Why doesn't the Imperium look into another method of it? Other races have proven it's possible. Why stick with a method that takes you through and is at them whims of psychic space h£ll? Just doesn't make sense. Other than because the writers say so.

The Imperium, or more properly the AdMech, is not really all that supportive of new inventions. The general mindset is that if it's not a human Dark Age of Technology (or Golden Age, depending) STC design, it is inherently inferior and/or anathema. Plus, the Navigator Houses like their monopoly, and would actively seek to suppress an alternative to Warp travel with extreme prejudice.

That being said, the Emperor was supposedly working on a Human Webway. Whether that is human access to the Webway the Eldar use, or a new Human-built version isn't clear. Supposedly, when Magnus astral-projected himself to Terra to warn the Emperor of Horus's treason, Magnus blew up the Emperor's wards and daemons got into the Emperor's webway and tried to pour through the gate in the Palace.

That having been said, yes, in a purely rational sense, an alternative to Warp FTL would be hugely desirable. And if a human STC pattern for such could be found, or reasonably made to look like a human STC pattern for such, it would be greatly desired and be valued at probably several prosperous sectors worth of wealth ... and the Navigator Houses would utilize any and all means at their disposal in order to get rid of/discredit you and the alternative to Warp FTL.

Human Warp Travel works in two methods: The Chartist method of brief FTL skimming and the Imperial Navy/Rogue Trader method of doing a deep dive. 90% of the Imperium uses the former method because there are only so many Navigators, there are a huge number of ships, and this method actually is reliable and safe. By never really entering the Warp, travel takes roughly 5 times longer on average, but the Chartist method of travel varies much, much less, and you can somewhat reliably predict when a Chartist ship should arrive.

The Navy and people with Navigators do a full dive into Hell which is terrifying and could kill you, but people believe that the Emperor will protect them! And given that if the Geller Fields fail everyone die, everyone who's alive has been right. It's also worth pointing out that this method is fast. It's faster than the Tau, or the Tyranids. Up until the Necrons showed up the Eldar were the only one with a better FTL and as javcs mentioned, trying to master that... didn't work well.

From what I've read, both in the novels and the game books, the Emperor was trying to assume control over a portion of the Eldar Webway. If that's the case then why isn't the entire Webway infested with Daemons? It's all interconnected.

From what I've read, both in the novels and the game books, the Emperor was trying to assume control over a portion of the Eldar Webway. If that's the case then why isn't the entire Webway infested with Daemons? It's all interconnected.

The Eldar are not in control of the entire webway. The webway itself was something inherited from the Old Ones, and though the Eldar have claimed the majority of it during the height of the Eldar Empire, large sections of the network have been lost forever from daemonic breaches. The Eldar routinely have to seal off passages and monitor the webway.

Other races have proven it's possible.

By other races you mean the Necrontyr, that received the technology to go faster-than-light by the C'Tan, the Eldar that use the broken and fragmented Webway network, and the Tyranids that alter gravitational fields to warp space towards their targets.

Everyone else, including humanity, use the Warp for travel (at least from the major races.)

Warp Travel was invented by humanity after millennia of research and trial-and-error during the Dark Age of Technology, even the Navigators are a product of human engineering in an effort to perfect this method. While it is certainly dangerous and prone to failure it is much, much faster than anything else out there and for the purposes of the Imperium relatively safe.

Also you might want to stop chocking everything up to "bad writing" when it comes to 40k and spend some time reading up on why things are the way they are first.

P.S.: "The Emperor Protects, but I still feel better wearing Terminate Armor with a Storm Shield and Thunder Hammer in hand."

And you criticize bad writing...

Depending on whom you are comparing to, the Imperium does the same thing. Star Wars FTL is hyperspace travel. To a degree, so is the Imperium's except that the parallel dimension in question is twisted space hell. Star Trek tries to stay slightly more grounded in real science (whether true, or not, I'm saying it), but that science doesn't necessarily pan out into anything we can do, and thus the Imperium can't.

The races that do something else are the Eldar, the Orks, and the Nids. The Eldar cheat, and the Imperium tried to, also, but that blew up in their faces, thanks to the Emperor, Magnus, and probably Tzeentch. The Orks and Nids, who are at least somewhat separated from the Warp, both travel a lot more slowly, with the Tyranids spending copius biomass resources to travel from one place to another, thus being famished when they arrive, possibly using Genestealer Cults as "little Astronomicons", and even the Orks, who sort of enter the warp, don't really seem to have much say in where they wash up. The Imperium can't afford to have the wait times, and uncertainty, and still function as a government, even to the paltry excuse that they currently do.

