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How do!

Yay! It’s another ‘no right or wrong answer thread’. Woooo! *Kermit the Frog type flailing*

The question is in the title. But, you have to assume that 40k is prophetic. And the timescales involved are accurate.

So, with that in mind? How come The Eldar didn’t raid Terra/wipe out humanity whilst we’re still super weak?

I mean....our technological progress has been exponential. The device on my lap has many, many times the computational potential of those that got us to The Moon, and it’s been a bare couple of hundreds years that washing our hands helps stop people getting ill etc.

So right now, we’re showing the potential to eventually head on out there....but we’re also somewhat defenceless to an extraterrestrial attack.

Why didn’t we see Eldar striking at us right now? Or even before? We’ve been farting out radio signals to the cosmos for what, 150 or so years in some form or other?

They're at the height of their power.
We aren't even a possible threat yet and they're still in the "The stars lived and died at our command" phase.

We are so beneath their notice that we are less than protozoa.

After the War in Heaven, the Eldar were left with relatively little life in the Galaxy for company and tended to leave it alone (apart from engaging in pest control to keep the (kr)ork in check).

We still have no conceivable means of leaving our own solar system outside of sci-fi stories. Heck we've not even settled another planet in our own system nor developed proper remote life-support systems*

So right now sure we've advanced a long way, but we are still pretty primitive compared to where the Eldar would be right now. In addition not only are we primitive but there's no guarantee that we will make the key discoveries required to make the jump out of our own solarsystem. Sometimes the technology is within reach, it just requires that one person to spot the pathway. If its not spotted then one can advance far beyond it in terms of potential development and yet still lack the technology.


So I'd say to the Eldar we are nothing; a tiny single insignificant blip spinning around in a sea of other stars.


*From what I recall attempts at biodomes have largely failed to produce enough air/food from their own internal systems and have nearly always needed to be bailed out at some point. Chances are we can achieve it, though it likely requires a far bigger scale of operations than experimental attempts are likely able to budget for. There's also not the greatest amount of pressure since right now we are a very long way from even putting feet let alone a colony on another planetary body.

So.....basically Tau as The Imperium first noticed? A ‘pfffrt, whatevs, lets knack them later’ type deal?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So.....basically Tau as The Imperium first noticed? A ‘pfffrt, whatevs, lets knack them later’ type deal?

Yup. The Eldar wouldn't even be interested in stealing our resources. Plenty of planets to go around.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So.....basically Tau as The Imperium first noticed? A ‘pfffrt, whatevs, lets knack them later’ type deal?

Pretty much. I mean, if you're a psychic race running around trying to do augury on every nascent species you stumble across, I'd imagine that every last one of them would come across with "There's a remote possibility this species could take over the galaxy". And mass genocide is probably too much effort to be feasible for the Eldar.

Besides, between now and The Imperium we're going to spread out, get hit with the Iron Men, and a whole bunch of other things.

And I might be biased by the old Rogue Trader era material, but aside from being obnoxious xenophobic red necks, the Imperium probably doesn't pose a particular threat to the craft worlds or the Dark Eldar.

So, if Slaanesh hasn't woken yet, the Eldar probably have more important things to do. If Slaanesh has woken, the Eldar definitely have more important things to do.

 solkan wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So.....basically Tau as The Imperium first noticed? A ‘pfffrt, whatevs, lets knack them later’ type deal?

Pretty much. I mean, if you're a psychic race running around trying to do augury on every nascent species you stumble across, I'd imagine that every last one of them would come across with "There's a remote possibility this species could take over the galaxy". And mass genocide is probably too much effort to be feasible for the Eldar.

Besides, between now and The Imperium we're going to spread out, get hit with the Iron Men, and a whole bunch of other things.

And I might be biased by the old Rogue Trader era material, but aside from being obnoxious xenophobic red necks, the Imperium probably doesn't pose a particular threat to the craft worlds or the Dark Eldar.

So, if Slaanesh hasn't woken yet, the Eldar probably have more important things to do. If Slaanesh has woken, the Eldar definitely have more important things to do.

Didn't the birth of Slaanesh put out the warp storms around the Solar system that cut it off from the other human colonies? That must have happened later than M02.

Also, this isn't something I'm sure about so I'd love some clarification but did the psychic potential of the Eldar race get refined during the Craftworld years? I seem to recall that being the explanation for Dark Eldar not having much psyker stuff going on.

