Warp Travel in the Era of the Great Rift

[Marshal Rohr]

No, Marshal Rohr, I think we're largely on the same page - Imperial travel is now harder than it was before, but not impossible. I'm not sure that we've all grasped the ramifications of what GW has done, and I was sort of thinking-through some ideas above.

Not you, specifically, but some of the other ideas seem too restrictive

[Arkangilos]

I could have missed it but I don't think anyone said it was impossible.

 

I think we are just saying it's easier for Calgar to make one long emergency risky jump than say the BA, who are on the "dark" side to make a series of dangerous jumps.

 

As for the state of the dark side, I think they are much more restricted and most of them do have to fight on their own. I think that's why "Dante is Regent" is more of a title than a real thing, because it's just too difficult to control big territories.

 

Basically I see it as the Imperium proper is the Byzantine empire (or the Eastern Roman Empire) trying to reclaim what was lost under Justininian, and the IN is essentially the Western Roman Empire sliding into a more feudal society with diminishing control. Dante is "Regent" in the same way the last Western Emperor was an Emperor.

 

Honestly I really love that there is the split like that because it leaves a lot more room for personal "loyal" Empires where they reorganize their territories to their own whim and can still claim loyal status

[Xwingt65]

So another thing to consider of why the BA might not be there but the Ultras might be is because on the Imperium Nihilus side there is no astronomicon, so warp travel is not only more dangerous but also slower and harder. This would mean that anyone on the Terran side would be closer in terms of time to arrival.

Spear of the Emperor has some good descriptions of warp travel on the other side of the great rift, and they are back to doing short hops through the warp. Trips that took weeks, now takes months.

[Lord_Caerolion]

 

No, Marshal Rohr, I think we're largely on the same page - Imperial travel is now harder than it was before, but not impossible. I'm not sure that we've all grasped the ramifications of what GW has done, and I was sort of thinking-through some ideas above.

Not you, specifically, but some of the other ideas seem too restrictive

 

 

It's not that it's impossible, just that it's not as simple as a Navigator going "oh cool, the Rift is to the West, and I want to head North, so I need to keep going straight". This is the Warp, it doesn't fully relate to the physical realm. To paraphrase an old quote from Warseer, in the Warp, North is South, East is a quarter past 12, South is a week from Tuesday, and West is a fluffy terrier named Muffins.

 

There's a reason that before the Great Crusade long-distance Warp travel was almost literally impossible, due to widespread warpstorms. Now, a significant portion of the galaxy is engulfed in a permanent warpstorm, almost literally bisecting the galaxy. Warp travel is still going to be possible, but it's a hell of a lot harder than "just look for the landmarks".

[Arkhanist]

So it sounds like you guys are in the camp that no imperial vessels should be able to travel anywhere and any Imperials on the other side of the rift will only ever fight on the planet they were on when the rift opened up? Because you have to understand that’s not a tenable position and defeats the whole purpose of the rift handwaving everyone fighting everyone. Before the rift it made no sense why the Ultramarines would ever be at Cadia.

 

No, I don't think that's the consensus at all.

 

A good chunk of warp travel in the imperium pre-Rift didn't use the Astronomican anyway, bulk merchant haulers couldn't afford the services of a Navigator. They stick to known stable routes between stars, and use cogitators to calculate warp currents and eddies visible from their starting point (it 'peers' into the warp before the jump) so they've a decent idea of where they're going to come out. But that's only viable for short jumps, around 4 light years - about the distance from Sol to Alpha Centauri for example. Much, much faster than sublight travel, and you're at risk from geller field failure or gellerpox, time eddies, unseen shoals etc, but an acceptable risk going star-by-star - this is known as a calculated jump (or 'blind jump' by the Navy)

 

Military ships and long haul travel require Navigators. They can see the warp flows near the ship, so can work out course adjustments to compensate for currents etc while in the warp itself. Cogitators can't. In addition, the astronomican provides a fixed reference point, again only visible to Navigators. A single point is very useful as you can compare its position and distance (strength of the sound of the angelic choir when you focus on it, presumably) from multiple points along your travel path - that also lets you work out your vector. For a longer warp jump, you need to be able to make those adjustments, or you're going to end up a long way off course when you finally exit.

