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[nenjin]

If the Warp ended outside the Milky Way, humanity would effectively be trapped in it. Now, maybe humanity hasn't actually reached the edge of warp-infested space yet, but, I've never read anything to indicate such a limitation. The Rogue Trader RPGs place no limitations on traveling well outside Imperial Space, just stating that if you're going to do it, you're going to do it without the benefit of the Astronomicon.

[Radio Controlled]

And I just thought of something: Maybe rogue traders have been possesed, but not often enough for it to be extremely noticable. Say the 'base possession rate' was 1 in 1 million people wothout emperor protection. On a planet of a billion peeps, that's 1000 people with demons crawling out their skull, which might also trigger further possession in other people nearby. Not good. But how many rogue traders that go beyond Emps protection zone are there really? If 1 in a million, or even 1 in 10.000 vanish because of it, nobody would bat an eye I think.

[Grim Portent]

Thinking about it, the rate of failed warp transits goes up a lot outside the range of the Astronomicon, in theory most of the signs of reduced Emperor based protection would be ships being destroyed in the warp and an increased frequency of warp storms, which would also happen more often from the lack of psykers being whisked away on the Black Ships.

[LordBaal]

I wouldn't think warp it's confined or ends at the border of the milky way, I would think the place between galaxies is like blank warp or something.

[MDFification]

The warp doesn't really work in a way you're supposed to be able to fathom. Ships can leave before they enter, and distance travelled in the warp (regardless of direction?) doesn't correlate to where you end up coming out. There's a lot of mention of 'warp routes' which are basically paths through the warp figured out by trial and error; even with this, the only way modern warpships can tell if they're on this path is by judging their position in the warp relative to the Astronomicon. Trying to jump outside of known warp routes, or outside the Astronomicon's light, is basically just rolling the dice that you'll go anywhere near the right direction. You can do smaller warp jumps that can be accurately targeted at the cost of going Tau-level speeds, and the Imperium prefers to do this whenever it doesn't get in the way of their operations because it's much safer even if it is slow.

Nobody knows how dark age humanity managed to navigate the Warp in the first place, but it probably has something to do with the 'warp lighthouses' like the one found in Ultramar. These essentially 'illuminate' all possible warp routes to a single planet, meaning that if you have one of these light houses and know where it's going to point, you can travel to any planet with a great degree of accuracy and safety.

It's likely in my mind that the Warp, seeing as it's not relative to physical space, extends in its bizarreness a considerable distance from the galaxy. That's probably where a lot of ships wind up when they get lost - they try to reenter real space, but the chances of landing in the galaxy are astronomical so most wind up in intergalactic space impossibly far from any Imperial world.

[nenjin]

the only way modern warpships can tell if they're on this path is by judging their position in the warp relative to the Astronomicon.

Not strictly true, according to the Rogue Trader RPG. Navigator Houses build charts of warp routes that are passed down through the generations. They're highly prized and coveted by the navigator houses because having a warp route chart basically enables a Navigator to successfully guide ships through more areas of space, which makes their house more desirable, and raises that house's stock in the Imperium. These charts can include everything from symbolic imagery unique to the warp route in question, to calculations and other things a navigator can use to establish where they are (generally) in the warp.

[LordBaal]

Perhaps those safe warp routes have something to do with inhabited planets (or lack of them) and some necron shenanigans in it's path making "clear" ways trough the inmmaterium. I know warp and real space don't correlate, but maybe that's precisely because of the turbulences and stir of chaos making it not correlate properly.

Maybe the quiet lanes do correlate (more or less) with real space and hence why they are safe.

[Loud Whispers]

the only way modern warpships can tell if they're on this path is by judging their position in the warp relative to the Astronomicon.

Not strictly true, according to the Rogue Trader RPG. Navigator Houses build charts of warp routes that are passed down through the generations. They're highly prized and coveted by the navigator houses because having a warp route chart basically enables a Navigator to successfully guide ships through more areas of space, which makes their house more desirable, and raises that house's stock in the Imperium. These charts can include everything from symbolic imagery unique to the warp route in question, to calculations and other things a navigator can use to establish where they are (generally) in the warp.

"Take a left from the squiggly tentacles for about fifty clicks, then follow the three-eyed tongue flocks until you reach the lilac inferno. If you reach the Prince of maddening tooth decay, you've gone too far. Reach the mesa of excessive toenails, you're not coming back."

[GiglameshDespair]

the only way modern warpships can tell if they're on this path is by judging their position in the warp relative to the Astronomicon.

