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Emperorsmercy
12-27-2009, 05:56 AM
I have been wondering: Can any races travel beyond our own galxy? Can the Eldar? Can the Imperium?

There are no real cases of it happening (Other than the Tyranids.), and I was wondering whether this is to do with either the distance, the lack of technoldegy or some kind of Danger.

Help would be appreciated!

Just_Me
12-27-2009, 07:15 AM
Well, the first thing that come to mind for the Imperium is that the Emperor is here; not only would you be leaving behind the most important political and religious symbol for your entire species, but you wold be traveling well beyond the range of the Astronomicon, so you could/would get lost with no hope of rescue.

I think the biggest deterrent for most races though is that inter-galactic space is a whole lot of nothing, there isn't any good reason to venture out there, especially with enough crap already going down in their own backyards. Remember that FTL travel in 40k is fast, but not instantaneous; traveling withing the galaxy can take months or years, traveling between them would take centuries, so unless you have a really good reason for it (Tyranids), the question becomes why bother?

Melissia
12-27-2009, 09:43 AM
The only races that can in reasonable time are the Necrons and Tyranids. Everyone else has to use sub-lightspeed travel.

The warp outside of the milky way galaxy is supremely calm, in a way which is BAD, like the calm winds and still seawaters of the Atlantic or Pacific doldrums (the Pacific in particular earned its name from them).

Rafe_131
12-30-2009, 02:46 PM
The only races that can in reasonable time are the Necrons and Tyranids. Everyone else has to use sub-lightspeed travel.

I wouldn't say that these races do it in "reasonable time". I'm not sure of the Necrons, but the fluff for the 'nids points out that they simply drift. But, when you've been adrift for thousands upon thousands of years, you can cover a few miles....

Subject Keyword
12-30-2009, 08:13 PM
I wouldn't say that these races do it in "reasonable time". I'm not sure of the Necrons, but the fluff for the 'nids points out that they simply drift.

Necrons can pretty much instantaneously disappear and reappear where ever they want. It's like apparating, but on a galactic scale. Their ship drives are also not warp-driven, so the Imperium has a particularly difficult time dealing with flash Necron Raids for test subjects.

They could be everywhere. There is nothing to indicate that our galaxy was at all geographically important in their campaign against the Old Ones.

Woah...
Nerd moment...

Nabterayl
12-30-2009, 08:41 PM
I don't think we know enough to say that necron ships can essentially apparate. Their inertialess drives don't provide teleportation-like capability in BFG, though we know those are the same drives they engage for interstellar travel. We know that necron ships can dematerialize, just like necron soldiers that Phase Out, but it's not clear from any source I know of where they go after dematerializing, or how long it takes them to get there, or if the dematerialization is even a form of travel at all.

Melissia
12-30-2009, 09:30 PM
right, Necron drives are inertialess, not teleportation based. meaning they can infinitely accelerate an decelerate.

Nabterayl
12-30-2009, 11:17 PM
... right, but unless we're in the GFFA, that makes necrons really, really slow.

Being able to infinitely accelerate, by itself, only gets you to lightspeed, which is not nearly fast enough for "interstellar" travel for narrative purposes, even in a universe where it can take years to get from one system to another. Either the inertialess drive does something fancier than infinite acceleration, the 40K universe (like the GFFA) declares that something crazy happens when you hit lightspeed, necrons have some other method of FTL (such as some form of teleportation), or else they're one of the slowest interstellar races in the game, and nobody has realized it yet because their ships are so hard to track and identify.

person person
12-31-2009, 01:02 AM
...so unless you have a really good reason for it (Tyranids), the question becomes why bother?

Agreed

Melissia
12-31-2009, 03:12 AM
Being able to infinitely accelerate, by itself, only gets you to lightspeed

Except that it doesn't. The necrontyr intertialess drive goes faster than the speed of light. As fast as they want it to.



Scientists today have made light particles go faster and slower. Necrons are way ahead of us.

Nabterayl
12-31-2009, 10:49 AM
The necrontyr intertialess drive goes faster than the speed of light. As fast as they want it to.

Do you have a source for that? All I see is a line in the BFG compendium stating that the inertialess drive allows necrons to travel between stars without entering the Warp.


Scientists today have made light particles go faster and slower.
Yes, they have, but they haven't made any light particles go faster than c. You can't accelerate to a velocity greater than c, and even accelerating to c requires you to be able to accelerate infinitely. Events can, from one frame of reference, appear to happen faster than they could happen if the two events were mediated by particle exchange, but those events are either a) essentially really fancy optical illusions, or b) not mediated by particle exchange (i.e., none of the entities involved actually moves faster than c).

I don't doubt that necrons have FTL capability. My only point is that we don't actually know what it looks like. If GW wants to come out and say that necrons can break the light barrier in normal space - that c in this universe is not the fastest velocity there is in normal space - then I'm happy to believe them. If they want to come out and say that you enter hyperspace (!= the Warp) when you hit c, as in the GFFA, I'm happy to believe them. If they want to come out and say that the inertialess drive allows necrons to fold space over limited distances, as in the BattleTech universe, then I'm happy to believe them.

