Warhammer 40,000 and Time Travel

[Optimus Metallus]

There's a passage from the recent Codex: Orks which has left me wondering, so I thought I'd put it out there and let you all decide what to make of it.

978.M41 The Lost Waaagh!
The Ork Warlord Grizgutz, a noted kleptomaniac, launches his Waaagh! into the Morloq system. Whilst using Warp travel to reach their quarry, Grizgutz and his warband unwittingly travel through time and emerge from the shifting chaos of the Empyrean shortly before they set off. Grizgutz hunts down and kills his doppelganger, reasoning that this way he can have a spare of his favourite gun. The resultant confusion stops the Waaagh! in its tracks.

I see no mention of Grizgutz vanishing from existence, so can we assume that he didn't disappear from reality when he killed his past self? If so, what are the implications of that? My initial reading of that is that it may be impossible to change the past in the 40k universe. Would you agree, or is that too broad a reading? Could it be that this was a loophole which was only possible because Grizgutz travelled through the warp first, and things would have happened differently if he'd travelled back in time using some other method of time travel? Or do you think it's possible that the influence of the warp in the 40k universe might prevent any changes to the timeline, no matter what the method of time travel? I'm honestly not even sure where I would fall on that, so I'm just throwing it out there for others to discuss and maybe, if other examples of time travel exist in the 40k universe, to throw out how those examples turned out. So have at it, folks. What do you think?

[Eternal_Freedom]

There is a mention of a pre-Heresy Astartes cruiser turning up in M35 or so, again, warp travel.

Indeed, given how unpredictable Warp travel is, and how often you can arrive after you left, it seems entirely probable that arriving before you left happens fairly frequently.

Sicne the Warp is home to actual Gods, I would imagine that either Tzeentch stopped the universe from exploding while cackling "Just as PLanned" or Khorne stopped it from happening to spite Tzeentch.

[Sinewmire]

Probably self-correcting paradoxes. The interference will have been going to always have happened.

Characters often travel in time in the novels, at least in a limited fashion, such as Ravenor's crew travelling forward in time to meet the Tyranids (a species yet to be encountered in their time). Horus possibly causing the scattering of the Primarchs, that sort of thing.

[andrewgpaul]

There's also mention of the Space Wolves encountering a Space Hulk, notifying Earth, and then a Blood Angels cruiser turns up pretty much instantaneously; they received the Space Wolves' message before it was sent. I also vaguely remember a reference to an Imperial Guard force arriving on a planet in response to a distress signal. At the end of the story, as they get wiped out by the enemy, it turns out the distress signal was their own.

Going back to the OP, that paragraph is pleasingly vague as to which Grizgutz killed which. You could read that as the future one being killed by the past one, in which case, no paradox. Other than there now being two guns.

[PainRack]

There's a concept similar to time dialiation for the warp, where time passing in the warp is usually slower than time passing in the materiel universe.

Given that there are concepts like the use of warp currents to speed up warp travel(Fall of Orpheus is the most recent one, but a similar teasing can be made out in 2E and Codex Imperialis), it makes one wonder whether warp speed has any relevance to this time dilation effect, ditto warp currents and squalls......

[Simon_Jester]

There's a passage from the recent Codex: Orks which has left me wondering, so I thought I'd put it out there and let you all decide what to make of it.

978.M41 The Lost Waaagh!
The Ork Warlord Grizgutz, a noted kleptomaniac, launches his Waaagh! into the Morloq system. Whilst using Warp travel to reach their quarry, Grizgutz and his warband unwittingly travel through time and emerge from the shifting chaos of the Empyrean shortly before they set off. Grizgutz hunts down and kills his doppelganger, reasoning that this way he can have a spare of his favourite gun. The resultant confusion stops the Waaagh! in its tracks.

I see no mention of Grizgutz vanishing from existence, so can we assume that he didn't disappear from reality when he killed his past self?

Well, to be fair, if he did vanish from existence that would certainly create enough confusion to stop a WAAAGH! in its tracks. The text is consistent with either interpretation, and ork warlords are certainly thick enough to "reason" their way into a course of action that will erase them from history.

[Orks and time travel are NOT a good combination. Think about all the traits that make a master time traveller like the Doctor from Doctor Who; the orks are pretty much the exact opposite of all those traits...]

