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nareik wrote:
Long lived Tau don't exist, the real heroes were replaced by immortal drones.

You I like

Personally, I headcanon it to be that the original 'Shadowsun' died a long time ago. All the other various 'Shadowsuns' are just regular Tau, kidnapped and implanted with an engram chip to make them believe they're Shadowsun. For the Greater Good.

But then again, I like my Tau with quite a hefty dystopian bent to them

Moosatronic Warrior wrote:

I do, however, love the idea that Eldrad is beginning to crystallise, hence his T4. That's a brilliant bit of headcanon just that that's occurring at 1000-2000 years of age, rather than an order of magnitude more than that.

The T4 from being partially crystallized is not head-cannon, it's definitely written in a codex somewhere. I think said codex makes the point that he should have settled down and become a tree but refused too. Eldrad is a very special chap so would be an exception to the norm for life spans.

Interesting. I'll see if I can find the source.

I do think that Eldrad (and seers in general) are an exception in lifespan. There's indications in other people that psykers have extended lifespans, but honestly for it to be extended by an order of magnitude is just a little silly. It's the 100-year-old goldfish thing.

RFT wrote:
Interesting discussion!

Is it really the case that the fall and the start of the Great Crusade are that close?

I thought the actual fall coincided more with the start of the Age of Strife / "Old Night", rather than the end - or rather that it was an drawn-out process as She Who Thirsts came into being bacross a few millenia, which would give time for first exodites, then Craftworlders to split off from the "mainstream" Eldar.

Though I will admit I'm probably not as broadly read as I should be in this matter...

Yeah I think that's most people's assumption before they actually read it, due to the way that the Eldar history is written in a sort of mythic prose whereas human history is more a (fragmented) historical account. It makes it feel like it was much longer ago.

However, the Old Night/Age of Strife was caused by the gestation of Slaanesh. Her growing pains messed up the warp so bad that warp travel became more and more hazardous. It was her birth and the release of all that pent up energy that cleared the warp storms and allowed the Emperor to begin his galaxy-spanning crusade.

Slaanesh's birth did take place over a fantastically long time. Over 20,000 years. However, all of the actually fallout of it happened very rapidly. The exodites left a little while before the actual birth of Slaanesh itself, although we don't know precisely when. We do know when it started getting really depraved though, which is around M25-M30. That's probably when the exodites actually went 'sod this, I'm out' and left to set up their colonies. Hence why I think that their culture would be largely the same as it is now (unless you take the tack that I have where they've culturally degenerated into techno-barbarians).

The actual return of the craftworlds was pretty much immediately prior to the birth of Slaanesh. Perhaps some came back, realised how bad it had got and sent the word out to the others to come back and salvage what they could. That happened sometime between M30 and M31. I'd say it would be closer to M31 when Slaanesh was born as quite a number of them were caught in the blast radius or sucked into the Eye.

So yeah, during the Great Crusade the Eldar would still be reeling from that cataclysm. It's literally only just happened, and all of the Path stuff doesn't exist yet.

The answer re the Fall is "yes".

Less flippantly: it's both a process and an event. The process of the Fall, the increasing hedonism and degradation of the Empire did go on for a very long time, and the tortured birthing of Slaanesh disrupted warp travel which... if it didn't exactly cause the age of strife, it certainly waved it cheerfully on its way.

During this process, you get the early refugees fleeing from the Empire, to become the exodites and proto-craftworlders.

Then there's what is generally meant by The Fall, the event itself, the moment when You Know Who screams into 'consciousness', blowing away both the storms and the Empire.

Edit: well, I guess Ynnead types faster than I do lol

pm713 wrote:

Moosatronic Warrior wrote:
I think the Fall was what cleared the warp storms and allowed the great crusade to happen.

It was but it wasn't like the Storms cleared and the Crusade immediately started.

Was it not? It appeared to me that the Emperor was basically waiting for the warp storms to clear to launch his crusade.

Of course, it wouldn't be a literal down-to-the-second 'ok now go!' when the warp storms abated, but in terms of the timescales we're talking it would have been pretty close. A matter of years perhaps.

I view it as something a little opportunistic. The Emperor originally sets out to unite Terra (because as far as I'm concerned he's just one of many other petty warlords at the time, and all this God-Emperor stuff comes later as a fiction generated by the Imperial Faith). Once he's done that, he looks out to where else he can reach. He launches his Great Crusade to unify Sol and create a Stellar Empire. Then, someone notices that their Astropaths suddenly aren't exploding every other time they try and send a message. 'Something's fishy' they say, and start to test other warp stuff. Astropathic messages start filtering in from nearby human systems that haven't been contacted for millennia. The Emperor rubs his hands together and thinks 'what a marvelous coincidence' and gets a'conquering.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Pilum wrote:
The answer re the Fall is "yes".

Less flippantly: it's both a process and an event. The process of the Fall, the increasing hedonism and degradation of the Empire did go on for a very long time, and the tortured birthing of Slaanesh disrupted warp travel which... if it didn't exactly cause the age of strife, it certainly waved it cheerfully on its way.