 

In Nihilus, short blind jumps are still possible, that hasn't changed, but is slow. Depending upon how close you jump to a star, you may have to reach the mandeville point again on sublight engines, let the warp reactors prepare for the next jump, and avoid whatever horrors are currently occupying that star system you couldn't avoid. Plus there's many more warp storms than before which you want to avoid, which might take you a good way out of your way. You could drop out into clear space I suppose and use the stars to work out where you ended up to calculate your next jump, but it's still going to be slow work.

 

So for long military jumps it's a big step down, as you want to get to your destination while you can still do some good. Navigators can still see the warp to adjust for changing conditions, but without a fixed reference point, getting to where you want to be is a lot harder. Plus there's still a lot more warp storm activity going on, and jumping through one of those is risky as hell. The rift isn't like a coastline, with visible reference points and a map, or indeed the sun, which is a single point in a predictable path - it's going to be more like trying to navigate along a long dark cloudbank all on the horizon, where if you look at it too hard your brain melts. Useful for telling you which cardinal direction you're going in (am I heading away from or towards the rift?) I imagine, but for warp jumps you want as much precision as you can muster, less you end up dozens of light years away from where you wanted to be. And if you're not careful warp currents will dump you out where others have been dumped out before you, and you'll have a nasty surprise waiting for you.

 

It's been interesting reading The Lords of Silence, (Death Guard post-Rift) - the Imperium doesn't defend itself everywhere in depth, it can't. It relies on local force concentrations of Imperial Navy and/or Space Marines to act as fast responders to a crisis, and for bigger threats it can draw in more and more troops and ships from surrounding areas, with forge worlds and Guard recruitment worlds providing the materiel and men respectively. Just keep throwing vast reserves of manpower at it till it's dead has been the Imperial approach to pretty much every threat. All of that relies on (mostly) reliable and fast warp travel over some distance, and astropaths to call for help.

 

The Noctis Aeterna in the immediately aftermath of the fall of Cadia didn't just block the Astronomican, it blocked astropathic communication too, everywhere. So for a period, systems were entirely on their own, and many worlds and space marine chapters were overwhelmed and lost when nobody could come to help, plus those systems outright swallowed by the Rift itself. For the Blood Angels, when the Crusade had departed back across the Rift, they were left with huge and increasing numbers of astropathic cries for help all across Nihilus. Even with the reinforcements the Indomitus Crusade left behind, they and other Sanguinius descendents were severely depleted fighting off Leviathan. And getting there to help is slower and more dangerous than before, and the same coming back, so they've got to be stretched thin trying to prevent total collapse.

 

Chaos don't have this limitation - it's a smorgasboard of vulnerable targets out there now, and even previously unattainable strongpoints may have their forces already deployed elsewhere, and they can't quickly draw in vast numbers of reinforcements any more in Nihilus - even in Sanctus, the Imperium is weaker than it was due to the losses during the days of blinding. And presumably 10k years in the Eye has given them a few advantages when it comes to navigating it, and they're no longer limited to exiting at the Eye and trying to run the Cadian blockade.

[Blood Angel Scout]

One other point to make/take from Devastation of Baal was the time difference experienced by those on either side of the rift.

 

Think it was something like 6 months for Dante while the first company had aged 70+ years(may be off with actual numbers or whether this was specifically for anyone within the Red Scar region of the sector)

 

This may play an additional factor in determining which chapters find out about the event, for them to even be able to send a force in response in the first place

[Panzer]

Yeah time is generally playing havoc near the rift.

[Marshal Rohr]

The principles of navigation remain the same, because I’m not talking about using the rift in the warp, as much as I am in real space. You can hand rail the rift in real space, and we know it shifts but it doesn’t shift all the way rimward to touch places out past Isstvaan for example. I really like your cloud analogy. That’s exactly what I am thinking too, you’re trying to hand rail a bank of clouds. So the ship might make a short jump with the rift on the their left in real space, plotting a course parallel to its position when they went into the warp on to come out having dog legged back into the Imperium nihilus because the rift receded during the jump. Now they have to course correct and lose time making it difficult. My main concern is that you see in conversations online people write off the Imperium Nihilus as essentially lost and unable to defend itself, and that is too definitive. Are places as you describe? Unable to communicate or move easily? Absolutely. There will have to be other places that are stronger than ever, with stable travel and experiencing new golden ages because that’s the nature of 40k. Star systems that don’t have to tithe men and resources to Terra will be able to put those to work at home in some cases and expand to offer safety the might not have had before the rift. When Rome fell Europe entered a period of upheaval, sure, but out of that upheaval came many places that were safe and prosperous a hundred years later and that is where we are at right now. Some place in the Imperium Nihilus will have recovered and can do things that send armies out and protect their planet from invasion.

