- Location
- Charlotte, NC
Shit. Going full Ginosaji on them is he? That's harsh.
Shroud (Grey Goo game Shroud SI / Warhammer 40k)
TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
Eh, I doubt Slannesh has the perspective to enjoy torture (s)he doesn't get to feed on. The whole thing with the Silence is that it cuts there pressence off.
On the other hand, that totally was an Eldar Moment.
- Location
- Pennslyvania
- Pronouns
- She/They
This has shown up like 10 times over the last few pages. It's actually kinda hilarious that everyone immediately points to that the instant the SPOON shows up. The fact that independently of one another it keeps being posted just makes me chuckle.
Guardsman_Sparky
The Clueless Wonder
- Location
- Virginia
I prefer the Robin Hood version of using a spoon.
"I will cut out his heart with a spoon."
"Why a spoon?"
"Because, it's blunt. It will hurt more."
"I will cut out his heart with a spoon."
"Why a spoon?"
"Because, it's blunt. It will hurt more."
3.5
Drich
Von Neumann Writing Machine
3.5
+++
By ten, Timaeus was full grown. Giant in stature, gentle in personality, and gifted in mind. He was well known, well respected, a public figure, time split between his duties as an Alpha, and his general scientific endeavours. He still liked to poke fun at people, and still enjoyed their reactions at his antics, though.
After a decade, it was clear that estimates needed to be revised. The growth rate of the population had, by this point, ballooned to 4.3%, though it didn't seem like it would go too much higher. At that pace, it would shave two hundred years down to a hundred and forty.
Exponents were devilish things, like that. Starting slowly, but they curved up quick.
A decade in, and the population had risen from thirty five million to fifty.
Fun fact. Sanctuary had been designed to house one hundred million. It could support more, yes, that was just the housing capabilities. They'd planned ahead, when it had been built.
But population growth wasn't the only thing happening. Resourcing efforts had been hard at work the entire time. The megafactory had been completed by three years in, covering tens of kilometers, and it had started its work immediately, churning out hordes of Collection Drones that had stripped the rest of the island bare in short order, only to then immediately put down five additional core taps, all to fuel the resource demands of the megafactory.
All of that was stage one. The part where they merely gathered resources to turn into more industry. Stage two, when they actually began to test the designs thoroughly, physically instead of just theoretically?
That required even more.
Three plans had been debated between for Project Moth, see. All three called for fleets, but all three called for different types of fleets. The first plan had a large fleet of moderately sized vessels, with each one having a small portion of the population, the industry, and travel capacity. Eventually, it had been rejected, on account of efficiency issues, the problem that the population they held was simply not large enough.
Plan B had done the opposite; one really big design, to hold everything and everyone. That had also been rejected, again on account of efficiency issues, though this time because it meant that everything was in one basket and managing the logistical nightmare of what was basically going to end up as a small moon was... Undesirable.
Plan C mixed the two. A small fleet of large vessels, each one intended to hold two hundred and fifty million people, with the industrial capacity to match. Such a fleet would have been attended by scores of lesser Stone Ships, autovessels that would guard and retrieve resources for it as was necessary.
Plan C had won out. It was considered the right mix of factors to be the most efficient option with the highest chance of success. That it would also allow the fleet to split up as needed, while maintaining enough of a population that I could act with considerable freedom was a bonus.
These ships still required a lot of resources. Competent design and advanced enough technology let you fit a lot of people in a fairly small space, but two hundred and fifty million was a big number. And fitting two hundred and fifty million people comfortably required even more.
The main habitation modules ended up being an approximate cylinder thirty to forty kilometers long and ten kilometers wide, the entire volume utilized with clever design to fold a city in on itself while still create a still surprisingly spacious zone with plenty of area for the people in order to avert claustrophobia and over-concentrated population.
And that was just the habitation modules. The industry and science modules were significantly more dense, but still quite large. Then there was the ship itself, without the modules closer to a mobile, skeletal station; with reactors, Void Shield Generators, weapons bays, sensors, and a dozen other things that all combined to create an extremely well protected and well-armed vessel, sufficiently powerful to make any would-be attackers regret their decisions.
And then, there were the autovessels. All significantly smaller than the main one, but 'significantly smaller' still meant scores of ships that ran the gamut from escorts hundreds of meters long to battleships measuring at multi-kilometers.
The initial plan required two hundred of these civilization ships. The attendant fleets didn't need to be built with them, as the ships could build them afterwards, but they were still extensive.
