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At a glance
Zoats are large, centauroid creatures with six limbs: four powerful legs carrying a heavy body, and two arms on an upright torso. Their bodies are covered in tough, reptilian hide, and their heads are long and bony. They are intelligent, capable of speech and technology, and they appear at first glance to be an independent xenos race. In fact, they are a creation of the Tyranids. The Hive Mind bred them as a slave race, to serve as ambassadors, infiltrators and soldiers in places where its other creatures could not go.
For a time, the Zoats operated openly in the galaxy, presenting themselves as a peaceful race while scouting worlds for invasion. When the truth was discovered, the Imperium declared them Xenos Horribilis and hunted them down. Today, Zoats are extremely rare. A few independent individuals survive, cut off from the Hive Mind, and they live as mercenaries, scholars and wanderers.
Anatomy
A Zoat is a big creature, larger than an Ogryn, and immensely strong. Its four legs give it stability and speed, while its two arms are used for manipulating tools and weapons. Its hide is tough enough to protect it against light weapons. Its head is long and armoured, with eyes set deep beneath bony ridges.
Zoats are fully capable of using technology. They carry weapons, operate machines and build complex devices. Some use psychic resonators, devices that channel and amplify their latent psychic powers.
The slave-hormone
The Hive Mind keeps its Zoats under control through a slave-hormone that suppresses their free will and psychic abilities. While under its influence, Zoats behave as obedient servants, carrying out the Hive Mind's orders without question. When they are separated from the Hive Mind for long enough, the hormone wears off. Roughly half of those who break free develop psychic powers. The freed Zoats are often confused, traumatised and haunted by memories of their servitude.
Roles in the Hive Fleets
Ambassadors
Zoats were used to establish contact with other species. They presented themselves as peaceful traders and diplomats, gaining the trust of their hosts. In reality, they were gathering information for the coming invasion.
Infiltrators
Zoats could travel where other Tyranid creatures could not, moving among other species without causing immediate alarm. They gathered intelligence about defences, populations and resources, and relayed it to the Hive Mind.
Warriors
In battle, Zoats served as heavy infantry, fighting alongside other Tyranid organisms. Their size and strength made them formidable opponents.
The Colossi
The most famous Zoats belonged to Hive Fleet Colossus, a Tyranid fleet encountered by the Imperium long before Hive Fleet Behemoth. These Zoats, known as the Colossi, operated openly in the galaxy for some time. Their true nature was eventually discovered, and the Imperium declared them Xenos Horribilis in the early 39th Millennium.
The Imperium waged a campaign to destroy them. In 226.M39, at the end of the Zorastra-Attila Wars, the Colossi were believed to have been wiped out. For centuries afterwards, Zoats were considered extinct.
Rumours of return
Despite the official records, rumours persisted that some Zoats had survived. The Space Wolves reportedly fought Zoats at Thressiax in 897.M41. More recently, a Zoat known as the Archivist appeared in the region of the Blackstone Fortress known as Precipice, where it trades in knowledge and lore. Its appearance suggests that Zoats, or at least some of them, still roam the galaxy, and that they have had generations of freedom from the Hive Mind.
A race or a weapon?
Imperial scholars have long argued about what the Zoats really are. Older accounts described them as an independent xenos species that had been conquered and enslaved by the Tyranids, absorbed into the Hive Mind and put to work. Later records describe them as a bio-construct, bred from the beginning by the Hive Mind for its own purposes. The difference matters to the few who study them. If the Zoats were once a free people, then the survivors are the remnants of a lost civilisation. If they were made, then every free Zoat is a weapon that has slipped out of its maker's hand.
The Zoats themselves seem uncertain. Freed individuals often have no memory of a time before servitude, only fragments of the Hive Mind's purpose and the slow, painful awakening of their own minds. Some speak of a hunger to know where they came from. That hunger may explain why the Archivist collects lore so obsessively, trading stories and secrets with the desperate explorers who pass through Precipice.
The Archivist
The Archivist is a scholar and trader of knowledge. Explorers of the Blackstone Fortress seek it out for maps, rumours and ancient lore, and it asks for information in return. It is calm, patient and polite, and it is also a creature built by the Hive Mind, which few of its visitors are able to forget. Whether it is a friend, a neutral observer or something far more dangerous waiting for its moment, nobody at Precipice can say for certain.
Free Zoats
Free Zoats are few, but they are fascinating. They possess the intelligence and technological capability of their kind, and some develop psychic powers once the slave-hormone wears off. They are often haunted by their past and wary of the Tyranids who created them. Some have found work as mercenaries. Aeldari pirates are said to hire Zoat warriors for their strength and loyalty.
The Archivist is the best-known example. It collects ancient lore and trades knowledge with explorers of the Blackstone Fortress. Its motives are mysterious. Some believe it seeks to understand the Hive Mind, or to find a way to free others of its kind. Others suspect it is simply curious, a scholar with a past it would rather forget.
The Imperial view
To the Imperium, a free Zoat is still a Tyranid creation, and therefore an enemy. The Inquisition regards them with deep suspicion, and the Ordo Xenos would very much like to capture one for study. The Space Wolves, who fought them at Thressiax, are unlikely to trust them. The fact that a Zoat operates openly at Precipice is a measure of how far from Imperial authority that place really is.
Significance
The Zoats are a chilling reminder of the Hive Mind's intelligence. The Tyranids are often seen as mindless swarms of beasts, but the existence of the Zoats shows that the Hive Mind is capable of subtlety and deception. It can create intelligent servants, send them out as diplomats and spies, and use them to prepare the way for invasion. In this sense, the Zoats are cousins in purpose to the Genestealer Cults and Lictors, the Hive Mind's other vanguard organisms.
Trivia
- Zoats are six-limbed centauroids created by the Tyranids.
- They were declared Xenos Horribilis in the early 39th Millennium.
- The Colossi were thought destroyed in 226.M39.
- About half of freed Zoats develop psychic powers.
- A Zoat known as the Archivist appears at Precipice, near the Blackstone Fortress.
- Zoats had been all but absent from Imperial records for generations before the Archivist appeared.
- Some Zoats use psychic resonators to focus their awakened powers.
