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Star Trek has the ancient race which seeded its kind across the stars, thus creating Vulcans, Humans, and all the human like races of the galaxy, so what common root is shared between Eldar and humans? It all seems suspect to me.

The Old Ones.

well, technically, eldars didn't naturally evolved and were bio-engineered by the Old Ones to serve as some sort of warrior race. Humans, for all we know, did evolve from primates on Earth in the 40K universe. The resemblance between eldars and humans is thus due to chance and maybe some convergent evolution. The eldars live under the same type of planets and condition as humans thus they will look superficially similar. Eldars are just elves in space. Why do elves look like humans? Because they are supposed to be some sort of idealised humanity, extremely wise and in tune with nature.

Because they're space elves, and it seems like GW appropriated the already established notion of what elves should look like instead of inventing their own race.

I mean, it's not the first time authors/creators bit off Tolkien's creations. I'd assume it's another case of that.

epronovost wrote:
well, technically, eldars didn't naturally evolved and were bio-engineered by the Old Ones to serve as some sort of warrior race. Humans, for all we know, did evolve from primates on Earth in the 40K universe. The resemblance between eldars and humans is thus due to chance and maybe some convergent evolution. The eldars live under the same type of planets and condition as humans thus they will look superficially similar. Eldars are just elves in space. Why do elves look like humans? Because they are supposed to be some sort of idealised humanity, extremely wise and in tune with nature.

'Long ago, before the Fall, the Mon-Keigh were nothing. They were comical tree-beasts, part of the eco-system of their world, but with no greater role defined for them by the Old Ones. / ...In this power vacuum the lesser creations of the Old ones, such as the Mon-Keigh, developed in unforseeable ways. Raw, elemental evolution took hold, turning these noisy but harmless beasts into the life form that now infested a million worlds'
Codex: Necrons (3rd ed.), pg.9

Xenology was all about this idea.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

epronovost wrote:
well, technically, eldars didn't naturally evolved and were bio-engineered by the Old Ones to serve as some sort of warrior race. Humans, for all we know, did evolve from primates on Earth in the 40K universe. The resemblance between eldars and humans is thus due to chance and maybe some convergent evolution. The eldars live under the same type of planets and condition as humans thus they will look superficially similar. Eldars are just elves in space. Why do elves look like humans? Because they are supposed to be some sort of idealised humanity, extremely wise and in tune with nature.

'Long ago, before the Fall, the Mon-Keigh were nothing. They were comical tree-beasts, part of the eco-system of their world, but with no greater role defined for them by the Old Ones. / ...In this power vacuum the lesser creations of the Old ones, such as the Mon-Keigh, developed in unforseeable ways. Raw, elemental evolution took hold, turning these noisy but harmless beasts into the life form that now infested a million worlds'
Codex: Necrons (3rd ed.), pg.9

Xenology was all about this idea.

Given the chronology of the 40K universe, it should be less why Eldar look like humans but more rather why humans look like Eldar. Past background suggests the Old Ones (which are also hinted at in that same Necron Codex to be Old Slann) had a hand in this. Maybe they had a common template they worked from, explaining all the humanoid races of the galaxy.

Doesn't matter because crabs are the final evolution state.

It depends on what art you look at, in some they really don't.
Early 2000 GW elf art had a hint of alien grey about them.

Unnaturally thin physiques, large all black almond eyes.

There's also convergent evolution, why do sharks, dolphins and icythosaurs look alike? Or in an even more extreme case the various moles, despite having very different ancestors?

The Old Ones in 40K had little to do with the uplifting of humanity, as they were long dead before the very earliest primates emerged. Necrons might have had some involvement, but only as part of their Pariah Project.
I assume it was to make something more like Star wars' Ysalamari, but if you add genes that connect something to the warp - then strange but often familiar mutations happen.

There's a chance that in order to make a counter to the Eldar armies used by the Old Ones, they created a psychic connection in the warp to the concept of their enemies which then shaped the evolution of humanity when the currents of the warp ran strong, creating the periods of punctuated equilibrium we see in the fossil record.

 Tastyfish wrote:
It depends on what art you look at, in some they really don't.
Early 2000 GW elf art had a hint of alien grey about them.

Unnaturally thin physiques, large all black almond eyes.

There's also convergent evolution, why do sharks, dolphins and icythosaurs look alike? Or in an even more extreme case the various moles, despite having very different ancestors?

The Old Ones in 40K had little to do with the uplifting of humanity, as they were long dead before the very earliest primates emerged. Necrons might have had some involvement, but only as part of their Pariah Project.
I assume it was to make something more like Star wars' Ysalamari, but if you add genes that connect something to the warp - then strange but often familiar mutations happen.

