The Force of Heresy: Prologue

Excerpt from Inquisitor Wynd's private diary

Unpublished, declared Damnatio Memoria by order of Lord Inquisitor Schuld

…The Warp defies explanation. Although we, especially those of us in the Inquisition, like to believe we have corralled even a small segment of its powers, beaten it into submission, and now can harness its use, such beliefs are fallacious to the core. Should the majority of the Imperial citizens ever comprehend how little we understand of Warp travel, and how loosely deciphered the Geller phenomenon is. Should such understanding ever surface, we could bid farewell to the notion of any sane Imperial citizen ever stepping foot off his homeward.

With that said, anyone who ventures into the Void certainly understands the risks of Warp travel: the possibility to arrive centuries later, to be thrown off-course by magnitudes difficult to comprehend, and of course the possibility of losing all-hands to some unmentionable horror that had been patiently salivating at the very edge of the Field (if such fields can be said to truly have edges, which is another point entirely). However, such instances are usually caulked up to the vagaries of the Warp rather than our understanding of Warp travel, but any brief introspection upon this notion rapidly reveals the core flaw. 

The important point that anyone seeking to research the Warp and its related phenomena must understand is that nothing is impossible when it is involved. Full stop. If there is indeed an exception to every rule, that exception is to be found in the Warp. Nothing forbids an individual from amassing power greater than the sum of all armies currently fighting in the galaxy. Nothing stops an entire Segmentum from suddenly flowing directly into the Warp. Nothing stops the laws of the universe as we know them from suddenly becoming outdated.

Why, I wouldn't be surprised if some extraordinary Warp-related events happen on a near-daily basis. Take, for instance, the common occurrence of ships disappearing into the Warp. Various theories exist, of course, the most common being time-delay, and the other being total destruction. However, both are hard to prove conclusively, so chances of something else happening are, well, possible. Perhaps the ships are sent back in time, or to an alternate dimension. Perhaps they reform to a new shape, utterly unrecognizable from its prior form. Or perhaps some are nearly misplaced, thrown far enough away that they are good as lost. If the Warp is capable of ejecting a vessel on the entire opposite side of the galaxy, what is there to stop it from hurling it to another galaxy, much as the Tyranids are known to have made their way to ours? Perhaps some ships declared missing in action still exist, fighting for their lives on alien soil, in some galaxy far, far away…