Slaanesh both caused and ended the warp storms.

As it became a nascent power, it caused turmoil in the warp, causing warp storms. When Slaanesh awoke fully and consumed the ancient Eldar Empire’s heart, it snuffed out the Warp Storms, also shattering the Web Way

Now.....exactly when that turmoil started? I’ll need to have a proper sit down read through my newly acquired RT era set of books


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So.....basically Tau as The Imperium first noticed? A ‘pfffrt, whatevs, lets knack them later’ type deal?

Yup. The Eldar wouldn't even be interested in stealing our resources. Plenty of planets to go around.

Sorry to pick on your quote. But you’re the first after my previous reply.

Does that really fit the Eldar or old? Slaanesh came about because of their descent into unrestrained excess.

What could be better fun than descending upon 20th or 21st century earth, when we’ve more than enough weapons of Mass Irresponsibility to wipe ourselves out several times over. Then just sort of kick the flying eff out of us, enslaving the remnant for whatever scant amusement might be had?

Could The Emperor be playing his hand in some way?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So.....basically Tau as The Imperium first noticed? A ‘pfffrt, whatevs, lets knack them later’ type deal?

Yup. The Eldar wouldn't even be interested in stealing our resources. Plenty of planets to go around.

Sorry to pick on your quote. But you’re the first after my previous reply.

Does that really fit the Eldar or old? Slaanesh came about because of their descent into unrestrained excess.

What could be better fun than descending upon 20th or 21st century earth, when we’ve more than enough weapons of Mass Irresponsibility to wipe ourselves out several times over. Then just sort of kick the flying eff out of us, enslaving the remnant for whatever scant amusement might be had?

Could The Emperor be playing his hand in some way?

No problem Doc, always fun to participate in your threads.

It's possible that the Emperor could have been working to hide humanity from the Eldar, or perhaps influencing them somehow, but I'd say it's more likely that in an entire galaxy for them to play in they really just didn't notice us or thought we were to insignificant to bother with.

As to whether they'd use us as playthings, it's possible, but once again their's so many different species in the galaxy they may not have gotten around to us. They had no need of slaves beyond entertainment, as they had constructs to do everything for them.

I think it boils down to the arrogant Eldar seeing the insignificant "monkiegh" as below their attentions or even notice.

An analogous question would be why humans haven't gone to exterminate a RL particular species of monkey because it figured out how to bash rocks together as tools. Would you consider that arrogance? Or instead would you view someone who advocated that as "wtf is wrong with you"? Just because something exists doesn't mean one has to go exterminate it. The fact the Imperium does have this view is part of what is wrong with it.

It's possible that the Eldar find all those lesser races entertaining to watch. They could be betting on when we're going to wipe ourselves out with our nuclear toys.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
How do!

Yay! It’s another ‘no right or wrong answer thread’. Woooo! *Kermit the Frog type flailing*

The question is in the title. But, you have to assume that 40k is prophetic. And the timescales involved are accurate.

So, with that in mind? How come The Eldar didn’t raid Terra/wipe out humanity whilst we’re still super weak?

I mean....our technological progress has been exponential. The device on my lap has many, many times the computational potential of those that got us to The Moon, and it’s been a bare couple of hundreds years that washing our hands helps stop people getting ill etc.

So right now, we’re showing the potential to eventually head on out there....but we’re also somewhat defenceless to an extraterrestrial attack.

Why didn’t we see Eldar striking at us right now? Or even before? We’ve been farting out radio signals to the cosmos for what, 150 or so years in some form or other?

Well why would they attack us? The effort that would take is far larger than any benefit and we pose 0 threat so their automatons wouldn't attack us either.

We could leap massively in the next decade and to the Eldar it would be like a caveman working out that if he rubs sticks together he can make fire. Is it significant to him? Yes. Is he in any way able to threaten a modern army? No.

The problem point is, as it often is, divination. Something the eldar are really good with, and at some point the whole galactic conquest thing would have come into focus. (As well as the 'super-susceptible to chaos corruption' thing)

At which point, there isn't any reason for the Eldar NOT to say, 'Yeah, no' and erase humanity.

At the same time perhaps humanity isn't all that evil its cracked up to be. Don't forget most of the races (including Eldar) don't really go for the whole "love thy neighbour" kind of thinking. Even Tau, who are the poster race for multicultural, aren't always all that nice to those they rule over.

