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Is this true?I've heard a lot about it on other websites. Was it by the old ones? Also, what were they genetically engineered from? Why then, if they were engineered, do they resemble (on the outside) humans?

Yes, by the Old Ones.

From the raw stuff of the Warp and some biological matter. They aren't a GMO like an ear of corn that can also do taxes. There may be some sort of arboreal creature from the dawn of time that was modified by the Old Ones and then hyper-evolved into the Eldar... but, if so, the name of this progenitor (and probably the creature, too) has been lost over the last sixty-plus million years.

They don't resemble humans. Humans resemble them. Eldar are a tall, willowy race with delicate features and pointed ears. They're also several million years older than Humanity.

Of course, most of the Old Ones' creations are basically humanoid, but this type of biological morphism is advantageous across a very wide spread of environments, whereas other, more specialized forms might excel in one environment but be seriously disadvantaged in another.

Did humans evolve from scratch, or were they too altered by the old ones, in emulation of the eldar? Is it also a coincidence that eldar and humans can breath in the same atmosphere?


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Also, although other organisms in the galaxy can be bipedal, none have such similar visually analogous skin, hair, eyes etc. I mean, look at Hrud. An entirely different look to eldar and humans, even if the resemblances are only superficial.

No, 40k Humans didn't evolve, either, nor did the Orks. Iirc they've all got the same origin - the Old Ones. Orks were the first and also the biggest failure (in what the Old Ones intended).
Or rather, while the Orks and Eldar were made to be weapons, humans are a natural evolution of some of the Old Ones' terraforming and genetic experiment process and they weren't the intended result at all - if there even was an intended result.

Edit: I think the Black Library book Xenology states that Eldar are more reptilian than mammal.

I believe the races of Ork, Eldar, Human, and Tau were all engineered by the Old Ones to fight the Necrontyr/C'tan

Xenology is so laughably wrong when compared to other 40K texts on the same races that it should be read as a parody, not as a serious work. It's as accurate as the details of Xenos found in the Infantryman's Uplifting Primer.

Whether Humans are or are not modified by the Old Ones goes back and forth, depending on what you read. I think the best compromise in that is that the Old Ones intended something for Terra, and possibly humans though probably not... but the War in Heaven interrupted and then, ultimately, cancelled those plans.

The Orks of 40K are not what the Krorks of the War in Heaven were. There's 60 million years of evolution (devolution?) involved there, as well as mutation based on the various environments the early Orks found themselves in. Whether or not they are a "failure" is, I guess, open to interpretation. For a race designed as a weapon of war, they are almost perfect.

Neither the Tau nor Humanity were around during the War in Heaven. Humanity had not even developed tool-use yet.... in fact, Humanity did not separate itself from base primates until 5 million years ago... that is 55 million years after the War in Heaven.

Eldar were definitely "up lifted" by the old ones. What that means could vary from made to fight with slight boosts to full on SM level midifications and entire tech profile provided. Either way they were used in the elite strike force capacity in the war in heaven.

The orks were also uplifted but they specifically were engineered to fight and breed. They were even programmed to have their technology imprinted on them so any ork can reproduce the entire tech, culture, etc. How much millions of years of evolution has changed them is a good question.

Humans may have had the starts of modification done to them. Their ability to use the warp indicates they did as the warp was a system the old ones gave the eldar access to.

The Tau as far as I know had nothing to do with the Old Ones. The ethereal however appear to have been engineered by the eldar.

So assumedly the Old Ones changed the eldar's biology so that they couldn't evolve and simplify?

@Hexyn
I doubt that as the DE have evolved from species wide psykers to no psychic abilities whatsoever.

I think, in the case of the Dark Eldar, that's more the results of selective in-breeding.

Given that they are what really remains as the last vestiges of the "true" Eldar (those Eldar living in their Empire immediately prior to the Fall), but were obviously not psychically-active enough to get devoured, it is conceivable that they've simply bred-out the genes required for true psychic expression. There's also the fact that a lot of them are clones... and when you clone a non-psychic you get, unsurprisingly, a non-psychic.

Then why haven't the eldar simplified, or become more complex (maybe they have-have they?)?

They have become more complex over 60 million years, and then, 10,000 years ago, their empire was destroyed and consumed by the Eye of Terror (which they created). Now, they have the surviving members of their species drifting around on Craftworlds or living in far-flung, scattered communities on backwater worlds. Their industrial production has taken a serious step back since the loss of their empire.

