Forgive me if this has been covered before but would I be right in my assumption that an Astropath can't send or receive messages while in a ship in the Warp?

My arguement/evidence in support is three fold:

* The Gellar field - it's designed to keep the Warp out so I'm assuming that prevents incoming messages. I think it's stated in a number of sources (such as the novel "Relentless") that the Navigator's orrery/obsevatory sits outside the field to allow them to use their powers, which I'd take to mean that the field blocks "outgoing" psychic power, meaning you can't transmit out either.

* Location, location, location - The RT rulebook is very clear (pg 183) that part of the issue of Warp travel is not entering or exiting the Warp but knowing where you are when you are in it. I'd therefore assume that an Astropath would have trouble sending if they can't locate where they are, in order to define where to send to.

* Those ships lost to the Warp - We often see mentions of ships that entered the Warp and were never heard of again. If Astropathic contact works from "teh other side" wouldn't there have been at least one distress call or final message received from those doomed vessels?

Have I got the wrong end of the stick? Is there supporting evidence of Astropathic messages from vessels in the Warp in the background material somewhere?

Well this is purely my own thoughts and not (currently) backed up by the material, but I think if astropathic messages didn't work in the warp it would have explicitly said that somewhere. I mean astropaths already get kind of the short end of the stick as a player class, I don't see a reason to pull them further.

For starters I'm not familiar with any material that indicates that the navigators abilities are blocked by the gellar field. By all the examples I'm familiar with to be outside the geller field is to be demon chow, so I'm not sure that should be taken as a good example of canon.

Bearing in mind that as intersteller telepathic powers astropathy works largely on handwavium. But it is my understanding that when your willing out astropathy you don't need to know your location you just need to know where your sending to in a general sense. So lets say I'm the chorist leader on a Rogue Trader vessel out int he expanse. I put in my message header that I need my message to get to my dynasty's base back on Scintilia(sp?) but when i and my choir actually shout on the intersteller gulf I might target it for a choir I know of that can get the rebroadcast done, say on port wander. This is my own interpretation onnly perhaps but I don't see astropathy as point to point but a relay system.

As to ships lost int eh warp: I actually presume that many ships don't have astropaths or at the very least not astropaths of sufficient number and strength capable of sending messages great distances. Only vessels that need to be contacted relatively quickly will even have a "recieve capable" astropath, and only vessels that need to respond, flagships and the like will have a single astropath or more likely a choir capable of sending messages more then a system away.

Just my two bits, I think from a game play standpoint I would be very leery of disallowing astopathic messages in the warp as you'd both neuter the asropath class (even more so then they already are) and have the characvters be unreachable for potentially months at a time, which means messages just flat out whouldn't get to them as they can't exactly drop out of the warp for months at a time and check their messages.

Good question! I'm not entirely sure of the answer, I must admit.

Your point about the gellar field makes sense: if the Gellar field is a bubble that prevents warp energies coming IN, the it seems to stand to reason that it would stop warp/psychic energies going OUT as well. This would seem to preclude the sending of messages.

That said, I seem to recall that there was a psychic power astropaths had back in 1st ed 40k, (the original RT) where they could "mark" a ship with a psychic beacon that would enable them to track it from another vessel. Thinking it through, how would that work if psychic energies from inside the ship couldn't penetrate the gellar field? I'm not saying that's an answer to your question, just musing!

EDIT: perhaps a Gellar field is like a two way mirror?

So i got to thinking about this a bit more and came to the conclusion thatt whatever the gelelr field does it doesn't block psychic energy, if it did no psykers would be able to use their powers ona ship with an active geller field, you'd turn the geller field on and instant psyker off. The geller field may be many things but it's not that.

Plus we need only to look at the warp travel encounters chart on page 185 to tell that many of those warp encounters are basically psychic phenomenon (doo doo doo do!) which the geller field doesn't block.

Now pure speculation on my part: What the Geller field actually does is reinforce the standards "reality" of the ship. Warp creatures and other threats cannot survive and thrive in the material universe without special circumstances, what the Geller field actually does is means the ship's own bit of the material universe it brings with it into the immaterial doesn't bleed away. Quoting from the book itself

Geller Fields
A starship’s Geller Field creates a bubble of reality around
the vessel when it traverses the warp, protecting it from the
dangers that lurk there.

lurkeroutthere said:

lurkeroutthere said:

Indeed - I interpret that to mean that teh field creates a barrier to the "stuff" of the Warp - in and out. The Warp *is* the psychic realm (RT rulebook pg 154) the material of the Warp is the foundation of psychic power - if the Gellar field blocks "the Warp" surely it stands to reason that pschic powers - that draw on the Warp can't penetrate it? Unless we take Lightbringer's "mirror" theory.

I don't see why the Gellar field should cut off a navigator and an astropath from the warp. After all, as lurker points out, all the Gellar Field does is maintain a chunk of "reality" to act as a shield while the ship travels through the warp. Astropaths and navigators don't have any trouble using their powers and manipulating the warp while in the materium itself. Why is the Gellar Field situation any different?

