Quote Originally Posted by Cheesegear View Post
On another topic, during our Deathwatch game last night, the matter of Wrap transit time was brought up, and I remembered the same subject here on the Forum and how starmaps don't mean anything if time and distance are unrelated. It was also mentioned that if it takes 50 years to get to Terra, wont the psykers on the Black Ships be useless by the time they get there?

I didn't have a proper answer then, and I'm an idiot because the answer actually is obvious and apparent and I felt like an idiot last night at the table when someone pointed out the totally obvious.

Time and distance are only related to people outside the Warp. Yes, it really does take 50 years to get to Terra, but only on the outside. If you're actually moving towards Terra inside the Warp, you'll barely notice the journey (as much as anyone could ignore a few years in a box), but, 50 years will still pass.

So, in the game, the conversation went like this...
GM: Okay, looking at the map, the planet is here, and you're here. It takes you this many years to get there.
Player: So we have to age our characters?
GM: What? No. Why would you, it's only been a few days, two weeks, tops.
Player: But you said years.
GM: Not for you. Time still passes on the outside, you know? That's why it's gone to [poop] by the time you get there.

Then I facepalmed as I remembered the conversation here. Time is meangingless in the Warp. But not to the people outside, and a good GM (or anyone trying to write a story) factors that in when Warp-travellers deal with ordinary folk.

Remember that totally cool guy you met in the first game session? Well, four missions and thirty years have passed. He's dead.
Dayum.

Really brings a whole sense of tragedy to anybody in any profession that requires any sort of frequent warp-travel. Any contacts you may have met will be long dead by the time you have any chance to return to that planet, unless they to warp-travel with any frequency. Traders, soldiers, inquisitorial folks, crew-members of ships, freight captains...