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Hey guys,

I'm wondering what it's like for the crew of an Imperial ship when it makes a warp jump...

I did read Dead Sky, Black Sun but I can't really remember the description of what it was like

What kind of noises do you hear?

Does reality shimmer a bit? Do you see weird crap?

I recall that there's supposed to be some device or something that "protects" the ship from the horrors of the warp? Or is that another role the astronomican fills?

Is it any different from travelling through normal space if that is the case?

I can't remeber where I read this but I think the crew feel sick after long periods of warp travel.

Id imagine it prolly isnt something you wanna do everyday and is a pretty tense time.. unless your an ork.

Henners91 wrote:I recall that there's supposed to be some device or something that "protects" the ship from the horrors of the warp? Or is that another role the astronomican fills?

That's the geller field. In flight of the eisenstien the geller field fails and the ship basicly just becomes rife with deamons.

The geller field is basically a "bubble" of real space around the ship, which the warp cant penetrate. I have also heard that looking at the warp is like looking at a vast multicolored expanse of smoke warp stuff, however I presume most of the time all things are battened down to avoid any possible danger.

For the most part the Geller Field protects the crew from the really nasty stuff. But working on a ship in warp transit I would imagine is like trying to buy groceries in Silent Hill, or maybe it would be like providing security on the Ishimura in Dead Space right before the Necromorphs take over. It's stressful creepy and not something any sane person would enjoy. If these aren't good examples also think Rose Red crossed with The Cell, or any good horror\fantisy story but without the climax or ending, just an endless cycle of "WTF was that!"

"Ancient History" in the Let the Galaxy Burn anthology has one of the best descriptions I've seen of travel in warp space. It talks about the crew feeling as though there is an immense pressure pushing in on the hull of the ship. The crew becomes prone to nightmares and hysteria too. As far as looking out into the warp from a ship it's described as just being completely black.

Like ComputerGeek01 said, it's somewhat safe compared to having no Geller field, but there is no guarantee.

It's like trying to drive a school bus through a massive horde of zombies.

If the Warp Vanes are damaged the Geller field will fail leading to a daemon incursion (very very bad).

IIRC, there is really nothing to see in the Warp. If there is a planet or something like that it seems like its covered by fog. Ocassionally the people inside the ship will hear scratching on the hull as the Daemons can enter (only time I've read about warp trvel was in the Inquisitor series, but that was an Inquisition ship (probably a Black Ship) covered with wards to prevent them from entering, they would occassionally claw at the hull for very short times though).

Warp Vanes were described like antenaes if I remember right. (Now looking at Lexicanum for more info about it ) Looks like Psykers weren't discovered, and proven to exist, before the invention of the Warp Drive (M18).
But Navigators weren't made until M22, 4000 years after the invention of warp travel, so they must have had an alternate way of navigating through the warp. But, it doesn't look like Daemons begin to start possessing Psykers until M25.

So before M25 I don't think they would have had any problems traveling through the warp. By the current time in 40k, probably nearly everyone might be as powerful as the first Pyskers who were able to be possessed. That's where the unease comes from because time and time again Warp Travel has been indentified with stories of crewmen ripping themselves apart to reveal a Daemon, who then slays the rest of the crew. It's probably also caused by the apparent psychic presence of mankind in the warp, they are targets and will likely be the target of Daemons eager to escape the Warp.

So it's a combination of both physical (They're using faster-than-light travel, I doubt it is as smooth as it would have been back during M22-25 (Golden Age of Technology)) and mental (Paranoia, they're raised to see Warp Travel as dangerous, but necessary for the Imperium) problems.

So a general uneasy feeling, but for good reason.

Just with regards to the space travel during the earlier warp drive traveling.
Psykers weren't needed because the ships were semi-sentient engines which navigated the warp without a human interface..

OP:

This is all based on a number of 40k books I've read over the years from Tanith series, Ravenor/Eisenhorn, Soul Drinkers,
Ciaphas Cain, Ultramarine series, IG books, codices, rule books etc etc....

If the Geller field is down:

What kind of noises do you hear?
Whatever freaks you out the most and is likely to drive you crazy.

Does reality shimmer a bit?
Yep, in ways we as humans could never imagine,
Warp displacements, possessions, humans turning canabilistic etc

Do you see weird crap?
It depends on wether you would call your mate turning into a towering, clawed, fanged evil monster
and eating the souls of your other mates as weird??

I recall that there's supposed to be some device or something that "protects" the ship from the horrors of the warp?
Geller Field and some Navigators have the natural strenght to actually shield the ship with their own strenght of will
(but generally only for a few minutes while the ship makes an emergency jump into real space)

Or is that another role the astronomican fills?
This is basically a guiding beacon.
It has no power in the warp (except religious power due to the "belief" in the astronomican)

Is it any different from travelling through normal space if that is the case?
Yes, you could reach the other side of the universe in days instead of centuries.
However, warp travel is conjectural and the people travelling could find themselves arriving at their destination months early or hundreds of years late.

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If the Geller Field is functional:

What kind of noises do you hear?
Only the noises of the ship itself, sometimes a faint moaning, leaves rustling, wind blowing type sounds.

Does reality shimmer a bit?
Yes, but it's so acute that only some SM and navigators/psykers notice it.

Do you see weird crap?
Nope, unless you catch two navy boys doing "weird" things in the bunk rooms....
(No offence to any navy boys in here, we know it's hard being on a ship for months at a time without the joys of a woman....)

I recall that there's supposed to be some device or something that "protects" the ship from the horrors of the warp?
Same as above

Or is that another role the astronomican fills?
Same as above.

Is it any different from travelling through normal space if that is the case?
Same as above..


Hope this helps....
Sol..

I guess Sol answered it all comprehensively

Man, now I want a 40k FPS where one of the levels is a Geller Field failing on your ship

It would be a hard level..

Read Rogue Trader, there is a lot on how Navigators transverse the warp. (And as someone playing one, it is hard and surprisingly nerve-wracking. So many tests, so many utterly dreadful things should it go wrong...)

One can make a warp jump without a navigator, but only short ones in well known regions of space, and you'd better have a good map. If you end up in a disturbance, like a strong current or warp storm you're in serious trouble. A navigator is always quicker and safer since they can actually see where they are going. You won't cross the galaxy in a few days, that's more likely to take a few months. Seems a long time until you realise that it would take a minimum of several thousand years without the warp...

I'll have to continue reading Ragnar's Claw to know more about the actual process of going through the Warp (I read about it in Flight of the Eisenstein, but that was a long while ago) but I do know that the Warp has a tendency to make time go FUBAR. In one example, a crew goes through the Warp on a short, two to three day journey - but when they exit the Warp, several centuries have passed in the real world. In another example, a crew goes through and emerges a few days later, but when they reach Imperium space, it's discovered that the entire crew has aged several decades, with everybody senile and insane after forty or fifty years of Warp travel.