During this process, you get the early refugees fleeing from the Empire, to become the exodites and proto-craftworlders.

Then there's what is generally meant by The Fall, the event itself, the moment when You Know Who screams into 'consciousness', blowing away both the storms and the Empire.

Edit: well, I guess Ynnead types faster than I do lol

Haha! No what I've been doing is answering a question asked 3 posts back and then by the time I've actually written my veritable essay we're 3 questions ahead!

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

Also, I do like how little of the Eldar timeline is concrete. It fits perfectly with the way that their brains and culture is wired. Basically, the Eldar think they're still living through their mythic times. Their entire history isn't a written record like humanity's, but a series of oral epics and songs. As such, they'd have about as good a grasp on their own timeline as we do of mythological Greece (that is to say, not a great deal).

I wouldn't say they have no written history. Their architecture and artifacts are riddled with Eldar writing. However I would say their language is bound up tightly with their history to the point that one would miss the nuances if one didn't know the history or myth being referenced, and we as human readers do not have access to that information.

Gav Thorpe sort of takes some angle at this when in the 3rd edition Eldar Codex, the Imperial language experts said the Eldar rhiantha basically means starlight but a full translation means more "the starlight which shines upon the waters of Rhidhol during the winter", but they didn't know where Rhidhol was or whether it was a real or mythical place, and that without this knowledge the full meaning was impossible to understand. Combine that with different levels of formality further modulating the language. Humans attempting to learn the Eldar language must come off to Eldar as doing baby talk or sounding brain damaged ("Me you want go tree place" instead "Shall we go to the park?").

There are some real world historical examples of this. The closest analogy I would say is Chinese. There are many phrases, aphorisms, and references which can be literally translated but lack the special significance or impact imparted by knowing what the historical reference is. Take the phrase "Smashing your cooking pots and sinking your boats"...sounds nonsensical or weird at first but it means leaving no reserve or way back, sort of akin to "burning your bridges" in an endeavor. Why does it mean that? Because it is a reference to a specific famous ancient general from 209BC doing just such a thing before a desperate "do or die" battle. You can explain the literal meaning but the additional flavor and any nested meaning or implication is lost without the history.

It is hard to convey such in writing though, as peppering the text with references to unknown events or people just creates a barrier to the reader. Authors sometimes have monumental glossaries or appendices explaining the events of their fictional world building but this too can become a barrier to the casual reader.

Iracundus wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

Also, I do like how little of the Eldar timeline is concrete. It fits perfectly with the way that their brains and culture is wired. Basically, the Eldar think they're still living through their mythic times. Their entire history isn't a written record like humanity's, but a series of oral epics and songs. As such, they'd have about as good a grasp on their own timeline as we do of mythological Greece (that is to say, not a great deal).

I wouldn't say they have no written history. Their architecture and artifacts are riddled with Eldar writing. However I would say their language is bound up tightly with their history to the point that one would miss the nuances if one didn't know the history or myth being referenced, and we as human readers do not have access to that information.

Gav Thorpe sort of takes some angle at this when in the 3rd edition Eldar Codex, the Imperial language experts said the Eldar rhiantha basically means starlight but a full translation means more "the starlight which shines upon the waters of Rhidhol during the winter", but they didn't know where Rhidhol was or whether it was a real or mythical place, and that without this knowledge the full meaning was impossible to understand. Combine that with different levels of formality further modulating the language. Humans attempting to learn the Eldar language must come off to Eldar as doing baby talk or sounding brain damaged ("Me you want go tree place" instead "Shall we go to the park?").

There are some real world historical examples of this. The closest analogy I would say is Chinese. There are many phrases, aphorisms, and references which can be literally translated but lack the special significance or impact imparted by knowing what the historical reference is. Take the phrase "Smashing your cooking pots and sinking your boats"...sounds nonsensical or weird at first but it means leaving no reserve or way back, sort of akin to "burning your bridges" in an endeavor. Why does it mean that? Because it is a reference to a specific famous ancient general from 209BC doing just such a thing before a desperate "do or die" battle. You can explain the literal meaning but the additional flavor and any nested meaning or implication is lost without the history.

It is hard to convey such in writing though, as peppering the text with references to unknown events or people just creates a barrier to the reader. Authors sometimes have monumental glossaries or appendices explaining the events of their fictional world building but this too can become a barrier to the casual reader.

This man gets it

The point I was sort of trying to get was that the Eldar seem to care mainly about the 'what' happened, and don't tend to be concerned about the 'when', which contrasts the way that modern humans characterise history as a series of dates with events attached. It helps make their culture and mindset seem more different and alien.

Great explanation of how the Eldar language works, and why it's so hard to understand. I've had that conversation a couple of times, and people tend to come up with the argument that our language is riddled with cultural and historical references that make no sense without the requisite knowledge.

It took an episode of Star Trek of all things to actually explain to me what it's actually like. In 'Darmok', Picard is stranded on a planet with a member of a race that only speaks in allegory. Their translator can translate each individual word, but when you piece them all together it's all gobbledygook. The alien basically only speaks in references to its (unknown) history. It opens by saying 'Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra' repeatedly, and other such nonsenses like 'Temba, his arms wide'.

