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If looking into the 3rd eye of a navigator is literally fatal (I do not know the exact functioning of this) why hasn't this been weaponized by the Imperium? Surely it's not an issue of rarity, where Blanks are weaponized. But how powerful is it? Can they kill anything they can "see" or do they have to look into the eyes of their target? Has they ever been tried? Does it work against only human/mortals?

It is definitely an issue of rarity- Navigators are a strategic resource required for long-distance warp travel that come from a limited bloodline. There may well be fewer than there are blanks.

Whilst blanks are rare, they don't have a specific role so weaponising them is more reasonable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lorewise the Third Eye doesn't work on daemons, for whom looking onto the madness of the Warp is akin to looking into the window of your own house. The victim has to look at the Eye, it isn't effective if they don't.

Navigators also have their house to protect them and prevent their use as a pure weapon. The politics of the situation helps them, as the Imperium cannot function without them.

Another thought is that, maybe it does happen, but its not widespread enough to have been discussed much in the lore.

I'm sure there will be inter-family warfare that leads to Navigator Houses losing their power and being persecuted by the Inquisition or other bodies. Maybe some Culexis are actually navigators or from navigator stock. Maybe there is an other Assassin Temple that is fed entirely by extra/failed Navigator offspring. Maybe all titan grade Warp missiles have a servitorized Navigator embedded in their guidance core, and neither the AdMech or Navigator houses like to talk about it much.

 Flinty wrote:
Navigators also have their house to protect them and prevent their use as a pure weapon. The politics of the situation helps them, as the Imperium cannot function without them.

To expand on this: they are so powerful they can 'request' Space Marines as bodyguards - Ragnar Blackmane was one for house Belisarius.

beast_gts wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
Navigators also have their house to protect them and prevent their use as a pure weapon. The politics of the situation helps them, as the Imperium cannot function without them.

To expand on this: they are so powerful they can 'request' Space Marines as bodyguards - Ragnar Blackmane was one for house Belisarius.

The guy who told Bobby G to go diddle himself and refused to aid the Indomitus Crusade willingly became a bodyguard of a witch? Ok, I call that the answer to my question.

I didn't think navigators were typically referred to as witches, or as psykers in general. They have a connection to the Warp but it is more of a window than a conduit like true psykers.

A single navigator can move millions of troops to the battlefield. Even if they could kill thousands in a battle with their third eye, that would be peanuts compared to the casualties that the troops they bring to the field would wreak.

Wars are won on logistics, and navigators are key to the logistics of the Imperium. If the Imperium had extra navigators to waste in combat, they'd just build more ships to move more armies around the galaxy.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

beast_gts wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
Navigators also have their house to protect them and prevent their use as a pure weapon. The politics of the situation helps them, as the Imperium cannot function without them.

To expand on this: they are so powerful they can 'request' Space Marines as bodyguards - Ragnar Blackmane was one for house Belisarius.

The guy who told Bobby G to go diddle himself and refused to aid the Indomitus Crusade willingly became a bodyguard of a witch? Ok, I call that the answer to my question.

Space Marines require Navigators to operate their fleets. Without navigators, no reliable strike cruisers or battle barges reaching enemies. Therefore Chapters all have some kind of treaty with the navigator houses to supply navigators. A Chapter must honor these treaties or risk being neutured. The navigator houses are one of the most powerful organisations in the Imperium because of their importance to interstellar travel.

The Noble Houses of the Navigators are another Special Case within The Imperium. A part of it, but also kind of apart from it, much like the Adeptus Mechanicus.

As such they have special dispensations, as their worth is invaluable, and ill-suited to literally any other task. So no Navigator need ever worry about being recruited into the Guard, Inquisition and so on.

It also makes them another wing one negotiates with, rather than outright orders around.

Once aboard ship, it’s in the Navigators own self interest not to muck around or push their luck, as should the ship be boarded, they’re lucky if they don’t survive…especially if it’s Chaos Raiders.

Not to mention the unleashing on mass scale like that for a war might well drive the Navigator more insane quicker so they'd burn out. Plus it would likely be something Chaos would quickly find a way to exploit.


So its a weapon that could very very easily backfire on you; is rather small and squishy vulnerable to start with and also will have a limited sphere of influence as to where it works. So for battlefields and wars that are measured in hundreds of miles of front lines and such its not suitable.

