Cryo-Stasis

Cryo-stasis refers to the technologies of suspended animation and frozen time by which the Imperium and other powers preserve the living, the dead, and precious relics across the ages. In its simplest form, cryogenic freezing slows the processes of life almost to a halt, allowing warriors, crew, or colonists to sleep away centuries of a long voyage or await the hour of their need. More advanced stasis fields go further still, halting time within their bounds entirely, so that whatever they enclose neither ages nor changes for as long as the field endures.

Such technology has many uses. Ancient heroes and irreplaceable artefacts are sealed in stasis to preserve them perfectly for future generations, while stasis chambers aboard starships carry sleeping passengers through the long dark between worlds. A body held in true stasis can be kept indefinitely, untouched by decay, exactly as it was at the moment the field was raised.

The most striking example of long sleep belongs to the Necrons, who slumbered for aeons within their tomb worlds before awakening to reclaim the galaxy. Within the Imperium, the rare and closely guarded science of stasis is overseen by the Adeptus Mechanicus, who wield it to safeguard their most treasured relics. To halt time itself is among the most wondrous and unsettling powers that technology can command.