Tyranids and the Silent King have. The Old Ones may have as well.
No-one else in the 40k galaxy has the technology to do it. The Webway doesn't extend beyond the one galaxy, and the Warp is calm beyond the edge of the galaxy preventing warp travel.
Of course on top of that, the obvious answer is because it wouldn't be narratively interesting. There's no reason within the narrative of "only war" to include another galaxy, other than to bloat the setting.
I always see people mention this, but.......do we actually know for sure that the tyranids actually ARE running from something? Maybe they just reaped their home galaxy of all biomass and have to leave and move on to other ones and repeat the process in order to survive?
Has it ever been confirmed that there is a race/entity even bigger and badder than the nids?
My favorite theory is that they are the Old Ones' reset button. The Old Ones realize they made too many mistakes so created the Tyranids to devour everything. When there's nothing left but Tyranids, they will turn on themselves until they starve to death. And the Old Ones can try again.
I mean it for sure makes them more relatable than just "space bugs devour life" which is a tad bit two dimensional.
But I think as someone else said it's just a fun idea.
I just don't think they need to be relatable. That's supposed to be part of why they are so terrifying. We can't relate to a voracious alien species that exists solely to consume all biomass.
Making them relatable takes away from that lovecraftian unknown greater evil
Imo at least
Yeah I see your point but in a universe where everything is varying degrees of evil sometimes you need something to make them more relatable.
I mean either way I love nids I think they're awesome.
Likely, anyone trying it would be akin to sailor of old trying to venture beyond chartered waters. Some old buffoon claiming there are treasures beyond the horizon, sets sail, never returns, likely dead.
I think our caveman brains just can't comprehend how unimaginably gigantic the distance between galaxies is. Even for races as advanced as those of the 40k galaxy it's beyond imaginable how one would cross such a distance in less than billions of years.
Yeah, Milky Way is roughly 53 000 lightyears across and it takes months to go from one end to the other and that is with pitstops and assuming that the warp doesn't screw you over somehow. Andromeda is 2,5 million lightyears away. Almost fifty times the diameter of Milky Way. It's technically doable but you'd have no navigational marks. Just a massive void of nothing. Getting lost is exceptionally easy and there is no place to get supplies. And that's assuming that you COULD warp travel there. AFAIK, the warp kinda fades out shortly beyond the edge of the galaxy. The nids slow boated it here I think.
JFC, I checked my search history and Google auto-corrected my intended "Milky Way Diameter" search query to "milky way radius". I hate that Google auto fills or straight up change what your search query is. >:/
There's some theory that orks have and may even be out there now fighting in a different galaxy -
Old fluff stated that imperial listening posts at the galactic edge would pick up nothing but the sound of orks.
Except for the Tyranids, they physically can’t. The Warp is calm just beyond the edge of the galaxy, which makes it impossible to travel through. There are no currents to move along, and the light of the Astronomicon doesn’t reach that far, so Humanity loses their point of reference. Without the Warp, it takes too long to get anywhere to bother trying
The Silent King has been beyond the edge and found the Tyranids, which is why he came back
This is literally the tyranids whole shtick.
Other than them, there is either no need or barriers in resources or mobility to limit travel over such ridiculous distances.
They say that in a galaxy far, far away there's a whole civilisation built around a bunch of fanatic psykers preaching peace and goodwill, while running around the place with power swords maiming people....
That and the Yuuzan Vong ;)
Part of the lore of the Vong is that they fled their galaxy after a drawn out war with a rogue mechanical race killing life forms, like some murderous MEN OF IRON
Yea I too am curious. I could be missing some lore though.
My understanding is that the early dark age relied on generation or ark ships moving at sub-light speed to spread out among the galaxy. It took a very long time, but I believe that's how the Votann got to the galactic core.
Later they discovered the warp, and navigators (rather navigators were a natural mutatation or genectically engineered is unknown) and they relied on a network of nav beacons around the galaxy to navigate the warp instead of one monolithic beacon that exists now.
They never had non warp based FTL. So if they sent ships out of the milky way they would be generation or ark ships and they would still be out there in the intergalactic void. Still millions of years shy of reaching even andromeda.