Picard eventually deduces that 'Temba, his arms wide' means that a gift is being given. Presumably, that's based on an event from the alien's history. By the end, they've managed to deduce that something happened between Darmok and Jalad at Tenagra where the two parted as friends, so the whole stranding on the planet was engineered as a sort of first-contact meeting, although the actual language still remains indecipherable.

That's what it would be like trying to speak to an Eldar. You'd say 'Me you want go tree place'. They'd look at you like you're some sort of domesticated monkey and then say 'Illithian's harp plays yonder', giving you no inclination whatsoever whether they're saying 'yes, lets go to the tree place' or 'sod off to where Illithian plays his harp'. It's like a language comprised almost entirely of responses like 'does the pope gak in the woods', which would make precisely zero sense if you didn't know that the Pope is Catholic, that a bear gaks in the woods, and that the two phrases mean the same thing and are constructed similarly enough to be blended together.

Man language is cool that's one of my favourite things to muse about (and why I shudder every time I hear the word 'aeldari'). Ugly incongruous word made of Anglo-Saxon and Latin phonemes (which sound wholly Imperial) when every single other word in the Eldar language is an amalgam of Celtic and Arabic. It just sounds wrong on a fundamental level.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

Man language is cool that's one of my favourite things to muse about (and why I shudder every time I hear the word 'aeldari'). Ugly incongruous word made of Anglo-Saxon and Latin phonemes (which sound wholly Imperial) when every single other word in the Eldar language is an amalgam of Celtic and Arabic. It just sounds wrong on a fundamental level.

I feel the same way about "Drukhari" when a perfectly usable prior term existed "Eladrith Ynneas". Obviously the latter part was reference to Ynnead, so Eladrith Ynneas while meaning Dark Eldar could more literally mean "Dead Eldar walking", which is an apt description of the Dark Eldar's lifestyle and need to stave off the Thirst. Drukhari by comparison just seems like a clumsy way to parallel the Dark Elves from WHFB, with all the hard harsh sounding "k" sounds.

Iracundus wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

Man language is cool that's one of my favourite things to muse about (and why I shudder every time I hear the word 'aeldari'). Ugly incongruous word made of Anglo-Saxon and Latin phonemes (which sound wholly Imperial) when every single other word in the Eldar language is an amalgam of Celtic and Arabic. It just sounds wrong on a fundamental level.

I feel the same way about "Drukhari" when a perfectly usable prior term existed "Eladrith Ynneas". Obviously the latter part was reference to Ynnead, so Eladrith Ynneas while meaning Dark Eldar could more literally mean "Dead Eldar walking", which is an apt description of the Dark Eldar's lifestyle and need to stave off the Thirst. Drukhari by comparison just seems like a clumsy way to parallel the Dark Elves from WHFB, with all the hard harsh sounding "k" sounds.

You're absolutely right. Both words are just clumsy and inelegant. Not something that feels at home in the eldar language. It also falls foul of using the suffux '-i' to mean a people, which is solidly latin, ergo Imperial, ergo just sounds wrong for the Eldar.

I love the idea that 'Eldarith Ynneas' could have the connotation of 'dead eldar walking'. Fits the convention of Eldar words having multiple different meanings. Could be 'Eldar who are dead', 'Eldar who sow death', 'Dead Eldar walking', or even 'Eldar who do not die'.

That's another reason 'Aeldari' bugs me. They already had a word that means exactly the same thing: Eldarith. It even fits the other naming conventions of the Eldar.

Perhaps (probably) i'm being a pedant, but stuff like making languages sound cohesive is important when you're creating fantasy cultures. You wouldn't call a Space Wolf 'Arminius', or an Ultramarine 'Ranulf'.

It would make sense if 'Aeldari', 'Asuryani' and 'Drukhari' were the words used for them in High Gothic and the Eldar themselves used their own more Celtic/Gaelic terms.

Unfortunately, I imagine we're going to see the Eldar themselves use the latin-esque words as well, so I doubt that's going to fly.

The only really unfortunate one to my ears is Drukhari. The other two ... yes, they're not explicitly Celtic-ish, but they do have an eastern tinge to them (Greek? A bit further even?) which ... sort of suits. Drukhari sounds too harsh for that.

While not 30k, speaking of linguistic headcanons, here's mine for why every Eldar is at least a little uncomfortable around the Harlequins - they have total control over their movements.

I'll elaborate: it's often said that the Eldar language is phenomenally difficult to learn as it's not only a tonal language but also postural; ad absurdam, even the tilt of a hand can completely change a sentence.

Now imagine you're speaking to someone who, if they wish, says (well, stands in this case...) everything in a creepy monotone, or sarcastically, or Mark-Hamill-Joker-manically. EVERYTHING. And no matter what, they never have any tics or 'tells' that give anything away. Are they being honest? Making a joke? (And how in the warp have they found their way into your private pleasure dimension that's psychically locked to you and no other???)