The Tau are also slow, and it only really works for them due to scale. If all your people live in America, something like wagons, pony express, and maybe even a telegraph system work, albeit possibly slowly (same as everyone else, though), but when you decide to go ask Spain to join your Greater Good, you need to cross an ocean, and hope you reach land. If the Tau aren't stomped, they'll eventually find that they need better ways, too, if only to stay in touch with their homeworlds. In my fluff, that's a bit of how the Eldar are manipulating the Tau they brought from Jericho. Without the Eldar giving them limited, overseen Webway access, they are stand-alone, and cut off from the rest of their people, while in the Expanse. As for the Necrons, they blatantly cheat by having high science, and humans can understand it, yet.

One last thing. The primary point of better FTL would be so that the Imperium could prosper, which is entirely the opposite of the point to the setting. I won't say "just because the writing is bad", but the grimdark is intentional, and knowing that "prospering" is risky, a double-edged sword, and almost a deal with the devil, but not prospering means death is a central tenant of the universe. Living in Star Trek is easy. Living in Star Wars is fun. Living in Warhammer 40,000 is HARD. As a last little bit, if the Imperium really wanted to make their FTL better, they should just get every human to sing Kumbiya; warp-travel isn't bad, it's the warp that you travel through that is, and depending on whose fluff you read, it is because of how many humans (I'd say "people", but the other LARGE populations, the Nids and the Orks, are both somewhat separated from the Warp) there are, and how they think/feel. Most humans are selfish, violent, and limited in thought, a byproduct of their environment, and that psychic malaise taints the warp. If they, as a people, could be a bit more Noblebright, they might actually improve the medium of the warp, at least some, and at least some places, and that would make it much better. They won't, because the government is distant, and oppressive, and the other races are distant, oppressive, or murderhobo, but it could help.

Thank you for pointing out the typo. Auto correct vexes me. I just can not reconcile some of the decisions made in 40k with human behavior. I love the setting but I've had issues with it for years. Don't agree? That's cool. We don't have to agree. Just don't do what the last guy did and stalk and flame my threads.

I've just realized something. I love 40k. The technology, the characters, the powers, all the different species. But I think I hate grimdark. I like hope and possibility clearly defined good guys and bad guys. I like the good guys being every bit as powerful as their enemies. And I hate the notion of all powerful evils and irresistible corruption. For me, without hope of a meaningful victory,a permanent victory there is no joy in the game. No point in playing if every victory is just slowing the bleeding while waiting for inevitable defeat. Not just defeat but extinction and eternal torment. I've learned something about myself. Ill continue to play 40k, but it'll be a version of 40k 99% of the people would hate. And that's okay.

See, I also like my grimdarkness with a smidgen of hope as well, I also like that the real weight of history working against people is the Imperium's successes. With the exception of the Interregnum, the Imperium has ruled for 10,000 years. This is, frankly, mind-boggling when you consider that the entire Galaxy bows to one planet and does so in a way that works. Its methods are horrific, usually excessive and often contain the seed of its own downfall, but the most frightening thing about 40K to me is that the xenophobic, paranoid, religious worship works.

That's really the tide you're fighting against when you propose something new. Most people are raised not being able to think of something new. It worked for 10,000 years it is honestly a little presumptuous to think that you're the first person to come up with this brilliant idea that's going to fix everything, so naturally people are going to be against you. You're going to fail over, and over, and over again before you have a chance to maybe change a few important people's minds. And then you have to keep fighting against an entire Galaxy that's willing to kill you because your way might work, but it might also drive everyone to destruction.

Bonne chance!

I'm of a different opinion to the two above posts^^

I am sick and fed up of noblebright, ray of sunshine, you just gotta believe scenarios where hope still remains even when against unbelievable odds.

Sometimes you just don't have a freaking chance in hell and it's in those moments you get to see who and what you are.

To quote Gabriel Angelos, ' It is a sign of strength to cry out against fate, rather than to bow one's head and succumb.''

