Warp jump

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Imperial ships enter the Warp[13]

A warp jump is a form of faster-than-light travel around the Galaxy by means of entering the Warp, a parallel psychic dimension, and re-emerging to a new location in real space light years away from the starting position.

Overview

Moving between the empyrean and the void was never an ordered, sedate affair. Even the most routine of passages, if there ever had been such a thing, was an act of supreme violence.


Imperial Navy vessels exiting the warp.[21]

A warp jump consists of a ship entering the warp from real space by activating its warp drives to open a tear between realities, traveling the currents of the warp by means of its conventional drives for an appropriate time, and then using its warp drives to re-enter real space at a new position, having bypassed light years of galactic space. This process is known as a jump or hop, and the act of entering or leaving the warp is known as a drop, shift, or translation.[1b] In order to safely utilize the Warp for travel, one must first travel to a System's Mandeville Point. This is the closest distance that a ship can safely enter or exit Warp Space from its intended destination.[8] If one does not travel to a Mandeville Point, they risk having their Warp jump's direction and navigational calculations interfered with by the gravity of planets and other celestial objects.[9] The next viable traversable point of a system are its gravipauses (Lagrange point).[Note 1] These are calm spots in a system where the pull of gravity from multiple bodies equal out. Although these are safe ports for warp traveral, they are hard to traverse safely and exiting one is a dangerous affair. The inter-dimensional gravity of large mass bodies in realspace ineffably creates dangerous obstacles in the Empyrean. The greater the gravity the greater the peril.[23]

When a portal for a Warp jump is opened, whether a vessel is exiting or entering the warp, it destabilizes nearby gravity. The closer one is to the portal, the greater the gravitational instability, until the portal closes.[10] Entering and exiting these portals (warp translation) causes horrendous torsion stresses on a ship's superstructure.[22] The kaleidoscopic rift will eventually be forced shut by the pressure of reality.[14d] The dangers of executing a warp jump while within a gravity-well are known to every voidcraft captain of the Imperium. If done so, the warp rift used by the vessel won't immediately clench shut after passing through and will instead grow to engulf anything nearby in warp and gravitational anomaly. This invariably unleashes untold ruination upon the local area post-departure.[14b]

Logistical difficulty compounds due to the fact that the warp doesn't follow the normal laws of physics. It is ever-moving with inconsistent currents and tides, so the exact exit location of long-distance journeys is often unpredictable. Small jumps of up to four light years are generally accurate, while longer jumps can be dangerous or a long way off mark. It is safer and easier to travel from some Systems to others where established channels with well-charted warp currents are regularly used for Imperial shipping.[1b]

To add further unpredictability, there are drastic time differences between the warp and real space. Time passes at notably variable rates between both realities. Only once a ship jumps out of the warp can it learn how long its journey has taken in real time.[1b] Generally, however, one day in the warp relates to twelve days real time. Sometimes, ships and fleets within the warp can be caught in time bubbles for hundreds of years. This can lead to some strange, but extremely rare, events such as armies being sent across the galaxy to defend a threatened planet only to arrive many years too late, the planet already long lost to enemy forces. There have even been odd accounts of ships going back in time and emerging before they entered the warp. With the nature of the warp, anything is possible.[1a]

Ships exit warp jumps riding eddies of complex gravitic waves, rippling the local gravitic map. Warp signatures of a ship entering or exiting the immaterial sea can be detected, if within a certain range. Ships might arrive at the outer edges of a system, or lesser Mandeville Point, in attempts to avoid detection and enemies homing in on their warp signature.[18]

A warp jump can be achieved in two ways - a calculated jump[1b] or a piloted jump.[1a][1b]

Calculated jumps

A short jump can be carried out by calculating the ship's projected course, corrective manoeuvres, approximate journey time, and exit point before it starts the warp jump. While the ship is still in real space, its warp drive has the ability to monitor that part of the warp corresponding to the ship's current position and observe how the warp is currently flowing. But this monitoring can only be done from real space, which means this type of jump is inherently unpredictable as it relies on the warp currents not changing once the ship is in flight, as once inside the warp there is no longer any way the movements can be detected and all the ship can do is carry on blindly until it emerges in real space and hope it arrived in the planned location. Generally a safe distance for this type of jump is up to four light years.[1b]