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Moosatronic Warrior wrote:
I think the Fall was what cleared the warp storms and allowed the great crusade to happen.

It was but it wasn't like the Storms cleared and the Crusade immediately started.

Was it not? It appeared to me that the Emperor was basically waiting for the warp storms to clear to launch his crusade.

Of course, it wouldn't be a literal down-to-the-second 'ok now go!' when the warp storms abated, but in terms of the timescales we're talking it would have been pretty close. A matter of years perhaps.

I view it as something a little opportunistic. The Emperor originally sets out to unite Terra (because as far as I'm concerned he's just one of many other petty warlords at the time, and all this God-Emperor stuff comes later as a fiction generated by the Imperial Faith). Once he's done that, he looks out to where else he can reach. He launches his Great Crusade to unify Sol and create a Stellar Empire. Then, someone notices that their Astropaths suddenly aren't exploding every other time they try and send a message. 'Something's fishy' they say, and start to test other warp stuff. Astropathic messages start filtering in from nearby human systems that haven't been contacted for millennia. The Emperor rubs his hands together and thinks 'what a marvelous coincidence' and gets a'conquering.

Well the Storms stopped then you had the Unification Wars, creation of Space Marines, Pacification of Luna and Unification of Mars which all takes a fair bit of time.

Pretty sure the Emperor always planned to take the whole Galaxy rather than 'coincidence'.

 Robin5t wrote:
It would make sense if 'Aeldari', 'Asuryani' and 'Drukhari' were the words used for them in High Gothic and the Eldar themselves used their own more Celtic/Gaelic terms.

Unfortunately, I imagine we're going to see the Eldar themselves use the latin-esque words as well, so I doubt that's going to fly.

Yeah that's what I've been headcanoning it as, which fits really nicely. I do think that'll only last so long though.

Pilum wrote:
The only really unfortunate one to my ears is Drukhari. The other two ... yes, they're not explicitly Celtic-ish, but they do have an eastern tinge to them (Greek? A bit further even?) which ... sort of suits. Drukhari sounds too harsh for that.

While not 30k, speaking of linguistic headcanons, here's mine for why every Eldar is at least a little uncomfortable around the Harlequins - they have total control over their movements.

I'll elaborate: it's often said that the Eldar language is phenomenally difficult to learn as it's not only a tonal language but also postural; ad absurdam, even the tilt of a hand can completely change a sentence.

Now imagine you're speaking to someone who, if they wish, says (well, stands in this case...) everything in a creepy monotone, or sarcastically, or Mark-Hamill-Joker-manically. EVERYTHING. And no matter what, they never have any tics or 'tells' that give anything away. Are they being honest? Making a joke? (And how in the warp have they found their way into your private pleasure dimension that's psychically locked to you and no other???)

Part of the reason I don't like 'Aeldari' is because it uses phonemes that simply don't exist in the Eldar language (because they're Anglo-Saxon, not Celtic/Arabic). I've just posted it elsewhere, but I've put together an Eldar Dictionary (it's useful for making names). I'm still working on the sources, but the rest is complete. The phoneme 'ae' appears precisely twice. The first is 'Ilmaea' which is the word for the suns in Commorragh, and isn't a true 'ae' sound as it's more 'a-ea' ('ea' appears everywhere). The other is from Shadowpoint, which has a lot of other weird duplicates for words we already know, which I've headcanoned as the Eldar actually having multiple different dialects/languages (would make sense given they've had 10,000 years of essential isolation).

If anyone's interested, here's the dictionary (spoilered as it's huge):



Oh, and I love your Harlequin headcanon I wonder if a lot of the postural parts of Eldar language are sort of innate or unconscious movements. Similar to tells in humans when they're lying. So, if Harlequins are taught to master those, and can turn them on or off at a whim, it'd be really freaky speaking to them as you say.

pm713 wrote:

Well the Storms stopped then you had the Unification Wars, creation of Space Marines, Pacification of Luna and Unification of Mars which all takes a fair bit of time.

Pretty sure the Emperor always planned to take the whole Galaxy rather than 'coincidence'.

Yeah I thought so, but the dates don't quite line up. It appears that he had already unified Terra and started on unifying Sol by the time that Slaanesh was born. Unless the Eldar dates are fuzzy, which is a definite possibility.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

Part of the reason I don't like 'Aeldari' is because it uses phonemes that simply don't exist in the Eldar language (because they're Anglo-Saxon, not Celtic/Arabic). I've just posted it elsewhere, but I've put together an Eldar Dictionary (it's useful for making names). I'm still working on the sources, but the rest is complete. The phoneme 'ae' appears precisely twice. The first is 'Ilmaea' which is the word for the suns in Commorragh, and isn't a true 'ae' sound as it's more 'a-ea' ('ea' appears everywhere). The other is from Shadowpoint, which has a lot of other weird duplicates for words we already know, which I've headcanoned as the Eldar actually having multiple different dialects/languages (would make sense given they've had 10,000 years of essential isolation).

Study of language is not really my thing, so is there a reason you haven't included Kaelis Ra or Kaela Mensha Khaine in that list?

