what happens to a starship's viewports when travelling in warpspace? are they shut to prevent anyone from gazing into the warp and becoming stark raving mad? can you crack the shutters open wide while in the warp?

by the same token: can you open an airlock or cargo bay door to vent everything inside into space when you are into the warp? Or will the laws of physics not work like that?

and can warp denizens rush into a ship with open cargo doors if the Gellar field is still up?

questions, questions ....

Hi!

1) The shutter question
I believe them to be firmly shut and locked while in the warp. Of course, as long as anything designed to open under one condition, one can manipulate it to open under any other condition. I would request a at least difficult (-10) test for Tech-Use and would perhaps make it an extended test requiering five success to by-pass the locks and make the shutters opening up.

Once open, the gellar field should still keep the worst from happening. But I would see one needs to pass an easy(+30) willpower test not to look up into the warp (to make it teasing) for each round in the room. If anyone does stare into the warp, it will be 1d10 points of insanity each round and s/he need an ordinary(+10) willpower test just to stop staring. Unless, the person in Question is a Navigator.

This is based on the assumption that the warp should be portrayed as something dangerous even if kept at bay by a gellar field. If this seem to harsh, the insanity could be reduce by a challinging willpower test (by 1 point for success and another for any level of success; but the viewer will suffer at least one per round).

2) The airlock question
As long as the gellar field is active (and working proper), nothing should be able to get in even if an airlock is openend. Concerning to any other effect, I would say that what happens as a look is opened is never quiet the same but should be strange and/or hellish. Sample ideas

1) Everything is sucked out

2) Blinding light floods the opening, turning everybody blind for 1d5 rounds or longer if they do not turn away

3) A storm of air rushes IN and threatens to knock anyone of the feet (strength test)

4) Maddening noise floats in, even by passing the gellar field (1d5 insanity if now willpower test is passed)

5) Role on the table for warp phenomenae as something leaks in

6) Anyone just loses conciousness for 1d5 rounds for no apparent reason

7) An strange smell which defies definition.. and is there even if someone wears sealed suits!

8) Arcs of energie dance around the lock door and inside, doing 1d5 damage with no reduction from TB

9) Everyone with 3d10 meters about the opening temporarilly loses 2d10 of Willpower and Intelligence

0) Role twice and combine the results

The fluff and BL novels are quite contradictory in these matters. Most BL authors seem to agree with Gregorius that during warp ttravel the viewports should be covered to protect the crew's sanity, but I seem to recall at least a couple instances of people looking out into the warp with apparently no ill effects (one was during an early Gaunt's Ghosts novel, I'm sure of that one)

As for the airlock, it was my understanding that the Geller Field generally extends at least a few meters past the ship's hull, so theoretically opening an airlock or suffering a hull breach during warp travel should have the same effect as in real space. At least until the things/people vented into space pass beyong the Gellar Field's boundary...

In fact, now that I think of it, there's an incident in the Inquisition War novels where an inquisitor and his retinue don void suits and exit their ship while the ship is in the warp in order to board an enemy ship, the idea being that the two ships were close enough that their Geller fields overlapped, allowing safe passage.

Golmorgoth said:

The higher the edition number of Warhammer 40k, the more dangerous the warp. ;-) Indeed, in Inquisition War, the main characters do slip into some EVA suits and go on a nice little jaunt through the warp with only the gellarfield's magic bubble separating them from it -many Hive worlds had worse environments then the warp.

Now, as for gazing into the warp, I would go with something close to what Gregorius said, but a lot harsher then what he suggests based on the Lidless Stare ability for Navigators found in Rogue Trader. The Lidless Stare is an ability that allows a navigator to show anyone gazing into his third eye "the power and mind-breaking unreality of the warp... the chaos boiling beneath the skin of existence and, for many, it is the last thing they ever see." Effectively, when a navigator uses this ability, anyone who gazes into his third eye gazes into the warp.

