The Imperium of Man is spread impossibly thin across an estimated two-thirds of the entire Milky Way Galaxy. The volume of space claimed in the name of the Emperor of Mankind contains hundreds of millions of stars, many host to their own planetary systems, and yet there are only an estimated million or so Planetary Governors occupying the thrones of the Imperium’s worlds. While it is true that some governors rule not just a single planet but an entire star system, and that other worlds have no governor at all, the fact is that the Imperium is stretched so thinly across the void that an interstellar traveller could make his way from one edge to the other, traversing a hundred thousand light years of space, and not once cross paths with a human being.