If so, what are the implications of that? My initial reading of that is that it may be impossible to change the past in the 40k universe.

I think that would be in keeping with the designers' intent. The 40k setting is defined by certain tragic events in its history, and trying to 'fix' them would defeat the purpose of the work artistically, at least insofar as it has purpose and clarity of artistic vision.

There is also a strong concept of 'fate' and prophecy in the setting, and it's actually fairly normal for information about the future to appear in the past. I'd have a harder time thinking of a major 40k story or series in which prophecy, prescience, or the like did not play a role.

However, again, such prophecy appears to be a case of 'gods' meddling with the future or using glimpses of it to shape events as they wish, not a case of "press button to experience 500 years ago."`

Would you agree, or is that too broad a reading? Could it be that this was a loophole which was only possible because Grizgutz travelled through the warp first, and things would have happened differently if he'd travelled back in time using some other method of time travel?

So far as I know there ARE no other means of traveling back in time except for the intervention of godlike beings, and even that is a rarity.

In any case, the nature of time and space in 40k is so intensely tied up with the nature of the Warp that I don't think we can reasonably posit "loopholes" by which time travel that doesn't work within the Warp can somehow act totally differently than time travel within it.

Or do you think it's possible that the influence of the warp in the 40k universe might prevent any changes to the timeline, no matter what the method of time travel? I'm honestly not even sure where I would fall on that, so I'm just throwing it out there for others to discuss and maybe, if other examples of time travel exist in the 40k universe, to throw out how those examples turned out. So have at it, folks. What do you think?

There are few indications of time travel except for various sorts of 'prophecy' (including precognitive visions, the Emperor's Tarot, and so on), and the periodic accidental warp travel.

Another example of this sort of thing is a Tallarn Imperial Guard regiment in Desert Raiders that is dispatched through the warp to a planet in response to a Guard distress call. Then they find nothing there, and get attacked by Tyranids, and send out a distress call- the same one they just responded to.

So there's clear 'time travel' in the form of a closed timelike curve for information traveling through the Warp. But the cumulative effect is, shall we say, fatalistic.

[Ahriman238]

I believe the possibility of arriving at your destination before you left is raised in one of the IG books, along with the idea that you could theoretically get an astropath to send you a message before you left, telling yourself not to go. I mostly remember it because it was immediately followed with the statement that no sane authority figure would ever let you do it.

And there's a Horus Heresy short story, "the Call" about a Sister of Silence who tries to send back a warning to save the Emperor. Albeit in a really Chaos-y way fusing psykers together to speak through dozens of mouths. The proto-Inquisition respond by shooting the present her in the face, stopping the message. I've always kind of suspected this was a precedent that informed the Imperium's (or, at least the Inquisition's) policy on time-travel. It comes from the Warp, thus likely from Chaos, thus it cannot be trusted.

[Optimus Metallus]

Well, to be fair, if he did vanish from existence that would certainly create enough confusion to stop a WAAAGH! in its tracks. The text is consistent with either interpretation, and ork warlords are certainly thick enough to "reason" their way into a course of action that will erase them from history.

Damn it, I just busted out laughing so loud at that that my upstairs neighbors must've heard me.

[Bedlam]

I think there was mention in one of the Dark Heresy books about a minor inquisition ordos 'Ordo Temporalis' or something similar who seemed to be involved in dealing with / policing time phenomenon. Amusingly they seemed to all disappear at some point which suggested they might have paradoxed themselves out of existence.

[SilverDragonRed]

I think there was mention in one of the Dark Heresy books about a minor inquisition ordos 'Ordo Temporalis' or something similar who seemed to be involved in dealing with / policing time phenomenon. Amusingly they seemed to all disappear at some point which suggested they might have paradoxed themselves out of existence.

The branch of the Inquisition dedicated to protecting time traveling shenanigans is 'Ordo Chronos'; and yes, they were invented by Fantasy Flight Games with mentions of them in their RPG books. Unfortunately, Codex: Inquisition states that they have all disappeared into the Warp, but their members may be returning in small groups or individually. Hopefully, the next book will confirm that the Mentors Legion is the Chamber Militant for Ordo Chronos.

