably.
Tide was more then a little pleased with the results thus far from the invasion of the Ork space hulk. Not only was the hulk just as filled with strange and rare technologies as he had hoped, but the Orks themselves were also genetic gold mines.
Orks tended to 'lock-in' their genetics from what he could tell. A squig was going to be a squig, regardless of outside forces. The same was true for a snotling or gretchin. Ork Boyz, Nobz, and, presumably, the Warboss were not actually different strains of Orks, but the same Orkoid unit at various stages of growth and power. However, they all came from the same source: Ork spores.
It was rather interesting, once he'd dedicated a few infected orks towards pumping out as many Flood spores as they could manage, to 'see' his Flood spores overtake the mold that covered the various walls, some even containing partially-grown orkoids within them. Ork spores, for all they were incredible at taking root and spreading endlessly, were not so great at what was essentially spore-level combat. Tide had half-expected for it to be a microscopic thunder dome in some way, but it seemed that would not be the case.
Still, the spore itself had more than a few interesting capabilities that Tide was more than pleased to incorporate into himself. Their nutrient gathering abilities were incredible, capable of growing in almost anything less than an open flame. Even snowy regions wouldn't be enough to stop them, just slow them down.
Flood spores, for all that they were paragons of infection, were not that great at simply growing on their own. Utterly shit at it, in fact. The creation of new Flood biomass without a guiding intelligence active was limited towards conversion of existing biomass. Without other life to infect and convert, the Flood spores would simply enter hibernation.
At least, that had been the case until Tide had incorporated the Ork spore's growth capabilities. He kept the changes limited to those spores on the space hulk and in the very depths of the Underhive for the moment. There were still mechanicus adepts monitoring Malum after all, he didn't want them to freak out when they realized the mold was their 'Organism-04'.
The possible combat forms he could manufacture from Orks were capable, but not really anything he hadn't seen before or couldn't create himself with Pure Forms. He'd taken a look through the memories of the various Orks he'd killed and found it was rather… strange. Their minds, while far more understandable than a daemon's, were weird in different ways. If looking into a daemon's mind was like reading the fractured portions of a sentence written in an alien language, an Ork's mind was like reading a sentence whose individual words he understood perfectly but came together into a horrific amalgamation that were an utter nonsense.
There were leaps in logic and understanding based on nothing that he could determine, beyond even the tiniest rationality that he had found in even the most zealous believers of the God-Emperor that he had consumed. He had seen such things before, in certain humans who had perished. Namely, the insane.
That the entire Ork race was literally insane was… not that surprising, to be honest. He'd kind of already known that, really.
Ork Tek was, unsurprisingly, impossible to comprehend or utilize, even by those Orks he had infected and converted. Perhaps an Altered Ork might be able to utilize a Shoota that was essentially just a tube, grip, and trigger, but he wanted a better understanding of Ork biology before he tried anything with a living Ork. Perhaps it was a needless concern, but interacting with a gestalt mind as violent as the Orks' no doubt was would not likely be a pleasant experience. He wanted to be ready for anything.
Perhaps if he believed the Ork Tek would work, he could have managed to wield it, but that wasn't something he could exactly just… do. How would one even do that?
Regardless, he wasn't really all that interested in Ork Tek anyways. As powerful as some of its higher end items could be, there were too many problems and random mishaps with it that made him less inclined to even try utilizing it. He didn't need a 'tellyporta' that only teleported half of what was desired to its target location, after all. Even if that wasn't likely to be as lethal for his combat and pure forms as it would be for the average Ork.
The technology he could salvage from the various ships of the space hulk that were left emptied as more and more Orks were drawn towards the invading forms was much more interesting to him. Almost all of it was in some state of disrepair and all of it could have benefited greatly from a deep cleaning, but there were a few gems there. The various components of power weapons, plasma weaponry, even a few pieces of what looked like an organically grown sword made of what he believed to be wraithbone. Some of it, like the wraithbone, was unusable to him at the moment, but he gathered anything and everything of value to the cargo hold within the armored cylinder.
He lacked the ability to retrieve the cylinder or the items contained within it for the moment, as skimming the multiverse with any accuracy required a Gravemind at the very least, however keeping it in a safe space would still be useful.