The ability it self is divided into three tears of mastery. For the purpose of prying open a window and just looking out into the warp for funsies, I would say that the effects of the master level of the ability would come into play. After all, you don't have to witness the warp through someone else's eye, you're cutting out the middle-man and just looking strait into the damned thing. Que full-on bad decision.

The effects:

• All who see the Warp must make a WP test suffering 1d10 E damage if they fail plus 1d10 E damage for each DoF by which they fail the test. This damage ignores armour (but possibly warded and/or blessed armour might help... up to the GM) and toughness. (This is a little different then in the book, but there's no navigator to make an opposed WP test against... so. Likewise, the Navigator can potentially inflict more damage, but that could be seen as them actually defeating the Gellarfield with their eye and channeling more raw warp energy into the victims who gaze into his/her eye like a psyker channeling his or her powers through a gellarfield).
• Anyone actively looking away from the window into the warp (ducking behind a table, turning their back's to it, closing their eyes and shouting at their chained companion that no matter what they do, they mustn't look in the ark, etc receive a +30 to the WP test, but they still must make the test. Such is the siren song of the warp that it will compel you to look upon your doom.
• This test must be repeated every round for all those who remain in the vacancy of the window.
• All who take damage from the warp (and survive) are stunned for 1d5 rounds.
• Any creature with an Inelegance of 20 or greater which took damage from the warp and survived must further pass a Toughness (-10) Test or die instantly. If they survive that, they receive 1d10 Insanity. Creatures with less then 20 Inelegance do not have to test toughness to live and simply take 1d5 insanity (they're just not able to fully appreciate what they are seeing -blessed are the ignorant)
• While the power doesn't cover this, I would also assert that looking into the warp is definite grounds for Warp Shock if I ever did hear them. For every d10 of damage that is inflicted upon the victim, they would also receive 1 corruption point (assuming they survive of course... say, like through the burning of a fate point ;-) )
• Any character/creature with the From Beyond trait is immune to these effects. However, creatures which only have the Machine Trait are not immune if they have any Int score what-so-ever.
• Alternately, as the damage represents the warps hostile nature towards matter (especially sentient matter) one could argue that the Gellarfield keeps the damaging and blasting effects of the warp at bey. If this is your contention then then substitute the d10's of E damage for Insanity Points to really hammer home the utter mind-breaking nature of the warp. In no time, the minds of all present will be blasted clean and shortly after (due to the mounting CP's) you'll have a room of mewing chaos spawn, which is only natural for inviting the warp into their minds after all ;-)

As far as the Airlock question, I like the random phenomena response simply for flavor. However I'd think that since the Geller field creates an envelope of realspace around the ship in question, opening and closing the airlocks would have to have precisely the same effect as it would in outer space in general: the air is vented out, and unsecured cargo and people with it. The momentum of being sucked out would carry items and people outside of the Geller field and into the Warp proper, and then I'm sure they'd be in some real deep trouble (beyond being violently depressurized and having the water boil inside their flesh, I mean, presuming they are unprotected by a Void suit).

Opening windows and viewports I would have to imagine would cause madness, probably dictated by a Fear Test with Warp Shock. Rationale:

1. If there were a "rift into the warp" on a planet or something, and your player looked into it, you would certainly require a Fear Test and Warp Shock. If you think about it this is an identical situation to being inside a ship's Geller Field and then looking out i.e. some distance of realspace (atmosphere in this case, void in the other) separating one person from the Warp itself.

2. A Navigator's third eye allows him to stare into the Warp and guide a ship from within a Geller field, and it is a unique characteristic. If anyone could look at the warp unaffected from within a Geller field this would seem to be less of a singular talent.

My two cents.

At Last Forgot said:

Not really.

Fair enough, though I was never under the impression that blood or deep tissue would boil. As vacuum pressures reached the eyes and mouth, moisture there would indeed boil. I find it likely that given time to permeate, the upper dermis layers would eventually rupture and boil which would likely cause effects similar to a burn along with swelling. Way to ruin my dramatic effect by requiring precision.

