|
|
|
 Fluff Library - Inquisitorial Archivist D'hain +++Thought for the day+++ |
 |
Space Fleet
by Jervis Johnson, Andy Jones, Simon Forrest & Rick Priestley (White Dwarf 139 &140)Detailed background information.
The galaxy is a vast spiral, ninety thousand light years across and fifteen thousand light years thick, containing four hundred billion stars. Only a fraction of the stars have habitable planetary systems, and only a tiny fraction of these have been investigated by humanity or any other spacefaring race.
The initial human colonisation of the galaxy lies in the distant past, separated from the present by twenty thousand years of regression and rebuilding. Human worlds are scattered throughout the galaxy but their distribution is not even. The greatest density of human worlds is in the galactic west, close to Earth. In the galactic east, in the area known as the Eastern Fringe, human worlds are few and often far apart.
Many human worlds benefit from mutual contact and a comparable level of technology. Others have become primitive and barbarous, often as a result of periods of isolation. New human worlds are being discovered all the time, and there remains an unknown number which have been isolated and forgotten for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
Stellar empires cannot really be reckoned in terms of the spatial areas they occupy, but only in terms of the star systems under their control. The Imperium is the largest such empire in the galaxy. The million or more worlds that lie under its dominion are spread throughout the entire galaxy with the exception of the Eastern Fringe. It extends to the limits of the Astronomican, the beacon which its fleets rely on for navigation. Of course the Imperium does not control all of the star systems within this vast area, nor even the majority of the inhabited systems within its borders. The galaxy also contains many alien races ruling smaller empires of their own.
The Imperium is ruled from Old Earth. It is governed by a vast bureaucracy known as the Adeptus Terra sometimes referred to simply as The Priesthood. The Adeptus Terra governs the Imperium in the name of the Emperor of Humanity, the Undying Master of Mankind.
Most of the information about spaceships and space travel in this article refers to the fleets of the Imperium. For more information on the vast, complex and fascinating Empire of Man, see the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook.
The Eastern Fringe lies beyond the Astronomican and so beyond the easy reach of Imperial forces. It is known to contain human planets settled in ancient times as well as many alien worlds. Some of these planets have populations which are feral or barbarous but many shelter highly advanced cultures. Most worlds are self-governing or belong to small independent human or alien empires. Agents of the Imperium are continually exploring the Eastern Fringe, spying out dangers, recruiting allies, and fighting wars beyond the borders of the Imperium itself.
The Eye of Terror lies on the edge of the galaxy to the north and west of Earth. It can be plainly seen as a swirl of stars appearing very much like an eye. The Eye of Terror is also the centre of a huge and dangerous warpstorm. It is in fact one of the few places in the galaxy where real space and the warp
actually overlap. Following the wars known as the Horus Heresy which were fought at the dawn of Imperial history, rebel forces allied to Warmaster Horus fled into the Eye of Terror after their defeat at the hands of the Emperor and loyal human troops. Their descendants still rule the Eye of Terror. Their prolonged contact with the warp and its inhabitants has changed them utterly: they are no longer human nor wholly sane. They remain amongst the most deadly enemies of the Imperium and humanity.
Most of the stars in the galaxy remain unexplored. Whole areas of the galaxy are embroiled within warpstorms and are therefore inaccessible from other areas. Other stars are simply remote and await mapping and codification by the Imperial exploration teams. These largely unknown zones are known as wilderness space or wilderness zones. As warpstorms abate, old wilderness areas are explored, uncovering ancient human settlements as well as alien races and empires. Wilderness zones are spread throughout the galaxy.
Humanity is but one of many races in the galaxy. However, none are so widely distributed or so numerous as humans. Most occupy only a single world or a small group of worlds. The majority of aliens are comparatively primitive, peaceful or powerless, and of little interest to humanity. Only a few alien races are powerful, aggressive and possess technology which rivals that of the Imperium. Of these, the most common are the Orks, Eldar and Tyranids.
The Orks are the degenerate descendants of a once- sophisticated spacefaring race. They are brutal and warlike, but retain some of the technological knowledge invented by their forebears. Orks are naturally anarchic and aggressive, fighting constantly amongst themselves as well as against other races. Ork worlds are spread throughout the galaxy in a similar way to those of humans, testifying to a past age of superior technical knowledge.
Ork Warlords represent a consistent and dangerous threat to humanity. Individually they control only a few ships, but there are so many of these petty tyrants that the Imperium is in constant danger from their raids. Their craft are crudely designed and constructed, but effective for all that and easily a match for Imperial ships of similar size.
The Eldar are an ancient race that live on giant spacecraft called Craftworlds. These Craftworlds drift through space at sub-light speeds. The Eldar travel through space by means of an intricate system of warpgates and tunnels, closed routes through warpspace leading from a Craftworld to either a point in space or a planet. Some gates are quite small and allow an Eldar to literally walk from his Craftworld to another part of the galaxy. Other gates are large, and every Craftworld has at least one warpgate that is large enough to enable spacecraft to enter. It is by this means that Eldar ships travel between the stars - they have no warp drives in the human sense.
There are more details on Eldar spaceships later in this article.
The Tyranid hive mind is an alien entity, a great creature that is formed from countless billions of creatures, a mind that is many linked minds. The Tyranids have travelled to the Imperium in a hive fleet from an unimaginably distant galaxy. The hive fleet is a great dark swarm of many millions of individual spacecraft, each a gigantic living thing, a creature fashioned from organic tissue by means of sophisticated genetic manipulation of which the Tyranids are masters.
The Tyranid hive mind hungers for fresh gene-stocks that can be used to create new bio-construct creatures and organic machines. Their own galaxy is exhausted, its creatures long- since absorbed into the hive mind, their flesh turned to machine-like purposes or discarded as useless. The Imperium, with its countless billions of humans and other creatures, offers the Tyranids an almost inexhaustible supply of flesh and genes which will invigorate the hive mind and enable it to embody itself in new forms.
The hive fleet has reached the outer part of the Imperium and the entire south-eastern spiral arm of the galaxy now lies under its dominion. A thousand human worlds have already fallen to the invader, their populations consumed or enslaved by the Tyranids.
Now the Imperium prepares for war. The weaponshops of Mars turn out ever-more potent machineries of death, new spaceships sail from the shipyards of Necromunda, Space Marine chapters muster their fleets and begin the long battle to counter the hive fleet, the vast resources of the Imperial Guard gradually swing into action as millions of men prepare to embark on a war for humanity's very survival.
The worlds of the Imperium are governed by hereditary rulers called Imperial Commanders. The Imperial Commander holds his planet on behalf of the Emperor. In return for his oath of loyalty and regular planetary tithes, he controls the planet as if it were his own. The Imperial Commander is free to administrate and defend his planet as he sees fit. Most worlds maintain fleets of interplanetary spacecraft - ships built to operate within their home system and lacking the warp engines needed for travel between stars.
Interplanetary ships are common on all technically advanced worlds. Even on medieval and feral worlds the planet's governor and his associated staff and warriors would have access to such spacecraft - the general population would remain either ignorant of or completely in awe of spacecraft and technology.
Interplanetary shipping is administered by the Imperial Commander of each system. Some Imperial Commanders keep a tight leash on all space travel, others are far more lax and allow independent bodies to organise and maintain spacefleets to serve the system. Similarly, while some Imperial Commanders police their systems very thoroughly, others find it impossible or impractical to enforce controls on independent operatives. Some Imperial Commanders undoubtedly collude with anarchic and piratical organisations, trading off the control of planets or asteroids, mining or transport rights, or even defence and policing concessions, in return for personal profit. These Imperial Commanders may maintain that this is the only way they can control their worlds.
Each planet is responsible for its own defence. Imperial Commanders are obliged to build ground-based defences, spaceports, and what defence fleets that can. The number of weapons and ships in any individual system will vary, depending on the enthusiasm of its governor as much as the possible danger. In addition to ships under the control of the Imperial Commander, planets lying in vulnerable positions or having a history of trouble may also have an Imperial Fleet base. Although Fleet ships are independent of those of the Imperial Commander, both would be ready to meet an emergency. Fleet ships may also be stationed in one system so that thcy can patrol a number of nearby star systems.
Without space travel mankind would have died millennia ago in the poisoned desolation of earth's sterile deserts. Today, interstellar spaceships form a frail lifeline enabling humanity to survive amongst the stars. The defence of the Imperium, trade, communications and transport are each dependent upon interstellar travel and ultimately upon interstellar spaceships.
Interstellar spaceships are equipped with warp drives enabling them to travel between the stars. A few of these craft are owned by Imperial Commanders, Navigator families or other independent organisations or individuals. The vast majority belong to and are controlled by the Administratum, the administrative branch of the Adeptus Terra. All legally operating human ships, whether owned by the Imperium or not, are registered and policed by the Administratum.
An understanding of interstellar travel requires some knowledge of the warp. The material universe is just one aspect of reality. There is a quite separate and co-existing immaterial universe. This is commonly known as the warp or warpspace, also known as Chaos, the otherworld, the ether, the empyrean, the void and the immaterium. The study and exploitation of the warp is the aim of warp technology, the most important achievement of which is warp travel.
Warpspace may be explained in terms of an endlessly broad and infinitely deep sea of raw energy. This energy carries within it the random thoughts, unfettered emotions, memory fragments and unshakeable beliefs of those who live in the material universe. In this sense it is the collective mind of the universe itself. It would be overly simple to claim that this is all there is to the warp, but the image is a useful mental tool which helps us to understand it.
A spacecraft drops into the warp by activating its warp engines. As a ship leaves the material universe it enters a corresponding point in warpspace. The ship is then carried along by the tides and currents of the warp.
After travelling in this fashion for an appropriate time, the ship uses its warp engines to drop back into real space. Because the material universe and the warp move relative to each other, the ship reappears in a new position several light years from its starting point. This process is called a jump or hop and the process of entering or leaving warpspace is known as a drop or shift.
Journeys are undertaken in short jumps of up to 4 or 5 light years. Longer jumps are unpredictable and dangerous. The tides of warpspace move in complex and inconsistent patterns and ships attempting longer hops often end up wildly off course.
Were this limitation to apply to all warp travel then humanity would not have spread throughout the galaxy as it has. It is possible to make long jumps of many light years by steering a ship within the warp itself - sensing, responding to and exploiting its currents and thereby directing the craft towards a corresponding point in the material universe. Only the strange human mutants known as Navigators can pilot a craft through the warp in this way.
Some people are sensitive to the movements of warpspace. They can, for example, sometimes tell that a spacecraft is approaching even before it drops back into the material universe. This human sensitivity to the warp is not generally well developed. However, in a minority of people this sensitivity is far more finely tuned. These people are known as psykers and they are able to consciously control and use the energy of the warp to affect the material universe. Navigators are powerful psykers of a specialised kind who can use their powers to steer spacecraft in the warp.
The Astronomican is a psychic homing signal centred upon the Earth. It is powered by the continuous mental concentration of thousands of psykers. The Astronomican cannot be detected in the real universe but only in the warp. It is by means of this signal that Navigators can steer their spaceships over long distances.
The Astronomican's signal is strongest close to Earth and gets increasingly weaker further away. It extends over a spherical area with a diameter of about 50 thousand light years. Because the Earth is situated in the galactic west, the Astronomican does not cover the extreme eastern part of the galaxy. Nor is the extent or strength of the signal constant - it can sometimes be blocked by localised activity within the warp itself. Such activity may be compared to the hurricanes or storms of a terrestrial weather system and is known as a warpstorm. Warpstorms may be so bad, and so long-lasting, that entire star systems are isolated for hundreds of years at a lime.
A warpstorm not only obscures the signal of the Astronomican, it is also dangerous for spacecraft travelling nearby. No spacecraft can venture within a warpstorm and expect to survive, although there are tales of miraculous escapes and of ships being thrown tens of thousands of light years off course. Warpstorms are not the only dangers within the warp. There are sentient energies and other immaterial life-forms that inhabit it: creatures formed from (and part of) the shifting stuff of the warp. Few are friendly and many are hostile. They are known to mankind as Daemons.
