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How come, if the warp is so random, spat guys back through time when their travailing through the warp? And why don't they. Marines could easily put a stop to other races and killing their ancestors. Or even killing their leaders when they were young? Or even, what if orks were spat out of the warp when humans first started using weapons? Wouldn't it be easier to kill armies in the past than in the present?

Read the Ork codex, one Warboss was spat back in time to before he had started his Waaagh, He killed his past self to get another copy of his favorite gun and promptly ceased to exist and the whole thing never started

It has. It has spat an Ork Warboss, Eldar Craftworlds, Imperial Ships sent to war zones, many Rogue Trader ships, and who knows what else.

As others have said it has, if you're talking about why hasen't it sent anyone to say the Horus Heresy period or brought anyone to the future from the HH period it's because that would be a huge plot issue for the setting. If you had a Space Marine battle barge pop back to the HH then they could warn the Emperor of what Horus would do and there goes the HH. Also most often those who are thrown through time have to become lost in the Warp for it to happen.

Yeah but why has no marine gone back and told the emprah about the HH.

Because time travel via the Warp doesn't work that way.

There's no way to 'target' a specific time period.

But don't troops deep strike using the warp? How come, most of the time, they end up in the desired position, or close to it?

DAWARBOSS wrote:But don't troops deep strike using the warp?

Kind of/sort of. Teleportation involves a great deal of precision calculations and more often than not, a beacon to be activated at the target. Things can go incredibly wrong, incredibly fast.

How come, most of the time, they end up in the desired position, or close to it?

Because they're not trying to go back in time, which requires very specific circumstances to happen. You also can't teleport (in most cases) from one location in one system to another location in another system (or another planet for that matter) without a second teleportation platform in place.

Blame Tzeentch. He probably had Fateweaver tell him what's going to happen and the big guy gave the time travellers a u-turn.

In all seriousness though, while there are probably alot of ships and crewmen thrown back into the HH's time, none of them can possibly get past the Imperial Army to warn the Emperor, especially since their equipment would seem outlandish and weird (imagine a Crimson Fist being thrown back and tried to verify which chapter he came from). The vastness of the Imperium is what makes it possible, but at the same time it is due to that vastness that anyone that does get sent back to that time will either 1.) probably not realise they got flung back to the Horus Heresy and die in obscurity when they can't contact anyone or 2.) be shot on site for being imposters. Like Kan said there's no way to "target" any specific point in time, so any time travellers will have to improvise, which means they'll never make it into a position to influence anyone.

DAWARBOSS wrote:Yeah but why has no marine gone back and told the emprah about the HH.

Uh did you not read my post right above yours that details why no marine has gone back and told the Emperor about the HH.

A pre-heresy cruiser rocked up at Terra once after being lost for a few thousand years.
Not technically time travel but it's kinda similar...

Well, I suppose that even if it happens (or has happend), it would annull itself in the resulting paradox.

1. Horus Heresy

2. Joe goes back in time to warn the Emperor of the Heresy.

3. Emperor knows what is gonna happen and takes appropriate measures. The Heresy (see 1) never happens.

4. Without the Horus Heresy (e.g. no 1), Joe no longer knows or realizes that there is a need for him to go back in time. His time travel (see 2) never happens.

5. Without Joe going back in time (e.g. no 2), the Emperor is not warned and cannot take appropriate measures to prevent the Horus Heresy (see 3).

6. Horus Heresy

One of the FFG books has a snippet of information about a warship on its way to fight against the 13th Black Crusade which happened to travel back in time to just a few years before the ship was launched. When the ship docked at a naval facility to get its bearings after being lost in the Warp, the entire crew was arrested and executed on suspicion of being imposters - with the exception of the astropaths and navigators, who were deemed too valuable to discard.

Zweischneid wrote:Well, I suppose that even if it happens (or has happend), it would annull itself in the resulting paradox.

1. Horus Heresy

2. Joe goes back in time to warn the Emperor of the Heresy.

3. Emperor knows what is gonna happen and takes appropriate measures. The Heresy (see 1) never happens.

4. Without the Horus Heresy (e.g. no 1), Joe no longer knows or realizes that there is a need for him to go back in time. His time travel (see 2) never happens.

5. Without Joe going back in time (e.g. no 2), the Emperor is not warned and cannot take appropriate measures to prevent the Horus Heresy (see 3).

6. Horus Heresy

That's only if the voyage is voluntary. If any set of circumstances brought Joe back in time without a willing act by him, then he could modify the past and avoid that paradox probably.

If Joe's trip was involuntary, then what really happened is that he warned the Emperor that Sanguinous would turn on when he became warmaster - along with three other legions (Alpha Legion, Emperor's Children, World Eaters). The Emperor attempted to avoid this by making Horus warmaster instead, and this time things got even worse.

