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Supposedly the only way human space flight works is through the astronomicon. Which is powered by the Emperor's psychic force.

Obviously, there are issues with this. The first being, how did man come to span the galaxy before the Emperor was in power. Heck, how did the crusade even get going if the Emperor was amongst part of the fleet in the beginning. If he's the driving force of the light, and the light can be considered to be like a lighthouse offering a fixed point that navigators can work from... Obviously if that point was moving it would have been hell to know where you were going.

However, it seems we could just throw all of that away. The Tau have FTL. Why not just take it from them and refit the ships? You could dispense with navigators completely. Communication between the worlds could still be handled by the astro choir.

So, if you were in control of the IoM, would you make conquering the Tau for their technology a high priority?

Tau FTL is supremely inferior to the IoM's FTL, without navigators you can't go completely into the warp. The tau system just skims the warp, but is a lot slower than the IoM's

What Huffy said.

The Tau are not a threat to the Imperium.

I guess the question is: does it matter if their FTL is that mch slower?

Currently a planet could send a distress call that might go unanswered for 100 years simply because the government takes that long to respond. Or it might simply be that the forces were sent shortly after receiving the call but due to the fickleness of the warp they wouldn't arrive until many many years later.

Tau FTL is much much slower then Imperium one ( 1/5 slower ). While Imperials need days to get from system to system the Tau would need weeks or months. And as we said earlier Mechanicus would see using Tau technology as a Heresy and offence to the machine God and would never use it.

As for Astronomicon, we don't actually know how Humans keep communication in the DAoT. We only know that they were "colonizing blindly the galaxy" ( basically enter the Warp, and where he emerge he emerge. If he emerge at all. ) I only know about worlds near Terra have been close enough for "outdated" FTL to be used effectively. For the rest of the galaxy ( like how Human colony in today's Ultramar keep contact with Earth then ) I don't know.

Astronomicon was active in the time of Great Crusade, but it was not as powerful as now until the Emperor was hooked on the Golden Throne and his remaining life force and willpower started to power up the Astronomicon.


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clively wrote:I guess the question is: does it matter if their FTL is that much slower?

For an empire the size of Imperium it does. With fronts everywhere and enemies pushing from all directions the Imperium is dependable on fast Warp drives, otherwise Imeprium would be as big as Segmentum Solar only.

One thing to keep in mind about the warp and the need for the astromonican around the great crusade, the warp was much calmer around that time. Just prior to the crusade the Fall of the eldar empire happened. The eldar's emotions coalesced into Slanesh, and the psychic shockwave from her birth killed most of the eldar and also calmed the warp, making warp travel safe and reliable compared to M41. The fall of the eldar empire allowed the emperor to create his. This didn't last however and the imperium now needs the beacon to act as a reference point to travel.

clively wrote:I guess the question is: does it matter if their FTL is that mch slower?

Currently a planet could send a distress call that might go unanswered for 100 years simply because the government takes that long to respond. Or it might simply be that the forces were sent shortly after receiving the call but due to the fickleness of the warp they wouldn't arrive until many many years later.

If they're 100 years away from the nearest Imperial Planet, it's a wonder they manage to stay in the Imperium at all.

So a theory, and most likely not even new. If warp travel is dangerous now, and the last time it was like this a chaos god was formed by the psychic impression of a sentient race on the warp, could that truly point to the birth of a new god in the warp? And would that god be born of the race of man? or another race altogether?

What do you guys think?

I don't think any race in the galaxy currently has both the psychic potential and the numbers to create another chaos god. Also its less that the turbulent warp caused the birth of slanesh as the birth calmed the warp. The natural state of the warp is, understandably, chaotic.

thakabalpuphorsefishguy wrote: So a theory, and most likely not even new. If warp travel is dangerous now, and the last time it was like this a chaos god was formed by the psychic impression of a sentient race on the warp, could that truly point to the birth of a new god in the warp? And would that god be born of the race of man? or another race altogether?

What do you guys think?

