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Hear me out. Many people think the Tyranids, Chaos worshipers, or Necrons are the greatest threat in the universe but that is false.

The greatest evil is the Craftworld Eldar. The reasons for them are listed here:

1.) They hate humans and certain craftworlds live to only restore the evil Eldar Empire
2.) They pose a greater threat than the Tyranids because of their advanced technology.
3.) Unlike all other Xenos they can threaten Holy Terra without warning. An Eldar Craftworld could appear out of nothing-ness from a webway next to Terra. (Dark Eldar could as well but they don't posses large fleets like craftworld Eldar.)
4.) They possess immense physic powers that can overwhelm any non-Xenos
5.) Inherently imperialist, arrogant, and aggressive - this is the Eldar way.

They are a ticking time bomb as they conspire to retake the galaxy and ensalve humanity. The threat is so great that the Imperium should drop all their operations against Chaos, Orks, Necrons, and even Tyranids to hunt down and slaughter every single craftworld and obliterate them.

Of course, ideally humanity or the imperium of man would want all Xenos exterminated without mercy but the Eldar should be the first. Who agrees?

There dying, there numbers decrease.

The tyranids have nommed a few and inflicted huge loss,s on the dying empire.

To try and attack Terra is a suicide mission, soon as drop out of web way every gun will lock on and fire hundreds if not thousands of lances, torpedoes are fired upon the invader.

Terras defences are paranoia in the extreme.

As you point out, Eldar are a ticking time bomb. Sure, they don’t care for humanity, and cleansing them is on their
to-do list. Somewhere after “not getting exterminated”. Orcs, Chaos, Nids are all trying to kill humanity right now. None of this ticking part of the bomb. They are actively exploding all over the place. And as part of the Eldar’s not getting wiped out plans, sometimes they save some humans. Other times they throw them under the bus, but what do you expect from a bunch of xenos scum?

It's worth remembering that Eldar do help the Imperium fight things like Chaos and they're pretty powerful allies when they do so they're worth keeping around and if you consider how hard actually invading a Craftworld is it seems more worthwhile just to ignore them. In addition a lot of the things the Eldar do involve changing the future so from the Imperium's perspective they may not seem as huge a threat as they do to us as outside viewers.

I'd also say it's a bit of an exaggeration to call them expansionist and imperialist as their main goal is to survive and at the end of the day trying to destroy the Imperium would just ruin them.

Some like Biel Tan might be 'time bombs' but at the end of the day the Eldar being able to wipe out the Imperium is a LONG way off and there are threats like Tyranids to focus on right now so leaving the Eldar alone is just easier.

Hear me out. Many people think the Tyranids, Chaos worshipers, or Necrons are the greatest threat in the universe but that is false.

The greatest evil is the Craftworld Eldar. The reasons for them are listed here:

1.) They hate humans and certain craftworlds live to only restore the evil Eldar Empire
2.) They pose a greater threat than the Tyranids because of their advanced technology.
3.) Unlike all other Xenos they can threaten Holy Terra without warning. An Eldar Craftworld could appear out of nothing-ness from a webway next to Terra. (Dark Eldar could as well but they don't posses large fleets like craftworld Eldar.)
4.) They possess immense physic powers that can overwhelm any non-Xenos
5.) Inherently imperialist, arrogant, and aggressive - this is the Eldar way.

1. So do every other race. Crons see humanity as literal vermin. Invalid reason for them to be #1 on the threat list.
2. No, they do not. Crons have equal if not better tech, nids and orks outnumber them by trillions and are galaxy wide. Chaos is utterly insidious to humanitys survival.
3. Wrong. Crons have already landed on Mars, arguably the second most defended planet in iom. No known webway portal near Terra of a size to house a craftworld written in fluff.
4. How does this make them a #1 threat. Also Sitw.
5. Who isnt in 40k.

Tl;dr
Disagree completely with your thesis

The Eldar aren't a time bomb, they're a damp fart that's dropping in potency and volume.
There are far more pertinent threats and the Eldar help often too.

You trollin' us, dawg.

Eldar are strong, but there are so few of them they are almost completely insignificant on a galactic scale compared to the Imperium, Chaos, Orks, Necrons or Tyranids.
And besides, the Eldar are dying out. The Imperium just has to wait and the Eldar will go extinct without any effort.

While theoretically they could launch such a devastating attack, so many eldar lives would be lost it would not be worth smiting comparatively so few mon keigh.

However I would presume skilled farseers could see that the Emperor is actually combating the powers of Chaos in the warp, so they wouldn't really want to destroy him.

I...

You....

The f...

What?

