As I understand it the purpose of the Golden Throne is to act as a compass for navigators in order to not get lost when traveling in the imaterium.
I'm just wondering how the imperium handled traveling in the warp in the days when the Emperor and his Primarchs were conquering the galaxy.
Did they use technology now lost by the imperium or is it because of their awesome powers alone that their battleships could travel to the warp without getting lost?
In the beginning of human Warptravel, the spaceships make only little jumps, like a ship without a navigator. When the first Navigators arrived, they can make longer jumps. Also note, that before the Age of Strife, the Warp was not so dangerous, as it is in the present time of the 41. Millenia. In the Age of Strife, the ever present warpstorms make Warptravel nearly impossible. In the outgoing of the Horus Heresy, the first project of the Emperor, to build up an Warpgate-Network like the Eldar Webway failed, so the Astronomican was build up. For more Informations about this, try the lexicanum site. http://lexicanum.com/
Brd. Maximilian said:
so the Astronomican was build up.
For the most part, nobody knew what the Emperor's secret project (the warp-gate network) was, not even the Primarchs. The Astronomicon had existed since the start of the Great Crusades, however.
The Astronomicon and the Golden Throne are two separate things. The former is a psychic beacon that provides Navigators with a frame of reference when determining their position and facing within the Warp. The latter is a massive and arcane device currently being used to sustain and contain the Emperor's soul and prevent his death... though that was never its original purpose (it is, apparently, part of the gateway into the failed attempt to gain access to the Eldar Webway), and the Emperor was supposedly not its intended occupant (according to the Horus Heresy artbooks, the Emperor wanted Magnus to be the one to sit on the throne controlling the gateway).
Yes, despite the focus on the hazards of warp travel, it is still safer than it is dangerous. The majority of warp capable civilisations traverse it without any problems, they just do it slower than the Imperium.
During the DAoT humanity wasn't a single galaxy spanning empire, rather a thinly spread group of domains. WIthout the ability to travel very long distances in the warp they could only communicate and trade with the local systems. It is the Imperium's ability to move quickly that enables them to (mostly) retain their large domain.
The technology for plotting short jumps is still there, it's just that the navigator is far more useful.
Hellebore