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Something that I was always curious about fluffwise is what the galaxy was like during our current time. Some examples: If orks have been a plague on the galaxy for recorded history and their origins seems to date back to the Old Ones I would assume that Ork Waaghs were raging for millions of years. Why wasn't 21st century Earth's skies darkened by an Ork Waagh or at any time in Earth's history prior to the Great Crusade? Then there are the Eldar. If you look at a map of the loctaion of the Eye of Terror you would see how close it actually is to Earth (relatively speaking). The EoT represents the heart of the old Eldar Empire which we know from the fluff spanned the entire galaxy and was so advanced they could manipulate stars and they were doing this for a long time prior to the Great Crusade, in fact the Great Crusade occurs right after their fall. So why were the Eldar never involved with Earth, why not make it a colony of the greater Eldar empire or more sinister, when they were in the throes of their fall why were they not laying waste to Earth or raiding it for slaves? It's a hop skip and jump from the heart of their empire. What about Chaos? Why no stories of greater demons summoned up in Times Square or Khorne bloodletters appearing in the midsts of the worst slaughters of WWII? Curiously what about Psykers? No Psykers for the early part of human history but they suddenly start appearing later on?

Earth of our era and for most of its history seems so removed from the events unfurling around it and seems odd to remain so untouched up until 30K or so. Of course I am missing a large chunk of Earth's future history, for example the obvious large empire Earth must have had at some point that fell to Old Night and was reclaimed in the Great Crusade but I am more interested in why Earth was untouched by all the predations of the 40k galaxy for so long.

In the 40k universe, humanity in the 20th Century never encountered Orks because the Orks never stumbled upon the solar system. The Galaxy has 400 billion stars alone. Not even the Orks will be in all of that.

Humanity didn't have any Daemonic incursions with Chaos or the like during this period as Psykers hadn't appeared in sufficient numbers yet. Humanity as a whole was not as physically evolved, and Psykers are the main method for Daemonic incursions as it is. In addition, where we are now the 3 Chaos Gods are only a thousand years old or so and probably not scheming/aware of mortal affairs as of yet.

The real question though is how Dark Age of Technology-era Humans got along with the Eldar, yes I agree that needs to be cleared up. Some things though about pre-Imperial humanity dealing with galactic threats have been touched upon. It has been stated that Orks and Humanity first encountered each other during the Dark Age of Technology, fought each other, and have waged countless wars since.

Harriticus wrote:In the 40k universe, humanity in the 20th Century never encountered Orks because the Orks never stumbled upon the solar system. The Galaxy has 400 billion stars alone. Not even the Orks will be in all of that.

But every where the Imperium went, an Ork they were sure to find.

Harriticus wrote:Humanity didn't have any Daemonic incursions with Chaos or the like during this period as Psykers hadn't appeared in sufficient numbers yet. Humanity as a whole was not as physically evolved, and Psykers are the main method for Daemonic incursions as it is. In addition, where we are now the 3 Chaos Gods are only a thousand years old or so and probably not scheming/aware of mortal affairs as of yet.

Yeah, Derek Acorah and Sally don't really cut the mustard

Harriticus wrote:The real question though is how Dark Age of Technology-era Humans got along with the Eldar, yes I agree that needs to be cleared up. Some things though about pre-Imperial humanity dealing with galactic threats have been touched upon. It has been stated that Orks and Humanity first encountered each other during the Dark Age of Technology, fought each other, and have waged countless wars since.

I got this from WD 126

During the Dark Age of Technology, scouts from Earth travelled far through the galaxy seeking planets to be used as agricultural worlds to provide food for the huge hiveworlds of Humanity. They copied the farming techniques used by the Eldar Knights already living on some of the worlds discovered. In a period referred to by the Exodites as The Coming of Men, the Eldar and Human colonists clashed in a series of bloody wars as the Eldar Knights sought to protect their homes from the interlopers.

more here http://www.gamehobby.net/subject_indexes/subject_epic_40k.html

Because the galaxy is really, really big, and earths history is really, really short. There are millions of human colonies that have not encountered another human government or orks or Eldar for 15k+ years. That is longer than our recorded history.

Even Empires that have colonized millions of star systems ('crons and Eldar) have not colonized even 1% of the galaxy, and most galactic races would never have heard of them.

As for chaos, there are a few reasons for that:
1) humanity did not begin coming into psychic maturity until the end of the Age of Technology. That is part of what brought it down.
2) Until recently there have never been many humans on earth. Even hive worlds with populations in the hundreds of billions only produce a handful of psykers. And it takes worlds like that to attract daemonic attention. Earth is/was small time.
3) it wasn't till the end of the Dark Age of Technology/the beginning of the Age of Strive that the warp was once again stirred up enough to be the menace it currently is. The birth of Slaanesh and the evolution of Humanity into a psychic race combined to make the warp what it is today.