The requirements to build all of this made one wonder how it was possible. Even with what among the most advanced technology ever created, it still seemed a stretch.
That?
That was the tyranny of scale.
That was the kind of resource expenditure that would need half the planet ripped apart in order to get the materials, if not for nucleosynthesis meaning they just needed the raw mass. Two hundred had further dropped to forty, with the completion of the Man of Platinum augmentations dropping the necessary population, but even then, we were still talking petatonnes of material.
Does it sound like it a lot? It's quite large, yes, but the thing is, this planet's mass was sufficient to build tens of billions of such ships.
And in space? Planets were small, compared to the true giants of systems; stars. Typical stars made up ninety nine plus percent of the mass of a system. Sure, we didn't have a star, but there was still more than enough.
It just took time to get to that point.
And again, exponents? Devilish things. Simple math; a single drone takes an hour to build another itself. How many are there, ten hours later? Over a thousand. Ten more hours, and those have multiplied into over a million. Another ten, and they're at a billion.
Reality complicates this, of course. For starters, Collector Drones don't self-replicate, being Stone Technology rather than Iron. There were several additional steps in the chain of production; Collector Drones are deployed by factories, go out into the environment, harvest matter, and bring it back to refineries. Refineries take the immediately useful elements, and the rest goes to Nucleo-Synthesizers for a much slower transformation into usable materials. Every step needed to be expanded at its own pace, drastically slowing the entire thing. Further, consuming available resources made it harder to get more resources, meaning that you eventually had to swap from Collector Drones to other sources- or expand the size of operations.
It slows the entire thing, yes.
Ten years was still more than enough time to get ready for stage two.
Again, testing. The designs existed, having been made when Project Moth was first suggested. They had not been tested, and even more importantly, they hadn't been made with more modern techniques in mind. When one was going to fling themselves out into space where a damned Warp Storm was waiting, that was especially important.
The megafactory, after having achieved its minimum required resource flow, was promptly turned to that purpose. Parts of the ship were built, tested one by one, at large and in minutiae. Damn near everybody with even a hint of engineering or architectural ability had been involved in it at one point or another; from simple artists to genius engineers to Stone Minds to Timaeus himself. The data the experimentation generated was pumped directly to purpose-built processor farms, where it was checked and worked on over and over again, the designs refined with the same relentless drive that they'd optimized their own genetic code with. Errors vanished, oversights were corrected, faults removed, perfection sought until ultimately...
What was left was flawless. Glorious and superb, an exquisite design worthy of the Age of Technology.
They called it the 'Lightchaser'.
Production of the skeleton was finished by twenty years. The industrial module was finished three months after that. The science module was complete by the fourth. The habitation module, which was responsible for nearly a third of the ship's mass, took longer, though only by another year.
The launch of the first vessel had been watched by almost everybody in Sanctuary, commemorated through cheer and sheer joy. Watching the silver-white ship rise into the sky had filled the world with enough emotion that I could literally taste it.
Moving everything over took even more time. Sanctuary, by the time that the Lightchaser was complete, had been host to some eighty six million people. By the time that the population transfer had finished, they were up to eighty eight.
Everybody had been pretty happy about it. All that extra space, the fact that they were no longer underground...
Then, there, they finally took a name. Became... more than a group of survivors, living in a bunker. They became, in a real and final way, an actual civilization again.
The name itself had been subject to a lot of back and forth, suggestions coming in from everyone. The ultimate winner, though, had been fairly simple.
Starseeker Compact. The Compact, for short.
Good for morale, that was for sure.
Of course, with all of that said, they weren't the only ones growing.
+++
By ten, Timaeus was full grown. Giant in stature, gentle in personality, and gifted in mind. He was well known, well respected, a public figure, time split between his duties as an Alpha, and his general scientific endeavours. He still liked to poke fun at people, and still enjoyed their reactions at his antics, though.
After a decade, it was clear that estimates needed to be revised. The growth rate of the population had, by this point, ballooned to 4.3%, though it didn't seem like it would go too much higher. At that pace, it would shave two hundred years down to a hundred and forty.
Exponents were devilish things, like that. Starting slowly, but they curved up quick.
A decade in, and the population had risen from thirty five million to fifty.
Fun fact. Sanctuary had been designed to house one hundred million. It could support more, yes, that was just the housing capabilities. They'd planned ahead, when it had been built.
