Editing NiS/Background (section)

==Warp Travel==
Although warp travel always carries some residual risk, under the psychic light of the Astronomican, it is a relatively safe and almost routine occurrence.  Navigators are able to take massive trade barges across tens-of-thousands of light years in a single jump, and still manage to return to real-space within close proximity to their designated arrival point.  Although it happens, it is only the few and exceedingly unlucky who are the last crew for the graveyard hulks which are occasionally found drifting through imperial space.

On the Eastern Fringe, however, warp travel is a much more dicey proposition.  Near the boundary of human space, the Astronomican's light is dim, and flickers like a near gutted flame.  Sometimes, it winks out all together, causing havoc to those who happen to be traveling the shipping lanes.  Navigator's often refer to this event as a "Soul Eclipse," and Navigators who are used to basking in the light of the Emperor are often disorientated by the Astronomican's sudden absence.  It is not common, but not unknown, for a weak willed Navigator to die, or go insane, when he experiences his first eclipse.  When this happens, he usually takes his crew with him.

With the dim to non-existent Astronomican, the Navigator's natural abilities are severely impaired.  Although they still have an edge over normal humans using only the warpdive to navigate the currents of the warp, their safe operating range isn't all that much greater than what a normal humans can achieve.  Typically, near the fringe, a Navigator or normal human can safely jump 5-10 light years, and even these jumps are more risky than the many-thousand light year jumps in the segments surrounding Terra.  

By making these short jumps, or "skips," a ship can reorient itself and navigate effectively, but each skip increases the time and danger of the journey, because the most dangerous portion is entering and leaving warp space.  When doing either, one can never be exactly certain what conditions will be like on the other side, and many of an unlucky captain has skipped up into a warp eddy, or skipped down into an asteroid shower.  To make matters worse, pirates know as Skip Raiders often wait at popular drop points to ambush ships as they come in out of warp space.  Although they are hunted relentlessly, they usually avoid capture, because after making their raid they flee to the other side of the Ultima line, past which Imperial vessels wont travel.