The cost of the Navigator is nigh always too costly for most of the fleets, that is why commonly found Chartist captains of the Merchant Fleet, came to rely successfully on series of maps depicting the stable routes in the Immaterium,[33] while more reliable, it is nowhere as fast as a piloted jump made by Navigator, requiring multiple stops for confirming their positions in galaxy[1b], many of those maps they possess were made by Navigators themselves, although rendered on paper instead in a psychic abstract the Navigators are known to inscribe in.[28c]

Within the imperium there exist technologies that allow ships to travel without the use of Navigators, however they are often turned illegal or pushed towards obsoletism, most often due to the Navis Nobilite houses' desire to hold their monopoly over space travel. Among them there exist: Prognosticators, considered a heretek that allows for calculated jumps no other cogitators are able to provide;[30] Klenova Class M Warp Engines, which although legal and still produced, is currently litigated against by the Nobilite, and use of them brings ire of the houses upon the particular fleet owner;[30] Immaterios Novis, a purported tech of Xeno Hybris, said to utterly replace the need of Navigators, with faster short jumps, a matter of particular interest to many parties;[35] Void Abacus, archeotech from the Dark Age of Technology, allowing for unpiloted jumps to be at least 4 times longer, while the Navis Nobilite can't outlaw them against the will of Mechanicum, they devote their means to acquire and destroy any Abacus that ever surfaces.[12e]

Piloted Jumps

A Space Marine Battle Barge exiting the Warp[12]

Human Piloted Jumps

Longer jumps of up to 5,000 light years can be done by steering a ship through the currents of the warp. Only human mutants known as Navigators can do this, as they have the ability to look upon the warp without going mad from exposure to it. Within the warp they can sense the Astronomican, a powerful psychic homing beacon centred on Terra, and use it as a sort of navigational reference aid by judging its distance, strength and position so they can inform the ship's captain to adjust heading when the ship is forced off-course by warp currents. However, piloted jumps still remain unpredictable and dangerous as the Astronomican's power, though immense, is limited to a diameter of about 50,000 light years from Terra; also Warp Storms and psychic phenomena such as the Shadow in the Warp can disrupt and block the beacon.[1a][1b]

The Navigators, as the name suggests, give directions as to how the ship should be steered while traversing the immaterial seas. Only they can see the warp eddies, storms, and other trials complicating the journey.[19a] It's rare for a Navigator to die on duty during a warp jump, but not impossible. If the Navigator dies, becomes possessed, or is otherwise incapacitated, the ship will have to steer blind, which can lead to a number of undesirable results.[14c] (with the exception of the Psycharus Worm, which is capable of animating dead Navigators for use in navigation and for murder)[25] If a Navigator is lost to madness in the midst of empyric translation procedures, the vessel may be forced to make an emergency translation. If the ship isn't foundered on violent empyric tides and also avoids exiting the warp within or near another celestial body, it could come barrelling end over end as it tumbles out of the immaterial realm.[14c]

Warp Witches, are a human breed of Rogue Psykers emergent among Void Born populations that are able to replace Navigators in their position, albeit in a crude manner and never truly approaching Navigator's gift, they nonetheless allow a piloted jump, when no other means is available.[1c] One of renegade Navigators was known to employ a whole coterie of those, to guide his pirate fleet.[26]

Chaos Mutation may be able to cause individuals who are not born Navigators to become able to navigate like them, one such mutation may have occurred within Sendak Voltrasse whose flesh fused to his suit while his eyes were removed, but that may also have been the effect of the obsidian sphere engraved with blasphemous runes embedded in his chest.[28b]

Sorcerer Piloted Jumps

Chaos Space Marines and other followers of the Dark Gods are known to make use of sorcerers to pilot their vessels' travel through the warp. Traitors of the Imperium are often lacking in supplies and Navigators are one such rare commodity, however Chaos Navigators do exist. Sorcerers carve a path through the warp, parting the Sea of Souls, rather than navigating around obstacles.[38a][38b]

