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===Biology===
The Navigators are different from other [[Human]]s in a number of ways: they possess 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 most distinctive and 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}}]]
While this third eye perfectly fills the sensory function as either of his normal eyes do, it is also able to open a miniscule [[Warp gate]] within itself from which stems all the Navigator’s powers. Although Navigators may open their third eye in an unremarkable way, the term “fully open” is used to describe the state required for its more extraordinary application. During the opening of this gate, a Navigator is able to glimpse the Empyrean in its true state,{{Fn|2f}} although their mind converts this image to a more mundane approximation; only with age does this comforting illusion recede, leaving apparent the true horror of the [[Warp]].{{Fn|2b}} Nonetheless, the ability to observe the Warp is crucial in their function as navigational officers, allowing them uniquely to have some semblance of assurance of their position within it.{{Fn|2f}} Indeed, it is the third eye that sets them as a race apart: where mankind was trapped within the cycle of the [[Warp]], feeding it until thier their destruction, with their third eye the Navigators gaze upon the insanity of the warp itself without fear, read it's movements, hear its infinite echoes and endless preterbationsperturbations, and in effect break the cycle. Though their resistance to [[Chaos]] is not perfect, and thousands of years of [[Warp Exposure]] has taken a toll.{{Fn|68}}
While the eye always appears within a genetically pure newborn, in some cases it is located deep within the skull, requiring trepanning surgery and/or a cybernetic shutter for it to be brought to its proper spot. These surgeries commonly occur during a Navigator's adolescence.{{Fn|2f}} If, even with both of the parents being Navigators, a newborn has his Navigator Gene dormant, and no Third Eye to speak of, they are called a [[Typhlotic]]. Even if the child is a barren fruit of the line, they aren't known to be harmed, and are kept around, although the specifics of their role in the house are unknown.{{Fn|13b}} Notwithstanding the Navigators' toleration of their unfortunate typhlotic kinfolk, the appearance of them within a lineage is considered a threat to the house's survival. Across their history there were a few known houses who slowly but surely lost the ability to produce purestrain genestock, and at some point not even spending their whole fortune on [[bloodbroker]]s and unsound marriage arrangements is able to save the house from falling back into baseline Humanity, without any such useful abilities as their ancestors possessed.{{Fn|3f}} The Navigator Gene is easily lost through its recessive nature, and can only be saved for future generations through intermarriage. It is lost when bred with ordinary humans.{{Fn|7}}{{Fn|10c}}
The only use to the Imperium of the Navigator's pineal eye is its aid in Warp navigation, however it also possesses qualities that are rarely exploited in practice, able to summon powers that although powerful rarely outweigh the risk of losing a Navigator by forcing them into perilous situations that would require them. On its own the eye does nothing, Navigator's extra optical apparatus, and still some find it unsettling to look at,{{Fn|2f}} especially psykers, who can see its Warp gate even when it's closed.{{Fn|15}} However when the Navigator chooses to open the inner gate, or even accidentally glimpses at someone when having it inadvertently opened, it unleashes the power of the Warp in its cone of vision. Young Navigators, the least experienced in handling their bizarre anatomy, can only unleash the full potential of the Warp - '''Lidless Stare''' - while reported that some can survive its blast for a split second, unprepared or found wanting perish all, their mind driven mad and evaporated in an unmeasurably minuscule time.{{Fn|2h}} It is however an instant death, which when provided with worse alternatives is able to be perceived as merciful.{{Fn|40}} Other times, it can be an excruciating death where one drowns on imperceivable tides, suffocating on the unknown and their own blood.{{Fn|1b}} One of the few survivors described it as if the sea of warp, distant, yet all-encompassing bubbled to the surface of the materium to swallow him with its paradoxical nature, dismayed as to how the barrier between the worlds in that very moment was as thin as the lens of an eye.{{Fn|40}} It is the main reason why enmity of a Navigator or in the worst scenario,{{Fn|41b}} a possession of one by a daemon is an extremely hazardous ordeal.{{Fn|41a}} For there is nothing stopping that creature from unleashing this highest of the horrors upon one's soul, fracturing its fleshy vessel in an instant.{{Fn|41b}}
Stories of how Navigators can kill with their third eye circulate both within and without the Navis Nobilite Houses. These stories also tell of how killing with their eye attracts [[Daemon]]s. It is true that if a Navigator takes a life with their third eye it is like a beacon flash in the warp, attracting both daemons and many lesser warp-things, such as the warp echoes and the spirits of the recent dead. This may also cause the Navigator's third eye to bleed, as well as the eye to be in notable amount of pain or discomfort.{{Fn|1b}}
If the Navigator chooses to hone their eye's power, they are able to modulate its output to the point where it can be used as a non-lethal tool, the third eye is thus able to utterly immobilize any creature its sight falls upon. It is especially useful against psykers, additionally debilitating them against the use of their powers. Daemons still are damaged by it, loosing coherence in this sight, slowly deteriorating back into Warp energies they were formed with.{{Fn|2h}} Further lesser emanation can simply shock, or otherwise stupefy a person, inflicting upon them visions of dread forcing them to either flee or suffer a severe melt-down.{{Fn|12f}} Only those who learned to more amiably manifest the warp eye are allowed to enter into a Navigator duel, requiring for Warp eye to not deal a lethal blow, which due to the readiness of the youth to be chosen as a representative combatant of a house, implies this ability to be taught relatively early in life.{{Fn|3j}}