Weapons that can disable Geller Fields?

[Moonreaper666]

I was wondering if there are ship weapons capable of disabling Gellar Fields, thus preventing the ship from using Warp FTL?

 

Can Psyker Powers disable Gellar Technology as well?

 

 

Chaos, Dark Eldar and Necrons would use these anti-gellar weapons to prevent Imperium fleets from escaping or from intercepting them in another location

[Exilyth]

In the novel "the warlord" by Dan Abnett, a chaos assassin messes with the ships geller field (from inside the ship) and

turns the signature of the field into a transmitter which in turn lures in a chaos fleet

 

That aside, the geller field protects the vessel from the warp and is separate from the ships warp drive, e.g. disabling the geller field makes the ship vulnerable to the warp (and the creatures/entities within), but does not stop the ship from traveling through the warp.

[MARK0SIAN]

I’ve never seen any examples in lore about them being deliberately collapsed.

 

I think it’s unlikey a psyker could do it, the fields hold back the actual warp (whilst it surrounds them) and psychic power is essentially warp power. If it can hold back the warp while it travels in it then that’s surely got to be way more powerful than any psyker, even maybe the emperor.

 

Also remember that the gellar field is only active for a really short time in real space. It’s turned on just before they jump and switched off as soon as they emerge from the warp. It would have to be well timed shot that would hit the field itself, probably too small an opportunity to be worth investing in developing a weapon for.

 

As for necrons, it’s very possible that gellar fields are new technology to them. Before they hibernated, the races they fought didn’t use them so they would emerge to find them in use by the Imperium.

 

The easiest way to destroy them would probably just be to cripple the physical systems on the ship itself but then you’ve got to get past the void shields. If the enemy can do that then they could prevent them fleeing more easily by just targeting to the ships engines.

 

Destroying them would be a cool story or background but I think it’s more likely to be done by sabotage or accident rather than a specific weapon :)

[OnboardG1]

You need a Coldstar Battlesuit driven by the craziest Tau ever to have lived.

[Panzer]

Well it's a physical machine so yes anything can disable it with enough force. As for directly countering the effect of the gellar field without damaging/disabling the machine ... luckily not anything we know of. Some unknown Necron technology can probably do it tho simply because they were on a reality altering level technology-wise and it's pretty much impossible to say where their capabilities end. ^^

[jeffersonian000]

The Geller Field is not a physical “machine”, is an organic system that feeds a fluid throughout the hull of a Warp capable ship. While it’s never been covered in specific detail, there have been a number of examples in books that point the field being a byproduct of a psychically active substance flowing through a network of tubes.

 

On the smaller scale, a Teleport Beacon produces a Geller Field to protect those being teleported. Terminator Armor have such beacons, but Grey Knights use their own psychic will to shield themselves in the Warp while Shunting.

 

SJ

[Panzer]

The Geller Field is not a physical “machine”, is an organic system that feeds a fluid throughout the hull of a Warp capable ship. While it’s never been covered in specific detail, there have been a number of examples in books that point the field being a byproduct of a psychically active substance flowing through a network of tubes.

On the smaller scale, a Teleport Beacon produces a Geller Field to protect those being teleported. Terminator Armor have such beacons, but Grey Knights use their own psychic will to shield themselves in the Warp while Shunting.

SJ

Uhm a nothing you described says it's not a physical machine you know? Some liquid flowing through a set of tubes and pipes in the hull is still some form of physical machine.

[Moonreaper666]

It would make more tactical sense for non-Imperium enemies to engage Imperium fleets, disable their Warp Engines or Gellar Fields and then go attack their primary targets

 

Orks, Necrons, Dark Eldar, Eldar Corsairs, Craftworld Eldar and Chaos can enter the Warp without Gellar Field or don't need the Warp for FTL

 

The Imperium losses the most if they attempted to use Warp Jump without Gellar Fields

 

 

Could an Entire Chapter of Space Marines (or the big Black Templars) be killed by Daemons in a Warp Jump without Gellar Fields?

[MARK0SIAN]

The thing is those Imperium ships are not just going to sit there whilst the enemies pick off their warp engines. They’ll have to weather the pretty impressive firepower that the Imperium is sending their way. I would think if an enemy was sufficiently powerful to withstand that then they’d be sufficiently powerful to take the easier option and just destroy the imperial ship.

