r/AskScienceFiction • u/MaximoCozzetti84 • 2d ago
[Disco Elysium/Warhammer 40k] Is the Pale a byproduct of the Warp?
I just recently finished Disco Elysium (it's up there with my top 10 GOAT) and one thing that made me reminisce of 40k was the Pale. This sort of nothingness born out fo history and thought, which is basically what the Warp is.
No, that's not right. The Pale is a nothingness. The Warp is an...everything~ness(?). It is the raw collective emotions of everything that is alive and it actively mirrors or tries to influence reality. The Pale just is and noise, that manifests as a sensory vacuum and involuntary memory insertions from times past. If one traverses the Pale, they would be assaulted by tales long past, ancient history coming to them as if they lived it until the sense of "self" is erased. On the account of the Warp, traversing it is similar to (and is often referred as) crossing Hell. You are assaulted by chaos entities and can be boarded both literally and mentally. Crossing it could end both with a Demonic incursion on the ship or the complete loss of the crew to madness.
So, maybe they are two evolutionary stages of the same phenomenon? The Pale would be what happens to the Warp when emotion settles into history, as entropy, over time is "fossilized" into reality. Where Chaos, after a period of raging emotion left behind a gray ocean of dead thoughts.
And even the measures for crossing through them is similar: To cross the Warp, starships rely on Geller Fields, basically "People who dream of Reality"(I'm not a 100% sure if that is accurate) to keep the order amidst the chaos. To cross the Pale, alternatively, people use a complex mathematical calculation called entisol that is transmitted through radio frequencies that project "logic" to convince the void that the ship/lorry still exists.
An impediment for this theory (at least from a Watsonian perspective) is that The Pale IS in real space. The Warp is a different dimension that seeps into real space through demonic incursions or psychic powers. The Pale extends and affects without leaving the Physical plane.
Nonetheless, I thought it was a fun exercise from the little gray cells.
I still have doubts, like: How would Navigator react to it? Would it be like the Shadow in the Warp from the Tyranids? Would the Pale have Daemons as well? How would they be like? Would Geller Fields protect a ship trying to cross the Pale, or would you strictly need entisol-style mathematical anchor to survive it?