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So you've got your Inquisitorial Circle/Explorator Fleet/Space Marines Chapter/Brigade of Imperial Guard all suited up and ready to go fight the good fight for the Emperor....

.....except by the time you get out of the Warp 100....1,000.... heck theoretically even 10,000 years have passed.

The conflict you were heading to ended a long time ago - all that's left is to turn around and hope for a much shorter return trip home.

And that's the Part I wanted to ask - how do the various branches of the Imperium deal with groups of people who got lost in the Warp and just pop back into existence after an inordinate amount of time.......aside from the Administratum having to fill out a lot of paperwork.

I wouldn't think it would be too much of an issue for Space Marines or the Mechanicus, but I could be wrong.

Thoughts? Or Fluff/Fiction that you can think of that explores the phenomenon of being "late to the party" so to speak?

Well... I'd imagine it's very circumstantial. I'd have to say more then likely depending on the time lapse they end up being killed off as heretics or are just returned to the original unit.

I say killed off as heretics because a Crusader showing up in 40k would be none too happy about being greeted with "In the name of the GOD-EMPEROR, identify yourself" followed by the word heretic and heathen being thrown around like doodoo in a money cage

One of the FFG RPG books has an incident report about an Imperium warship that unexpectedly popped out of the warp. Reading between the lines, it's obvious that the warship in question was traveling to participate in the defense against Abaddon's Thirteenth Crusade, when it was flung back in time a century or two through the warp (an individual with the same name as the warship captain's grandfather is mentioned as being alive). In the report's time period, a ship with the same name as the newcomer warship was under construction, and hadn't been launched yet. The Imperium arrested the newcomer ship's command crew, and executed them all as "obvious" frauds (using the rationale that no officers with those names were on the Imperium's naval rolls). The warship was renamed, and entered into service with a new command crew, but the same regular crew (since it would take time to conscript and train a new crew for the ship).

Rogue trader (FFG RPG) Has some tables for this.
It has some serious implications. One of them is that you can arrive earlier then you leave in rare occasions. The more serious complication is that fleets always have to travel in convoys trough the warp or ships get lost in time.
The other solution is to use the best navigator you can get , avoid turbulent warp space and never ever try to pass a warp storm.
I can't imagine how hard it is for the refuel stations or forge worlds who have limited capacity in their wharfs for repairing ships to anticipate on the ships arrival date

There is* an imperial entity who take primary responsibility for anachronisms (literally; "things in the wrong time") - the Ordo Chronus.

There have been a couple of other occasions of this - in the Ravenor series the inquisitor briefly ends up back in time for[Reasons].

Essentially, if you're a regular guard regiment, the Imperium will go "oh, well, you're still an army - we can still find a use for you..." and redirect you to the next warzone, whilst the Ordo Chronus will quietly check that you don't remember anything you shouldn't and or know anything that hasn't happened yet.


* slash was slash will be slash HAS NEVER EXISTED

locarno24 wrote:
There is* an imperial entity who take primary responsibility for anachronisms (literally; "things in the wrong time") - the Ordo Chronus.

There have been a couple of other occasions of this - in the Ravenor series the inquisitor briefly ends up back in time for[Reasons].

Essentially, if you're a regular guard regiment, the Imperium will go "oh, well, you're still an army - we can still find a use for you..." and redirect you to the next warzone, whilst the Ordo Chronus will quietly check that you don't remember anything you shouldn't and or know anything that hasn't happened yet.


* slash was slash will be slash HAS NEVER EXISTED

Hmm.. I take it Ordo Chronos is a Minoris order?

I wonder what the other 3 Major Ordos must think when a Chronos Inquisitor shows up......

Well, its nice to see that Tzeentch has some 40K Time-cops to tease and torment.

I guess they could try to go through the warp until they travel back in time and end up arriving at the battle on time.

 n0t_u wrote:
I guess they could try to go through the warp until they travel back in time and end up arriving at the battle on time.

Lol casino owners must love the sight of you ; )

 oldzoggy wrote:

 n0t_u wrote:
I guess they could try to go through the warp until they travel back in time and end up arriving at the battle on time.

Lol casino owners must love the sight of you ; )

They would if I were dumb enough to go there in the first place and did this.

The Dark Angels had some Marines travel forwards in time from early in their history. They just shoved them into existing Companies and acted as if nothing strange happened.

I take it Ordo Chronos is a Minoris order

Yes. They've been listed in Codex: Inquisition and are mentioned in passing in the RPGs, as well.

There are no shortage of minor orders. My favourite is the Ordo Obsoletus - an organisation whose remit is "really freaky stuff we don't understand".

This is a subordinate part of an organisation which considers mutants, psychic phenomena, alien artefacts, daemonic possession, sanity-shattering gods and time travel as "day job" matters...

locarno24 wrote:
Ordo Obsoletus - an organisation whose remit is "really freaky stuff we don't understand".

