Blood Angels Understanding of the Hivemind

• Devastation of Baal:

"‘We in the Imperium see the tyranids as a collection of creatures linked together through psychic
interface,’ he said. ‘It is an understandable misconception. We compare the things we fight to other foes.
In this case, comparison begets false truths. There is nothing like this race of beasts in this galaxy, and
therefore nothing to accurately compare them with. We face heaving masses of creatures, and see armies
of individuals. We observe the higher forms appearing to make decisions and directing the lesser, and see
officers or slave masters. The tyranids appear as a race like any other, one that has incorporated many
species into its genetic memory, and that employs radical gene-engineering and psychic slavery. This is
the logical interpretation. It is also wrong. The tyranids are winning their war because the Imperium has
been blind to their, or I should more correctly say, its true nature.’"

...

I have seen it too. Scaraban speaks the truth.’ Mephiston rose from his chair. His eyes glowed blue, and
on wings of scarlet energy he flew over the heads of his peers and landed in the centre of the map, his
deathly pale skin lit by the dancing light of disturbed hololithic star systems.

Dark mutters greeted the Lord of Death’s intervention.

‘I have looked into the shadow in the warp and seen the thing that casts it,’ said Mephiston. ‘What
assails our galaxy is not an army of individuals, or even a colony of social animals working as one, but a
single creature, a monstrous foe of inconceivable dimensions. Scaraban is correct. We have our
perception of this predator back to front. It is not as it appears, a host of creatures linked psychically, it
can instead be seen as a single, massive psychic presence: a single mind. These monsters that attack us
generate it, they make it as a man makes his soul, but whereas ours are individual, theirs is singular, a
single predator, not many.

‘And when they attack each other?’ said Malphas.

‘Perhaps the hive fleets are different beings, one mind for each. Perhaps they are all ultimately one. We
cannot say for sure. The tyranids are utterly alien. But we know the hive mind is real. This intelligence is
emergent, coming from the billions of creatures in the swarms, but it is not an empty intellect, it is aware.
It has a soul.’ ‘You say then this being is a warp entity, born of the immaterium?’ asked a Librarian. ‘In our librarius
we have theorised it is but another thing of Chaos wearing xenos skin.’ ‘Codicier Laertamos, Brothers of the Red,’ the herald skull announced. Scaraban shook his head. ‘I am sure its origins are in this realm of being. We are not alone in holding this opinion of its nature. The reports of Inquisitor Kryptmann, others in the Inquisition and the Magos Biologis suggest so, at least those that support this interpretation. Perhaps what we are seeing is a creature part-way to spiritual transcendence, a gestalt made of the minds of billions of brute animals trapped half in and half out of the warp by unending hunger?’ ‘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. ‘When these things are separated from their mind, as has happened in my wars against them, be it by psychic or physical means, they remain alive, and savage, with a will and intelligence of their own to fall back on until they are enslaved again. The Leviathan must be killed in the flesh, then the mind will die, for the mind is generated by the creatures it guides. It is a
thing of this world that is half in the next. That is its weakness. Its creatures seem endless, but kill enough
of them, and the hive mind is weakened. Kill all of them, and it is over.’

‘But then it will not die until every last one of its vile spawn is destroyed!’

• Darkness in the blood:

"The hive mind did not hear the cry of the Ronenti cult. I felt it move a little in the warp, then the cry ceased, and it turned away. We were in time."

• Darkness in the blood:

"And then, a sea change. The warp altered, though subtly at first. Rhacelus had little experience as a navigator of ships. Had he been born to the role he might have noticed sooner, like ancient mariners tasted the shift from salt to sweet in the waters of Terra’s lost oceans. But soon it became apparent to him that the tempest was calming. The shrieking ideoforms and psychopomps struggled to take shape. Those that manifested were sucked back to nothing among the energies that birthed them. Colours bled away. Currents stilled. A black wall was growing ahead, as impenetrable as the densest fog bank and infinitely more forbidding. The task force sped towards it. The armoured angel glinted in front of the darkness, and vanished within completely

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."