In the Warhammer 40K wiki and the Lexicanum it is said Navigator mutants can live up to 400 years, but no book was cited. Has anyone come across a confirmation in any books that these peculiar mutants do indeed have such long lifespans? I know rich people can extend their lives through machinery and the like, but still, almost half a millennium of natural lifespan is pretty sweet (or horrible, depending on your perspective).

Old White Dwarf fluff, if I remember correctly. Keep in mind that by that stage most Navigators are hideously bloated monstrosities that are far less than human.

Old White Dwarf fluff, if I remember correctly. Keep in mind that by that stage most Navigators are hideously bloated monstrosities that are far less than human.

Oh yes, of course, by their 100th year they are probably barely recognizable already! Thanks for the response

Old White Dwarf fluff, if I remember correctly. Keep in mind that by that stage most Navigators are hideously bloated monstrosities that are far less than human.

Oh yes, of course, by their 100th year they are probably barely recognizable already! Thanks for the response

Admittedly never thought about this.

I wouldn't be so harsh on them to give them only a century. It's quite short effective lifespan when compared to others in 40k. I'd guess that the peak moment for Navis is about 300th year, as circa 100 years of being chaos spawn (filthy rich one) is still quite horrendous.

At the second thought maybe those 400 years is all about being a more or less human and after this you are a immortal monstrosity who's birthdays are celebrated any more .

Consider humans can live 400 odd years with the right treatments and care, i'd imagine Navigators might live as long if not longer. They come from some of the riches houses in existence and don't have to worry about treatments altering their appearance (they already become monstrous after a while anyway, so can happily be made more monstrous if they can live longer).

The Paternova of a House typically lives for over a millenium, for example.

Navigators are incredibly valuable on multiple levels, and contrary to popular belief, technology in 40k is actually quite good - where available.

So it's probably not that Navigators on their own can live up to 400 years, but rather that they are prioritized and privileged in such a way that they receive the necessary treatments to stay alive.

Without any treatments at all, navigators probably wouldn't live many years at all. It's amazing that they're not all stillborn already.

I also subscribe to the belief that Navigators live longer than the average person - if they don't become horribly mutated anyway. The Nobilite would have a vested interest in keeping its Navigators around after all, a supremely skilled one can be put out to stud to breed better Navigators down the line!

If you don't like this idea, it could be that people believe Navigators live so long because they spend most of their time in the Warp, so more realspace time passes relative to the Navigator.

I also subscribe to the belief that Navigators live longer than the average person - if they don't become horribly mutated anyway. The Nobilite would have a vested interest in keeping its Navigators around after all, a supremely skilled one can be put out to stud to breed better Navigators down the line!

If you don't like this idea, it could be that people believe Navigators live so long because they spend most of their time in the Warp, so more realspace time passes relative to the Navigator.

I believe it's a little bit of both. Obviously they are hooking them up to life-sustaining machines while in the Navigator chambers, but beyond that, I don't think it's too far-fetched to assume they are keeping the best around for longer. But I also think that naturally they would live at least 200-300 years, simply because they are not entirely human - there are some mutations that do increase vitality and tissue regeneration. And then we have Warp influence, which might as well increase body toughness - even at the price of incurring horrific mutations.

More importantly, the primary effect of the Warp is that it is for all intents and purposes timeless (or rather, time is meaningless inside, with the present, past and future all existing in a chaotic jumble that was only somewhat tamed in post Realm of Chaos descriptions of the Warp); you don't age when you are in the Warp, and creatures linked to it should have a partial immunity to the passage of time. At the very least, Navigators don't age when they are navigating and exposed to the Warp, which boosts their effective lifespan.

EDIT: there appears to be some issue with the quoting system; just building up on what dobyk21 said

More importantly, the primary effect of the Warp is that it is for all intents and purposes timeless (or rather, time is meaningless inside, with the present, past and future all existing in a chaotic jumble that was only somewhat tamed in post Realm of Chaos descriptions of the Warp); you don't age when you are in the Warp, and creatures linked to it should have a partial immunity to the passage of time. At the very least, Navigators don't age when they are navigating and exposed to the Warp, which boosts their effective lifespan.