[Brother Casman]

Hmmm, I don't think that the "bank of clouds" would be as stable as you seem to think, Rohr, even in real space. I get the sense that it would change (maybe subtly, maybe not) every time one blinked. If it's a bank of clouds, I would expect it to be more akin to a raging typhoon, plus Warp shenanigans.

[Marshal Rohr]

Even if it shifts in width though, it is always to the left of you in realspace as you head from Ultima to Obscurus, and always to your right from Obscurus to Ultima. It doesn't change position in realspace or rotate on its axis. If you want to get to new York from Miami all you have to do is walk along the beach. Sometime you cant and have to cut inland but as long as you keep oriented to the position of the ocean on your right, you'll end up in new York.

[Midlight]

Which way is left and right in space, when you can't see the thing that gives you bearings. If i'm heading from ultima to Obscurus and the rift is on the left, I make a jump and when I exit its above me. I roll so its to my left again and jump but end back where I started, because I came out backwards and didn't realise.

[Brother Casman]

Are you sure? We are talking about an eruption of the Warp into real space. What's to say that our hapless Chartist Captain, when making the run from Obscurus to Ultima, perceives the Rift to be always behind them, and not to their right? I really don't think we should be applying strict real-world logic to the Great Rift.

 

(Do let me know if you think we've reached a point where we need to agree to disagree. This debate's been fun, but I don't want to dominate the overall conversation!)

[Marshal Rohr]

Its possible to determine your location in the galaxy by locating the rim, the core, and direction the galaxy is spinning in simple triangulation, all things we can do right now for earth. The rift is only in the galaxy where it is represented in the map and it rotates with the speed of the galaxy, so it can shift in place but it can't move around the galaxy like the arms of a clock or something.

 

 

@ midlight, that scenario is impossible, because regardless of the warp you can always orient yourself to the galactic plane. If you come out 'below' your starting point as long as you orient to the plane youre still moving in the same direction.

[Arkangilos]

I understand what Rohr is saying, and I largely agree.

Also Rohr is right that for some systems they will enter a golden age because they can focus on themselves. But that only lasts until they are invaded, and then they are worse off than before because the likelihood of getting reinforcements when they need them is much, much lower.

 

For the Florida to New York thing, though, while it's true you will get there, getting to a specific place is more difficult than "follow the beach, then turn inwards at this point."

 

I can't tell you how many times we've done Land Nav to hit an objective and that's what got us lost. The Maps are typically not up to date, features have changed, roads that didn't exist before were there, etc.

New storms and the like can pop up and throw things off.

 

But it's better than nothing!

[Marshal Rohr]

Very true, but any restrictions on the Imperium also apply to everyone else except Chaos, so in a way invasion becomes a gamble for another power. There's no one coming to reinforce them AND they have to have the expeditionary capacity to support themselves away from their homeworld.

[Panzer]

The rift is only in the galaxy where it is represented in the map and it rotates with the speed of the galaxy, so it can shift in place but it can't move around the galaxy like the arms of a clock or something.

 

 

That's actually another interesting thing GW probably didn't even think about ... if something rips holes in reality why does it move with the galaxy? Okay better not think about it too much or the setting makes even less sense (kinda like the immovable object ripping through everything in a splitsecond because the galaxy moves at such great speeds away from it). :P

[Kastor Krieg]

If you take a spacetime representation as we know it:

 

the Rift is basically a sharp sword's cut across this "square shawl", let's say, but it's not split in two because the "corners" and "edges" are still "attached" to the rest of the Universe. There's a middle area that stops making sense at all and there's a single thread of the shawl in the middle of the rip that hasn't been cut and still holds. That's that one known safe passage through the Rift.

What we shouldn't really concentrate on is that the setting focuses on the Milky Way alone while completely ignoring the greater Known Universe. Can the Four Chaos Gods also reach out there? Is there life in other galaxies? Is that where the Nids came from? Is there Warp as well? Does Emps reach out there?

Because at this point, with the amount of habitable star systems in the setting, people should be like ":cuss it, we're done here, let's switch galaxies". And in my headcannon I bet this is what happened to the two missing Legions.