Kaelis Ra?

pm713 wrote:
Kaelis Ra?

Destroyer of Light, the name the Eldar gave the Nightbringer.

...goddamnit.

I concede

Still think it's an ugly word...

Makes sense to me, ugly words for terrible gods. Nightbringer is the Nightbringer, and Khaine is 100% undiluted twatbaggery who has earned every beating dished out to one of his Avatars a dozen times over.

You don't use pretty words for beings like that.

You people please and interest me. This kind of lore-crafting is what I love most about 40k, especially in regards to Eldar for some reason.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

Man language is cool that's one of my favourite things to muse about (and why I shudder every time I hear the word 'aeldari'). Ugly incongruous word made of Anglo-Saxon and Latin phonemes (which sound wholly Imperial) when every single other word in the Eldar language is an amalgam of Celtic and Arabic. It just sounds wrong on a fundamental level.

I feel the same way about "Drukhari" when a perfectly usable prior term existed "Eladrith Ynneas". Obviously the latter part was reference to Ynnead, so Eladrith Ynneas while meaning Dark Eldar could more literally mean "Dead Eldar walking", which is an apt description of the Dark Eldar's lifestyle and need to stave off the Thirst. Drukhari by comparison just seems like a clumsy way to parallel the Dark Elves from WHFB, with all the hard harsh sounding "k" sounds.

You're absolutely right. Both words are just clumsy and inelegant. Not something that feels at home in the eldar language. It also falls foul of using the suffux '-i' to mean a people, which is solidly latin, ergo Imperial, ergo just sounds wrong for the Eldar.

I love the idea that 'Eldarith Ynneas' could have the connotation of 'dead eldar walking'. Fits the convention of Eldar words having multiple different meanings. Could be 'Eldar who are dead', 'Eldar who sow death', 'Dead Eldar walking', or even 'Eldar who do not die'.

That's another reason 'Aeldari' bugs me. They already had a word that means exactly the same thing: Eldarith. It even fits the other naming conventions of the Eldar.

Perhaps (probably) i'm being a pedant, but stuff like making languages sound cohesive is important when you're creating fantasy cultures. You wouldn't call a Space Wolf 'Arminius', or an Ultramarine 'Ranulf'.

Your thoughts on "Eldarith Ynneas" are awesome. My headcanon for it was along the same theme (I had it meaning something like them being vampires). I really like "Dead Eldar walking" and the multiple meanings. Aeldari and that are just groansome, especially because they were completely unnecessary. They're not quite as bad as the change from "Tau Empire" to "T'au Empire", though.

I've occasionally pondered Eldar language in the context of some of the strange jokes I have with particular friends, all references to things that sound like nonsense to others. Most internet memes are essentially this as well.

 Verviedi wrote:
The way I get around the "Eldrad is 10,000 years old" thing, is by simply believing that he's a sort of Exarch or Phoenix Lord. "Eldrad Ulthran" is simply a title, and the head seer of Ulthwé is an entity just like an Exarch, a hive mind of sorts, made up of every head seer contained within armor/robes.

The eldrad that appears in Fulgrim directly contradicts the eldrad that appears in Jain Zar (set ambiguously, but long enough after the fall for vect to be in charge and eldar society to look like it does now)

Or, specifically, the Eldrad that appears in Fulgrim is just the same eldrad that appears in modern 40k. He apparently has no personality changes or character growth in ten thousand years, and the eldar look exactly like they always have.

Eldrad = Perpetual. That would neatly explain why he is 10,000+ years old.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:


Your thoughts on "Eldarith Ynneas" are awesome. My headcanon for it was along the same theme (I had it meaning something like them being vampires). I really like "Dead Eldar walking" and the multiple meanings. Aeldari and that are just groansome, especially because they were completely unnecessary. They're not quite as bad as the change from "Tau Empire" to "T'au Empire", though.

I've occasionally pondered Eldar language in the context of some of the strange jokes I have with particular friends, all references to things that sound like nonsense to others. Most internet memes are essentially this as well.

Thanks man!

Yeah I can see why they did it (copyright), but it would have been nice if they actually came up with something that sounded dead cool. 'Adeptus Astartes' sounds awesome. 'Astra Militarum', 'Aeldari', 'Drukhari' and 'T'au Empire' sound clumsy.

Hah, you're right about the internet memes thing. Imagine a language that was comprised 100% of internet memes, in-jokes and idioms.

stratigo wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:

The eldrad that appears in Fulgrim directly contradicts the eldrad that appears in Jain Zar (set ambiguously, but long enough after the fall for vect to be in charge and eldar society to look like it does now)

Or, specifically, the Eldrad that appears in Fulgrim is just the same eldrad that appears in modern 40k. He apparently has no personality changes or character growth in ten thousand years, and the eldar look exactly like they always have.

Trust Gav Thorpe to actually put some thought into Eldar good man!

The fact that Eldrad is so ridiculously old is one thing, but the fact that the author of Fulgrim put zero effort into their depiction of eldar is just gak writing. I can understand if you're really interested in Marine stuff not putting much thought into other factions, but at least do your homework first.