Having a direct connection to the Warp is something I hadn't actually factored in, though I imagine if a Navigator said "Well, the rejuvenating power of the Warp is great, you should try it some time" they'd have trouble from the Inquisition, as well as Rogue Traders who try turning the Gellar Field off mid-Warp Transit because they're tired of having crow's feet around their eyes.

Well the rule of thumb I go by is that with the treatments available to the rich they can live to be 200 before it begins to become a more aggressive problem requiring more spending, bionic replacement and granting gradually diminishing returns etc. I'd say Navigators probably do live even longer as a part of their strange genetic heritage but that functionally it doesn't matter much. That the point at which they reach would would be a terminal age of say about 300 they've mutated to the point they can no longer leave their chambers and have likely become largely immobile. I figure they maybe last another hundred or hundred fifty after that before croaking.

Having a direct connection to the Warp is something I hadn't actually factored in, though I imagine if a Navigator said "Well, the rejuvenating power of the Warp is great, you should try it some time" they'd have trouble from the Inquisition, as well as Rogue Traders who try turning the Gellar Field off mid-Warp Transit because they're tired of having crow's feet around their eyes.

Well, the Warp doesn't necessarily rejuvenate (although I believe reverse time zones might still be a thing, with all the paradox those entail), but it does make you last a whole lot longer. Which is why Chaos Space Marines look as old as they did the day they entered despite being 10 000 real-years old, Slaaneshi cultists don't need reconstructive surgery all the time, and Nurgle ones aren't falling apart too rapidly.

It is however best not to think too long about the biological implications of maintaining cell replication (wounds heal in the Warp) without resulting in cell degradation or mutation; Papa Nurgle, being the overall nice guy he is, is probably just looking out for everyone and not letting them degrade too much until he figures out something to do with them. Which probably causes no shortage of annoyance (and boredom) on Tzeench's side of things, so that's why he probably hands out random mutations all the time to compensate.

Well, the Warp doesn't necessarily rejuvenate (although I believe reverse time zones might still be a thing, with all the paradox those entail), but it does make you last a whole lot longer. Which is why Chaos Space Marines look as old as they did the day they entered despite being 10 000 real-years old, Slaaneshi cultists don't need reconstructive surgery all the time, and Nurgle ones aren't falling apart too rapidly.

That truly isn't the warp by itself, per say. It's the power of Chaos using the warp on their chosen "ones." Just because I have ship crew who go with me into the warp all the time, and sometimes the Gellar Field fails, doesn't mean they, or I, get to live longer/forever. It's just the power of Chaos/Chaos Gods/Deamons using the warp on their servants that allow them to live longer.

That truly isn't the warp by itself, per say. It's the power of Chaos using the warp on their chosen "ones." Just because I have ship crew who go with me into the warp all the time, and sometimes the Gellar Field fails, doesn't mean they, or I, get to live longer/forever. It's just the power of Chaos/Chaos Gods/Deamons using the warp on their servants that allow them to live longer.

I'm pretty sure that unless it's been retconned, the Warp doesn't have a normal, unidirectional, flow of time (while it can flow normally, it tends to simply not flow or to do so erraticaly or even backwards), which is why you can theoretically encounter people from the Materium's distant past in the "present" who look like they have not aged at all, or see future and past copies of yourself. The effect does not extend out to the Materium (but you don't catch up on time spent in the Warp, so you've effectively lived longer in your perception and that of the outside world), although creatures that are permanently tainted by it (like Navigators) might inherit some after effects of constant warp exposure (other than a bunch of mutations)

Like someone said, Navigators have longer natural lifespans than humans... Perhaps even functionally eternal, though I doubt that. Lifespans can still be extended via juvenat treatments if thats not the case.

The eventual fate of all Navigators is still the same, barring turning to Chaos and daemonhood, and that would be either death or the worst possible version of spawndom imaginable - a self-aware chaos spawn.

Yup, being sent to the Spawnitorium would suck pretty hard. That is why my Navigator is rapidly considering a turn to gene therapy to attempt to get around this even though his house frowns pretty hard on messing with genetics to much