The time differences between real space and warpspace are quite drastic. Not only does time pass at different rates in both kinds of space, but it also passes at very variable rates. Until a ship finishes its jump, it is impossible for a ship's crew to know exactly how long their journey has taken. Time passing in real space is referred to as real time. Time passing on board a spacecraft is referred to as warp time. The relationship between real time and warp time is shown on the chart below.
|
Light Years |
Minimum Warp Time |
Minimum Warp Time |
Minimum Real Time |
Maximum Real Time |
|
1 |
2 mins |
6 mins |
43 mins |
4.5 hrs |
|
5 |
7 mins |
30 mins |
3.5 hrs |
1 day |
|
10 |
14 mins |
1 hr |
7 hrs |
2 days |
|
50 |
1.25 hrs |
4.75 hrs |
1.5 days |
9 days |
|
100 |
2.5 hrs |
9.5 hrs |
3 days |
3 weeks |
|
500 |
12 hrs |
2 days |
2 weeks |
3 months |
|
1000 |
1 day |
4 days |
1 month |
6 months |
|
5000 |
5 days |
3 weeks |
5 months |
3 years |
So, for example, a 100 light year jump will seem to take from 2.5 to 9.5 hours to a spaceship's crew, but between 3 days and 3 weeks will have passed in real space. These times do not include journey times out to and from jump points on the edge of the star systems. It takes from days to weeks of travel at sub-light speeds to reach a drop from the spaceship's starting planet, and a similar time to re-enter the destination system.
The Imperium is approximately 75 thousand light years from edge to edge. A journey of this length would take between 75 and 300 days in warp time, and between 6 years and 40 years real time.
Once a spacecraft activates its warp drives it is plunged into a dimension very different from our universe. It is convenient to imagine warpspace as consisting of a relatively dense, almost liquid, energy which is devoid of stars, light and life as we know it.
Once within warpspace a ship may move by means of its main warp drives, following powerful eddies and currents in the warp, eventually reaching a point in the warp corresponding to a destination in real space. The most difficult aspect of warp travel is that it is impossible to detect the movement of warpspace once a ship is in the warp. The ship can only blindly carry on, its crew trusting that it is going in the right direction. The longer a ship remains in warpspace the greater the chances of encountering some unexpected current that can turn it unknowingly off-course.
Navigation of warpspace can be achieved in two ways: the calculated jump and the piloted jump.
All warp-drives incorporate navigational mechanisms. When the ship is in real space, these monitor the ever shifting movements of the part of the warp corresponding to the ship's current position. By observing these movements in the warp it is possible to calculate a course, corrective manoeuvres, and approximate journey time to a proposed destination. Calculation relies on the assumption that the warp-currents observed from real space don't change significantly during flight. This method is known as a calculated jump. It is not safe to make a calculated jump of more than four or five light years at one go. The longer the jump, the greater the chances of a significant change in warp current movement.
The second, and more efficient, form of warp-navigation is the piloted jump. This method relies upon two factors: the human mutants known as Navigators and the psychic beacon called the Astronomican. The Astronomican is centred on Earth and is not only controlled by, but is directed by, the psychic power of the Emperor himself. The Astronomican is a beacon that, because it is psychic, penetrates into warpspace. A Navigator on hoard a ship in the warp is able to pick up these signals and can steer a spaceship through warpspace, compensating for current changes as he does so. A piloted jump can safely cover a far greater distance than a calculated jump. 5,000 light years would he the normal maximum jump, but longer jumps have been made.
The whole structure of the Imperium is founded upon the craft that transport its armies and officials across the galaxy. It is the fleets that carry vital food to the starving hive-worlds, and which bring technology and equipment to the agricultural planets. Without its fleets the Imperium would soon collapse and humanity would perish in many parts of the galaxy.
Interstellar craft may be privately owned but most operate on behalf of one of the Imperial organisations. Of these, the Imperial Fleet is the largest, numbering tens of thousands of warships and hundreds of thousands of cargo vessels of varying sizes. In addition to its spacecraft, the Fleet maintains military spaceports, space stations, mining and factory ships, various orbital research stations and countless unmanned orbiting spaceships that serve as early warning, exploration and research satellites.
So vast is the Imperium that the Fleet is divided into five main sections, each functioning as an independent administrative unit (although they cooperate whenever it's necessary). Most of the higher levels of Fleet command come directly from the ranks of the Priesthood - principally from the Administratum. The overall Fleet commander is also a High Lord of Terra and resident on Earth.
The Priesthood also maintains a small number of its own ships. Some of these reside permanently on the Imperial planet, whilst others are scattered throughout the galaxy, transporting Imperial servants on missions of the greatest importance or secrecy. A further corps of ships lies under the direct control of the Adeptus Arbites, the Judges, to be used for transportation and war.
The Space Marines have their own interstellar transports and battlefleets. Although not large in numbers these arc manned by the most ferocious and highly-trained warriors in the galaxy. Each Space Marine chapter has sufficient ships to act as a spacebound home base, including equipment transports and landing craft. Space Marine Commanders are at liberty to purchase craft or capture enemy craft and use them how they will. Individual chapters use their own colour schemes and markings and their ships are immediately identifiable.
Other interstellar craft form a minority. The small exploratory fleets of the Rogue Traders may number as many as two hundred ships at one time, but are scattered beyond the fringes of human space. Other Imperial organisations, such as the Officio Assassinorum, also have access to interstellar craft, but the details of these ships are well-guarded secrets.
Interstellar ships in private hands make up a fairly small fraction of the total. In addition there are space stations, mines and factory craft also owned by individuals, corporations or mercantile families but these are a rarity. As far as interstellar travel is concerned, the Imperium is all-powerful and ships not controlled by the Imperium are only permitted to exist because their owners are cooperative and useful.
The most noteworthy privately-owned ventures are the great mercantile families of Navigators. Even the largest of these owns a relatively small number of craft, but in terms of real wealth this represents a huge investment. Most of these ships are ancient family possessions nurtured and maintained over the millennia - but they are generally large and well built.
The Imperium is divided into five fleet zones known as the Segmentae Majoris. Although intended for purposes of fleet administration and shipping controls, the Segmentae have evolved into administrative divisions of the Adeptus Terra.
All shipping is supervised within the jurisdiction of one of the five Segmentae. Each Segmentum has an orbital headquarters called a Segmentum Fortress which forms the base of fleet operations within the Segmentum. The Segmentum Fortress is controlled directly by a high-ranking official of the Administratum known as the Master of the Segmentum.
|
Zone |
Segmentum |
Fortress |
|
Central |
Segmentum Sola |
Mars |
|
North |
Segmentum Obscurus |
Cypra Mundi |
|
South |
Segmentum Tempestus |
Bakka |
|
East |
Ultima Segmentum |
Kar Duniash |
|
West |
Segmentum Pacificus |
Hydraphur |
Each Segmentum is divided into sectors. The size of a Sector varies according to local demands and stellar density. A typical sector might encompass 7 million cubic light years, equivalent to a cube with sides almost 200 light years long.
Sectors are divided into sub-sectors, usually comprising between 2 and 8 star systems within a 10 light year radius (some may encompass more systems - others only 1). This size is governed by the practical patrol ranges of spaceships. Because sub-sectors are divisions of worlds (rather than volumes of space) there are vast numbers of star systems within each sector which do not fall with in a sub-sector. These are referred to as inter sectors - and are commonly known as wilderness zones, forbidden zones, empty space and frontier space. Inter-sectors may contain gas or dust nebulae, inaccessible areas, alien systems, unexplored systems, uninhabited systems and uninhabitable worlds.
The Imperium's interstellar ships comprise merchant vessels, warships, civil craft and several other specialised types. These are organised into specific fleets: merchant fleets, warfleets, and civil fleets. Each of the Segmentae Majoris has its own merchant, civil and warfleets. So for example, the Warfleet Solar is the warfleet of the Segmentum Solar, the Merchant Pacificus is the merchant fleet of the Segmentum Pacificus, the Civilus Tempestus is the civil fleet of the Segmentum Tempestus and so on.
The combined merchant fleets comprise almost 90% of all interstellar spacecraft in the Imperium. Each fleet is based in one of the five Segmentae Majoris. and its administrative staff operate from the Segmcntum Fortress. For example, the Solar fleet is based on Mars, while the fleet of the northern zone - the Segmentum Obscurus - is based on Cypra Mundi. Although these fleet bases are huge ports equipped with docks, shipyards and repair facilities, their main function is to administrate the fleets operating within their area. Only a small proportion of ships ever travel to the Segmentum Fortress where they are theoretically based.
Each merchant ship serves its fleet under an arrangement called a merchant charter. Not all charters are the same - some confer more power and responsibility to the ship's captain than others - but all types take the form of a feudal oath sworn to the fleet authorities on behalf of the Emperor. A captain may not register his vessel with the fleet authorities until this oath has been sworn and a record of it entered at the Segmentum Fortress for that zone and on the Segmcntum Fortress on Mars.
Although the vast majority of interstellar spacecraft are part of the merchant fleets, there are several thousand ships registered to individuals, families or trading cartels. All privately-owned interstellar craft operate along routes licensed to them by the fleet authorities responsible for shipping within that Segementum. These route licences must be bought, and must be renewed after a fixed time, usually a hundred years. This means few privately-owned ships like to risk the effects of time dilation on long journeys. A licence may run out before the ship has completed its journey!
Civil fleets vary in size from a single vessel to several dozen. One of the largest is that of the Navigator family Redondo, numbering 47 registered interstellar ships. Most ship owners have only a single vessel.
Each of the five warfleets serves within one of the Segmentae Majoris and is responsible for protecting shipping within it.
Most space battles take place around installations or planets, most of which can be defended efficiently by means of sub-stellar craft and planet-based defences. Even so, it is impossible to provide total defence for every Imperial world. The warships of the Imperial Fleet are highly mobile and extremely potent weapons, able to gather to meet large threats where necessary.
Warship captains are Imperial servants like their merchant brethren. However, all warship captains are appointed by the administrative officers of the Segmentum, and have no rights of ownership regarding their vessels. The organisation of the fleets is far more rigid than that of the merchant fleet, with a hierarchy similar to that of the land-based armed forces of the Imperium.
Imperial space is so vast, with so many star systems and areas of Wilderness Space to be patrolled, that even the many thousands of spaceships in the warfleets must be spread thin, with individual ships and squadrons set out on their own assignments. The Imperium cannot maintain permanent fleets ready to respond to invasion or rebellion. Nor would it make sense to do so - it would take so long for a fleet to get from its base to the war zone that the enemy would surely have moved on by the time it arrived.
Instead, temporary battlefleets are gathered together whenever they are needed. Warships within a relatively small area are summoned to join the battlefleet. It is rare for ships more than 50 light years from the battle zone to be included in the fleet and more commonly only those within 10 or 20 light years are summoned. Even with ships this close to the battle, it will take at least days and more often weeks for them to arrive.
Only during the very largest of wars, lasting for many decades, does the lmperium bring battleflects together and dispatch them en masse to a warzone. Such a war is currently underway in the galaxy's south-eastern spiral arm. Here the Tyranid Hive Fleet Kraken is inexorably advancing, conquering and consuming the planets in its path. A massive campaign involving millions of men, thousands of ships and whole chapters of Space Marines is being fought against the Tyranid invasion. Fleets are being mustered in all the Segmentae to begin the long journey to the warzone. The journey will take decades in some cases and many of the crew will never see the battles they are heading towards - but the Imperium knows all too well that in mere decades the Tyranid threat will be as strong as ever.
The battlefleets of the Imperium must combat many enemies - Ork raiders, Eldar pirates, the Tyranid Hive Fleet and other alien invaders. It must also fight forces from within the Imperium itself. Most of these battles are small-scale and involve only sub-stellar craft in skirmishes with smugglers, brigands and rebels. But occasionally larger conflicts occur when whole systems or groups of systems must be brought into line. Sometimes these systems have their own fleets and the Imperium must send its largest battleships and cruisers to crush the enemy. In these circumstances an Imperial battlefleet will be facing an enemy containing ships exactly like its own - the enemy will also be using ships like Gothic battleships, Firestorms, lronclads, Cobras and so forth.
These rebellions most often happen when an area of the lmperium is cut off by a warpstorm. Warpstorms are common occurrences and systems frequently lose contact for a few years - when the storm passes, contact is re-established and little has changed. Sometimes storms last for decades, even centuries, and systems that are cut off for this long can stray far from Imperial authority. Once the warpstorm has died down and travel to the system is feasible again, the Imperium may be rebuffed by an independent federation or find itself in the midst of a local war. A battlefleet will he assembled to return the system to Imperial control and Imperial spaceships will find themselves facing ships that perhaps once served alongside them in other wars.
It is also not unknown for squadron or fleet commanders to rebel and turn against the Imperium, using the awesome power they command to carve out their own petty empires on the fringes of Imperial space. The most infamous rebellion in the Imperium's long history is that of Warmaster Horus when fully half of the Imperial forces turned against the Emperor and mankind was divided in a terrible civil war. Only the death of Horus himself and the banishment of the rebels to the Eye of Terror brought peace to the Imperium. Even now, a constant vigil is kept around the Eye of Terror where the Chaos fleets remain, often launching small raids and occasionally major incursions into Imperial space.