 

As for if they’d be destroyed in the warp, there are plenty of examples of ships (including marine ones) being lost in the warp with everyone killed by daemons. An example concerning the Black Templars is mentioned in the Black legion book. However for an entire chapter to be destroyed then either they would all have to be on the same ship (which is pretty unlikely) or they would have to travel as a fleet and every single ship would have to lose its gellar fields in the journey, which again is pretty unlikely.

[justicarius6]

In "Furious Abyss" didn't they deploy some kind of mines that knocked out/disabled the Geller Fields on

a ship in the pursuing fleet?

[Jackalwolf]

It would make more tactical sense for non-Imperium enemies to engage Imperium fleets, disable their Warp Engines or Gellar Fields and then go attack their primary targets

 

Orks, Necrons, Dark Eldar, Eldar Corsairs, Craftworld Eldar and Chaos can enter the Warp without Gellar Field or don't need the Warp for FTL

 

The Imperium losses the most if they attempted to use Warp Jump without Gellar Fields

 

 

Could an Entire Chapter of Space Marines (or the big Black Templars) be killed by Daemons in a Warp Jump without Gellar Fields?

A Geller field breach in the warp is a death sentence for everyone in it. They can always do an emergency translation since risking appearing inside a sun is better odds than certain death.

[Jarl of Wulfen]

The Geller Field is not a physical “machine”, is an organic system that feeds a fluid throughout the hull of a Warp capable ship. While it’s never been covered in specific detail, there have been a number of examples in books that point the field being a byproduct of a psychically active substance flowing through a network of tubes.

 

On the smaller scale, a Teleport Beacon produces a Geller Field to protect those being teleported. Terminator Armor have such beacons, but Grey Knights use their own psychic will to shield themselves in the Warp while Shunting.

 

SJ

I'm curioys, where was it referenced as tubes and pipes, I don't recall that reference.

[jeffersonian000]

 

The Geller Field is not a physical “machine”, is an organic system that feeds a fluid throughout the hull of a Warp capable ship. While it’s never been covered in specific detail, there have been a number of examples in books that point the field being a byproduct of a psychically active substance flowing through a network of tubes.

On the smaller scale, a Teleport Beacon produces a Geller Field to protect those being teleported. Terminator Armor have such beacons, but Grey Knights use their own psychic will to shield themselves in the Warp while Shunting.

SJ

Uhm a nothing you described says it's not a physical machine you know? Some liquid flowing through a set of tubes and pipes in the hull is still some form of physical machine.

The implication is that the Geller Field is an Engineered Psyker, just like Navigators are.

 

And the example of tubes was in Horus Rising, if I remember correctly, the scene where he view the Primarch gestation Pods, where he describes the tubes and notes if the Geller Field system.

 

SJ

[Panzer]

 

 

The Geller Field is not a physical “machine”, is an organic system that feeds a fluid throughout the hull of a Warp capable ship. While it’s never been covered in specific detail, there have been a number of examples in books that point the field being a byproduct of a psychically active substance flowing through a network of tubes.

On the smaller scale, a Teleport Beacon produces a Geller Field to protect those being teleported. Terminator Armor have such beacons, but Grey Knights use their own psychic will to shield themselves in the Warp while Shunting.

SJ

Uhm a nothing you described says it's not a physical machine you know? Some liquid flowing through a set of tubes and pipes in the hull is still some form of physical machine.

The implication is that the Geller Field is an Engineered Psyker, just like Navigators are.

 

And the example of tubes was in Horus Rising, if I remember correctly, the scene where he view the Primarch gestation Pods, where he describes the tubes and notes if the Geller Field system.

 

SJ

 

 

So? I don't quite get what you're trying to say. The implication you see whether real or not is not relevant at all. It's still a machine. Not to mention that GW directly calls out a Geller field generator in their Rogue Trader article on WarCom.

[Brother Tyler]

A vessel's Tech-priests can erect layers of wards to defend against marauding predatory beasts. However, these protective fields are intricate and arcane, and their temperamental nature provides no sure defence against a determined assault. Ships that suffer a warpshield collapse can find themselves in serious trouble as their presence is detected and suddenly a swarm of malignant creatures converges on it. Such assaults can range wildly in ferocity, from incidental damage to the ship itself, to massive systems failure and attacks upon crew and passengers.