That safety was enforced by half of the combat forms infected by his boarding party, with the other half joining in the assault or acquiring additional technology, seemingly useful items, or even just scrap that looked interesting.
At first, he had simply intended to gather everything into the cylinder, but even the tube's spacious interior began to fill up with all the trinkets he'd been gathering. Simply stuffing everything inside would likely be damaging, especially if something more volatile that he hadn't noticed was dislodged, which was a distinct possibility.
So, he decided he might as well use some of the more common stuff and keep the real goodies in the cylinder. His numbers on the space hulk were already growing, so he could spend a bit of the gathered biomass on a new Mind Form.
One of the 'goodies' he'd found was a small plasma forge, about two meters in diameter, with an internal power source that, while by no means infinite, was shockingly efficient. Not to mention the fact that it was capable of being moved around with relative ease. He also had no idea how its internals functioned and, given it was the only one he'd found so far, he had not dared to take it apart to try and reverse engineer it, as tempting as that thought was.
The Orks had been using it as a grill for cooking squigs in the middle of what looked like the bridge of some cruiser. Oddly enough, the technology of the rest of the cruiser was substandard in comparison to the forge. Presumably, the Orks had dragged their ad hoc grill from somewhere else, since the forge was highly advanced from what his, admittedly limited, knowledge could tell. He had yet to see any ships that contained similarly high-grade technology, but he suspected the vessel of origin was simply elsewhere in the hulk as he had only seen a dozen vessels of what must have been hundreds, if not thousands.
Regardless, he had a good use for the forge as the central component of his newest mind form, which he dubbed the Maw. Mostly for the fact that it had a giant 'mouth', but also because it would be the 'mother' of many future Flood Tech forms. Heh, puns.
The Maw was eight meters tall, with a cavernous mouth, the interior of which was filled with mechadendrites and tentacles equipped with a variety of salvaged tools. At the bottom of its mouth rested the forge, where scrap would be fed and then reshaped into the required form by heat-resistant, and purely mechanical, manipulators.
His newest Mind Form rested on hundreds of powerful, centipede-like legs. It was slow and not remotely nimble, but then it wasn't exactly meant for combat anyways. Its sides were capable of absorbing new biomass and rapidly converting it into new Pure Forms that it would then equip with the gear it had manufactured or repaired. It also had four powerful tentacles on its sides that could grab anything within two dozen meters with any amount of force from holding an egg without cracking the shell or enough to break rockrete and dent ceramite. Useful for gathering nearby salvage without causing unnecessary damage.
The Maw wasn't exactly an entire factory unto itself, but it was still pretty good. It was also more advanced than anything he had access to in Malum, even those factories run by the Imperium above the underhive. It wouldn't pump out an army in days, but he didn't really need it to.
One of the useful things it could do was produce multiple units simultaneously. The Rogue, Fighter, and Barbarian all took some time, with the Ranger taking the longest due to how much mechanical equipment it required. Chainblades were rather intensive in their requirements. Most of the time taken by the Maw was the production of that equipment. By comparison, he could shape both biomass and simple plating at a far higher speed. In other words, flesh and unpowered armor were easy to make in bulk.
In fact, the forge was so good at making the simpler equipment, that he was hemorrhaging efficiency only producing the four Tech-Flood units he'd fashioned thus far. In other words, to maximize his efficiency, he needed something small and cheap which could benefit from armor but didn't need more complicated parts beyond the biomass itself.
At first, he thought of the B1 battle droid from Star Wars, possibly with its blaster replaced by some Flood-based projectile weapon. However, even that seemed needlessly complex for what was supposed to be a chaff unit. Then, he had it. The MOA from Warframe was perfect. A pair of legs with a gun on top. Simple, cheap… possibly effective.
He created a 'proof-of-concept' swiftly. Its vitals were contained within its thighs, protected by cords of powerful muscles and shaped plasteel. Its shins were similarly protected. The legs themselves were less than a meter in length, but still capable of delivering kicks of bone-shattering force. They were fast and nimble, not too strong, but still dangerous, or so he hoped.
