A short article discussing some of the effects of relative time and space in the universe of the 41st Millenium, and how this relates to gamemasters and players.

Time travel isn't intended to be a major part of Dark Heresy. However, the relative flow of the warp to our universe produces some strange temporal effects that gamemasters might want to consider on a sparing basis.

Our own human experience of time is that of a linear vector, and we assume that time progresses agt the same rate everywhere. Of course it doesn't. Time is affected by gravity and velocity for a start, and although someone in any particular time zone won't notice the change, you would observe a different rate for people in another time zone. Without going into einsteinian theory, if you increase gravity or velocity your time runs slower than other peoples. If you could travel at the speed of light, your time is effectively frozen, though you won't notice. If you reach colossal levels of gravity, again, your time runs slower, but I suspect the reason you don't notice in that situation has more to do with being flattened.

Stasis is the stopping of time. A person trapped in a stasis field is unaware of the passing of years, and since the speed of the universe outside is effectively infinite, the containment within it will pass in an instant - no observation of the outside universe is possible, unless the stasis field is decaying and actually allowing time to move slowly.

The Immaterium, or Warp, is co-terminous with our own universe. That means in exists in the space, but in another set of dimensions we can't access or perceive normally. The barrier between these dimensions and ours are not as secure as we would like to believe. Various anomalies and rifts can form that allow passage between universes.Geller fields generated by starship engines do not actually create these holes, but changes the vessels 'quantum polarity' into something temporarily compatible with warpspace. Therefore, when the field is switched off, the ship reverts to realspace. It has been noted that sometimes a vessel cannot return. Thats because the vessel has made a complete transition to warpspace, and has no means to return.

There is no correlation between any point in warpspace and realspace. The Immaterium is in a constant state of flux, influenced by unworldly forces not native to our own existence. This is the basis of star trvel for mankind in the 41st Millenium, in that a vessel enterswarpspace and allows itself to be carried in the flow until it exits, leaving it in a different location in realspace.

Both continuums have a time dimension, which makes existence possible in both places. Clearly they don't run at the same rate and vary against each other enormously. For that reason, a vessel arriving at its destination might do so anything between centuries later or before it left.

One of the assumptions for travellers in the 41st Millenium is that they may well never see their friends and loved ones again, as they might have died long ago of old age when you return. A planet might change considerably also. Feral worlds might have reached an industrial revolution, worlds with technology may have suffered catastrophic disasters. Societies develop and change anyway, never mind the influence of imperial and alien agencies. There must always be a level of uncertainty when travelling by warpship, that you never know exactly where and when you emerge from the chaotic Immaterium.

There is an interesting storyline possibility here. That the acolytes need to travel to another place before someone else arrives. If the 41st Millenium were real this would be almost impossible to contrive, but for game purposes perhaps an astropath has received some vision or insight into the warp flow, or at least enough to predict he can travel faster by warp than the vessel that left earlier, even if he cannot be exact. Should the gamemaster decide to use such a storyline, a sad/dramatic end to that astropath or perhaps the admission that he was only making 'a lucky guess' would return the uncertainty of relative time.

All this leaves us with a very old paradox. What happens when you meet yourself? Some have argued that you cannot, that you would destroy yourself if you did. Not so.

If you encounter your future self, you would no doubt have many questions to ask him. Whether he genuinely wants to help you is another matter. Also, his experience is probably going to vary from your own to come later (especially if he tells you what to avoid) so this isn't a big deal, and gamemasters should be aware that simply because a player can avoid a bad situation forearmed and forewarned, it doesn't mean he will avoid a different and possibly worse threat by changing his course of action. The player has free will at all times in this - his ability to make decisions should never be bound by any a future self has made. 

Having entered your own past means nothing to you because your experience continues in a linear fashion. For your other self, possibly unaware of your travel, it would be more of a suprise. Since you have effectively become two individuals, your former self continues his life from that point as he wants, and so can you. Society might think otherwise however, and acolytes might like to consider that to certain imperial agencies they are something to be researched and tested to uncover secrets about this strange phenomena.

What happens if you kill your former self? You do not vanish in a puff of smoke. Although your other self is prevented from continuing down the path you remember, you exist at the same time. Your past is now your present, and although you remember events after this killing, that knowledge is now only yours or those who experienced it with you.

What happens if you kill your ancestor? This old paradox is no paradox at all. Since everything is relative to the observer, and since you can indeed occupy space and time previous to your own, the act is possible. Again, you do not vanish. You are physically there and capable of free will. However, from that point your identity no longer exists in realspace, and although you personally remember events earlier in your life, for everyone else they never happen, unless you re-enact them.

Is it possible to go back to your future? Strictly speaking yes, but the ability to interpret the ebbs and flows of warpspace and arrive back at an exact future time and place intentionally is beyond human capability. The possibility of an alien or demonic device allowing some deliberate time travel exists, but these are devices developed by minds that work diiferently to yours, using technology that is beyond your experience. As a rule of thumb, if you allow acolytes to employ such a device, its use should be limited, either because the device has limited power reserves, is damaged and liable to failure, or simply that its owners get upset and come to reclaim it. You might want to add dangerous side effects such as daemonic attention, or perhaps there's a risk of being lost in the warp.

In science fiction there's often stories based on loops, cause-and-effect, of repititive sequences. If this happened, you would not be aware of it. That sort of storyline relies on being able to manipulate the situation and is very difficult to roleplay effectively, so personally I would avoid such situations, or perhaps allow the acolytes a 'second chance' for specific reasons, to make that the entire story line. If so, then they only get that second chance and no more.

In considering any time travel effects, the simple rule of thumb is that time marks the rate of change in the universe, that time is relative to the observer, and that you are where you are. Time travel can be a difficult theme to gamemaster well, so my final advice is to keep it simple, keep it final.

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Drach`dhar   | Author | 2008-10-04 03:59:29 And of course Navigators are not only used to navigate the Immaterium but to limit the oddities of time so as hopefully not arrive a few centuries to late etc.. If it wasnt this way the Imperium would be an impossibility anyway since any military action would be impossible to coordinate. Navigators in essence, as far as I understand, makes it possible to arrive when and where it was expected/planned when using Warp Travel. Of course Navigators makes mistakes as well

Angus74   | Registered | 2008-10-04 22:49:49 Rather than being able to avoid the effects of time travel, I guess Navigators use their ability to connect with the Astronomicom as some sort of "anchor" to the time stream of the real space, being this anchor a link to the reality that allows them to return from the Inmaterium relatively at the supossed right time. We can think of the Astronomicon as some sort of guide signal that, if not severed, continuously sends a probe allowing the spaceship not to make a full translation to the warpspace. Is just when this communication is severed that the ship gets lost in warpspace, missdirects reappearing in the wrong place or makes a time jump. I don't really know. Just ideas that come to my head. By the way, congratulations to Mr. Ollard. Thanks for your article, very clarifying. ...and sorry for my english. Not my lenguage

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