
                              Chapter XX - Travel
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 PROVISIONAL VERSION
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 This Chapter is about travel and its many forms, both on the Interstellar 
level and on or close to the planetary surface.  It concentrates mainly on the 
forms of travel employed by the Imperium of Mankind.

XX.1  Interstellar Travel
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 The Imperium of Mankind is spread across almost the entire Galaxy and 
consists of more than a million worlds.  Although this is a huge number of 
planets it is nothing when compared to the immense size of the Galaxy.  The 
Imperium is actually spread very thinly across space: its worlds are dotted 
through the void and divided by hundreds, if not thousands, of light years.  
It is therefore wrong to think of the Imperium in terms of a territory which 
extends across the Galaxy.  The truth is far more complex.  Within the Galaxy 
are countless alien civilisations, many separate Ork empires, and vast areas 
occupied by the Tyranids or given over to Chaos.  Most of the Galaxy remains 
unexplored.  Who knows what secrets lie undiscovered amongst the stars?  
Undoubtedly there are other advanced civilisations, lost human colonies, and 
the ruins of long dead races waiting to be explored.

 The pattern of human settlement across the Galaxy undoubtedly owes much to 
the nature of space travel.  All interstellar travel is undertaken using power 
warp drives, also simply called Warp drives, which launch a spacecraft into 
the alternative dimension of reality called many names, the most common being 
Warpspace, the Warp, the Void, the Empyrean Realm, the Immaterium or the 
Realm of Chaos.  Within the Warp a ship can cover the equivalent of many 
thousands of Light Years within a relatively short time, from a few days or 
weeks to a few months, before dropping back into "real" space far away from 
its starting point.

 Warpspace is an alternate dimension composed of energy as opposed to the 
physical space of the material universe.  There are dangers within the Warp 
which can wreck spacecraft and carry them off course, unexpected turbulence, 
Warp storms, and loops that can trap a ship for eternity.  Because of the 
unpredictable and turbulent nature of Warpspace, some parts of the Galaxy are 
harder to reach than others.  Some zones are eternally isolated by violent 
currents of movement within Warpspace.  Other areas are difficult to get to or 
can only be reached during periodic lulls in the Warp.  More bizarre still, 
some parts of Warpspace act like power vortices, pulling or sucking helpless 
spacecraft to their doom.  Only the spacecraft of the Imperium can fully 
exploit the medium of Warpspace to travel from one side of the Galaxy to 
another.  Other races, such as Orks, can only travel short distances through 
the Warp and this limits the size of their individual empires and prevents 
them becoming united.  The Eldar, the other known advanced race you might 
expect to have a good understanding and technology of Warp enabled craft, 
cannot do so because of a dangerous enemy of the Eldar race that lurks in the 
Warp, only too ready to consume any lost Eldar souls.  It is only this factor, 
the fact only Mankind can fully exploit the Warp to its full potential, which 
enables the Imperium to function as a whole.

 The reason why the spacecraft of the Imperium can move quickly over the 
entire Galaxy, while other races suffer more restricted and slower 
spaceflight, is a combination of three factors.  The first is the maintenance 
of ancient technology by the Adeptus Mechanicus - the Tech Priests of Mars who 
preserve the lore of ancient science on behalf of the Adeptus Terra.  Without 
the technological advantage of efficient Warp drive engines, it would be 
impossible for the Imperium to defend its scattered planets.  The second 
factor is the existence of human mutants known as Navigators - a race apart 
which traces its origins to the Dark Age of Technology.  Only a Navigator can 
pilot a ship within Warpspace.  His swollen cranium houses a third eye, called 
the Witch Eye by some, that allows him to see the currents of the Warp, and 
enables to guide his ship through Warpspace to its eventual destination.  
Other races must rely upon guesswork and endless corrective manouvres to 
travel even short distances through the Warp.