So perhaps a fortelling of humanity's future might show the 41st mellenium and the mess that it is. But perhaps they go further to the 51st and show the shining golden future of peace. When the Emperor returns to lead his last loyal legions in one final epic crusade across the stars. Burning a blaze of glory and destruction against the vile forces risen against them. Uniting the last parts of humanity; crushing Orks; driving the Necrons into oblivion and finally charging head long into the Eye of Terror and taking the battle to Chaos itself. Storming through the insanity of the Warp with his armoured angels to deal the death-blow to She Who Thirsts; To cleanse Nurgle, outwit Tzeentch and finally crush the undefeated Khorne. Driving the universe toward a time of peace.



Then seeing a year later the vast maw of the Great Devourer appear and consume ALL without question whilst a full blackness of the Shadow of the Warp drives the Warp into nothing as demons are forced to flee or die. Thus nullifying any future.

Voss wrote:
The problem point is, as it often is, divination. Something the eldar are really good with, and at some point the whole galactic conquest thing would have come into focus. (As well as the 'super-susceptible to chaos corruption' thing)

At which point, there isn't any reason for the Eldar NOT to say, 'Yeah, no' and erase humanity.

That would have been thousands of years in the future and would only ever have been one possibility. There was no reason to be concerned, especially in the period of a stable Empire. By the time of the Fall then the people who did the foreseeing were priests of Morai-Haig who were just ignored.

pm713 wrote:

Voss wrote:
The problem point is, as it often is, divination. Something the eldar are really good with, and at some point the whole galactic conquest thing would have come into focus. (As well as the 'super-susceptible to chaos corruption' thing)

At which point, there isn't any reason for the Eldar NOT to say, 'Yeah, no' and erase humanity.

That would have been thousands of years in the future and would only ever have been one possibility. There was no reason to be concerned, especially in the period of a stable Empire. By the time of the Fall then the people who did the foreseeing were priests of Morai-Haig who were just ignored.

I don’t think the eldar ability to foresee the future is problematic here.

First, the Emperor was apparently really good at foreseeing the future too but wasn’t able to see the outcome of the HH, so that shows it isn’t perfect future vision.

Second, as mentioned above, the further into the future you look, the more fuzzy it seems to be. Branching choices and butterfly effect etc.

Third, and I think most importantly, maybe they did foresee the future of humanity, but they also foresaw the futures of countless other races too, but determined that the future that was to become 40k was actually the lesser evil. Doesn’t get much more grimdark than that.

Aash wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Voss wrote:
The problem point is, as it often is, divination. Something the eldar are really good with, and at some point the whole galactic conquest thing would have come into focus. (As well as the 'super-susceptible to chaos corruption' thing)

At which point, there isn't any reason for the Eldar NOT to say, 'Yeah, no' and erase humanity.

That would have been thousands of years in the future and would only ever have been one possibility. There was no reason to be concerned, especially in the period of a stable Empire. By the time of the Fall then the people who did the foreseeing were priests of Morai-Haig who were just ignored.

I don’t think the eldar ability to foresee the future is problematic here.

First, the Emperor was apparently really good at foreseeing the future too but wasn’t able to see the outcome of the HH, so that shows it isn’t perfect future vision.

Second, as mentioned above, the further into the future you look, the more fuzzy it seems to be. Branching choices and butterfly effect etc.

Third, and I think most importantly, maybe they did foresee the future of humanity, but they also foresaw the futures of countless other races too, but determined that the future that was to become 40k was actually the lesser evil. Doesn’t get much more grimdark than that.

Good point. If the Eldar couldn't predict their own Fall in time to prevent it then how could they foresee the rise of the Imperium that far out? And yeah, even the Emperor couldn't foresee the outcome of the Heresy.

Konrad on the other hand.....

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Aash wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Voss wrote:
The problem point is, as it often is, divination. Something the eldar are really good with, and at some point the whole galactic conquest thing would have come into focus. (As well as the 'super-susceptible to chaos corruption' thing)

At which point, there isn't any reason for the Eldar NOT to say, 'Yeah, no' and erase humanity.

That would have been thousands of years in the future and would only ever have been one possibility. There was no reason to be concerned, especially in the period of a stable Empire. By the time of the Fall then the people who did the foreseeing were priests of Morai-Haig who were just ignored.

I don’t think the eldar ability to foresee the future is problematic here.

