Halo Flood vs Warhammer 40k Tyranids

Halo Flood vs Warhammer 40k Tyranids is an interesting match-up, because it all depends on where you start.

Here's some more info on each faction

The Tyranids are an extragalactic composite species of hideous, insectoid xenos. They actually comprise an entire space-faring ecosystem comprised of innumerable different bioforms which are all variations on the same genetic theme.
The Tyranids are unlike any other intelligent species encountered by Humanity. They are the ultimate predators; to them, all living things, from the lowliest insect to the most advanced starfaring civilisation, are mere prey. Only now are the inhabitants of the galaxy realising the scale of the threat; unless the Tyranids can be stopped, it will mean nothing less than the extinction of all life.
The Tyranid species is ultimately dedicated solely to its own survival, propagation and evolutionary advancement. The Tyranids collectively form a monstrous superorganism that travels across the universe in their great hive fleets of biomechanical Hive Ships, systematically consuming all other biomatter to enable their own rapid evolution and reproduction.
The Tyranids are likened to a galactic swarm consuming everything in its path, feeding on entire worlds and leaving only dead husks in their wake. Their threat is such that an unprotected planet can be infested and stripped clean of all its organic material in a matter of solar weeks without even slowing down the advance of the hive fleet.
All Tyranid organisms are "synaptic" (psychically-reactive), and each Tyranid creature within a hive fleet shares and contributes to a communal Hive Mind, which allows the trillions of beings comprising the Tyranid hive fleets to communicate and organise instantaneously on a staggering scale.

One single Flood spore can destroy a species.
RTAS 'VADUM

The Flood (Latin Inferi redivivus,[1] meaning "the dead reincarnated")[2] the Parasite,[3] as they are known to the Covenant, as the Shaping Sickness, by the Ancient Humans[4], are a species of highly virulent parasitic organisms that can reproduce and grow by consuming sentient life forms of sufficient biomass and cognitive capability. The Flood was responsible for consuming most of the sentient life in the galaxy, notably the Forerunners, during the 300-year-long Forerunner-Flood war.[5] The Flood presents the most variable faction in the trilogy, as it can infect and mutate Humans and Covenant species, such as Sangheili and Jiralhanae, into Combat Forms. They are widely considered to be the greatest threat to the whole existence of life, or more accurately, biodiversity, in the Milky Way galaxy.
The Flood are an extremely adaptable, dangerous, and expendable parasitic life form.

They were first encountered in the Milky Way galaxy by an Ancient Human empire 10,000 years prior to the Forerunner-Flood war. The earliest known instance of the highly infectious viral supercell later known as The Flood form to be encountered came in a fine desiccated powder, contained in cylinders. This powder was actually Precursor remains.
The Flood, a virulent species of parasite, is an anomaly to all known biology, and an anomaly to regular life. This may be explained by the fact that it is an extragalactic species, originating from a different galaxy.[1] It is extremely adaptive, and mutates hosts through different stages of accelerated "evolution," where the body of biomatter accelerates its own evolution to the point of a massive biological breakdown, whereby the infection can first take place. The species can reproduce without host bodies, though this is described as a last-ditch effort, and only performed by pure Flood forms.
The only known pathway for Flood reproduction and survival is by the infestation and assimilation of other species. They do this through a form of cellular reproduction known as lysogenic replication, where the viral cells infect host cells with their own genetic code, mutating the host cells into viral forms.

The Flood assimilate almost any species possible to their cause, although the Mgalekgolo and Yanme'e are supposedly ignored as biomass; the former being too small and lacking a central nervous system and the latter having a chitinous body which would lack calcium. This is seen during the Flood's occupation of Truth and Reconciliation, as Cortana saw them amass Sangheili and Unggoy corpses in corners of one of its hangers.

#halo #battle #warhammer40k

[kabob]

1:23 Slight correction, that's an Infection Form pictured and that's an arguably more dangerous thing than a spore. You know that stuff floating in the air at the end of Halo 2 and on the level Cortana in Halo 3? Those are the spores, those are what Rtas was very rightly concerned about.

[jonathangodin]

Ive always seen the flood as an aggresive parasitic fungus. So basically the whole fight for me is evil space mushrooms vs evil space bugs.

[unpaintedarmy]

The floods ability to learn makes them an exponentially deadlier foe. A tyranid isnt gonna subsume your tech into their army.

[ConservativeWhiteMan]

as we know, The Flood are a fungus, and The Tyranids are bugs. Mother nature tells us exactly who wins that match-up.

[craterface]

Nids vs flood really comes down a couple of big unknown factors.
1. How well and fast the Nids would adapt against the flood? Human error often escalates the floods spreading, but Tyranids are a hivemind without any social structure preventing them from immediate action
2. Flood hijacks Sentient life to steal their memories and skills, and most Tyranids arent sentient or only degrees of semi-sentient and most have lifetimes counted in hours to days. So how quick the Floods get smarter is debatable.
3. The flood infects nerves-system of the host, but would that disconnect it from the Nid hivemind? And would that be good or bad for the Nids in any case?