 IdentifyZero wrote:
Eldrad = Perpetual. That would neatly explain why he is 10,000+ years old.

Perhaps, but I'd always thought that perpetuals were a human thing. At least, there isn't a single instance of a non-human perpetual. It would explain it, but it seems like a pretty shaky way (especially given that the eldar's 'thing' for having old characters is either Wraiths or exarch/phoenix lord suits).

Those warp storms that went away at the end of The Fall were caused by The Fall happening in the first place.

The Fall took millennia.

Everything we know about Eldar history except the War in Heaven up to 30k, including Commorragh, craftworlds, exodites, Paths, etc occured DURING The Fall.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Those warp storms that went away at the end of The Fall were caused by The Fall happening in the first place.

The Fall took millennia.

Everything we know about Eldar history except the War in Heaven up to 30k, including Commorragh, craftworlds, exodites, Paths, etc occured DURING The Fall.

Although you're absolutely right that the Fall itself was a process that happened over millennia, a number of those other things did only happen either immediately prior to the birth of Slaanesh or after it.

The Craftworlds were pre-Fall trading vessels, but only in the moments immediately preceding the birth of Slaanesh (on the scale we're talking about) did they return to rescue those who remained sane. Their actual development into the vast craft they are nowadays was a far more gradual process that took place after the Fall, as we know they have grown in size massively since then.

Commorragh likewise existed before and during the Fall. In fact, it played a big part in bringing it about. However, it wasn't the sprawling metropolis we know today. It was simply the biggest of a large number of webway realms. Over the millennia it's absorbed nearly all of these other sub-realms to become a single gigantic hive in the webway. It was also quite a different place until well after the Fall. Still just as debauched, but ruled by noble houses/families rather than the cut-throat (relatively egalitarian) Kabals of modern day Commorragh. That was something Vect set in motion a good few thousand years after the Fall.

Likewise, the Path system developed specifically because of the birth of Slaanesh. It might perhaps have existed in some form before the Fall, although it's cited as a specific invention of Asurmen so I doubt it. Asurmen only came into being after the birth of Slaanesh, as we know from the Asurmen: Hand of Asuryan book. Based on that, it's a relatively safe assumption to make that the Path system itself simply did not exist before or during the Fall. Even if it was invented directly after the Fall by Asurmen, there's still a period of time before Asur was destroyed (prompting the Phoenix Lords to go spread the Path system among the craftworlds). That in itself would take a significant amount of time to become commonplace. So again, it's pretty safe to assume that the Eldar lived (or struggled to live) without the Path system for a significant amount of time after the Fall itself took place.

So, the timeline sort of looks like this:

Eldar created -> War in Heaven (-M600,000) -> intervening aeons of history we know nothing about -> Eldar Empire (?, but probably sometime between M0 and M18)-> Commorragh founded (M18)-> decadence and debauchery starts to set in (M18-20)-> exodites sod off to the other side of the galaxy (M18-30)-> rot really starts to set in (M25-30-> craftworlds realise what's going down and rush back to the rescue (M30) -> Slaanesh born, and roughly concurrent with Illithian becoming Asurmen (M30) -> sometime after Asur is destroyed and the PLs spread the Path to the craftworlds. Also the infinity circuit is invented at some point post-Fall, but this could be any time really (M30ish, perhaps M31)-> Vect organises his slave revolt and Commorragh as we know it is born (M33? supposedly several millennia after the Fall).

That's based on info from the DE Codex as to the timeline of the Fall, a few of the Eldar codices, and the Asurmen book

Vect started his rise in M32, but the big payoff didn't happen until M35. Apparently he had some kind of dealings with the Veiled Path at the time, too, which possibly explains why Veilwalker can casually trot into his podium at the arena and natter on with him like they're drinking pals.

 Robin5t wrote:
Vect started his rise in M32, but the big payoff didn't happen until M35. Apparently he had some kind of dealings with the Veiled Path at the time, too, which possibly explains why Veilwalker can casually trot into his podium at the arena and natter on with him like they're drinking pals.

Perfect thanks I was looking for a rough timescale of when Vect instigated his changes. Seems like there was roughly 5000 years of noble-house rule in Commorragh before Kabals came about. I do wonder how different things would have been though. Probably from an outside observer, it'd look fairly identical (numerous political entities instigating raids and politicking between each other). However, for a Dark Eldar 'in the system' it's probably wildly different. Previously, I expect there wasn't any chance whatsoever of becoming one of the nobility and ruling your own House. Probably the one thing Vect actually changed was the ability for anyone to rise to the top, provided you have the will, tenacity, ruthlessness and intelligence to make it.

I do also wonder whether 'Sylandri Veilwalker' is one individual or a succession of different Harlequins 'playing the part' of 'The Veilwalker'. As you can probably expect, I lean towards the latter plus, it fits so nicely with Harlequins if their whole structure is based around 'playing the parts' of characters.

It's also supported somewhat by the named Death Jester character 'Inriam's Specter'. I definitely remember reading that it's implied that 'character' is a part that's played by a number of different Harlequins (and is also a nice throwback to an old piece of fluff about 'Inriam the Young' being a descendant of Eldanesh that lost Anaris).