But population growth wasn't the only thing happening. Resourcing efforts had been hard at work the entire time. The megafactory had been completed by three years in, covering tens of kilometers, and it had started its work immediately, churning out hordes of Collection Drones that had stripped the rest of the island bare in short order, only to then immediately put down five additional core taps, all to fuel the resource demands of the megafactory.
All of that was stage one. The part where they merely gathered resources to turn into more industry. Stage two, when they actually began to test the designs thoroughly, physically instead of just theoretically?
That required even more.
Three plans had been debated between for Project Moth, see. All three called for fleets, but all three called for different types of fleets. The first plan had a large fleet of moderately sized vessels, with each one having a small portion of the population, the industry, and travel capacity. Eventually, it had been rejected, on account of efficiency issues, the problem that the population they held was simply not large enough.
Plan B had done the opposite; one really big design, to hold everything and everyone. That had also been rejected, again on account of efficiency issues, though this time because it meant that everything was in one basket and managing the logistical nightmare of what was basically going to end up as a small moon was... Undesirable.
Plan C mixed the two. A small fleet of large vessels, each one intended to hold two hundred and fifty million people, with the industrial capacity to match. Such a fleet would have been attended by scores of lesser Stone Ships, autovessels that would guard and retrieve resources for it as was necessary.
Plan C had won out. It was considered the right mix of factors to be the most efficient option with the highest chance of success. That it would also allow the fleet to split up as needed, while maintaining enough of a population that I could act with considerable freedom was a bonus.
These ships still required a lot of resources. Competent design and advanced enough technology let you fit a lot of people in a fairly small space, but two hundred and fifty million was a big number. And fitting two hundred and fifty million people comfortably required even more.
The main habitation modules ended up being an approximate cylinder thirty to forty kilometers long and ten kilometers wide, the entire volume utilized with clever design to fold a city in on itself while still create a still surprisingly spacious zone with plenty of area for the people in order to avert claustrophobia and over-concentrated population.
And that was just the habitation modules. The industry and science modules were significantly more dense, but still quite large. Then there was the ship itself, without the modules closer to a mobile, skeletal station; with reactors, Void Shield Generators, weapons bays, sensors, and a dozen other things that all combined to create an extremely well protected and well-armed vessel, sufficiently powerful to make any would-be attackers regret their decisions.
And then, there were the autovessels. All significantly smaller than the main one, but 'significantly smaller' still meant scores of ships that ran the gamut from escorts hundreds of meters long to battleships measuring at multi-kilometers.
The initial plan required two hundred of these civilization ships. The attendant fleets didn't need to be built with them, as the ships could build them afterwards, but they were still extensive.
The requirements to build all of this made one wonder how it was possible. Even with what among the most advanced technology ever created, it still seemed a stretch.
That?
That was the tyranny of scale.
That was the kind of resource expenditure that would need half the planet ripped apart in order to get the materials, if not for nucleosynthesis meaning they just needed the raw mass. Two hundred had further dropped to forty, with the completion of the Man of Platinum augmentations dropping the necessary population, but even then, we were still talking petatonnes of material.
Does it sound like it a lot? It's quite large, yes, but the thing is, this planet's mass was sufficient to build tens of billions of such ships.
And in space? Planets were small, compared to the true giants of systems; stars. Typical stars made up ninety nine plus percent of the mass of a system. Sure, we didn't have a star, but there was still more than enough.
It just took time to get to that point.
And again, exponents? Devilish things. Simple math; a single drone takes an hour to build another itself. How many are there, ten hours later? Over a thousand. Ten more hours, and those have multiplied into over a million. Another ten, and they're at a billion.
Reality complicates this, of course. For starters, Collector Drones don't self-replicate, being Stone Technology rather than Iron. There were several additional steps in the chain of production; Collector Drones are deployed by factories, go out into the environment, harvest matter, and bring it back to refineries. Refineries take the immediately useful elements, and the rest goes to Nucleo-Synthesizers for a much slower transformation into usable materials. Every step needed to be expanded at its own pace, drastically slowing the entire thing. Further, consuming available resources made it harder to get more resources, meaning that you eventually had to swap from Collector Drones to other sources- or expand the size of operations.
It slows the entire thing, yes.
Ten years was still more than enough time to get ready for stage two.
Again, testing. The designs existed, having been made when Project Moth was first suggested. They had not been tested, and even more importantly, they hadn't been made with more modern techniques in mind. When one was going to fling themselves out into space where a damned Warp Storm was waiting, that was especially important.
