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right or wrong but based off what i read it would have been similar too Republican Rome, or Medieval Venice, similar to how the Commorragh was before Vect took over. But with Farseer Councils advising the Aristocracy with visions of the future.

As the Fall progressed the Aristocracy began to ignore the Farseer councils and delved deeper into the madness that precipitated the fall.

The Farseers gathered like minded folk and boarded the craftworlds to flee and the rest is history.

The impression i got is that pre fall eldar and pre age of strife Humans were not comparable in technology. The Eldar had a firm upper hand as they were creating and demolishing planets on a whim and masters of galactic travel.

But it was close, humanity was on the cusp of attaining that level before slaanesh happened.

Medieval Venice sounds about right. Loose confederacy of noble houses.

Not sure about being ruled by Farseers though, based on the earlier comment about them being reclusive and aloof. Need a ref for that though.

Oh, and humanity lost their tech advantage long before Slaanesh started being a thing. The order of events go Empire and DAoT > Men of Iron wreck humanity's federation > Eldar Empire too busy fornicating to notice, and wouldn't care anyway > Slaanesh born and Eldar fall

Shall need to get the relative timelines to corroborate that, but the moment Slaanesh is created is the moment Big E starts launching his crusade.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Medieval Venice sounds about right. Loose confederacy of noble houses.

Not sure about being ruled by Farseers though, based on the earlier comment about them being reclusive and aloof. Need a ref for that though.

Oh, and humanity lost their tech advantage long before Slaanesh started being a thing. The order of events go Empire and DAoT > Men of Iron wreck humanity's federation > Eldar Empire too busy fornicating to notice, and wouldn't care anyway > Slaanesh born and Eldar fall

Shall need to get the relative timelines to corroborate that, but the moment Slaanesh is created is the moment Big E starts launching his crusade.

As i remember reading it they were not ruled by the farseers, but rather the farseers act in an advisory capacity to the aristocracy.

Really wish GW would make a 40k history book that summarizes and categorizes everything chronologically, i didn't realize humanity was already on the down trend before the fall of the eldar.

Yeah that fits with my understanding personally, I imagine them as members of a Morai-Heg cult of some sort. Religious seers and suchlike. Total headcanon though

I quite like the whole fuzzy dates and timeline thing that 40k has going on. Fits really well with the whole 'we're in a Dark Age where no-one anywhere (not even the Eldar) really know that much about what's going on or what's happened in the past'.

It sort of forces you to think a bit deeper into things, and become a little bit of a historian yourself piecing together the fragments of what we know.

The only way that we worked out that the DAoT must have ended well before the Fall is through piecing together the fragments.

Big E's Great Crusade finally got underway when the warp storms cleared around Terra, which occurred when Slaanesh was born. Before that, Terra (and the rest of humanity) had undergone an even worse Dark Age called the Age of Strife/Old Night which lasted for an indeterminate time. That itself was caused by the rebellion of the Men of Iron, which ended the Dark Age of Technology which was man's Golden Age

Pretty convoluted, but quite a fitting number of Golden Age/Dark Age cycles for such a long period of history

Meanwhile, we have a timeline for the Fall of the Eldar stretching from the first seeds of corruption setting in during M18, and continuing through to the birth of Slaanesh in M31.

I think the BRB has some dates for humanity's history, although I think they vary depending on source. Something like M15/18-M23/25 for the Dark Age of Technology according to Lexicanum

No one knows really. We may learn more in the new stuff coming out as Ynead chose his prophet as the eldar in all the universe the closest to the ancient Aledari Empire type.

As an aside, the Eldar in the Beast Arises book make it pretty clear that they beat up the Humans and the Orks when they were at their height. The Eldar in those books refer to the Dark Age of technology as when the humans were their most people and it is basically said that "We put you in your place at your height, you aren't anything compared to that." If you want to see a little of humanity at it's height check out the short stories of Ol Pierson as he makes his way to Terra in the HH books. They get stuck in some time during the age of strife and he has some good conversations about it. The Ancient Eldar also dealt with the Orks when they made the current (Beast Arises) orks look like nothing at all.

Which HH books specifically deal with Ol Piersson? Also, what is the scoop on Ynnead, and why does his(?) avatar look so Slaaneshi?

From what I understand, the party line is that the Avatar looks Slaaneshi because both Slaanesh and Ynnead are reflections of the Eldar psyche. That's what the racial soul of the Eldar looks like.

However, I suspect they've been a little bit clever with this.

By making is slightly Slaaneshi, it sows a seed of doubt as to whether Ynnead is precisely what the Ynnari say it is. Is it corrupted? Is it an elaborate trick? A false hope? Something more sinister altogether?

I really rather like this angle. Gives a lot of scope for doubt, which is pure gold when it comes to 40k fluff writing.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
From what I understand, the party line is that the Avatar looks Slaaneshi because both Slaanesh and Ynnead are reflections of the Eldar psyche. That's what the racial soul of the Eldar looks like.

However, I suspect they've been a little bit clever with this.

By making is slightly Slaaneshi, it sows a seed of doubt as to whether Ynnead is precisely what the Ynnari say it is. Is it corrupted? Is it an elaborate trick? A false hope? Something more sinister altogether?

I really rather like this angle. Gives a lot of scope for doubt, which is pure gold when it comes to 40k fluff writing.

The similarities are because the two of them are siblings; they are twins, meaning that they are literally the mirror image of the other. The ending that is prophesised is said to be a “tragic salvation” for the Eldar so make of that what you will.

Personally I believe that slaanesh will be tricked into consuming Ynnead. The two will merge into one single God thus saving the Eldar and ultimately removing Slaanesh from the setting without actually removing her.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:


Oh, and humanity lost their tech advantage long before Slaanesh started being a thing. The order of events go Empire and DAoT > Men of Iron wreck humanity's federation > Eldar Empire too busy fornicating to notice, and wouldn't care anyway > Slaanesh born and Eldar fall

Humanity might not have had a tech advantage at all. The prefall eldar also fought their battles with sentient war constructs. They might have been more advanced than the human variety. At least they didnt rebel against their masters.

Brother-Redemptor wrote:

The similarities are because the two of them are siblings; they are twins, meaning that they are literally the mirror image of the other. The ending that is prophesised is said to be a “tragic salvation” for the Eldar so make of that what you will.

Personally I believe that slaanesh will be tricked into consuming Ynnead. The two will merge into one single God thus saving the Eldar and ultimately removing Slaanesh from the setting without actually removing her.

Ah I see. Very interesting

Still hold that it's all fuzzy enough that anything could be the case, like any half-decent fluff. That's half the reason I've warmed to the whole 'birth of Ynnead' thing at all it feels like the older, nuanced fluff more than the whole 'glorious return of a Primarch', 'Imperium are the good guys' twaddle

 Exergy wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:


Oh, and humanity lost their tech advantage long before Slaanesh started being a thing. The order of events go Empire and DAoT > Men of Iron wreck humanity's federation > Eldar Empire too busy fornicating to notice, and wouldn't care anyway > Slaanesh born and Eldar fall

Humanity might not have had a tech advantage at all. The prefall eldar also fought their battles with sentient war constructs. They might have been more advanced than the human variety. At least they didnt rebel against their masters.

Very true I didn't actually mean that humanity had a tech advantage over the Eldar, although my sentence does read like that!

What I meant to come across is that humanity lost its tech advantage compared to the modern-day Imperium