[Simon_Jester]

I believe the possibility of arriving at your destination before you left is raised in one of the IG books, along with the idea that you could theoretically get an astropath to send you a message before you left, telling yourself not to go. I mostly remember it because it was immediately followed with the statement that no sane authority figure would ever let you do it.

That would also not be reliable, because the astropath's attempt might fail.

And there's a Horus Heresy short story, "the Call" about a Sister of Silence who tries to send back a warning to save the Emperor. Albeit in a really Chaos-y way fusing psykers together to speak through dozens of mouths. The proto-Inquisition respond by shooting the present her in the face, stopping the message. I've always kind of suspected this was a precedent that informed the Imperium's (or, at least the Inquisition's) policy on time-travel. It comes from the Warp, thus likely from Chaos, thus it cannot be trusted.

This policy is arguably well founded. The problem of authenticating a message allegedly from the future is something we've seen repeatedly throughout all of fiction. And in the 40k Milky Way there is a literal godlike being whose modus operandi is using sorcery and psi powers to violate physical laws, raising false hopes via deceptions, foreseeing impossibly complex results in the future by extrapolating from present events, and subtly tricking people into serving his interests.

In effect, he's the god of screwing up your attempt to alter your past via time travel.

Plan accordingly- don't expect time travel to work out very well for you.

[Purple]

[Orks and time travel are NOT a good combination. Think about all the traits that make a master time traveller like the Doctor from Doctor Who; the orks are pretty much the exact opposite of all those traits...]

On the other hand the Orks do make up for it in that they can will things into being. Perhaps the whole WAAAGH was simply too immersed in finding their other self to murder to stop and think about the paradox and thus there was no paradox. They might simply have believed that it should work out and thus it worked out.

[Simon_Jester]

Orks can will things to work, which is not the same as shielding them from the consequences of their own actions. After all, they can't make other people's weapons stop working or anything; when they break cover they get shot at just like anyone else.

So causing a temporal paradox would probably bite them just like anyone else.

[Purple]

Orks can will things to work, which is not the same as shielding them from the consequences of their own actions. After all, they can't make other people's weapons stop working or anything; when they break cover they get shot at just like anyone else.

So causing a temporal paradox would probably bite them just like anyone else.

Are we sure about that? I mean, think about it. Orks live for battle. So when they go to battle they want everything to work as good as it can because that makes the battle in question more enjoyable for them. I mean, from the way I understood it their powers thrive on not on a conscious drive but a subconscious belief. So even if they do not want to be shot consciously their subconscious minds want to have the most thrilling battle imaginable anyway.

Do we actually have any documented cases of orks violating this principal and actually willing enemy machines and weapons to not work collectively? And if so, are they described as failing? I would expect not. It's always something I felt they could do but would be massively out of character culturally.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, the flip side of this is that orks don't turn out to be immune to environmental conditions- or if they are it's because of their physiology, not because of the psychic effect of the WAAAGH! Basically, it only acts to make their tools and physiologies work; it removes the technical consequences of technical incompetence, and it inspires them to grow.

But it does not in and of itself confer immunity to things like mathematics or natural disasters.

So I don't think that the WAAAGH! can grant them special protection from paradox, any more than it can grant them immunity from syllogisms.

"Sorkcrates is an ork. Orks are mortal. Therefore, Sorkcrates is mortal." This remains true no matter how much WAAAGH! you apply, in that dead orks don't get back up again, for an admittedly rather restricted definition of "dead."

[Elheru Aran]

In general having an agency along the lines of the Ordo Chronos would seem fairly necessary for the Imperium, as the nature of Warp travel does mean that you *are* going to have the occasional out-of-proper-time ship pop up. Not an issue for Eldar, Tau (relativity aside) or Necrons, and Chaos probably either doesn't care or gets a little assist from their gods. Orks don't give a shit as long as they can get a good fight on the other end. Tyranids have their own ways. But it's definitely a concern for the Imperium. They wouldn't want to spread 'misinformation' or 'heresy'. There's enough craziness in their universe that they really don't need to have to deal with time-travel paradoxes to start with.