I love 40k because of this. The Imperium doesn't have a hope, (even if the prophecies are true and Leman+Vulkan returns, Khan gets free of the Deldar and both the Lion and Papasmurf are restored) they cannot stand against the forces arrayed against them. The Imperium is dying a slow death and whilst humanity may end up surviving in shattered fragments of the Empire or lone colonies, humanity as a unified front will end, for a while at least. Whilst I may revile what the Imperium has turned humanity into, I respect their struggle against inevitability.

Anyone can fight hard or struggle in the face of opposition if they believe there's hope.

It takes inspirational levels of great determination and strength to keep fighting when there is none.

We enjoy different aspects of gaming then. I thoroughly disagree. Mostly because of all the stuff I see in real life. Gaming is my escape. When you have to treat a toddler who's had cigarettes put out on it it kinda makes you not wanna go to dark places anymore.

I suspect that an alternative to warp travel has been tried several times but either humanities current best and brightest have been unable to come up with a method of faster than light travel that is less terrifying than warp travel or 'interested parties' have sabotaged any such attempts.

After all there are literal Chaos Gods that have a vested interest in keeping warp travel as the default method of transport... Not to mention petty human power-mongering, and grinding inefficient bureaucracy being uncomfortable trying something that hasn't been done before.

Well, like I said, I'm not sure what an alternative is. So many other series use "a parallel dimension, where the laws of physics are somewhat different" (SW hyperspace, ST subspace, Andro slipspace), and the 40k equivalent is the warp, which is twisted. FTL in our own dimension is sort of impossible, which is sort of why these other dimensions are so often used as a caveat.

As WG said, too, yes various agencies would also be very much willing to sabotage things. Often, small groups of the AdMech would be willing to conduct "questionable" R&D, hoping that it would pan out, and once it had, their sibling priests would be so impressed that they would be unwilling to punish the interlopers, but this sort of research would require a large chunk of the AdMech to do, and they'd need Navigators on hand to get them to a test site, and back from wherever, if the project didn't succeed, which would be a great time for the Navigators to screw the plan. Other change-hating organizations might also declare you a heretic, too.

As for the Webway, I wish that humans COULD gain access to it; I wish that the Emperor had told ANYONE, and once His insertion into that medium failed, they could attempt a "take 2" in some other location, free of the daemons, and other issues. Hell, the Custodes, with some Grey Knights, and assortment of null rods almost seem as though they should be able to retake the Golden Throne portal, and the Harlequins might assist, simply to kill Chaos in the Webway, but that's neither here, nor there. I wonder if any group, post the Warpstorm Trilogy, had their Explorators, or Rogue Traders, become interested in harnessing the Webway there, after seeing what it was capable of? I still like to imagine that one of the lost Space Marine Chapters got sent in there to map, and claim, regions of it in the Emperor's name.

We enjoy different aspects of gaming then. I thoroughly disagree. Mostly because of all the stuff I see in real life. Gaming is my escape. When you have to treat a toddler who's had cigarettes put out on it it kinda makes you not wanna go to dark places anymore.

I think if I had to do what you are doing my mind would go to VERY DARK places having nothing to do with 40k! Keep up the good fight man!

At it's core, Warhammer is about two things: War (obviously) and HOPE. Humanity survives on the sheer hope of survival, hope that their Emperor-Ascendant will prevail against the darkness of the long night approaching, Hope of enduring against the tides of monsters and the creeping of paranoia that dawns with each night. When someone removes the aspect of hope from the setting it just becomes grim derp.

To quote Gabriel Angelos, ' It is a sign of strength to cry out against fate, rather than to bow one's head and succumb.''

This quote is symbolic of Gabriel's hope against submitting to fate, the destruction of his chapter through their own corruption. In the end of the game, his hope is validated as the Blood Ravens are able to cleanse their ranks and reform under his leadership.

The difference between this settings and other, more optimistic settings, is that to hold hope in such horrendous conditions is to be considered sane, yet humanity pushes on regardless!

I can see that, and I suppose another aspect of it is their ignorant world-view, compared to our nigh-omniscient view of their world. Things we suggest make sense to us, but would be ludicrous there. They have hope in their Emperor because they don't have all the information; that He hates the very thin they have turned Him into, that He's slowly fading away, and that none of His, or His servant's actions have really weakened any of the Ruinous Powers, at all, only staved off even worse a$$holery. They can have hope because they don't know just how far gone they are, and because sometimes it is all that they will have.

