Editing Nobledark Imperium Notes (section)

=== Terranis and the Hrud ===
The inhabitants of Terranis are less xenophobic than the Kriegers, largely due to the actions of the Hrud.

The Hrud were a godsend on Terranis once the siege begins, because they essentially granted the human populations immunity to Tyranid infiltration. Hrud are quite defensive of their homes, and even if they are able to slip around any tyranid organism through their spacial folding the Hive Fleet takes the air and water and everything else living when they leave a planet and Hrud need to breathe same as everyone else. Hrud are also very good at sniffing out Genestealer cults, with many of their seemingly random killing sprees being revealed to be eradication of a genestealer presence, which on a world where the Hive is getting desperate because the usual maximum-efficiency tactics aren't working would start seeking alternate means of disrupting the local defenses. 

Once, at the beginning, the defenders were angry and on edge whenever the Hrud would suddenly and violently pulp a seemingly random person on the spot. Then they started getting the reports of outposts devastated by someone seemingly going rogue, of genestealers passing as human long enough to weaken defensive lines right before a Tyranid attack, and of parasite forms that would latch on to a host without them ever knowing, showing no signs before they spontaneously erupted with dozens of tiny chittering lifeforms eating their way out from inside the unsuspecting host.

The Hrud have learned since then too. Rather than the immediate violence towards the affected, they just glide into the mess hall or the barracks and gently tap the unfortunate soul on the shoulder, and the message is clear. They whisper quiet goodbyes and distribute their gear, then stand up and leave with the Hrud, the rest of their gear being returned for sanitation later.

Their bodies cannot be recycled into food for their remaining fellows- Untainted organic matter is at a premium, but they are no longer untainted. Instead, their biomass is used to make Saltpeter and bait for traps against the roaming hunters, a primitive system that nevertheless allows them to aid their comrades one last time, screaming defiance against the tide of flesh from beyond the grave in one last brilliant flash of fire and force and spite, a gout of light against the darkness before fading to ash and smoke that are useless to the all-consuming foe.

As a rule, the Hrud aren't reliable. However, Terranis is possibly the only instance in which they make an exception to that rule. They're not workers, of course, they're not helping maintain the equipment and by and large they're still oily and evasive as all hell to the point where even vague estimates of the local numbers are impossible to form. The caveat is that any Hrud's number-one priority is the survival of the Hrud, and when faced with tyranid Armageddon, the survival of the Hrud is directly linked to the survival of the human populace.

It's not that the Hrud aren't useful, it's that they aren't reliable workers. They don't keep timetables, they kind of follow orders but their attention span is not brilliant and the only ones who they make any effort to cooperate are the tribal elders of their kind. The elders can ensure that there is one obedient hrud at the checkpoints and gatehouses at all times but they can't guarantee that it's the same one so you're constantly having to train new staff. Also the space folding thing they do is unnerving as balls to watch and they are secretive little bastards by nature. People also used to complain that they never took the hoods off to be identified but then one day after much asking one did and it was a fucking horrifying cross between a xenomorph and a cockroach. After that people stopped asking them for facial identification. Not that identifying them is needed to ensure that they aren't tainted, the hrud are if anything more thorough about purging hrud genestealers than human ones.


They can't get ordered out on scouting missions, but they still show up and warn about incoming Tyranid waves. They can't be ordered to man the checkpoints, but they tend to hang out by them anyways, sometimes only revealing their presence when they detect an infiltrator. They are not organized beyond the loosest interpretations of the word, but they are creatures inclined to flight before fight who have nowhere to run, and that desperation if nothing else leads them to be more helpful than their kind usually are.

Also the fact that everybody is wearing gasmasks all the time helps mitigate the ssaak; doesn't stop it completely, since it's not entirely physical, but does enough to slow it down that the normal rotations of the garrison keep most of the troops from suffering more than minor side-effects.

Also they steal unattended things. Not anything of real value but they are a nuisance.

The Terranites still have no idea exactly how many Hrud are on Terranis beyond "more than we thought". Before the war they thought there weren't any so that's not very helpful.

In a way, the fact that the Hrud are so repulsive and reviled makes the fact that the Terranites are practically cordial with them an even greater source of discord for the pure Kriegers. It's not just any filthy xenos that they're accepting of, but the one considered more pest than people by the majority of people in the Imperium.

As for the Terranites, anyone who survived the Hive Fleet by their side is all right by them, and the fact that the Hrud would bring them information that normally would have cost them precious lives and kept their strongholds secure goes a long ways towards fostering good sentiments. They're all brothers and sisters of the muck and filth, after all, and the tunnels that became many of their bases of operations were once the Hrud's homes.

More interesting is how the Hrud of Terranis were affected, and how the rest of the Hrud would see them. The hrud see themselves as a collective, with no social divisions between them, but the Hrud from Terranis are putting this ideas to the test as much as the Derivatives are for Krieger philosophy. The rest of the galaxy might not notice the difference, but to the rest of the Hrud the Terranis stock probably seem reckless and borderline suicidal.