Most spaceships are old - open space, the most hostile environment to man, preserves the plastics and metals that spacecraft are made from. Space gives them with the power to endure through generations of men. The Imperial fleets number many thousands of ships, the majority of which are at least a thousand years old. Some are as old as the Imperium itself, a full ten thousand years. A very few claim a pre-Imperial origin. It is difficult for those born under the claustrophobic sky of a planet to appreciate the great dignity which is inherent in all old spacecraft.
The spaceships of the Imperium are vast constructions that take many decades to build. Each craft represents a huge investment of time and resources. But once completed, fitted out, armed and commissioned, a spaceship continues in service for centuries, even millennia. After that, it may be refitted, modernised, reconstructed and live on practically indefinitely. Barring a major accident or destruction in battle, a ship is immortal like a great city, its population and fabric existing in a constant state of decay and renewal.
Throughout this time there is a constant process of rebuilding and renewal. Hulls are damaged by battles, asteroid storms and the ravages of the warp. Mechanical parts inevitably wear down. Electrical components fuse. Engine housings crack or melt under the immense pressure and heat created by plasma and warp drives. To combat this constant process of decay, every interstellar spaceship has a maintenance crew of hundreds or thousands of dedicated craftsmen, continuously striving to repair and refit the ship. Inside a large Imperial warship there are factories and workshops, huge forges and plasma furnaces, even small refineries and ore smelting plants to provide raw materials for the work of reconstruction.
Interstellar spaceships are powered by plasma and warp drives. Plasma drives are used to move through star systems at sub-light speeds. They burn with the fierce energy of a star, converting their fuel into a super-heated gas plasma to create the immense thrust needed to propel these gargantuan craft through space. As a large interstellar spaceship moves out of orbit towards the edge of a star system ready to jump into the warp, the fiery arc it traces across the night sky can clearly be seen from the planet it's leaving. It appears to be a great comet streaking through the heavens - on many worlds, the arrival or departure of' a spaceship is read as an omen, a divine harbinger of joy or doom.
Warp drives are altogether more esoteric and terrifying, understood by few even among a spaceship's crew. When the spaceship reaches the jump point at the edge of the star system it's leaving. its plasma drives are turned off and its warp drives engaged. These hurl the spaceship out of real space and into warpspace, propelling it through the warp to a destination light years away. If a spaceship's warp drives were switched on while it was still within a star system. the huge rent in the very fabric of space that they create would be catastrophic for the population and planets of the system. The spaceship itself would be torn apart as the massive pull of the star's gravity reacted unpredictably with the energies released by the warp drives.
Fully one-third of a spaceship can be taken up by its engines with their huge thruster ports, cavernous combustion chambers, generators surrounded by massive protective cladding and the miles of pipes, tunnels, corridors and ducts needed for the control mechanisms, fuel supply and access by service crews.
The living areas of a spaceship contain the thousands, often tens of thousands, of men that serve aboard. These areas are often built up from the ship's hull into huge domes and spires that rise hundreds of metres into space. On some ships, they seem like the heart of a mighty city, immense towers rising to touch the stars, their sides glittering with lights, bridges spanning the void between them. On others they resemble a gigantic cathedral, the towers colonnaded and sculpted. Vast carved figures of legendary heroes recede into the darkness of space - huge homed gargoyles leap and leer from the highest pinnacles in mockery of the terrors of warpspace - golden domes blaze with the light of stars.
On freighters and merchant vessels, the rest of the ship is taken up by holds containing the ship's precious cargo. On warships this space is filled by the colossal power generators that drive their weapon systems. These towering structures hum and crackle with the monstrous energies bounded inside. They are housed within deep shafts which disappear from view into a darkness that is broken only by the crackling blue arcs of lightning which leap from the generators. When a laser battery is fired with a titanic unleashing of energy, its power well is filled with a furious roar. In battle, a warship echoes with the thunder of its weapons. its decks shuddering with the recoil of their furious discharges.
Ranked batteries of powerful laser cannon are the most common armament on the spaceships of the Imperium. Mounted in huge turrets, the lasers are powered by immense generators deep within the spaceships. They release their energy in deadly bolts of light with the power to punch through the massive hulls of spaceships. They are brought to bear in a single broadside that rakes a line of devastation across an enemy spaceship.
The fusion cannon is powered by the awesome energy released as atoms are brought together in a nuclear furnace and fused into new matter. At short range, the effects of a fusion cannon are devastating but they drop off quickly at longer ranges.
The prow laser is a single bank of laser cannon firing from the front of the spaceship. Although not as powerful as a laser broadside, it's forward position gives it a good arc of fire to attack incoming ships. It is often used to soften up the enemy as the spaceship prepares to ram.
A vortex torpedo creates a vast vortex held when it explodes. The vortex field disrupts the very fabric of the universe as the raw energy of the warp is pulled through into real space with terrifyingly destructive effects, even to something as large as a spaceship.
The plasma torpedo explodes in a burst of super-heated energy that literally burns its way through a spaceship's hull as the craft is engulfed in a ball of white-hot flame thousands of metres across.
On the Annihilator battleship, the usual laser broadsides of Imperial battleships have been abandoned in favour of two huge turret-mounted cannon. Known as Annihilator cannon, these massive weapons fire huge shells armed with powerful explosive warheads. The shells are fired at high velocity and then accelerated even further under propulsion from fast-burning plasma rockets. When they hit their target, their sheer speed and mass is enough to tear through even the armoured hull of an interstellar warship. A fraction of a second later their warheads explode and inflict devastating damage.
The turret mounting allows the Annihilator captain to bring his weapons to bear on all sides - only ships directly behind the Annihilator are safe from attack. The cannon can also be fired as the turret is being rotated - where a laser broadside has to concentrate its fire, the Annihilator cannon can pick out separate targets for attack. This is especially effective against smaller ships when a single shot from an Annihilator cannon can destroy the target.
Annihilators were the first battleships designed and built at the great Cypra Mundi forge worlds in the Segmentum Obscurus. Although they show their heritage in the rear portion of the ship, which resembles the typical design of the Jovian shipyards, the spear-headed front clearly shows the unique character of ships from Cypra Mundi. The use of unusual armament rather than the traditional laser batteries is also typical of Cypra Mundi.
The Castellan is a battlefleet support ship. Its role is to provide other warships with the vital defence they need to be able to close with the enemy and bring their weapons to bear.
The Castellan shield ship is built around a single huge shield generator. Most warships have a number of shield generators each projecting a short-range field in one direction. The Castellan shield emanates from the ship in every direction and is powerful enough to extend its protection to any spaceship close to the Castellan.
When the Castellan shield is hit by enemy attacks, the shield generator absorbs the energy of the attacks, preventing them from damaging their targets. This causes a gradual build-up of power in the shield generator and only the close attention of its Adeptus Mechanicus custodians prevents it from exploding.
Eventually, however, the power build-up becomes so great that unless the generator is shut down it overloads and ruptures in an almighty explosion that literally rips the Castellan apart from the inside. This sends out a vast fireball which engulfs the area that was under the shield's protection and can destroy the spaceships which were accompanying the Castellan for its protection.
In battle, the Castellan's Captain must constantly assess the dangers of leaving the shield running or shutting it down to dissipate the energy build-up. If he shuts the shield down too often, he fails to benefit the other ships around him with the Castellan's protection. If he waits too long, he jeopardises those very ships he's meant to he defending.
Cobra Destroyers usually act in support of battleship squadrons. When a Gothic battleship, for example, arrives in a system, its supporting Cobra squadrons are deployed to patrol the individual planets and moons. Their speed and mobility make them ideal craft to pursue and engage the sub-stellar spaceships of pirates, smugglers and rebels. For although they are small in comparison to the mighty battleships they accompany, Cobra Destroyers still vastly overawe and outgun all but the very largest of sub-stellar spaceships.
Cobra Destroyers are among the fastest warships in the Imperial Fleet. In battle, they operate in large squadrons, moving in tight formation into close contact with the enemy before firing their lasers or their destructive vortex torpedoes.
Even in large formations, Cobra squadrons can make tight turns, allowing them to sweep around an enemy's flank or move directly through his fleet, turn and launch a second wave of attacks from the rear. If the enemy turns to face the Cobras, he runs the very real risk of leaving himself open to attack from the rest of the battlefleet.
The Dictator is probably the most unusual battleship to be built at the great Jovian shipyards. It is designed specifically for close assault and is used to board, and often dismember, enemy spaceships.
The gigantic power claws of a Dictator can move with frightening speed to grab an enemy spaceship and rip it out of formation. Even if they fail to take hold, the massive force of the Dictator's claws can severely damage an enemy ship, tearing through its hull and crushing or pulling off huge sections of a ship's superstructure, engines or weapons.
An enemy ship that is firmly grabbed by the Dictator's claws is dragged onto the Dictator's huge boarding drill that bites deep into the unfortunate ship's innards. Once the drill has crunched through an enemy's hull and torn its path of destruction deep into the interior of the ship, hundreds of vast reinforced hatches swing open and the Dictator's crack assault teams pour out and take the battle into the very heart of the enemy ship.
If the first assault of the boarding action isn't successful and the enemy resistance appears to be strong, the Dictator captain may order his troops back to their own ship. He'll then use the Dictator's mighty power claws to twist and tear and crush the enemy ship. Smaller ships may be literally torn in two by the Dictator - larger ships may be disembowelled by the terrible saw-toothed drill.
Sometimes a ship will manage to break free, firing its engines at maximum power to loose itself from the Dictator's iron grip. But this is a desperate manoeuvre, often crippling the escaping ship as huge sections of its hull are torn off in the attempt
The Dominator comes from the same family of ships as the Tyrant and Emperor. It is armed with the awesome inferno cannon. This massive cannon is mounted along the entire length of the Dominator's hull. The huge shells are loaded at the rear of the ship in a cavernous chamber positioned above the roaring fury of the Dominator's plasma drives.
Each inferno cannon shell is the size of a tall building, its warhead packed with explosive. The shells are moved from the ship's magazine on great tracked transport vehicles that crawl along echoing tunnels down the length of the ship. The shells are loaded by powerful winches, guided by an army of engineers whose prayers ring through the chambers. As the huge breech closes, the gun crews leave the chamber - no man could withstand at short range the awesome concussion produced as the shell is fired.
The shell accelerates down the long barrel of the cannon, reaching a searing velocity that hurls it out into space. The whole ship shudders with the recoil of the cannon - indeed, it is constructed with massively reinforced bulkheads and hull supports to withstand the powerful shockwaves.
When the shell detonates it releases a ball of radioactive fire that forms a sphere of destruction kilometres across. Not only the cannon's target, but any ship close to it receives a deadly blast of intense heat, energised particles and huge jagged shards of shrapnel larger than most sub-stellar spaceships.
The inferno cannon is affectionately known as the Planet Buster by a Dominator's crew because it is often used in planetary assaults to rain fire down on enemy cities. A single shell is powerful enough to destroy all but the largest cities, leaving only flattened ruins around a crater many hundreds of metres deep. When an enemy planet learns that a Dominator has entered the star system, it is rare for a complete and unconditional surrender not to follow swiftly.
Emperor capital ships are designed exclusively for war. Their role is not to patrol the Imperium's many star systems or to combat small fleets of rebels and pirates, but to fight in huge space battles as part of great battlefleets.
Emperor Captains are chosen from the most experienced and revered of commanders - men whose judgment and outstanding tactical sense has been proved time and again in the heat of battle. It is traditional for the most senior Emperor Captain to be appointed as a battlefleet's commander - his ship becomes the flagship and the beacon to which the other squadrons rally as the fleet gathers for war.
The firepower of these vast ships is terrifying indeed. From orbit a single broadside can incinerate a whole city or reduce a mountain range to rubble - moons can be atomised - enemy spaceships seared with pious fire.
The huge Emperor ship can only manoeuvre at slow speeds, turning majestically to bring its broadsides to bear. But by driving its engines to their very limit it can surge forward at ramming speed. At the front of an Emperor ship is a massive energy ram ablaze with leaping bolts of raw power. When the ship rams at full speed it is near-invincible, smashing through even the most heavily-armoured hull and leaving its shattered enemy as a cloud of drifting debris in its wake.
