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So, I have always been under the belief that the Fall of the Eldar would have taken place around now in the storyline. However, according to some people I've seen post on this site, and on Lexicanum http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Fall_of_the_Eldar the fall of the Eldar, and the birth of Slaanesh, took place during the Horus Heresy? Now, that makes no sense to me whats-so-ever. Let me explain -

In the current Eldar Codex, it states (first paragraph of pg 4) "that over a million years ago, when their civilization was at it's height" <insert fluff> "All this was to end in the cataclysm known simply as the Fall. The prehistory of the Eldar is lost to time, remembered only in quasi-historical mythic cycles."

Now, obviously this doesn't tell us much on it's own, except a few things to infer. First, this was after the war with the Necrons. (Because if they are fighting the necrons, than they are obviously not yet the dominating force in the galaxy.) Second, we can infer that this happened long before any living Eldar were born, as it is only remembered in "quasi-historical myth cycles" and not by actual memory.

My next bit of research is actually on the following page of the codex, pg 5 under "They Dying" and it states -
"The psychic shock wave focused upon the Eldar, but millions of Humans, Orks, and creatures from other races were destroyed too. Warp space convulsed as a cosmic hurricane raged across the galaxy. The fabric of realty was torn apart and the Warp spilled from the dimensional rift into the material universe, turning hope into despair and paradise into hell."

You would think the Emperor of man would have noticed that... Just saying.

There is another section, in the last paragraph that does state that 10K years before the fall, the warp storms made it impossible to travel the warp, and after slaanesh's birth the storms were calmed, allowing the IoM to once again make contact with these outer planets. It doesn't say how long, however, in between the birth of slaanesh and the Emperor starting his crusade.


So, most of all, I think the largest amount of proof actually points to GW fluff being in a large state of contradiction. However, the fact that it implies that no living Eldar of 40K had been alive during the Fall seems to be the greatest proof to me, given that we know Eldrad is at least 10,000 years old (More so, since during the Heresy he was already a renowned Farseer and had already moved along the paths quite a ways it seems). That, and Slaanesh was openly active during the Horus Heresy, not battling Khaine... (Even if it was a shorter battle, it is still the clash of titans. He's busy.)


What do you think? Did I miss something vital in my short Eldar search, or is GW really just that contradictory?

From what I can tell, the Eldar where created, had a war with the Necrons, their gods had a war, they became a huge empire, and Slaneesh was born. You're right thought, it doesn't really make chronological sense.

And Vect of the DE was alive during the Fall, but he was very young, only a small child, and he survived by not having joined one of the cults... yet.

The Fall itself happened in M31, though the general descent had been going on for millennia by that point (and was apparently the driving factor of the warp storms during the Age of Strife). So yes, it did happen within the same millennium as the Horus Heresy, though obviously before it.

Vect is first mentioned in M32, after the consolidation of the webway port cities into Commorragh. As he's a slave at that point, it's doubtful he was alive during the Fall, though he'd be from one of the first generations, possibly even a captured Craftworlder or Exodite, though if so he was fully assimilated into Commorrite culture by that point.

Nowhere in that Lexicanum article does it mention the Horus Heresy, so I have no idea where you are getting your main assumption (when the Fall happened) from. In this case chronologically everything works fine even without needing to factor in the Warp messing with things.

To clarify, the Fall of the Eldar happened well before the Heresy. The shockwave created by the birth of the Eye of Terror was what drove away the Warp Storms isolating Terra and allowed the Emperor to start his grand unification plans (which meant first unifying Earth etc). He definitely noticed it (I've seen some stuff suggesting he predicted it and had started preparing for it as well). Remember that the Great Crusade wasn't exactly short either.

Yes, in the current background the Fall happened right before The Great Crusade. It's what allowed The Emperor to leave Terra.

I thought it was just before the Great Crusade as well. The great Eldar empire falls and creates a Chaos God, but without that happening humanity would never have expanded and become the dominating empire it is now.

ZeroSamurai wrote:I thought it was just before the Great Crusade as well. The great Eldar empire falls and creates a Chaos God, but without that happening humanity would never have expanded and become the dominating empire it is now.

Technically, humanity had already expanded, they just weren't unified at that point.

Thisis probably a load of rubbish, but personaly I thought that Slaanesh's birth is what tipped Horus over the edge of Heresy...

Yep that's pretty much rubbish lol. Horus fell to Chaos in some secret Brotherhood initiation on a planet which peacefully joined the Imperium (he would undergo the local rituals on most planets which did this to make them trust him etc).

