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The eldar are an interesting lot, but morally, where do they stand?


As I understand it, craftworld saim hann is pretty barbaric, where other craftworlds are very calm.
opinions?

While morality as in good and evil is a flawed concept to begin with, there aren't any good guys in 40k. The Eldar in particular lean towards genocide of "lesser" species.

"Morally" they stand on the side of the Eldar. Whatever is necessary to allow the species to continue is undertaken. They might be nice to other races, but only if it doesn't conflict with the survival of the species, or indeed harm to any specific Eldar individual. They're certainly not "nice" for the fun of it.

If you split 40k into order / disorder , the space elves land on the order side of things.
But thats the best that could be said. Want to be mislead? Let an Eldar guide you.,...

I put other but only because no race can consider themselves good, they are all GrimDark

I consider Craftworld Eldar disciplined people who focus their lives on paths for strength and comfort...

As a whole their leaders are almost incorruptible, but only through not exposing themselves to others.

They tend to consider more to the afterlife than their current ones, so to them, they approach life with a zealotry in that the real concern is for the souls, not lives.

So what makes one good? Do they randomly kill others? No, they consider that wasted effort. But if need be, there is little discomfort in death and killing because they "know" there is an afterlife.
Are they principled? Yes from leader to leader and person to person...but they do have scoundrels as well...

I consider the Eldar to be one of the ancient evils that threatens the entirety of humanity and, ultimately, of all sentient life in the galaxy. Their depravity created the Eye of Terror and one of the four major chaos gods, and they've been practicing wholesale genocide to preserve their paltry existence ever since. They might not be as efficient as the necrons or the tyranids, but they are every bit as self-serving and malevolent.

The way I see eldar is "do what it takes to survive" I guess good and evil are silly concepts... more rather order and disorder.... they sit on the fence, to protect their souls

There is no good and evil in 40k. There is only survival.

It's like asking whether the lion or the gazelle is the good guy.

I don't consider anyone in 40K to be 'good guys'.

Not necessarily good, but for sure more so than the Imperium. They're more than willing to wipe out a planet to save one Eldar life, but they don't go around crusading and committing genocide just for fun. It's always for the survival of the species.

Everything the Eldar do has to do with the survival of their species. They don't have strict allies or enemies, just whoever threatens them the most at the time. The Eldar don't like humans, but they would try hard as hell to save Terra if it was about to be destroyed because they know the Imperium is the only thing stopping Chaos from slaughtering everything. Including the Eldar.

So, the Eldar are an odd species to try and put on the "Good or Bad" scale. I would put them leaning more towards good, if only because they only commit mass genocide when they absolutely need to in order to protect Eldar lives. If you stay out of their way and don't piss them off, they will leave you alone for the most part

DaddyWarcrimes wrote:
Their depravity created the Eye of Terror and one of the four major chaos gods, and they've been practicing wholesale genocide to preserve their paltry existence ever since.

This. As one of my DE-playing friends put it:

"Oh gak, we partied to hard, we've created a monster, what're we going to do?!"

"Party harder, man!"

The only good guys in 40k are the Tau, and even that's debatable. Eldar are as "good" as Space Marines.

Yup, only the Eldar would have the sheer gall to rip a hole in the universe with their party, then stage an after-party immediately after in the Webway for those who wanted to party HARDER


Eldar aren't the good guys. No-one is. Using D and D black-and-white alignments in 40K doesn't work on some of the races as well as on others. They run the gamut from CE to LG, sometimes with the same individual..

Eldar are a noble, beautiful, ethereal and highly psychic dying race clinging desperately to survival while practising denial of self and dulling their emotions to avoid getting soul-slurped by Slaanesh.

They are also a bunch of racist, genocidal asshats who think they know better than anyone else what needs to be done, keep reminding everyone that they once ruled this galaxy, and couldn't give two short feths about any other race out there.

They would happily see the whole universe burn if it meant that the Eldar survived, and would do it themselves if they were able.

Or not. Hard to tell with Eldar They're like that.

The eldar are the Leichtenstein of the 40k world. A family masquerading as a nation-state in a tiny locale that basically stays to itself and isn't terribly relevant to most of the things going on around it.

The most that they do is spoil things to serve their own ends, but it would be hard to say that they're either good or evil.

They are xenos, thus they are evil.

There is no good or evil.... there never really has been... its all about which side you are looking at it from. That said 40k is grimdark and all its inhabitants are such as well

There is no "pointy 'eaded gitz dat wouldn't know a proppa foight if it kicked em in da zoggin arse." option.

This poll is therefore incomplete, misleading, and inaccurate.

Also, they're manipulative, as racist as the imperium, cowards, and have horrible fashion sense. Probably the most evil faction in the game. I mean, they made a friggin CHAOS GOD. That speaks volumes for how evil those pointy headed gitz are.

Also, I like Ailaros's explanation. It's pretty spot on too.

I'd definitely consider them the good guys. They have been battling the eternal evil aka C'tan / Necrons since the very beginning of their people and despite them knowing they will fail, they still keep it up. Pretty "good" if you ask me

To be fair, the Necrons were down for a very long dirtnap there, during which the Eldar became self-serving a-holes, trashed their empire and the few that survived in realspace basically woke up the next morning with a fierce hangover muttering ' yeah... necrons suck too, daddy said so... '

The newcrons stopped being eternal evil too :( I liked the oldcron version better

Would you consider the Orks good also, then? They were created to fight the crons, and have been fighting them, and everyone else, since. As the vast majority of races in 40K are evil that ought to make them the 'good guys' for smacking these evil gitz down throughout all history.