The megafactory, after having achieved its minimum required resource flow, was promptly turned to that purpose. Parts of the ship were built, tested one by one, at large and in minutiae. Damn near everybody with even a hint of engineering or architectural ability had been involved in it at one point or another; from simple artists to genius engineers to Stone Minds to Timaeus himself. The data the experimentation generated was pumped directly to purpose-built processor farms, where it was checked and worked on over and over again, the designs refined with the same relentless drive that they'd optimized their own genetic code with. Errors vanished, oversights were corrected, faults removed, perfection sought until ultimately...
What was left was flawless. Glorious and superb, an exquisite design worthy of the Age of Technology.
They called it the 'Lightchaser'.
Production of the skeleton was finished by twenty years. The industrial module was finished three months after that. The science module was complete by the fourth. The habitation module, which was responsible for nearly a third of the ship's mass, took longer, though only by another year.
The launch of the first vessel had been watched by almost everybody in Sanctuary, commemorated through cheer and sheer joy. Watching the silver-white ship rise into the sky had filled the world with enough emotion that I could literally taste it.
Moving everything over took even more time. Sanctuary, by the time that the Lightchaser was complete, had been host to some eighty six million people. By the time that the population transfer had finished, they were up to eighty eight.
Everybody had been pretty happy about it. All that extra space, the fact that they were no longer underground...
Then, there, they finally took a name. Became... more than a group of survivors, living in a bunker. They became, in a real and final way, an actual civilization again.
The name itself had been subject to a lot of back and forth, suggestions coming in from everyone. The ultimate winner, though, had been fairly simple.
Starseeker Compact. The Compact, for short.
Good for morale, that was for sure.
Of course, with all of that said, they weren't the only ones growing.
- Location
- Lost to the Depths of the Deep Web
Why does this worry me?
Artemis
What's a pirate's least favourite letter?
- Location
- The Seven Seas
It shouldn't worry you, it should excite you. Very much so.
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
I think that's referring to the Shroud.
- Location
- Kansas
So, have you come up with a design for a fully functional Shoud flagship to guard and guide the Compact fleet?
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
Personally, I'm wondering what the Compact will be using for FTL, since long-duration Warp jumps just aren't an option for them. Maybe something like the Tau method, where they skim on the border between the Warp and realspace? Or maybe something else entirely, derived from the Shroud?
WarriorServent
Friendly Lurker
- Location
- My Chair
Umm, it explicitly says that it is an experimental Tau device, as opposed to the Gravitic Drives that the Tau are famous for.
Also, is anyone else getting Homeworld vibes off of the Lightchaser?
- Location
- Behind you
Its the shroud thats also growing, not any extraneous entity.
- Location
- USA
Ha, hopefully you don't meet Red.
Verthantine
You have my attention.
Would this count as a Human Craftworld? 
Putting everyone's eggs into one basket was rejected.Would this count as a Human Craftworld?
Verthantine
You have my attention.
"Plan C mixed the two. A small fleet of large vessels, each one intended to hold two hundred and fifty million people, with the industrial capacity to match."
250 million is still a sizable chunk of people with a city and industrial capacity, its pretty much a mini craftworld I think :O
Not really. Craftworlds are thousands of miles long and made to hold billions of Eldar.
Verthantine
You have my attention.
Emphasis on the mini craftworld then. Also some citation links to the billions of Eldar capacity you're quoting since I can't seem to find actual numbers anywhere thanks.
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Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
Extensive use of Stone AI drones fits with the Grey Goo humanity cross as well; in Grey Goo literally every single human unit is an AI drone with the singular exception of their ultimate unit, the Alpha, which is a giant flying mech-suit piloted by a single human. The most number of humans ever deployed onto a battlefield by Grey Goo humanity is one, and nine times out of ten they just get by with AI drones.
With the Valiant units becoming Men of Stone in the cross-over, that would translate to the AI drones being Stone AI as well, so it makes sense that the people of Sanctuary would be inclined to throw massive swarms of Stone AI drones at things to solve problems first and foremost before deploying humans to back up the drones only if absolutely necessary.
It would also probably translate into the primary difference between Men of Stone and Men of Iron is that the Men of Iron were built for independent self-replicating functionality, sent off to do their own thing under their own supervision, whereas the Men of Stone were intended for regular interaction with and\or oversight by humans. The Men of Iron would basically be this crossover's version of the Goo.