For me, i just wish that, every so often, the optimism panned out. Something a little bit more than "this world-ending threat has been narrowly averted, and the people can rest easy, for now, but little do they know yet another threat looms, even more terrible than the last." and that it is this way on virtually every world, and the enemy, even the dying Eldar, is always legion enough that they are always a threat, even against Mankind, whose primary advantage is often supposed to be endless numbers. I suppose this is why, at least in my stories, I sometimes slip in little snippets of alliance, even if they are tenuous, and probably a sham. Everyone out there can't be an enemy, an island, and unlimited in their ability to challenge Humanity, with a good shot of winning, and then, of course, tainting the fallen Humans, or wiping them out, to the man. Still like the setting, just get tired of the box of grimdark, which happens to contain another box of grimdark, that itself is filled with...yep, grimdark.

Isn't the main reason the Imperium doesn't look for another FTL method because their existing one works and has delivered an enormous empire to them?

To have done so most warp travel must be successful - the Koronus Sector is a crazy place full of warp storms but in most sectors warp travel must be pretty reliable?

Isn't the main reason the Imperium doesn't look for another FTL method because their existing one works and has delivered an enormous empire to them?

To have done so most warp travel must be successful - the Koronus Sector is a crazy place full of warp storms but in most sectors warp travel must be pretty reliable?

I agree with the first half of this! Regarding the second, parts of the Imperium are regularly swallowed by Warp Storms and made inaccessible, but they're inaccessible to Chartist fleet-hopping as well, because it's a literal physical storm in both space and the Warp, so it's not clear if any other FTL would work.

It's true that this method definitely works though, and if there's one thing the Imperium isn't concerned about it's the death of humans. There's plenty more where those came from.

True, even in the close regions of the Imperium, there are whole cut out areas, like the holes in a block of swiss cheese, that aren't loyal, or can't be reached for decades, or even centuries at a time, and eventually "lost ships" might be relocated, wrecked beyond belief. These ships are just polished back up, new humans are pressed into service, and off she goes, again.

I'll also agree that the warp travel they use does seem to have a high enough success rate to be tolerable. Space Marines get all the love, and are called upon to perform some of the most insane tasks, and they still use the same variety of warp travel as the rest. If a human-filled ship disappears in the warp, it's really only the ship, and possibly its rare components, and cargo, that might be mourned, but if an Astartes Strike Cruiser goes missing, for example, not only has an amazing relic been lost, but so too have a whole group of the Angels of Death. Depending on the Chapter, that loss might even be crippling, since none of the Marines survived; they can fight like demigods on the ground, against truly nightmarish foes, but to just go POOF!? That's a terrible, total loss, especially to smaller Chapters. Still, they use the same Navigators, warp engines, and whatnot, barring perhaps that they get higher quality ones, like everything else the Astartes get.

Why doesn't the Imperium look into another method of it? Other races have proven it's possible. Why stick with a method that takes you through and is at them whims of psychic space h£ll? Just doesn't make sense. Other than because the writers say so.

.

They probably do. But 'look into' doesn't mean 'succeed'. The webway gate project was an effort involving the Emperor (personally) and many of the finest minds of the Imperium using salvaged dark age and xenos technology and personally using the Emperor's powers as a safety measure. In short, it's not a replicatable feat.

Necron FTL may have been observed but that doesn't mean the Imperium understands how to do it. There is a certain minimum technology level to understand another technology level - a mechanicus adept seeing sensor records of a necron ship maneuvering might be asked how it does it and would respond

"that's impossible"

"yes, but it's clearly doing it."

"I'm not questioning that, but it's impossible."

"How do you think it does it?"

"I don't know, because it's impossible."

Trying to actually theorise how a necron ship's drive works would require several million years of tech development we don't have. It'd be like a tribe of spear-wielding primitives on an island somewhere seeing a passenger helicopter fly overhead and trying to comprehend the science involved.

From what I've read, both in the novels and the game books, the Emperor was trying to assume control over a portion of the Eldar Webway. If that's the case then why isn't the entire Webway infested with Daemons? It's all interconnected.

Big portions of it are. It's not all completely interconnected - think of it as a massively complex and partly derelict subway system. Not every line connects to every station anymore, and there are firebreaks and lockdowns at certain chokepoints that you need keys (physical or psychic) to pass. That's why one bit of Commoragh (Shaa-Dom) got eaten by the warp but other bits are (at the moment) okay.

