Warp Transit and You: A Very Rough History of Interstellar Space Travel and Growing Multiple Limbs
Maybe you’re tired of living on a backwater planet in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere. Perhaps you’re part of the Imperial Guard, being taken from your home world for regimental training. Or, your world could be on the brink of total annihilation and you are fleeing for your life. In the 40k universe, travelling across the vast gulf of space is relatively easy. That is, if easy involves breaking into an alternate dimension that is like Hell itself was having a bad acid trip.
Within 40k, there is an alternate dimension sitting parallel to our own ‘real’ space. It has been given many names, such as the Great Sea, or the Immaterium, but it is most often referred to as The Warp. Within the Warp, there are effectively no rules to existence, at least in any way that we can understand them. The general understanding of both human and xenos scholars is that the Warp is fueled by energies coming from our own realm, particularly emotional energies. And there are lots of nightmarish, gribbly monsters that live within the Warp that love to feed on these energies. Now, long ago, humanity figured out that they could rip a hole into the Warp using specialized drive engines, and protect their ships utilizing devices known as Gellar Fields. This way, a ship could enter the Warp, pass through it, and arrive (in theory) where they wanted to in a few weeks or months, while travelling by standard means would take hundreds or thousands of years. The thing is, the Warp is incredibly weird, so results may vary. Sometimes ships leave for a destination and arrive years before they had even left, or will exit the Warp thousands of years into the future even if it felt like they were only travelling for a few days. And that’s if the Gellar Field doesn’t flicker, or worse, fail.
There are countless beings that reside within the Warp, and almost every single one of them would love to eat you like a Dove chocolate. That said, the vast majority of beings (frequently referred to as daemons) are in the service of one of the four Chaos ‘gods’. Obscenely powerful, each god has fields of ‘expertise’, as well as their own interests and agendas. There is Khorne, the blood god, who revels in warfare and combat, Nurgle, the god of entropy, who delights in spreading disease and decay, Tzeentch, the god of change, who enjoys scheming and knowledge, and Slaanesh, the god/dess of pleasure, who desires only the most extreme sensations and experiences. Together, these gods and daemons are often known as Chaos. If you are travelling through the Warp, you can be sure that these beings are watching your tiny bubble of realspace like hungry sharks, and will leap at the opportunity to eat human souls/Dove chocolates.
During the Great Crusade in the 31st Millennium, the Emperor of Mankind was actively seeking a way to travel across the galaxy quickly and safely, without the need for entering the Warp. This is because even then, the Emperor sought to prevent mankind from having to deal with daemons ever again. His plan was to use an inter-dimensional tunnel network left behind by the Eldar Empire called the Webway. The majority of this system was now abandoned, and would allow mankind to travel quickly and safely almost anywhere in the galaxy. Unfortunately, several Bad Things™ happened. First, although the Emperor was determined to fight the daemons of the Warp, he told almost no one about what lived behind the veil. In particular, the Primarchs, his ‘sons’ that led the great Space Marine Legions, were completely in the dark. This is not entirely without reason though, as many people that find out about these ‘gods’ whispering promises of rewards and ULTIMATE POWER decide to take them up on the offer (or go insane) and open the door for them, which almost always results in everyone nearby having a Bad Time™. Second, after being rebuked (and a planet’s capital razed) for worshipping the Emperor as a god (the Emperor hated the idea of it, because Chaos Gods), the primarch Lorgar of the Word Bearers legion went on a soul-searching trip and found ‘enlightenment’ in the form of the Chaos Gods (oops). After prepatory work, betrayals, and some daemonic possession, the Horus Heresy was started and half of the Legions betrayed the Emperor. But third, and arguably the worst effect, was the Primarch Magnus of the Thousand Sons’ attempt to warn the Emperor of the impending betrayal. Magnus was only second to the Emperor himself in terms of psychic power, and in his desperation to warn the Emperor, he demolished the psychic wards the Emperor had put in place around the Imperial Palace, as well as rupturing a hole in the Webway near the exit portals to Earth. The Horus Heresy went on for 9 years, and in that time the Imperium was a bloody mess, the Imperium and the Emperor barely managed to defeat the Traitor Legions, the Emperor barely managed to seal the Webway entrance, and from that point on humanity was pretty much left on it’s own.
Thankfully for humanity, the Emperor had also built a powerful psychic beacon on Earth known as the Astronomican at the beginning of the Great Crusade. Using his own psychic power, he could project a bright light in the Warp from Terra’s location, like a light house. Using the Astronomican, special mutant psykers known as Navigators can guide ships through the Warp relatively safely, using the Earth as a fixed navigation point in space. However, after the Heresy and the mortal wounding of the Emperor, the power of this beacon must be constantly supported by the power of 10,000 psykers, who must be constantly replaced due the fact that using so much power literally kills them in a matter of months. However, it is only through the combination of warp drives, Gellar Fields, and the Astronomican that mankind has survived as long as it has. Without warp drives, interstellar travel would simply be impossible. Without Gellar Fields, humanity would be eaten and/or possessed the instant they entered the Warp. And without the Astronomican, any attempt at travelling within the Warp would be fraught with peril, like attempting to sail a stormy sea on a moonless night.