Everyone worth a cent just does not acknowledge the "new" Necron fluff.

No, Orks are more Chaotic Evil-ish, similar to Necrons. They are weapons that have gone loose cannon and they rather smack everything and not just the bad ones ;D

Eldar, however, were the very first race created by the Old Ones before they were utterfly destroyed after crying like little girls, praying to the Nightbringer to grant them mercy...that they never got.

Also, iirc, weren't Orks created by small particles in space brought to the world of WHFB that then grew and then persisted into 40k? Might be blurry here, don't know much about Orks :/

Eldar are neither good or evil, since what they do they do to benefit their own race. They are, if anything, very selfish. The Eldar would have no qualms wiping out an Imperial Planet to save a few of their own race, but the same is true for an Ork Planet or that of any race.

 Sigvatr wrote:
I do not acknowledge the "new" Necron fluff.

Fixed that for you. Sweeping statements like that generally aren't a very good way to come across as sensible.

Ork fluff has been retconned about all over the place.

Hard to tell really

Kind of like the old fluff hinting that Sigmar from WHFB was in fact a Primarch.

I'd put Orks as CN personally. Sure, they want to push your face in, but it's all in good fun Maybe a very cheerful CE.

Orks are definitely CN cause they just wannaz haz fun*

*fun may cause dismemberment and/or death

Eldar are other...other being dependent on do you think it is morally wrong to put down a rabid dog? If yes then evil, if no then good cause to the eldar everybody else is a rabid dog running around looking for scrapes and ready to possibly bite them.

The eldar are as relevant as the illuminati...if you believe conspiracy theories then they are in every major event, if not then they have never done anything. For all we know the horus heresy was caused due to the eldar; causing the death of a maid, who would have cleaned a portrait, that would have inspired a terran, to brush his teeth that would have caused him to be late to work, where he would have gotten the emperor his coffee, that would have let the emperor give horus a slightly different gene pattern, which would have made horus less susceptible to prideful corruption... you get it? The eldar are everywhere and in everything and if you don't see it then you need more marijuana cause it will enlighten you!

(I do not in anyway condone the usage of illegal substances. The plot to over throw the major governments and institutions through wide spread drug use by dakkadakka members does not exist and if you believe it does please see your nearest "therapist" -read commissar.)

The search for "good guys" in 40k is about as promising as the search for a Black Power activist in a KKK meeting.

They're not really good guys. They'll kill or cause to be killed billions of humans so a a half-dozen of their own live. They'll commit terrible acts of slaughter and carnage to reclaim worlds their race hasn't lived on in ten million years just because they don't like that someone else moved in. Now, they generally won't slaughter just for kicks and giggles, and sometimes will be merciful, but no, they're a thoroughly self-interested party that is completely willing and in some cases eager to kill any conceivable number of other sentient beings in order to avoid simple inconvenience.

40k doesn't have "good guys". They've got "order" and "disorder".

Evil. I think all the major races in 40k are evil, which is part of the reason I like the setting. (When there are no good guys, it allows the protagonists to be as evil as the writer wants them to be.)

The Eldar are a much more understated evil than the bigoted ignorance of the Imperium or the callous barbarism of the orks or the hedonistic cruelty of the Dark Eldar. Craftworld Eldar represent the evil of apathy. They have damned themselves, and they know it. Rather than take the lessons that the (functional) extinction of their species taught them and build a legacy that would further the causes of life and peace, they cling to their own jaded, selfish existences, decrying the shortsightedness of the lesser races while at the same time refusing to lift a finger to help.

From a protagonistic standpoint, they are the proud last defenders of a once great Empire, doomed by a tragedy beyond their (personal) control. Like a grim sci-fi version of Cassandra, they can see the future, but are powerless to prevent the destiny of their own race: annihilation. From an antagonistic standpoint, they are lazy and foolish, just as foolish as the younger races around them. The main reason, which they cannot accept, that they are all doomed is that they are unwilling to change. The Exodite Eldar, or even the loathsome Dark Eldar, both proved willing to do something drastic and different, and they might survive the extinction of the Eldar people, albeit as descendent cultures (and possibly species).

Great stuff. It plays on some of the same themes that we see with elves in fantasy, from Tolkien to Hendee.

All that is, of course, just my personal opinion. I could be wrong.

ITT: people acting like the craftworld eldar are a single faction with coherent goals, instead of a hundred plus independent states with greatly varying ideas and goals.

The craftworlds possess the only force for good greater than the Imperial Inquisition. They also serve as a breeding ground for corsairs. But mostly they're just civilians minding their own business in the middle of nowhere.



Of course we know the real good guys are the dark eldar. Nowhere do we find so powerful an enemy of chaos so unconcerned with anything that's happening that they'll spend centuries perfecting the art of snorting space coke.

Also, the Eldar are "dying out" less than the Tau are. Quite a bit, honestly, since they're significantly better insulated and armed, not to mention significantly larger. Like, "one craftworld has a bigger population and military than the Tau" larger.