On board an Emperor capital ship there are docks for the fleet of smaller sub-stellar craft that the ship carries with it. These are used for supply and communication both with planets and with other ships in the battlefleet. The great echoing chambers contain freighters, maintenance craft, scout ships and shuttles. They also house the Emperor's own fleet of fighter craft. These are small warships without warp drives and incapable of interstellar travel which are transported within purpose-built carrier craft or huge capital ships like the Emperors. They are launched during a battle to augment their mother ship's own firepower and move in to make close range attacks against the enemy's ships.
Firestorm Cruisers are often used on long-range incursions and patrols and as the first line of defence against alien attack. In the inhabited parts of human space, they jump from system to system, maintaining regular contact and reaffirming the ever-watchful presence of the Imperium.
Even with frequent patrols, the sheer size of the galaxy and the number of inhabited planets may mean decades pass before a system is revisited. Whole generations live and die between patrols and many of the Imperium's citizens never experience the passionate excitement of the arrival of a squadron of these mighty warships.
In the less-densely populated parts of the galaxy, the Firestorm squadrons patrol the vast areas of Wilderness Space, hunting down pirates and rebels, watching for signs of invasion by Ork or Tyranid fleets, and fighting innumerable small battles at the fringes of Imperial space.
Similar in design to the Gothic battleship, the Firestorm cruiser is a much faster spaceship. Although its weapons have neither the range nor the power of the Gothic battleship, the Firestorm makes up for this by its ability to close quickly with the enemy, allowing it to respond to unexpected enemy manoeuvres or move to exploit weakness in the enemy line.
The Galaxy is a fleet support ship used to transport regiments of the Imperial Guard from one star system to another. The Galaxy itself is not a proper warship although it will often operate as part of a battlefleet, supplying troops for planetary landings.
Imperial Guard regiments are recruited from a world's best warriors - gang fighters from hive worlds, planetary defence forces from industrialised worlds, tribal warriors from feral worlds and the feudal elite from medieval worlds.
At the time prescribed by the Administratum, a troop ship such as a Galaxy arrives at the planet to recruit the elite warriors. They then begin a great journey through space during which they are trained in the armaments and tactics of the Imperium. They are issued with standard Imperial equipment - lasguns, flak armour and so forth - and instructed in the Imperial faith. When they arrive at their destination, they have been trained into a crack force, their natural warrior skills honed to a razor-sharp edge.
Some regiments are sent to conquer and pacify newly-discovered planets and may remain there afterwards as a garrison, forming a new warrior elite to rule the planet. Other regiments may be moved from warzone to warzone, fighting countless battles on the Imperium's behalf.
The Goliath factory ship is a vast interstellar refinery and fuel transporter. Its role is to supply fuel to energy-hungry industrial and hive worlds. It transports its cargo from star systems rich in mineral resources across vast interstellar distances to worlds which have already depleted their own natural resources.
It arrives at a mining planet and takes aboard millions of tons of unrefined rare ores - for, of course, only rare and valuable ores are worth the expense of interstellar transportation. En route, the Goliath's huge refineries extract all the precious minerals from the ores. Working at immense pressures and temperatures, these minerals are then converted into plasma fuels that are incredibly energy-rich.
The Goliath itself needs a vast quantity of energy. Each ton of enriched plasma fuel uses many times more energy in the making than it will ever provide. To power its processes, the Goliath makes use of resources not available to cities and planetary factories - the raw power of the stars themselves. The Goliath skims close to the surface of stars, sucking in the energy that is burning off them by means of power fields that funnel the energy through to the Goliath's reactors.
At the end of its long voyage, a Goliath will have produced several million tons of super-energised plasma fuel. Every ton of this fuel is a thousand times more powerful than conventional nuclear fuels. And any explosion aboard a Goliath produces an incinerating fireball a thousand times more powerful than a conventional nuclear explosion.
Most Goliath factory ships are part of the Imperial merchant fleets. They usually ply the chartered routes between mining worlds and industrial planets. When they are passing through dangerous space, they often form into convoys accompanied by a defensive force of warships.
Sometimes a single Goliath accompanying a large battlefleet for the safety it offers will get caught up in a battle. At other times, a convoy will be deliberately attacked by pirates seeking to capture the ship or enemy raiders seeking to destroy it. A lucky convoy will be well-defended by warships. More often, only a few ships can be spared to protect the convoy and a fierce battle will ensue between raiders and convoy defence ships.
The Gothic is the mainstay of the Imperial Fleet and Gothic squadrons form the core of most Imperial battlefleets. Gothic battleships bring both the protection and the authority of the Imperium to the star systems they visit.
They operate in squadrons or singly, for the presence of even one of these vast warships is enough to bring a rebellious planetary governor into line or disperse raiding pirates to other more lucrative and less well-defended systems.
Some Gothic squadrons are more or less permanently stationed in one star system. In the Segmentum Obscurus, for example, they form part of the fleet stationed around the Eye of Terror, defending the Imperium from attack by Chaos fleets and raiding Chaos Renegades.
Other squadrons move from star system to star system, staying for a few months or years to complete their mission, refuel and resupply before making the jump to their next destination.
During the squadron's assignment to a system, a large flotilla of sub-stellar craft constantly surround the battleships, moving to and from the system's planets and moons. They supply the ships with food, fuel, ore, raw materials, personnel and all the other necessary supplies that these huge spaceships, each the size of a large city, require for their upkeep.
In battle, the long range of a Gothic battleship's vortex torpedoes make it a dangerous opponent, often able to launch one or more attacks before an enemy ship can get within range to return fire.
When it does close with the enemy, the Gothic battleships powerful laser batteries are fully capable of destroying an opponent with just a few broadsides while its own strong shield defences protect it from enemy attacks.
The Ironclad battleship hails hack to a time before the Imperium and these ships are millennia old. They were built when mankind's shield technology was too primitive for the defence of spaceships. Instead their hulls are massively armoured, covered with layer upon layer of thick plates arranged to deflect and minimise the impact of torpedoes and laser fire.
Over the many centuries of its service, every Ironclad has fought in countless space battles, and each ship's surface is pitted and rutted with the sears of combat, a glorious history of its long defence of the Imperium.
In times of peace, the Ironclad and the Gothic battleships share many of the same roles. In battle, the Ironclad plays a very different part. The Ironclad's main weapon is the fusion cannon, a weapon of awesome power capable of destroying an enemy spaceship in a single shot, Its energy, however, falls off at longer ranges and the Ironclad needs to close with enemy to be most effective.
Where the Gothic battleship can stand off at range and use its greater mobility to outmanoeuvre the enemy, the Ironclad must surge forward to deliver its attack at close quarters, braving the enemy fire and trusting to the protection of its massively-armoured hull.
The Stalwart is a convoy escort vessel and planetary defence ship. It is used primarily to escort merchant vessels as they travel between the heart of a system to the jump point at the very fringes of the system. The Stalwart itself has no warp drives and cannot make jumps between planetary systems. A squadron of Stalwarts will escort a convoy from the space docks around the system's planets and then remain at the jump point when the merchant vessels fire their warp drives and make their leap into warpspace. The Stalwarts wait at the jump point for the arrival of another convoy, which they then escort back into the centre of the system.
Stalwarts both guide and guard the merchant vessels they escort. Drawing on an intimate knowledge of their own system, the Stalwarts plot a course to avoid potential hazards, such as asteroid belts, comets and the favoured hunting grounds of pirate ships.
If the convoy is unfortunate enough to encounter pirates or other aggressors, the Stalwarts turn their laser batteries onto the enemy. Compared to the average sub-stellar pirate ship or the rag-tag entourage of a planetary governor, a squadron of Stalwarts is a fearsome foe indeed.
As a specialist convoy escort ship, the Stalwart is fitted with powerful blind field generators. These throw out a massive field of wide-spectrum electro-magnetic interference. To the naked eye, this appears as something like a dark cloud of dense fog which is impossible to see through. It has a similar effect on the sophisticated technology of spaceship targeting systems, preventing accurate shooting of any weapons either into or through the blind field.
The blind field provides complete protection for the merchant vessels behind it It also makes the Stalwart itself an almost impossible target. And as the enemy ship closes with the Stalwart in an attempt to penetrate the blind field, it comes within range of the Stalwart's own lasers.
The Thunderbolt is a fast-moving manoeuvrable strike ship from the shipyards of Cypra Mundi. It has the classic spearheaded shape which is the hallmark of spaceships from this forge world.
Its other distinguishing features also typify Cypra Mundi's experimentation: the unusual design of the large plasma drive at the rear, its inertial stabilisers and its use of forward-firing laser batteries rather than the more common broadsides.
The Thunderbolt cruiser is remarkably manoeuvrable for a ship of its size. This is due to its unique inertial stabilisers.
These stabilisers use a similar technology to the anti-gravity devices found in weapon suspensors. They offset the effects of mass and inertia and allow the Thunderbolt to turn much faster and in a much tighter circle than other Imperial ships of its size.
The speed and manoeuvrability of the the Thunderbolt cruiser, combined with its forward-firing laser batteries, make it ideal for fast sweeping attacks that aim to hit the enemy hard and then turn quickly to re-engage while the enemy is still recovering.
The Tyrant's design is similar to that of the larger Emperor capital ship. Each of the Imperium's ship designs is associated with a single shipyard. The shipyards orbit the forge-worlds of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
These worlds are vast manufacturing bases, their surfaces covered with massive industrial complexes, huge volcanic furnaces, skyscraping chimneys, abyss-like quarries and the great workshop-fortresses of the Titan Orders.
The Emperor, Tyrant and Dominator are typical of the spaceships produced at the Jovian shipyards. The docks and workshops circle the planet like a ring of moons, home to the millions of Servitors, Technomats and Drones that work under the supervision of Artisans and Rune-Priests to build the Imperium's warships. Each ship is a vast undertaking. Many of those working on it will live and die during its construction, never seeing the magnificent warship they proudly strived so hard to create.
Although the Tyrant resembles the Emperor, it is a more manoeuvrable ship. Where the Emperor often depends on its huge size and powerful shields to protect it, the Tyrant can attempt to outmanoeuvre the enemy in order to bring its devastating laser broadsides to bear.
Like the Emperor, the Tyrant has a large energy ram on its prow, constantly rippling with sparks of barely-restrained power. With its manoeuvrability at speed, the Tyrant can often move into a ramming position and literally carve its way through the enemy fleet.
The Tyrant battleship serves a similar role to the Gothic battleship - bringing rebellious systems into line, keeping the Imperial peace wherever it sails, and forming the core of battlefleets summoned to defeat pirates, alien raiders and other space-borne enemies of the Imperium.
FLAGSHIPS
Every fleet is led into battle by its flagship. The flagship is personally captained by the fleet commander who directs the course of the battle from the flagship's bridge right in the thick of the fighting.
The fleet commander always has the finest spaceship, officers and crew in the fleet. As an experienced captain and the hero of countless battles, he is an inspiration to his men. They proudly serve him with great vigour, honoured to be chosen by a leader of such renown.
The flagship often displays a striking emblem that identifies the commander leading the fleet. The commander is always ready to announce his presence, hoping to strike fear into the enemy who will know the legends that have grown up around his past successes.
These legends portray the fleet commander as an almost mythical figure, capable of superhuman feats and blessed with supernatural foresight that predicts and out-guesses the enemy's every move.
After a major space battle, many of the ships will have suffered minor damage. Shield generators recover over time as the excess power that has been built up is drained off. But if the shields have been breached by enemy attacks, the ship itself will have taken damage. Sometimes this can be repaired as the spaceship continues its journey - more often the ship has to return to the nearest space dock for repairs and a refit.
While his ship is docked, the fleet commander uses his authority and high prestige to get the most out of the engineers working on his flagship. And although he won't let the rest of his fleet suffer, he can requisition the best materials for his own ship. As the flagship is often the key to success or victory in a battle, it is entirely appropriate that it receives the most attention.
BOARDING ACTIONS
Every warship carries assault troops specially trained in the tactics of boarding enemy spaceships. When a spaceship has been hammered into submission by broadsides and torpedoes and is left drifting as a crippled wreck, boarding parties may be launched against it to try and capture the ship. The boarding ship moves alongside the crippled ship and sends thousands of men into the assault.
All spaceships are equipped with teleporters and short-range sub-stellar launches and shuttles. These are mainly used to transport men and equipment to and from the ship when it's in orbit or docked at a spaceport. They can also be used to land boarding parties onto enemy spaceships.
Crack teams of assault troops, experienced in the tense, desperate fighting of shipboard combat, are teleported to key areas like the bridge, engine room and weapon targeting chambers. Meanwhile more troops land in the enemy ship's docking bays, or fly their shuttles in through gaping holes in the side of the hull.
