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2015/04/24 05:41:07
Subject: who won the war between eldar and necrons?
Well, Xenology is a text-book definition of "unreliable narrator"... nothing in that book is meant to be taken seriously (since both the Tech-Priest writing the documents and the Inquisitor observing him are stark, raving mad)...
... and the Necrons are still a super-ancient evil culture fully in possession and command of Super-Science! weapons and devices, making up for their complete lack of psychic abilities through means of technologies that appear to be magic to the uninitiated (read as: Mankind).... but they aren't really Lovecraftian at all. The C'Tan are no longer in control of most of the Dynasties. They're still a growing peril, as more and more Tomb Worlds awaken, but it's not quite the Rise of R'lyeh.
It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised.
2015/04/24 17:29:38
Subject: who won the war between eldar and necrons?
Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote: Alaitoc are the only ones who believe the necrons represent an actual threat. Every other craftworld still know who they are, they just think the dynasties are so far gone they don't matter.
The eldar mythic cycles represent the MYTHOS of the eldar, which they tie into current events as allegorical comparisons. For the eldar to COMPARE the Necron war with the war in heaven is viable, but the mythos surrounding their creation and their gods (who did and still do exist) cannot be mistaken for said war, that would mean the old ones and necrons are their gods, and that is nonsense. He eldar are even the only ones who know the origen of the C'tan ( it's in the black library according to the harlequin codex) so definitely no mistake there either.
Don't forget that the craftworlders and dark kin took a huge amount of material with them when they left, including their knowledge.
There's actually past fluff that strongly suggests the Eldar mythology is a dramatized version of actual past events - the true nature of what happened has been forgotten by the Eldar leading to the mythological retelling. Liber Chaotica pretty much states that the Old Ones created the Eldar as weapons that could channel and manipulate warp energy. With the encouragement of the Old Ones they used their powers to create sentient warp entities - living weapons - to help in wars against the Ctan/Necrons. The Eldar eventually came to worship these warp beings they themselves had created as their gods, leading to their interpretation of the War in Heaven. Quote below - spoiler tags because it's a long one (but probably one of my favorite fluff excerpts out there).
Spoiler:
"Amongst the twinkling stars I saw the dawn of a race I took to be the Asur, though they lived not upon my world or in my time. I saw them raised from nothing by figures of shadow and light - an ancient and powerful race, the first to have ever reached into the starry night, Older than gods, yet mortal and subject to time.
I saw these First Ones leave the star-born Asur to return beyond the sky, leaving their charges to grow by themselves. And how swiftly they did! Though millenia sped me by from one moment to the next, I saw these star-born Asur grow into a mighty and sophisticated culture. I heard their name sung in a thousand psalms of joy and beauty: The Elder - greater even than the Children of Ulthuan at the height of their power. With a subconscious and natural born talent, they reached into the Chaos realm and experimented with magic and sorcery, and their works were glorious to behold.
But then the First Ones returned from the darkness beyond the sky, their strange and vast vessels were scarred and worn, their light dimmed ans shadows dispersing. For I knew that they fought an unending war with gods that were not of the Aethyr; gods of starlight, vampires of life. The First Ones had returned to inspect the Elder and judge whether they were yet fit for the battles that lay ahead.
I watched as the First Ones encouraged the younger race to reach further into the other realm, and with their vibrant minds and passionate souls create beings of power to fight the star gods.
But the battle was long and the First Ones were now few, and as their numbers dwindled, so too did their influence over their young creations. Without the wisdom and might of the First Ones to bind them, I saw The Elder's warp-beings evolve from sentient weapons into living gods, the first true gods of the Immaterium. How I wept when The Elder embraced them as such.
Time moved onwards and I saw the rise of brother heroes, Eldanesh and Ulthanesh, who alone, in the absence of the First Ones, could control the Warp Gods and summon them onto the physical plane. I saw them march to war against the silver-skinned Ygnir, the star gods and their slaves, and I saw them summon the dread lord Khaine, The Elder's mighty god of war, to battle with them. I saw the brothers and their god lead their children into battle time and time again, pitting Chaos spawned furies against the soulless technologies of the Ygnir. But in time, the boundaries between the gods of the Aethyr and the gods of the Stars blurred, and The Elder could not tell one from another.
In their fury, the gods of the and the gods of the Aethyr turned upon each other, capturing or destroying those they could, and striking bargains with those they could not. I saw the forging of the Widow-Makers, the one hundred swords of Khaine, and I watched the betrayal as one was stolen and hidden far away. I saw the end of shining Althanesh at the hands of the god of Death. I was witness to the final battle in which Khaine was almost split asunder by the destruction of that same Death God, and I saw how the endless warfare fanned the embers of Khaine's fury, filling Him with power and driving him into madness. Gripped by unquenchable rage, Khaine eventually turned against The Elder and slew prince Aldanesh.
