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Hey guys, I'm writing some fiction in which a young navigator is forced to pilot a ship through the warp for the first time and I was looking for some references to give me some idea how that would actually work. I'm looking for passages in novels that deal with navigators and the navigation of a ship through the warp, but I'm currently coming up blank.

I know there's a Heresy novel with a navigator as a character that delves a little into the internal experiences and psychological makeup of said navigator (Outcast Dead, I think), but are there any novels which actually depict a navigator using their powers to navigate a ship? I'm interested in the mechanics of it: how they're connected to the ship, how they initiate warp travel (or how they engage with it once the ship translates to the warp), what apparatus is around them in the navigator's chamber, do they need to be alone, do they connect with the ship's astropath/astropathic choir, all that jazz.

Anyone have any recommendations of novels in which the mechanics of a navigator navigating are shown?

The Night Lords trilogy deals with it pretty thoroughly as one of the main cast is a navigator.

Even within those novels there's some variation on the exact mechanics though. The seemingly "standard" way involves a throne with some type of wiring the navigator plugs in, but on a corrupted ship they capture later on the corrupted navigator used some sort of immersion pool.

Worth keeping in mind Navigators come from their own Noble Houses.

Similar to any crew, it’s not just a case of “look, he’s got a third eye!” then stuffing them, willing or not, into the Navigator’s chamber.

They spend their lives in training for it. And by all accounts, those are pretty luxurious lives as the necessity of keeping them on-side has given them great political clout.

Their first attempt at actually Navigating is likely to be a short jump in regions with reliably calm warp tides, so they can get used to it. Basically like a pilot. You don’t just turn up at Flight school and get given the keys to a Jumbo Jet.

I’d wager only the best of the best become Military Navigators. I mean, every Warp Capable human ship needs a Navigator, yes? Merchants, population transports, even pleasure cruises etc.

The important thing to remember is that outside of very rare situations i.e. abduction by Chaos warbands, a Navigator isn't getting forced into guiding a ship through the Warp because it's the whole reason they are allowed to exist. This has allowed the Navigators to assume a high position within Imperial society and they take their vital role very seriously. The more powerful the Navigator, the more likely they are to be assigned to an important vessel such as an Astartes Battlebarge or Navy flagship, where they then bring greater prestige to their House which in turn allows for better marriages to keep the Navigator gene strong throughout the generations. Of course, this leads to intensely inbred individuals, and many Navigators are hideously deformed even before they hit the Warp.

The actual use of a Navigator's powers requires them to be sealed alone in a chamber somewhere in the vessel. This chamber is connected to the ship's guidance systems and the bridge where the Navigator can either make or inform of changes to heading and direction when traveling through the Warp. They perceive the Warp differently from non-Navigators and can see the light of the Astronomicon more clearly than any other Psyker. They cannot initiate a Warp jump, that can only be done by the bridge crew.
The Astropathic Choir is separate but the two institutions hold a lot of power in the Imperial Senate and often form alliances as the "outcasts" of human society.

Thanks for the replies, guys, much appreciated.

I realise there is a whole political caste dedicated to the navigators and their houses, and that the navigators themselves need a ton of training, however the navigator I'm writing is forced into navigating in an act of desperation - and things go pretty badly wrong. So I'm not so worried about the political side of things, more just the mechanics of actually navigating - their connection to the ship, how they perceive the warp, what dangers are associated and how things can go wrong for a navigator.

Thanks for the info! I'll also have a look at the Night Lords trilogy, thanks for the heads up on that!

Matthew Farrer's stellar piece of worldbuilding in Legacy (second book of the Shira Calpurnia Enforcer trilogy) deals with this. Well worth a read. I'm too short on time to write out an excerpt or describe particulars at the moment, sorry about that.

Farrer's work can always be warmly recommended wherever he tackles aspects of Warhammer 40'000. Check it out!

Cheers

The old Eye of Terror novel from the 90s has an outcast navigator character.
The book describes the warp as being experienced differently by each navigator, as their mind is trying to visualize a multidiminsional realm in 3-4 dimensions most humans are limited to. So some might see planets as islands in a sea with literal storms and currents, daemons as seamonsters and the Astronomicon as a lighthouse or the sun.
Others might visualize it as geometric shapes, or sounds.
The navigator in the story sees it as racing through a wind-swept jungle with predatory animals all about.

 PondaNagura wrote:
The old Eye of Terror novel from the 90s has an outcast navigator character.
The book describes the warp as being experienced differently by each navigator, as their mind is trying to visualize a multidiminsional realm in 3-4 dimensions most humans are limited to. So some might see planets as islands in a sea with literal storms and currents, daemons as seamonsters and the Astronomicon as a lighthouse or the sun.
Others might visualize it as geometric shapes, or sounds.
The navigator in the story sees it as racing through a wind-swept jungle with predatory animals all about.

Thanks, that's very helpful! Gives me some leeway on how to represent it to the reader, too.

 Karak Norn Clansman wrote:
Matthew Farrer's stellar piece of worldbuilding in Legacy (second book of the Shira Calpurnia Enforcer trilogy) deals with this. Well worth a read. I'm too short on time to write out an excerpt or describe particulars at the moment, sorry about that.

Farrer's work can always be warmly recommended wherever he tackles aspects of Warhammer 40'000. Check it out!

Cheers

Ah, I've been meaning to check out Enforcer for a while, this gives me a good excuse to dive in. Cheers!

 PondaNagura wrote:
The old Eye of Terror novel from the 90s has an outcast navigator character.
The book describes the warp as being experienced differently by each navigator, as their mind is trying to visualize a multidiminsional realm in 3-4 dimensions most humans are limited to. So some might see planets as islands in a sea with literal storms and currents, daemons as seamonsters and the Astronomicon as a lighthouse or the sun.
Others might visualize it as geometric shapes, or sounds.
The navigator in the story sees it as racing through a wind-swept jungle with predatory animals all about.

That's my memory as well, each person sees the warp through a metaphor and each is unique to the Navigator. The warp meanwhile has currents, whirlpools, monsters and other hazards.

To the warp blind they just see darkness around the ship.

In the rogue trader rpg (no longer in print) you could play as a navigator. They had some background information.

There was a popular navigator-centric post on 40klore a while back that might be useful for your project:

https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/zygj7p/navigator_lore_dump_for_rogue_trader_fans_and/

Cheers guys, that's really useful

 CancelledApocalypse wrote:
I realise there is a whole political caste dedicated to the navigators and their houses, and that the navigators themselves need a ton of training, however the navigator I'm writing is forced into navigating in an act of desperation - and things go pretty badly wrong.

Sounds yours might be serving the Black Templars.

 Adeptekon wrote:

 CancelledApocalypse wrote:
I realise there is a whole political caste dedicated to the navigators and their houses, and that the navigators themselves need a ton of training, however the navigator I'm writing is forced into navigating in an act of desperation - and things go pretty badly wrong.

Sounds yours might be serving the Black Templars.

Ha ha, no actually. This is kinda... non-legion-specific...

The novel Farseer has a fair bit about the Navigator and his house in it. Decent book and worth a read either way.

There is the novel... Um... It'll come to me... I totally don't have to look at my Kindle to remember it's name...

Rites of Passage!

But it's more about Navigator politics and actually not all that good.

Forget I mentioned it.

 General Kroll wrote:
The novel Farseer has a fair bit about the Navigator and his house in it. Decent book and worth a read either way.

The Bill King one?

Pretty sure I’ve got that one, but don’t recall reading it.