A friend and I were talking about Dark Heresy ideas earlier and he dropped an idea that on the surface seemed unlikely, but after some thought could be fun. Somehow, someone attempts to install a generator that can send an entire planet through the warp to collide with another planet. The players get sent in to stop this from occuring and if they fail they are on a one way trip through the warp . Any thoughts on who would have the resources to do something like this and why? My first thought would be Khornites, although I don't think they would be patient enough to do this. What do you all think?

Orks, mainly. Everyone else would get the bright idea that if you have the energy to send a whole planet through the warp (which, by the way, would necessitate a very massive Gellar Field for anything at all to come out at the other side) you could use a fraction of that energy to send something smaller which would still destroy all life on said planet. And by fraction, I mean really, really small fraction. A few km in diameter would probably suffice.

Pick a Chaos cult. The forces of the warp would certainly enjoy getting an entire planet to ravage undisturbed. Entire planets have been swallowed into the warp by waprstorms in the past. Some occuring "naturally" (if you could ever use such a word for warp phenomena), and some due to Chaos cults preforming rituals brining on the coming of warpstorms and other forms of rifts in reality.

As you have written it ("planet as a projectile"), this idead is just stupid. Like already said, a lot less would be needed to destroy a planet.

If you stick with the already mentioned "engulf planet" concept, any chaoskult would be fitting.

Orks ... this just seems like an Ork thing to do. It is a tremendous waste of power, but is also incredibly dramatic and would send shockwaves of horror throughout the quadrant, if not the Imperium as a whole. It is the type of blatant misuse of power and strength that says "Orks are here!" ... and the race could ask for nothing better from a military action.

I believe it was during the Horus Heresy that Magnus, primarch of the Thousand Sons Space Marines, managed to move his entire home world through the warp and into the Eye of Terror. It's still there now, without Gellar fields, existing in a strange Chaos-Ridden twin reality where the physical world mixes freely with the Immaterium.

Of course he did it as a way of escaping the wrath of the Emperor, not as a way of taking out another planet. But if you truely want to get rid of a Necron Tomb world then I'd like to see them deflect an entire **** planet...

Personally I think an asteroid, or a large hulk would be a better idea. Blowing up a hulks' warp drive(s) right before hitting would be devastating. Asteroid impacts in Earth's past have cause the die off of 90% of species on Earth....

PS- Moving a planet with standard warp technology is generally not possible. Warp ships need to move out of the solar system before they can safely enter the warp. That is not to say planets aren't pulled into the warp, but it's very rare.

Well, seeing as how the entirety of the 40k universe is one big sticky mess of stupid ideas built on idiotic notions and over the top insanity dressed in seven shades of Awesome, I'd say launching a planet at another planet however the means and reasons (it's 40k, those reason things are always slaved to "you know what would be cool...") is doable. You wouldn't need Geller fields (those are only needed if you want mater to pass through the warp unscathed and unaltered). If that's not a concern and you don't mind a daemonic rock assaulting the plaint, well, that's one less thing to worry about. As for who, why, and how, I'd favor the insane chaos cultists with some crazy destructive magic rout... or just a stupid accident caused by those meddling with That Which Mankind Shouldn't Poke Too Much.

Graver said:

Chaos cults are simply the best GM-tools, because whatever plan they might have it never actually HAVE TO make sense.

Edith The Hutt said:

Magnus attempted; but the planet shattered under the stress. Prospero, like all the home worlds of the traitor legions, was utterly destroyed; reduced to little more than an asteroid field.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Edith The Hutt said:

They wouldn't "deflect" it. They would reduce the entire planet to it's constituent atoms.

A stunt like that might actually wake up the entire necron tomb to wreak havoc on the galaxy (HINT: awesome plot for an epic scenario! )

An entire forgeworld is indeed sucked into (and later out of) the warp in the second Grey Knights novel. The means by which this happens is never stated, I believe, but the planet does emerge intact and unharmed (I mean, if you ignore being made virtually into a daemon world) about 1000 years after its disappearance.

If you're planning this, definately get your hands on that book. Great source material

I smell Marvel Comics in here...*sniff sniff* Yep...Infinity Gauntlet here we come!

ferzberk said:

Actually I am not planning this. When that friend and I get together on the phone we tend to start batting Ideas around and this is one of the more memorable ones recently. It struck me as being so over the top that it had to be shared.

I think this should be called "Planet Bowling."

Cifer said:

But that wouldn't have the impact of everyone realising that not only can you send a planet through the warp, you have enough spare energy to do so just to show off.

Jack of Tears said:

Fixed for you. I doubt that either planet would be intact after the collision.

Nojo509 said:

Now all we need is a few black holes for a game of pool

You wouldn't need Geller fields (those are only needed if you want mater to pass through the warp unscathed and unaltered). If that's not a concern and you don't mind a daemonic rock assaulting the plaint, well, that's one less thing to worry about.

Without a Geller field, the planet would generally be submerged in the warp proper and thus cease to exist as matter. There wouldn't be anything left to come out the other side.

Cifer said:

Possibly, but there's cases of matter going in and out of the warp sans fields a lot... I mean, space hulks come back out. Granted, they're all fused together with all kinds of other derbies but the warp didn't completely digest them. I think a planet could get away with it and still come out the other side with most of it's mass... or more mass!

If there's one constant in 40k, it's most anything can happen somewhere and that goes double if the warp's involved ;-)

Graver said:

Well, it's called "The Warp" for a reason... It warps stuff beyond recognition.

A plan worthy of mighty Megatron himself.

If the you were to do it with Imperium technology it would require a warp drive half the size of the planet. I imagine you would need to gellar field just to keep the warp drive drive functioning. Then you would need a navigator to pilot it.

I don't think it's impossible that with powerful sorcery (or possibly some type of xeno/ancient technology) you could weaken the warp locally (like in the eye of terror) or push the planet into the warp.

I suppose the planets oribtal momentum it's self would carry it some where but without course correction or navigation it will not hit a populated planet.

Sorcery is your best bet but getting it to hit another populated planet (rather than sun) pretty much requires uncharacteristic direct intervention of a major chaos power.

I say you have the Orks build a massive rudder to stear it through the Warp; with maybe a stupid number of Ork ships tugboating it in the right direction.

Or just some extra maneuvering thrusters and a control temple would do it. After all, it almost worked for Invader Zim... if Dib hadn't thwarted his plans with Mercury and a the nicest and probably only ever planet chase/dog fight... am I the only one who thinks of that episode in relation to this thread now?

Only if you want it to become a cartoon ... though that is kind of what we're joking at now. I loved invader Zim ... and stupid Dib, he almost had the earth destroyed before that brat showed up.