The numbers of Cahos-beings grew, and all of them seemed mad and predatory. They seeped from the Empyrean in numbers that eclipse the legion of the Chaos Wastes, and everywhere there was fire and torment.
Time passed again and the star gods fled from the daemon plague, taking their silver armies with them into slumber."
Now I realize that's pretty outdated and may no longer be canon given Newcrons and other recent codices, but I think it's pretty clear that the writers at one point intended the Eldar's War in Heaven and the Necron's War in Heaven to be one and the same. Perhaps that's still a driving idea behind the current fluff. Either way I personally like to believe this version because I feel it adds so much richness to the Eldar lore.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2015/04/26 15:08:21
2015/04/26 15:52:00
Subject: Re:who won the war between eldar and necrons?
Nakor The BlueRider wrote: The recon in the Necron 5th Ed codex really made a mess of the background. The Necrons,after beating the Old Ones then betraying the C'tan found themselves too weak to over come the defeated newly created Eldar, so they decided to give up for 60 million years & hope the Eldar died out.
It makes you think what level of technology & population newly created Eldar race had at the time that could scare the crons into going to sleep for 60 million years. It must of been impressive to match what the necrons have been shown to have then & still have now but not good enough to help the Old Ones win.
Personally I stick to the old Necron £ed fluff. C'tan's beat the Old Ones, warp turns into the nightmare we all know & love, the C'tan can't deal with the Enslavers eating all their food so go into stasis til everything calms down. The Kork & Eldar somehow survive & manage to repopulate the Galaxy.
I thought they hibernated so they could wait for the galaxy to be repopulated and then continue their red harvests
2015/04/26 16:06:12
Subject: Re:who won the war between eldar and necrons?
Nakor The BlueRider wrote: The recon in the Necron 5th Ed codex really made a mess of the background. The Necrons,after beating the Old Ones then betraying the C'tan found themselves too weak to over come the defeated newly created Eldar, so they decided to give up for 60 million years & hope the Eldar died out.
It makes you think what level of technology & population newly created Eldar race had at the time that could scare the crons into going to sleep for 60 million years. It must of been impressive to match what the necrons have been shown to have then & still have now but not good enough to help the Old Ones win.
Personally I stick to the old Necron £ed fluff. C'tan's beat the Old Ones, warp turns into the nightmare we all know & love, the C'tan can't deal with the Enslavers eating all their food so go into stasis til everything calms down. The Kork & Eldar somehow survive & manage to repopulate the Galaxy.
I thought they hibernated so they could wait for the galaxy to be repopulated and then continue their red harvests
Yep, this was pretty much it. They went too sleep because the Enslavers were eating all their food but they figured the galaxy would become repopulated so they could eat again.
Pretty much, they saw the galaxy as their farm.
Gods? There are no gods. Merely existences, obstacles to overcome.
"And what if I told you the Wolves tried to bring a Legion to heel once before? What if that Legion sent Russ and his dogs running, too ashamed to write down their defeat in Imperial archives?" - ADB
2015/04/26 16:32:52
Subject: who won the war between eldar and necrons?
Psienesis wrote: Well, Xenology is a text-book definition of "unreliable narrator"... nothing in that book is meant to be taken seriously (since both the Tech-Priest writing the documents and the Inquisitor observing him are stark, raving mad)...
... and the Necrons are still a super-ancient evil culture fully in possession and command of Super-Science! weapons and devices, making up for their complete lack of psychic abilities through means of technologies that appear to be magic to the uninitiated (read as: Mankind).... but they aren't really Lovecraftian at all. The C'Tan are no longer in control of most of the Dynasties. They're still a growing peril, as more and more Tomb Worlds awaken, but it's not quite the Rise of R'lyeh.
Oh well. I guess I'll stick with the Oldcrons and the Oldar, then. Newcrons could have been a great faction on their own, but they pretty much overwrote everything I liked about the Necrons.
It also sounds like the scale of the Necrontyr Empire and their war with the Old Ones was reduced to a single galaxy, the Milky Way Galaxy, in the Newcron fluff. Is that true?
Weren't they always only in the milky way galaxy? I thought they always had been fighting a war that took place in the milky way. Once more, I could be horribly wrong about this.
Irishpeacockz-Blackjack needs a pay raise for being the welcomer to the crusade
Palleus-Write a school essay about Kroot! Pride. Prejudice. And Cannibalsim.
