Editing Gellar Field (section)

== The True Nature of Gellar Fields ==

Highlighting how grimdark the Imperium is (as well as the fact that humans grudgingly need psykers), ''Ashes of Prospero'' and ''Farsight: Crisis of Faith'' both mention that the Gellar field's primary component is generated by the dreams of a psyker kept in a perpetual coma. According to [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden]] the idea that Gellar fields being powered by comatose psykers [https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/9akdul/excerptashes_of_prosperothe_true_nature_of/e4xmjsk/|has always been of the in-house 40k lore] at [[Games Workshop]] at least as far back as [[Andy Hoare]]'s time (so likely 3rd ed or earlier), and has only been revealed to the audience relatively recently. He also adds that the psykers tapped to power the Gellar fields [[grimdark|burn out rather quickly and have to be replaced fairly often]]. Although the idea of psykers being wired up as Matrix-style batteries and treated like promethium tanks sounds [[grimdark]] as all hell, [[grimderp|actually thinking about the implications of this reveals a huge number of plot holes]].

Perhaps the biggest issue with Gellar fields being powered by the dreams of comatose psykers is that [[Dark Age of Technology]] humanity invented Gellar field generators by M15 (as that's when humanity invented Warp travel and began using it frequently), before there were any psykers around to power them. At the time of the Gellar Field's invention, the only psykers around (aside from the [[Emperor]]) were the artificially-created [[Navigator]]s. Psykers only began appearing in large numbers by M25, and part of the reason for the [[Age of Strife]] is that [[Dark Age of Technology]] humanity was unfamiliar with psykers and did not know how to handle them in the first place. In other words, humanity would have to have been using a device powered by captured psykers for ten thousand years before they knew what psykers even were.

Additionally, Gellar Fields being powered by comatose psykers creates logistical issues. If comatose psykers are required for Gellar fields, this means that every ship in the Imperium, all the ships in the [[Imperial Navy]], every [[Space Marine]] [[Battle Barge]], every merchant chartership and civilian vessel, and all the ships of renegades who don't outright serve Chaos, all throughout the galaxy, now requires disposable psyker batteries to be able to Warp travel at all.  It was already a stretch to believe they all had a handful of navigators, even discounting the chartist ships.  Psykers are rare enough that the Imperium has an [[Black Ships|an entire institution]] dedicated to rounding up psykers and sending them to Holy Terra where they can be used to power the important things that ''do'' require psykers as fuel (like the [[Golden Throne]] or [[Astronomican]]). How do all these ships, which are often in far-flung corners of the galaxy and (in the case of the Imperial Navy and [[Rogue Traders]]) leave Imperial space for months at a time, find enough psykers to power their Gellar field generators? This issue is magnified even further if the psykers powering the Gellar fields burn out regularly and have to be replaced.

Finally, why would the ''dreams'' of a comatose psyker of all things be what projects the bubble of Realspace surrounding the starship, when dreams are one of the most illogical and unrealistic parts of the human psyche? This is something that 40k lore actually touches on when it talks about how unreliable the [[Adeptus Astra Telepathica#Astropaths|astropath]] system is because it relies on communicating messages through dreams. If anything, one would expect a Gellar field produced by the dreams of comatose psykers to project the acausal and chaotic world of dream logic onto the confines of the ship, which is... basically what unprotected [[Warp]] travel is anyway.

Granted, the Gellar Field technology of the [[Leagues of Votann]] implies there are alternative sources of power for them to function.