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Hey there guys i really need some help and feedback for my newly created chapter and book writing process.

In the segmentum obscurus, i am creating a forgotten dark founding (13th) chapter, there home world is at the very peak before you get into the ghost star area, now there is an exodite world called SYPH, which involves my book, and there are two imperial stars nearby but i dont know how close the proximity is when comparing the rule book maps together. Are each of the squares, representing sectors? And how long does it take to travel between sectors because in segmentum obscurus theres a crap load of plants all very close together.

The planets that seem very close together are SYPH - eldar exodite world, Dimmimar - Ecclesarchial Syndo Ministra ( whatever that is ) & Cypra mundi – Segmentum naval base . There are some other notable battles close too Syph as well. Theres a planet named Ectosa nearby as well a space marine garrison world. The Iron knights chapter home world is right beside a square with the chaos stronghold of Appollonia, and the silver skulls home world is just bellow and right a bit.

Now i dont understand how theres a chaos stronghold one sector away from a chapter home world, the Iron knights & Silver skulls share this segmentum, also there is an imperial fists crusade fleet that sweeps through these sectors, why wouldn't they just destroy SYPH and Appolonia?

The story i have so far is back in 35 - 36M the Brimstone chapter was created yata yata, they are a forgotten chapter, back then they went to war with the eldar in the far northern reaches of segmentum obscurus they settled on there new home world, unfortunately it was an exodite world that wasn't habited yet. The brimstone chapter claimed their sector ( named Charvik < My created empty sector near Syph ) Story will go that the exodites of Syph have been expanding and taking more planets in their sector and will want revenge on the Brimstone chapter.

Thanks guys, how does this sound, to unbelievable? just stupid or what?

The squares are simply distance.

Sectors are not uniform in size or number of planets. And then will contain a number of Subsectors.


The Gothic Sector, for example, has well over 100 planetary systems that are/were Imperial. We can assume that there are many MANY times more planets and star systems within a Sector that are not under Imperial control, and may not have even been explored yet.

Remember, Space is HUGE.

Ah crap so any guess at the amount of space in one of the squares provided by GW in the rule book maps?

Well, the Milky Way is ~120,000 light years accross.

Just see how many squares wide the galaxy is and you will have a rough estimate.

It takes 4 to 7 months to get from Terra to the edge of Ultima Segmentum. You could use the squares on the map and extrapolate from that.

Warp Travel is variable though. Depending on the skill of your navigator, the flow of the warp and dumb luck journey might take weeks, months or years. You may arrive a hundred years in the future or arrive before you left.

Space is mind boggingly huge, Segmentum Obscurus is far larger then it appears on a map. It's so big that entire civilizations exist there that the Imperium hasn't even discovered yet. It's not even close to being fully explored, it's just a region of space "claimed" by the Imperium connected by the dots of many worlds.

So yeah, don't try to measure it. Sectors/Sub-sectors aren't fixed sizes and the galaxy overall is too large to even comprehend. ~120,000 light years across doesn't do it justice....

It's why more precise/scientifically sci-fi settings like Star Wars/Star Trek only use a portion of a galaxy (even Star Wars massive galactic setting only has the setting take place in 1/2 of it, the other half being "unexplored regions"). Starcraft basically takes place in 1 sector while Halo takes place in an arm of a costellation. 40k Threw that to hell though as part of its over-the-topness

Looking at the galaxy map in the BRB, there are about 13 squares across and 11 squares down. Average out that to 12 (for simplicities sake) and you have each square having a side length of ~10,000 light years. Taking an average thickness of the galaxy as 1000 light years (again, another simplification) each of those boxes represents an area of space roughly 100,000,000,000 cubic light years.

This is mindbogglingly huge.

For comparison, our nearest star Proxima Centauri, is about 4.5 light years distant. Polaris, the north star is about 400-450 light years distant. and the rest of the Ursa Minor stars are about that distant or closer.

Here is a link to an image of all star clusters and nebulea within 10,000 light years: http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/nebclust.html

Notice how it's stated that; "Nearly all of the most famous star clusters and nebulae are labeled on the map. Because of all the intervening dust and gas lying in the galaxy it is very hard to see much beyond this distance in the galactic plane"

That means, pretty much, everything you can see with the naked eye in the night sky would fit inside one of those boxes on the BRB's map. That's how big they are!

EDIT: spelling and punctuation

Well I'm afraid I can't help you with size.
What you may or may not want to consider is the size of the Imperial Navy.

The luna Class cruiser is cited as the most common variant within Battlefleet obscuras, with just over 700 vessels.
That's from my memory, but comes from the luna entry in the BfG set.

I don't have access to it for a week or so if anyone feels like confirming the reference?