Leagues of Votann Piloted Jumps

The Squats of the Leagues of Votann utilise Warp Drives broadly similar to the Imperium, but of superior design. They also use Ironkin dubbed Wayfinders to navigate the Warp. Overall, Leagues of Votann Warp Jumps are more accurate and safer despite often being shorter and slower.[16]

Eldar Piloted Jumps

Aboard Eldar corsairs' ships the function of a navigator is served by a Void Dreamer, a Seer capable of divining the near-future, therby finding safe passages within the Warp and through their own power able to ward the daemons from the vessel akin to Gellar Field.[27b]

White Seers, the Eldar Seers of the Black Library, are able to look upon the Warp itself without fear, a feat which they use to navigate Web-Runners to reach portions of the Webway which would otherwise be inaccessible.[34]

Kroot Piloted Jumps

Kroot manage to navigate Warp to a similar degree of finesse that Imperium can without the use of Navigators, a fact that remains a mystery to the Imperial investigations.[36]

Ork Piloted Jumps

Orks make a use of their brand of navigators[27a][31] which are invariably simple Weirdboyz[27a], navigating the Warp through crude intuition and primitive divination.[27a][31] Their exploits allow for the same short Warp jumps the Imperium makes without the use of their Navigators. As still, they are prone to accidentally letting their vessel lost.[31] However, they can move through Warp Storms at speeds that baffle even the most experienced Navigators.[28a] In spite of those benefits most Orks forego the use of Ork navigators altogether.[32]

Limitation of Warp Travel

Ships coming out of the warp must appear some distance away in deep space or risk destruction among the graviton surges in-system. Because of this many civilised worlds have specific jump points marked by beacons to assist in navigation. An ambushing fleet will often lurk nearby, in the hopes of catching a ship unaware.[6]

Length of Warp Travel

Estimating the length of a warp jump, at least for the Imperium, is extremely difficult and inconsistent. As the Warp is ever-shifting, determining the length of a jump is difficult for even even semi-fluctuating passages. The Questio Logisticus branch of the Administratum is dedicated to this difficult task.[11]
A table with examples/estimates of travel duration through the Warp[1a]

One example is given for travel between the Hive World of Proxx and the Mining World of Hephastian. These planets are separated by dozens of light years and a standard voyage in the warp will take one to six weeks. However, some voyages have been recorded as taking 1,200 years and another in as little as two minutes. 22% of the voyages have yet to reach their destination.[11]

In another example, the warp route between Gallimo and Vorlese is fairly stable, and travel between the two worlds typically takes about 5 days.[19b]

A long journey across two thirds of the Imperium could take several years. One recorded voyage from Terra to the Eastern Fringe of the galaxy took a little over a year in the warp, as recorded by Canoness Sepherina who was aboard the vessel. After reemerging from the warp at their destination, it was revealed that six years had passed in the Materium since their departure.[45]

Dangers of Warp Travel

Oh Eternal God-Emperor, preserve us from the dangers of the void.


Inquisition operative experiencing local warp frost and waking nightmares during warp translation.[20]

The warp is populated with many unnatural beasts and chaotic daemons. In warpspace, these creatures have free reign, and an unprotected ship will be subject to their predations. To combat this, warp-faring species have invented warp-repelling barriers to mount on their ships (the human version being the Gellar Field). These allow races of the material realm to traverse the warp unmolested; nevertheless, these devices aren't infallible, and occasionally the souls of entire crews are devoured by Chaos.[7] Smaller ships generally attract less attention from what lies within the warp. Hell will still attempt to bypass the Gellar field, but to a lesser degree compared to a more substantial target.[17]

Even during the smoothest of voyages through the warp, mortals will be often be plagued with waking nightmares and horrific visions, sometimes referred to as warp shock taking hold.[19a] Travel through the warp induces unpleasant and dangerous effects for the crew. Serfs may be plagued by waking nightmares, causing constant outbursts of violent despair. Servitors normally immune to empirical ephemera have summoned contradictory instructions from the depths of their lobotomised minds or ceased to function altogether. Even acolytes and adepts of the Adeptus Mechanicus have found their work tainted by data geists.[14a]

