Or perhaps golden age humans *did* interact with the Eldar? I'm not that good with the fluff, so I don't know how possible this is.

 

A lot of the human colonies rediscovered during great crusade were purged due to dealing with xenos too much....poss eldar?

 

According to the DE codex, the Eldar more or less checked out of the galaxy and "relocated their powerbases into the labyrinth dimension know as the webway..."

So maybe that's where they went in the twenty, thirty thousand years before the Fall?

 

Yeah I always found it peculiar, Old Night came about because of the birth of Slaanesh, yet Humans had colonies all over the galaxy, and the eldar where twiddling their thumbs?

 

Slaanesh starts to coalesce in the Warp from about M25 onwards; it took a hell of a long time for her to grow. The Eldar had been in the ascendancy since the War in Heaven, against the Necrons, their empire growing from after the Enslaver plague almost stripped the galaxy of sentient life. These things happened millions of years ago, so the Eldar have been around a very long time and their empire has had a long time to be built, although a more-functional Webway than now really helped this expansion.
There's also the fact that the galaxy is so big that it would be possible for huge swathes of space to never feel the presence of a galaxy-spanning empire.

GFP

 

Therefore the fact that the Eldar Empire falls right at the end of the Age of strife means that it simply couldn't predate humanity as the snooty spess elfs like to imply. This also fits in with the eldar view of humanity, as they would have only seen the crappy rabble of the Age of Strife rather than the STC-wielding humanity of old.

I think your over estimating human technology and underestimating the eldar, eldar tech is considerably more advance than any STC that humanity possessed

also for much of the latter part the eldar empire the eldar were simply enjoying their dominance. There was no reason to fight the fractured colonies. They were no threat. Those that they wanted to interact with could be easy traded with or exterminated

We know there are many many xenos races in the galaxy, and there were many more before the emperor began his process of extermination, the idea that eldar couldn't be dominant during the golden age (which we know very little about, the imperium is probably far larger and although less forward thing more technological capible and stable)

The eldar are amongst the oldest race in the galaxy. The necrontyr looked at them with extreme jelousy due to their abilities, physiology and lifespan way before the war in the heavans started

 

Well not exactly. The turbulence of the warp is what caused the Age of Strife (and therefore the end of the Dark Age of Technology). To be technical anyway.


It's almost certain that one of the alien species that humanity maintained "non-aggression pacts" with, was the Eldar Empire.


The Eldar Empire was by far the most supreme force in the galaxy. If they so wished, they could have destroyed the human federations, even with humanity being at the peak of their technological achievements.


It's generally seen as the coalescing of Slaanesh within the warp that causes the warp turbulence. The rise in the manifestations of human psykers is most likely a result of the increased warp activity throughout the galaxy (caused by Slaanesh).

It is by no means that simple. The Eldar don't know the future.

OT: The Fall of the Eldar is the underlying factor to most of Imperial history. The descent of Eldar soceity into anarchy is what indirectly caused the Age of Strife and the end of the Dark Age of Technology. The Fall itself is what allowed the Emperor to initiate the Great Crusade and forge the Imperium. If the Eldar never "fell" then potentially the galaxy would be as it was during the Dark Age of Technology, well perhaps not politically but at least in essence. Dependent of course though on other factors, like the Emperor and the Chaos Gods. The Fall not occuring though pretty much changes the basis of everything 40k.

http://heresy-online.net/forums/showpost.php?p=887291&postcount=14

 

Yep. :goodpost:

The eldar were the dominant race of the galaxy even when humanity was at its technological peak. Record from that time are mostly lost from the Imperium, but that does not change that fact. The eldar were around long before humanity and are the oldest major race other than c`tan or necrons that we know of.

 

Actually the old ones predate the Eldar and possibly the Necrons*.

That bit of time is a bit foggy to be 100% sure, maybe the new codex will clear things up... or not.

