Warhammer 40k a Story about the Warp

"The Warp is a strange and terrible place. You might as well throw a traveller into a sea of sharks and tell him to swim home as send him through the Warp unprotected. Better it is not to let common man travel through the stars. Better still, let him not know such a thing is feasible."

    —Fra Safrane, 5th Aide to Navigator De'el

Waves of the Warp

The never-ending tides of the Warp's madness.

The Immaterium, also referred to as the Empyrean, the Aether, the Sea of Souls, the Realm of Chaos, Warpspace or most commonly, "the Warp," is an alternate dimension of purely psychic energy that echoes and underlies the familiar four dimensions of the material universe.

The Warp is the source of all psychic powers and known instances of so-called "sorcery" or "magic" as well as the home dimension of the powerful entities known as the Chaos Gods and their myriad legions of Daemonic servants. In fact, the terms "Chaos" and the "Warp" are often used interchangeably by those aware of their existence within the Imperium of Man.

Superficially, the Immaterium is Mankind's solution to the problem of faster-than-light travel. The Warp functions as the medium for FTL interstellar travel, with voidcraft entering it through the use of a Warp-Drive. They then use their own mundane reaction drive systems and the aid of a psychic Navigator to navigate between its flowing currents of psychic energy, as if they were moving through an ocean.

Realm of Chaos-0

A look into the hellish Realm of Chaos.

The psychic energy that makes up the Immaterium is believed to be the direct result of the existence of sentience in the universe, in particular the intelligent species of the Milky Way Galaxy. Considered to be a dark reflection of the material universe, the Warp is an ocean of chaotic psychic energy, raw emotion given physical form.

The Immaterium is also rumoured by many cultures, Human and xenos alike, to be the final resting place of the souls of the dead, and therefore can be considered the "underworld" of the Warhammer 40,000 universe.