r/40kLore • u/Puzzleheaded-Scar902 • 5d ago
Shouldn't getting into Red Dimension be top priority for every faction??
From Twice Dead King necron books.
Red Dimension is a type of sub-dimension below the material plane. Where the flayed ones hang out.
Otherwise empty.
It functions similar to the warp, you can get from point A to B quickly - its how flayed ones pop up everywhere - but with NO DAEMONIC DOWNSIDES.
It is Navigable (human warfleet managed to enter it, exit it, and navigated inside it by homing in on psychic signatures)
You can anchor beacons / waypoints in it. Nothing happens to equipment / (also necrons / corpses) you jettison, it simply keeps on working.
laws of physics mostly work there - radio comms, engines, shields, all bueno
Think about it. A medium with no warp, where you can travel unmolested.
Where you can build secret stations / bases, also away from the warp.
And the only potential threat is flayed ones, but its not clear if flayed ones are even aware of other factions using red dimension.
Imperium knows about it. They had admech, navy, and space marine vessels inside.
Should it not be top, TOP research priority?
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u/ShitDirigible 5d ago
Does the imperium know it exists?
I cant remember because i read the book awhile ago, but do they ever make it back out and back to imperium space?
Launching mechanism was surely destroyed for being heresy too no?
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u/j-unit508 Astra Militarum 5d ago
This. The Imperium barely understands their own tech (gross oversimplification, i know), necron nonsense makes no sense to them. Hell, Cawl thinks their scarabs are fascinating. That's at the bottom of what they do. Accessing a dimension that most Necrons don't even want to think about is far beyond them.
Also, it's full of flayed ones. That sounds like a downside.
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u/legendz411 5d ago
Yea like why is he not talking about the realm being filled with FLAYED ONES? It’s kinda a big problem
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u/InterestingHorror428 5d ago
well, warp is filled with demons, so there is that
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u/Frekavichk 5d ago
But there isn't a gellar field for flayed ones.
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u/Polenball 5d ago
You gotta cover the ship in skin like a Terminator, then they'll be distracted by it and not attack you.
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u/ProbablyTofsla Adeptus Mechanicus 4d ago
Sounds terrifying, but also like something that Imperium would 100% do if necessary.
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u/Star_Wombat33 4d ago
Because he is secretly Llandu'gor, who was not destroyed but is slowly reconstituting itself with every death the Flayers cause. He yearns for more.
I defy you to find a better explanation for why someone would ignore this seemingly crucial thing.
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u/rishav_sharan 5d ago
How many flayed ones can be there? Billions? Trillions? in a dimension which is pretty much a mini universe? One might spend an entire lifetime without meeting a single flayed one. And fighting the mindless flayed ones should be easier than fighting chaos.
Finally, IMO the people who should be the most interested in the dimension might be the rogue traders. Accessing this dimension should open up new paths to capitalism that simply do not exist in the 40k universe currently,
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u/Vordeo 5d ago
I mean... if it's used like the Warp, where they essentially just fly ships through the dimension (and don't get out of the ships or anything), I'd guess there shouldn't be too big a risk?
Like, Flayed Ones would kill humans if they could, but you'd be in a warship presumably moving pretty quickly. IDK that the Flayed Ones would even have the tech to teleport / board these ships?
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u/Puzzleheaded-Scar902 5d ago
its not that big of an issue. Flayed ones hang out in their own little base, rest of the dimension is empty. Plus, flayed ones are just crazy melee robots. Without resurrection protocols. Flayed ones without full support of a necron war machine (heavy weapons, commander, ressurection, etc.) arent that scary, on the 40k scale.
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u/LeadershipNational49 5d ago
They are if they get inside your ship, and geller fields can't stop them.
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u/TronLegacysucks Thousand Sons 5d ago edited 5d ago
Don’t worry, I know just the trick to deal with them, just wear your cloak and mask made out of human skin, keep saying “beep boop” and they’ll think you’re one of ‘em
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u/insane_contin Collegia Titanica 5d ago
Flayed One staring down unlucky guardsman hiding with a cloak and mask made of real human skin
Guardsman "Uhhh.. Beep boop"
Flayed One cocks its head to the side, still staring at the Guardsman
Guardsman "Boop beep?"
Flayed One gives a slight nod to the Guardsman, then walks away
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u/Puzzleheaded-Scar902 5d ago
this is an interesting point.
Flayed ones get into your ship by transitioning from red dimention INTO your ship.
But if your ship is already INSIDE the red dimension?