You are also assuming that outside of a ship, when in the warp, is a vacuum. Given that the warp is a fickle and ever-changing place, that might or might not be the case.

MILLANDSON said:

A good point, but if the Geller field does in fact extend beyond the outer hull of the ship, then nothing that can't exist in real space can exist within that bubble. So I would say that at the very least the ship would have a thin skin of vacuum around the hull.

Fields aren't physical bubbles, filters or appear as lines drawn on a mathematical diagram. They have direction and magnitude over a distance, the further you are away from the field generating source, the weaker it is, in the case of the geller field it exerts force out to a certain radius which is essentially keeping reality, reality. In the case of ships and people onboard them, the Geller field and Warp engine are probably 2 of the last remaining examples of Quantum Mechanics applied on a comparatively massive scale left in the Imperium.

That means, it ok to leave the door open, reality within range of a field is still reality and the warp has to stay out. Fields do not 'leak' or have holes in them, (that would be a myth made up by people who are either science fiction writers or don't know what they're talking about) it either exists at its maximum strength or it can be reduced with less power... or it can be turned off. Geller field being turned OFF is BAD! If its off, then you don't have to worry about the ship having a hole in it because reality ceases to exist as we know it and it will be destroyed by the unreality that is the warp and its turned into cheese or something. Needless to say, you'd want more than one... possible 3 or 4 and then all you have to worry about is when they cut over to redundant systems that the field overlaps when one of its sources ***** itself and die.

Open windows and doors are not to be looked out of. Taking a leaf out of quantum mechanics for a second, basically think of yourself on a ship as a sympathetic collection of particles of yourself on a ship which is in reality at a set point of time back in 'The real world', the combination of Warp Engine and Geller field has effectively created a set of twins, we shall call you-

Bob1- I am existing in the reality onboard the ship in realtime

Bob2- I am existing in the reality onboard the ship in the warp

Bob1 knows he exists and all the normal rules apply that we associate with normal physics, you think, breath and function, Bob2 also knows he exists and all the normal rules apply still, however he must not know that Bob1 exists somewhere else at a set point of time while his duplicate is being transported to a set destination and distance. The risk of looking out the window into the warp is a risk of Bob2 knowing that he is a duplicate which shouldnt exist in this particular point of time and simply stops functioning as a sympathetic example of Bob1 that exists in real time and Bob2 loses coherance.

Losing coherance with the rational laws of physics is not recommended. 9 out of 10 inquisitors prescribe death as a solution

I have a question related to the subject at hand here. When in the warp, can a ship send or receive astropathic communications or does the Geller field block them ?

Kyorou said:

All the literature I've read (limited though that may be) implies that ships in the warp can both send and receive astropathic messages. Though I would assume that all the normal warp disturbances can affect them as normal.

MKX said:

you can't make a hole into a field, but you can bend it - a good example would be Earth's magnetic field, which gets shaped by the solar wind pushing on it. Which means that a Gellar filed can be deformed to a point where parts of the hull ends up out of it - or at least with a low enough gradient of it to let warp critters pay a visit.

From the recieving end it's going to look like there was a hole and something coming in through it. With the Imperium's often spotty education system, most crewmemebers won't know better.

Sister Cat said:

Perhaps even more so in some instances.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Psy-powers work on the principle that if you can use them in real time outside the warp, then you can use them in the warp in a real time environment.

Then if you want to hurt your psyker (which most GM's do at some point) you approach him with the idea that perhaps he is living on an island in the warp or is the island he's on with the warp somewhere in the middle like a well. If he starts frothing at the mouth and gets cranky, have the nearest NPC shoot him.