 

Sturmovic's problem here is that he's placing numbers next to his Imperial and Eldar timelines, as if these are periods that began and ended at roughly the same time. While we can track the Fall of the Eldar in the human timeline, we can't track the Eldar events we know about on the human calendar. We're just not sure when they were doing certain things except where the histories touch, or how long they had been doing such... Except that it was a very, very long time.

 

The eldar were created not long (probably a few thousand years) after the Necrons ascended to their mechanical forms, as did the Kroork (orks). Both were created by the old ones to combat the menace of the Necrontyr and the C'tan Stargods. Each was designed with strong connections to the warp in order that they could have any hope against the C'tan, who can only be harmed by the warp. When the Old Ones disappeared, the eldar and kroork broke apart, building their own civilisations and their own identities. What happened between then and the Dark Age of Technology is largey unknown.

 

The eldar were created not long (probably a few thousand years) after the Necrons ascended to their mechanical forms, as did the Kroork (orks).

Going slightly off-topic but it makes me wonder why the Old Ones created the Orks to combat the psyphobic Necrons/Ctan when their main strengths are their numbers and physiology. I can see why the Eldar were created but the Orks strikes me as odd.

Sure they have their Waaagh! moments but even then, the Orks are by no means known for their psychic prowess and their ability to use the Warp as a weapon as the other races.

Also, for the Old Ones to have used the Orks against their enemies, it would mean they most definitely had a way of controlling the Orks and preventing them from fighting with one another which in the WH40k universe, seems to be something that goes against their nature.

 

As I understand it, the Eldar started using the webway before mankind started on its most basic space travel. However the Emperor of mankind was created and born before the Eldar were introduced to the Old Slann. Also going by the old Fluff, the Emperor of Mankind as a single entity predates any of the chaos Gods awakening, although it was the start of the creation of the first chaos gods and demons that led to the shamans creating the Emperor.

 

Many of those eldar events, such as the War in Heaven, happened before there was a human calendar. :laugh:

EDIT: The Emperor`s origins can`t be confirmed in current 40k fluff, it is left open to several possibilities.

 

No, the eldar were created to fight the necrons, the eldar gods were designed to fight the c`tan.

The krork were created much much later after the enslaver plague began to take hold. They were able to utilise the warp whilst resisting its effects for the most part. The idea was that they would be able to fight back the enslavers I believe, or at the very least, resist them.

They survived presumably because of this trait, and this is also why they are less susceptible to the influence of Chaos today.

 

The krork were created much much later after the enslaver plague began to take hold. They were able to utilise the warp whilst resisting its effects for the most part. The idea was that they would be able to fight back the enslavers I believe, or at the very least, resist them.

They survived presumably because of this trait, and this is also why they are less susceptible to the influence of Chaos today.

Where did you hear that the Orks were meant primarily for the Enslavers?

I'm also quite certain they're less susceptible to Chaos because of the warp beings they worship and their lack of a desire for anything other than fighting, thus eliminating their need for anything else Chaos might offer.

 

Necron codex. It`s written in that order and heavily implied that the orks were brought forth in reaction to the Enslavers.

Given what we know of them, it makes sense.

 

Given what we know of them, they were meant to fight against alien jellyfish? lol.

 

Note Orks are effectively anti-Necrons. They're almost complete opposites. Connected to the Warp, not big on cold logic at all, they're an expression of unleashed, chaotic and exceptionally violent LIFE.

 

I didn`t say that for sure, I suggested it as a possibility. What I am confident of however was that they were intended to be resistant to the direct influence of the Enslavers ie: immune or resistant to possession.

 

It would appear though that the Enslavers are more than capable of mind-controlling even non-psykers and given time, can control even psykers with mental defenses.

 

I am simply saying what I interpreted. It is logical to assume given the timeline and the orkoid nature that they were originally designed to resist the enslavers.

How successful they were in this regard and what role they may have taken during or since that time is not written anywhere to my knowledge, so in truth it is left open. All I said was what I could make of it.