But they haven't said any of these things, to my knowledge - only that the inertialess drive allows infinite acceleration and that it allows interstellar travel. The method, and apparent velocity, of the interstellar travel remains largely a black box to my knowledge.

Melissia
12-31-2009, 11:24 AM
Do you have a source for that? All I see is a line in the BFG compendium stating that the inertialess drive allows necrons to travel between stars without entering the Warp.
If they are traveling between the stars using the inertialess drive then they'd need to go faster than the speed of light to do... ANYTHING in a reasonable amount of time. It'd take four years just to go from earth to alpha centauri, nevermind across the whole galaxy-- going at light speed, it would take 100,000 years to cross the galaxy, and 1000 to go from top to bottom. If they can travel the stars with their inertialess drives, then their inertialess drives must be able to go faster than the speed of light.



Furthermore, this is science fiction, and Necrontyr have better technology than anyone can dream of. Are you going to argue that the race itself is illogical too, because of the silly concept of living metal? OR that the flayers they use are illogical and impossible? And let's not get into wraiths and pariahs.

Nabterayl
12-31-2009, 11:38 AM
If they are traveling between the stars using the inertialess drive then they'd need to go faster than the speed of light to do... ANYTHING in a reasonable amount of time. It'd take four years just to go from earth to alpha centauri, nevermind across the whole galaxy-- going at light speed, it would take 100,000 years to cross the galaxy, and 1000 to go from top to bottom. If they can travel the stars with their inertialess drives, then their inertialess drives must be able to go faster than the speed of light.

My point is not that necrons couldn't break the light barrier, if GW wanted them to. My point is that all we know is that necrons can achieve interstellar travel, and without entering the Warp. That essentially requires us to infer that they can get from point A to point B faster than a photon could do it, as you rightly point out. It does not require us to infer that necrons have broken the light barrier.

There are plenty of ways in a science fiction universe to get from point A to point B faster than a photon could do it, without having an actual velocity higher than c. Nobody else in the universe violates the light barrier. Warp travel doesn't. Webway travel doesn't. Teleportation doesn't. Dive drives don't - and they achieve apparent (but not actual) FTL velocities without entering the Warp, to boot.

ZenPaladin
12-31-2009, 11:45 AM
A few days ago I was reading up on the Lensmen. In that universe their idea of inetialess drives alowed for FTL in the real universe by going faster than light.

The concept was that the intertaless drive esentialy reduces your mass to 0. And that you acclerate to light speed when you start your thrusters! They said the breaks then came from friction from space dust and alowed crusing speeds of something like 4 - 8 parces an hour.

Course they would also render whole planets inertaless and then slam two of them into other races homeworlds soooo....

Maybe GW was going for something like that...

Melissia
12-31-2009, 11:48 AM
IIRC, it looks like someone accelerating and decelerating, often having then just appearing in place once they drop below the speed of light.

Nabterayl
12-31-2009, 11:53 AM
Sure, but so does dropping out of hyperspace in Star Wars, which doesn't involve going faster than c (although it does involve accelerating to and decelerating from c). I still don't think we have enough information to say for certain, or even with a reasonable degree of certainty, that necrons straight-up accelerate to faster than c . Just that somehow they achieve apparent FTL velocities.

Melissia
12-31-2009, 12:07 PM
Just like we don't have any real information about how Sisters get from world to world, or from orbit to ground for that matter. But we can make godo assumptions, and based on what we know, Necrons simply accelerate and decelerate, and are able to do so endlessly due to their intertialess drives.

Nabterayl
12-31-2009, 12:11 PM
Fair enough. Changing the way acceleration works, or declaring that a universal constant is not a universal constant, in my mind, are both two of the great sci-fi retcon taboos. Which is to say, I'm fine if a universe does it, but I dislike inferring it if the author hasn't told me that's what's going on. I prefer leaving necron interstellar travel a black box to inferring such a far-reaching change in physics.

Melissia
12-31-2009, 12:13 PM
It's no diferent to me than their stupid gauss flayer guns, which make even LESS sense.

Nabterayl
12-31-2009, 12:36 PM
I can see that. For me, the differences are that gauss weaponry at least has an explicit mechanistic statement, which narrows the retcon field considerably, and molecular chemistry is harder to understand for lay people than lightspeed. I expect the most untutored sci-fi writer to understand a statement as simple as "no object can move faster than c, full stop," even if I don't expect them to understand relativity, and I think the abundance of "FTL" workarounds in science fiction gives evidence that sci-fi, in general, respects the light barrier. What it means to strip an object atom by atom is not something I expect to be in the oeuvre of every sci-fi author.

Melissia
12-31-2009, 12:40 PM
I'm a chemistry major, so that's probably why it bothers me more. But still.