[guikoi]

It's highly likely that the Flood exists in other galaxies. In the Forerunner books, the Primordial (AKA the mind behind the Flood) says that they've been around other galaxies, and that even if beaten they'll just come back when the humans need to be "tested".

The Forerunner books also explicitly state that there are in fact Precursors that aren't Flood still around. The Primordial talks about how some Precursors escaped to other galaxies, retaining their forms, while others turned to dust to eventually regenerate.

The ones that turned to dust became the Flood.

So there's still Precursors around.

The same Precursors that could, if they were motivated to, destroy the 40k galaxy.

Interesting stuff.

[owlwaifu]

Also I'd say that the Feats of the flood are far more impressive, yea the hive fleets have consumed entire galaxies but I dont really think that even the Necrons are on the same technological level as the Forerunners, the Forrunners were able to construct massive installations bigger than entire solar systems while an entire war was going on

I remember it was in one of the forerunner books, during the battle for the greater ark there were a couple hundred thousand vessles the forerunners used just for the defence of that one instalation, whilst also defending hundreds of other systems with ships

And the flood still beat them

[shawnadam]

The Flood is essentially a parasitic organism and their ability to infect incredibly fast is their greatest strength and as it grows in size it becomes more dangerous and the flood but being a parasite is also it’s weakness as they can’t make anything to leave planets and needs others organisms to have already have transportation. Also the flood combat forms would get outclassed by tyranids fighters. But While the tyrainds would adapt to tactics and create new forms however those new forms would mostly likely resist from being convert not out right stopping it. They also wouldn’t be able to convert any of the bodies as down to the molecule level is a flood super cell which converts any body into a combat form and the tyrainds need time to generate fighters. I can’t imagine the availability of biomass the tyrainds would provide with their seemingly endless numbers would backfire. The intelligence of the flood depending what stage it’s in would outclass the tyrainds. The flood retains any information it consumes but also from its origins before they became the flood they were know as the precursors which seeded many galaxies and had technology you could dream about it was on a whole new level. But builds it’s intelligence as it grows.If it became a keymind no doubt the tyrainds would get destroyed but a gravemind would prolly be on even term’s. The tyrainds would win if the flood was in the beginning stage but if it developed into a gravemind or a keymind the tyrainds would get a run for it’s money. The best decision for the tyrainds would be just to avoid them as much as possible. In most cases the flood wins because any form the the tyrainds use would just be used against them while also losing biomass.

Edit*

[AllNineLivez]

Nobody knows that during the Forerunner Flood War lore, it's stated that the Flood utilized ancient Precursor tech like Star Rodes. Weapons that were capable of destroying the Greater Ark with ease. The Ark we fight on in Halo 3 is just a baby Ark. And during that war when the Flood was invading Forerunner space, it was said that Space itself was changing as well like The Flood was twisting things to their liking.

[lividwafers]

Tyranids may initially have the strength advantage, but the flood is gonna have the last laugh

[NotTheRealNoobSaibot]

Note that iirc the flood can also corrupt AI due to the logic plague

[zeroUnknown]

It's hinted in halo law that the flood have traveled to other galaxies.

[olmage]

I think some one needs to quote the ship master here about the flood.

[juhel]

Biomass isn't just meat though. Biomass is also any and all nutrients present in the environment that can be converted into biological matter. Tyranids can strip the very soil and air barren of elements that can be used in biological functions.

[AMACE]

From this video, I have an interesting question. Who would fare better, spartans vs tyranids or space marines vs the flood.

[serina]

Considering key minds screw with reality my money is on the flood

[issiahgonzalez]

You know I thought of the most terrifying thing what if a the flood and the Tyranids combined into one being

[Furi_S_Poi]

Could you also compare these to the Necromorphs from Deadspace?

[jonathantheslow]

The only thing I have to say is that the Tyranids don’t necessarily win. If Ghazgull unites the Orks, they could possibly beat the Tyranids. The Necrons are a hard counter to the Tyranids, and only a small fraction of their Tomb Worlds have awoken. Lastly, if all of the Chaos Gods and their forces came together, they would possibly stand a chance against the Tyranids.

[wastelesslearning]