First, the Emperor was apparently really good at foreseeing the future too but wasn’t able to see the outcome of the HH, so that shows it isn’t perfect future vision.

Second, as mentioned above, the further into the future you look, the more fuzzy it seems to be. Branching choices and butterfly effect etc.

Third, and I think most importantly, maybe they did foresee the future of humanity, but they also foresaw the futures of countless other races too, but determined that the future that was to become 40k was actually the lesser evil. Doesn’t get much more grimdark than that.

Good point. If the Eldar couldn't predict their own Fall in time to prevent it then how could they foresee the rise of the Imperium that far out? And yeah, even the Emperor couldn't foresee the outcome of the Heresy.

Konrad on the other hand.....

As I understand it Chaos was messing with his ability to see much.

I also find the thought interesting that they did try to predict the outcome if they destroyed humanity at an early state vs. if they just let them be and the majority of - very cloudy - visions of the future without humanity were really unpleasant for the Aeldari. So in a way they knew that humanity would settle/conquer large swats, maybe even the majority of the galaxy but they could not really see what whey that empire would be. Might be a nice, peaceful Star Trek Federation, might be the vision of the emperor of a civilisation without superstition or religion, or the xenophobic empire we got. Either way their visions were clear enough that WITH humanity, the Aeldari would exist into the 42nd millenium at least, most likely much longer, but WITHOUT humanity some other... things would destroy them somewhere around the 30th. So they choose the lesser evil for their own species, fully knowing that a lot of others would suffer under humanity.

In 2020 AD the eldar are at the ascendancy of their empire, spread across the stars.

They've just hit the appex and are now slowly sliding downward. They are capable of doing virtually anything whether that's stealing suns or creating objects with a thought.

The eldar reached a point of moral and philosophical perfection alongside their technology. They could afford to be kind and magnanimous to all things because they feared nothing.

The orks were never exterminated fully despite their ability to do so if they had chosen to.

They may have visited all sorts of planets on safaris, for research or just to smell a new flower. To do that thing where you tie your stuff to every conceivable part of historical folklore, the eldar showing up on earth was remembered as the Sidh, Fae, the Hunt, quinkins, Alfr etc.

The first rebellious and indolent eldar might have even showed up ala Predator, on a big game hunt for funsies. This would have scandalised eldar society given their high morality and self identification as caretakers of the galaxy (as they inherited the mantle of the old ones).

The eldar were unassailable in their empire and their automated military forces would be endless. Psychic engines, thought creation, wraithbone is solidifed warp energy, this all effectively gives them limitless free energy to convert to limitless free matter.

You can't beat an army that's made up of endlessly replicated psyk-bots all with psychic energy coursing through them and channelled as weaponry.

It's like a tyranid/necron fusion - drop spawning bots on a planet and ignore them, leave them to create and control an endlessly renewable supply of robots to fight your foes.

so the eldar would be cruising around protected by personal void shield layers and holo fields and fusion grids and whatever else they invented.

A single eldar xenologist might descend into the middle of a waaaagh or medieval war, completely hidden and untouchable to observe and study them. Because they could. And even if they did somehow die because the planet blew up or something, they'd reincarnate so they have no fear**

**as an aside I also think that as the force of slannesh began to exert itself more, it began to contaminate the reincarnation process, tainting returning souls with a little darkness as they travelled through the warp to their rebirth. This would help to exponentially speed up eldar degradation, until only the most enlightened or newest souls were able to come through unscathed.

Thus the eldar lost 60 million years of enlightened souls by a slow cancer of degradation, leaving only a few burning champions and effectively the children, creating not just a technological apocalypse but a spiritual one as well**



The eldar have ~400 billion stars to explore, know and play with. They could control a billion systems and that would only be ~0.25% of the galaxy.

When humanity reached for the stars, they found a galaxy so vast that they could spread to hundreds of thousands of worlds without ever touching the edges of any other empire if they so chose. Humanity during the DAoT could have laid claim to 100 million systems (more than 100 million worlds), and it still have only been ~0.025% of the galaxy.

So when people talk about non agression treaties and the DAoT humans being controllers of the galaxy,they don't take into account how huge it is, or the fact that even if the eldar dominated 50% of the galaxy, that still leaves humanity and everyone else 200,000,000,000 star systems to fight over.



so in my head canon the eldar are spread everywhere, across a billion worlds from the Eye to the edges of the galaxy where the exodite worlds bordered their empire.