Urien_Rakarth wrote:Thisis probably a load of rubbish, but personaly I thought that Slaanesh's birth is what tipped Horus over the edge of Heresy...

Slaanesh already existed before the creation of the Primarches

The Eye of Terror was created by the Fall. So Cadia defending itself against everything coming from the EOT obviously takes place after the Fall. So the Fall is not in 40k present time.

Other proof: Craftworld Eldar and Dark Eldar developed for thousands of years after the fall, almost all background tells what happened after the Fall.

Craftworld Eldar and Dark Eldar society had become distinct tens of thousands of years beforethe fall.
As for Cadia becoming a bastion after the fall: yes that's right and proves nothing either way.

If you read Codex Eldar and Codex Dark Eldar, most background happens after the Fall. There were no Dark Eldar before the fall and Commoragh was something different then and Vect possibly not even born. And all soulstone business only makes sense after the Fall.

It must have been odd when on Earth tons of people just falling over dead......

The Fall of the Eldar makes perfect sense to me. Not only did the fall and the birth of Slaanesh calm the warp and un-isolate Terra, but had humanity tried to leave Terra when the Eldar were at the height of their power we would have been stomped.

Kroothawk wrote:If you read Codex Eldar and Codex Dark Eldar, most background happens after the Fall. There were no Dark Eldar before the fall and Commoragh was something different then and Vect possibly not even born. And all soulstone business only makes sense after the Fall.

The Dark Eldar caused the fall: Vect just gave them their name. It also directly states the time of the fall.

Yeah the Fall and coming of Slaanesh as a major power (apparently he was less than god type status before cant remember where I read that) was the event which calmed the warp and his rise up till then was the cause of the warp storms.
Doesn't really explain the cataclysm which caused a huge regression in human technology though really. Unless the whole cut off by warp storms just left technology to degenerate and data lost from many STC machines on colony worlds of humanity. Since in Mechanicum the head honcho is excited over just a couple of new STC templates recovered it suggests that even Mars and Earth were hard hit by some event?

Yes, the war with the men of Iron.

Lexicanum is a terrible source, as a lot of the fluff it cites is no longer valid/has been ret-conned.

The Fall happened right before the start of the Great Crusade. Slaanesh's violent birth blew away a lot of the storms that kept Terra isolated, allowing the Great Crusade to take place.

This gets to me as well. In the Horus Heresy books the Dark eldar are a very distinct and established faction, planets that are under attack from the them have been raided for centuries and the people live in constant fear. Yet if the fall only happened just before the great crusade then why would they be raiding backwater planets with their signature splinter weaponry? The Ancient Eldar had no need for slaves as they could shape things with their minds, the ability to build traditional eldar weapons suggest that they would not have yet needed to use splinter rifles. It seems strange that the psychic regression and the culture of raiding simply happened over night. Also the Interex mention that the eldar came to them hundreds of years ago to warn them of the threat of Chaos, yet if the fall happened just before then they would have had far more pressing concerns than helping a subculture of humanity. There are so many plot holes in the fluff regarding the fall it makes it hard to believe. Why is the fall semi mythalogical while the Heresy is hard fact when they happened within 2 centuries of each other?

KorPhaeron77 wrote:This gets to me as well. In the Horus Heresy books the Dark eldar are a very distinct and established faction, planets that are under attack from the them have been raided for centuries and the people live in constant fear. Yet if the fall only happened just before the great crusade then why would they be raiding backwater planets with their signature splinter weaponry? The Ancient Eldar had no need for slaves as they could shape things with their minds, the ability to build traditional eldar weapons suggest that they would not have yet needed to use splinter rifles. It seems strange that the psychic regression and the culture of raiding simply happened over night. Also the Interex mention that the eldar came to them hundreds of years ago to warn them of the threat of Chaos, yet if the fall happened just before then they would have had far more pressing concerns than helping a subculture of humanity. There are so many plot holes in the fluff regarding the fall it makes it hard to believe. Why is the fall semi mythalogical while the Heresy is hard fact when they happened within 2 centuries of each other?

Like I said above The Dark Eldar/Craftworld Eldar/ Exodite factionalization happened millenia before The Fall. The Dark Eldar caused The Fall not the other way around.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:
Like I said above The Dark Eldar/Craftworld Eldar/ Exodite factionalization happened millenia before The Fall. The Dark Eldar caused The Fall not the other way around.

Well it was more all the eldar (except for the exodites) that caused the fall. Obviously the craftworld eldar didn't really cause it since they were out and about in their craftworlds, but the eldar as a whole was the cause. The dark eldar can't be specifically blamed for it. Although due to the life style of the dark eldar, I can see how one would come to the conclusion that the eldar that caused the fall were dark eldar.