It's not actually called a "Geller field" in the above quote, and the lore may have changed/evolved over the last 20 years, but the above is an example of how citing and quoting your references might actually further constructive discussion.

 

The answer to the OP's question is that a ship's Geller field can be damaged in any number of ways. The field isn't used while in realspace, so damage to the portion(s) of the ship where the Geller field is created has potential to degrade/destroy a ship's ability to generate the field, preventing long distance Warp travel. The lore through the years has been that other races don't maneuver through the Warp in the way that the Imperium does. The Eldar use the Webway; neither the T'au, Tyranids, nor the Necrons use the Warp; and the Orks use the Warp in a haphazard fashion, jumping short distances with only a rudimentary understanding of their actual destinations.

 

Damage to a Geller field while in the Warp is another matter entirely, and I'm unsure of the answer. Whether or not a Geller field is also potent against mundane attacks (such as ship's weapons) is unknown (to me). My assumption is that it is not, and that, if the nature of the Warp allows such weapons to be used in ship-to-ship battles, then it is just as combat in realspace, where damage to the Geller field generation portion(s) of the ship may cause the penetration/degradation/collapse of the Geller field.

 

And because my OCD won't let it go, two corrections:

 

First, it's Geller G-E-L-L-E-R, not Gellar.

 

Second, Warp travel isn't "faster than light" travel. It's transitioning into the Warp rather than through realspace in order to travel long distances. The end result is similar to FTL travel (i.e., getting there faster than the speed of light), but the mechanics are entirely different.

[jeffersonian000]

 

 

 

 

The Geller Field is not a physical “machine”, is an organic system that feeds a fluid throughout the hull of a Warp capable ship. While it’s never been covered in specific detail, there have been a number of examples in books that point the field being a byproduct of a psychically active substance flowing through a network of tubes.

On the smaller scale, a Teleport Beacon produces a Geller Field to protect those being teleported. Terminator Armor have such beacons, but Grey Knights use their own psychic will to shield themselves in the Warp while Shunting.

SJ

Uhm a nothing you described says it's not a physical machine you know? Some liquid flowing through a set of tubes and pipes in the hull is still some form of physical machine.

The implication is that the Geller Field is an Engineered Psyker, just like Navigators are.

 

And the example of tubes was in Horus Rising, if I remember correctly, the scene where he view the Primarch gestation Pods, where he describes the tubes and notes if the Geller Field system.

 

SJ

So? I don't quite get what you're trying to say. The implication you see whether real or not is not relevant at all. It's still a machine. Not to mention that GW directly calls out a Geller field generator in their Rogue Trader article on WarCom.

Be pedantic all you want, “machine” is not normally a term applied to an organic living system. But hey, you do you!

 

SJ

[Lord_Caerolion]

A dialysis machine pumps organic liquid through tubes, but it's still a machine. Nothing I've seen calls the geller field generator an organic system rather than mechanical.

[Golf33]

Orks understand Geller fields, how to generate them, and how to collapse an opponent's fields while in the warp. See the early chapters of Death or Glory for an example.

[Lucien Eilam]

First, it's Geller G-E-L-L-E-R, not Gellar.

 

I wouldn’t choose this as your hill to die on. GW have used both spellings, even using both in the same publication on more than one occasion. FFG managed to include both spellings on consecutive rows of the same table in their RPGs.

[Cryptix]

 

First, it's Geller G-E-L-L-E-R, not Gellar.

 

I wouldn’t choose this as your hill to die on. GW have used both spellings, even using both in the same publication on more than one occasion. FFG managed to include both spellings on consecutive rows of the same table in their RPGs.

 

Jesus, got a pic? That sounds hilarious.

[Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch]

The orks didn’t so much as damage the field as incapacitate a dozen navigators in their ambush tactic.

 

This vessel was probably stationed where it was, on the most likely warp current to be bringing reinforcements, with a complement of irk psykers. Their powers boosted by direct contact with the warp, they were able to unleash a psychic attack intended to disable the Navigators of the approaching ships and force them back into the Materium where the ambushin force was waiting.

-Ciaphas Cain: Defender of the Imperium Omnibus, p.55

 

It certainly had the same effect, but the attack did not target the Geller fields or the generator specifically. Besides, that level of finesse is far beyond ork thinking. As far as I can tell they performed the metaphysical equivalent of giving the navigators a brutish blow to the head.