Now tell me, have you read the necron codex in detail?

 

I am simply saying what I interpreted. It is logical to assume given the timeline and the orkoid nature that they were originally designed to resist the enslavers.

Orkoid nature is for them to find a worthy foe to physically fight and to battle them until someone dies. Killing alien jellyfish that do not fight nor have the limbs with which to do so does not strike me as something an Ork would seek out or excel at combating.

 

Again, I assumed a resistance to the enslaver`s influence and possession. Whether they actually fought them face to face I wouldn`t know.

Since you didn`t answer my question, here`s a quote from Necron codex Pg 25:

The C`tan now dominated the galaxy.The last bastions of the Old Ones were besieged and the races they had nurtured became cattle for the obscene hunger of the C`tan.

Some filler omitted

Eventually even the Old Ones, legendary for their patience and implacability, became desperate.They manipulated life into new forms with an ever stronger link to the warp, desiring minions with the capability of channeling psychic power to defend themselves.They nurtured many potential warrior races, and there is speculation that these included the earliest Eldar, the Rashan, the Knib and many others.Millennia passed as their creations bore fruit and the C`tan extinguished yet more life from the galaxy.

From this we deduce that the eldar were brought forth to fight the necrons. A little further, to Pg 26:

The growing pains of the Young Races threw the untapped energies of the warp into disorder. War, pain and destruction were mirrored in the bottomless depths of the sea of souls. The maelstroms of spirits unleashed in the carnage coalesced into the previously formless energies of the warp. Older warp entities became terrifying predators, rending at the souls of vulnerable psykers as their environment was torn asunder and reforged by the energies called forth for warring in the material universe.


The denizens of the warp clustered voraciously at the cracks between dimensions, seeking ways into the material world. The Old Ones brought forth newer creations to defend their last strongholds, like the hardy green skinned krork and the technology mimicking jokaero, but it was already too late. The Old Ones intergalactic network was breached and lost to them, their greatest works and places of power overrun by the horrors their own creations had unleashed.

Most proficient of these horrors were the Enslavers, beings whose ability to dominate the Young Races and create their own portals with transmuted psykers brought them forth in even greater numbers.

From this I deduce that the orks and jokaero were among the races designed with a resistance to the warp entities, enslavers included.

 

Again, I assumed a resistance to the enslaver`s influence and possession. Whether they actually fought them face to face I wouldn`t know.

And yet you adamantly stick to the idea that the Orks were made with the Enslavers in mind despite their nature to seek a fight with opponents to test their mettle against.

Since you didn`t answer my question, here`s a quote from Necron codex Pg 25:

Your question being whether or not I can copy paste bits and pieces from a codex or have I memorized a codex word per word?

From this we deduce that the eldar were brought forth to fight the necrons. A little further, to Pg 26:

No one is disputing that.

From this I deduce that the orks and jokaero were among the races designed with a resistance to the warp entities, enslavers included.

How did you deduce from the text you quoted that the Orks and Jokaero were resistant to the Enslavers, who from the same block of text, are mentioned to have dominated the 'younger races' ?

And the bit about the defending of their remaining strongholds most likely refers to the warp daemons physically deadly enough for the Orks to really shine against, not the alien jellyfish.

: )

 

This is why I believe the Tau are the final creations of the Old Ones.

 

Quite a shitty creation if you ask me, not being attuned to the warp, while having its advantages (ie. the chaos powers not even noticing you) has a lot more disadvantages especially in a universe where almost every race have potent psykers that defy the technologies of their enemies.

Also it's only due to the hidden stewardship of the Eldar that the Tau and the intervention of the Tyranids (when the damocles crusade was called off) have survived for all this time besides sheer luck.

 

The Tau are a cosmic joke in the WH40k universe, they think they're so superior to everyone else when in fact the other races are too busy dealing with one another to even acknowledge them.

