Even at distances of over a thousand light-years, travelling at two to three thousand times the speed of light only takes two or three years, a timeframe still acceptable for humanity.
However, navigating the Warp is incredibly dangerous. The slightest misstep can mean death, and every year, countless Imperial ships are swallowed up by Warp storms.
Countless Imperial war barges, as well as ordinary merchant ships, are forever lost in the Warp.
Even so, humanity has no choice but to plunge into the Warp to travel. Without using the Warp, even leaving one's own star system would take hundreds of years, making colonizing the entire galaxy unthinkable.
In theory, if it weren't for all those terrifying side effects, Warp travel would be the most efficient means of travel.
After all, even reaching the edge of the galaxy would take less than a year by Warp.
To prepare for the Great Crusade, the Emperor mobilized all manpower and resources in the Solar System, constructing a tower that pierced the heavens on Holy Terra itself, the Astronomican.
It is a psychic beacon, its shining light serving as a guiding lamp in the Warp, leading Imperial ships safely on their way.
This is why the Emperor could launch the Great Crusade.
Now, with this ship equipped with an FTL engine, if he could fully unlock and replicate its technology, mass-producing it for the entire Imperial fleet, the effects would be unimaginable.
Within a range of two or three thousand light-years, humanity could guarantee relatively safe travel.
But such travel comes with drawbacks, huge drawbacks.
Everything has two sides, and this kind of short-range, safe, and efficient flight would directly impact the core interests of the Navigator Houses.
The Navigator Houses would lose at least half their business.
However, now was not the time for them to fade into history; the Emperor still needed them to provide navigation for long-distance journeys.
The longer one stays in the Warp, the greater the danger, so travelling ten thousand or even tens of thousands of light-years was extremely risky.
Warp travel within a thousand light-years was relatively safe, because the time spent in the Warp was short, oftenjust a few days or less than a month.
However, with this superluminal travel, all Navigators will have to take on high-intensity, ultra-long Warp journeys! Only the very best Navigators will be able to handle this kind of navigation.
Normally, junior Navigators would start with short-distance voyages and only take on journeys of ten thousand light-years or more after gaining enough experience.
But now, the superluminal engine will dominate the thousand to three-thousand light-year routes, meaning the Navigator Houses will lose training opportunities to train their juniors.
If this goes on, there will be a shortage of talent in the Navigator Houses, and this will create major problems for humanity as a whole.
This was just the first drawback.
The second problem is that, with such safe travel available, nobody will want to risk ultra-long, dangerous Warp journeys anymore.
A thousand light-years covers many star systems, even several sectors.
In such circumstances, these regions will become increasingly cut off from the core of the Imperium.
If you take a thousand light-years as a unit, small groups will form, Micro-empires, so to speak, that will only interact with the wider Imperium when absolutely necessary.
Otherwise, no one would ever travel farther than that distance. All journeys, trade, and exchanges would only happen within that relatively safe range.
This was absolutely not what the Emperor wanted to see.
His goal was to build a galactic empire, not to allow the Imperium to splinter into countless mini-states, each a thousand light-years wide.
Sitting inside the eye-shaped little spaceship, the Emperor fell silent for a moment, lost in thought.
Then he opened his eyes, a decision made in his heart.
He would still have to study these small-scale superluminal engines, but his original Webway Project would go forward as planned, and the Navigator Houses would remain useful—for now.
Once the Great Crusade was complete, these superluminal engines could be installed on every Imperial ship.
When the Eldar Webway project was finished, he'd be able to dispose of the Navigators.
Just like he'd once purged the Thunder Warriors, the Emperor would have no hesitation about such things.
In the future, if the Space Marines or even the Primarchs ever threatened humanity, he would wipe them out without a second thought.
(The simplest example: when he founded the High Lords of Terra, not a single Primarch was included.)
If the Webway Project could be completed, journeys of ten thousand, even fifty or sixty thousand light-years, could be accomplished through the Webway.
His real ambition for the Webway Project was never as simple as it appeared.
If he wanted to connect all the worlds of the Imperium and completely free humanity from reliance on Warp travel, the task would be enormous.
Every star system would need its own Webway entrance, whether by activating ancient Eldar Webway portals or building new ones for humanity; the scale of the engineering was staggering.
But with the advent of these superluminal engines, the Emperor could just establish a few large Webway arteries.
Every thousand, or two to three thousand light years, a single artery would serve a whole sector, and all that was needed was to build a major Webway entrance there.
Human interstellar travel would become dozens of times more efficient. It was perfect! Truly perfect!
The appearance of this superluminal engine filled the biggest gap, the hardest obstacle, in his entire Webway Plan.
Previously, he and Malcador had agonized over this issue, never able to find a workable solution. Now, all those difficulties were swept away.
The Eldar Webway would no longer be humanity's only option.
The perfect strategy was to combine superluminal engines and the Webway.
The Emperor closed his eyes again, silently plotting.
A new, perfect plan was taking shape in his mind.
He could even imagine a thousand years into the future, when his vision would be realized: humanity entering an era more magnificent than even the Golden Age or the lost age of Dark Technology, truly free from the gaze of the daemons lurking in the Warp.
A whole new future for mankind was unfolding before him.
It was as if the universe itself favored the human race, delivering this superluminal engine right into his hands.
However, using the Webway on such a large scale would inevitably bring humanity into direct conflict with the Eldar, and a war between the two species would be unavoidable.
Once the Great Crusade was finished, he would completely cleanse the galaxy of the hated xenos, the Aeldari.
Satisfied, the Emperor piloted the tiny ship back to his flagship, the Imperator Somnium, and ordered ten Custodes to guard the little ship around the clock.
Engine research would have to wait until they returned to Holy Terra.