[Panzer]

If you take a spacetime representation as we know it:

 

the Rift is basically a sharp sword's cut across this "square shawl", let's say, but it's not split in two because the "corners" and "edges" are still "attached" to the rest of the Universe. There's a middle area that stops making sense at all and there's a single thread of the shawl in the middle of the rip that hasn't been cut and still holds. That's that one known safe passage through the Rift.

 

What we shouldn't really concentrate on is that the setting focuses on the Milky Way alone while completely ignoring the greater Known Universe. Can the Four Chaos Gods also reach out there? Is there life in other galaxies? Is that where the Nids came from? Is there Warp as well? Does Emps reach out there?

 

Because at this point, with the amount of habitable star systems in the setting, people should be like ":cuss it, we're done here, let's switch galaxies". And in my headcannon I bet this is what happened to the two missing Legions.

 

This is going a bit offtopic, but the chaos gods are just the warp mirror of sentient beings emotions, ambitions and beliefs. Where there are no sentient beings the warp is calm and gods don't exist. So yeah if there are other civilisations of sentient beings with more of a warp signature than the T'au in other galaxies then the warp would stirr and form similarly there to the 40k's galaxy as well but any warp entities that form there would probably be disconnected from the ones we know due the amount of nothingness between those two.

 

Leaving the galaxy is barely touched in the official fluff but I think I recall there being some who tried but eventually lost contact. There are also the theories of "out there" being just more Tyranids or Orks and the 40k's galaxy being the only habitable galaxy left.

[FlamingDeth]

Would the warp necessarily be horrible though? IIRC the warp in the milky way was calm and easily traversable, even with warp present sentient beings, until the old ones tried to weaponize it by creating the Eldar to fight the Necrons for the war in heaven, then made it worse by creating the krork, and then humans came around and they were just naturally horrible. I can see a distant galaxy being plenty calm due to not being a crapsack like the milky way.

[Panzer]

Would the warp necessarily be horrible though? IIRC the warp in the milky way was calm and easily traversable, even with warp present sentient beings, until the old ones tried to weaponize it by creating the Eldar to fight the Necrons for the war in heaven, then made it worse by creating the krork, and then humans came around and they were just naturally horrible. I can see a distant galaxy being plenty calm due to not being a crapsack like the milky way.

 

Not necessarily, no. The chaos gods also aren't necessarily horrible things either. They do have good aspects. However since the galaxy in 40k is how it is the negative aspects are MUCH more present. Imagine a 40k universe without constant war and suffering and stuff ... the chaos gods would actually be a good pantheon and people would be encouraged to worship them. ^^

[Arkangilos]

I don't think that's the case though. They purposely convince people to kill other people. In 30k things weren't nearly as bad until they forced it to be that bad.

 

Also they do have actual personalities and desires.

[Panzer]

Keep in mind that the warp is timeless. Just because things weren't as bad during 30k it doesn't mean it balanced out all the crap that was going on or will be going on in the 40k galaxy.

[Bryan Blaire]

Hey they needed to sell that Calgar mini.

To hell with sense.

Honestly, this is the biggest influence on what was actually “allowed/able” to travel to Vigilus - if they had had some Blood Angels Primaris ready to go, I don’t doubt they would have had forces there, possibly even Dante, however, the model was probably sitting complete for Calgar as far back as the “Primaris upgrade” slip during that Twitch stream (I think that’s where it happened, but IIRC it was either not recorded, taken down, or edited out), and this fit their view of appropriate timing, so it was worked into the story.

 

Shallow dives into the Warp, while being shorter and therefore requiring more dives and time to destination, might actually be safer than long treks even on the non-Nihilus side, specifically because the duration leaves less time for things to try and eat/attack the ship and less time in the Warp to actually hit an anomaly that throws you for a loop. Now bad luck and story needs will obviously alter this, but overall, it seems like the idea should hold true.

[Azekai]

I don't think that's the case though. They purposely convince people to kill other people. In 30k things weren't nearly as bad until they forced it to be that bad.

 

Also they do have actual personalities and desires.

The Chaos Gods are corrupt because WE are corrupt. Their personalities and desires are shaped by the gestalt of the galaxy's psychically active races (and that was true long before the Great Crusade era). It's a feedback loop. Mortals and gods feeding each other. 

[Sete]

Wasn't the old ones that disturbed the warp in the first place? Then the races negative emotions feed them parasites