 

We know for a fact (by which I mean established canon in 40K) that as a species the Eldar are at least 60 million years old. So their dominance of the galaxy clearly lasted tens of millions of years prior to the Fall, which was very recent in the overall timeline of their existence.

The Tau were discovered by the Imperium in M35, and at that time the Tau were at Stone Age technology. We could assume that the Tau existed as a species for perhaps up to 200,000 years prior this, but that still makes them far too young a species to have been engineered by the Old Ones, who disappeared from the galaxy tens of millions of years ago.

For comparison, **** sapiens (modern humans) only go back 200,000 years and the earliest example of the genus **** is about 2.5 million years old.

 

Tau where found on the very edge of the galaxy hidden behind a Warp storm though, Old Ones could easily take a trip back and sow the seeds of a new race.

 

I must respectfully disagree with the idea that the Eldar and Human empires coexisted, simply because both were the dominant force in the galaxy at the height of their powers-firstly the Imperium is composed mainly of worlds settled before the Age of Strife and that's most of the galaxy right there whereas Lexicanum also describes thee eldar as ruling most of the galaxy.

Secondly in literature the eldar always give the "we used to rule the stars" vibe rather than "we co-ruled with the humans". Furthermore, if the two empires were together or even coexisted then I don't see why humanity can't have avoided the warpstorms that caused the Age of Strife.

Again I think that this is simply a continuity error rather than a deliberate mindfornication.

As for the Tau, I read somewhere that they're made by the Necrons. But they could also be the result of Bender screwing around in Area 51.

 

Did you read the quote I provided from CoTE? It says the Eldar had alliance pacts with lesser races and at that time, humanity was not an aggressive player on the field.

It's only when the warp storms ended (ie with the fall of the Eldar) and the emergence of the Emperor that humanity truly began to have an empire and became a galactic power.

So no I'm sorry but an entire franchise that has been going at it for thirty or so years did not make a mistake which you just so happened to discover while munching on a chocolate bar lol.

 

Did you read the quote I provided from CoTE? It says the Eldar had alliance pacts with lesser races and at that time, humanity was not an aggressive player on the field. .

I never said it was. I do however maintain that the fact that the Eldar had "supremacy inside of the Milky Way galaxy" and "held sway over the vast majority of the galaxy" simply doesn't sit with the fact that Dark Age mankind (which is what the Imperium is founded on) had "at least a million worlds" under its' own control and was also presumably spread throughout the galaxy.

It's only when the warp storms ended (ie with the fall of the Eldar) and the emergence of the Emperor that humanity truly began to have an empire and became a galactic power.

But the Imperium mainly retook already settled human worlds (not all of which have been found) rather than colonise new ones. Empire or not, I don't see how that leaves much room for both Eldar and humanity.

So no I'm sorry but an entire franchise that has been going at it for thirty or so years did not make a mistake which you just so happened to discover while munching on a chocolate bar lol.

This is however an undefined area lore-wise of a franchise that's made a lot of fluff changes and u-turns during its' history.

Plus there's no need to be condescending about it, I'm just trying to float an idea.

 

If you want to include time travel, ten billion Old Ones could suddenly show up at the start of M42 and conquer the galaxy. It's interesting speculation, but I really think the warp storms were simply a narrative device to cut off the Tau homeworld from the Imperium for a few thousand years.

 

It's not time travel, the Old Ones left our galaxy, they could of returned, seen what was going on, threw up a warp storm and planted the seeds of the race that was grow into the Tau. That's what I think.

 

I dunno if they could claim to rule/dominate/control the galaxy if they're "Empire" was barely outside of the area of what becomes the Eye of Terror.

 

Think about the british empire.

In terms of population of 'british' people about 95% of them were in the UK. However the british empire controlled about 25-30% of the planets surface.

So I imagine vast eldar navies patrolling via the webway in the same was a the british navy patrolled the oceans.