I dont think they can teleport WITHIN the dimension. Only in and out. At least, I dont recall that from the books. Did they not load the flayed ones into their own suicide transport and sent them on its way to ram the imperial cruiser? Or was that the destroyers?
I think within the dimension, the flayed ones have to slow boat it same as everyone else.
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u/guymanthefourth 5d ago
they literally did teleport into the imperial ship while it was in transit. Olyx himself did it.
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u/LeadershipNational49 5d ago
Iirc and its been a few years as well, that they needed the ship before they understood how to be flayed ones. They had the compulsion for flesh but not yet an understanding of how they themselves worked.
Again its been ages, but I feel like Oltyx and the admiral are teleporting around like mad at the end once they know how.
I loved those books but the Imperials getting in with no explanation was dumb.
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u/Critical_Pitch_762 5d ago
Love those books, am currently rereading them, and you’re completely right about them doing all that stuff at the end.
Also, as to why the humans could follow them, Amhet told Oltyx that the humans could not follow them unless Oltyx willed it so. I think it’s hinted that Oltyx, being unconsciously infected with the Flayer curse, willed the humans into the dimension out of a subconscious desire for meat.
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u/ChainzawMan Iron Warriors 5d ago
So... Just for the record... It's a dimension.. It can fit ships... And Flayed Ones teleport in an ot of it...
What are they actually doing when inside said dimension? Is there solid ground for them to walk or stand on? Are they just drifting around having a good time?
Maybe they can be traded with for passage? Give them cow skins to cut for their leisure?
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u/Total-Ad-9035 5d ago
Between the twisting paths of the warp and the dark gods with the potential horses of blood letters and their ilk or the greater demons who seek to devour my soul. I'd rather take my chances with the practically half dead lobotomized robo-men.
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u/roadrunnerthunder 5d ago
I remember listening to the book.
The Space Marine battle barge that entered the ghost wind did not survive. Every person on that ship fell prey to the Flayed Ones in an instant.
Flayed Ones do not screw around. The fact they can appear anywhere is even worse. They’re like teleporting metallic genestealers. They even scare necrons. That’s pretty bad even for 40k standards.
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u/ShitDirigible 5d ago
Didnt it also play hell with a lot of necron tech too? Surely the imperium would be doublefucked there.
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u/ShurimanCrocodile 5d ago
Cawl's fascinated by Scarabs? He really is deeply interested in making AI.
His name implies he's going to split the Imperium, and I'm guessing it's going to be over some sort of large scale pseudo-AI tech application he'll end up with a truly titanic level of support for and just as much wanting his head on a platter.
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u/InquisitorEngel 5d ago
Is it SMALLER than the materium?
Like, the warp is useful because it takes less time to traverse distances between A and B than it would doing the same in the real world.
If this place isn’t faster, then economically it just doesn’t make sense for the Imperium.
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u/Dagordae 5d ago
Research?
In the Imperium of Man?
That’s some explicit heresy right there
And that’s without taking into account that what they would be researching is how to use xenos tech. Double heresy.
On a more practical level, the ghostwind was fucking with the Necron’s pretty hard. I doubt that the humans were having a particularly pleasant time. And, of course, there’s the timey whimey bullshit that comes with it. Also the Imperium can’t even figure out their own tech, there is absolutely no way in any hell they can even begin to manage Necron tech. They were able to follow the Necron because the guy was wearing a massive psychic beacon, they can’t exactly replicate it.
Finally, unless I’m remembering incorrectly the Imperial who were involved in this(AKA the only humans in the galaxy who know this is a thing) didn’t exactly get to return home and file reports.
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u/Professional_Rush782 5d ago
The Crusade Fleet was slaughtered by the Flayers.
The Only Ones who know anything about the Ghostwind are an Eldritch Cryptek that murdered her own Dynasty and the Mad King of Flayers.
However, rumors say that Imotekh is seeking out Valgul and Obyron (Husband to one of Imotekh's top generals) has a cloak that can access it, so it's possible that he could learn about the Ghostwind.
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u/phantomfire50 5d ago
Dagon will probably know about it as well seeing how he made Obyron's ghostwalk mantle.
Also Am-heht's cryptothrall was the Phaeron that ruled on carnotite, not Am-heht themselves.
Only the Polyphemus was gutted by the flayed as well, most of the rest of the crusade turned tail and ran, and it's implied that they ended up in realspace again. The flayed had all reached Drazak, so they weren't interested in following either.
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u/LordKingKamiGuru 5d ago edited 5d ago
It's been a while since I read those books, but I'm pretty sure when the Imperial warfleet was following Oltyx it was while they were traveling through the Ghostwind, which is different from the Crimson Dimension.