Not to mention any war conducted on a heavily populated world the risk of friendlyfire would be nuts. Yes the Imperium doesn't mind friendly fire too much to start with; but if glancing toward the battlefield from your shielded high tower drove half the nobility insane then they'd likely protest against the use of such weapons.



In general the Nagivators are, as noted above, both logistically, practically and politically best kept on their ships. To keep the wheels of the Imperium moving through space and connected together. Because if that is lost then it doesn't matter if you wan win one fight;because the enemy will defeat you in the stars before you've even made it planet side. Note to mention even if you've got a super weapon you still need lots of infantry to secure worlds - so you've still got to have enough Nagivators left to move everything around.




Also the Imperium has Psy weapons already. They don't need to bring down the Navigator into risk when they can just use the regular psy units that already work "kind of" for them anyway

Also, much like Weirdboyz I suspect it’s far from a pleasant experience.

And like Warp ‘Eadz, if they do start to enjoy it, it’s time for everyone else to start getting very, very concerned.

I was about to say, the Sister of Silence kills off several of her Navigators trying to get back to Terra, or somewhere, I forget. It was in the Custodes book where her convent is attacked. But I do recall her utter disregard for their lives or pain.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
The guy who told Bobby G to go diddle himself and refused to aid the Indomitus Crusade willingly became a bodyguard of a witch? Ok, I call that the answer to my question.

House Belisarius provides the Wolves with all of their Navigators, and they are very good at their jobs. In turn, the Wolves have a rotational honour guard for the House on Terra to act as bodyguards, train the household forces and undertake missions.

 Gert wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
The guy who told Bobby G to go diddle himself and refused to aid the Indomitus Crusade willingly became a bodyguard of a witch? Ok, I call that the answer to my question.

House Belisarius provides the Wolves with all of their Navigators, and they are very good at their jobs. In turn, the Wolves have a rotational honour guard for the House on Terra to act as bodyguards, train the household forces and undertake missions.

That is slightly different than Jarl Blackmane willingly bent the knee and became the personal bodyguard to a navigator. Unless by navigator, and personal body guard, it was meant, he sword his clan would "protect" theirs? sort of thing?

Edited for spelling.

He wasn't a Wolf Lord when he was seconded to the Wolfblade. And being seconded to the guard of House Belisarius is a huge honour. It's not protecting witches, it's honouring one of the Wolves' oldest pacts going back to the days of the Great Crusade. It is also an excellent opportunity for the Wolves to make powerful friends on Terra and in one of the greatest and most powerful Navigator Houses in the entire Imperium.

In the Night Lords omnibus Talos forces a navigator to kill people with her third eye. Even a few hundred deaths by this method caused a psychic shockwave that temporarily crippled the communication and travel across a swathe of systems. Earlier in the book even a single death caused a minor warp incursion.

I don't think other books have gone into it as deeply as these ones, but it would imply dangerous consequences for killing with a navigator's third eye.

Navigators definitely have huge damage potential both with their Eye and their general psychic abilities. However they are far too valuable to use in this role generally speaking.

They are fairly rare and need to be used to pilot the more valuable ships to their destinations. While a huge portion of commerce within the Imperium uses ships that make short low risk warp jumps without navigators, the longer routes are the more important ones, and all the warships will need Navigators on them as well.

So outside of someone like a Rogue Trader(who can maybe afford the cost of losing one) dragging one along with him nobody is going to risk a Navigator with mundane combat duties. But even then it shouldn't be seen as something that happens regularly.

Their combat abilities are more handy in situations where SHTF and the Navigator needs to defend himself. In which case he is perfectly capable of doing so.

I saw the title "Why aren't navigators strapped to the front of front-line tanks?" and thought you meant people with maps.
Old-war aircraft navigators got to sit in the front seat, so it sort of made sense.

Navigators (capital N ) are the only way the Imperium can get around in space, so using them as cannons takes them away from their main purpose.
Keep them facing forwards there too, because of the eye.

You need to be pretty up close to someone in ordert to really get a good look at their eyes. Those poor navigators would get blasted to bits before they'd ever get that close. And given how rare Navigators are in the Imperium, this idea is beyond laughable IMO

Given the fact that there are houses and families of them, I had mistakenly thought them more numerous than Blanks, which are used as weapons in almost every known instance when found.

I understand now, thank you.

I think one reason Blanks often appear less numerous is that they don't stand out and psy abilities in the setting are generally very rare to start with on most worlds. So a Blank just doesn't stand out aside from someone people dislike/feel edgy around.

