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{{ImperiumPortal}}
'''Navigators''' (''Homo navigo''){{Fn|11b}} are a strain of [[abhuman]]s{{Fn|2e}} responsible for guiding [[Human]] ships in [[Warp_jump#Piloted_jumps|Jump]]s through the [[Warp]], via the use of their specialised third eye. Without the Navigators, rapid voyages beyond the closest systems would be impossible, thus being one of the [[Imperium]]'s most valuable assets.{{Fn|3b}} The majority of them comprise various Houses of [[Navis Nobilite]], highly influential within the Imperium of Man.{{Fn|2f}} Their status as [[mutant]]s and members of the elite causes Navigators to rarely interact with other members of Imperial society.{{Fn|4b}}
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[[Navigator House]]s are ruled by [[Novator]]s, inheritors to their family holdings and it is the millenias-long ambition of every house to one day reach the position of [[Paternova]], the overall ruler of the Navigator Houses and controller of the great [[Navigator Palace]] on [[Terra|Earth]], though few but the most powerful houses have achieved this apex.{{Fn|68}} The Navigator Gene is easily lost through its recessive nature, and can only be saved for future generations through intermarriage{{Fn|7}}{{Fn|10c}} – a genetic reality which has resulted in the complex webs of fealty through which power has concentrated within the houses which truly contest [[Paternova]]; relying upon controlled [[Trade War]] and [[Assassination]] where political alliance fails.{{Fn|68}}
The arranged marriages between Houses are influenced by the webs of inter-House politics. Even those married off to another House, taking on their name, will more than likely return to their birth-House to be interred in their bloodline's crypts. Other Navigators might make a formal announcement renouncing their former house, fully embracing the one they married into in order to abandon a failing House they were born into.{{Fn|69}}
Few Navigators are ever bred easily, and their children are incredibly precious commodities — being the currency with which to purchase the future and prosperity of their House. Typically after a century or two of service, a Navigator will be called back to their House for an arranged marriage in order to have children.{{Fn|1a}} These pairing carefully selected affairs that take into account multiple factors such as genetics of their bloodlines, political manouvering, business deals or transactions, alliances between Houses,{{Fn|1a}}{{Fn|69}} even consulting [[Imperial Tarot]] readings,{{Fn|69}} all with the goal of maximising the profit or genetics of the House.{{Fn|1a}}
===Biology===
The Navigators are different from other [[Human]]s in a number of ways: they posess posses a superior lifespan (even without [[juvenat]] treatments one can easily live up to around three or four hundred years),{{Fn|7}} they are never born as [[Psyker]]s (although classified as psykers in some instances, they can't possess any standard psionic gift, inherently lacking any [[The Assignment|psy rating]]). However the the primary trait of a Navigator is their pineal eye, also known as their [[Warp Eye]], nested in a socket on their forehead.{{Fn|3a}} Homo navigo are a borderline sub-species of Homo sapiens.{{Fn|1a}}
[[Image:Dark Heresy The Lathe Worlds - Navigator's skull crossection .jpg|thumb|right|250px|Navigator's skull crossection, showing how the pineal eye connects to the brain{{Fn|52}}]]
{{Heretic Tomes}}
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*{{Endn|1}}: [[Blood Reaver (Novel)]], :**{{Endn|1a}}: Chapter 5**{{Endn|1b}}: Chapter 19
*2: [[Rogue Trader: Core Rulebook]]:
**{{Endn|2a}}: pg. 18-19
*{{Endn|67}}: [[Deathwatch: The Achilus Assault]], pg. 63
*{{Endn|68}}: [[The Citadel Journal 18]], pgs. 26-33 – ''Navigators''
*{{Endn|69}}: [[Rite of Passage (Novel)]], ''Azariel's Wake''
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