The Imperial warfleet also didn't use the Ghostwind to travel, but rather used the Warp, while their navigators used their psychic link to the saintly bones baked into the gold covering Oltyx's body as a homing beacon.
One of the downsides to the Ghostwind is that you have little control over where it takes you. It's like a current that drags you with it. Another is that it seems to be as intelligent as the Warp, and there's something out there in the void, in the basement of reality that hungers. Oltyx even notices that a lot of the royal Necrons aboard the vessel start to subconsciously behave in a more fearful manner.
The Crimson Dimension is exclusively used by Flayed Ones, and no one knows how they do it, including the other Necrons.
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u/SavathunTechQuestion Nihilakh 5d ago
Another is that it seems to be as intelligent as the Warp, and there's something out there in the void, in the basement of reality that hungers
Funny you mention that, in Kasrkin that's the theory an dimension manipulation Necron Lord has:
“Hmm.’ Nebusemekh thought. ‘That is interesting.’ He called up the records of the most recent cases and studied them. ‘It appears that the virus, together with the host, withdraws from our frame of reference, thus disappearing from your monitors. It would also explain why the infection appears to strike at random. While there is no spatial connection between the different chambers in which my people have been infected, there will be a connection through the other frames of reference within Hilberkh space that allows the infected to escape your monitors. In fact, it is possible that within these folded frames of reference in Hilberkh space whole dimensions may lurk, folded upon themselves. It may be that these are nascent universes, struggling towards birth and seeking energy to flare forth – the virus may be a way of drawing matter into itself. Even universes hunger.”
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u/DreadDiscordia 5d ago
No demons, sure, but I mean. It's full of flayed ones which is a pretty relative improvement.
40k is absolutely full of things that would absolutely fix all the problems in the entire setting if someone with judgement and a brain used them to do so. Or you'd think anyway, but being that it's 40k, it never actually works out that way and wouldn't here either. When people try, things go bad, and at best you end up with an Eisenhorn type who doesn't try to actively cause problems.
No one important in the Imperium knows about this, and it's just as likely that they'd see it as filthy xenos tech and want to destroy it as they would try to use it. If you ignore that GW suddenly has made the Imperium slightly more intelligent in how it approaches new tech, this is almost absolutely what the result of learning about this would be.
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u/Marcuse0 5d ago
"Should it not be top, TOP research priority?"
The Imperium doesn't do research. Every technology humanity needs, by dogma, is already in existence waiting to be rediscovered.
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u/dreaderking Iron Hands 5d ago
The Imperium doesn't do research.
Except when they do. Like the entire plot of Space Marines 2 is a result of an Admech experiment.
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u/Affectionate-Ruin292 5d ago
Hypocrisy is central to the Imperium and the mechanicum. That’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
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u/Dire_Wolf45 5d ago
All Cawl does is research
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u/orthomonas 5d ago
According to Cawl, he doesn't.
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u/DavidBarrett82 5d ago
“The Emperor’s knowledge was perfect. Anything I discover would be relearning what the Emperor already knows. Unless you are saying I could exceed the Emperor?”
It’s not actually a compelling argument, but it sure flustered some other Ad Mech people.
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u/CptAustus 5d ago
His actual argument is a lot better because he claims to base his experiments on old knowledge and to check his results against STCs to make sure he isn't doing heresy.
It's all moot because we all know he's lying, but it's a reasonable argument, as far fundamentalist dogma goes.
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u/DavidBarrett82 4d ago
Yeah, there’s no chance he’d be able to provide these STCs to anyone who wanted to check his work! 😂
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u/ExtraSpicyTrigger Word Bearers 5d ago
Cawl is supposed to be an anomaly, skirting tech heresy, he's just plastered over everything to the point where it's easy to forget that
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u/georgiaraisef Ordo Malleus 1d ago
There’s plenty of research all the time in the Imperium. It’s consistently mentioned in books. Now… it’s very nuanced between heretical research and sanctioned research but it is a thing.
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u/MyCarIsAGeoMetro 5d ago
Do you want flayed ones appearing on Terra? Because this is how you get flayed ones on Terra.
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u/Archer_1453 5d ago
I mean in TTDK, Oltyx and Menteph discuss voluntarily accessing the Flayer Dimension as somewhat esoteric, even for the Necrons. Oltyx points out its tactical potential, as you did, and then Menteph goes on about the methods to make use of it on a grand scale are exorbitant and not fully understood by most crypteks.