So unless you know what you're looking for in finding a blank, many likely go through life never knowing what they are.

 Mr Nobody wrote:
In the Night Lords omnibus Talos forces a navigator to kill people with her third eye. Even a few hundred deaths by this method caused a psychic shockwave that temporarily crippled the communication and travel across a swathe of systems. Earlier in the book even a single death caused a minor warp incursion.

I don't think other books have gone into it as deeply as these ones, but it would imply dangerous consequences for killing with a navigator's third eye.

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten that bit. I was going to bring up that series more generally, as a great example of a loyalist navigator being captured by Chaos... It's well worth a read.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Given the fact that there are houses and families of them, I had mistakenly thought them more numerous than Blanks, which are used as weapons in almost every known instance when found.

I understand now, thank you.

To be honest, even if blanks were rarer, you would still see them used as weapons more because blanks don't have any use outside blocking psykers or killing psykers, both tasks which lend them to battlefield roles.

 Haighus wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Given the fact that there are houses and families of them, I had mistakenly thought them more numerous than Blanks, which are used as weapons in almost every known instance when found.

I understand now, thank you.

To be honest, even if blanks were rarer, you would still see them used as weapons more because blanks don't have any use outside blocking psykers or killing psykers, both tasks which lend them to battlefield roles.

Also, people instinctively hate blanks and they have no one to advocate for them as individuals.

Whereas if you abuse navigators the house will cut you off and then you’re screwed if you want to get anywhere.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Given the fact that there are houses and families of them, I had mistakenly thought them more numerous than Blanks, which are used as weapons in almost every known instance when found.

I understand now, thank you.

They definitely are more numerous than blanks. But unlike Blanks they have a far more important purpose.

Blanks only use is as an anti-psychic/daemon weapon. The combat abilities of navigators are a side-effect of their main purpose.

1.) As many have noted, Navigators are a strategic resource for the Imperium. You don't just go casually dropping them onto a battlefield, where all sorts of accidents could happen to them.
2.) The Navigator gene is a stable mutation. The only way to get more navigators is by having navigators reproduce. Casually risking their lives in very dangerous situations (that don't immediately involve warp travel) not only reduces your current supply of navigators, but also threatens to reduce your future supply of navigators.
3.) Navigator houses are usually incredibly wealthy due to the value of their abilities in interstellar commerce and logistics. As such, the Navigator Houses represent one of the wealthiest power blocs within the Imperium. If someone with a little pull were to start seriously suggesting that Navigators should be strapped to the front of front-line tanks, said person would probably run up against a lot of (bought and paid for) opposition very quickly. Additionally, said person would find it very difficult to enlist the services of a ship to transport him across the Imperium so that he could discuss with others his bold new use for Navigators. Or he might just meet an unfortunate end at the hands of a paid assassin.
4.) At least one of the High Lords of Terra is always a Navigator. He's not going to like your idea.

If you mistreated Navigators they could grind the entire imperium to a halt pretty easily in revenge. There's politics to consider as well.

 Flinty wrote:
Navigators also have their house to protect them and prevent their use as a pure weapon. The politics of the situation helps them, as the Imperium cannot function without them.

Another thought is that, maybe it does happen, but its not widespread enough to have been discussed much in the lore.

I'm sure there will be inter-family warfare that leads to Navigator Houses losing their power and being persecuted by the Inquisition or other bodies. Maybe some Culexis are actually navigators or from navigator stock. Maybe there is an other Assassin Temple that is fed entirely by extra/failed Navigator offspring. Maybe all titan grade Warp missiles have a servitorized Navigator embedded in their guidance core, and neither the AdMech or Navigator houses like to talk about it much.

This is probably part of the answer. Navigators are a strategic resource and hold a great deal of power. But 40k being bonkers 40k, something in the spirit of strapping a Navigator to a tank may well have happened sometimes with captured outcasts. A fringe occurence, but not beyond the realm of possibility. Humans are but resources to use up, after all, and psykers of all kinds especially so. And whenever Navigators are mistreated in such a manner, it would always be done with as much secrecy as can be mustered, since there is a lot of pain to receive upon House discovery to outweigh any combat gain.

Even if a Navigator went rogue and needed to be punished in some fashion, most likely the official method of doing that would be turning them over to their house. IE: if you are not executing them, then you need to give them back.

I agree this is the most likely official set of responses. Your local radical Inquisitor would like to no offer some additional responses that are totally theoretical. Totally. Never been done by anyone…