Virus theme so prevalent, why not add a (cosmetic) virus/organic faction?

When you think about it, the robots in PA are basically a virus.

They use a vector (the Commander) to infect a new body (celestial body), maybe fighting something already there (other Commanders/indigenous life) or others invading after it gets there (other Commanders). They kill or assimilate anything that resists them, and use the body to constantly self-replicate (factories and the like, mentioned word-for-word in the Kickstarter trailer) before eventually leaving the body to infect others, usually with far, far more than arrived.
And, in the end, even a single, tier 1 Engineer/Fabricator can potentially spiral out of control and make as much of a mess as a Commander can.

So if the virus themes are so common, then wouldn't an organic, Tyranid-esque* faction make sense? And it could just be cosmetic, hell, it could be payed DLC, as long as it doesn't have its own buffs or the like beyond the basic Commander differences.

*Before anyone throws a fit, I'm only using the 'Nids as an example, due to the similarity of the design and operating procedure.

The initial release has been said they will only do the one faction at release, but I agree it would be neat for modders or an official uber expansion to include a tyranid/zerg esque race eventually

One other thing I really hope for is that a mod team gets together and pulls the Dawn of War models over (or re-makes some low poly versions of them) and re-makes the entire game into what Dawn of War II should have been. This engine in the Warhammer universe, with the concepts of the Apocalypse Mod... I'd play it. Heck if they could get licensed I'd buy it

I'd love to see some Zerg / Tyranid like faction in an expansion.

Instead of organic in a strict form, what about a faction (a political one, so it uses the same units) that's believes expansion for the sake of expansion is a virtue?

Kind of like a demented capitalism.

I can see this happening.

(there won't be a cosmetic faction in the base game, half the point of one-unit-set is saving the art budget, the other half being balancing issues)

Things like that are confirmed to not happen as they take extra work and Uber wants a fully functioning game as soon as possible.

Great mod potential though.

For an expansion or mod a hive-mind type organism/faction would be a fantastic add on to this game. Let me present it to you, don't hate on me.

Sporeons (yes that's a bad name)

The Sporeon is a single planet sized entity, it's biochemistry is very unique. Simply put it is a planet wide swamp of a fungus like material, which is capable of incredible exponential growth and adaption.

Once upon a time a strange elongated material fell down to it's home inside an cocoon made from the same strange material. Then something unexpected happens this creature started to consume the Sporeon's self replacing the surrounding fungal jungle with more of that unusual material. It investigated and examined the intrusion, it quickly realised this monstrosity would continue to eat away at it until it expired. It fought back and so begins another never-ending war in the PA universe.

DUN DUN DUN, enjoy the story? No, well tough!

This alien hive mind faction, is unique in many ways, for starters it does not use metal, everything (units, buildings etc are grown, taking time and energy but not metal). Additionally build power can't be combined, lot's of buildings and units can be constructed at once, but as there are no fabbers you can't rush the production of certain items as the commanders and their mechanical horde can.

Fungal Jungle - The Fungle Jungle is the core of the sporeon creature, their is no commander as such. The fungal jungle must be eliminated in it's entirety for the sporeon to be eliminated, as it is the living network of this fungle jungle which allows for sentience and control of the sporeon's immotiles and motiles. (I've stolen this terminology from the commonwealth saga, so sue me)
The Jungle is capable of self-sustainment and growth, i.e. it will grow and repair itself all on it's lonesome. Immotiles can only be constructed on top of a free area within the Fungle Jungle, so expansion for the sporeons is quite limited.
The Fungley Jungley can't cross water/lava, it can however build immotiles half into the water to build water-based motiles, as long as part of them are in the jungle.
The Fungle Jungle can be cultivated by Cultivator Motiles. (closest unit to a fabber), whose sole purpose is to coax the jungle into expanding faster in a particular direction, this effect is cumulative. If you want to expand this is one way to do it, alternatively there will be a Fungle Lobbers which can spread the fungle jungle far and wide by dispersing a large globule of the stuff to splatter down elsewhere, basic (anywhere on the planet) and Advanced (within range of nearby orbital bodies), allowing yo to expand across water/lava and even space.

Immotiles - I mentioned these earlier, these are the equivalent of buildings, where in you have your solar collector immotiles, hatchery immotiles, PD's. All the stuff you'd expect, these also need to be destroyed to kill a sporeon as immotile clusters are simply copies of it that are specialised for a particular purpose. A whole new base can grow out from a single PD. So commanders make sure to use protocol "scorched earth"

Motiles - Mobile and limited versions of itself are created inside hatcheries and the like for the purpose of combat and cultivation. These can't grow into new bases, without the presence of the hive mind they are essentially useless piles of barely intelligent flesh, without direction they can't function and so they ultimately expire if the rest of the sporeon dies.

Key Points:
- Can't be sniped
- Has no fabbers
- Can't focus build power
- Has no reliance on metal points, and therefore can expand and thrive anywhere, and be considered a real threat.
- For all intents and purposes it's military capabilities are equal to the commanders and their robots. Only biological
- Dragon-like flying units (because we can)
- Has only 1 orbital unit, the moth which uses solar wind and gravity skipping to travel further than the lobbers can normally spread sporeon. The downsides to this unit is that it can be intercepted and take a while to build. If it can reach a new home it splatters down on it, creating a new patch of fungus. (like how the sporeon faction spawns, on a giant moth, only on a smaller scale. (It's how it travels between solar systems))
- It's version of the Umbrella is far more effective
- Lobbers can't be stopped, even inter-planetary ones, the spore cluster fired is basically indestructible being just a huge blob of gloopy fungus, once it splashes down then the fun can begin as you have to eradicate it before anything truly horrible can grow out of the stain.

Discuss/Ignore/Flame

Flames sound like a pretty good way of killing it. ;P

It would be cool if over time it grew on your troops till eventually it controls them, so you'd have to use air.
also there could be an "Infected" asteroid that could randomly spawn in any map and enter the system.

You know, this could be a great idea for "Campaign"

Yes, Kill it with fire. Nukes are also effective.

That's one of the way this entity can win, it just continues to grow and grow, if it can get inside your base, all kinds of nastiness can just start growing up around your factories. A faction that can fab anywhere anytime. (well only inside fungal stains, but you get my drift.) Lob spores at enemy commander, grow walls and pd around him, that's one buggered commander. Hope that uber cannon can clear it all up.

I like the idea of them infecting enemy units, but honestly that just sounds a little OP.

Yes it would be a cool campaign. Also infected asteroids moving about will be it's most basic form of interplanetary combat, spread onto an asteroid, grow large fartgines that can propel you into orbit/range so you can spread down onto the new target. Alternatively smash into it. If you use the spore lobber just prior to impact you should be able to get a clump of fungus down onto a now barren wasteland. Yippy.

What i find most compelling about this faction would be the differences in the way it fights, you could have units like this one: a very fast moving, melee only, crazy little clawed thing-a-ma-jig. Their artillery units fire a very corrosive acid the explodes over the top of their target. They have dragons! Flying creatures, that put out large area-of-effect, high damage firestorms. Actual Sharks.

The fun you can have with designing such a faction is truly endless.

Does anyone else want to see something other than robots in a strat zoom rts game!? Fantasy style units or like you guys mentioned zerg/war hammer style races?

I don't think the infection will be too OP if it takes like 4 mins.

Guess it would depend on how it works