 The third factor which makes Warp travel possible is the immeasurably 
powerful psychic beacon called the Astronomican (not to be confused with the 
Necronomican in the game Call of Cthulhu!).  Broadcast by a choir of psykers 
from Earth, the Astronomican reaches out through Warpspace, guiding spacecraft 
to their destination.  Only a Navigator can sense the guiding light of the 
Astronomican in the shifting currents of the Warp, and only he can follow its 
psychic signal.  It is the Astronomican which allows a Navigator to use his 
powers to the full: without it not even the most powerful Navigator could 
reliably pilot his ship to its destination over the immense distances which 
separate the worlds of the Imperium.  Perhaps most dangerous in travelling 
through Warpspace is the ever present threat of running into a sudden 
Warpstorm.  Navigators are versed in spotting the signs of a coming Warpstorm 
and navigating round it if possible, even so thousands have been killed, 
engulfed in a sudden Warpstorm that literally tore apart their ship. More 
information on Navigators and their abilities can be found in the chapter on 
Psionics.

 One limitation on Warp travel is that a spacecraft cannot go into the Warp 
while within the atmosphere or gravitional influence of a planet.  Craft use 
sub-light propulsion systems to go into planetary orbit before engaging 
Warp engines.  A similar limitation applies on leaving Warp within range of a 
large gravitational influence.  Actually, its not such much you *can't* do 
these things, more highly not recommended, and potentially very dangerous for 
all on board.


XX.2  Surface Travel
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 Surface travel, the action of travelling from A to B within the gravitational 
sphere or atmosphere or a planet, takes a variety of forms, depending on who 
is doing the traveling and how technologically advanced the culture of the 
planet is.  Many primitive or medieval worlds still rely on horses or other 
native beasts of burden, and employ sailing ships to traverse the oceans of 
their world.  More advanced cultures employ automobiles drawing on a wide 
variety of power sources, from hydrocarbon fuels to hydrogen power cells to 
plutonium mini-reactors.  These automobiles themselves take a variety of 
guises.  Common families of close surface vehicles are:

   * Land vehicles - such as our present day cars, buses, motorcycles, quads,
     etc.

   * Jet craft - airborne vehicles that generally travel close the ground, 
     propelled by rear jets.  A common example of this class of craft is the 
     Eldar Jetbike.

   * Skimmers - often similar to land vehicles in style and design (the shape 
     of the vehicle, driver position, etc.) but incorporating anti-gravity 
     generators to hover close to the ground.  They have a limited ability to 
     travel higher, though this consumes more power and is avoided.  This 
     class of craft is also referred to sometimes as Hoverers.

   * Sea-borne craft - anything that travels physically through the waves.  
     Craft that travel over the oceans without touching the water surface are 
     generally classed as varieties of Skimmer.

   * Walkers - relatively rare machines whose propulsion mechanism is based 
     on a bipedal or quadropedal walking motion.  Most famous for this class 
     of transport is the Eldar.  The Squats employ similar engineering 
     principles.  After skimmers, walker based vehicles with heavy "feet" and 
     sophisticated suspension and balance systems are best able to navigate 
     the frequent mudslides on many Squat homeworlds.

 For travel higher off the surface, such as atmospheric travel, again a wide 
range of transport is used.  Some reasonably advanced worlds, whose technology 
has not yet made available routine space travel (such as real world Earth) 
employ craft designed to travel in the atmosphere, but whose intention is not 
to leave the atmosphere, merely to carry passengers from A to B on the planets 
surface.  More advanced worlds for whom interstellar travel is somewhat 
commercialised may use craft designed to allow either surface to surface 
travel, or surface to orbit.  this is the sole purpose of some craft, to ferry 
people from surface to orbit or vice versa.  Many large space capable craft 
maintain a fleet of such craft for transport to and from the planetary 
surface.  Warp capable craft routinely employ sub-light travel within 
planetary atmospheres, or keep a number of smaller craft for travelling 
planetside once in planetary orbit.

