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Heya,

The emperor retreats to work on his webway project, they webway being an incredibly safe way to travel the galaxy with a few exceptions like getting lost and you might bump into eldar or dark eldar and maybe even some thousand sons that got stuck in there?

But if the emperor thought he could create a safe way in for humans then why not just work on that and use the webway to create the imperium rather than send legions off into space to find who knows what terrible fate.

Because the Emperor needed the resources of an empire to enact his grand plan and it was supposed to be for all of humanity, not just the ones living in the wastes of Terra.

I would imagine he found the webway on various planets and figured out what it was? And that Earth didn't have access.

As Gert said, time and resources.

Warp Travel is risky, but not entirely unreliable. To quote my late father? It’ll Do For Now. As in far more often than not you will get where you wanted to go safely.

Webway travel however is safer, but more limited. Like the Stargate network in, well, Stargate? It will only let you go to places that have an existing portal. And like Stargate, you’ll need to know more than just how to make it spin, you’ll need some kind of map or guide. And again, like Stargate, as none of the original builders remain, no one party can ever be sure they’ve a complete map. And again again like Stargate? There’s no way to know what the destination is actually like until you send a MALP, CAT, or random “Well Volunteer, Young Private “Smelly” McGee” sticking its head in for a keek about.

With Warp Travel, if an unexplored planet is super hostile and utterly inimical? At the very least you’ve a nice big space ship to sit tight in, and in terms of the Great Crusade at least a small fleet off mates to keep you company and some chance of resupply.

What exactly was The Emperor doing in his studies? We’ll likely never know for certain. But I’d be surprised if it didn’t include making new portals and trying to map it, possibly to the point one could extrapolate a wider design for other possible destinations.

And let’s be fair - the rest of humanity, the ones the Crusade was intended to bring under The Emperor’s protection all used Warp Travel. It’s the main mode of galactic travel for a reason.

I think part of the problem is that major webway gates have to be built at the destination. Small 'portable' portals, as used by the old Ulthwe Strike Force, do not allow much to pass through.

iirc it's been implied that he found the thing that would become the golden throne at some point in the iron age, around the same time he was Alexander the Great. though apparently he passed it off as a DaoT device after founding the imperium. so it is possible he's been aware of the webway for most of human history, but just didn't understand how to use the machine to reach it until far later. honestly i wouldn't be surprised if the whole "traveling to Molech and striking a deal with dark gods to learn the secrets of the warp" wasn't meant to get the last bits of knowledge he needed to make the webway portal work.


as far as using the webway.. i'd imagine that the ultimate plan would have been to build a portal on every imperial world that didn't already have an eldar one they could hijack. thus eliminating the need to use starship traversing the warp for anything other than exploration and conquest. ships would probably still be used.. non-FTL ones would protect systems, and the webway is big enough you can actually fly entire starships through. (in fact you can fly craftworlds through, and nercrons have sent their world engines through dolmen gates.. suggesting that it's big enough to hold "that's no moon' sized ships) so you could still use starships to haul massive amounts of resources and people around. you'd just also have the option of laying some sorts non-starship of transit networks as well.

I don't think craftworlds, at least the major ones, can fit in the Webway. Their chief weakness is that they are stuck in realspace, or Iyanden, Malan'tai, and Idharae wouldn't have been devastated by realspace foes.

Edit: in a general sense. The webway has some huge areas that probably can fit Craftworlds but I don't think they could do more than visit. The arteries don't seem to be big enough for craftworlds to travel through.

Just finished Genefather and there is what is thought to be ancient diplomatic station, Pontus Avernes ( a giant orbital plate between 4 stars) from the DaOT which has both Eldar and human artefacts including a Webway gate so it was known then.

 Haighus wrote:
I don't think craftworlds, at least the major ones, can fit in the Webway. Their chief weakness is that they are stuck in realspace, or Iyanden, Malan'tai, and Idharae wouldn't have been devastated by realspace foes.

Edit: in a general sense. The webway has some huge areas that probably can fit Craftworlds but I don't think they could do more than visit. The arteries don't seem to be big enough for craftworlds to travel through.

My take away is following The Fall, and with Commoragh on the rise? Craftworlds may consider it too high risk to take them into the Webway. Whole sections are broken, and I don’t think they’ve done a great deal of exploration in the intervening 10,000 years.

Always good to keep in mind that whilst Craftworlds are vast and likely have larger populations than we might initially think? They’re still all there is of that Eldar culture.

Hence they tend to fart about in deep, deep space. Out where there’s nothing for other species to come sniffing about, using the Webway to get what needs doing done, or relying on their fleets (which can traverse the Webway).

Which is why Tyranids are a particular threat, because they will stop off or traverse deep space, and so of all the species may well be most likely to stumble across a Craftworld.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
I don't think craftworlds, at least the major ones, can fit in the Webway. Their chief weakness is that they are stuck in realspace, or Iyanden, Malan'tai, and Idharae wouldn't have been devastated by realspace foes.

Edit: in a general sense. The webway has some huge areas that probably can fit Craftworlds but I don't think they could do more than visit. The arteries don't seem to be big enough for craftworlds to travel through.

My take away is following The Fall, and with Commoragh on the rise? Craftworlds may consider it too high risk to take them into the Webway. Whole sections are broken, and I don’t think they’ve done a great deal of exploration in the intervening 10,000 years.

Always good to keep in mind that whilst Craftworlds are vast and likely have larger populations than we might initially think? They’re still all there is of that Eldar culture.

Hence they tend to fart about in deep, deep space. Out where there’s nothing for other species to come sniffing about, using the Webway to get what needs doing done, or relying on their fleets (which can traverse the Webway).

Which is why Tyranids are a particular threat, because they will stop off or traverse deep space, and so of all the species may well be most likely to stumble across a Craftworld.

Well some Craftworlds also have planetary colonies and there are also Exodites.

Craftworlds have been fluffed to traverse the webway.