2015/04/26 20:32:14
Subject: who won the war between eldar and necrons?
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Does the new Necron background overrule Xenology? I loved the sense of growing peril in that book, but unfortunately it sounds like the Necrons are no longer some Lovecraftian threat beyond reckoning from the primordial past.
They're a lot more like slightly benevolent Daleks now. Slightly.
So they went from the Great Old Ones meet the Shadows to Daleks?
Waaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrd!
Automatically Appended Next Post:
2BlackJack1 wrote: Weren't they always only in the milky way galaxy? I thought they always had been fighting a war that took place in the milky way. Once more, I could be horribly wrong about this.
The old fluff gives vague hints about the extragalactic scale of the conflict, and Nightbringer outright confirms it.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/04/26 20:33:17
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Does the new Necron background overrule Xenology? I loved the sense of growing peril in that book, but unfortunately it sounds like the Necrons are no longer some Lovecraftian threat beyond reckoning from the primordial past.
They're a lot more like slightly benevolent Daleks now. Slightly.
So they went from the Great Old Ones meet the Shadows to Daleks?
Waaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrd!
Automatically Appended Next Post:
2BlackJack1 wrote: Weren't they always only in the milky way galaxy? I thought they always had been fighting a war that took place in the milky way. Once more, I could be horribly wrong about this.
The old fluff gives vague hints about the extra-galactic scale of the conflict, and Nightbringer outright confirms it.
In what way? the only extra galactic fluff i am familiar with with is the origin of the Tyranids and the exodus of the silent king ( he was leaving and didn't get very far in the millions of years before he turned around going sub light speeds.) the necrotyr, old ones and ctan, AFAIK were confined to the milky way galaxy.
The Emperor Protects
Strike Force Voulge led by Lord Inquisitor Severus Vaul: 7000 points painted
2015/04/27 18:16:21
Subject: who won the war between eldar and necrons?
The Silent King is from the Newcron codex, which limited their FTL terribly. Oldcrons could cross the galaxy in minutes according to the old codex and BFG. Nightbringer talks about a Necron battleship as having wiped out galaxies. It also implies that currently active necron ships are more like farming equipment than warships. But this fluff comes from the days when the Necrons had a Dyson Sphere, the Deceiver could deceive Tzeentch, and the Void Dragon ran the show on Mars, so it probably all got ret-canned.
There is probably good reason for that then, because if that were the case (single ships taking on entire galaxies ) how could anyone else stand up to them?
The Emperor Protects
Strike Force Voulge led by Lord Inquisitor Severus Vaul: 7000 points painted
2015/04/27 21:18:19
Subject: who won the war between eldar and necrons?
GKTiberius wrote: There is probably good reason for that then, because if that were the case (single ships taking on entire galaxies ) how could anyone else stand up to them?
That was kind of the point. The Oldcrons were the looming Outside Context Problem for everyone else. Just like the Tyranids were at the time. They both got dialed back a bit and "characterized" in 5th edition. I haven't bought their newest codices because I just don't like the new fluff--half-assed grimdark is even more annoying than full-on grimdark.
Frankly, I still find Chaos to be a fairly weak and pathetic "big bad" for the Imperium due to that fluff. But since I don't really like Nurge and Khorne and the other two get no love, I'm okay with ignoring Chaos.
Neither. There hasn't been any war between them.
Necrons were warring against the Old Ones, who used vassal races like Eldar and Orks as troops. Necrons won the said war, and withdrew to stasis, leaving the rest of the galaxy heal after the War in Heaven (and the Enslaver Plague).
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/04/28 08:40:36
2015/04/28 02:38:28
Subject: who won the war between eldar and necrons?
Biotransference happened during the course of the War in Heaven, it was not something that came after it. The Necrontyr became the Necrons during that era.
It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised.
2015/04/28 04:30:28
Subject: who won the war between eldar and necrons?
^It was partly how they managed to beat back the Eldar. In the end, the Silent King erased the command codes to give his race, what remained of it, back what sentience and free will they had.
The Necrontyr were the original race, who started the war, and found the C'Tan. The C'Tan tricked them into biotransference to harvest their electro-whatever energies that they found so delicious, then proceeded to kick ass. At the pivotal moment of victory, they turned their guns on the C'Tan, obliterating them into shards, then retreated so the galaxy could heal itself.
2015/04/28 04:54:21
Subject: who won the war between eldar and necrons?
Strike Force Voulge led by Lord Inquisitor Severus Vaul: 7000 points painted
