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This question's kind of bugged me. They have the capability to make fully functional humanoid robots and mechs, yet they're either manned or they're run by a Soul Stone. Why do that? The Eldar are supposed to be on the brink of extinction, yet they keep risking the lives of their people and their souls in combat when they could probably just as easily just make fully automated robots. I mean, do the Wraith Guard really need to be piloted by the souls of dead soldiers? Do the Eldar have some sort of taboo against using AI like the Imperium does?

The Eldar once had machines doing just about everything for them. Then came the Fall of the Eldar.

Huh. That's a very good point. Nothing has ever shown them to have an aversion to the use of robots, like the support platforms that accompany Guardians. But they don't really use them beyond support roles.

Because grimdark

It's possible that they are so focused on using their mental powers, that something like AI intelligence is seen as brutish and unsophisticated. Everything that isn't absolutely directed by a living Eldar seems to be based off of a variation of the Infinity Circuit that runs a Craftworld.

And like the Imperium, they probably feel that using AI is falling back on dangerous ways, which while AI for the Imperium is remembering a time where they were at the machine's whims, for the Eldar that was a time where they were lazy and decadent, which shows how advanced the Eldar are, if they feel like there would be no other threat from AI usage.

I think they don't trust robots, and are arrogant enough that they think they can handle themselves.

Because it doesn't fit their theme as nature-loving wood-elves.

There is no sensible in-universe explanation. They are a dying race with dwindling numbers, surrounded on all sides by hostile neighbors. They're ruthlessly pragmatic, to the point of sociopathy. Using things like drones and unmanned vehicles should be a regular occurance with a faction thinks "every Eldar life is precious", and would gladly kill a thousand humans to save one of their own.

From this short story hosted on GW's website, I would theorise that perhaps the Eldar acknowledged they went too far with putting everything into the hands of automatons (which sort of did contribute to their fall, if in a roundabout way) and now instead try to do as much as they can themselves - but, in a bit of blending the old with the new, they are now making an art out of everyday work, kinda like the old Japanese.

It's like they refocused their artistic capabilities away from hedonism and towards more productive ends, thereby replacing the machines they once had.

Maybe they don't have the capability? AFAIK, Eldar technology has always leaned towards the Warp, psychic abilities, and their applications as opposed to material technologies which was the unchallenged domain of their old enemies, the Necrons.

I had heard somewhere that when the Fall came, the super-advanced, basically human robots were all corrupted and tainted by chaos, due to their lack of souls/psychic protection. or something.

they were human (eldar?) enough to be corrupted, but not eldar enough to protect themselves.

1.) Attempt to not repeat the histories of the Eldar Empire.
2.) A natural disdain for automated machines (see their hatred of Necrons) while preferring the psychic

Robots are a means to an end. What I mean is that the culture that creates robots sees an important division between means and ends such that ends can be used to justify means. It seems to me that the Craftworld Eldar specifically reject this notion. For them, or at least the ones most steeped in Craftworld culture, there is no distinction between means and ends. Every means is also an end and has its primary worth in its own aspect rather than some external goal that it can be used to achieve. This is why Craftworlders tend to view everything as art rather than artifice. Can there be any greater artifice than the replacement of a living being with an artificial one for the sake of pursuing some goal -- whether taking out the trash or waging war? So no robots.

Incidentally, this could also clarify how they see humans. From the Imperial perspective, Eldar treat humans and a disposable resource in achieveing their own mysterious goals, i.e., we are a means to their ends. But what if that really is just Imperial propaganda and the Eldar actually see you mon'keigh as the drivers of galactic destiny and view what we call "manipulation" as something more like cooperation? Of course, this wouldn't imply sympathy on their part. They would say they simply see us for who we are and respond accordingly.

So basically what I said earlier.

Eldar don't use robots because it doesn't fit their theme within the mythos.

There is no logical reason for them to not use them in-universe.

BlaxicanX wrote:
So basically what I said earlier.

Eldar don't use robots because it doesn't fit their theme within the mythos.

There is no logical reason for them to not use them in-universe.

Sure there is. Having machines do all the work made them lazy.

Being lazy made them bored.

Being bored made them decadent as they simply lived for pleasure.

Boom, Slannesh.

BlaxicanX wrote:
So basically what I said earlier.

Eldar don't use robots because it doesn't fit their theme within the mythos.

There is no logical reason for them to not use them in-universe.

Are you saying that what I posted means "there is no logical reason for them not to use robots in-universe?" Because I think that is totally wrong. They have strong cultural reasons based on their morals and their experience of history. If you think these reasons are not logical, so what? The Eldar find them totally logical.

Dr. What wrote:
The Eldar once had machines doing just about everything for them. Then came the Fall of the Eldar.

Word.

 Manchu wrote:

...the Eldar actually see you mon'keigh as the drivers of galactic destiny and view what we call "manipulation" as something more like cooperation? Of course, this wouldn't imply sympathy on their part. They would say they simply see us for who we are and respond accordingly.

That went by pretty fast

I thought Eldar arrogance automatically dismissed those not of their own as inferiors only useful as pawns.

That's certainly how it looks to humans.

Being used as pawns does not result in very happy Humans. In fact, the opposite would be the result.

I didn't say they wanted us to be happy.

Humans being unhappy at being use at pawns = refusal to trust/cooperate with the Eldar.

I didn't say they wanted us to trust or cooperate with them. They know that would be impossible regardless of what they did.

So they just want to use us? Figures.

okay, so how about this then, why don't the Eldar just use psychically controlled robots? They're powerful enough psychics that they could probably control them remotely if there was some sort of psychic interface. That way they're still technically doing the fighting, but not putting themselves into harm's way.

hmm, I wonder if it would be possible to create a custom Eldar army that does that? The existing fluff would probably support it, wouldn't it?

Isn't that what Wraithguard and Wraithlords are?

Yeah they use spirit stones of dead warriors to operate them.

There's the answer right there then: if you Eldar 'robots' then just get Wraithguard/Wraithlord.

kind of what I was thinking. Maybe remove the gems from them though. Stick some antennae on them or something too.

 Grey Templar wrote:

BlaxicanX wrote:
So basically what I said earlier.

Eldar don't use robots because it doesn't fit their theme within the mythos.

There is no logical reason for them to not use them in-universe.

Sure there is. Having machines do all the work made them lazy.

Being lazy made them bored.

Being bored made them decadent as they simply lived for pleasure.

Boom, Slannesh.

That's nonsensical. Do the Eldar not use toasters? "I must MANUALLY hold this piece of bread over a fire until it's burned enough to be toast,for if I do not, I'll become lazy, and once I become too lazy to toast my own bread, I'll end up creating a horric extra-dimensional god of Chaos!"

Hell no. There's a far, faaaaaaaaaaaaar cry of difference between "I want to make machines that will do everything for me, so that I can sit around and snort coke all day", and "I want to make drones, battle-droids and unmanned vehicles who can fight battles for me, so that I don't have throw away thousands of Eldar lives and continue to thin out my dying species every time the Galaxy decides to take a gak on my Craftworld."

Do the Eldar not use toasters? "I must MANUALLY hold this piece of bread over a fire until it's burned enough to be toast,for if I do not, I'll become lazy, and once I become too lazy to toast my own bread, I'll end up creating a horric extra-dimensional god of Chaos!"

That's how the Path of Baker came to be, actually.