Is there not a Word Bearer that is sent back to when the Emperor is creating the Primarches by the Chaos gods to bugger around with the process and thus, lead to the "incident" that surrounds that event? I recall reading this somewhere on the forums in discussing one of the Horus Heresy novels.
ever pur
Anyhow, even if an Imperial ship from the 41st Millenium were to be sent back to say the 30th, wouldn't they just end up getting themselves killed by the humans of that period both for being relegious extremists who have perverted everything the Emperor stood for, and for calling everyone else heretics umpteen reasons? A little short story about an Imperial cruiser going back to those times (or even further back) would be nice, but with the death of Inferno!, I doubt GW'll pursue it.

Zweischneid wrote:Well, I suppose that even if it happens (or has happend), it would annull itself in the resulting paradox.

1. Horus Heresy

2. Joe goes back in time to warn the Emperor of the Heresy.

3. Emperor knows what is gonna happen and takes appropriate measures. The Heresy (see 1) never happens.

4. Without the Horus Heresy (e.g. no 1), Joe no longer knows or realizes that there is a need for him to go back in time. His time travel (see 2) never happens.

5. Without Joe going back in time (e.g. no 2), the Emperor is not warned and cannot take appropriate measures to prevent the Horus Heresy (see 3).

6. Horus Heresy

This is true. IF time was a line no matter what you would do in the past would have already happened. So Joe might have gone back in time to warn the Emperor and may have done it! it just didn't prevent the Heresy of Horus because the HH would have happened. Now if Joe went into the future that would be a different story... (like if a company of pre-heresy marines poped up from the past).

Hytanthas wrote: Now if Joe went into the future that would be a different story... (like if a company of pre-heresy marines poped up from the past).

Heh, like that pre-heresy Dark Angle that gets shot into the 41st Millenium during the battle for Caliban...but wakes up in the Eye of Terror. ^^'

Im gonna say the warp would be to unstable (as I understand it) at the time of the HH to allow that to happen, tzeench probably prevents that also. I have heard of something the other way round once, a pre-heresy ship emerging in M41, cant remember what happened though.

Taking this to far will turn into a time travel debate, in which case most peoples heads explode. Don't do it.

Oh noes... time paradoxes skaunblkgkmghiukulmhnku *universe collapses*

It happens more frequently in each codex.

For example, one of the Ultramarines apparently went back to the first founding and re-created his fifth (is that right?) founding chapter.

Zweischneid wrote:Well, I suppose that even if it happens (or has happend), it would annull itself in the resulting paradox.

1. Horus Heresy

2. Joe goes back in time to warn the Emperor of the Heresy.

3. Emperor knows what is gonna happen and takes appropriate measures. The Heresy (see 1) never happens.

4. Without the Horus Heresy (e.g. no 1), Joe no longer knows or realizes that there is a need for him to go back in time. His time travel (see 2) never happens.

5. Without Joe going back in time (e.g. no 2), the Emperor is not warned and cannot take appropriate measures to prevent the Horus Heresy (see 3).

6. Horus Heresy

Wibbly wobbly... Timey Wimey....

^^ Ha Ha... Wibbly Wobbly...^^ he doesnt even know what hes talking about (at least from that clip). LOL

There are two major theories about time. One that it is Linear and that it cannot deviate (ins more like a circle and that it all starts over again.. big bang theory speculates this as well) and the other is the creation of a separate timeline when an event is changed (a second line splitting off of the first. What ever it is it does't matter if some one was spat back in time because the 40K world we play in is ever changing (can anyone say Harlequins with Land Raiders and Squats and so forth).

Yeah, everyone keeps refering to events in the past as if they hadn't happened yet. That's your fundamental flaw.

If the afore mentioned Joe hits a time travel Warp to the past, it's not that he WILL try to warn the Emperor, it's that he DID try and warn the Emperor. Obviously, he failed, because if he hadn't have failed, things wouldn't have gone like they did.

Time Travel can't be viewed in linear time, just like you can't measure the length of a ruler using said ruler. Rather, you need to get a different ruler to measure your ruler. Likewise, you can't view time travel from any point WITHIN the time stream. You need to remove yourself to a point outside of the causal effect to see the paths that are-were-will be taken.

Time is, like a tapestry is. You can follow a single thread as it weaves through it, but the path taken by the thread doesn't alter the tapestry, it merely defines what is seen from the outside. [/zen]

It has: my real name is Phillip J. Fry and I am my own grandfather. Explains a lot, no?

It happens all the time.

Actually a Nurgling was sent back to our time.

If some random marine got sent back in time, managed to get an audience with the Emperor and then told him about the Heresy, he wouldn't give a ****. Magnus, one of his sons, warned him of the Heresy and Big-E tried the have Magnus killed.

Because Stephen Hawking said we can't, and his control extends beyond the warp.

Shrike325 wrote:If some random marine got sent back in time, managed to get an audience with the Emperor and then told him about the Heresy, he wouldn't give a ****. Magnus, one of his sons, warned him of the Heresy and Big-E tried the have Magnus killed.

That had a whole lot to do with HOW Maguns warned the Emperor. Sorcery and shattering the warp seals and stuff.

Still, I agree that, even IF the time traveler was spat out by chance in reach of the emperor at the right time and even IF the whole time paradox thing wouldn´t be an issue, he´d not be taken seriously and/or maybe killed on the spot (possible impostor + came from the warp = Daemon?).