Navis Nobilite

Imperium Nihilius    Factions      Imperium of Man      Adeptus Terra      Navis Nobilite

Background

Navigators are both a Human sub-species as well as a collectively powerful political organization of the Imperium known as the Navis Nobilite, a guild of Imperial nobles that represents all of the Navigator bloodlines or houses of the Imperium. Navigators are a particular form of Imperial-sanctioned mutant who posses the Navigator Gene, which allows them to navigate a faster than light starship accurate through Warpspace. This makes Navigators absolutely essential to the Imperium's continued survival and to all interstellar transportation. All Navigators have a Third Eye, commonly called the Warp Eye which allows them to perceive the Warp and the Astronomicon.

The members of the Navis Nobilite are exempt from many Imperial laws, and even the Imperial Inquisition tends to be careful in the handling of individual Navigators due to the political power of the Navis Nobilite. However, Navigators guilty of treason, heresy or something equally serious are hunted down without mercy. Such affairs are many times dealt with internally by the Navis Nobilite itself before the Inquisition has any reason to act and potentially blacken the name of Navigators as a whole amongst an Imperial population already superstitious and distrustful of them.
organizedEach Navigator family is very close and often very large, and different families are usually allied by marriage, while others are political and economic rivals. Although individual Navigators are not directly employed by the Imperium, every Warp-capable spacecraft in the Imperium has at least one Navigator who acts as the Warp pilot. Navigator dynasties may also have several family branches within their clan, with one branch ruling and the others providing their invaluable warp navigation services. A Navigator clan's private retainers, soldiers and bodyguards can number in the thousands.
Because of their monopolies, ancient lineages, and accorded Imperial rights, Navigator families are usually both immensely wealthy and influential, their power extending to all corners of the Imperium. In particular, their influence on matters of interstellar trade is beyond that of any other group in the human-controlled galaxy.

The Navigator Gene

Whilst ostensibly the role of the Paternova or head of the Navis Nobilite, and by extension the Novators who lead the individual Houses, is to manage the power of the Houses and protect their interests from the greed of the Administratum or the ignorance of the Ecclesiarchy and Inquisition, they do in fact have a far more important role to play.
This role is in the cultivation and protection of the Navigator Gene. Vital to the survival of the Houses is the continuance of the birthing and training of skilled and potent Navigators. However, the competition between the families has also led to each tampering with and altering the evolution of some of its children, in the hopes of creating more powerful and able Navigators with which to defeat their rivals and win more lucrative and farther-reaching contracts.
Over many centuries, these deliberate alterations of the Navigator Gene has created many different Navigator lineages, giving rise to some strains of bloodlines possessing the Navigator Gene in which certain powers, abilities, and mutations are more prevalent.

Type

Governmental, Department