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Gravitic Drive

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The Gravitic Drive is a method of interstellar travel, most famously used by the Tau. While working under the same basic principals as the Imperial Warp Drive, there are several key differences. Primary among these is that the ship that uses it does not actually enter the Warp proper - rather, they enter the void that exists between real space and Warp space and are then flung back into normal space at faster-than-light speed, akin to forcing a ball underwater and releasing it. Compared to the Warp drive used by most other races, Gravitic Drive technology is significantly slower. However, as the ship does not actually enter the Warp, it is not prey to the dangers within.

Tau

The Tau are the most significant users of the Gravitic Drive. They already had a primitive form of this technology in M39, using it on sub-light craft to colonise the other worlds in the T'au system. By seemingly random fortune, a survey on one of T'au's moons uncovered the remains of an alien vessel that sported a Warp drive. The Tau, lacking psykers as a race, instead backwards engineered this design and incorporated it into their already existing technology.1,2

See Also

Sources

  • 1 Armada Appendices, page 96
  • 2 Games Workshop[1], Specialist Games, Resources, Tau Fleets