A Few Questions About Warhammer.

[Brother-Raven]

I'm going to write a Fanfiction but i need a few things cleared up.

- Do Battlebarges travel through Warp (or hypserspace etc etc, you know, that form of almost instantaneous travel anywhere) and is this a common thing for a battlebarge to do or is it quite rare?
-if they do, has the actual warping been described anywhere and if so, what was the description.

- Do/Have Spacemarine Chapters work together when the situation requires it.

- what is the average life expectancy for Space Marines and their commanders (barring combat injury, how long can they be expecting to live for)

Thanks.

[SisterHelios]

All space marine Ships can go through the Warp,sometimes even the Chapters space born fortress Monostary like the IMperial Fists have aswell as the Dark Angels"Rock". as for Marine Chapters working together yes its possible,and can be done,but that also depends upon the Nature of both Chapters,and the life expentancy..well again that depends on the situation Space marines are very Powerful on their own but in squads thats survivibility is upped greatly.

Whoops and as for warp Travel imagine a level of Space filled with nothing but swoorling colors all chaotic about the ship,and filled with the lost souls of all life within it,and sometimes the deamon or two

<From IBBoard: There's an 'Edit' button, Hellios >

[IBBoard]

Basically, just about any ship that wants to travel any distance has to be capable of Warp Travel. Since Battle Barges are brought in for battles and crusades all over the various sectors, they need to be able to warp.

As for description, I don't know of any barge-specific warp travel, but Inquisitor by Ian Watson describes small ships and a Black Ship (the psyker-filled ones), Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn books mention various large ships in warp (since the Inqusitor's small ship is usually abord some larger cargo ship or other trader vessel for warp travel). Generally, just just revolves around a swirling sea of immaterium. Only the Astropath can see the currents that they travel on, but there's a general swirlyness anyway.

All chapters will work together, although some aren't very comfortable with it. Space Wolves and Dark Angels have a grudge, for one, and I'm sure others do. If the Imperium orders them in, though, they're Marines and so they're always going to fight, just possibly not be greatly friendly and/or cooperative with the other chapter (think "we're going to show we're better than you and do it ourselves" for the SW/DA grudge)

Space Marines can live quite a long while. The studs on their heads are 100 years service, and I know of some models and pictures with at least three studs. I'm fairly sure that some of the oldest veterans reach 500, but I couldn't give you a source for that and I don't have the Space Marine Codex in case it mentions in there.

Hope that helps

[Brother-Raven]

Yes it helps immensely, In my Story, I'm using my own custom chapter which has been formed from two seperate Chapters, both were travelling together and while passing a unnamed planet, they crashland and are unable to take off due to atmospheric electromagnetic interferance, fast forward a few hundred years later (thats why the age was important) the two chapters have merged into one. They continued their training and recruitment of the local populace, though not all have been lucky to recieve the implants which make Space Marines as strong as they are, due to limited supplies.

Also, another question, what sort of armaments do battle barges carry (I'm thinking of the ones in my story to be retrofitted with huge ass Bolters, where the rounds are each the size of a Drop pod )

[IBBoard]

I'd recommend looking at the Specialist Games (formerly Fanatic) games website. They've got a free download of the Battle Fleet Gothic rulebook, which should have details of the armament in.

As for the general plot, it sounds good. I'm not sure how two chapters would integrate (especially if they source their original gene seed from two different Primarchs - you might just end up with a mix of gene seeds within the new recruits) but they would almost certainly organise together if they're sufficiently depleted for a long enough period of time.

[TGSC]

Re: the description of warp travel, for some reason I seem to remember reading a story where the astropath saw the Warp as a wild jungle, I think they visualise it in different ways

[Brother-Raven]

I'm nto so bothered about what travelling through warp looks like, just what the exit from warp looks like if viewing from normal space

[IBBoard]

Not entirely sure. On the whole I can't think of anywhere that specifically describes it, they just feel a shudder within the ship and drop back to real space. Considering how the Eye of Terror is a breech between real and warp space, you probably wouldn't go far wrong at a similar wormhole-esque distortion in space for a brief moment as they appear.

I could be wrong though

[TGSC]

hmm, to me, some kind of wormhole like thing seems too clean, continuing the star-trek imagery, I'd see it more as a ship de-cloaking, just materialising in space, just with lots more flashy lights and scary-ness, and warp deamons manage to hang on to the ship in the real world for a few moments before having to go back.

[IBBoard]

Yeah, that'd be another interesting one I did think of 'materialising' ships, but then I thought they had to breech the divide, and the EoT is an existing breech. It'd make a little more sense with shuddering ships as well - materialisations aren't normally shuddery.

Just goes to show, there's always a bit of creative license

[Brother-Raven]

I personally would like to imagine it as this; The Surrounding space appears to boil, in the shape of a bubble, its shape extending as the ship get closer to returning to normal space, the prow of the ship burtsing through the bubble causing the bubble to tear just large enough for the ship to pass through, the regions of the ship in normal space appear normal, but those on the over side of the bubble appear to be surrounded in a fiery, swirling maelstrom, as the full ship emerges, tendrils of space weaved together, the tear repairing itself, closing itself.

Hows that? Course, that is just a basic description ^.^

[IBBoard]

Yeah, sounds great A little wormhole-ish like I imagined, a little warp-ish with the tendrils, and a good idea that it'd be forcing its way through a boundary, rather than opening up a door.