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Now did human ships maneuver thru the warp in the dark age of technology before the emp created the astronavicom? Also why we're tne navigators genetically engineered during the DAoT before the astronavicom was created?

I just wondered about that for some reason.

I hope I get at least one answer before some damn mod lock hammers this like most of my posts.

The Warp was calm until the birth of Slaanesh - the Astronomican was needed to enable the Great Crusade.

The Warp wasn't calm before Slaanesh.
The Eye of Terror didn't exist but Gellar Fields were in use to allow ships to go into the Warp.

Before the emergence of psykers in humanity's midst (Navigators and other kinds of psykers) humans utilized O'Neil cylinders and other kinds of generation craft to reach far flung colonies, these merely dipped into the warp, they didn't go through it. (Horus Heresy. Flight of the Eisenstein)

The Astonomicon is NOT essential for travel through the Warp, but it is a great help as it provides a point of reference for navigators while immersed in the warp.

Skipping universes for a minute it's akin to having a map of hyperspace routes as opposed to blind jumping

Were navigators created intentionally during the DAoT or we're they a mutation that just happened?

If they are mutants it makes me wonder if chaos deliberately induced the mutation to spread humanity far and wide for its own purposes.

I think the background is that the Navigators were intentionally created. The mutations the have (non chaotic ones) are from millennia of inbreeding. Apparently if the breed with a non Navigator the children will not have the ability.

I think the warp was calmer during the DAoT. It was the Age of Strife, that came after, where the Warp "brewed up" and human civilisation collapsed. Slaanesh's berth blew out the storms and made it calmer again.

In the DaOT the Warp was pretty calm but there wasn't anything to navigate by so they used Navigators to make lots of small jumps to get place to place like a halfway point between what the Imperium do and what the Tau do.

Then the Warp got all stormy in the Age of Strife and nobody travelled anywhere much until the Crusade started.

Pretty much exactly what pm713 said. The Immaterium wasn't quite so devastatingly unstable before Slaanesh was born.

So as usual the Eldar are to blame for most of the bad things happening in the galaxy. You're welcome.

 Melissia wrote:
Pretty much exactly what pm713 said. The Immaterium wasn't quite so devastatingly unstable before Slaanesh was born.

So as usual the Eldar are to blame for most of the bad things happening in the galaxy. You're welcome.

Well if the Orks had done a better job of being a threat they wouldn't have gotten so lazy, really it's all the Orks fault. (I'm kidding I blame Dark Eldar. They're the worst.)

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
Now did human ships maneuver thru the warp in the dark age of technology before the emp created the astronavicom? Also why we're tne navigators genetically engineered during the DAoT before the astronavicom was created?

I just wondered about that for some reason.

I hope I get at least one answer before some damn mod lock hammers this like most of my posts.

But yes, a navigator is better at navigating the warp than a 'calculated' jump without a navigator. A reference point - like the Astronomicon - helps a huge amount - but it's not mandatory.
Also, other things can duplicate the effect. Pharos was a xenotech device during the Horus Heresy which Gulliman used as a 'stand-in' Astronomicon on his side of the Ruinstorm, so it's not beyond imagining that a Dark Age of Technology archeotech device might have been able to do the same.

Good replies, all info, no snark. Very good.

Makes me wonder if chaos did have something to do with the navigators. I mean, without them human civillization might not have grown as big and widespread as it did, and maybe some chaos power (I'm looking at YOU, Tzeentch.) decided that a widespread humanity that would be shattered and scattered when the eldar let slaanesh on the galaxy would be a possibly vry useful thing for chaos to have.

So maybe a chaos power *Koff* tzeentch*Koff* deliberately influenced things, all according to plan, of course, to create the navigator gene. Possibly a few "random" mutants started it,m proved useful, and lead to the deliberate creation of better navigators.

I prefer the idea that things like that don't happen and Tzeentch focuses more on the Great Game so 8/10 of the weird stuff is just coincidence. It's boring that everything is Tzeentch IMO.

pm713 wrote:
I prefer the idea that things like that don't happen and Tzeentch focuses more on the Great Game so 8/10 of the weird stuff is just coincidence. It's boring that everything is Tzeentch IMO.

Agreed, the birth of Slaanesh was one of the major reasons behind humanity's regression in the Age of Strife, but you cant forget that the war with the Men of Iron helped set that up as well, and that was basically independent of Chaos as far as we know.

edited by ingtaer.

It's important to note that the only time the Warp was "calm" (but still dangerous because of it's mutable emotional nature) was before the war in Heaven between the old ones and the necrons.

The War in Heaven and the devestation it delivered on a galactic scale is what made the warp a massive gak hole. Slaneesh kicked it up another notch but thats just taking the warp from a 10 to a 11.