To be fair the precursors are also from another galaxy and even withdrew to a dwarf galaxy in the cannon forerunner halo books. So if the fight took place in the halo verse there is a good chance the precursors could get involved if the Tyrinids pose enough trouble for their testing plans. The Precursors and the Flood are on the same team and in the ways that count are basically precursors themselves. And in case you didn’t know they precursor are more advanced then the forerunners and the flood are mutated forms of them sent from that other galaxy to serve the precursor’s will in testing sentient species for responsibility and the flood have precursor memories inside them because again they are mutated precursors to begin with but also a precursor by the name of primordial uploaded his
Consciousness into the flood hive-mind this made him the first gravemind and that means all graveminds after have the same data to work with. Canonically the flood unlocks it’s precursor memories once it reaches grave mind status enouph to manipulate the most advance technology of forerunner (the instillation that was supposed to contain the flood served it and he used it to teleport) human (Cortana and other humans fleat ships got hyjacked) and covenant (fixed high charity reactors after the profit took off with the key ship that powered it). And in the forunner books (which stage reached key mind stage [a subsumed planet]) the flood used that precursor knowledge and accumulated wisdom use neural physics to warp space time such communication and slip space didn’t work, create psychic indestructible “Starroad” wips to destroy planets and small solar systems, and even warp reality itself though to a lesser degree (not like complete reality warping but so far limited to that). It is cannon The flood will remember all its memories once it reaches grave mind (this is how the gravemind in game knows so much) no matter what even if it’s killed off and cloned (probably by accessing the domain or some other neural physics or DNA BS that allows it to store its data beyond space) so Guaranteed once the flood reach a stage it unlocks level 0 and level 1 tech likely even when dropped into the 40k verse after consuming like a continent to a world max it will have access of forerunner (cause it’s past self already absorbed many forerunner minds and precursor because the flood are mutated precourcer sent to test species and also the primordial uploaded his consciousness into the flood hive mind. Like imagine having knowledge to build god tech that’s how advance those tow species were. And if you dropped a version of the flood from after halo3 even if just a cell or uncoordinated stage it could still unlock human and coveent information on top of forerunner and precursor so all their capabilities to their fullest once they develop to gravemind again but even proto gravemind and uncoordinated stages were shown to use the victims coveent tech by tapping into their victims memories instinctually. So yeah the plot armor is strong with the halo universe in my opinion the UNSC shouldn’t of been able to survive the covenant. The only logic explanation that makes sense to me is because the precursors found humanity worthy of the mantle, the flood wants to wait for them to reach forerunner tech level to test them again (the primordial makes the clear when he says that’s the reason the flood withdrawn during the human forerunner war after getting enough biomass to reach its desired development for now) and the flood didn’t care about the covenant because they based their Society on the forerunners which were already judged unworthy before adding the theocracy and corruption of the Prophets so the flood didn’t really care to preserve them for proper testing. As for UNSC vs covent in the verse really the UNSC had very little to do with it. Even if the covenant had no halos they were still dominating the war. Earth was literally humanities last hope and they lost that battle BUT the covenant Civil War and the flood collapsed that faction shortly after they won. So really the UNSC gets a participation trophy in terms of fighting capabilities. They even get stomped by the Banished later. To be fair though the humans did stall as much as the plot armor would allow them and none of those factions are push overs; those halo enemies are all varying degrees of insanely powerful.

As for the Tyrinid vs Flood fight if you want it to be a even fight you would have to give the Flood as much biomass as the Tyrinid hive has ie a galaxy worth since the Tyrinids already subsumed a galaxy and drop there troops in from that resource base that same base should be granted to the flood. Or at least bring the biomass to Forerunner Flood war levels for the flood. Otherwise your giving the Tyrinids at least one galaxy worth of head start. But in a even fight the flood easily wins. The flood are basically the Tyrinids with Necron tech and dumb hack abilities with ungodly amounts of intelligence and manipulation power. At that scale they can travel faster then light using thought alone and throw around solar systems worth of indestructible psychic infrastructure around. Even if you want to scale down I’m pretty sure a Tyrindid’s living ship that sends ground invasions is based on another planets worth of pre-consumed biomass not to mention the genetic material from countless species from countless worlds that informs the biology to the Tyrinids most basic troops which is at least gravemind level but probably keymind level. In that smaller case scenario I still think the flood will win becuase again it knows forunner tech by then and can even build it (like with high charity) plus’s it useses tech too not just biomass. Hell it may even be good enough at manipulation to turn the Tyrinids more free thinking forms or even the whole hive mind to the floods side by logic plague alone. If you want to go even smaller scale then a planet Invasion Tyrinid vessel equivalent then I would say not enough data cause I don’t know what Tyrind looked like at the start of their evolution. Everything we see from them in 40k is based on them already consuming a galaxy’s worth. Before they evolved from a galaxy worth of dna they sampled, we don’t know what the first Tyrinid looked like and their capabilities that took over the first planet. A proto-type Tyrinid force vs a uncoordinated flood force is a unknown but becuase there is more lore on the flood side (the Uncoordinated stage took down covenant military regimens and if your generous they also took down ancient human colonies back when human and Forerunner could go to war assuming you don’t want to assume the flood at any point in a uncoordinated stage took out a forunner colonie (it’s not stated anywhere but just be safe I think the flood had to been at grave mind level at least to start the Forerunner Flood War. So yeah if the Tyrnids first plantery invasion was against a planet with no sentient life but like a bunch of animals (I think the most likely cause natural evolution start small and increases capacities with time) vs the flood’s uncoordinated form taking down military covenant to Ancient human colonies then Flood easily win. The flood’s origins is engineered and or mutations of Precursors by the way. If the Proto-Tyrinids first world was a planet with sentient life that is weaker then ancient human colonies or even the covenant, then the flood would still win by feats. If the first world to be destroyed by proto-tyrinids had sentient life stronger then Covenent or ancient humans and or it is later written they were engineered not naturally evolved then it would be a closer fight with the edge going to the Tyrinids but that’s a extremely unlikely scenario. So in most cases in fair match ups pound for pound the Flood is stronger.