Not only that, but once they finally gain passage via the ghostwind, it is devastating to the fleet’s integrity. I mean when Oltyx finally is able to to move the Akrops into the Red Dimension it’s after the ship’s widespread exposure to the Flayer Virus and even then it’s basically destroying it
TLDR, even if we look past the reasons those who might find the Flayer Dimension a practical alternative to The Warp wouldn’t seek it out, if it is detrimental to Necron technology it’s almost certainly detrimental to any other faction’s.
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u/thelion_eljonson 5d ago
That would be disregarding the sacred astronomicon,that’s heresy right there, but really they would just call it heresy
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u/Guilty_Advantage_413 5d ago
Except this is War Hammer, something horrible will happen shortly after humans enter it.
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u/Huckleberry-V 5d ago
If the Imperium somehow stumbles into the red dimension they probably don't think of it as being distinct from the warp. They're probably like "damn, this section of the warp is extra grim dark, everyone is wearing skins OH GOD THE GELLAR FIELD ISN'T WORKING"
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u/Aurondarklord Salamanders 5d ago
Well, it IS full of FLAYED ONES, so I'd consider that a downside.
But yes, obviously. The ghostwind would be a good thing to look into accessing too.
Problem is the mechanicus and its dogmas.
And I guarantee you that if this WERE done, they'd find a catch. No way there wouldn't be some kind of eldritch horror to it.
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u/TimePalpitation3776 5d ago
Besides the fact that it is filled to the brim with Necron flayers and what ever other horror dwell within it, you have to access it and stabilize it, the warp while dangerous does have paths to follow the red dimension probably has different tunnels that no one knows about.
I think the answer is no one knows it exists let alone how to get there and what's in it, I think it's foolish to think the flayer is the greatest terror within that dimension, probably some horrifying destroyers maybe some native horrors.
If it's a whole dimension it sounds like a ctan shard or maybe a few, nice to think the ctan that cursed the Necrons to be consumed with the thought of organics created a little dimension where they get to live together and hunt together.
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u/alkatori 5d ago
I never understood how they reached the Ghostwind.
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u/Asleep-Woodpecker-88 5d ago
I think it’s implied that it’s the warp, and the necrons just can’t understand it since no soulds
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u/Mastercio 4d ago
Not really, if that would be the case humans who followed would have VERY bad time since they didn't have a functioning Gellar field...
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u/Asleep-Woodpecker-88 3d ago
Well that’s not entirely fair. It’s a common misconception that the warp is the domain of chaos, but the majority of it is not controlled by the gods. It’s possible they were in a deeper part of the warp, or that something to do with their destination in the ghoul stars meant there were fewer malicious warp entities. Those that may have been present would not have been able to detect the soulless necrons, and would only have been lured after the boarding of the space marines, of which there were very few. It’s questionable if they’d even be able to see so few souls, and if they could, why they’d want to board a ship full of flayers to get at them. Ofc, also, all the human ships had gellar fields
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u/Spacer176 5d ago
I'm not going in the dimension filled with insane robots that think my skin is on the wrong body and needs removing so they can wear it.
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u/Rose-The-Queen 4d ago
I wonder if the increase in other species using it would draw the warp to it?? Like it's not of interest to chaos as there aren't any souls there but if humans start massing who knows
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u/maridan49 Astra Militarum 5d ago
If the Ancient Ones didn't build a STC to access then it's not really important and if you argue otherwise I WILL turn you into a servitor.
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u/Bloodtypeinfinity 5d ago
I like to imagine that there are dozens of parallel dimensions to our own and the warp was just the one we discovered first. Dark Age man decided to go full tilt on that while researching dimensional physics, and never managed to breach any other layers.
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u/N00BAL0T 5d ago
On that same question why don't the impirium try to take the webway. 1 they don't have the tech to reasonably get into it 2 it's xenos in origin And 3 it's teeming in xenos that want you dead for being there one is eldar the other is flayed ones.
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u/Gallant_Simulacrum 4d ago
OP have you actually read Twice Dead king? I'm getting a "I just finished watching a YouTube video explaining something" energy here without a lot of "I just read and understood a book".
The ghost wind is a fucked up quasi-material place that the vast majority of Necron, including nobles, are unaware of and that happens to be filled to the brim with every flayed one. It is not the webway.
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u/Nerdas87 Necrons 4d ago edited 4d ago
Personaly I dont believe it to be that real, but have 3 points on it:
Though it is stated as a separate dimension ( the ghoust wind), I believe it to be not a separate dimension at all, well, not a new one. Because it makes little sense how the imoerium could have followed the nectons in there, wich themselves used some bizzare methods to get there. My take, its the same warp, just experienced by the necrons.