The weapon that was its 'head' was similar to the Ranged pure form's spike projectile thrower. The kinetics used were similar in sheer strength to a round from a stubber, propelled entirely by muscular force, though they lost their power much faster than bullets did and were less effective at penetrating armor. Still, in the mostly confined spaces of the interiors of ships, their range was sufficient. Not to mention the fact the spikes they fired, while limited in number, were infectious and its ammunition could be replenished from gathered biomass out in the field. A trio of Flood Stalks underneath the 'nozzle' of the weapon, which he dubbed the Spiker, provided sensation to the form.
He named it the Corpus, since he felt it fit given the MOA's origins and was still in a punny mood.
In comparison to the other Flood Tech forms, which each took several hours to produce, he could finish a Corpus in less than one. At maximum production, in four hours the Maw produced a Barbarian, a Fighter, a Ranger, two Rogues, and four Corpus'.
Oh yeah, it was all coming together.
With each four-hour group produced, he sent the Corpus' out with the Rangers he produced alongside them, with one of the Rogues bringing up the rear, infecting any of the dead missed by the fireteam. The other rogue would join those units scouting out the surrounding halls and corridors that had transformed the space hulk in a labyrinth of epic proportions. The Barbarian and Fighter would simply join in the rampage across the countless decks of the hulk, drawing greater and greater numbers of Orks in response to his invasion.
He'd also had a thought. He had already done the Elites, so why not make some of the other Covenant races as well? Especially when he had forms and functions for them that were practically perfect. With a thought, he transformed the appearances of the Rogue and Fighter forms.
The Fighters grew thick hair, dark grey and black, as well as a dark hide. Their faces, previously similar to a human's in appearance, were altered to be more feral and ape-like. Thus, he created the Brutes or Jiralhanae.
The Rogues grew even scrawnier, while their faces became longer and more angular and bird-like, complete with a sharp beak. Although they lacked the shields their people commonly wielded for the moment, Tide felt he'd done well in recreating the Jackals or Kig-Yar.
He would probably do others in the future, but for the moment these three were all he needed. He could already think of a few ideas. Perhaps he could use the Lekgolo as a front for his Flood Tech forms that more obviously used biomass that couldn't be easily changed to appear like a type of xeno. The Barbarian already wasn't far off in general shape from a Hunter, after all. The Hunter's integrated fuel rod cannon actually gave him an idea, one he swiftly implemented.
Grunts and Prophets weren't likely to make an appearance, he felt. The role of grunts would more effectively be filled by the Corpus and Prophets… well, he didn't really see the point outside of some leader caste, if he chose to go that route in the future. Not needed for the moment, in any case.
Then again, he sort of preferred the Banished as a faction and in terms of aesthetics. Especially their equipment. If he decided to create some xenos puppet faction in the future to interact with the wider galaxy openly, he'd probably go for their design aesthetic. Halo Infinite had some good-looking vehicles, after all.
Still, that was something for future Tide to think on. For the moment, he had bigger fish to fry. Or, in this case, bigger orks.
Namely the orks falling through the skies of Monstrum drop pods by the hundreds to thousands.
He'd tried to gain some insight on the forces of this Ork horde through the memories of the Orks he'd infected, but it seemed math wasn't a strong suit of the Orks. 'Lots' was essentially the general vibe he got.
In other words, he had no idea. Then again, neither did the orks, but they didn't really care about something like numbers. No one bothered to count something like that and it was debatable whether any of them could even count that high to begin with. Certainly, none of the Orks Tide had consumed showed the knowledge to do so, but he couldn't say if some of the higher ranking Orks had the capacity for simple addition beyond ten.
Malum's skyfire defenses opened up with everything they had, flak batteries and lascannons filling the air with flashes of yellow and red. Missiles launched and sped upwards, disappearing behind the planet's perpetual cloud cover. The giant rocks and other craft of the Orks couldn't actually be seen, but the light of explosions bled through the dark clouds, like flashes of lightning. And those flashes were growing brighter and brighter as, despite the best efforts of the planet to create a dome of death around their hives, the enemy continued to get closer and closer.