Their technology remains very high-tech indeed, being largely a fusion of psychic abilities and technologic marvels. Their plasma weapons are designed to destroy Necron vessels (and as shown in FFG's Rogue Trader game, very, very good at doing this), as the Necrons are their most-ancient of foes.

Being that an individual Eldar can live several thousand years, the time since the Fall and the current era of M40 is really not that long, not long enough to see significant degradation of social and industrial capabilities.

Well some of the eldar have changed. I have no idea what eldar were capable of during the war in heaven. In fact pre fall eldar seem to be capable of leaps and bound more than post fall eldar though how much of that is holding back so she who thirsts doesn't eat them is the question?

Either way we agree that the eldar genetic structure is mutable as the DE have definitely changed it; through breeding or other means.

Yeah sorry I just keep on forgetting that the Fall really wasn't very long ago.

There is the fact, too, that the Craftworld Eldar live lives of stoicism and self-denial, so that they become kind of serene monks.... great power, great responsibility, yadda yadda....

... could be that, if an Eldar wanted to just "cut loose", he or she might be able to just wreck a world with their mind.

yeah craftworld eldar are a bit dumb like that. But surely corsairs, as they gave up all that stuff, should be exploding suns here and there, black holing stuff etc. I mean, they have psykers - thats the reason surely DE aren't doing that - they don't have psykers? Or have the corsairs been too busy hiding in asteroid belts and plundering?

Not all Eldar are super-psykers. though all Eldar are psychically-sensitive. Those who are super-psykers, though, tend to be diviners, rather than Pyromancers or Telekines or other psychic disciplines.

This is not to say that such people don't exist in Eldar society, we just haven't seen any presented in the fluff.

And, also, it may just be that even powerful Eldar are not planet-smokers. Even Eldar may find alpha-plus psykers near-mythical.

So when the Fall happened, were the eldar's psychic abilities greatly diminished?

It also could be that the eldar must limit their abilities so they don't draw she who thirsts. After all the reason DE got rid of all their psykers is that they draw the attention of daemons.

It could also be that the CWE are primarily divination oriented as the ones who left on the craft worlds were divination types. The telekinesis and telepathy guys might have scoffed and been eaten thinking I can destroy worlds what is there for me to fear?

Or it could be as Psienesis says.

Heck it could even be that there were artifacts similar to eldrads staff but millions of times stronger that amplified eldar psykers pre fall.

The details are purposefully sketchy.

We don't really know. We know that the ancient Eldar could do some pretty amazing things, but we don't really know if they did that through purely psychic means or through application of psy-based technology, or a mix of the two... one guy could do a thing unaided and others could do it but needed some kind of device to focus and channel their psy-power through. Like... maybe one guy could put a star out by thinking about it because he was really, really powerful, others could do it if they were really powerful *and* had a Sun-Snuffing Cannon on hand to project their power through.

We aren't provided with much information about the pre-Fall Eldar, other than they ruled the galaxy and their empire was centered on where the Eye of Terror now sits. Also, apparently, they got into some *really* kinky things, and this caused some problems... like creating a Chaos God.

Yeah. Dem pre fall eldar really liked it kinky. And sharp. And giant death ray-ey. And chains and whips REALLY excited them.

And sun snuff vids...delivered "with but a thought!"

All Eldar are latent psychers and can be taught psychic ability, this applies to Dark Eldar as well. Dark Eldar aren't psychic null like the Tau are.

Also, regarding Tau, aren't they a product of much more recent evolution? I mean in comparative terms so young that Tau can't be Old One product and make Humans seem like an ancient race?

There is speculation that Tau were created by the eldar (the ethereals) but this is mainly in Xenology which is basically wrong now.

The culture that is now called the Tau is, by sidereal calculations, only 6,000 years old. When the Imperium first encountered them, they were a plains-dwelling herbivore without culture or civilization.

Then a Warp Storm struck, they were stuck in it for 6,000 years, and when it ended? Riptides, Devilfish and pulse-rifles all over the damn place. The Tau evolved in *significant* leaps and bounds over those 6,000 years... but, inside that Warp Storm, it may have been 100,000 years... or a million. Time in the Warp just doesn't work.

The funny thing is, even normal six thousand years would be enough for humans to evolve technology to that point without stretching imagination too much. How long since we were plains-dwelling nomads? 1000 years since Ghengis Khan?

Sumeria (the cradle of civilization), was theorized to have been established somewhere around 4000 BC. 6000 years from then is where we are now.

Of course, we have experienced a fair bit of upheaval (The Dark Ages, lost of knowledge and tech, etc), so that could have been a factor.

Of course, the Tau could have experienced similar difficulties in their 6000 year life span.