Not strictly true, according to the Rogue Trader RPG. Navigator Houses build charts of warp routes that are passed down through the generations. They're highly prized and coveted by the navigator houses because having a warp route chart basically enables a Navigator to successfully guide ships through more areas of space, which makes their house more desirable, and raises that house's stock in the Imperium. These charts can include everything from symbolic imagery unique to the warp route in question, to calculations and other things a navigator can use to establish where they are (generally) in the warp.

"Take a left from the squiggly tentacles for about fifty clicks, then follow the three-eyed tongue flocks until you reach the lilac inferno. If you reach the Prince of maddening tooth decay, you've gone too far. Reach the mesa of excessive toenails, you're not coming back."

If everyone who reaches the mesa of excessive toenails meets a footsome fate, how do they know it's there?

[nenjin]

Perhaps those safe warp routes have something to do with inhabited planets (or lack of them) and some necron shenanigans in it's path making "clear" ways trough the inmmaterium. I know warp and real space don't correlate, but maybe that's precisely because of the turbulences and stir of chaos making it not correlate properly.

Maybe the quiet lanes do correlate (more or less) with real space and hence why they are safe.

This is partially why I have a somewhat hard time with the conflicting parts of fluff that the Warp both is, and isn't, tied in some way to physical location in the material realm. Maybe some 40k authors "just don't get it" but if they don't, then an awful lot of them must not. I've read that planets and what's going on there can affect the turbulence of warp currents in the area. Death and cataclysm on a planetary or system-wide scale definitely increase turbulence in the Warp, and may even generate a warp storm if the mass extinction is violent enough. Other stellar or terrestrial anomalies can also affect the warp currents. Weird cursed stars, for example. Although terrestrial anomalies generally have some sort of warp magic about them, which justifies their effects on the currents.

I generally believe the two pretty much are bound together in terms of location. So much about the rationale doesn't work if you don't accept that. How can anyone know where to exit the warp to get from A to B if there is not some relationship, even if it's asymmetrical, between the real and the Warp?

[Grim Portent]

There's definitely some relationship between the material realm and the Warp, but it's probably not entirely parallel. Planets and stars have ghosts of some kind in the Warp, as do all souled beings, but the gods each have a discrete domain in the Warp and it would make little sense for them to be tied to a specific location in realspace.

The weirdest part is that mortals have been to the god's separate realms, so they must be delineated somehow.

[Rolepgeek]

Knit Tie, I knownthe topic has moved on but I'm not sure where you're getting that bit about only happy because 1984. Also Ork Waaaghs, an Imperial Crusade, and Tyranids seems a lot like 'existential threats'. They just aren't as big so they don't always have somewhere being attacked. It seems to me like you're assuming the worst because you don't know, despite the Tau intentionally being the naive idealist empire. Of course they're going to look nicer, because they are nicer. And that will bite them in the ass. A lot of the fluff concerning them is geared towards their keyword being 'future', whereas the Imperium's might be 'past'. Future tech, bright outlook, quickly growing, continuing to advance...will be forced to learn some many harsh lessons the hard way, may end up screwing themselves over, will probably be eaten by 'Nids along with everyone else...

There hasn't been much BL stuff with the Tau as main characters, sadly, but the same is true for basically every other faction that isn't either Chaos or Imperium. Rather annoying. >.>

As for Warp space, I thought it was basically condensed space or something in terms of how it and reality get along? Distance-warping properties and all that jazz.

Also, why is it that humanity seems to be the only race with psychics that can be either Chaos or non-Chaos? Every other psychic race seems to be almost entirely one or the other.

[Grim Portent]

Also, why is it that humanity seems to be the only race with psychics that can be either Chaos or non-Chaos? Every other psychic race seems to be almost entirely one or the other.

Presumably because pretty much no other race split in half over chaos, they either fell completely or mostly resisted chaos.

There's a very small number of chaos Eldar, chaos Orks are iffy, a whole bunch of minor Xenos seem to be split along the mercenary/chaos zealot line.

[TempAcc]

Some stuff on certain short stories/novels (some of them involving Ollanius Pius and the Eldar) imply that the reason that chaos focuses on humanity so much is not only because humanity is very vulnerable to chaos, but also may be the instruments of chaos' ultimate undoing when it finally evolves enough. But this involves some Illuminati and Eldar shenaningas that is probably too cool to be cannon, as GWS despises anything that might threaten the stalemate.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Chaos is more a reactive than active force. They don't care about humanity's future ability any more than they care about the Tyranid invasion that's going to eat all the people that are making them exist. There's no sense of a need for survival amongst warpspace entities, they aren't even alive in the first place.