Some things also get a little complicated, for example Ulthwe has shipyards that are located a bit beyond the edge of the galaxy and are connected to the Craftworld via a webway gate. How many Eldar continuously work the shipyards, and exactly how large they are, is very much up in the air, but the answers are probably 'a lot' and 'fucking huge'.
e: This post has some good Craftworld info.
Nyoooom!
With the Valiant units becoming Men of Stone in the cross-over, that would translate to the AI drones being Stone AI as well, so it makes sense that the people of Sanctuary would be inclined to throw massive swarms of Stone AI drones at things to solve problems first and foremost before deploying humans to back up the drones only if absolutely necessary.
It would also probably translate into the primary difference between Men of Stone and Men of Iron is that the Men of Iron were built for independent self-replicating functionality, sent off to do their own thing under their own supervision, whereas the Men of Stone were intended for regular interaction with and\or oversight by humans. The Men of Iron would basically be this crossover's version of the Goo.
No exact numbers are ever given, but Craftworld size is stated to vary considerably. The largest Craftworlds are physically the size of small planets, while the smallest merely dwarf battleships. Some Craftworlds are barely populated at all (IIRC there's one that is basically a ghost ship, with like a dozen living Eldar in it), others are stated to hold the population of entire worlds. Exactly how many Eldar that translates into is up in the air, but even the lowest estimates for 'population of an entire world' would be multiple billions.
Some things also get a little complicated, for example Ulthwe has shipyards that are located a bit beyond the edge of the galaxy and are connected to the Craftworld via a webway gate. How many Eldar continuously work the shipyards, and exactly how large they are, is very much up in the air, but the answers are probably 'a lot' and 'fucking huge'.
e: This post has some good Craftworld info.
Do a Necron and whip up some inertialess drives
Nyoooom!
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Iyanden was once among the most populous of the craftworlds – its wraithbone spires and crystal domes echoed to the voices of billions of Eldar as they went about their lives, believing themselves equal to any threat the universe might have in store. But such arrogance always leads to tragedy. Eventually, the craftworld drifted into the path of a tendril of Hive Fleet Kraken. Unprepared for the ferocity of the Tyranids, Iyanden suffered greatly, countless Eldar devoured to feed the fathomless hunger of the hive fleet. Only the return of the exiled Prince Yriel and his Corsair fleet saved the craftworld from being completely annihilated. Even so, the damage had been done. Where there had once been a teeming world-scape in space, there now drifted a ghost ship.
The spirits of those killed by the Tyranids were preserved within Iyanden's infinity circuit, and it is from this well of souls the craftworld replenishes its decimated ranks. Were it not for the direst necessity, the seers of Iyanden would leave their ancestors to rest, for the process of creating a ghost warrior is akin to necromancy in the Eldar mind. The dead of Iyanden are trapped in an eternal cycle of war, martyrs to the future just as they were in years long past. Yet with these indomitable heroes fighting at their side, the warhosts of Iyanden may rise again from the fires of their demise.
The spirits of those killed by the Tyranids were preserved within Iyanden's infinity circuit, and it is from this well of souls the craftworld replenishes its decimated ranks. Were it not for the direst necessity, the seers of Iyanden would leave their ancestors to rest, for the process of creating a ghost warrior is akin to necromancy in the Eldar mind. The dead of Iyanden are trapped in an eternal cycle of war, martyrs to the future just as they were in years long past. Yet with these indomitable heroes fighting at their side, the warhosts of Iyanden may rise again from the fires of their demise.
They're called Worldships for a reason.
Craftworlds are marvels of grace and beauty. Colossal vessels of living wraithbone, they sparkle like jewels scattered upon velvet as they drift through the infinite darkness of space. The world-ships were originally created as spacefaring arks by those ancient Eldar who foresaw the horrifying fate of their empire, and who fled far enough to escape the hunger of She Who Thirsts. Now, each of the surviving craftworlds represents but a small fragment of Eldar civilisation. Their inhabitants are the guardians of their people's culture, history and traditions, striving to preserve an echo of its past greatness.
Through necessity, each craftworld has also become a vast interstellar fortress. Aspect Warrior shrines, armadas of grav-craft and spirit-driven constructs all wait for the time when the craftworld must go to war. Within crystal domes and in glittering gardens, the Eldar live their lives as they have done for millennia, following the ascetic Paths that keep them from falling prey to the same decadence as their forefathers. However, when the shadow of war falls upon them all Eldar citizens will take up arms as Guardians, together forming warhosts mighty enough to conquer worlds.