In the upper echelons of the hive spires, beyond the cloud cover, the defenses were even more heavily concentrated than anywhere else in Malum, but also more limited in where they were designed to protect. It wasn't even a matter of its defenders choosing to ignore the bulk of the enemy in favor of only those that neared the spires, it was something long ago decided by the rulers of Malum in how they constructed and distributed their defenses. The nobility cared little for the rest of the hive, even if that was a foolish and short-term notion.
Regardless, their selfishness had left the hive spires themselves untouchable to any ork forces, though this had the inadvertent effect of drawing more and more of the green tide towards the areas with the heaviest defenses. Tide couldn't say if the Orks might actually break through, so heavy were the defenses concentrated in so small an area, but they were going to make an effort at it, that much was clear.
At first, the only thing to fall through the clouds was debris, the shattered remnants of Ork Roks and scrapped together drop craft falling in chunks, not one piece of which was larger than a few meters across. They were flaming meteorites, most too small to survive the speeds they were travelling at, burning up before even reaching the ground. The larger pieces were more dangerous, but any damage they could deal to the hive was considered negligible by the Imperium. Tide could do little to change this consideration without hampering the entire city's defenses, so he was forced to accept it. For now.
He was aware of the Ork spores that each destroyed drop craft spread with their explosions, but the hives were so layered with Flood spores that he doubted any orks would begin growing inside the hive. Hopefully, the Inquisitor's surveyors would take notice of the violent reaction of 'Organism-04' towards ork spores and report to their master.
He encouraged the minds of the people to take shelter from the fiery rain. There were not many shelters capable of withstanding a piece of debris the size of a small car outside the spires, but he did what he could to guide them away from areas where he noticed larger pieces of debris falling, giving them feelings of danger and doom if they neared such an area or had been hidden in one.
It wasn't perfect, not even close. But it was all he could do for the moment.
Finally, the first of the Ork drop craft began to break through the cloud covers. These were the largest and sturdiest of the initial waves, spread beyond the outer edges of the hive where the defenses were less focused and not able to concentrate enough fire to break them apart. These slammed down into the wastes that surrounded Malum, bristling with heavy guns, instantly transformed into forward operating bases. The Orks didn't even bother to wait for the rest of their comrades to land, already disgorging from their Roks by the hundreds.
A growing roar could be heard at the edges of Malum, a collective cry of excited bloodlust.
"WAAAAAAAAGH!"
Delobar felt the click of the fresh ammo in his stubber more than he heard it. It was hard to hear much of anything, with the sounds of battle and blood pumping in his ears. Only his sergeant's orders seemed to cut clear through the cacophony of war.
"Target their eyes."
Delobar wasn't that great of a shot. He was average, below average even when it came to the firing range. If he were thinking clearly, he'd probably have told the sergeant that shooting something as small as an greenskin's eye at a hundred paces was more than a little difficult, especially if said greenskin was rushing towards him brandishing an oversized knife that looked like it weighed heavier than he did.
As it was, he was most certainly not thinking clearly. Everything seemed to move almost like a dream, slowed down as though everyone was moving through coolant gel.
He was on the outskirts of Malum, farther out than he had ever been in his life, on the frontlines. He should have been terrified. Scared shitless. Perhaps it was the God-Emperor's courage that filled him or maybe he had something inside of himself that he'd never known was in there before, but he wasn't afraid in the slightest. Just determined to keep himself and his squad alive. Even creepy Jurt.
Thousands of PDF troopers, tens of thousands even hundreds of thousands, stood alongside him. The numbers were only vague concepts really, he had no conception of how many men and women were really standing with him in the series of swiftly dug trenches and erected defenses surrounding the hive city. None of that mattered though.
He leveled his autogun once more at the approaching green mass, let out a long breath, and then squeezed the trigger.
The first shot went wide of the greenskin he'd been aiming at, but that only meant it struck the side of another of the brutish xenos elsewhere in the mass. His second shot, however, took the Ork dead-on, dropping the wailing beast to the ground, the xenos quickly being swallowed under the approaching horde.
The heavy stubber opened up on the horde, and Delobar spared a glance at its gunner. 'Creepy Jurt' was a recent recruit, having joined the PDF only days earlier, a man barely more trained than a civillian, but Delobar had to admit the man knew his way around a weapon. Almost every round of the heavy stubber from the man seemed to be almost perfectly placed, dropping a dozen greenskins in seconds.