And it still was such a small fraction of the galaxy that ork waaaghs and alien empires rose and fell everywhere without them even knowing or caring.

Eldar space was surrounded by a ring of regenerating, endless psykbots acting like a living city palisade against the darkness and inside that unassailable wall they were defeated by the only thing that could - themselves.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Slaanesh both caused and ended the warp storms.

As it became a nascent power, it caused turmoil in the warp, causing warp storms. When Slaanesh awoke fully and consumed the ancient Eldar Empire’s heart, it snuffed out the Warp Storms, also shattering the Web Way

Now.....exactly when that turmoil started? I’ll need to have a proper sit down read through my newly acquired RT era set of books


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So.....basically Tau as The Imperium first noticed? A ‘pfffrt, whatevs, lets knack them later’ type deal?

Yup. The Eldar wouldn't even be interested in stealing our resources. Plenty of planets to go around.

Sorry to pick on your quote. But you’re the first after my previous reply.

Does that really fit the Eldar or old? Slaanesh came about because of their descent into unrestrained excess.

What could be better fun than descending upon 20th or 21st century earth, when we’ve more than enough weapons of Mass Irresponsibility to wipe ourselves out several times over. Then just sort of kick the flying eff out of us, enslaving the remnant for whatever scant amusement might be had?

Could The Emperor be playing his hand in some way?

Didn't the warp get...messier around M25 (Age of Strife) ? That would be the start of the turmoil. That's how I have thought of it personally

If my memory serves me right in the past Eldar wasn't truly warmongering in the height of their empire and they also saw other races as Old ones creations and somewhat allowed them to nurture and grow unless they become a direct threat to them.

Also Eldar foretelling it's practically non-existant on this point as it's just a random oddity some indulge. It's after the fall they become obsessed with it in order to ensure the biggest chances for survival.

If Eldar where as good at reading the future in 2020 as they are in 40.000 then they know what will become of humanity. I have my own theory on this particular topic but it requires accepting one more piece of headcannon which might be harder to swallow. The short answer is we are protect by powerfull Eldar intrests. That intrest sees that humanity has a possibility of holding up a certain galactic stability after the Eldars fall. Now that's the easy part, here's the hard to swallow part.

It's been my headcannon for a long time now that the Emperor has a cooperation with Isha. We haves sources saying that Isha has contact with the living beings in the galaxy while being imprisoned by Nurgle. We have never got an example of this contact though (as far as I'm aware). My headcannon is that at some point the Emperor and Isha had intrests that coincided. The Emperors primary objective is to cobat chaos. Isha, seeing the looming darkness ahead, would be intrested in the Emperors potential and so grant him certain knowledge of the realm of souls. Knowledge that would later allow him to cheat the dark gods and challenge chaos for the galaxy, He does this by learning from Isha how the warp reflects reality and so if he can change reality to be logical and reasonable so would the warp change. Of course we know how that went. The reason this has been my headcannon is because the Emperor has often showed absurd ammounts of knowledge of the warp, and it must have come from somewhere. I believe it to be one of the Eldar gods that took him unde her or his patronage. Isha just kind of fits because she's still active and has a genuine desire to preserve life as a whole.

So yeah, I get if this is a bit much for people. It requires a ridicilous ammount of assumptions. But I guess this is the right thread for it.

I don't think the Emperor did anything to hide us from the Eldar at their height because [heretical_headcanon]I don't think the Emperor actually existed yet: I think He and Malcador are both product of the same Age of Strife super-soldier/psyker program that created the Primarchs and the whole "born 30,000 BCE" thing is propaganda.[/heretical_headcanon]. Also I love this so much:

 Hellebore wrote:
In 2020 AD the eldar are at the ascendancy of their empire, spread across the stars.

They've just hit the appex and are now slowly sliding downward. They are capable of doing virtually anything whether that's stealing suns or creating objects with a thought.

The eldar reached a point of moral and philosophical perfection alongside their technology. They could afford to be kind and magnanimous to all things because they feared nothing.

....
so in my head canon the eldar are spread everywhere, across a billion worlds from the Eye to the edges of the galaxy where the exodite worlds bordered their empire.

And it still was such a small fraction of the galaxy that ork waaaghs and alien empires rose and fell everywhere without them even knowing or caring.

Eldar space was surrounded by a ring of regenerating, endless psykbots acting like a living city palisade against the darkness and inside that unassailable wall they were defeated by the only thing that could - themselves.