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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}}