I think the interplay between materium and immaterium a little more subtle than a hard barrier; they are porous and bleed into each other all the time. The Gellar Field in no sense "blocks" the warp. Rather,the only thing the Gellar Field accomplishes is to maintain a piece of the materium, not so the warp can't get in, but so that the worst manifestations of the warp are too unstable within the field to cause any trouble. When the field fails, the warp doesn't "flood" in, it was always there, but now there is no resistance and the very worst horrors can manifest and roam freely.

To answer the original questions:

The Gellar Field doesn't block signals at all, both outgoing and incoming will get through just fine. As for ships that are lost without final distress calls... well that just adds to the mystery!

Nerd King said:

You are entitled to that belief of course and may run your game however you see fit, but it is not strictly speaking setting accurate. If Geller fields caused a background headache while active for psykers I believe they would have explicitly mentioned it. As others have said psychic powers for good or ill function in normal space, they draw power from the warp and certain phenomenon can make that varying degrees of more difficult but geller fields are not listed as one of them.

I'll put it to you another way, normally psychic powers are limited by certain range incriments and line of sight issues. Astropathy however is it's own special case, if it can surmount the lightyears and open depths of space why wouldn't it be able to surmount a warp bubble.

I mean forgive me at this point but It sounds like you came in looking for arguments to support your viewpoint, which strictly does not appear to be setting valid.

lurkeroutthere said:

Not in the slightest! I presented my arguement with three initial pieces of support (essentially how I'd come up with teh opinion) and expressly asked for counter arguements and evidence. Now I'm trying to test and discuss our opinions.

You are right that every GM runs their game differently. I haven't decided what my take will be - I have come into this discussion with an opinion with, what I believe to be support from the background material, and that I feel fits the tone and themes of the game. BUT I'm looking to test that theory against anything I've missed in the plethora of published WartyK material AND the theories other GMs have come up with.

We'll never see a "Grand Unified Theory" for Pschic powers and the Warp (there has been 25 years of lots and lots of writers adding to the lore for that to happen now) but I'd like to make my game at least internally consistent and as close to the evidence in the "core" setting as possible.

That said I look forward to responses but that dosn't mean I won't just accept them without discussion or the same "testing" and creative, constructive criticism that I would expect others to extend to me.

I posted the answer to this very same question, given by Sam Stewart, due to me also wondering if they could send/receive them or not, back in August in the Rules Question thread:

My question:

Can an Astropath send and/or receive messages whilst he is in the warp? I always got the impression that they couldn't, because being in the warp meant that they aren't in a fixed point of space/time, and so it wasn't possible to target their position for a message to arrive to them, and they couldn't send a message out (possibly due to the Geller Field).

I was just curious as to what the rules say, as whether or not an Astropath can send/receive messages whilst in the warp changes the dynamic of the game a lot.

Sam's answer:

They can.

Cheers,

Sam

Good job I keep my old FFG e-mails saved!

Nerd King said:

Actually, psychic powers have been stated by one of the writers (I don't have a link, as, it was a while since it was posted, and someone other than me asked about it so I don't have an e-mail I can post up) to work within a Geller Field, as the Warp stuff that is the foundation of psychic power doesn't come through the Geller Field, it flows through the Psyker, just as it does in the 'real. non-Warp plane of the 40k universe.

I've always allowed the use of psychic powers while within a Gellar field but to represent the fact that, you know, the Warp is RIGHT THERE OUTSIDE THE SHIP, I treat it as though someone is using the Weaken Veil psychic power (+10 on Focus Power tests, but Phenomena are provoked on any roll that includes a 9 as well as doubles).

Intriguingly, the situation has never really come up in my games: the Rogue Trader asked about being able to send while in the Immaterium, only to have the Astropath immediately veto the idea and start lobbying for a warded room that would completely cut a psyker inside it off from the Warp for him to stay in until they returned to real space.

Of course, he may have been influenced by the fact that it's the psykers aboard a ship that are going to be most aware of the unsettling warp creatures swarming and crawling around the outside of the Geller Fields, blindly probing and gnawing away, determined to get in. And that people like him are extra tasty, so any serious use of psychic powers (like, say... sending a telepathic message over interstellar distances) is only going to draw more of them to the ship, and make them extra determined.

What can I say? They'd just been subjected to a rather unpleasant incident with a spasming Geller Field generator on Kappa Deck, Aft. Freshly-possessed wardroom steward slaughtered everyone in (and nearly totalled) the casino... including half the very rich nobles and ecclesiarchs staying in the attached luxury quarters.

I'd argue that the reason we don't hear about distress calls after a gellar field failure is because the Astropaths are removed from the equation altogether....permanently. When the field fails and the raw warp comes pouring through the spaces between atoms, aren't the psykers' heads the first to go POP?

Also, would anyone mind addressing the effects warp-caused time dilation has on Astropathic messaging between realms?

Exoviper said:

My suggested answer to thta would be - depends on the needs of the plot, and as such becomes a useful tool for the GM.

I think for my game I'll rule that it's possible for messages to be sent/recieved while in the Warp *but* due to the difference at which time passes and the general "wonkiness" and unpredicability Astropaths would rather not send/recieve in such a way, viewing it as unreliable and potentially dangerous (whether that's superstition or not).

It also means that you could play about with futuire or historic messages being picked up by amn Astropath, giving a cool tool for foreshadowing and just generally messing with the players....