I don't see this as being in impossible, but what would this God be? Humans engage in all of the predations of the current gods, and eldar lived in complete excess. Which there was no chaos god for at the time. So if there was a race that was so profoundly absorbed in some sort of emotion or action then it is possible. However this race would have to be massive, which rules out eldar, dark eldar, tau, tyranids (no emotion), Necrons (again no emotion), and chaos (already committed to current gods). That leaves orks and the Imperium. Orks have been around a long time so I'm assuming they would have birthed a new one by now. And the Imperium does as I said before. If there was to be one, it would have to be a chaos god of extreme order (an oxymoron) as that is basically what seperates the Imperiums society from others.

Just to point out that Tau's old (probably ancient in Tau terms) bag of cack cargo trucks were the ones that were 1/5 and 1/3 of 'average' Imperial warp speed, as found in the official BFG PDFs. Now they have a new generation of generally much better ships, though with no official FTL speed that I'm aware of (anything in the Taros IA?). It would be fair to assume that there's the possibility that the newer ships might be faster (in the same way that an F-22's faster than a Mustang, within just a fifth of the time we're comparing to), since Tau have rapidly evolving tech.

I've got no dog in this fight, but that reasonable possibility should be entertained, in fairness. If anyone's got some authoritative statements about the FTL speed of the newer crop of Tau ships, I'd love to read them.

If they were, say, 0.67 'average' - but absolutely reliable in that 0.67 rather than possibly disappearing forever or turning up a century overdue - then the IoM may well be interested (and can pragmatically chill with the heresy! business when it needs to).

clively wrote:Which is powered by the Emperor's psychic force.

That's propaganda.

The Astronomicon existed long before the Emperor took power and is not, in any way, connected to the current body of the Emperor. It's a machine driven by psychic power, but at no point was or is it the Emperor's.

And, as you correctly pointed out, humanity was able to travel the galaxy before. The warp became more unstable as the Fall of the Eldar progressed; humanity set out before that really set in. This is how they got cut off, as well. When the Fall was in full swing, intragalactic travel became impossible for humanity.

The Astronomicon doesn't actually do anything to make travel possible. It's just a light house. But it's also the only stable landmark in the warp for navigators to drive by.

DarknessEternal wrote:

clively wrote:Which is powered by the Emperor's psychic force.

That's propaganda.

The Astronomicon existed long before the Emperor took power and is not, in any way, connected to the current body of the Emperor. It's a machine driven by psychic power, but at no point was or is it the Emperor's.

It is not powered by the Emperor, but the Emperor is the one who has the ability to control that power and guide it across the galaxy. The actual source for the Astronomican are the psykers who feed it. Think of the Adeptus Astronomica as the energy source with the Emperor being the lense that focuses all that energy.

And, as you correctly pointed out, humanity was able to travel the galaxy before. The warp became more unstable as the Fall of the Eldar progressed; humanity set out before that really set in. This is how they got cut off, as well. When the Fall was in full swing, intragalactic travel became impossible for humanity.

The Astronomicon doesn't actually do anything to make travel possible. It's just a light house. But it's also the only stable landmark in the warp for navigators to drive by.

The Astronomican doesn't make the act of traveling possible, but it does make sure that the IoM can travel safely. Sure it is possible for me to drive around a pitch black night without headlights, but it would not be safe. So in that scenario headlight make travel at night "possible".

Source.

Edit: That blue was horrible to read.

thakabalpuphorsefishguy wrote: So a theory, and most likely not even new. If warp travel is dangerous now, and the last time it was like this a chaos god was formed by the psychic impression of a sentient race on the warp, could that truly point to the birth of a new god in the warp? And would that god be born of the race of man? or another race altogether?

What do you guys think?

See "Starchild theory" (IIRC anyways).

Emporer is being reborn as a God in the Warp.

Humans during the Dark Age of Technology used short-ranged warp jumps with Navigators, but long-range warp travel and FTL communications didn't exist (except by courier ship). During the Great Crusade, the Emperor powered and focused the Astronomican Himself, making it more powerful than it is now. But when He began work on the Webway, He couldn't protect the Human-built sections of the Webway and power the Astronomican at the same time. Malcador offered a substitute: ten thousand psykers would be sacrificed to power the Astronomican while the Emperor focused it while keeping Human-built sections of the Webway shielded. The Emperor agreed, but made it clear that this was to be a temporary solution. Unfortunately, with the Horus Heresy and the destruction (or perhaps, incompletion) of the Imperial Webway, the Emperor never got around to powering the Astronomican by Himself again.