WEBVTT - The Monstrefact: The Tyranids of Warhammer 40K

0:00:03.279 --> 0:00:05.600
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of

0:00:05.640 --> 0:00:11.119
<v Speaker 1>My Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and

0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:13.880
<v Speaker 1>this is the Monster Fact, a short form series from

0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:17.640
<v Speaker 1>Stuff to Blow Your Mind focusing on mythical creatures, ideas,

0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:26.360
<v Speaker 1>and monsters in time. In the fictional world of Warhammer

0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:29.960
<v Speaker 1>forty thousand, the entirety of the Milky Way Galaxy is

0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:36.960
<v Speaker 1>consumed by warfare, destruction, and decline everywhere you look. Militant

0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:42.120
<v Speaker 1>space faring civilization's wage crusades of brutal expansion while fighting

0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:47.280
<v Speaker 1>off doom and corruption from without and within. With war

0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:52.800
<v Speaker 1>raging on every front, one final threat presents itself an

0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:57.920
<v Speaker 1>invasion from beyond the galaxy itself, the Tyrannid high Fleets,

0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:04.200
<v Speaker 1>as related in Games Workshops ninth edition of the Tyrannids Codex.

0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:09.800
<v Speaker 1>The Tyrannids are an entirely biological threat. They take many

0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:14.120
<v Speaker 1>physical forms, ranging from foot soldiers and walking tanks to

0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:18.320
<v Speaker 1>enormous hive ships and biotitans, all of it under the

0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:23.080
<v Speaker 1>sway of the unified Hive mind. Their weapons, too, are biological.

0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:27.400
<v Speaker 1>They cleave into their enemies with sites and bone swords,

0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:32.160
<v Speaker 1>and their ranged weapons blast a vast array of squirming, writhing,

0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:37.600
<v Speaker 1>and piercing bio munitions, in addition to venom and bioplasma.

0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:41.959
<v Speaker 1>High Fleet. After high Fleet enters into the galaxy, we're

0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:47.319
<v Speaker 1>told conquering planets and harvesting the entirety of each planet's biomass,

0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:51.360
<v Speaker 1>which is then incorporated into the next generation of Tyrannid hordes.

0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:55.680
<v Speaker 1>They advanced continuously like a viral infection of the Milky

0:01:55.680 --> 0:02:00.440
<v Speaker 1>Way itself. In the forty one millennium ati i'm of

0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:07.040
<v Speaker 1>interplanetary fascist empires, chaos gods, and robotic resurgencies. The Tyrannids

0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:10.640
<v Speaker 1>seem to pose the greatest and most monstrous threat of all.

0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:16.560
<v Speaker 1>But why is this? Author Ben Woodard explored the question

0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:23.160
<v Speaker 1>in his twelve biological philosophy books Slime Dynamics, Generation, Mutation,

0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:27.320
<v Speaker 1>and The Creep of Life. The answer, he explains, may

0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:31.320
<v Speaker 1>be found in the entirely biological nature of the Tyrannids.

0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:35.480
<v Speaker 1>Wouldard argues that, unlike with human beings of our world

0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:38.760
<v Speaker 1>and most of the civilizations of the forty k universe,

0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:43.919
<v Speaker 1>the Tyrannids have no separation between technology and the body.

0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:49.160
<v Speaker 1>He writes, quote the horrible, extended internalness of the Tyrannid

0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:52.920
<v Speaker 1>that is the revolting extension of the biological to the

0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:56.360
<v Speaker 1>level of what is commonly thought of as removed from

0:02:56.440 --> 0:03:01.040
<v Speaker 1>US technology, war machines, et cetera, becomes only a natural

0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:06.800
<v Speaker 1>extension unquote. So while the robotic necrons of forty K

0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:11.400
<v Speaker 1>have lost all organic being, all organic drive and organic

0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:15.920
<v Speaker 1>origin to technology, the Tyrannids are the reverse. The Tyrannids

0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:20.280
<v Speaker 1>are the advancement of the biological beyond all perceived limits.

0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:26.200
<v Speaker 1>While the factions of the Milky Way are driven by nationalistic, xenophobic, religious,

0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:31.440
<v Speaker 1>and expansionist ideologies, the Tyrannids seem driven by sheer biological hunger,

0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:36.240
<v Speaker 1>divorced from any semblance of rational intent. They lack all

0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:41.640
<v Speaker 1>individuality save the unfathomable individuality of the extra galactic or

0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:46.360
<v Speaker 1>perhaps transgalactic hive mind itself, the commands its every movement.

0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:52.520
<v Speaker 1>It is pure organic impulse, unchecked by individual free will, culture,

0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:57.080
<v Speaker 1>or traditional technology. And for the strife written denizens of

0:03:57.120 --> 0:04:00.120
<v Speaker 1>forty ks Milky Way galaxy, the Tyrannids or some thing

0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:05.480
<v Speaker 1>else entirely alien. They are absolute unity. Their home universe

0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:10.080
<v Speaker 1>is conceivably a realm of absolute peace and order, albeit

0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:15.000
<v Speaker 1>an entirely Inhuman one. We'll have more to discuss concerning

0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:17.919
<v Speaker 1>the tyran nets over the next couple of weeks of

0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:20.880
<v Speaker 1>the Monster Fact, but feel free to write in with

0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:24.960
<v Speaker 1>your own thoughts on rampaging biolarmies in science fiction, as

0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:29.400
<v Speaker 1>well as the perceived threat of sliminess in general. As always,

0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:32.560
<v Speaker 1>you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:43.279
<v Speaker 1>your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:45.880
<v Speaker 1>a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for

0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:49.000
<v Speaker 1>my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:50.839
<v Speaker 1>or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.