The Warhammer 40,000 setting contains some pretty advanced technology. Blackstone Fortresses can destroy entire solar systems. The Aeonic Orb contains the power of an entire sun. And — get this — the Speranza, a massive vessel the size of a continent, can actually manipulate a black hole and fire it. Ouch!
So yeah, the Warhammer 40,000 setting has galaxy crushing might under its belt. But, it seems, the various races of the 41st millennium still don’t know what’s going on inside a black hole. And that’s not just the Imperium of Man letting the side down, either. It seems no-one — not even the incredibly advanced Necrons — have managed to work it out.
Confirmation comes from one of the latest Warhammer 40,000 novels, Guy Hayley’s Archmagos. It stars the much-loved 10,000 year-old dominus of the Adeptus Mechanicus, Belisarius Cawl, who travels to a Necron tomb world trapped on the event horizon of a black hole. And so, Belisarius Cawl ends up talking about black holes in general, and it’s this bit that surprised me as I was reading the book.
Warning! Spoilers for Warhammer 40,000 novel Archmagos follow:
Early on in the book, Belisarius Cawl ruminates on the big knowledge gap the races of the Warhammer 40,000 universe have when it comes to black holes. During this metaphysical ponder, he speculates that humanity, even during what’s called the Dark Age of Technology (the largely unexplored time period in which humanity was at its technological zenith), had no idea how they work. And, most surprising of all, neither do the Necrons.
Necrons, for the uninitiated, are terrifying mechanical warriors who wiped out an entire race of star gods long before the Emperor was even conceived (if he was, indeed, conceived). They’re meant to be the most technologically advanced of all the xenos, and use weapons far beyond our understanding. And so I was somewhat surprised to learn that the physics at play inside a black hole are a mystery to the Necrons, as they are to us in the real world.
Here’s what Belisarius Cawl, “the galaxy’s pre-eminent mind,” as he puts it, has to say about black holes:
Nobody really knows what these things are, even me. If we were to fall within, would we be destroyed, or would we emerge in some other place? I have never come across a satisfactory answer from any species. I doubt our ancestors at the height of their technology understood them. Some ancient Necrontyr records I… came into posession of by completely legitimate means, say they believe them to be the graves of their mightiest star gods. Maybe that is true. Why not? If a star can birth something with the power of a god, then why wouldn’t an astronomical body like this harbor similar secrets?
There was something grounding about reading this section of the book, something that made the often bizarre and unknowable Warhammer 40,000 universe ever so slightly relatable. The human race today does not know what goes on inside a black hole. I mean, we have theories, but we’re largely stumped. A black hole could lead to a new universe. Some think a black hole could lead to a white hole. Personally, I love the black hole leads to a 4D representation of a magical bookshelf idea. The point is we just don’t know. And it felt comforting somehow to learn that even 40,000 years in the future, we still haven’t worked it out.
A glance online at my usual 40k hideouts threw up a debate over this. I know — shock horror! — Warhammer 40,000 fans have something to say about the realism of the sci-fi universe they love so much. Some are pointing out that the C’Tan — those star gods I mentioned earlier — are said to have been able to call black holes into being. So if the Necrons defeated the C’Tan and ripped off their tech, shouldn’t they have black holes all figured out?
And others are pointing out that the Necrons, as they’ve been described to us in prior Warhammer 40,000 novels, are able to use black holes pretty effortlessly. “But… we have literally entire cryptek branch of black hole science called Voidmancers, they can just make black hole with wave of a hand… wear them as capes… it’s just author who didn’t know anything about it,” declared Mastercio before quoting from a book. “So we have entire group of them being able to just channel black holes, but this book just say that they can’t… bullshit.”
But Belisarius Cawl is not saying that the races of the 41st millennium are unable to use a black hole or interact with one in various ways, just that they don’t really understand their inner workings — literally what’s going on inside of them.
Which leads me onto the next thought: in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, what is going on inside a black hole? Having a bit of fun here, perhaps Warhammer 40,000 black holes have something to do with the warp, the alternate dimension hellscape in which the Chaos gods rile each other up and demons plot to tear into realspace and end all life as we know it. Maybe if you were to actually venture into a Warhammer 40,000 black hole, you’d end up in Grandfather Nurgle’s garden for a spot of (probably very bad for you) tea. Or perhaps you’d find yourself the inadvertent star of a Slaaneshi sex show. The mind boggles.
As with most things Warhammer 40,000, not knowing the truth of a thing is all part of the fun. Belisarius Cawl’s drive-by lecture on the nature of black holes should be considered as reliable as 90% of the lore fans like me fuss over on a daily basis. That is to say, not very reliable at all. And Games Workshop, as is its want, could one day decide to contradict everything Cawl says here and show us that someone somewhere in the Warhammer 40,000 universe knows exactly how black holes work inside and out.
Perhaps Trazyn the Infinite has had a peek.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