Delobar and some of his other squadmates had honestly wondered if the man wasn't secretly some former guardsman or even an Inquisitorial agent. Certainly, Jurt wasn't like any fresh recruit Delobar had met before. He was large and tough looking, with better reflexes than any other man in the squad. But, he was also distant and… freakishly calm, constantly. Even now, he went about the work of mowing down greenskins with the same look as a trooper cleaning their weapon or an assembly line worker clocking in their shift.
Still, Delobar was glad to have the man with him in a fight, secret inquisitorial agent or not.
Delobar fired again, this time at one of the smaller, scrawny looking greenskins. He got the feeling he should leave the larger enemies to those with larger guns. Autoguns didn't do much to the larger greenskins, beyond annoying them it seemed, unless he got a lucky shot in one of their eyes. The smaller ones though, they weren't too much trouble by comparison.
A sudden string of explosions tore through the horde, and Delobar vaguely wondered if the higher ups had set up a minefield or something in the land surrounding Malum. He wouldn't complain if they had.
The greenskins kept getting closer and closer to their trench, despite more explosions tearing through their ranks. In the distance, he could see more and more of their drop craft falling towards the ground, feeling the shuddering through the ground as they landed. No matter how many they killed, they kept coming closer.
Out of the corner of his eye, Delobar thought he saw one of the smaller greenskins fall to the ground and begin to convulse, but his weary mind barely noticed. Then it happened again, to another of the small ones elsewhere in the horde, then another, and another. Then it wasn't just the small ones.
Greenskin after greenskin collapsed, clutching their lungs or stomachs, hacking up dark red blood. More and more rushed in to replace them, uncaring of their compatriot's deaths, but more and more fell.
Delobar stopped firing for a moment, simply staring in confusion and awe as line after line of greenskin charged their lines… only to collapse, convulse for a few moments, then go still, dead. The others in his squad similarly lowered their weapons, unable to believe what they saw. Only Creepy Jurt kept firing, still calm, only now targeting the largest orks that were still able to move even after starting to convulse.
"What in the Throne's name…" Delobar heard his sergeant mutter in abject confusion.
Rug stomped down the corridor, jostling and elbowing with his mates as he tried to push forward to the front of the group. His armor clanked loudly against the bulkheads and his fellow Boyz, filling the dark halls of one of the hulk's countless wrecks. The sound was overshadowed by the noise produced by the Orks themselves, nearly thirty voices all boasting, chanting, and making all kinds of ruckus as they moved into the wreck.
Someone or something had gotten aboard their turf and Warboss Grinhide wasn't having it. So, even as the Big Boss led the fight groundside, a few mobs had been left behind to deal with whoever or whatever had been stupid enough to board a hulk filled with Orks.
Rug had already heard the stories from a couple of Orks that had seen the boarders and it had gotten him excited to join in the fun. Big monsters, little monsters, Orks that turned into monsters, it was like a dream come true. Weird that the Boyz who'd fought the monsters and survived hadn't seemed to think so, whimpering like snotlings, but Rug didn't really care too much about that. He just wanted a good fight and if he couldn't have one on the planet below, he was more than happy to fight here.
Apparently, the monsters a few of the Orks had taken to calling Rotters had some good scrap with them and Rug was excited to see what he might be able to palm. He wanted a shiny new choppa to go with his new shoota.
Suddenly, the Nob leading their mob, a brute named Ug Rok, halted in his tracks, the foremost Boyz halting just before they collided with the larger Ork's back. Unfortunately for said Orks, those Boyz behind them did not come to a stop so quickly, shoving one Ork forward, straight into Ug's backside.
The larger Ork didn't even tilt forward, but snarled angrily at the offending Ork, who cowered under the annoyed gaze.
"Quiet, ya gits!" Ug spat and in moments the Orks were silent, even the sound of their armor clanking against one another subsiding. "I smell somethin'."