During warp translation, military forces are often stationed at staging posts across a ship as a precaution against any intrusive empyric phenomena that might arise at the boundary between the real and unreal.[14e] During transit within the empyrean, techseers or other priests might be found crossing and recrossing the ship. They lead processions singing hymns of worship, giving praise to the spirit of the vessel that carries them, while also blessing and warding both the mortal and machine passengers.[14c] On Imperial vessels the Priests of the Ministorum will often be brought out for similar reasons across a ship, calling on the God-Emperor to grant them safe passage. The ship and crew are at their most vulnerable when translating from one dimension to another. Warp phenomena grow more extreme during translation, where what was only distant laughs and whispers on the vox become screams coming from no discernible source.[23] To reduce dangers, stable Warp Routes are routinely sought after.[10]

Aside from malign entities, very real obstacles can moor a vessel traversing the Sea of Souls. Skilled ship captains, crew, and Navigators are needed to traverse the most perilous translations and journeys. Black holes and other large mass bodies of gravitational significance in realspace create dangerous shoals, reefs, cliffs, and other dangerous obstacles in the warp. This is due to some ineffable result of the relationship between the Empyrean and realspace. The greater the gravity the greater the danger.[23]

Any unfortunate mortals clinging to the exterior of the voidship's hull while it makes a warp jump will experience an excruciating death several times over in a few seconds; being scorched and flayed to the bone by the initial waves of psychic energy emanating from the warp portal.[44]

Other Methods of Warp Travel

Webway

Main article: Webway

The Webway is a series of secret portals and tunnels used by the Eldar and Dark Eldar. Placed a long time ago throughout the galaxy and on Eldar Craftworlds, each gateway is a point in real space linked to another point in real space by a tunnel through the Warp that is protected from the hostile nature of the warp because it exists between the two realities but not entirely in either. Journeys through these tunnels can be made in a fixed time.[1b] The arterial tunnels are large enough to carry spacecraft, though most tunnels only accommodate human-sized creatures or small vehicles.[4] The Webway is ancient and some passageways and gates are lost and broken.[1b]

Necrons have created artificial ingresses into the Webway, known as Dolmen Gates, which they utilize to move their fleets through the webway.[3] Just prior to the Horus Heresy, the Emperor of Mankind oversaw a Project to create an artificial human Webway Portal, but failed in the attempt.[2]

Warp Gates

Main article: Warp Gate

Warp Gates are tunnels into stable regions of the Warp which provide an easy path to another Warp Gate at a fixed point in Reality, such as the Khthonic Gate and Elysian Gate in the Sol System. The gates were constructed by ancient Humanity during the Dark Age of Technology and their workings are not understood by the Imperium.[37]

Warp Rift

Main article: Warp rift

A warp rift, also known as a warp portal [1b], is a point in real space that interfaces with the warp to form a stable exit and entry point so the use of warp drives is not required. The Enslavers are a race known to use warp rifts to travel between the warp and real space. But the exact nature of how such portals or rifts work is not understood by the Imperium. Sometimes warp rifts occur randomly, other times the Chaos Gods or mortals manufacture them. Some last mere moments, others for days, years, or even centuries. Permanent large-scale warp rifts such as the Eye of Terror and the Maelstrom provide a safe haven for Chaos as well as a gateway for them to attack the Galaxy. [1b][5]

Methods of Non-Warp Travel

Main article: FTL
Necrons
Tyranids
T'au

See also

Trivia

TriviaScrollTrans.png

The following information is not to be regarded as officially sanctioned and/ or is not written from an in-universe point of view. A detailed explanation of the term "Trivia" as used in the Lexicanum can be found here.

  • Note 1: A "gravipause" is similar to a Lagrange point of an orbiting celestial body of a star system. The term "Lagrange point" has been used in multiple novels taking place in both the 30k and 40k settings.[42][43] Humans sailing the stars have known of these "gravity-null" areas since as far back as the Great Crusade,[39][41] if not in earlier eras of humanity's spacefaring history.[40]

Sources

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