Some ships are also specially-equipped with boarding torpedoes which they fire into the enemy ship. As soon as they hit, bursting through the hull of the crippled ship, the fronts of the torpedoes swing open and the heavily-armed boarding parties emerge, opening fire on any defenders as they head into the depths of the ship.
Boarding an enemy spaceship, even when it's crippled and drifting with all its weapon systems down, is fraught with danger. Often teleporters are inaccurate and assault troops find themselves fighting through a labyrinth of narrow corridors to reach their target. Or the enemy may have already prepared for landing shuttles and the boarding parties have to fight a pitched battle against well-armed defenders.
A crippled spaceship may be able to fight off the boarding parties and launch a counter-assault using its own teleporters and shuttles.
Even with the damage it's sustained, a crippled ship can sometimes muster enough men to counter-attack effectively and it's not unknown for a boarding ship to be captured by its prey!
Unlike the spaceships of the Imperium, powered by plasma engines and warp drives, the Eldar Wraithship with its vast sails is powered by starlight itself. Every star radiates a gale of photons, known as the solar wind, which the Wraithship catches in its sails. The Eldar are masters of sailing the solar winds and their ships race forward, sails billowing out as they run before the wind. With the same case, they can turn their great ships into the wind and tack against it, heading directly towards a star.
Wraithships are made from Wraithbone, a material drawn as raw energy from the warp and shaped into matter by psychic craftsmen known as Bonesingers. The Wraithbone forms the living skeletal core of the spaceship around which its other structures are arranged. The Wraithbone also provides channels for psychic energy. This facilitates internal communication, transmits power and enables the spaceship to act as an organically integrated whole.
The Wraithbone core of a spaceship is surrounded by a structure which is literally grown into the required shape by Bonesingers. These Eldar use their psychomorphic talents to shape bulkheads, walls, floors and conduits into a shell that completely surrounds the Wraithbone core and forms the hull and major internal divisions of the spaceship.
Most of a spaceship's operating systems are connected directly to the Wraithbone core. The many thousands of systems draw power through the Wraithbone and are constantly monitored and controlled through it.
Because of the unique practices of Eldar psychic engineering, Eldar spaceships resonate with sympathetic psychic energy. The Wraithbone core provides a psychic channel through which an Eldar can control mechanical functions. In this way, Eldar attuned to the very essence of their spaceship guide it, making countless minute adjustments to the trim of the great solar sails to draw every fraction of energy from the solar winds.
This is also the key to the legendary elegance and almost birdlike agility of the Eldar Wraithships. Their pilots literally feel the solar wind on the ship's sails, they sense the flex of the ship's structure, the tension and movement of its Wraithbone skeleton. Like a hawk soaring on a thermal or diving to clutch at its prey, a Wraithship can turn in the wind, circling and swooping to hunt its own prey - the spaceships of its enemy.
Eldar Wraithships are usually part of Craftworld fleets. Craftworlds are huge Eldar spaceships, each a self-contained bio-system with natural zones and areas of habitation. The Craftworlds dwarf even the mighty warships of the Eldar and the Imperium - on the outside of Craftworlds, vast space docks house entire Eldar trading and war fleets, each containing many vessels the size of a Wraithship.
The Craftworlds are home to the Eldar race. Since the great tragedy known as The Fall when the Eldar race was almost entirely consumed in a cataclysm of destruction, the Eldar have colonised many worlds, but the Craftworlds remain the focus of these colonies and the heart of their society. Each Craftworld is independent - it conducts its own affairs and wages its own wars. Craftworlds do sometimes ally together to face a common threat or to achieve a common objective, but such alliances are usually temporary and have no lasting significance.
Although all Eldar are united by a common culture and racial identity, wars between Craftworlds are certainly not unknown. These wars are almost always fought over a locally-dispute world and are usually resolved in a short time. Sometimes, the conflicts spread and Eldar fleets will gather and face one another in battle. Even so, it is rare indeed for the Craftworlds themselves to actually become the object of assault - such destruction would be regarded as a wasteful and purposeless enterprise.
It is more common for the Eldar fleets to meet in battle with the Imperium. Although mankind is not at war with the Eldar race, local frictions sometimes escalate into small-scale wars, rarely involving more than a few systems in the less-populated areas of Imperial space. Disputes over colony worlds, the ownership of mining rights and even trade wars can all lead to Craftworld Wraithships meeting an Imperial battlefleet in combat.
Imperial fleets also battle with the ships of Eldar pirates who raid the lucrative trading lanes that are the arteries of the Imperial Merchant Fleets. Most of these encounters are skirmishes of just a few ships on each side - very few of the Eldar pirates are powerful enough to command even a single Wraithship, let alone an entire fleet. But occasionally a large pirate fleet will gather, perhaps supported by ships from a Craftworld, and a major space battle will ensue as the Imperium acts to impose the absolute authority of the Emperor of Man.
Like the Wraithship, the Eldar Shadowhunter is constructed from psychically-attuned Wraithbone and powered by a massive solar sail that drives the ship forward on a gale of photons released by the stars themselves. The Shadowhunter is smaller and faster than the Wraithship and is capable of both great speed and agile turns. It is best used for lightning attacks, launching its plasma torpedoes or firing laser broadsides from close range and depending on its speed and bob fields to prevent the enemy returning fire.
Unlike most Imperial ships and the Eldar Wraithship, the Shadowhunter is protected by holo fields instead of shields. Shield technology works by projecting defensive energy fields around the spaceship to absorb and deflect attacks. Each shield can only absorb so much energy and eventually it is battered down until the power built up can be discharged - a process that lasts much longer than any space battle.
The Shadowhunter's holo fields work on a different principal. The fields project a holographic dispersion pattern which disrupts enemy targeting. The effect of the holo fields increases as the ship moves faster and faster. At slow speeds, its shape is blurred and its outline indistinct. It is seen by the enemy as a dancing cloud of multi-coloured shards - this makes precise targeting of the Shadowhunter difficult. At higher speeds it disappears altogether - only a slight rippling effect like a heat haze against the backdrop of glittering stars reveals it to keen eyes. No targeter can successfully track such an indistinct, fast-moving spaceship.
However, because the fields only disrupt targeting, the Shadowhunter is easily damaged if hit. This means that it must keep moving, darting through enemy formations at maximum speed to deliver its attacks and then turning beyond the range of their guns.
A Shadowhunter is at its most vulnerable when it is forced to manoeuvre within range of enemy attacks or if it has to turn into the solar wind. Experienced Shadowhunter captains play a patient game of attack and retreat with their victims, circling at the edge of their enemy's fleet, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. A captain who throws caution to the wind and closes to fight at short range soon pays the ultimate price for his foolhardy bravado!
Despite the use of faster than light warp drives, the enormous size of the galaxy means that it remains almost entirely unexplored. Even the Imperium of Man, by far the largest of all stellar empires, contains a very small number of the galaxy's stars. New star systems are constantly being discovered and investigated along with their native creatures, natural resources and alien civilisations. Even so, there is no possibility of humans exhausting the galaxy's potential to provide new worlds for habitation and exploitation.
The spiral arms of the galaxy contain recent stars and gas clouds where new stars are born. It is within these arms that the majority of the galaxy's habitable worlds lie, between ten and forty thousand light years from the galactic centre. Earth lies approximately 30 thousand light years from the galactic core in the main western spiral arm.
Not all human-settled worlds are global conurbations like the Earth. Some are relatively sparsely settled. Different worlds have different social structures, different economies, and different levels of technology. The same is true of alien worlds, although as most aliens are less mobile than humans their worlds tend to be self-supporting and less specialised.
Worlds belonging to the Imperium are ruled by a planetary governor called an Imperial Commander. The Imperial Commander may be appointed and replaced by the ruling body of the Imperium, the Administratum, but in almost all cases he is a hereditary ruler whose family was appointed to the governorship hundreds or thousands of years ago. The Imperial Commander is a feudal ruler. He holds his world for the Imperium - in return he must meet his feudal obligations.
These obligations vary from planet to planet depending on the arrangement made when the ruling family was installed. Common to all these conditions are certain obligations. Imperial Commanders must always help and cooperate with Imperial officials and Inquisitors. They must maintain the rule of the Imperium over their domain. They must provide troops for the Imperial Guard as required by the Departmento Munitorium. They must control psykers within their domain and provide a levy of psykers for the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. And they must pay the tithes set by the Administratum. In other respects Imperial Commanders are free to govern their worlds exactly as they please.
A major factor in the social, economic and technical development of human and alien worlds is the relative isolation of each solar system. Interstellar travel is not rare, but the vastness of the galaxy means that most worlds are distant and sometimes difficult to reach. The continual threat of warpstorms sometimes results in worlds being cut off for indeterminate periods of time and sometimes for good. In the Imperium, interstellar shipping remains the preserve of the Adeptus Terra. Imperial Commanders ultimately rely upon the linperium for external contact. Due to all of these factors most settled worlds are insular. Their inhabitants may well acknowledge the existence of the Imperium, but this is hardly apparent in their daily lives.
The majority of human and advanced alien worlds may be described as civilised - although the term refers to their urban landscapes rather than to any pretence of social decorum. These are worlds with large but balanced populations centred in large cities. They are self-supporting worlds where factories turn out the majority of their needs, and carefully managed farms produce sufficient food to feed the inhabitants.
These are little more than farming planets where most of the world's surface is given over to producing food. The food they produce is shipped to the hungry hive worlds and the technological materials they require are imported in return. These worlds are difficult to protect from food pirates and interstellar raiders. It has been known for rival Imperial Commanders to raid and steal grain and cattle barges from each other. The resulting skirmishes sometimes break out into full-scale war.
These are factory planets given over to manufacture or mining. They are sparsely populated as most functions are accomplished mechanically. Only worlds possessing quantities of rare material are really worth developing in this way. Like agricultural worlds, they are difficult to defend.
Hives are huge urban conglomerations which can stretch across continents and which may reach miles into the sky. A planet may comprise many individual hives divided by areas of polluted waste - in some cases the world is completely built-up forming a single planet-wide hive. Hive worlds have huge, unmanageable populations and rely upon constant recycling to produce food. Such planets are usually rife with anarchic and destructive forces and as a result provide the richest source of fighting men for the Imperial Guard.
Many re-discovered human worlds have regressed to a social and technological status usually described as medieval. When these worlds are absorbed into the Imperium they do not change much. There is little point in bringing technology to a society which is getting on perfectly well without it.
Feral planets contain long-isolated populations where society has declined into complete savagery. Feral planets have a technological basis which is sub-medieval and often stone age. The Imperium regards the populations of such worlds as harmless but useless. The worlds may be explored and exploited for mineral wealth or settlement potential, in which case the natives may have to be controlled or exterminated.
These are planets which are simply too dangerous to support human settlement. They vary a great deal in type. Typical worlds may be world-wide jungles which harbour man-eating plants and carnivorous animals, or barren rockscapes strewn with volcanoes and wracked by nuclear storms. These worlds are impossible to settle but must be properly explored which necessitates the provision of outposts and other facilities.
Worlds which contain no significant sentient population are often used by research units where dangerous experiments can be conducted into new aspects of technology. Perhaps the most common type is a Breeding Unit where local wildlife undergoes domestication and evaluation for food potential.
Each planet is responsible for its own defence. Imperial Commanders are obliged to build ground-based defences, spaceports, and what defence fleets that can. The number of weapons and ships in any individual system will vary, depending on the enthusiasm of its governor as much as possible danger.
In addition to ships under the control of the Imperial Commander, planets lying in vulnerable positions or having a history of trouble may also have a Fleet base. Although Fleet ships are independent of those of the Imperial Commander, both would be ready to meet an emergency. Fleet ships may also be stationed in one system so that they can patrol a number of nearby star systems.
Ships built by Imperial Commanders are pure interplanetary craft with no warp drives. Fleet patrol ships would of course be interstellar ships with warp drives but they'd also have many small interplanetary ships operating from the launch bays built into their hulls.
In times of war or danger, fleet ships from all over a sector may be diverted from their normal duties to form a battlefleet. Rarely is it necessary to divert ships from other sectors, nor would it be worth moving vast numbers of ships just to defend a solitary world. A common Imperial ploy is to let a world fall, knowing that it can easily be retaken once sufficient craft can be mobilised. This is not a popular tactic with the populations of such planets, but spacecraft are valuable and difficult to replace whereas humanity is prolific
The vast majority of spacecraft in the Imperium are sub-stellar ships which travel only within the confines of their own star system. The laws governing the ownership and operating of sub-stellar ships are the concern of the Imperial Commander of each system. The Imperial authorities take no great interest in what happens on this, galactically-speaking, tiny level.