Finally, there were incidents. The Shamens, a C'Tan, the Old Ones, Daemons, and the Eldar all appeared on earth at some point. But how would modern humans know about it? Thousands of years go by between contacts. Legends are all the proof that remains, and 40k lore indicates many of our legends may have been true.


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Pilau Rice wrote:
But every where the Imperium went, an Ork they were sure to find.

In a galactic sense, yes, but not on every world in the galaxy. Maybe there are Orks on Alpha Centari, but we would never know, even though it is the next room over in intersteller terms. But they weren't 'everywhere' in the literal sense.

So first, as Harriticus said, there are hundreds of billions of stars in the galaxy and probably nearly as many planets. The million or so worlds that make up the 41st millennium Imperium are like tiny pinpricks scattered through the galaxy with vast distances and thousands of star systems separating each one. So while the DAoT human empire and the waning days of the Eldar empire would have appeared to overlap on a galactic map, there would be no shortage of planets and they could easily have co-mingled, although likely not without some conflict.

That said, before the Fall the Eldar probably disregarded humanity almost entirely, putting them just above Orks in terms of development and regarding them as even less of a threat.

Also the Eldar are not like humans. They reproduce slowly and have technology so advanced there is no shortage of resources to speak of in their society, so they are not nearly as expansionist as humans. While their influence reached to the edges of the galaxy, the bulk of their population probably had no reason to seek out new lands to settle. Up until the last ten thousand years or so, every planet was a paradise, society was perfectly harmonious, population growth was extremely slow if not non-existent, and there was little in the way of resource constraints, so why go anywhere? Only those who chose to live outside the laws of society seem to have really gone anywhere (the sociopaths who would become the Dark Eldar, and the "free spirits" who explored new planets as the pre-Fall equivalent of Exodites).

Further, when you can travel via Webway to any part of the galaxy you choose, you don't really need to set up distant colonies anywhere for trade or exploration either. You can sight-see around the galaxy, anal probe some primitive species, and make it home before the weekend's over.

So in the millions of years after the Necrons disappeared, the Eldar were pretty much free to build their empire as slowly and carefully as you can imagine they would. This would explain why pretty much the entire Eldar population was so concentrated in a relatively small number of planets in one corner of the galaxy (the area now covered by the Eye of Terror).

This is my take on things anyway.

riplikash wrote:

Pilau Rice wrote:
But every where the Imperium went, an Ork they were sure to find.

In a galactic sense, yes, but not on every world in the galaxy. Maybe there are Orks on Alpha Centari, but we would never know, even though it is the next room over in intersteller terms. But they weren't 'everywhere' in the literal sense.

Yeah , I was just using this as a reference, which is quite funny

And this is exactly what has happened, Orks are to be found throughout the known universe and probably throughout the unknown universe as well. The Eldar say that the Orks have become part of reality itself, or as the Orks say 'We are the Orks, we're 'ere 'cos we're 'ere, enuff said'. Millennia ago, a probe was sent out from Terra. Its mission was to reach the utmost limits of the universe. The Techpriests who built it hoped that one day it would arrive back to its place of origin having circumnavigated the universe, or in other words, skirted the edge of reality. This probe is still sending back signals after fourteen thousand years adrift. The signals are faint and the probe is not yet on its way back, if it ever will come back. To the utter despair of the Imperial Techpriests who constantly monitor the incoming signals, many are identified as Orkish. The depressing conclusion for mankind can only be this: that wherever they go, the Orks will always be with them

Something that I was always curious about fluffwise is what the galaxy was like during our current time.

Take a look around you. It was just like that.

One reason Earth can get missed is because we are actually fairly isolated.

Sol is located somewhere between 2 arms of the milky way, we arn't actually inside the nearest arm.

As such it would be less likely to be reached by any normal sublight space ships.

The Eye of Terror didn't exist until some time in the 30,000s IIRC

Early 20s actually.

The Imperium was founded at the very beginning of the 30th millenium and the EoT had been around for a long time by then.

Grey Templar wrote:Early 20s actually.

The Imperium was founded at the very beginning of the 30th millenium and the EoT had been around for a long time by then.

There are contradictory sources about that one. According to most of the recountings of the Great Crusade as a whole, Slaanesh's birth blew away the Warp Storms around Terra, and the Emperor immediately launched the Crusade. If you count the Emperor's organisation on Terra, the Imperium predates the Eye of Terror by that reckoning, since Slaanesh's birth created it.

I am pretty sure it was Slannesh's birth that created the Warp Storms. And once Slannesh had finished eating all the Eldar Gods and started beating off the other Chaos Gods is when things finally calmed down.

Basically, Slannesh gets born, Noms Eldar gods and all the trillions of Eldar which creates a massive orgy of power within the Warp that just knocks everything down, EoT is formed as a result, Gradually Slannesh comes down off this initial high and starts fighting with the other 3 Chaos Gods, this infighting calmes the warps influence on reality and the Warp Storms throughout the Galaxy dissapate, Great Crusade is launched.