Mounted like a stolen sun astern of every craftworld is a shimmering webway gate. Linked to an impossibly vast network of tunnels through time and space, this portal allows the craftworld Eldar to send their armies and warriors immeasurable distances across the stars. Thus, the location of a craftworld is little hindrance to its armies, as it remains forever connected to the galaxy even when hidden deep within the void. Yet the webway too is a broken remnant of its former grandeur, and its dangers are many – from the dark kin of the Eldar themselves to the fiends that haunt its shattered spars.
Through necessity, each craftworld has also become a vast interstellar fortress. Aspect Warrior shrines, armadas of grav-craft and spirit-driven constructs all wait for the time when the craftworld must go to war. Within crystal domes and in glittering gardens, the Eldar live their lives as they have done for millennia, following the ascetic Paths that keep them from falling prey to the same decadence as their forefathers. However, when the shadow of war falls upon them all Eldar citizens will take up arms as Guardians, together forming warhosts mighty enough to conquer worlds.
Mounted like a stolen sun astern of every craftworld is a shimmering webway gate. Linked to an impossibly vast network of tunnels through time and space, this portal allows the craftworld Eldar to send their armies and warriors immeasurable distances across the stars. Thus, the location of a craftworld is little hindrance to its armies, as it remains forever connected to the galaxy even when hidden deep within the void. Yet the webway too is a broken remnant of its former grandeur, and its dangers are many – from the dark kin of the Eldar themselves to the fiends that haunt its shattered spars.
The Eldar craftworlds move only at sub-light speeds, for they have grown vast beyond reason, and the Eldar consider their physical positions nothing more than a momentary detail in an eternal journey. Smaller spacecraft, dotted like shoaling fish around a leviathan, travel between the craftworlds by means of the webway.
The webway exists between the material realm and the Warp. Created through technologies once taught to the Eldar by the ancient race known as the Old Ones, its tunnels lead to the craftworlds, to the verdant worlds of the Exodites, and to untold thousands of other locations. Though the webway still connects many Eldar planets and craftworlds to one another, the baleful energies of the Fall ruptured many of its hyperspatial pathways. Amongst the webway's shattered and treacherous tendrils there are many dead ends and mazes. Some lead to places long since abandoned, destroyed or infested by the Daemons of the Warp. The craftworld seers claim there are many secret paths, though only the elegant Harlequins truly know of them. It is rumoured that a transdimensional map was made thousands of years ago, a priceless artefact now kept in the fabled Black Library, repository of all the Eldar's eldritch knowledge.
While some of the webway's arterial passageways are large enough to carry spacecraft, most only allow strike forces of Eldar on foot or small vehicles to pass. Though many Eldar spacecraft can travel through the Warp itself, it is a difficult and dangerous process – to risk a craftworld in such a way would be to carry a candle into a storm of darkness. Webway journeys are relatively fast, enabling the Eldar to transfer swiftly to places connected by the labyrinth dimension, their warhosts bursting from swirling skies and shimmering gates to fall upon the panicking foe.
The webway exists between the material realm and the Warp. Created through technologies once taught to the Eldar by the ancient race known as the Old Ones, its tunnels lead to the craftworlds, to the verdant worlds of the Exodites, and to untold thousands of other locations. Though the webway still connects many Eldar planets and craftworlds to one another, the baleful energies of the Fall ruptured many of its hyperspatial pathways. Amongst the webway's shattered and treacherous tendrils there are many dead ends and mazes. Some lead to places long since abandoned, destroyed or infested by the Daemons of the Warp. The craftworld seers claim there are many secret paths, though only the elegant Harlequins truly know of them. It is rumoured that a transdimensional map was made thousands of years ago, a priceless artefact now kept in the fabled Black Library, repository of all the Eldar's eldritch knowledge.
While some of the webway's arterial passageways are large enough to carry spacecraft, most only allow strike forces of Eldar on foot or small vehicles to pass. Though many Eldar spacecraft can travel through the Warp itself, it is a difficult and dangerous process – to risk a craftworld in such a way would be to carry a candle into a storm of darkness. Webway journeys are relatively fast, enabling the Eldar to transfer swiftly to places connected by the labyrinth dimension, their warhosts bursting from swirling skies and shimmering gates to fall upon the panicking foe.
So the Webway isn't actually in the warp itself so Compact humans should be able to use, same for anybody else that gets a Shroud symbiote, that's one method of getting around if/when they find an Eldar gateway.