This is a subordinate part of an organisation which considers mutants, psychic phenomena, alien artefacts, daemonic possession, sanity-shattering gods and time travel as "day job" matters...

Soo.... then what the heck gets classified under "really freaky stuff we don't understand?"

A walking, talking, brawling, Titan-sized statue of Gork and Mork made of Green cheese?

Isha and Nurgle's illegitimate love child? (Not quite alive, not quite dead...but jusssssttt right )

Slaanesh's chick-literotica collection?

The Ordo Obsoletes is still trying to figure out how all the space marine chapters woke up one morning and all wanted to be smurfs.

One example mentioned was The Legion Of The Damned. No-one's sure what the hell they are/were/will be. Are they daemons? Marines lost in the warp? Something else?

i remember 2 examples from fluff.

1st is some quote about an imperium general arriving at a planet several hundreds years after the original timeline, being nothing else than a barren rock after the nyds came trought.

the 2nd it's from some Space-hulk fluff, some chapter asking for help in the early days to clear those behemonts from genestealer infestation just to find the help arrives within seconds of the message being broadcasted but they saying the message came 2 months before being sent.

GrapeApe wrote:
.....except by the time you get out of the Warp 100....1,000.... heck theoretically even 10,000 years have passed

This always makes me think of this (BRB pg 405):
"By way of example, note the log book of the Proxxian traders that operate in the Nephilim sector. ... the route is classified as a semi fluctuating passage, the most stable type. Typical voyages range between 1 and 6 weeks but more extreme voyages have taken as much as 1200 years or as little as two minutes. Some 22% of expeditions as of yet have not arrived at their destination - although given the time disparity one can only estimate what percentage have been lost our are still en route. In distance this is relatively a short voyage; ... the numbers only grow worse with longer journeys. "

If this fluff is even half accurate, ships would be arriving at war zones late all the time. When they even arrive at all.

Just imagine having to organise a military operation through a sector when you have no solid idea how fast your units move? Imagine trying to coordiante ships coming from neighboring areas? Imagine 22% of them just never showing up! And that's for a 'short voyage' in the 'most stable type' of passage.

Of course, that's mostly a good reason to disregard this fluff. But to answer the question, I assume that anyone 'late' to arrive is just sent on to the next applicable battlefield for them.

Examples of such time issues are not that common. Why? Because the Imperium would not be able to function if it were a regular thing everywhere. For example, hive worlds are described as needing regular imports of food to stave off starvation and rioting. The fact that many hive worlds are not in such states means there has to be sufficiently reliable large scale interstellar shipping for significant food quantities to arrive on time. The Gothic War aka 12th Black Crusade, took place over a time period of 20 years in the Gothic Sector. Ships zooming around everywhere fighting battles, but all without major shifts in time forward or backward.

Iracundus wrote:
Examples of such time issues are not that common. Why? Because the Imperium would not be able to function if it were a regular thing everywhere. For example, hive worlds are described as needing regular imports of food to stave off starvation and rioting. The fact that many hive worlds are not in such states means there has to be sufficiently reliable large scale interstellar shipping for significant food quantities to arrive on time. The Gothic War aka 12th Black Crusade, took place over a time period of 20 years in the Gothic Sector. Ships zooming around everywhere fighting battles, but all without major shifts in time forward or backward.

Basically if it sounds like such and such would be untenable, then odds are it simply is. No doubt there are hive worlds starving and rioting because they are missing food. It's grimdark ya know.

Do hive worlds get their food through warp based interplanetary travel? I'd have thought the food imports would come primarily from other planets within their own star system and so reachable without warp travel.

Some planets certainly do get produce from 'local' planets but a good number of solar systems would contain only a single habitable planet. Take our own system in the 40k universe. Terra must have unimaginable demands for resources, as must Mars. While these are certainly of the highest priority, cosmologically speaking our system is unremarkable and in the unfathomable vastness of the galaxy identical set ups must occur. A planet settled 10,000 years ago during the Great Crusade has almost certainly exhausted its natural resources by now at our rate of use, let alone Imperial rates and populations. Even if they can grow their own food, other materials would be required for daily life.

nomotog wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
Examples of such time issues are not that common. Why? Because the Imperium would not be able to function if it were a regular thing everywhere. For example, hive worlds are described as needing regular imports of food to stave off starvation and rioting. The fact that many hive worlds are not in such states means there has to be sufficiently reliable large scale interstellar shipping for significant food quantities to arrive on time. The Gothic War aka 12th Black Crusade, took place over a time period of 20 years in the Gothic Sector. Ships zooming around everywhere fighting battles, but all without major shifts in time forward or backward.

Basically if it sounds like such and such would be untenable, then odds are it simply is. No doubt there are hive worlds starving and rioting because they are missing food. It's grimdark ya know.