Manunancy said:

If it was the nice happy area of electromagnetics where you have classical particles and waves I'd agree 100% with that as an idea... but in quantum fields that would be the least of their problems and not an area I'm formally trained in. There's all kinds of fun stuff which could happen inside a quantum field generator that can go wrong where you've got abstract observables acting on an abstract space and possible states of the system being observed with a set amount of degrees of freedom... oh and particle conservation/non-conservation and then normalisation where the particle reappears in the same position its supposed to.

TL:DR version- The ****'s witchcraft

Agreed. Don't bring in Quantum Mechanical phenomena, whether you're trying to parse out what the Warp really consists of or if you're just swinging your Physics phallus.

We have no idea whether the Geller Field is even a field from the strict scientific definition, perhaps it is like a Void Shield and has a strict radius, there's not any way to engage with this from a formal scientific viewpoint. The Warp is the domain of madness, witchcraft, the defiance of phsyical laws, as well as being something of a separate universe where no assumptions about our universe hold. Therefore, all we really have to go on are canon references, analogy to other in-system phenomena, or similar extrapolation.

To reiterate, I must echo the consensus as before: opening an airlock would act exactly like opening an airlock in realspace, since the hull isn't what keeps the warp out anyway. Looking out a window would be exactly analogous to looking into a Warp Rift or a similar incident.

MKX said:

It also assumes that the nomenclature is correct - it's called a Gellar Field... but that doesn't mean that "Gellar Field" is the correct name for it, just as the terms Lasrifle and Plasma Rifle are occasionally used, in spite of their inaccuracy.

Sister Cat said:

Everything I've read has suggested the complete opposite. The Gaunts Ghosts, Ciaphas Cain and Inquisition Wars novels have both implied that once a ship has entered the warp, you can't contact them through either natural or astropathic meants. Not only does the same Geller Field that prevents the warp coming in also stop messages coming in, but because they are in the warp, you can't broadcast to them because you have no idea where they are in that dimension, given that time and space have no meaning there, which makes sending a message rather tricky.

Having read the entire Gaunts Ghost series as well as Eisenhorn and Ravenor and a few others i agree with Sister Cats call on the astropathic communication problems ( cant do it as the problem) while in the warp. As for the Gellar field and airlock question......A gellar field is in essence nothing but a Deflector field to prevent all the miniscule space dust and particles from slamming into and through the ship rending it asunder as soon as it moves...some of the novels make mention of having to activate the gellar field before the ship even moves anywhere..normal space or warp to ensure safety and integrity...which would lend to the idea of the gellar field being some kind of structural integrity field as well as a deflector for all the nasties...let us remember that for all their techno marvel of these huge ships...they are still retards by normal comparison when it comes to any schooling whatsoever ( middle ages hello.... ) just in space with high tech gizmos they dont even know how to work right to begin with. All in all however as with ANY RPG...i say its the GMs call on however they want it to work in their games to maintain or tip whatever balance they want or dont want to have.

Cobramax76 said:

Are you thinking of void shields? The Geller Field is specifically designed to repel warp energy and creatures, not solid material objects.

Just weighing in on the Astropathy issue. I've not read any of the books so I'm just going on what I think I know.

Firstly, Astropathic communication involves sending a message from one point in realspace through the warp to another point in realspace.

Secondly, as far as the fluff goes, I was under the impression that a Geller Field produces a "pocket" or "bubble" of realspace to surround and insulate a ship during warp travel, thus while the Ship as an entity is indeed "inside the warp", all residents of the ship and all of the spatial fabric in the ship is realspace.

Thirdly, this situation is then exactly identical to all forms of Astropathic communication at least as far as feasibility of the "call being made" goes. The only remaining question is whether it is possible for someone who is aboard a ship adrift in the Warp (but still in realspace himself) to make definitive locational or personal contact with someone who is outside the warp entirely. I would almost think it would be easier to make a connection FROM the ship than TO the ship, since the normal realspace fabric is more static and familiar wheras sending TO the ship would involve more variables.