 

Elsewhere a third gen crew member mentioned that the last materium transition like that that she had been through had been when the navigator had died. Later it says the navigator wasn’t dead but had experienced severe psychic shock.

 

The ork vessel used as a delivery system I assume left its shields deliberately down, but I can’t find anything in the book to prove it.

TL;DR: Make and use, yes; deliberately targeted the imperial generators, no.

[Panzer]

 

 

 

 

The Geller Field is not a physical “machine”, is an organic system that feeds a fluid throughout the hull of a Warp capable ship. While it’s never been covered in specific detail, there have been a number of examples in books that point the field being a byproduct of a psychically active substance flowing through a network of tubes.

On the smaller scale, a Teleport Beacon produces a Geller Field to protect those being teleported. Terminator Armor have such beacons, but Grey Knights use their own psychic will to shield themselves in the Warp while Shunting.

SJ

Uhm a nothing you described says it's not a physical machine you know? Some liquid flowing through a set of tubes and pipes in the hull is still some form of physical machine.

The implication is that the Geller Field is an Engineered Psyker, just like Navigators are.

And the example of tubes was in Horus Rising, if I remember correctly, the scene where he view the Primarch gestation Pods, where he describes the tubes and notes if the Geller Field system.

SJ

So? I don't quite get what you're trying to say. The implication you see whether real or not is not relevant at all. It's still a machine. Not to mention that GW directly calls out a Geller field generator in their Rogue Trader article on WarCom.

Be pedantic all you want, “machine” is not normally a term applied to an organic living system. But hey, you do you!

SJ

Actually it's you who's the pedantic one, trying to correct me for no reason and not even being in the right and all that. Glass houses and stones. ;)

[Lucien Eilam]

jeffersonian is thinking of The First Heretic, not Horus Rising (which doesn’t even feature the gestation tanks – False Gods was their other appearance):

 

‘Blood of the… Look. Look at this.’ The captain crouched by the lower half of Guilliman’s coffin-womb. A bulky generator box was half-meshed with the main machinery behind the gestation pod.

 

Coolant feeds quivered as they pumped fluid, and the details that could be made out through gaps in the armoured covering showed the generator’s internal compartments were filled with bubbling red liquid.

 

Dagotal looked over Argel Tal’s shoulder. ‘Is that blood?’

 

The captain gave Dagotal a withering look.

 

‘What?’ the sergeant asked.

 

‘It’s haemolubricant, for a machine-spirit. These secondary generators are fastened behind each pod. And look, they run along the spinal columns of these structures, up the tower.

 

Dagotal and the others looked around. ‘So?’

 

‘So where have you seen power generators of similar design before? What engine requires a machine-spirit of this complexity to function?’

 

‘Oh,’ the sergeant said. ‘Oh.’

 

The Word Bearers looked up at the central column, juddering and humming with its machine-parts and multiple power supplies.

 

At last… Yes…

 

‘This is more than an incubation tower,’ said Xaphen.

 

You are so close now…

 

Argel Tal looked at the pods, each in turn, and the insanely complex array of machinery coupling them to the central column.

 

Yes… Yes… Witness the truth…

 

‘This is a generator,’ his voice softened in disbelief, ‘for a Geller Field.’

 

Xaphen circled the walkway, his clanging boot steps unheard by the horde of technicians working away. Argel Tal watched his Chaplain moving around the pods, a slow suspicion creeping over the back of his neck. Both warriors were unhelmed, and thin sheens of icy sweat glistened on their faces.

 

‘The most powerful Geller Field in existence,’ Argel Tal gestured to the machinery. ‘The generators on board our vessels, linked with the Navigators… they are a shadow of what we’re seeing here.’

 

You do not truly comprehend the effect you name a Geller Field. It is more than a kinetic shield against warp energy. The warp itself is the Sea of Souls. Your fields repel raw psychic force. They are a bulwark against the claws of the neverborn.

 

‘The question we must ask ourselves,’ Xaphen spoke as he stroked the surface of the pod marked XVII, ‘is why these incubators are shielded against…”

 

Say it.

 

Xaphen smiled. ‘…against daemons.’

 

Torgal joined the Chaplain before Lorgar’s pod. He stared inside at the slumbering infant for some time.