Perhaps all Harlequins are like that, each of them choosing (or being given) a 'part' or 'character' to play in the great play of Cegorach, doing precisely what that character would do even if it's contrary to what they would do as an individual. Sort of like the ultimate method-acting.

There's some kickass conversion opportunities in that...

The monomaniacal focus of the Midnight Sorrow has a cost to them not only in lives, but in minds and souls. So intent upon their daemonic foe are these Harlequins that all else fades into obscurity for them. Their battles and performances focus, without exception, upon the dangers of Chaos, and in recent centuries they have abandoned all other dances in favor of ever more vivid depictions of the Fall. As this mani has overtaken them, so the Players of the Midnight Sorrow have become trapped within their roles. All Harlequins sacrifice a portion of their personality to the character they play, but most retain at least a spark of the being who came before, even if only in the interpretation they bring to their role. Not so the Midnight Sorrow. These grim figures rarely speak, except in ritual form, and care for nothing but the final defeat of Slaanesh.

p. 30, Codex Harlequins

The above shows that while most Harlequins play their part, they only sacrifice "a portion" of their personality, whereas the Midnight Sorrow seem to be the exception with their complete immersion into their role.

Before the RL semi-awakening of Ynnead, Gav Thorpe had published a test Harlequin list in the Citadel Journal. In it he alluded to the mysterious horrifying plans of the Harlequins (while remaining completely opaque as to what these plans entailed).

The following is from his blog:

They believe that in the long term, the only way to defeat Slaanesh is to break the link between the Eldar and She Who Thirsts. The Harlequins see themselves as those saved by the Laughing God, and in performing their masques, and in particular the Dance Without End, seek to show the other Eldar that the Fall cannot be turned back, it cannot be ignored, it cannot be appeased. The future of the Eldar depends upon being able to live in freedom from Slaanesh’s grip, and the only way to do that is to be rescued by the Laughing God. Their spirits…? Their spirits are saved by Cegorach, free to live and die without the touch of Slaanesh.

At the time in 2011 I thought of the following possibilities:

1) So the Harlequins see themselves as free. If the plan is to make everyone a Harlequin, whether this is through possession or some other dangerous ritual is almost irrelevant, is living without an identity, or rather one's identity being one's role, necessarily free? It is almost exchanging the ritualistic straitjacket of the Path system for another straitjacket.

2) If the plan is to merge with the Laughing God, how is merging with the Laughing God really that different from going into an Infinity Circuit, ultimately to merge with Ynnead? Why should one be more horrifying than the other? Both are forms of religious servitude or absorption into a greater entity.

3) Could the plan be to be humble and ally with other races and cooperate? The Citadel Journal #39 test Codex (also by Gav) says the Harlequins aim to restore the Eldar to the pinnacle of power, so this hardly seems to be it.

4) Could the plan be to abandon the galaxy for the Webway? Lugganath and the Dark Eldar are already doing that, so why should that be horrifying? Also as we have seen with the Dark Eldar, it doesn't entirely sever the link to Slaanesh.

5) Could the plan be to abandon the galaxy and sail away to another galaxy? That might involve some cultural humbleness and the abandonment of one's cultural past, which conceivably could be argued as horrifying. However again Citadel Journal #39 states the Harlequin plan is a return to the pinnacle of power, so this again seems less likely as the plan (though I suppose one could argue it is never explicitly said where the Eldar would return to the pinnacle of power).

6) Others above in this thread have speculated whether the Harlequins could be trying to sacrifice the Eldar race (for various possible motives). However the blog says the solution is to sever the link so that the Eldar can live in freedom from Slaanesh. That would be incompatible with total death of the entire race.

7) Could they perhaps want to purge the galaxy of other life and starve Slaanesh and the other Chaos gods to extinction? Why would the Dark Eldar find that horrifying? Given the existence of other races like the Tyranids that are trying to do the same and the Necrons, that are almost trying to do the same (save for perhaps feeding stock for their C'tan), such a possibility seems humdrum.

Another poster suggested the loss of individuality in #1 would be the most horrifying to the individualistic Eldar. Though unless the Harlequin faction changes, I don't see how that is a sustainable state of freedom from Slaanesh since AFAIK Harlequins do not breed and are entirely reliant upon new recruits from other Eldar factions to replenish their numbers.

Very, very interesting I like the parallels it has with the craftworld Path system. It's a form of masking yourself from your true nature, either by focusing entirely on the task you have set yourself, or giving up a portion of yourself to play a character. Very interesting insight.

I must admit, I'm an absolute sucker for a looming horrifying plot especially from the Eldar mirror or Tzeentch. Your thoughts on it are very interesting, and help to clear a lot of the chaff of what the Eldar would actually consider 'horrifying'. Nothing there quite seems to cut the mustard. However, thinking about some other little suggestions and/or theories I've had about the nature of souls and the warp in 40k I've come up with a possibility.

What if the Harlequins are trying to sever the Eldar's souls?