Say a Great Crusade era ship from the height of the Imperial Truth shows up over a Shrine World and it's full of remembrancers who are devoted to spreading the Truth. Bit of a mess when they run into the millions of Emperor-botherers there, no?

Or turn it the other way. A ship from the future shows up. Is their knowledge of the future accurate, or is it a lie from Chaos? And either way, how does it affect them? And so forth... too many questions. In both cases, best to keep things contained swiftly.

I suspect though that a.) this is likely a rare enough occurrence, probably involving warp storms and such that normally ships would navigate around, and b.) if it does happen, well, it's going to mess up the crew and passengers. The Geller field would probably be failed and we know Bad Things happen then.

[Kojiro]

"By way of example, note the log book of the Proxxian traders that operate in the Nephilim sector. ... the route is classified as a semi fluctuating passage, the most stable type. Typical voyages range between 1 and 6 weeks but more extreme voyages have taken as much as 1200 years or as little as two minutes. Some 22% of expeditions as of yet have not arrived at their destination - although given the time disparity one can only estimate what percentage have been lost our are still en route. In distance this is relatively a short voyage; ... the numbers only grow worse with longer journeys. "

Now I grant this isn't strictly speaking of time travel but it gives some (in my opinion badly thought out) insight into warp travel as a whole I thought you might all enjoy. Sorry if it's too OT.

[Darth Tanner]

I'm not sure I buy 22% of ships getting lost on a stable route - even if it was 10% or 5% lost from having ships still in transit that they can't contact that would mean a ship can only make 10-20 short jumps through the warp before being expected to be lost - the rate of attrition would be horrific which is not what is largely seen in the fluff where most ships have been around for a very long time and go from combat to combat for millennia. Almost all the novels refer to warp travel with the casual mundaneness of taking an ocean liner... Cain or Gaunt do not fear for their life or being eaten by demons every time they board a transport.

Unless it refers to civilian barges or something and they suffer a grossly disproportionate amount of the losses compared to rogue traders/military transports /warships.

[Kojiro]

Like I said, badly thought out. I'm not for a moment defending such numbers, just thought that it might be interesting info for people. I wholly agree that something defined as the most stable type the fluctuations are absurd. But the time fluctuations are what's really interesting to me.

[Elheru Aran]

Well, it would make sense that military ships and perhaps Rogue Trader craft that could afford it can pack a better quality of Gellar field. We see the same pattern elsewhere-- Space Marines and Inquisition get the best gear of all, Imperial Guard are a step or two (or three, or ten...) down, and Planetary Defense Forces are lucky if they have more than two guys capable of marching in a straight line while holding a lasgun (exaggeration for dramatic effect).

It would make sense to me that military craft might have redundant Gellar fields-- if one fails, the others are still up. A tactic that civilian craft might not use on various pretexts-- they need the space for cargo or passengers, they don't do long jumps, the Emperor will watch over them, etc.

So it doesn't stand out as particularly odd to me that civilian ships might suffer a greater rate of Warp attrition than Guard transports or Navy battleships. Things do almost always go ploin-shaped when the Gellar field fails, regardless of who's on the craft.

[Darth Tanner]

I was thinking it might be more to do with the quality of your navigator... if a Space Marine battle barge can get the best of the best, and maybe a spare in case he gets killed by a demon a civilian ore barge might be left with someone who couldn't find the light of the Emperor if it smacked them round the face with a tentacle... but quality and reliability of gellar field or engines or anything like that would make sense too.

Just seems difficult to me that say civilian cargo ships are taking the vast majority of these losses that the Imperium is spending resources on ships that will be lucky to make 10-20 trips before on average being lost. Their cargo over those 10-20 trips literally have to pay for a new ship, crew and lost cargo on a regular basis... we know there are agricultural worlds for instance that simply fill ships with grains and if they get lost on a 10-20 trip basis the Imperium can afford a new ship just to move 10-20 cargo loads of grain.

[Purple]

I wonder just how much of those ships is automated. I mean, I can perfectly imagine a grain carrier being just a giant hollowed out brick with engines, a navigator and a guy to hold a lasgun to his face. With very little to break and all the maintenance being done on arrival.

[Simon_Jester]

Purple? Some problems with that.