It was a moment before Rug smelt it as well over the grease of the ships and the stench of green and he was astonished at the sharp nose of their Nob. Now that it was quiet, in the distance, somewhere beyond the illumination of their gloworbs, there were heavy footsteps. Very heavy footsteps, which sent shivers through the floor with its gait. And it was getting louder. Closer.
The Boyz shifted, suddenly nervous. Something felt… off to them. Beyond the approach of a large enemy, there was some underlying dread they felt in the very core of their being. Of course, the reaction of an Ork towards such a feeling was quite different from what most beings would have.
"GET GOIN'!" Ug roared and the Orks joined their shouts and taunts to their leader's, suddenly even louder than before, as though in an attempt to establish dominance over the noise of the enemy.
A piercing howl, like the deathrattle of a hundred beings, sliced through their cacophony and the steps thundered forward. From out of the darkness, a hulking monstrosity barreled towards them, bone and metal claws glistening in the light of their gloworbs, a soft blue light emitted from its palms.
The Orks roared and let loose with their shootas, filling the corridor with dakka. Most shots went wide, not even close to reaching their marks, but many hit home. The kinetic rounds ripped holes through the frame of the monster, but did nothing to slow it down, seemingly having no effect.
The Orks abandoned their shootas in favor of their choppas and rushed forward to meet the howling creature, wordless warcries of their own meeting its constant scream. Ug was the first to reach the monster, his longer legs granting him greater speed. The Nob's choppa flashed through the air, tearing a long gash through the chest of the creature, but it seemed to have as much effect as the dakka had.
The Rotter's own limbs flexed with terrible strength, its claws returning the slash across the chest of the Nob. There was a screech of metal as deep gouges ripped apart the large Ork's armor, the force of the blow flinging the Ork back like a ragdoll, alive but wounded.
A trio of Boyz, including the one that had bumped into Ug, leapt at the Rotter, burying their choppas into its flesh, releasing some viscous yellow liquid. The Boyz cried out in triumph a moment before two of them were slashed to ribbons by a pair of claws. The third was ripped off the Rotter by one massive clawed grip, held by his chest. The blue light in the palm of the Rotter built up into a blinding flash and there was a wave of searing heat. When the light subsided, everything of the armored Ork save for his charred legs and arms, along with a few scraps of blackened metal, was gone. Vaporized in an instant.
As the Rotter tossed aside its victim and moved to engage the rest of the Orks, the two that had already fallen to its claws began to shake, despite being thoroughly dead and in pieces. The remnants of their upper halves forced themselves upright, resting on their arms, which began to break and reshape themselves, the crack of bone and tearing of flesh able to be heard even over the sound of battle. A trio of tentacles exploded out of them in a gory haze, hooked on the ends with razor sharp talons. The dead faces of the Orks were twisted in visages of rage and their arms clawed towards their former comrades, tentacles whipping around the air wildly.
The Ork in front of Rug rushed one of the reanimated dead, firing his shoota as he went, blowing the skull of the first dead Ork clean off, causing it to drop and lay still once more. The second shoved itself off the ground however, leaping at the Ork, its tentacles already stretching out to wrap around the git's neck.
Almost like a chainblade's teeth, sharp bones tore through the flesh of the tentacles and embedded themselves in the Ork's neck, biting deep. The creature's tentacles tugged and with almost awe-inspiring ease, the Ork's head was almost completely removed from the body, only his spinal cord keeping him relatively intact.
Rug leveled his shoota, having noticed that dakka seemed good enough for these forms at least, and opened fire. Both Orks, undead and almost certainly dead, were ripped apart by the spray of bullets. They collapsed and laid still, but Rug kept one eye on the corpses, just in case, even as he turned towards the Rotter.
In the time it had taken him to kill one of the infected Orks, the Rotter had slain a dozen more Orks with incredible ease and was now once more engaged in a close-quarters fight with Ug. One the Nob was clearly losing.
With a final, vicious thrust forward, the Rotter's claws punctured deep into the Nob's chest, piercing the weakened armor. There was another flash of light and then the Nob was gone, along with an unlucky Ork that had been in the middle of rushing forward to assist.
More and more of the slain Orks were starting to shake and sprout new, mutated limbs and Rug had a sinking feeling this fight was not going to end their way. But, Rug knew, Orks always won.
Just maybe not today.