Sub-stellar ships divide into many kinds, from warships to industrial craft.
Most space warfare centres around planets, installations and other important targets within a solar system. It is therefore sensible to maintain sub-stellar craft in the proximity of vulnerable systems. These craft may be Fleet vessels operating out of a Fleet base, or they may be vessels belonging to the Imperial Commander of the system.
If a system has several inhabited planets it will need cargo ships of one kind or another. These may be owned and run by the planetary government or by private individuals, cartels or companies. Most systems would have both government- controlled and privately-owned craft.
These include all manner of ships used for maintenance, manufacture and mining, owned by governmental or private groups in the same way as cargo ships.
Very few systems are fully explored - there are always parts of a solar system which are uninvestigated. The exact nature of research or exploration varies from system to system. A common ship of this type is the mineral prospector which investigates potential mining areas.
It is not always possible to build bases or docking facilities on planets or asteroids, so space stations may be constructed instead. These are huge craft which provide all the facilities normally available on a planet.
Beacons are small space stations. They serve three functions. Firstly they act as navigational beacons by broadcasting a local signal. Secondly, they monitor passing spacecraft, sending information regarding size, course and registration signal. Thirdly, they act as emergency refuges where the crews of crippled ships can survive until they can be rescued. Beacons usually have a small crew, although some are entirely automated. The position and number of beacons in a system varies from none at all to hundreds.
The Imperium is divided into five fleet zones known as the Segmentae Majoris, each supervised from a Segmentum Fortress which is the base for that Segmentum's fleets.
The Imperium's interstellar ships comprise merchant vessels, warships, civil craft and several other specialised types. These are organised into three specific fleets: merchant fleets, civil fleets and warfleets. Each of the Segmentae Majoris has its own merchant, civil and warfleets.
So for example, the Warfleet Solar is the warfleet of the Segmentum Solar, the Merchant Pacificus is the merchant fleet of the Segmentum Pacificus, and the Civilis Tempestus is the civil fleet of the Segmentum Tempestus.
All interstellar spacecraft are registered as belonging to one or more of the Segmentae fleets. Registration allows a ship to be identified, and permits the fleet authorities to record and administrate shipping within each of the Segmentae.
A ship which is not registered in a Segmentum may only travel to that Segmentum with the special permission of the fleet authorities. This is purely an identification measure. An unidentified and unregistered ship is assumed to be hostile, and would be attacked and destroyed.
Each merchant ship serves its fleet under an arrangement called a merchant charter. The different types of charter are described below. They all take the form of a feudal oath sworn to the fleet authorities on behalf of the Emperor. A captain may not register his vessel with the fleet authorities until this oath has been sworn and a record of it entered at the Segmentum Fortress for that zone and on the Segmentum Fortress on Mars.
This is the most coveted and most highly honoured form of captaincy. It is also the most ancient. A hereditary free captain nominates his successor, and that successor swears the oath of allegiance and thereby becomes the new captain of the ship when its current captain dies or retires.
The captain is 'free' in that he may trade freely within the Segmentum where his fleet is based. Many of these old captaincies are based in all five of the Segmentae Majoris. Although the hereditary free captain is theoretically an Imperial servant, his obligations are few. The ship may trade where and how it pleases within the confines of its charter.
Hereditary captains may pass their ships to favoured, or related, successors as described above. As well as inheriting a ship, the captain inherits a route or routes, and can only carry cargo and passengers along this route. Some routes are more profitable than others and so are more highly regarded.
Free captains are appointed to command individual vessels by fleet officials. They are usually established fleet officials themselves, having worked their way up the ranks to a position of responsibility. Free captains may trade as they wish within the Segmentae. except they are usually forbidden from trading along established routes. Instead, they roam the less-densely populated sectors, areas where regular services are either not needed or would be too costly to run.
A fleet captain is appointed to his position in exactly the same way as a free captain, but plies fixed routes like the hereditary captain. This is the least prestigious level of interstellar captaincy, and is also the least secure. A fleet captain may be deprived of his command and given a shore posting at anytime, his ship reassigned to someone else.
A typical example of a merchant charter is the cargo ship Axnaranthus which has been captained by the Sorensen family over the last nine thousand years. It is one of the oldest ships in the Merchant Ultima fleet, with a hereditary free charter registered in the 32nd millennium. The ship has undergone several major rebuilds since that time, the last being two hundred years ago. The Sorensen family has amassed a considerable fortune in its time, and now owns a number of interstellar craft.
The civil fleets contain privately-owned interstellar craft operating along routes licensed by the fleet authorities. Civil fleets usually bid for route licences as they come up, the route going to the fleet prepared to pay the most for it. This system enables the Imperium to maintain routes which, for whatever reason, it finds inconvenient to service from its own craft. It is also a good way of raising revenue. As well as route voyages, the fleet administration also issues one-off licences for single trips. Many of the smaller fleets manage to survive entirely in a hand-to-mouth fashion reliant upon one-off licences.
Exactly who captains a civil ship is entirely up to the owners. lit many cases the owner is the captain. With the larger fleets, the owners appoint a captain who is effectively an employee.
The three fleets of each of the Segmentae Majoris are organised and administered by the fleet authorities in that Segmentum. This organisation is part of the Administratum - the great bureaucracy of Earth and government of the Emperor. The officials of the individual fleets are responsible in their turn to Segmentum fleet officials, who are responsible to the administration of the Segmentum as a whole. The highest official in each Segmentum is its Lord Commander and of these the Lord Commander of the Segmentum Solar is the foremost, often taking his place as one of the High Lords of Terra.
The following list briefly outlines the important ranks in the organisation of a Segmentum's warfleet (often also known as the naval fleet).
The highest ranking of the military officers is the Warfleet Commander. He is in charge of the entire naval contingent of a Segmentum, numbering many thousands of warships. There are only five Warfleet Commanders, one for each of the Segmentae Majors. They rank equally, although command of the Warfleet Solar is generally regarded as the most prestigious position.
The Warfleet Commander formulates the naval fleet strategy throughout the entire Segmentum, overseeing repair schedules, supervising construction programs and ensuring the general space-worthiness of the fleet. His personal staff is divided into armament, maintenance, design, construction and a thousand other working committees.
Under the Warfleet Commander are individual Space Commanders responsible for naval operations within each sector. The Space Commander is based at the Sector Fortress, along with other sector-level administrative staff of the Administratum and other branches of the Adeptus Terra. He must answer not only to his naval superior, the Warfleet Commander, but also to the Adeptus Sector Commander in overall charge of the sector.
The Space Commander has direct command of a portion of the Segmentum's warfleet. A typical command comprises about 50 interstellar ships, although the number would obviously vary depending upon the needs of the sector. Fifty ships is very few when you consider that a typical sector has between 30 and 40 thousand stars forming a cube with sides approximately 200 light years long!
These warships are divided up into patrol vessels, ships on permanent station in one star system and the reserve fleet. The reserve fleet is usually stationed at the Sector Fortress.
Group Commanders are in charge of a portion of a sector's fleet. They are sometimes based around the Sector Fortress or, more often, on one of the permanently-manned docking stations in one of the sub-sectors. Group Commanders are responsible for patrolling and keeping order within sub- sectors and inter-sectors around their base.
A typical command consists of a sub-sector base, noncombatant staff and a couple of squadrons of ships. One squadron is usually a patrol squadron, while the other is held in reserve to meet specific threats.
Group commanders often serve as Battlefleet Commanders when the need arises. The battlefleet is a temporary force, summoned to meet a single crisis or defeat a particular enemy. It usually consists of spaceships from only two or three neighbouring sub-sectors at most. The Battlefleet Commander is generally the most senior of the Group Commanders whose warships are involved in the battle.
A Squadron Commander is in charge of a squadron of spaceships. He is also a ship Captain and leads his squadron from the bridge of the ship he commands. A typical squadron might be three spacecraft of which the Commander's ship is one.
While the Battlelfeet Commander dictates the overall tactics of the force, the Squadron Commander's task is to make decisions about the formation and manoeuvres of the spaceships he leads.
Captains are in charge of individual ships. In terms of fleet organistion, they are the lowest ranking officers - on their own ships, they are absolute commanders. On a spaceship that is vast beyond belief, crewed by tens of thousands of men and women, the Captain's position is one of huge prestige and honour. To the spaceship's crew, far distant from the higher organisation of the fleet, their Captain is the voice of the Emperor and the symbol of supreme power in their ship- bound lives.
The Imperium is large - large enough to hide in if you really want to! The Administratum has a great deal of control over interstellar shipping one way or another but, even so, there are illegally-operating interstellar craft. These ships are owned and operated by unregistered merchants, smugglers and even by pirates. They are taking a grave risk, because any unregistered ship is automatically assumed to be hostile by naval forces.
All illegal ships are at a considerable disadvantage compared to registered vessels. Navigators are, on the whole, loyal citizens. They are also quite rare. Interstellar travel without a Navigator is relatively slow because the maximum distance a ship can jump is only four or five light years compared to five thousand. There are navigators who will work on board illegal ships, but they are few and far between. The vast majority of illegal interstellar shipping is therefore locally-based, usually operating within a group of close sub-sectors or from peripheral inter-sectors.
There are many reasons why a captain may be tempted to run an illegal ship. Planets all have local laws governing what can and can't be imported and exported. Some planetary governments also charge an import duty or have complex quarantine laws. The cargos and passengers of official ships are always carefully checked and recorded. Many routes are the property of hereditary captains or are operated exclusively under a fleet charter.
There are all sorts of people, including Imperial Commanders, who may wish to circumvent one or other of these obstacles. Even registered ships may be tempted to break the law occasionally if the price is right, but they run a far greater risk because their craft are very easily identified arid traced.
A typical unregistered ship operates out of a hidden supply dump near the solar-system's jump point. It would be foolish for the captain to bring his ship into the solar system itself, so cargos are ferried to the supply dump by sub-stellar ships.
The location of the ship's dump must be kept secret, and it is often necessary for a captain to change the base's location every few months. An Imperial Commander may take a lax attitude to illegal shipping if it suits his purposes to do so. The illegal trader's greatest enemy is treachery!
Interstellar pirate ships operate in a similar way to unregistered traders, but their intentions are far more sinister. Few Imperial Commanders will tolerate pirates in their system, so most pirate bases are within otherwise uninhabited systems. Some pirates operate exclusively against registered shipping, others are indiscriminate in their choice of victim. Pirates and unregistered traders often collaborate, sharing information and sometimes using the same facilities.
A pirate's usual mode of operation is to lie in wait just inside a system's jump point. If the target is leaving the system, the chances are that any accompanying sub-stellar craft will have turned back by now. The pirate leaps upon the craft, aiming to board and remove the cargo before the ship jumps. Although a pirate could attack and destroy a cargo vessel, little would be gained by doing so.
Raiders are interstellar craft belonging to enemy forces. Of course, exactly whose enemy they are depends on whose side you are on! Imperial Commanders are prone to quarrel with their neighbours. In these quarrels one side may be prepared to hire illegal ships, even pirates, to attack and destroy a rival's shipping. Such fights are common, but are directed mainly against sub-stellar craft belonging to the foe. It would be extremely stupid for an Imperial Commander to attack Imperial fleet vessels - to do so would invite immediate and uncompromising retribution. Needless to say, mistakes do happen, and Imperial Commanders often find themselves on the wrong end of an Imperial Planetary Assault unit.
The other enemy raiders encountered by Imperial fleets are those of alien races, foremost amongst which are the Orks, Eldar and Tyranids. Most battles with aliens are relatively small-scale conflicts with only a few spaceships on either side. Sometimes a major war will break out with large battles fought between powerful fleets. The war may spread across several neighbouring star systems and might take years or decades to resolve.
By far the largest war currently underway is against the Tyranid Hive Fleet Kraken. The Tyranid fleet threatens every race in the galaxy as it literally consumes the populations of the planets it conquers in its insatiable progress. Already the south-eastern arm of the galaxy has fallen to the Tyranids.
Also within the category of enemy raiders are the Chaos fleets. These are manned by the Traitors who fled to the Eye of Terror at the end of the great civil war known as the Horns Heresy. For ten thousand years, the degenerate remnants of those banished from the Imperium have fought a constant war against mankind. They regularly launch raids into Imperial space and, less frequently, larger invasions.
A typical interstellar voyage might begin with a cargo ship lying in orbit around an Imperial world. Tiny shutflecraft busily transfer precious minerals, foodstuffs, crew and manufactured items from the world below. The loading procedure may take weeks or months, as the shuttles return time and time again to the huge ship. Once loading is complete, the colossal craft slowly accelerates out of orbit under the power of its main drives.
