No structure, no internal links, no categorization, no objectivity and a more than strange ending for an encyclopedia article!? --Inquisitor S. 20:42, 11 Jul 2005 (CEST)
Hive Mind as a Warp Entity
After working on the Template: Deities I asked for help on the 40k lore Reddit and found information that the Hive Mind is an individual warp god. However I do not have any sources for this, so instead I'll post the sourced quotes, so anybody with them can confirm and edit the article.--Ashendant (talk) 10:21, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
Quotes from the Leviathan Omnibus
Wraithflight: short story, no chapters, page 349-350
Beyond the shield she saw the Great Dragon’s true form. Not the hideous intrusions into the mortal realm that swam the black star sea, nor as a Farseer might see it, as a great and braided cable of malicious fate dominating all the skein. The first was merely a part of the whole, the second psychic abstraction. What Iyanna instead saw was the reality of its soul. It was a great shadow when seen from afar, a wave of dread and psychic blindness that preceded the hive fleet’s arrival. But the greatest shadows are cast by the brightest lights, and seen closely, the soul of the hive mind shone brighter than any sun. She was so close now that she perceived the ridged topography of its mind, larger than star systems, an entity bigger than a god. It contemplated thoughts as large as continents, and spun plans more complex than worlds. It dreamed dreams that could not be fathomed. She felt small and afraid before it, but she did not let her fear cow her defiance. Against this vista flickered the souls of eldar, their jewel-brightness dimmed by the incomparable glare of the Great Dragon. And this was but a tendril of the creature. The bulk of it stretched away, coils wrapped tight about the higher dimensions, joining in the distance to others, and then others again, until at a great confluence of the parts sat the terrible truth of the whole. She stared at its brilliance.
Wraithflight: page 361
Something was wrong. A sensation at the back of her mind. The sensation grew teeth, became pain. Her soul was gripped by agony. Iyanna screamed, falling from the edge of the couch. The pain abated, then squeezed her anew. She vomited. The dead were dismayed. The blow against her raced out across her attack group, leaping from mind to mind. Wraithbomber engines guttered out. The Wraithborne’s sleek cruisers turned viciously, wallowing in psychic swell. Bright light burned at Iyanna’s soul. A long tunnel telescoped away, encompassing infinite distance. A tube stabbed through the fabric of the world. She felt its ripples in the warp. She felt its ripples in the webway. She had the sense of an eye, slave to a great power. An intellect that dwarfed the Great Wheel of the galaxy. She opened her second sense, to find the Dragon looking at her with terrible regard. For aeons it seemed it held her in its gaze. And there was fury in that examination. The Dragon was angry, and it was angry with her. Not with the galaxy, or this sector, or her species. But with her personally. The promise of endless torment came from it, her very being enslaved to its ends and used against others, her body rebuilt over and again so that it might suffer the Dragon’s revenge. Terror of a kind she could not have conceived of flooded her mind. She screamed again, and this time every eldar in the fleet screamed with her.
Valedor: chapter 5, page 121
And then the hive mind turned its attention upon the scene, and the eldar screamed. Sunspear staggered, his spirit crushed. For just a second, he wished to flee and hide from the scrutiny of the terrible being staring at him. He became aware of his own insignificance, he was no more than a particle of food. The hive mind’s ancient intellect was as wide as the void, its examination of him was a cold spike through his heart, and his mind was swamped by endless horror. One of the warlocks collapsed, light pouring from his eye-lenses. He babbled nonsense in a hard alien tongue, and died. Serriestalor screamed and screamed, clutching his helmet. The other psykers rallied themselves, redoubling their psychic defences. It took all their effort just to keep the pressure of the hive mind at bay, and their offence died to nothing.
Quotes for other books
Devastation of Baal: chapter 10, page 138
“You suggest we fight a god?’ scoffed a Space Marine of cadaverous appearance. His eyes were sunken in skin that looked dry as dust. ‘Carnifus, third captain, Blood Drinkers.’ ‘Is there a better word for such a thing?’ said Mephiston. ‘Blasphemy,’ muttered Carnifus.‘Then should we not take the fight to it psychically? Destroy the mind and the bodies will follow.’ ‘Dammanes, seventh captain, Brothers of the Red,’ said the herald skull. ‘We cannot fight it in the warp, my brothers. Its presence there is so overwhelming that the Emperor himself would not prevail,’ said Dante.
Darkness in the Blood: chapter 15, page 152 - 153
Against all the laws that governed it, the empyrean lost its mutability. Blackness seeped from the rolling wall of shadow. The visions and images weakened, and then stopped altogether. There was a brief passage through warp space of a primordial calmness, smooth and bright as a moonlit pond, and then the flotilla plunged into the darkness. A new terror assailed Rhacelus. A vast, godlike mind turned its attention upon the ships, so puissant it quelled the fury of the warp. The hive mind was the truth of the tyranids. The Blood Angels believed the war beasts that plagued the universe were merely the material extrusion of something far greater, and that thing dwelt in the warp. … They raced through the edge of the darkness, where it was shredded on swift currents. It was but a fragment of the power it had attained when Leviathan assailed Baal itself, but though this shadow seemed isolated and diminished, Rhacelus could sense its connections to further, greater parts, and felt the brooding presence of the alien god all around – withdrawn from its prize, wounded, yet still alive with dangerous malevolence.
9th ed Tyranid Codex: opening page
BEYOND THE HUMAN GALAXY, BEYOND THE RANGE OF MAN-MADE SPACECRAFT AND ASTROTELEPATHY LIES THE UNSPEARABLE COLD OF THE INTERGALACTIC VOID. FEW HAVE VENTURED INTO THIS REALM AND NONE HAVE EVER RETURNED. IT IS THE GREAT BARRIER THAT DIVIDES GALAXY FROM GALAXY, A PLACE WHERE TIME AND SPACE CONSPIRE TO HOLD THE WORLDS APART WITH INCONCEIVABLE DISTANCES YET THE VOID IS NO LONGER EMPTY. AN IMMEASURABLY ANCIENT AND IMPLACABLE INTELLIGENCE MOVES THROUGH THE COLD AND THE DARKNESS, ITS MANY EYES FIXED ON THE DISTANT GLITTERING LIGHTS OF OUR GALAXY. THE GREAT DEVOURER MOVES BETWEEN THE STARS AND HUNGERS FOR THE FLESH OF ALL WHO LIE BEFORE IT. THIS GREAT ORGANISM. THIS MONSTROUS ENTITY, IS KNOWN AS THE TYRANID RACE EVEN BY NAMING THE GREAT DEVOURER CIVILISATIONS BETRAY THEIR IGNORANCE, EVERY THOUGHT AND ACTION, EVERY SPARK OF LIFE IN THE TYRANID RACE IS BOUND AND INTERLINKED INTO A SINGLE MIND, A SINGLE GREAT ENTITY THAT STRETCHES OVER LIGHT YEARS OF SPACE AND IS CONTROLLED BY THE IMMORTAL HIVE MIND. A BILLION TIMES A BILLION TYRANIDS STAND AT THE RIM OF THE GALAXY, YET EACH ONE IS NO MORE THAN A SINGLE CELL IN THE LIVING BODY OF THE HIVE MIND, THE DEVOURER OF WORLDS.