Sothas wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:
Like I said above The Dark Eldar/Craftworld Eldar/ Exodite factionalization happened millenia before The Fall. The Dark Eldar caused The Fall not the other way around.

Well it was more all the eldar (except for the exodites) that caused the fall. Obviously the craftworld eldar didn't really cause it since they were out and about in their craftworlds, but the eldar as a whole was the cause. The dark eldar can't be specifically blamed for it. Although due to the life style of the dark eldar, I can see how one would come to the conclusion that the eldar that caused the fall were dark eldar.

Yes, I suppose it's more accurate to say Ancient Eldar caused The Fall but let's keep in mind that culturally at the time Ancient Eldar were most similiar to what we now call The Dark Eldar. "Dark Eldar" is a term coined by Vect.

KorPhaeron77 wrote:This gets to me as well. In the Horus Heresy books the Dark eldar are a very distinct and established faction, planets that are under attack from the them have been raided for centuries and the people live in constant fear. Yet if the fall only happened just before the great crusade then why would they be raiding backwater planets with their signature splinter weaponry? The Ancient Eldar had no need for slaves as they could shape things with their minds, the ability to build traditional eldar weapons suggest that they would not have yet needed to use splinter rifles.

The Dark Eldar don't need slaves for labor, they need them for entertainment. Likewise, splinter weapons aren't some downgrade from their old weapons, but a solution to the age-old question "wouldn't it be funnier if we killed them with a poison that made them writhe around screaming?" (spoiler: the answer's "yes, it would" )

It seems strange that the psychic regression and the culture of raiding simply happened over night. Also the Interex mention that the eldar came to them hundreds of years ago to warn them of the threat of Chaos, yet if the fall happened just before then they would have had far more pressing concerns than helping a subculture of humanity.

I assume the Craftworlders were just as eccentric then as they are now.

There are so many plot holes in the fluff regarding the fall it makes it hard to believe. Why is the fall semi mythalogical while the Heresy is hard fact when they happened within 2 centuries of each other?

It's not really mythological, it's just only the Craftworlders really care about it, and they're rather a rather eccentric and forgetful bunch, so there's not much description beyond "and everyone died [ten pages of flowery angst repeating that] just like we [a hundred pages of flowery angst setting the stage for] warned them!"


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Sothas wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:
Like I said above The Dark Eldar/Craftworld Eldar/ Exodite factionalization happened millenia before The Fall. The Dark Eldar caused The Fall not the other way around.

Well it was more all the eldar (except for the exodites) that caused the fall. Obviously the craftworld eldar didn't really cause it since they were out and about in their craftworlds, but the eldar as a whole was the cause. The dark eldar can't be specifically blamed for it. Although due to the life style of the dark eldar, I can see how one would come to the conclusion that the eldar that caused the fall were dark eldar.

Both the exodites and craftworlders were tiny, radical minorities. They're basically Space Amish and something like Space Sea-Steaders (the libertarians who think they can escape the "tyranny of taxes" by building ridiculous houseboats out of old two liters and living on the ocean, only the Craftworlders' gripe was with with decadence and hedonism instead of taxes), respectively. The "Dark Eldar" are the ones who happened to be in the webway when it happened, and decided that the destruction of their was terrible and stuff, but decided the best recourse was to keep partying. Their title is just the result of Vect's Darker and Edgier PR campaign.

The Eldar empire was vast. As they become more decedent and complacent, they ignored the emergence of other species around them. Namely humans.

It's during this time that humans originally left earth and started expanding their own empire. However, as the Eldar became more and more decedent, the warp storms grow in ferocity. Eventually they remove the ability for humans to travel the stars from planet to planet.

This causes the decent of mankind. This could all be going on for who knows how long.

Eventually, after the pressence in the warp is strong enough, slaanesh is born as a chaos god. During her birth, the Eldar civilization is wiped out and the warp storms abate. This allows humanity to begin to travel the stars again.

It is believed the emperor saw this coming in advance and had begun working on the primarch project and planning for the great crusade.

It's clear that the primarchs had to come after slaanesh was born simply because we know Slaanesh gained control over the Emperor's Children. Now it's possible as Slaanesh grew in power, maybe the primarchs were launched and she tainted him at this point. Nothing to say one way or the other.

All we know is before the warpstorms, mankind was exploring the universe. At some point they couldn't which caused them to lose much of what they had accomplished. Eventually the storms left, the crusades started, and the emperor reunited humanity.