The Eldar are so far removed from being the greatest threat to mankind it isn't even funny. Hell many Craftworlds are allies of the Imperium during the Thirteenth Black Crusade. They also don't have to firepower to assault Terra, which is manned with insta-gibbing ship killers on Luna and torpedo tubes filling the system to the brim.

They also would never try it, as the Eldar have zero motivation to attack mankind in such a ludicrous manner. Plus as their souls have been claimed by Slaanesh, the craftworlds are never recovering.

Eldar are only really strong in the game, and in this edition. In the fluff they're dying, small bands fighting for survival. Plus if the IOM focuses on these small bands which will still take quite an effort they would easily get overrun by every other race taking advantage of them diverting their forces.

Aren't necrons the biggest threat? I think that they could have an empire that rivals the imperium in scale, it's just asleep right now...

Yeah, the problem is that a lot of necron tomb world's could be broken or the crons inside are damaged from the sleep. There's also the fact that the necrons will also fight each other as well. Tyranids are the biggest threat IMO, if more bugs with higher numbers are coming, we are kinda screwed. Chaos is scary and all, but as long as they can't get out of the Eye of Terror (thanks Abbadon) we should be fine from the majority of their armies.

This level of shared opinion on Dakka is unprecedented.

When times look dark, we should remind each other about this thread and how we're all not that different.

Eldar are super protective of craft worlds so I doubt they'll just plop one next to the single most well protected region of space that is home to not just the adeptus custodes, but a stone's throw from the Forge world of mars and the Grey Knight fortress monastery on Titan. So yeah that would be a bad idea to say the least.
However I do hate knife ear eldar so I wouldn't be opposed to getting rid of them. However Eldar don't have the numbers to be a threat to the entire IOM but they are a extremely significant local threat. Personally I'd take out the Tau while they're young and isolated. And cus I hate those stupid horse fish people more than I hate pansy Eldar.

If the Imperium dropped all of its resources into one thing then the Imperium would cease to exist. The only way the Imperium is hanging on is by trying to fight everything at one time.

Such agreement
much wow!

Tis a happy day. I'll look back on this day when i'm posting in a who's the strongest primarch thread and go off topic and say guys, guys remember that time when we were as one, and will wipe a tear of joy from my eye and declare.. it was awesome.

This is what the Eldar want you to think. I'm telling you craftworld Eldar are the greatest threat to the IOM and you don't even realise it.

The IOM must dedicate all their resources NOW to exterminating the Eldar immediately. They can change the future and don't forget it was their excesses that lead to the creation of the eye of terror and let Chaos into realspace. The harlequins, the black library, and their laughing god is a time bomb waiting to explode. Ynnead, the rebirth of their god, will destroy everything that is not Eldar including Chaos but also humanity.

The Imperial Navy should track down every single Craftworld and obliterate it - even the ones that allegedly helped humanity in the past (for their own selfish ends).

 DorianGray wrote:
This is what the Eldar want you to think. I'm telling you craftworld Eldar are the greatest threat to the IOM and you don't even realise it.

The IOM must dedicate all their resources NOW to exterminating the Eldar immediately. They can change the future and don't forget it was their excesses that lead to the creation of the eye of terror and let Chaos into realspace. The harlequins, the black library, and their laughing god is a time bomb waiting to explode.

The Imperial Navy should track down every single Craftworld and obliterate it - even the ones that allegedly helped humanity in the past (for their own selfish ends).

No, Alpha Legion wants you to think that Eldar want you to think this. The Eldar went extinct milennia ago, all "Eldar" in M40 are in fact Alpha Legion operatives.

DorianGray wrote:
This is what the Eldar want you to think. I'm telling you craftworld Eldar are the greatest threat to the IOM and you don't even realise it.

The IOM must dedicate all their resources NOW to exterminating the Eldar immediately. They can change the future and don't forget it was their excesses that lead to the creation of the eye of terror and let Chaos into realspace. The harlequins, the black library, and their laughing god is a time bomb waiting to explode. Ynnead, the rebirth of their god, will destroy everything that is not Eldar including Chaos but also humanity.

The Imperial Navy should track down every single Craftworld and obliterate it - even the ones that allegedly helped humanity in the past (for their own selfish ends).

Poll says no

 DorianGray wrote:
This is what the Eldar want you to think. I'm telling you craftworld Eldar are the greatest threat to the IOM and you don't even realise it.

The IOM must dedicate all their resources NOW to exterminating the Eldar immediately. They can change the future and don't forget it was their excesses that lead to the creation of the eye of terror and let Chaos into realspace. The harlequins, the black library, and their laughing god is a time bomb waiting to explode. Ynnead, the rebirth of their god, will destroy everything that is not Eldar including Chaos but also humanity.