It would explain why the Chaos Gods didn't do much during the early part of the Crusade(except steal the Primarchs) They were too busy sorting out the newcomer.

CSM codex 3.5 says that "The Liber Historica Vangelia... traces the birth of the Imperium to the dissipation of the Warp Storms isolating Terra. Around eleven thousand years ago these storms were blown away in an instant. Vangelia links this event with the fall of the Eldar, claiming the psychic shockwave created by the birth of the Chaos power Slaanesh freed Terra from her long isolation and made possible the momentous events that followed in its wake." My underlining.

So the storms were already there for unknown reasons, and Slaanesh's birth, or the creation of the Eye, destroyed them.

Well the Fall of the Eldar was after the Imperium was well on its way, it was about a millennia before the Horus Heresy.

It states in the Eldar codex that the birth of Slaanesh created the Eye of Terror and calmed the warp storms around Terra, since all the warp's excess energy was spent and the warp balanced itself out as Slaanesh joined the ranks of the Chaos gods.

Humanity was to small and insignifigant earlier on, and posed absolutely no threat to any of the other races, if they even were aware of humanity's existence. (I.E if the Eldar waltzed in right now, not to demean our armed forces, we would be obliterated, while when the IoM was created, humans stood a chance against xenos threats.)

DeadlySquirrel wrote:It states in the Eldar codex that the birth of Slaanesh created the Eye of Terror and calmed the warp storms around Terra, since all the warp's excess energy was spent and the warp balanced itself out as Slaanesh joined the ranks of the Chaos gods.

And it states in the Dark Eldar (aka most modern) codex that the Fall of the Eldar was in M31 with symptoms reaching back to M18

Wasn't there also something with Earth/Terra being somehow shielded by some ... warp thingy... that got destroyed when the Eldar created Slaanesh? I really have no idea of this stuff, but I thought there was something protecting or at least hiding terra that vanished with the creation of Slaanesh.

If I remember correctly we're still about 100 years off of Mar's terraforming. Something about the discovery of the warp around this time as well although the first possession doesn't actually happen for a fair few millennia as we don't have psykers until after the warp drive.

Not to mention I think humanity only colonises inside the Sol system, then only ventures out at about M15 or so. Probably explore before then but the main empire is basically just the system. Currently we should be in M3. The Dark Age of Technology also doesn't start until M15 I believe (ending in M25 starting the Age of Strife that lasts until M30). Humanity encounters the first Xenos forces in M18 with the invention of the warp drive.

In short, pick an atom on a dart board then try to throw a dart at it. Universe is a big place and Orks invade randomly and I suspect at this point the Eldar didn't really care about anything but themselves.

Harriticus wrote:The real question though is how Dark Age of Technology-era Humans got along with the Eldar, yes I agree that needs to be cleared up.

Yes, the Dark Age of Technology ended shortly after the Fall of the Eldar. That means humanity and the Eldar were both extremely powerful at the same time before the Fall.

I would not be surprise if the empror, on top of the low percentage of finding earth, used his immense power to shield and concele the presence from outside source

Probably with the help of the Void Dragon, no doubt

Which is kinda interesting since the Alaitoc Eldar would have been
around actively hunting for the traces of the Oldcrons thenabouts;
since the Craftworlds were reasonably being formed up in the last couple
Milennia before the Fall?

Moreso, the reason I believe that humanity was/is overlooked at this time
is because it's been vaguely hinted at while the Eldar where the supreme
diplomats where they were not being tryants over other species (and hence
cooperating/supressing several, if not hundreds of other 'lesser' Xenos
Empires) they were probably trying to contain the Ork rampage across the galaxy.
And since as noted before, we're not really ideally located in our galaxy for sight
seeing, it would likely be on us to find other life.

Stravo wrote:So why were the Eldar never involved with Earth, why not make it a colony of the greater Eldar empire or more sinister, when they were in the throes of their fall why were they not laying waste to Earth or raiding it for slaves?

Considering the webway passes pretty close to Earth, or may have even gone there in times past (since the Golden Throne is a man-made webway gate) there's no reason they didn't come and play around with all the monkeys...

TheAngrySquig wrote:

DeadlySquirrel wrote:It states in the Eldar codex that the birth of Slaanesh created the Eye of Terror and calmed the warp storms around Terra, since all the warp's excess energy was spent and the warp balanced itself out as Slaanesh joined the ranks of the Chaos gods.

And it states in the Dark Eldar (aka most modern) codex that the Fall of the Eldar was in M31 with symptoms reaching back to M18

Well, that makes sense then, doesn't it?

The build up of excess Slaanesh craziness (warp storms) starts about M18, leading to isolation for the human empire. By M31 it gets so big and crazy the EoT is formed and all the storms are blown away. Go Emperor!