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Dolmen Gates

As far as I am concerned, the creation of the Dolmen Gates lore was just plain lazy on Matt Wards part(THIS IS NOT A MATT WARD HATER THREAD).

Allow me to explain why this is just a lack of thinking things through. The old and new fluff indicates that Necrons have the ability to create working and stable wormholes from point A to point B(examples; Monoliths and Night Scythes). The Necron necessity for the Dolmen Gates is because they do not have faster than light travel(as of the new codex anyway). This is what is total bull-malarky. I am no scientist, but it seems to me that making a ship go even 1000x faster than the speed of light is way WAY easier than creating and maintaining a wormhole.

One of the best parts of the old Necron fluff was that Necron ships could travel incredible distances in no time flat. This was also one of the major things that made them so dangerous. In Hell Forged(a Soul Drinkers novel) an Ad Mech fleet attempts to flee a Necron fleet by making a random warp jump. After a few hours of warp travel they emerge back into realspace, only to find that same Necron fleet waiting for them.

Every thing else about the new Necron fluff, I like. Lords with personality, cool. Immortals and Lychguard that can think for themselves, cool. Even alittle bit of Necron infighting(such as it is), im ok with that. Dolmen gates just doesn't make sense and doesn't belong. Period.

Your thoughts Dakka?

I just hate the name "Dolmen gate"....That's as far as my hate extends...

The new book does not specifically say that they no longer have FTL travel, just that they also use the Webway to hop around when needed. It does mention that they have slow tomb ships that travel the stars, but compared to the massive size of the galaxy, moving at FTL is still decently slow

Seeing as no scientist has even come close to proposing how to either go massively faster than the speed of light without destroying the universe or creating a stable wormhole, we have no idea how hard it would be in reality if we don't even know how hard it would be theoretically.

If they can create stable wormholes to wherever they want to go, they already have the capability for FTL travel, without breaking the laws of physics (more or less I guess). Just open a wormhole in System A with the other end in System B and fly through it as fast as you can, and you'll get there way faster than the speed of light. They don't need the webway, and it didn't need to be written that way. I agree with OP.

I am fine with the gates, but as a weapon. I could see the gates being made and used as a way for them to get into the webway and ambush or hit the enemy unseen. After all the webway was the old ones way of travel. Having a way to breach that would have been the turning point in the war.


I do not see it as the main way of travel, I see it as a weapon. A tool to hit those who use the webway. Now to me you do not colonize the whole or even a large portion of the galaxy without some type of FTL. I like what I have heard of the old drives, but I like even more the idea od wormholes as they already use that technology.

Whether we call it a "wormhole" a "warp gate" or a "flubbly-wubbly tube" is irrelevant... in the 40K universe, if you're achieving FTL, you're using the Warp in some way, shape or form, even the non-Psychic Tau are "skipping" their FTL ships off the Warp like stones on a pond. Even the Eldar Webway is "the Warp", it simply makes use of it in a different way that makes it far less likely that you'll be eaten by daemons (not immune to, but far less likely). Dolmen Gates work basically the same way, they take advantage of the non-space functions of the Warp to establish a tunnel through it from Point A to B. Even if you just stroll down the tube, taking your sweet time, you're traveling faster than light by the time you reach the exit gate.

I am pretty sure the Dolmen Gates actively brake open a section of the webway. Not the warp or not making a new tunnel but forcing a way into the existing webway.

Could be, though even the Webway is a network of stable, safe tunnels through the Warp in some strange xeno fashion or another... who can guess at the ways of the Eldar?

The Dolmen Gates are described in a few sources as tunnels of green light and the illusion of motion. I would imagine like standing in a plastic habi-trail tube while a 70s sci-fi effect went on all around you in green.

I don't particularly like that new element of fluff.

Old fluff was better. Necrons now are essentially tied to the webway and are useless without it.

Problem with the old fluff was that there was no fluff.

40K has no faster-than-light travel. Interstellar travel depends on the warp, which at the same time presents the greatest danger. This dilemma is pretty central to the 40K universe.

OldCrons just ignored it and yet still travelled FTL .. well .. just .. because. Hell, in a way even the webway is a cheat on the basic premise of the universe.. though at least one that's been fleshed out a bit.

It's definitely a big change, but I think it's better and more fitting with the universe.

Before that, Necrons had FTL "just cause", which should really be an auto-win in galactic warfare.

What gets me is that the new codex says they have to use the gates for FTL, yet have wormhole capability. That is the one thing that confuses me..

Well, they do. The Dolmen Gates allow them to travel between Points A and B faster than light, in the physical universe, would be able to.

Let's say you're going from Earth to Fenris. Light from Sol would normally take, let's say, ten thousand years to get there. With a Dolmen Gate, it takes you five minutes. This is FTL travel.