The Imperial Navy should track down every single Craftworld and obliterate it - even the ones that allegedly helped humanity in the past (for their own selfish ends).

You know Orikan the Diviner of the Necrons has literal access to time-travel right? He doesn't need the warp or nothing, he can go into the past. Even Eldar Farseer future-divining dickery can't compare much to that.

It's going to be really hard to defend your position given that you haven't addressed the points made by the near unanimous consensus from the rest of the replies of the minute threat the Eldar pose compared to more immediate dangers to the Imperium's realm.

The Eldar have some crazy projects, like trying to prevent different hive fleets meeting/exchanging information/merging hive minds. Such missions are hugely important to the survival of humanity (even if the Eldar often trample a few humans on the way).

 DarknessEternal wrote:
This level of shared opinion on Dakka is unprecedented.

When times look dark, we should remind each other about this thread and how we're all not that different.

Have an exault!

This poll Is fairly certain I do believe.

DorianGray wrote:
This is what the Eldar want you to think. I'm telling you craftworld Eldar are the greatest threat to the IOM and you don't even realise it.

The IOM must dedicate all their resources NOW to exterminating the Eldar immediately. They can change the future and don't forget it was their excesses that lead to the creation of the eye of terror and let Chaos into realspace. The harlequins, the black library, and their laughing god is a time bomb waiting to explode. Ynnead, the rebirth of their god, will destroy everything that is not Eldar including Chaos but also humanity.

The Imperial Navy should track down every single Craftworld and obliterate it - even the ones that allegedly helped humanity in the past (for their own selfish ends).

If the Eldar destroy the Imperium then they're fethed, and they know it. Not only is the Imperium dealing with the bulk of all hostile forces right now, but the Emperor is also single-handedly preventing the creation of a second Eye of Terror. The Eldar know all this and they want to ride out of the Imperium's defenses as long as possible. They have no problem sacrificing human worlds to deal with more immediate threats to the craftworlds, but overall it is in their best interest to keep the Imperium going right now.

If the eldar were able to unite all of the craftworlds and simultaneously launched a unified assault on Earth, I could see them being able to cause devastation before they were wiped out. This would result in maybe a few years of confusion before some new high lords are brought in from surrounding hive worlds and would be the end of all of the eldar.

The Imperium is too large for the eldar craftworlds to destroy. Even if they focused on attacking agricultural or poorly defended planets, they do not have the weight of numbers of chaos, orks, necrons, or tyranids.

Eldar craftworlds are probably one of the factions that the Imperium has to worry the least about. Eldar are low in number and are in decline, meaning that they do not have the expansionist threat that tau have, they do not have the numbers of orks, chaos, necrons, or tyranids, and their objectives frequently match with those of the Imperium's.

Craftworlds themselves aren't big on Webway travel. Most portals aren't big enough for them.

The real question? The OP: Tzeechian agent or Genestealer cultist? My money is on the latter.

Also, while the eldar do hold most humanity in contempt. it is a contempt born of arrogance not hate. They don't hate Humans in the same way they hate crons or chaos, they hate them in the same way we dislike pests. Like most of us they also acknowledge that most pests have a use and purpose so outright genocide is probably not the best option. . They see their culture as dying, they have acknowledged it and so they are trying to preserve what they can for as long as they can. as such, I believe you are categorically wrong.

pm713 wrote:
It's worth remembering that Eldar do help the Imperium fight things like Chaos and they're pretty powerful allies when they do so they're worth keeping around and if you consider how hard actually invading a Craftworld is it seems more worthwhile just to ignore them.

That's exactly what the IoM is doing right now - ignoring the Eldar as long as they don't get too bold. And the Eldar ignore humans as long as they're not settling Maiden worlds or otherwise interfere in the great plans of the farseers. The Eldar could certainly put together a force to strike fear into the hearts of men, but the cost in priceless Eldar lives would bring them that closer to the thing they want to avoid - extinction. Attacking Craftworlds is also so costly that no sane Imperial commander does that if he has any other option. The last try resulted in the loss of an entire Sector Fleet as I recall, resources that could have been better spent on fighting pirates, orks, chaos or just about anything else than Eldar that only wanted to hide.

Don't worry about Eldar, most tournaments are restricting their list making any invasion of Terra unlikely...

Bharring wrote:
The real question? The OP: Tzeechian agent or Genestealer cultist? My money is on the latter.

I say the former. A genestealer cultist would convince us that the Imperium should power down its military. The chaos agent would clap his hands at seeing the forces opposed to chaos wipe each other out.