Yeah, 1K, give or take, years since the Mongol Hordes. Genghis Khan was doing his thing in the 2nd millennium AD (commonly accepted birthdate being 1162, died August of 1227).

But, of course, Europe was well-civilized long before then, not to mention the empires of the ancient world, the Fertile Crescent and all that. Genghis did a lot... but he's not the founder of human civilization or anything, and hardly an example of the human norm of the era.

However, technological evolution in the Imperium is hamstrung by the fact that the Adeptus Mechanicus controls all the technology and, most importantly, Mankind has lost certain key sciences developed over the previous 40,000 years from its current time. The War of Iron and the Heresy have really done a number on the technological base of humanity. This besides the fact that almost every machine the Imperium builds is "infected' with fragments of code from Golden Age AI systems that, yes, most devices are semi-sentient. Piss off your lasgun and it might not fire... piss off your Land Raider and you're fethed.

 Hexyn wrote:
Yeah sorry I just keep on forgetting that the Fall really wasn't very long ago.

10 thousand years is longer than humanity has had written language. It's long enough.

Although they as a race are much older (since the time of the old ones was when dinosaurs still walked the earth) and they are still around 40,000 years hence.

 ansacs wrote:
It also could be that the eldar must limit their abilities so they don't draw she who thirsts. After all the reason DE got rid of all their psykers is that they draw the attention of daemons.

It could also be that the CWE are primarily divination oriented as the ones who left on the craft worlds were divination types. The telekinesis and telepathy guys might have scoffed and been eaten thinking I can destroy worlds what is there for me to fear?

Or it could be as Psienesis says.

Heck it could even be that there were artifacts similar to eldrads staff but millions of times stronger that amplified eldar psykers pre fall.

The details are purposefully sketchy.

I remember when all the modern Eldar background was born (aspects, farseers, wraithbone, et al.). I think White Dwarf 127 was the big issue with it. Anyway, back then the situation with eldar and psykers was as follows: All eldar are psychically capable. Most avoid developing that side of themselves assiduously because to open your mind to the Warp is to open yourself to being devoured by Slaanesh. Those that chose the Path of the Seer, no longer used psychic powers in the same ways a human psyker would. Despite the great power of the Eldar mind, it would destroy them. Instead, they developed the system of runes. Runes were symbols of wraithbone (a psycho-active material, grown rather than carved). They let an eldar manipulate the energies of the warp indirectly, rather than by using their mind in direct connection. The original fluff actually described the runes as being like "fuses". They'd channel the energy without running the risk of destroying the Eldar. That's why you had things like Rune Armour and other rune references in the Eldar fluff.

So whilst there may well have been powerful artifacts from before the Fall, perhaps most simply cannot be used without the Eldar being consumed by Slaanesh.

In the original fluff (not sure if this still holds), warlocks were seers who had previously walked the path of the warrior (i.e. they had been part of an Aspect) and when there was great need, they would return to their shrines and, rather than don the former aspect armour, don the shrines special warlock robes, psy-helmet and rune armour. The path of the warrior (aspects) was quite a dangerous one to the Eldar, who are a race of extreme obsessives. Many ordinary Eldar citizens would shy away from that path because of the risk of losing themselves in it. Exarchs were tragic figures who had become so consumed with their path that they would never leave it, slowly embodying their aspect more and more and donning the ancient armour of former exarchs, containing the spirit stones of those former exarchs so that all their experience and knowledge blended. Guardians were actually former Aspect warriors who when there was need to defend the very craftworld itself, would fight. Without the psychological immersion of dividing their mind into the role of the aspect with the rituals and armour of their Aspect, they were no longer quite as effective (or well-equipped), but they still retained enough of their skills to be as deadly warriors as other race's typical soldiery.

Farseers were the last path that anyone would ever take. An Eldar could walk the path of the seer for a time and then move on to become something else (perhaps a wraith singer to craft the wraithbone that their ships themselves were made of), but once a seer started down the path of the Farseer, joining their peers, they would never move on. Eventually they would sit and meditate on future paths for years, even decades, dwelling in crystal gardens at the center of the craftworld, until even their bodies began to turn to crystal, fusing with the wraithbone core of the craftworld itself.

Anyway, just sharing some of what I remember from the early eldar fluff. There were Eldar before that big renewal, in the original book, but they were nowhere near as developed. Old Ones were still Slaan back then (or rather the Slaan were the devolved remnants of their race) and the Eldar were mostly just cruel and arcane pirates. With that issue of White Dwarf, the Fall, the farseers, the aspects, et. al, was born. Best issue they ever published.