When I said FTL travel, I was referring to the ability of a ship, without using a portal of some kind, to move faster than the speed of light.

Two things in response to be above.

@BluntmanDC - They actually have a working theory on faster than light travel using warp tech(similar to Star Trek). Its a good read, I highly recommend it.

@Zweischneid - There is fluff on the Necron shipsand their speeds, its in various books(Such as Hell Forged) and in the Necron section of Battlefleet Gothic stuff. Necrons could go way faster than the speed of light and didn't need any portals to do it. Which I loved, thus the reason for this thread.

I never really like the old-crons. They felt like the 40k fluff equivalent of the kid who, when playing guns or video game characters or whatever, said people "missed me" every time, or claimed to have a force field. There was some fluff there, but I was pretty meh on the faction as a whole.

The first bit of necron fluff I enjoyed was the Fall of Damnos book, with their personalities, ambitions, flaws, and infighting. Consequently, I enjoy the new-crons quite a bit more.

For me at least the, "we go super fast for no cost or consequence" thing was part of the personal "meh." The dolmen gate bit feels more interesting to me. That's not to say I rage-hated the old-crons, or am in love with the new ones, in general or specifically regarding their transportation. It was more, general ambivelence before, mild interest now.

DrimGark wrote:I never really like the old-crons. They felt like the 40k fluff equivalent of the kid who, when playing guns or video game characters or whatever, said people "missed me" every time, or claimed to have a force field. There was some fluff there, but I was pretty meh on the faction as a whole.

The first bit of necron fluff I enjoyed was the Fall of Damnos book, with their personalities, ambitions, flaws, and infighting. Consequently, I enjoy the new-crons quite a bit more.

For me at least the, "we go super fast for no cost or consequence" thing was part of the personal "meh." The dolmen gate bit feels more interesting to me. That's not to say I rage-hated the old-crons, or am in love with the new ones, in general or specifically regarding their transportation. It was more, general ambivelence before, mild interest now.

I had not thought about it like that. I have to admit, I know part of me dislikes this new part of the fluff is because it gimps the Necrons where before they where god-like.

My point still stands though, its the science that doesn't make sense.

I would have no issue with the wormhole thing,it could more or less work something like the Tau and would fit the fluff as they found it in some derelict ships and engineered it best they could.

I could see something like that or even the old drives or even some bubble dimition wrapped around the ship. All these are technologies the necrons currently use.

I would leave the gate, but yeah they need an FTL travel all their own.

Hunterindarkness wrote:I am fine with the gates, but as a weapon. I could see the gates being made and used as a way for them to get into the webway and ambush or hit the enemy unseen. After all the webway was the old ones way of travel. Having a way to breach that would have been the turning point in the war.


I do not see it as the main way of travel, I see it as a weapon. A tool to hit those who use the webway. Now to me you do not colonize the whole or even a large portion of the galaxy without some type of FTL. I like what I have heard of the old drives, but I like even more the idea od wormholes as they already use that technology.

Exactly. It should have remained a tactical asset for use against the Eldar. Ward just got carried away with the whole concept, it seems.

I would prefer it that they use their supposed mastery of time and space to just build a wormhole of their own instead of hijacking the webway and having to rush through it before they get locked in there.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Exactly. It should have remained a tactical asset for use against the Eldar. Ward just got carried away with the whole concept, it seems.

Agreed, it was a really cool concept that fit with them suddenly gaining the upper hand with the Old ones.

TheCrazyCryptek wrote:When I said FTL travel, I was referring to the ability of a ship, without using a portal of some kind, to move faster than the speed of light.

Two things in response to be above.

@BluntmanDC - They actually have a working theory on faster than light travel using warp tech(similar to Star Trek). Its a good read, I highly recommend it.

@Zweischneid - There is fluff on the Necron shipsand their speeds, its in various books(Such as Hell Forged) and in the Necron section of Battlefleet Gothic stuff. Necrons could go way faster than the speed of light and didn't need any portals to do it. Which I loved, thus the reason for this thread.

But that "Star Trek-style" Warp is not 40K Warp. The former is about "warping" (curving, bending, whatever) space-time, the latter is an alternative dimension/plane of existance inhabited by humanities dark desires made manifest.

Old Necron fluff has FTL due to inertialess drive, which likely wouldn't work because even if a physical body would be rendered inertialess and thereby had its mass reduced to zero, it would still be limited to exactly the speed of light in classical relativity (e.g. the speed of light photons, which do, infact, move inertialess due to their lack of mass).

Perhaps the Dolmen Gates were simply a tactical advantage against the Eldar and the Old Ones... but that was millions of years ago. Do you not think that they'd further develop the technology since that time?

Google Reactionless-drive, that's what MY necrons have

So you renamed their inertia drive. Good job.

TheCrazyCryptek wrote:
I had not thought about it like that. I have to admit, I know part of me dislikes this new part of the fluff is because it gimps the Necrons where before they where god-like.