In the same way there are undoubtedly worlds that, by some Cosmic stroke of luck, are Eden-esque worlds where resources like food are abundant.

No one ever said life would be fair in the Imperium....

Warp equipped imperial ships can make calculated jumps, or "blind" jumps as dubbed by many crew members, over a course of 4 light years in relative safety. So it wouldn't be unreasonable to have very consistent and timbale shipping on a solar system scale possibly even larger?

Also the imperium's definition of habitable and our 21st century definition are vastly vastly different hahaha

That being said I can only imagine that there aren't too many cases of time issues with warp travel as others have said the imperium would have fallen by now. As for ships and troops I guess they would just be sent onto the next war zone be it technically in their past or one in the pressing time after they re-emerge from the warp

 Kojiro wrote:
Some planets certainly do get produce from 'local' planets but a good number of solar systems would contain only a single habitable planet. Take our own system in the 40k universe. Terra must have unimaginable demands for resources, as must Mars. While these are certainly of the highest priority, cosmologically speaking our system is unremarkable and in the unfathomable vastness of the galaxy identical set ups must occur. A planet settled 10,000 years ago during the Great Crusade has almost certainly exhausted its natural resources by now at our rate of use, let alone Imperial rates and populations. Even if they can grow their own food, other materials would be required for daily life.

Mars was terraformed during the Dark Age, perhaps even earlier, and the AdMech still possesses terraforming technology. It is likely that almost every planet in the Sol system is capable of food production, not to mention the asteroid belt having hydroponic farms and the like in bio-domes.

Lord Perversor wrote:
i remember 2 examples from fluff.

1st is some quote about an imperium general arriving at a planet several hundreds years after the original timeline, being nothing else than a barren rock after the nyds came trought.

the 2nd it's from some Space-hulk fluff, some chapter asking for help in the early days to clear those behemonts from genestealer infestation just to find the help arrives within seconds of the message being broadcasted but they saying the message came 2 months before being sent.

The first incident was actually from an Imperial general who arrived 107 years late with his force to a planet - which by that time had been taken over completely by Tyranids. He attacked anyway, stating "I traveled a thousand stars and one hundred years to take this planet...and take it I will" or something to that effect. They don't list the result.

There's also the example of the Morisha Incident. The assassin was sent to kill the ruler of a renegade planet. However, she arrived centuries late and learned that the renegade planet was now ruled by a council, rather than a single governor. Oh, and that council had over a thousand people on it.
From her perspective, this changed nothing - she set about assassinating every single one of them. And succeeded.

There was also a group of Imperials who were sent to the Damocles Crusade but arrived too late and ended up fighting a Hive Fleet with the Tau.

There are a few things to remember here, the most obvious being that Warp Travel is at best unpredicatable and can take more or less time that "expected" almost all the time. One of the first things a ship does on reentering realspace is "check the time" to see how far off the mark it is.

There is also the fact that while time for the ship is typically less, its NOT for the rest of reality, time still races on as it did. Hence we have people that are knocking around the place physcially young who have been born centuries before but have spent so long in warp travel.

The size and scale of the imperium cannot be under estimated, a Hiveworld of billions of souls needs a shed load of food but there are loads of worlds dedicated to suppling them with countless ships allocated to getting them food.

Imagine that a lot of the food sent to a hive might have been in transit for years becuase of issues with the warp so the adminstratum would have the logistical set up to deal with that. Yes it cocks it up now and again but iamgine the scale of the issue!!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And dont forget Warp travel IS Time Travel in effect its jsut that you done really control it and you cant intentionally go backwards!

TheWanderer wrote:
There are a few things to remember here, the most obvious being that Warp Travel is at best unpredicatable and can take more or less time that "expected" almost all the time. One of the first things a ship does on reentering realspace is "check the time" to see how far off the mark it is.

There is also the fact that while time for the ship is typically less, its NOT for the rest of reality, time still races on as it did. Hence we have people that are knocking around the place physcially young who have been born centuries before but have spent so long in warp travel.

The size and scale of the imperium cannot be under estimated, a Hiveworld of billions of souls needs a shed load of food but there are loads of worlds dedicated to suppling them with countless ships allocated to getting them food.

Imagine that a lot of the food sent to a hive might have been in transit for years becuase of issues with the warp so the adminstratum would have the logistical set up to deal with that. Yes it cocks it up now and again but iamgine the scale of the issue!!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And dont forget Warp travel IS Time Travel in effect its jsut that you done really control it and you cant intentionally go backwards!

Not saying your post is wrong, just pointing out that being in the warp can be either way. There's instances of people entering and exiting the warp for a few minutes but the trip took months/years .

So warp travel can slow you down considerably.
Get you there quicker then the average travel time.
Take you back or forward in time. Anything is really possible



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Probably what you said anyways