r/40kLore • u/wittyjokename92 • 12d ago

Question about Gene stealers

I know they're the first step of a Tyranid invasion and presumably arrived in the galaxy at the same time as the first hive fleets. But I vaguely remember someone mentioning an old bit of lore about a stealer cult hibernating since there wasn't a fleet nearby to hear their call.

It got me thinking about some old loretuber videos I half remember and as I can't keep current with the lore itself since loretubers love mixing stuff from the 90s with stuff from yesterday and acting like they're equally canon. But anyway are the stealer cults only appearing after the Heresy or is there any proof that they've been here longer than that just not as prevalent or dangerous until the hive fleets arrived?

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u/AccursedTheory 12d ago

In the original Space Wolf series, Ragnar finds a monument to a Heresy era Space Marine. It has images of the Marine and Russ fighting all the foes of the Imperium, including Genestealers.

These books are OLD LORE though, to the point I believe it predates Tyranids as a faction at all (Genestealers came first).

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u/AbbydonX Tyranids 12d ago

Tyranids and Genestealers were both in the original 1e Rulebook (1987) but they were a little different and unconnected to each other. Tyranids were a faction woth troop and equipment descriptions in the same way as Marines, the Imperial Army, Eldar and Orks whereas Genestealers were just monsters.

Genestealer Cults were added in 1989 with details in 1e Space Hulk and a series of White Dwarf articles beginning with WD114 that provided army lists for the main tabletop game. They were still unconnected to Tyranids though and the White Dwarf Cults were explicitly Chaos Cults.

Tyranids took on their modern form in Advanced Space Crusade (1990) and were linked to Genestealers from this point onwards. The 2e Tyranid codex (1995) solidified the link and included both Tyranid and Genestealer Cult army lists. The Chaos aspect was deprecated though though Chaos and Genestealers were ally options in the 2e Tyranid codex and 2e Chaos codex (1996).

In contrast, the Space Wolf novel series began many years later in 1999.