That was the problem. The old Necrons would have won. There was no question of it. They had their physical gods wandering around (admittedly doing pretty much nothing, but they could have been single-handedly destroying the Imperium), they had such vastly superiority maneuverability that should never been defeated in naval battle and generally the best technology. Why did they ever lose? Because for some reason they didn't concentrate their forces. The old background made no sense because the Necrons should have been unstoppable and inexplicably didn't use their technology properly.

Saying that going (sufficiently) faster-than-light, a feat that only the Tyranids have truely managed in 40K, is easier than creating a wormhole is complete conjecture.

I tend to like the new stuff, as they are not Gods, super powerful and damned capable of hurting about anyone, but not the auto wins guys. I agree the old stuff did need a change as the ending was forgone one they fully woke up. Game over man, game over.

For me the "FTL" they use should be faster then say what the Tau use, maybe on pare with true warp travel times, but still not as fast(well instant) as the webway. Which means the Gates have a reason to exist and still could but used if need be.

Don't flayed ones hang out in a not warp dimension that works exactly like the warp just it's a big void instead of a writhing hellscape?

If I recall it was the domain of one of the dead gods. Not the warp but "Elsewhere" some kind of Demi-dimension or something. The Necron seem to be all about time/space, multi dimension and wormhole tech.

I myself can simply not except the idea they colonized the whole of the galaxy or even a large part of it with "Torch ships" much less held together small dynasties and ran interstellar wars. The warp is based off mental power, emotion and thought. It is not all that out there to say other dimensions other then the warp are out there.

Psienesis wrote:Whether we call it a "wormhole" a "warp gate" or a "flubbly-wubbly tube" is irrelevant... in the 40K universe, if you're achieving FTL, you're using the Warp in some way, shape or form, even the non-Psychic Tau are "skipping" their FTL ships off the Warp like stones on a pond. Even the Eldar Webway is "the Warp", it simply makes use of it in a different way that makes it far less likely that you'll be eaten by daemons (not immune to, but far less likely). Dolmen Gates work basically the same way, they take advantage of the non-space functions of the Warp to establish a tunnel through it from Point A to B. Even if you just stroll down the tube, taking your sweet time, you're traveling faster than light by the time you reach the exit gate.

So I take it that you've never actually heard of the Tyranids?

But of course it is perfectly fine for the space bugs to have FTL capabilities not relying on the Warp, but the space zombies can't, oh feth no.

It is perfectly fine for a super soldier wielding a monomolcularly sharp yet also indestructible chainsaw sword to exist, but feth no Necron technology has to make sense.

People love to bitch about the superiority of Necron naval fleets, but ignore that in the lore Necron ships never attacked in mass, and were always outnumbered. But feth no, Necrons aren't allowed to be pound for pound the best at something, even if lore-wise it makes perfect sense.

I wouldn't have been adverse to the Inertialess Drives being toned down to not being instantaneous travel, but making the masters of the material universe have to rely upon the Warp to get around was a really crappy move, and de-emphasized that theme.

Void__Dragon wrote:

Psienesis wrote:Whether we call it a "wormhole" a "warp gate" or a "flubbly-wubbly tube" is irrelevant... in the 40K universe, if you're achieving FTL, you're using the Warp in some way, shape or form, even the non-Psychic Tau are "skipping" their FTL ships off the Warp like stones on a pond. Even the Eldar Webway is "the Warp", it simply makes use of it in a different way that makes it far less likely that you'll be eaten by daemons (not immune to, but far less likely). Dolmen Gates work basically the same way, they take advantage of the non-space functions of the Warp to establish a tunnel through it from Point A to B. Even if you just stroll down the tube, taking your sweet time, you're traveling faster than light by the time you reach the exit gate.

So I take it that you've never actually heard of the Tyranids?

But of course it is perfectly fine for the space bugs to have FTL capabilities not relying on the Warp, but the space zombies can't, oh feth no.

It is perfectly fine for a super soldier wielding a monomolcularly sharp yet also indestructible chainsaw sword to exist, but feth no Necron technology has to make sense.

People love to bitch about the superiority of Necron naval fleets, but ignore that in the lore Necron ships never attacked in mass, and were always outnumbered. But feth no, Necrons aren't allowed to be pound for pound the best at something, even if lore-wise it makes perfect sense.

I wouldn't have been adverse to the Inertialess Drives being toned down to not being instantaneous travel, but making the masters of the material universe have to rely upon the Warp to get around was a really crappy move, and de-emphasized that theme.

Well said. My disdain for this new fluff stims from the fact that this part of Necron lore was changed because it gave them a serious advantage over Games Workshops baby(SPEHZ MAHREENS!). Lord knows, that can't be allowed to happen.

That is just my opinion, but I really do beleive it may be at least in part, true.