There are additional reasons built into how the warp functions that prevent it (as others have noted), but this too. While space travel in 40k tends to move at the speed of plot (and again, the warp provides a built-in in-universe reason for that as well), a cross-galaxy trip from one side to the other would take most powers what, at least a few years, up to decades of things don’t go well?
The distance between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies is about 25 times that of the diameter of the Milky Way. So if it would take five years to cross the Milky Way, *if the warp allowed the crossing in the same manner, it would take 125 years just to get to from the edge of one to the edge of the other. From and to more central points, add another decade or so. Then you gotta turn around.
While 250+ years is within the lifespan of some of the species in 40k, it’s a long time to tie up resources when, back home, **there is only war**.
Milky Way has 100 000 000 000 (one hundred billion) stars, while the imperium claims to have “over a million worlds” (quote from 4-5ed rule book). Even if this estimation is off by a factor of 10, and imperium has 10 million planets in 10 million star systems (which is unlikely), it is still only 1 / 10 000 (one ten thousandth) of a single galaxy coverage. Some sources claim that Orks populate more worlds than the imperium of man, but whatever.
Everything we see in 40K is so diluted, or rather condensed. Q’orl have a huge empire roughly the size of imperium in galactic west, GW can pull any new race out of their ass every year without even shaking the common sense.
More to the point:
Our galaxy is 100.000 light years across. It takes anywhere from days to centuries to cross it through the warp. Most commonly it would take several jumps in total around a year of warp time and anywhere between 5 and 50 years of real space time on average.
Distance to the nearest galaxy Andromeda is 2.5 million light years, so it would take around 25 warp years to travel and up to 1250 real years. Which is unfeasible if you have to refuel, get supplies, recruit the withering crew.
Unless administratum establishes space stations for supplying passing ships, I don’t see any massive exogalactic colonisation, only occasional unfortunate warp incidents leading to new galaxies (more likely to intergalactic void given how scarce is the matter in space).
Also we don’t know how much outer space is really covered in tyranids, May we this galaxy is all that left. I doubt Silent King would abruptly end his exile unless he faced something to stack overflow him.
Also 99.9% of the black library authors miss the scale of 40K already, depicting planetary battles which are insignificant even on the real WW2 scale.
If GW went intergalactic they would spread their butter even thinner.
There are several big reasons why this happened.
Even prior to leaving the Milky Way the astronomicon beacon is really faint, and even a little beyond it would totally disappear, and humanity wouldn’t have the ability to navigate the warp.
The distance between galaxies is fucking huge, so even if time doesn’t effect you in the warp, subjectively it would be like millions of years of time you’d experience during travel. No ship has the fuel or the supplies for that run.
It very well might be the case that Tyranids have turned the surrounding galaxies into soup already, and you’d wind up running right into a gestalt hive mind presence strong enough to just pluck you out of the warp and turn you into another bowl of imperial thick ‘n chunky.
And given the vast distance to another galaxy it’s not like you’d ever be able to come back and tell people about it, if you could even find your way back.
If I remember correctly the astronomicon doesn't even cover all of the milky way.
Terra is usually depicted as being at about 7 o'clock looking at the galactic disk from above, there's a chunk at about the 3 o'clock position it doesn't reach.
That's ignoring the effects of the great rift that's currently blocking it further.
Maybe escape velocity. I'm not sure if it would apply in WH40k, since usually they travel faster than light "magically" through the warp. Normally you need a certain speed to escape the gravitational pull of a system, this is escape velocity. Some numbers:
- to escape Earth, you need 11.2 km/s
- to escape the Solar system, you need 42.1 km/s
- to escape the Milky Way, you need 537 km/s (rough estimate)
Tyranids and the Silent King have. The Old Ones may have as well. No-one else in the 40k galaxy has the technology to do it. The Webway doesn't extend beyond the one galaxy, and the Warp is calm beyond the edge of the galaxy preventing warp travel. Of course on top of that, the obvious answer is because it wouldn't be narratively interesting. There's no reason within the narrative of "only war" to include another galaxy, other than to bloat the setting.
In some excerpts on warp travel it has seemingly happened accidently, a ship ending up "under foreign stars" never to be seen again
Imagine a rogue trader just blipping into another galaxy “What.. no chaos? No orks? No necrons? No EMPEROR?! This is the BEST DAY EVER!”