One, many of these ships are presumed capable of operating around places that aren't Forge Worlds and lack the industrial assets to maintain a ship that cannot take care of itself.

Two, in the Imperium equipment is a lot more expensive than manpower as a rule, so you don't make a ship cheaper by replacing a large crew with automatic systems. More efficient, maybe, but not cheaper.

Three, the Imperium is chronically suspicious of automation because it has a history with evil robots rebelling against them, especially when the robots are in a position where Chaos could conceivably get at them.

A merchant ship would (you're right about this) be a lot simpler mechanically and leaner-manned physically than a warship of the same size. But there are limits, and it doesn't get around the point that it's very hard to design a ship that is so cheap that it can pay for itself in ten voyages. Especially for a bulk cargo carrier.

And even if that condition applies to your ships, people should act that way. When travel is that dangerous, you don't have a class of professional merchant sailors/spacers, you have people who are doing it for a few voyages to make enough money to be set for life. You don't have ancient ships that have seen better millenia, you have ships being constantly built in huge numbers to replace the ones that are lost. You don't have massive quantities of bulk goods moved across stars, because nobody in their right mind would risk death just to move grain or a pile of rocks.

All those things only appear if travel is safe enough that you can realistically spend a lifetime doing it.
_________________

Judging by the... weighted average of the flavor Games Workshop has put on the matter, I'd always figured that Warp travel was roughly as dangerous as, maybe a bit more dangerous than, Age of Sail sea voyages. Getting to any place truly distant from you is a journey of weeks, there IS a real chance your ship will sink... but any given ship is only sunk a few percent of the time at most, and well-maintained ships with skilled captains that operate well-charted routes are even safer than that.

[Purple]

One, many of these ships are presumed capable of operating around places that aren't Forge Worlds and lack the industrial assets to maintain a ship that cannot take care of itself.

That is not really so much of a problem as an asset in this case. If your ship can only be maintained on a forge world than the crew numbers drop even more as you only need to take it to the forge world for maintenance. Or in context of a 10-20 flight lifetime cycle you might not ever have to maintain it at all. If something breaks that's fine. The ship won't last you that long anyhow. Just as long as the engines and geller fields still run you are fine.

Two, in the Imperium equipment is a lot more expensive than manpower as a rule, so you don't make a ship cheaper by replacing a large crew with automatic systems. More efficient, maybe, but not cheaper.

I was not really talking as much about automatic systems as no systems at all.

A merchant ship would (you're right about this) be a lot simpler mechanically and leaner-manned physically than a warship of the same size. But there are limits, and it doesn't get around the point that it's very hard to design a ship that is so cheap that it can pay for itself in ten voyages. Especially for a bulk cargo carrier.

I am not sure about that last bit. Say you basically take a shipping container, geller field and some engines. That's your merchant ship. If you cut down on the crew and thus life support you can keep 99% of the ship without any. Which means it probably does not even have to be pressurized if you have sealed cargo crates. If something breaks you just don't fix it until the ship is so worn out that it gets lost in the warp. Rinse and repeat.

And even if that condition applies to your ships, people should act that way. When travel is that dangerous, you don't have a class of professional merchant sailors/spacers, you have people who are doing it for a few voyages to make enough money to be set for life. You don't have ancient ships that have seen better millenia, you have ships being constantly built in huge numbers to replace the ones that are lost. You don't have massive quantities of bulk goods moved across stars, because nobody in their right mind would risk death just to move grain or a pile of rocks.

In the case of merchant ships they might not have a choice in the matter. What are they going to do after all? Refuse and be executed?

[Elheru Aran]

Purple, navigators and Gellar fields are not so common or cheap that you can just put an engine on a shipping container and call it a day. The Imperium is a massive, big, old, bureaucracy at its core; getting things done, including building ships, takes a while, especially as the Mechanicus is just as slow and cranky as the Administratum. The only reason things work at all is that they've been doing it for a long time and become set in their patterns.

And having a ship with no crew is a recipe for disaster. You're talking either automation, the problems with which Simon has pointed out, or simply... no crew. Which means that things don't get fixed-- these ships are hundreds of years old, if not millennia in general, something always needs fixing-- and if you run into trouble, you don't have anybody to help you. And it's 40K; trouble always happens sooner or later.