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A question came up in my 40k group about the nature of Imperial teleportation technology that none of us could find a definitive answer to online.

Do Imperial teleporters go both ways? After Terminators deep-strike onto the battlefield, when all's said and done, can they call Scotty to beam them back up? Or do they have to catch a ride back up to orbit like all the other marines?

I would assume that it is outgoing only, because usually they require a while room and massive generation of power to send a single squad somewhere, and even that is not a sure thing, unless you have specialized equipment on the surface to home in on.

they likely have a transport pick them up after a successful battle.

They can go both ways. This is shown in both the Master of Sanctity book where a Terminator is teleported to the battleship to deliver a message and in the Emperors Gift when Wolf Guard do a hit and run attack.

Codex: Armageddon also has a short story with Black Templars being teleported off a Space Hulk after setting a bomb.

There is also the background to the Titanhammer Squad formation, detailing how the formation developed. Unable to breach the defences of a titan, Lysander teleported back aboard his ship, got his 30 best guys and a Vortex Grenade and then teleported inside the Void Shields and the rest is history.

The answer is, I'd imagine, yes. If they're not two way, then how did Big-E, the Dorn-Yawn, and their assorted buddies get back to Terra from Horus' flagship?

While two-way is possible the risks are such that no one in his right mind would teleport back unless necessary. If the terminator squad manages to accomplish their mission and the enemy is routed/destroyed there's no reason to not wait for a transport to pick them up.

Spetulhu wrote:
While two-way is possible the risks are such that no one in his right mind would teleport back unless necessary. If the terminator squad manages to accomplish their mission and the enemy is routed/destroyed there's no reason to not wait for a transport to pick them up.

Marines excel in deep strike sudden hit and run surgical strikes and there really aren't very many of them. There are lots of reasons why they wouldn't want to hang around at the end of a mission, successful or not.

Must be the same reason why teleportation isn't available to all Space Marine units, whatever that is.

Of course there's two way teleporation. Otherwise not only would half of the Space Hulk missions not exist, literally every mission would be a suicide mission.

Two-Way Teleportation is possible, but only if the one teleporting is carrying a Teleport Homer Signaling Device. These are usually built-in on Terminators, but using a homing device to get pulled from somewhere else to the Teleportarium is riskier than walking to the Teleportarium and being sent somewhere from it.

From memory in Battlefleet Gothic all capital ships could conduct teleport boarding attacks on ships within 10cm and theonly way for them to get back would also be by teleporter.

Since teleporting involves a short hop through the Warp in most cases, the reason terminator armour is required is that provides 'some protection' against the daemons therein.

Seems pretty definitive. Thanks for the references!

There is also a villain in one of the Ravenor books... or might have been Eisenhorn... who falls off a cliff and is saved, at the last second, by being teleported out. He wasn't even wearing Terminator armor. So it's not impossible, just very rare.