With that, Rug turned around and high-tailed it out of there, swearing he'd come back and beat the Rotter. Later. At some point.
Probably.
Tide: "HEY KIDS, WANNA SEE AND BE A DEAD BODY AND BE A PART OF MY WORLD?!"
Orks when they see their brethren assimilated as a fate worse than death: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Rug is not retreating, he's just advancing in another direction!
- Location
- England
Don't worry, Rug is not alone.
He has Tide spores in his lungs for company.
- Location
- colombia
Mr. Cloak
Orchestrator of Paradoxical Apocalypse
- Pronouns
- I
Mr. Cloak
Orchestrator of Paradoxical Apocalypse
- Pronouns
- I
Ooh! New Flood Form Idea!
The Buffer aka The Surge Protector aka The Fuss
Flood form that is legs carrying a 'server' of neural tissue topped with a dense sensory network, designed to act as both a local battlefield observer and a fuse that can rupture in the event that chaos starts trying to infiltrate the Flood Hive-Mind... Or contain other Psychers if they are not powerful enough.
Psychers would be drawn to focus on it, and their minds sucked in to a containment trap.
The Buffer aka The Surge Protector aka The Fuss
Flood form that is legs carrying a 'server' of neural tissue topped with a dense sensory network, designed to act as both a local battlefield observer and a fuse that can rupture in the event that chaos starts trying to infiltrate the Flood Hive-Mind... Or contain other Psychers if they are not powerful enough.
Psychers would be drawn to focus on it, and their minds sucked in to a containment trap.
- Location
- Wales
Could see that working decently. Maybe also functioning as a node/terminal that can use it's brain server to weaponize Neural Physics planetside/on a smaller scale than crushing worlds, like shunting units arounds the field. Or telefragging if that's possible.
Could make similar units that look like Huragok too, but given cybernetics for the purpose of engineering work and interfacing with machines. Both for use and hacking. (Also because Huragok are super cute and friend shaped)
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- Location
- colombia
Drunk Hierophant
Aspirant Archailect
- Pronouns
- He
How good is Tide's hyperspatial aim right now? Cause with him assimilating ork spore's reproductivity he could aim to barren worlds in systems and start growing on them.
It may not be the best strategy right now but at the later stage could be used as Bracewell probes to start colonization of the barren systems that make most of the galaxy. Stuff a proto-gravemind in a protective casing and yeet them to a barren planet, start growing over the surface & extracting material from the soil to eventually be able to repeat the process.
It may not be the best strategy right now but at the later stage could be used as Bracewell probes to start colonization of the barren systems that make most of the galaxy. Stuff a proto-gravemind in a protective casing and yeet them to a barren planet, start growing over the surface & extracting material from the soil to eventually be able to repeat the process.
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Warhammer 40k galaxy is comparatively densely populated. There are very few uninhabited systems and planets that would be able to support Tide spores. He may be able to get away with doing some specialized colonization modules but he will need the information on the planets that he wants to colonize first and it will be a major effort.
A lot of planets that were borderline capable of supporting life were terraformed by Old Ones, Eldar or Humans and then settled.
What did you all think about the scene with the PDF and the scene with the Barbarian? I'm gonna try and make more of those in the future, as I enjoy writing them and it gives some perspective on the effects Tide and the other factions have beyond just talking about it.
- Location
- Euclidean plane
You say that, and you're probably right. But this is the Flood. Biology, chemistry, and physics are way looser than they should be around it. And this is before the universe editing later on. It would not surprise me at all to see him surviving on nearly airless moons or volcano-planets, just more slowly. Because it's essentially a rule of cool alien species in another universe that partially operates on rule of cool. (Just.. y'know.. grimmer)
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- Location
- colombia
speaking the habitable planets are around a 1-3 billions on the galaxy
But thanks to ork spores,tide only needs
>some CHONS in the soil (carbon,hydrogen,oxigen,nytrogen,sulphur etc)
Or with materials he can breakdown and then use to synthetize CHONS
>and some heat (sun,geotermal,abandoned nuclear reactor,warp artifact etc)
This increase the amouny of places it can colonize massively
Where a ork could survive and grow
So could tide at this point