I can see that, and I suppose another aspect of it is their ignorant world-view, compared to our nigh-omniscient view of their world. Things we suggest make sense to us, but would be ludicrous there. They have hope in their Emperor because they don't have all the information; that He hates the very thin they have turned Him into, that He's slowly fading away, and that none of His, or His servant's actions have really weakened any of the Ruinous Powers, at all, only staved off even worse a$$holery. They can have hope because they don't know just how far gone they are, and because sometimes it is all that they will have.

For me, i just wish that, every so often, the optimism panned out. Something a little bit more than "this world-ending threat has been narrowly averted, and the people can rest easy, for now, but little do they know yet another threat looms, even more terrible than the last." and that it is this way on virtually every world, and the enemy, even the dying Eldar, is always legion enough that they are always a threat, even against Mankind, whose primary advantage is often supposed to be endless numbers. I suppose this is why, at least in my stories, I sometimes slip in little snippets of alliance, even if they are tenuous, and probably a sham. Everyone out there can't be an enemy, an island, and unlimited in their ability to challenge Humanity, with a good shot of winning, and then, of course, tainting the fallen Humans, or wiping them out, to the man. Still like the setting, just get tired of the box of grimdark, which happens to contain another box of grimdark, that itself is filled with...yep, grimdark.

To be fair, most of the times that the Imperium runs into problems, it's strictly a localized problem. And the local forces are usually enough to more or less maintain the status quo without much help from further away, or establish a new status quo they can maintain. But the forces from higher up the hierarchy/further away are generally too busy addressing problems that local forces are unable to cope with.

For example - the Tau - the only reason that they haven't been rolled over yet is because the Imperium got distracted by the Tyranids. The Tau are strong enough to resist the Imperium when the Imperium can't allocate more resources, but are (currently) incapable of seriously threatening the Imperium as a whole.

With the Eldar ... while they're a dying, fading race, sure, they're also functionally the of a galactic empire that was probably larger and more widespread than the Imperium. A small percentage of a galactic empire's worth of Eldar is still a massive number in absolute terms. Toss in their generally higher tech and strategic mobility levels, the Eldar can usually achieve local superiority against local Imperium forces when they need to, and get what they needed to do done long before the Imperium can get much in the way of reinforcements to respond, but if the Eldar managed to be caught in one place long enough for the Imperium to bring its forces to bear, then the Eldar would be steamrollered - that's not something that happens very often, though.

In other words, most of the times some force threatens the Imperium, it's not actually a threat to the Imperium as a whole, it's usually just a local threat to a system, a subsector, or more rarely a full sector, and even more rarely a Segmentum (full on Tyranid Hive Fleet or major Black Crusade).

That is, most of the "problems" on the battlefield, wouldn't actually be considered problems if the Imperium had the time to get forces there and nothing else occupying its attention and tying up most of the forces that might otherwise be sent. However, when a "problem" arises, usually there's not much time to respond and/or the Imperium has too many other things going on in other places to send much, if any, support.

All that having been said, yes, I'd agree that I'd like for there to occasionally be something more positive than "staving off defeat for now" to be the result of things.

I have to brighten up the game a bit. With all the darkness I see in real life I can't get into a grimdark head space. I'm on enough antidepressants already.

There are other settings than 40k that can get you that. I mean even if you brighten up the game slightly you will need to change a lot about the setting. Everything about Hive Worlds or Factory Worlds, the living conditions of the people, rampant slavery, life expectancy in the 30s. The treatment of voidsmen on ships, hauling on chains to drag cannons into place and so on.

The grim darkness is prevalent throughout the game itself.

Thing is, there are varying degrees of grimdark. You can mix in some noblebrightness without getting rid of all the grimdark - it'll just stand out all the more and be more memorable for it. Or even just less grimdark without going into noblebright.

Oppressive grimdarkness just to be even more grimdark is just annoying, especially when it gets to the point where it's like "how the heck does even a 'win' (by setting standards) here do any good (again, by setting standards)?" or "how is the Imperium still around after this?".

You can have the Imperium and the 40k verse be a terrible place to be, but you don't need to say that the best possible outcome in all circumstances is "staving off inevitable doom for another day". Let some wins actually be wins, not just surviving just to turn around and face imminent doom that needs to be staved off.