Personally, I don’t believe coolant and a machine-spirit supports his assertions above, never mind justifies the insults, but judge the text for yourself. Note the words “machine” or “machinery” in almost every paragraph.

 

Other descriptions of Geller field generators I’m aware of:

 

From Death of Integrity:

 

On the other side, four long, four-storey machines filled the room, spaced regularly apart; the vessel’s Geller field generation room.

From Sons of the Hydra:

 

[…] the warp engines and Geller field generator were thoroughly Imperial. Reliably old, the field generator and warp drive had never failed Naga-Khan and the Alpha Legion. Reznor and the shipmaster’s own enginseer both considered them dependable. The warp engines and integrated field generator had never been under so much stress before, however.

[…] a huge piece of arcane machinery at the far end of the engineering compartment. Crackling, fat power cables ran from the system and surrounding auxiliaries.

From Blood Reaver:

 

‘As for core systems, the Ninth Legion inflicted severe damage upon the actuality generators. Until this date, shipboard repairs have been sufficient to restore sustained empyrean flight. If we do not dock soon for an overhaul of the actuality generators, the immaterium engines will be throttled by failsafes, preventing their activation.’

 

‘Meaning?’ Xarl asked.

 

‘Meaning the Geller field is damaged,’ Talos answered.”

Execution Hour has an extended sequence where the crew of the Lord Solar Macharius divert power from the Geller field generators to the manoeuvring thrusters while engaging the Contagion in the warp.

 

Skitarius centres on an STC “Geller device”, a bomb operating on the same principles as the field generators and capable of calming warp storms. It’s described as “…a large, baroque construction. It looked like an orbital mine – all accretions, crackling nodes and trailing cables.”

[Lord_Caerolion]

 

 

 

 

The Geller Field is not a physical “machine”, is an organic system that feeds a fluid throughout the hull of a Warp capable ship. While it’s never been covered in specific detail, there have been a number of examples in books that point the field being a byproduct of a psychically active substance flowing through a network of tubes.

On the smaller scale, a Teleport Beacon produces a Geller Field to protect those being teleported. Terminator Armor have such beacons, but Grey Knights use their own psychic will to shield themselves in the Warp while Shunting.

SJ

Uhm a nothing you described says it's not a physical machine you know? Some liquid flowing through a set of tubes and pipes in the hull is still some form of physical machine.

The implication is that the Geller Field is an Engineered Psyker, just like Navigators are.

 

And the example of tubes was in Horus Rising, if I remember correctly, the scene where he view the Primarch gestation Pods, where he describes the tubes and notes if the Geller Field system.

 

SJ

So? I don't quite get what you're trying to say. The implication you see whether real or not is not relevant at all. It's still a machine. Not to mention that GW directly calls out a Geller field generator in their Rogue Trader article on WarCom.

Be pedantic all you want, “machine” is not normally a term applied to an organic living system. But hey, you do you!

 

SJ

 

 

I honestly don't know what your point is meant to be here, or at least how it helps you. As others have pointed out, including the example of the "haemolubricant" etc, says there's machinery. Even just saying that there's haemolubricant doesn't exactly help your point, as heaps of Mechanicus technology has biological elements to it but that still doesn't make a geller field an organic construct.

[karden00]

Calm, brothers, calm.

 

Gelle\ar field attacks is an interesting idea, but to me, science fiction always falls flat when it comes to battle. 

In a setting where teleportation is a thing, why does no one ever disable shields and teleport ordinance on to an enemy ship? 

It reminds me of a scene from The Last Jedi. Hyperdriving into a bigger target was never a thing before. Then suddenly it was. But this is a universe where droids are everywhere. Why not get a droid to pilot a ship into a bigger one in hyperdrive? 

 

Path of Heaven actually did a wonderful job of explaining this. Early Heresy, sure, ships go boom left, right, and center. The traitors above Isstvan had no problem just blowing the :cuss out of 3 Gloriana class rubber ducking ships. One would be forgiven for thinking those might be a resource they would want to retain, buuuut.....

 

Then by the time of PoH, ships and crews are seen as the resource that they are, and destruction is less of a priority than commandeering. 

 

Anyway, disabling a gella\er field could really be a great way to :cuss with imperial fleets. But given all the other ways one could neutralize said ships......Im not sure it makes sense internally, consistently, with the setting so far.