The ship heads outward towards the rim of the solar system, carefully increasing speed by tiny increments as it does so. Although the vessel's engines are capable of terrific acceleration, the risk of collision with interplanetary debris is high if the ship accelerates too quickly or too much. As the sun shrinks in the ship's wake, the density of debris lessens and the ship's speed reaches approximately 1% that of light.
After several weeks travel, the ship arrives at its first destination. This is the jump-point lying around the star system like the circumference of a circle. This delineates the point at which inter-planetary debris falls below maximum warp density. Once this invisible line has been crossed it is safe to activate warp drives. A crew careless or foolhardy enough to prematurely activate warp drives would be lucky to find their ship hurled thousands of light years off course. More likely, the ship would be torn apart and destroyed, never to be heard of again.
With the safe activation of its warp drives, the ship is plucked out of the real universe and enters the dimension of warpspace. Its true interstellar journey has begun. Ships travelling in warpspace do so by means of jumps varying in length up to five thousand light years. While in warpspace, the ship is piloted by its Navigator, one of the rare human mutants who are able to see into the warp with their Third Eye.
Only a long journey would involve more than a single jump. Even so, almost two weeks pass on board ship before the craft is ready to end its jump. Meanwhile, because of time shifts in warpspace. over a year has passed in the real universe.
The ship re-enters real space just beyond the jump-point of its destination solar system. If it is lucky the ship will come out close to the jump-point, otherwise it may take many extra weeks to reach the inner planets.
It is always wise to allow a safe margin when jumping towards a star. The results of re-entering space within the jump-point would be the same as prematurely activating warp drives on the outward journey, and would almost certainly end in disaster.
The ship is now ready for its final haul, beginning by broadcasting to its destination and establishing a new time co-ordinate. Time in warpspace is so different from time in normal space that the crew has no idea whether their journey has taken a few months or years.
Initially, the ship travels at approximately 1% of light speed, decelerating gradually through the denser inner regions. Eventually, the ship reaches its destination, where swarms of tiny shuttles once more make themselves busy loading and unloading cargo and passengers in preparation for the ship's next journey.
The Adeptus Astra Telepathica is dedicated to the recruitment and training of psykers for service throughout the Imperium. The headquarters of the organisation is on Earth, but its spaceships travel the Imperium and its offices extend over most of human space. Its chief responsibility is to train psykers to serve as Astropaths.
Most humans do not have psychic powers, although it is generally accepted that all humans have at least a limited potential for psychic activity. A small but growing minority of humans develop tangible powers - these people are called psykers.
Psykers are dangerous individuals whose powers can only be tolerated when safely harnessed within the Imperial organisation. After all, the psychic universe is the universe of Chaos and therefore perilous. It is a universe inhabited by daemonic aliens that care nothing for living creatures and wish only to use and destroy humanity. All psykers, even the most powerful, offer these aliens a potential means of entering and affecting the material world.
Every world in the Imperium is bound by law to control its psychic population. Persecutions or witch-hunts are an everyday part of life on most worlds. The same laws oblige rulers to set aside a levy of young and relatively promising psykers for transport to Earth by the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. It is from this levy that the Adeptus Astra Telepathica divides those who will live and serve from those who will be sacrificed to the Emperor.
The institution is divided into a teaching and a recruiting body, called the Scholastia Psykana and the League of Blackships respectively. The two are united under the Master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica and his advisory council consisting of several hundred senior officials from the main divisions.
The League consists of a substantial fleet based throughout the Imperium. The ships travel around a huge circuit, visiting each world every hundred years or so. As the fleets approach their destination, the ruling Imperial Commander is instructed to prepare the customary levy.
Once the levy has been collected the Blackship Captains make an initial evaluation of their cargo before proceeding to the next world in their circuit. When the holds are full, the Blackships turn towards Earth.
It is common for Inquisitors to travel on board these ships, as this gives them a good opportunity to investigate a planet's potential for psychically-based corruption.
The Scholastia Psykana is a vast teaching institution dedicated to the training of psychics. Most recruits are drawn from the psychic levy collected by the Blackships, but a minority of recruits are handed over by the Inquisition, the Judges or through other channels. The role of this institution is to teach young psychics how to develop and control their powers. The future of each psyker depends on his abilities and character.
Those whose powers and strength of character are sufficient that they can resist possession and daemonic taint under normal circumstances. Primary Psykers are chosen to serve the Imperium only if they are young, intelligent and willing to learn. After five years of basic psychic training in the Scholastia Psykana they are ready to join any of the Imperial organisations in a suitable capacity. The very young may be indoctrinated into the Space Marines as Librarians, the most talented of all may become Inquisitors or Grey Knights. Primary Psykers are not invulnerable to daemons and other psychic aggressors, but their training gives them a fighting chance against all but the most potent of these creatures.
Astropaths are selected from the second ranking of psykers, those whose powers are considerable but inadequate to resist the dangers of possession or daemonic corruption. Like Primary Psykers, they must be young, vigorous and willing. Astropaths undergo basic psychic training before they assume their role of telepathic communicators throughout the Imperium. They are taught how to use the Emperor's Tarot, how to cast horoscopes, and the practices of cheiromancy and augury of all kinds. Once they have been prepared in this way they undergo the unique Binding Ritual which gives them a little of the Emperor's strength.
Some Primary and Secondary Psykers are reserved for the Adeptus Astronomica. They are handed over to complete their training under the auspices of that organisation.
The psychic levy inevitably harvests many whose powers are too random and their minds too vulnerable. If left unrestrained they would soon perish, and their doom would lead to further deaths and maybe even to the destruction of entire worlds. In a teeming universe their loss is of no great matter, but even in death they can serve - for the Emperor must feed upon raw psychic energy if he is to survive as the protector of humanity. These sacrifices are fed into the Emperor's Golden Throne so that the Emperor and the Imperium itself can continue.
Thanks to the vigorous checks of the Blackship Captains few tainted psykers get as far as Earth. Those who do are weeded out and destroyed on account of the daemons they harbour or the destructive powers they possess. Yet despite these vigorous precautions a few of the Tainted do get through. In the past important members of the Imperium, even High Lords, have been psykers of this kind. Who knows how many individuals have slipped past the checks and become important officials without their true nature being discovered?
Astropaths are extremely important within human society because they offer the only means of communicating over interstellar distances. Astropaths are capable of sending telepathic messages across space and they can receive messages sent by other Astropaths if their minds are correctly attuned. Telepathic messages travel through the warp and so travel faster than light, although not instantaneously.
The need for Astropaths is enormous. They are a common sight in the Imperium and are easily distinguished by their green robes. Astropaths serve in the Fleet as ship-board and shore-based communicators. They serve in the Imperial Guard, the Inquisition, the Adeptus Ministorum, the Space Marines and throughout the Adeptus Terra.
The Imperial Commanders of distant worlds must have Astropaths if they are to communicate with the rest of the Imperium. Similarly, Astropaths are an essential part of civilian life, working for commercial shippers and anywhere where interstellar communication is needed. This vast body makes up a network covering the entire Imperium thus facilitating the transfer of information from one end of the galaxy to the other.
No ordinary psyker could transmit a message through the warp, nor could he receive a telepathic message over such vast distances. Astropaths only gain this ability as a result of their many years training, culminating in a special ritual which combines some of the Emperor's own power with their own. This ritual, known as Soul Binding, brings the mind of the psyker close to the psychic greatness of the Emperor. In the process, some of the Emperor's vast energy is transferred to the Astropath.
The transference of energy is traumatic for the psyker - not all survive despite years of preparation, and not all those that survive retain their sanity. Even the survivors suffer damage to the sensitive nerves of the eyes, so that almost all Astropaths are blind. In fact their increased psychic skills tend to make up for this loss of sight, so that they would not appear blind were it not for their distorted, sunken and empty eye sockets.
Soul Binding is said to affect Astropaths in other ways, and it is commonly claimed that once an Astropath's mind has touched that of the Emperor he gains a new understanding and insight into the nature of the universe.
All organisations in the Imperium have Astropaths. Collectively they make up a communication network designed to transmit and receive psychic messages through interstellar space. Although this is not the place to describe the infinite processes of telepathic communication, a summary of its most important powers may be of interest.
An Astropath sends a telepathic message by falling into a trance. During the trance his mind forms the message and sends it through the warp. The progress of the message is rather like a stone dropped into a pool which creates a series of ripples. The message ripples through the warp until its energy is lost and it fades away to almost nothing. A communication of this kind is restricted to only a sentence or two - to attempt a longer message would set up too many simultaneous ripples which would end in confusion. Such a message could be read easily at five light years and with increasing haziness up to about twenty light years. Local movements of the warp will affect the progress and sometimes the sense of communications. A message destined for a more distance target must be appended with a request to 'rebroadcast' so that it is gradually passed towards its target by a chain of Imperial Astropaths.
An Astropath can also enter a trance in order to monitor the warp for psychic messages. Residues of ancient messages and the eternal noises of the warp itself makes all reception uncertain.
There is the further nuisance resulting from the interference of small mischievous warp creatures and independent daemons. These creatures pick up on the psychic waves of telepaths and send them false and frequently obscene messages. A trick which these troublesome creatures find especially entertaining is to pose as some far more powerful malign entity in order to give an unwary Astropath a good fright!
If an Astropath wishes to broadcast a message to a specific location he concentrates his mind on that location, be it a spacecraft, a planet or even a specific person. This enables a receiving Astropath at the same location to identify and focus on the incoming message.
Many Astropaths work in this way as Station Receptors. Such a message may still be picked up by Astropaths in Trance Reception - but the chances of success are less likely and the probability of error is high.
This is the most difficulty means of telepathic communication for the Astropath. The Astropath divorces his consciousness from his body and enters his astral body or spirit. The astral body exists permanently in the warp. Once in his astral body the Astropath can travel to another point in the warp and can communicate freely with other astral bodies including other Astropaths.
The principal difficulty is the presence in warpspace of many other astral creatures, most of which are extremely hostile. The astral body is vulnerable while it acts as the seat of consciousness, and if destroyed the body is effectively dead. A very powerful Astropath is able to make his astral body appear for a moment in the material world as a ghostly shadow.
Astropaths are taught how to use the Emperor's Tarot and other forms of divination in order to identify subtle changes in the warp. The warp is not subject to normal laws of time or space - its fabric contains strands of potential futures as well as strands of past and present.
These hints of what might be are far too incomprehensible to identify as messages, but by the use of the Emperor's Tarot they can sometimes be detected. By the same means an Astropath can pick up elements of very weak messages and the repercussive warp-waves of major events.
The Astronomican is the psychic homing beacon that allows Navigators to traverse warpspace.
It is the duty of the Adeptus Astronomica to maintain the Astronomican. To this end the organisation recruits a proportion of the young psykers collected by the psychic levy of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. This is the main source of recruitment for the Adeptus Astronomica and consequently the vast majority of its senior members are psykers. A smaller proportion of its staff are not psykers, but are drawn from the ranks of those slave-families which have provided menial workers for the Adcptus for thousands of years.
The Adeptus Astronomica is a small organisation based in a remote complex known as the Forbidden Fortress. Uninvited access to the Fortress is not permitted - even Judges and Inquisitors must seek permission before they can enter.
The Forbidden Fortress is built in a sheltered crag near the tip of a vast mountain range in a land once known as Nepal. To outside appearances the mountains remain unchanged by the hand of man but in fact the Forbidden Fortress extends deep down into the rock and throughout the entire mountain range.
The leader of the Adeptus Astronomica is the Master of the Astronomican. His task is to oversee the organisation and to represent it on the Senatorurn Imperialis as a High Lord of Terra. The object of the Adeptus Astronomica is to teach and train young psykers so that they can serve in the Astronomican.
The organisation is really a vast teaching institution controlled by a class of older members known as Instructors. Some Instructors are accorded the title High Instructor and entrusted with the guardianship of certain aspects of the organisation's teaching. Its day-to-day affairs such as maintenance and provisioning are taken care of by a body of administrative functionaries.
Young psykers are initiated as Acolytes. They are taught how to control and use their powers in much the same way as psykers taken by the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, but in addition they are introduced to the Lore of the Astronomican. They learn the value of their lives, study philosophy and are gradually brought to an inner understanding of the universe and the nature of the warp.
Only those who achieve this mystic state can become members of the Chosen, those who will give their psychic energy to the Astronomican. The rest, those whose studies fall short of this ideal, remain within the organisation and become Instructors or are absorbed as administrative functionaries of the Forbidden Fortress.