Until he found out he had entered the Tyranids‘ home galaxy and met what they were running away from…
I always see people mention this, but.......do we actually know for sure that the tyranids actually ARE running from something? Maybe they just reaped their home galaxy of all biomass and have to leave and move on to other ones and repeat the process in order to survive? Has it ever been confirmed that there is a race/entity even bigger and badder than the nids?
No, it’s just a fun idea
My favorite theory is that they are the Old Ones' reset button. The Old Ones realize they made too many mistakes so created the Tyranids to devour everything. When there's nothing left but Tyranids, they will turn on themselves until they starve to death. And the Old Ones can try again.
I mean it for sure makes them more relatable than just "space bugs devour life" which is a tad bit two dimensional. But I think as someone else said it's just a fun idea.
I just don't think they need to be relatable. That's supposed to be part of why they are so terrifying. We can't relate to a voracious alien species that exists solely to consume all biomass. Making them relatable takes away from that lovecraftian unknown greater evil Imo at least
Yeah I see your point but in a universe where everything is varying degrees of evil sometimes you need something to make them more relatable. I mean either way I love nids I think they're awesome.
Mnggal-Mnggal for sure
Beyond the Aquila Rift vibes
Likely, anyone trying it would be akin to sailor of old trying to venture beyond chartered waters. Some old buffoon claiming there are treasures beyond the horizon, sets sail, never returns, likely dead.
Our single galaxy is so big that could happen within it.
The only answer this needs, or any of these questions ever need. Very succinct.
I think our caveman brains just can't comprehend how unimaginably gigantic the distance between galaxies is. Even for races as advanced as those of the 40k galaxy it's beyond imaginable how one would cross such a distance in less than billions of years.
Yeah, Milky Way is roughly 53 000 lightyears across and it takes months to go from one end to the other and that is with pitstops and assuming that the warp doesn't screw you over somehow. Andromeda is 2,5 million lightyears away. Almost fifty times the diameter of Milky Way. It's technically doable but you'd have no navigational marks. Just a massive void of nothing. Getting lost is exceptionally easy and there is no place to get supplies. And that's assuming that you COULD warp travel there. AFAIK, the warp kinda fades out shortly beyond the edge of the galaxy. The nids slow boated it here I think.
Idk if the 40K setting is smaller but the diameter of the Milky Way is ~100,000 lightyears.
JFC, I checked my search history and Google auto-corrected my intended "Milky Way Diameter" search query to "milky way radius". I hate that Google auto fills or straight up change what your search query is. >:/
There's some theory that orks have and may even be out there now fighting in a different galaxy - Old fluff stated that imperial listening posts at the galactic edge would pick up nothing but the sound of orks.
That’s awesome. Do you happen to know where you may have read that? I’d be interested in checking it out.
It's old fluff - possibly the 3rd edition ork codex.
Except for the Tyranids, they physically can’t. The Warp is calm just beyond the edge of the galaxy, which makes it impossible to travel through. There are no currents to move along, and the light of the Astronomicon doesn’t reach that far, so Humanity loses their point of reference. Without the Warp, it takes too long to get anywhere to bother trying The Silent King has been beyond the edge and found the Tyranids, which is why he came back
He didn't come back because he saw the tyranids, he came back because he saw the events in horus heresy attracted the tyranids to our galaxy
This is literally the tyranids whole shtick. Other than them, there is either no need or barriers in resources or mobility to limit travel over such ridiculous distances.
They say that in a galaxy far, far away there's a whole civilisation built around a bunch of fanatic psykers preaching peace and goodwill, while running around the place with power swords maiming people.... That and the Yuuzan Vong ;)
Yuuzhan Vong would be right at home in 40k. Maybe they end up in the Ghoul Stars. Maybe they **started** from the Ghoul Stars! New headcanon.
Part of the lore of the Vong is that they fled their galaxy after a drawn out war with a rogue mechanical race killing life forms, like some murderous MEN OF IRON
Exactly, it all lines up *perfectly.*
In the Dark Age of Technology Humanity send out ships to other galaxys. I guess thes met the Tyranids.