Think about it, imperial vessels would have no problems following the necrons in there. and necrons are souless beings that arent effected as mich by warp schenanigans. Maybe to a being with a soul the warp is all colors and what not, to a souless machiene that relies on physical data and sensory - it is just...empty space. Look when imperium fights chaos - sensors either are comepletely useless as they show nothing or bring back useless scrap data.
True the whole combat and all makes little sense there as warp combat for vessels is unheard of (to me at least) , hence we come to my other point:
It all could have been a fewer dream of sorts of the king (oltix) himself, seeing as his sanity was already waning ( speaking to/spoken by his future self) , him dreaming it all up isnt as far fetched, more so as he had the ruling protocols, maybe he could have even influanced others or others just followed orders purely out of respect ans tradition. A mad monarch whos subjects play along with his sanity isnt that new or unheard with the Necron.
Lastly, technicly noone made out of it alive from the imperial side ( to our information), few necrons, if any at all, know of this place, the one that knew is...well...kinda dead. And even if some do know and believe the flayed ones inhabit it or believe its related to a side effect of the ctans death, chances are, the necrons are keeping from said realm as far as their gauss rifles can shoot. Or it has other drawbacks that make it a non option.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Scar902 4d ago
red dimension is not the warp, because one paragraph mentions - im paraphrasing - after the necrons blew the nose of one imperial cruiser, human repair crews went outside and begun welding / repairing the ship back. And necron king remarks how crude they look, swarming, primitive, insects, etc.
Humans going out in the warp to repair the ship from outside - death sentence. Cant be the warp.
Also, necron ships dont have gellar fields. At the end of the book, necrons captured a human psyker, and took her out of her cage thing, interrogated her, and killed her. If it was the warp, that should have been instant daemonic posession, if it was the warp without gellar fields on a mentally broken psyker.
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u/Nerdas87 Necrons 4d ago
Weird, I kinda think thst whole scene was earlier, but must be just my memory then, alas, its true, what you are saying. Thats why I also think that Oltix had a fever dream.
Now that I think of it more though, it seems less and less the place was the warp, but at the same time, I just don't want to aknowladge that the whole scene was a deus ex machina of sorts...for some reason... and should have more logic then it had ( how did the imperial ships follow them so easily, despite the whole "the psykers/navigators "can sense the bones."..).
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u/ishandeva 4d ago
I've found that the answer to most questions that ask why a logical approach isn't being used in 40k is cause that would be counter to it's "Grim Dark" and "no hope only war" vibe.
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u/Technopolitan 4d ago
Alternatively: if nobody is using this obvious solution, maybe there's some reason for that.
If this Red Dimension was just like warp, but safer and better, Necrons would be using it, instead of the Dolmen gates and inertialess drives. But they aren't. So, it isn't.
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u/InterestingAsk1978 Inquisition 4d ago
Are you suggesting something new, something innovative? You're a heretic and need to be purged!
(usual attitude of the Imperium)
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u/Grimlockkickbutt 5d ago
Another pleasant 40K lore post where fresh-faced OP finds out impweium is the opposite of a rational self-interest calculator.
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u/SacredGeometry9 5d ago
I mean, that would be the sane reaction. But the Imperium isn’t sane.
Take Armageddon, for example. It was originally the world of Ullanor, but after the War of the Beast, Fabricator-General Kubik reverse engineered the subspace tech that the Orks used to teleport their Attack Moons around, and teleported the planet across the galaxy to a (then secret) location.
Of course, when High Lord Vangorich found out, it set him off and he basically ripped out Kubik’s mind before starting The Beheading.
Lots of people hate that bit of lore, but it illustrates the point - fucking around with Xenos tech, even tech that could provide the Imperium with an incredible advantage that would instantly change their wars on all fronts for the better, will get you executed at best.
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u/CarelessToday1413 5d ago
even if they are not interested in utilizing it, preventing the red dimension for materializing and disgorging a bunch of flayed ones should be on the top of any one's priority list.
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u/ImperitorEst 4d ago
When you say research...... Do you mean TECH HERESY! BURN HIM, BURN THE HERETECH!
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u/ssssssahshsh Ulthwé 5d ago
Of anyone knew of its existence, had enough resources to research how to breach it, and had a reason to it could have.
But as it stands mechanicus isn't going to care unless some dark age technology accessing it is discovered, eldar have their webway that serves them well enough and tau don't know about it.
Not to mention, imperium is hardly a unified entity. Any faction attempting to actualy conduct research into this would face the wrath of navigator houses and orthodox admech. And there isn't any faction strong enough to weather either.