The pinnacle of an Acolyte's existence is to be selected as one of the Chosen. This is a considered a great honour. The Chosen are regarded as occupying a unique and rarefied level of existence far beyond that of the Instructors or even the Master of the Astronomican. The Chosen's head is shaved and he wears yellow robes and the scarlet badge of the Chosen. The rest of his life is spent in prayer and contemplation, until he is called to serve in the Chamber of the Astronomican.
The Chamber of the Astronomican is a huge hollow sphere carved from a single mountain peak. Its outward form is a giant dome, the lower half of the sphere being buried under the rock. Ten thousand multi-tiered seats cover the entire inner surface of the sphere. Each seat faces the very centre of the sphere where a raw ball of psychic energy dances in space.
This ball of energy is created by the Chosen as they release their powers into the Astronomican. In this way their psychic power is drained into the energy-ball and then through the warp, directed by the mind of the Emperor himself. As the energy of the Chosen is drained away they slowly fade and die. The average psyker lasts for about three months - about 100 die every day and their places are taken by new Chosen.
The Navis Nobilite - also known as the Navigator Houses - is an institution which predates the Imperium by many thousands of years. It is the most ancient of all human organisations. It was founded sometime in the Dark Age of Technology and survived through the Age of Strife to the present day.
Over this period of approximately 30,000 years, the fortunes of the Navis Nobilite have constantly waxed and waned, but its power has never been broken. Today it thrives as a vital part of the Imperium.
The Navis Nobilite is divided into many individual Houses or Great Families. Each House is a large related family, but it is also a literal house, a fortified mansion where the House leader - or Novator - lives together with his immediate kin and retainers. This mansion is regarded as the seat of the entire Great Family, even though it is only the hereditary ruling family that lives there.
The Great Families of the Navis Nobilite are uniquely composed of a particular form of human mutant called a Navigator. The mutation is not a spontaneous or natural one, but rather the result of genetic engineering conducted in the distant past during the earliest history of the Navigator Houses. This engineering created the Navigator Gene that distinguishes Navigators from ordinary humans.
The gene itself can only be preserved by intermarriage, as it is lost when a Navigator breeds with an ordinary human. This factor has led to the development of the closely-related Navigator families.
The genetic creation of Navigators has a single purpose: to endow a human with the ability to steer a spacecraft through warpspace. Only Navigators can do this - no other human or machine has the ability to navigate warpspace in this way. It is this ability that allows human spacecraft to travel so quickly compared to alien craft.
Without Navigators to steer its ships, the Imperium would quickly fragment into thousands of separate stellar empires, each only a few dozen light years across, whose spacecraft would be obliged to use tiny and dangerous blind jumps to cover interstellar space.
The physique of Navigators is unusual. The feature which distinguishes all Navigators is the Third or Warp Eye situated in the centre of their forehead. Nearly all young Navigators traditionally work in space as pilots. Over the years they gradually increase their familiarity with the warp and their powers become stronger.
This mental maturation may take as many as fifty or a hundred years of space flight, but as Navigators can live for three or four hundred years this is not a great proportion of their lives. As they grow more experienced they also change physically. The white and iris of the Third Eye gradually vanished leaving a single black pupil. The eye itself hardens, and the eyelids shrink leaving a single staring orb.
Often the Navigator continues to grow more massive as he ages and his ribs enlarge, becoming prominent as internal gills develop in the chest cavity.
The most powerful Navigators in each of the Great Families are called Heirs Apparent. This signifies that they may one- day contend for the position of Paternova, the ruler of all the Navis Nobilite. The Paternova may come from any of the Great Families and from any social level within them.
The Heirs Apparent are usually the oldest Navigators, although not all develop in this way and some Navigators live out their entire lives without undergoing the physical changes described.
The Heirs Apparent are often bitter rivals who will even go as far as to try and eliminate each other if they get the chance. This sometimes leads to protracted personal vendettas or even family feuds between two Navigator Houses. The Adeptus Terra is fairly tolerant of minor skirmishing of this kind, although open hostilities between Houses are discouraged as much as possible.
Unfortunately, this keen rivalry sometimes draws Heirs Apparent into marginally unlawful or even outright illegal practices. Their personal ambition makes them vulnerable to all sorts of dangerous influence, from collaboration with aliens to dealings with the daemonic. These deviants are a minority - most Heirs Apparent conduct their rivalries without courting such dangers.
The Paternova is the leader of all Navigators and the most powerful of all his kind. The Paternova may live for up to a thousand years. When he dies all the existing Heirs Apparent begin to change - they begin to grow even larger and stronger. Their gill structure becomes fully functional allowing them to survive in hard vacuum as well us underwater or in normally poisonous environments. Most important, they start to fight.
They are drawn to combat with each other, building up a pitch of aggression that eventually overrides all other considerations. As Heirs Apparent are killed those who survive change even more until finally only one remains alive. It is this vastly changed and extremely powerful individual who becomes the new Paternova.
The Paternova lives in the Palace of the Navigators which lies on Earth in the centre of the zone held by the Navis Nobilite. Following his accession, the Paternova never leaves the palace. The existing staff, soldiery and other retainers of the palace are replaced by those drawn from the Patemova's own House. The chief amongst his servants is the Paternoval Envoy who becomes a High Lord of Terra and sits on the Senatorum Imperialis.
The role of the Paternova is an obscure part of Navigator biology although no-one doubts its importance. The Paternova is described as the guiding father whose powers transcend the warp itself.
During the interlude between the reign of one Paternova and another, all Navigators other than Heirs Apparent suffer a considerable reduction in their powers. Their ability to navigate the warp is impaired, warp journeys become longer, ships are unexpectedly lost, and younger Navigators may lose their abilities completely.
As soon as the new Paternova is installed the powers of Navigators are restored. However, not all are restored to the same degree. Navigators belonging to the same House as the Paternova find their abilities enhanced, as if their blood relationship were enabling the Paternova to transmit his powers more effectively. Navigators belonging to the House of the old Paternova lose this benefit, and so individuals may find their powers impaired.
The unusual feature shared by all Navigators is the Third Eye or Warp Eye. Navigators normally keep this eye covered with a bandanna or covering which is itself often decorated with an eye. This has led many humans to doubt the existence of this Third Eye.
In fact the Third Eye is the focus of the Navigator's power. The eye enables the Navigator to see the shifting currents of warpspace and so to guide his spacecraft within the warp.
It is said that a Navigator can always see the warp even when he is in the material universe, and that it is this constant exposure to the unnamed horrors of Chaos that lends to their strange physical changes. It has been known for Navigators to react suddenly and violently to invisible things in the warp, and to collapse, lose their sanity or even die as a result.
The eye has other powers too, although these are employed far more rarely and are the subject of some mystique. These powers develop with the Navigator's experience of the warp, so that they are most developed of all in the Heirs Apparent. The uncovered stare of a Navigator can kill a man, and that of an Heir Apparent is said to ward off even the daemonic creatures of the warp.
Rival Navigators sometimes fight using the power of their eyes to blast each other - such open conflicts are rare but spectacular. It is also said that the eye of a Navigator has prophetic powers and that it can literally see into the future. Navigators are very reluctant to talk about their powers and it may well be that only the Paternova understands the full potential of a Navigator's abilities.
Mars is the planetary realm of the Adeptus Mechanicus, the home and domain of the Tech Priests of the Cult Mechanicus. The Red Planet is acclaimed as one of the wonders of the galaxy, the workshop of the Imperium, the forge-world, the maker of ships, and the guardian of secrets. It is the Adeptus Mechanicus that furnishes the technical knowledge of the Imperium, that preserves the scientific secrets of former times, and which explores the new sciences of the 41st Millennium.
The Cult Mechanicus, or Cult of the Machine, acknowledges the Emperor as Master of Mankind but does not recognise the authority of the official Imperial Cult or the Ecclesiarchy. Instead, the Adeptus Mechanicus follows its own dark and mysterious strictures.
According to the strictures of the Adeptus Mechanicus, knowledge is the supreme manifestation of divinity, and all creatures and artefacts which embody knowledge are holy because of it. The Emperor is the supreme object of worship because he comprehends so much. Machines which preserve knowledge from ancient times are also holy, and machine intelligences are no less divine that those of flesh and blood. A man's worth is only the sum of his knowledge - his body is simply an organic machine capable of preserving intellect.
The Adeptus Mechanicus controls the entire governmental, industrial and religious affairs of Mars and is thus very diverse and complex in its organisation. In its broadest terms the population is divided into two parts. The greater mass of Martians are worker-slaves called Servitors. Servitors are not really fully human, but half-man half-machine creatures whose minds have been partially programmed to perform specific duties. The Servitors are slaves to the ruling priesthood of Tech Priests who form a hierarchy of technicians, scientists and religious leaders. The Tech Priests provide the Imperium with its engineers and technical experts.
The leader of the Adeptus Mechanicus is the Fabricator General of Mars. The Fabricator General is also a High Lord of Terra and one of the most powerful members of the Senatorum Imperialis. He is also the head of the Cult Mechanicus in his capacity as the Magos Mechanicus.
The Adeptus Mechanicus is driven by the quest for knowledge. This quest takes many forms, including research and exploration, but its ultimate embodiment is the search for ancient STC systems.
STC systems were created during the scientific high-point of the Dark Age of Technology. During this time thousands of human colonies were founded on distant worlds. Many of these colonies failed to survive, some were lost, and of those that survived most achieved only a subsistence level economy. Yet almost all of these colonies managed to retain a high level of technology thanks to the huge base of computerised information carried from Earth. This massive computer databank was known as the Standard Template Construct (STC) system.
The objective of the STC systems was to provide all the technical information needed to construct anything that settlers might need. The user simply asked how to build a bolter, tractor, house or whatever, and the computer supplied the details for fabrication. STC systems would calculate the constructional loads placed on locally-available materials, work out the depths of foundations, define the means of manufacture and assembly, and present the most efficient ways of achieving what it was the settler asked.
The systems were designed to be practically idiot proof, so that even the least technically-accomplished person could build a vehicle, aircraft or weapon given time.
One result of the STC system and its pivotal place in human colonisation is that human material culture is very similar, even on worlds which are many thousands of light years apart.
The STCs are often said to embody the sum total of human knowledge. This is probably true as far as technical accomplishment goes. Although most colonists required little more than designs for agricultural machinery, programs were included for all sorts of advanced constructions such as nuclear power grids and fission reactors. However, the early colonists' needs were simple and were met by conventional energy forms and relatively low-level technology.
Every original colony had at least one STC system. With the passage of time these gradually failed, and passed out of use. Some colonies were forward-thinking enough to make drawings or hard-copies of some designs, which were in turn copied repeatedly with varying accuracy. Some STC systems became corrupted and useless, and were eventually destroyed.
Today there are no known surviving STC systems, and only a very few examples of first-generation print out. On some worlds information about the ancient STC is regarded as holy and design copies are guarded as secret and sacred texts, housed in the inner sanctums of temples.
For thousands of years the Adeptus Mechanicus has pursued all information about the STC. It is their lost bible, Holy Grail and Cup of Knowledge. Any scrap of information is eagerly sought out and jealously hoarded. Any rumour of a functional system is followed up and investigated.
By their efforts much information has been retrieved or can be reconstructed by the vigorous analysis and comparison of copies. Yet the most technically-advanced knowledge eludes the Adeptus Mechanicus, for the early colonists were mostly simple folk whose needs were practical. Only rarely did anyone bother to take copies of the theoretical and advanced work which the STC contained.
The technical achievements of non-humans, such as Eldar and Orks, and isolated human civilisations, such as Squats, are of almost as much interest to the Adeptus Mechanicus as rumours concerning the STC. Indeed, non-human knowledge is often more useful and usually far easier to obtain.
Members of the Adeptus Mechanicus always accompany Imperial exploration teams, Rogue Traders and Space Marine chapters, and so are ideally placed to investigate the technical abilities of other cultures. Even extinct civilisations are vigorously investigated and their technology recorded.
The Adeptus Mechanicus is not only interested in technical achievement, but also in biological and natural science. Thus, the flora and fauna of a newly-discovered world will be recorded, and samples returned to Mars for classification. Weather systems and subterranean morphology will be mapped, atmospheres analysed and all aspects of the natural ecosystem studied.
Such studies are vital for further colonisation. Dangerous animals and plants must be considered, useful species may be studied for potential domestication. Weather and geographic stability must be determined and sometimes stabilised. Thanks to their in-depths knowledge of such things the Adeptus Mechanicus has the ability to mould a world's climate and ecology to meet human needs.