Basically, I've long thought that a race's souls are irrevocably linked to the warp and its gods. The Emperor's plan to sever humanity from the warp wouldn't have worked, because it's not about travel through the warp or not. It's about the psychic connection between a race's consciousness and the immaterium. So, either the Emperor would fail in his plan to separate humanity from the Gods even without the Heresy...or he planned to sever their souls.

The Necrons are (un)living proof that it is possible to retain consciousness after your soul has been severed. What if Solitaires aren't a curious byproduct of another process, but are actually experiments into separating an eldar's soul from its body?

This also fits somewhat with the headcanon I had that the Eldar Gods are manifested reflections of the Eldar's perception of the major players in the War in Heaven. 'Cegorach' is a manifestation of their memory of The Deceiver, who played both sides in the war. Whatsmore, he's also the entity that invented the biotransference.

All of that is based primarily on conjecture so it's nothing more than a possible theory, but it's certainly horrifying. Having the Harlequins experimenting on other Eldar to try and get them to survive through having their soul forcibly excised is something that's just too nasty to pass up the process also appears to provide an eldar with considerable power (presumably through stealing a little of Slaanesh's in return).

Ooh, here's another thought. What if they're not trying to cheat Slaanesh out of their souls. What if they're actively trading them with her? By willingly offering up an eldar's soul in exchange for a portion of Slaanesh's power to keep their bodies ticking, they're gradually trading their way out of servitude to her. The effect would be the same. The Eldar become a race of near-soulless Solitaires, ruled over by the servants of the Laughing God.

Even if that's not true, I do think that only a fool would trust the Harlequins (or the Ynnari, come to think of it). They're both the unwitting pawns of lovecraftian entities that we can't possibly know the motivations of.

My guess at Cegorarch's plan is more akin to the Greek Myth of Zues and Chronos. Chronos ate all the Olympians bar Zues (who was whisked away disguised as a rock...greek mythology for you) for fear they would overthrow him, Zues grew up, defeated Chronos and miraculously his fellow Olympians survived inside Chronos, growing up themselves and where freed.

Now I'm not suggesting Ynnead will chop open Slaanesh and pull Asurmen from inside her like Granny from the Big Bad Wolf, but the idea that Ynnead, Goddess of the Dead, will have power to animate the God-Sparks inside Slaanesh's gullet into revolting from the inside? That seems plausible.

Not an exact quote, but the Great Plan was something about Slaanesh using all her power to save the Eldar, rather than destroy them. So maybe Cegorarch is setting Ynnead up to loose? For Slaanesh to throw all his power at Ynnead, killing her, eating her, then being ripped apart from the inside by Ynnead bringing the entire Aeldari empire that was eaten and the old Eldar pantheon back to life, killing Slaanesh alongside the Eldar Gods.

Would be suitably Grimdark to leave the Eldar without any gods left at all.

GW really needs to hire a linguist to help out with their fluff. The stuff on this thread just cemented what already felt wrong to me.

Honestly I can't stand a lot of the new terms. "Astra Militarum"? Why isn't it an Adepta? Literally every other other armed wing of the Imperium is an Adepta.

I also think the "we don't care much about dates" stuff might be a reflection of how the Eldars' much longer lifespans have shaped their outlook differently than humans.

stratigo wrote:
The eldrad that appears in Fulgrim directly contradicts the eldrad that appears in Jain Zar (set ambiguously, but long enough after the fall for vect to be in charge and eldar society to look like it does now.

Surely it's Jain Zar (2017) that contradicts Fulgrim (2007)?

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Those warp storms that went away at the end of The Fall were caused by The Fall happening in the first place.

The Fall took millennia.

Everything we know about Eldar history except the War in Heaven up to 30k, including Commorragh, craftworlds, exodites, Paths, etc occured DURING The Fall.

This had always been my interpretation, and would seem to have been Graham McNeil's too (it was also how the Eldar were portrayed in 1st ed Epic, the original Horus Heresy material). If more recent Eldar background fluff doesn't ft with it, then whatever contradictions occur are the fault of those later writers.

I think part of the issue is that we use the same word to describe both the decline into decadence and the final cataclysm, so from here on, I'm going to call the cataclysmic birth of slaanesh and the formation of the EoT "the crunch" (as it's the nasty thing at the end of the fall.)

That the deciine and then fall took millennia seems uncontroversial, but I think that even if the Emperor was primed to go, expedition ships at the ready., and kicked off the great crusade as soon as the crunch happens, lifting old night, then there's still nearly 200 years between that point, and Eldrad meeting Fulgrim. 200 years isn't much in terms of eldar lifetimes, but it's still a lot of time for things to actually happen - the crusade got most of the way across the galaxy by that point, and that's fighting wars along the way, and not having the webway.

The Philosophy of the Path, Warrior Aspects - It's essentially political ideas, and they can move fast, especially in times of crisis. so I don;t think it's necessarily problematic for there to be aspect warriors around during the heresy.

I may change my mind after reading Asurmen, though - this thread has moved it up my list somewhat and I'm going to read it as soon as I finish Path of the Outcast.