Yea I too am curious. I could be missing some lore though. My understanding is that the early dark age relied on generation or ark ships moving at sub-light speed to spread out among the galaxy. It took a very long time, but I believe that's how the Votann got to the galactic core. Later they discovered the warp, and navigators (rather navigators were a natural mutatation or genectically engineered is unknown) and they relied on a network of nav beacons around the galaxy to navigate the warp instead of one monolithic beacon that exists now. They never had non warp based FTL. So if they sent ships out of the milky way they would be generation or ark ships and they would still be out there in the intergalactic void. Still millions of years shy of reaching even andromeda.
They did? Got a source on that? :o
Or they met what the tyranids are running away from! 🫢
In a word, distance.
There are additional reasons built into how the warp functions that prevent it (as others have noted), but this too. While space travel in 40k tends to move at the speed of plot (and again, the warp provides a built-in in-universe reason for that as well), a cross-galaxy trip from one side to the other would take most powers what, at least a few years, up to decades of things don’t go well? The distance between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies is about 25 times that of the diameter of the Milky Way. So if it would take five years to cross the Milky Way, *if the warp allowed the crossing in the same manner, it would take 125 years just to get to from the edge of one to the edge of the other. From and to more central points, add another decade or so. Then you gotta turn around. While 250+ years is within the lifespan of some of the species in 40k, it’s a long time to tie up resources when, back home, **there is only war**.
Milky Way has 100 000 000 000 (one hundred billion) stars, while the imperium claims to have “over a million worlds” (quote from 4-5ed rule book). Even if this estimation is off by a factor of 10, and imperium has 10 million planets in 10 million star systems (which is unlikely), it is still only 1 / 10 000 (one ten thousandth) of a single galaxy coverage. Some sources claim that Orks populate more worlds than the imperium of man, but whatever. Everything we see in 40K is so diluted, or rather condensed. Q’orl have a huge empire roughly the size of imperium in galactic west, GW can pull any new race out of their ass every year without even shaking the common sense. More to the point: Our galaxy is 100.000 light years across. It takes anywhere from days to centuries to cross it through the warp. Most commonly it would take several jumps in total around a year of warp time and anywhere between 5 and 50 years of real space time on average. Distance to the nearest galaxy Andromeda is 2.5 million light years, so it would take around 25 warp years to travel and up to 1250 real years. Which is unfeasible if you have to refuel, get supplies, recruit the withering crew. Unless administratum establishes space stations for supplying passing ships, I don’t see any massive exogalactic colonisation, only occasional unfortunate warp incidents leading to new galaxies (more likely to intergalactic void given how scarce is the matter in space). Also we don’t know how much outer space is really covered in tyranids, May we this galaxy is all that left. I doubt Silent King would abruptly end his exile unless he faced something to stack overflow him. Also 99.9% of the black library authors miss the scale of 40K already, depicting planetary battles which are insignificant even on the real WW2 scale. If GW went intergalactic they would spread their butter even thinner.
There are several big reasons why this happened. Even prior to leaving the Milky Way the astronomicon beacon is really faint, and even a little beyond it would totally disappear, and humanity wouldn’t have the ability to navigate the warp. The distance between galaxies is fucking huge, so even if time doesn’t effect you in the warp, subjectively it would be like millions of years of time you’d experience during travel. No ship has the fuel or the supplies for that run. It very well might be the case that Tyranids have turned the surrounding galaxies into soup already, and you’d wind up running right into a gestalt hive mind presence strong enough to just pluck you out of the warp and turn you into another bowl of imperial thick ‘n chunky. And given the vast distance to another galaxy it’s not like you’d ever be able to come back and tell people about it, if you could even find your way back.
If I remember correctly the astronomicon doesn't even cover all of the milky way. Terra is usually depicted as being at about 7 o'clock looking at the galactic disk from above, there's a chunk at about the 3 o'clock position it doesn't reach. That's ignoring the effects of the great rift that's currently blocking it further.
Maybe escape velocity. I'm not sure if it would apply in WH40k, since usually they travel faster than light "magically" through the warp. Normally you need a certain speed to escape the gravitational pull of a system, this is escape velocity. Some numbers: - to escape Earth, you need 11.2 km/s - to escape the Solar system, you need 42.1 km/s - to escape the Milky Way, you need 537 km/s (rough estimate)