There's a chance that in order to make a counter to the Eldar armies used by the Old Ones, they created a psychic connection in the warp to the concept of their enemies which then shaped the evolution of humanity when the currents of the warp ran strong, creating the periods of punctuated equilibrium we see in the fossil record.

Yeah I much prefer the slightly too thin to be a human aesthetic - I think they even went with pupils so large their eyes looked black as well for a while.


https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/warhammer40k/images/c/c0/Eldar_Warlock.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120822071508

https://www.deviantart.com/beckjann/art/Dark-Eldar-and-the-raid-has-begun-288048326

Because convergent evolution. Turns out being bipedal with arms allows for tool use.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

epronovost wrote:
well, technically, eldars didn't naturally evolved and were bio-engineered by the Old Ones to serve as some sort of warrior race. Humans, for all we know, did evolve from primates on Earth in the 40K universe. The resemblance between eldars and humans is thus due to chance and maybe some convergent evolution. The eldars live under the same type of planets and condition as humans thus they will look superficially similar. Eldars are just elves in space. Why do elves look like humans? Because they are supposed to be some sort of idealised humanity, extremely wise and in tune with nature.

'Long ago, before the Fall, the Mon-Keigh were nothing. They were comical tree-beasts, part of the eco-system of their world, but with no greater role defined for them by the Old Ones. / ...In this power vacuum the lesser creations of the Old ones, such as the Mon-Keigh, developed in unforseeable ways. Raw, elemental evolution took hold, turning these noisy but harmless beasts into the life form that now infested a million worlds'
Codex: Necrons (3rd ed.), pg.9

Xenology was all about this idea.

Xenology (and also one of the Horus Heresy novels) implies that one of the remaining old ones did in fact work on humanity. In fact, we know that the human fear of death is a genetic remnant of something that happened during the C’Tan war against the Old Ones, so clearly some sort of link exists between modern humans and beings that existed more than 60 million years ago.

The distant linkage between the Old Ones mentioned here is definitely a reason, also probably having developed after the fall of the Old Ones. It's also extremely important to remember that no matter how similar the two species look, the biology of humans and eldar are vastly different.
Love Can Bloom is still canon for me, though.

My personal theory is that the latter Old Ones creations, like eldar, Krork, humanity, and even the Slann, are all based in the Necrontyr body plan in order to best take advantage of Necrontyr technology, fighting style, psychology, whatever. Thus, eldar, Krork and humans all have very different biologies according to their design space, with a common bipedal structure across all their forces.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

epronovost wrote:
well, technically, eldars didn't naturally evolved and were bio-engineered by the Old Ones to serve as some sort of warrior race. Humans, for all we know, did evolve from primates on Earth in the 40K universe. The resemblance between eldars and humans is thus due to chance and maybe some convergent evolution. The eldars live under the same type of planets and condition as humans thus they will look superficially similar. Eldars are just elves in space. Why do elves look like humans? Because they are supposed to be some sort of idealised humanity, extremely wise and in tune with nature.

'Long ago, before the Fall, the Mon-Keigh were nothing. They were comical tree-beasts, part of the eco-system of their world, but with no greater role defined for them by the Old Ones. / ...In this power vacuum the lesser creations of the Old ones, such as the Mon-Keigh, developed in unforseeable ways. Raw, elemental evolution took hold, turning these noisy but harmless beasts into the life form that now infested a million worlds'
Codex: Necrons (3rd ed.), pg.9

Xenology was all about this idea.

Xenology (and also one of the Horus Heresy novels) implies that one of the remaining old ones did in fact work on humanity. In fact, we know that the human fear of death is a genetic remnant of something that happened during the C’Tan war against the Old Ones, so clearly some sort of link exists between modern humans and beings that existed more than 60 million years ago.

Was the fear of death as the Nightbringer put in humans, or did humans learn to associate the Nightbringer's image with the fear of death once they were able to connect with the warp? Where previous and highly psychic races had threaded the two together in the same way that chaos cults tend to converge on certain archetypes.

This is what the Old Ones or Necrontyr might have been working on in a secret base on late Cretaceous earth before being disappearing or being wiped out.

According to Xenology, Qah, last of the known Old Ones, was active as recently as 500,000 years ago.

Pre-Emperor shamans: powerful psychic humanoids able to reincarnate via the warp.
Remind you of anyone? ancient Eldar

Azathothsdream wrote:
Star Trek has the ancient race which seeded its kind across the stars, thus creating Vulcans, Humans, and all the human like races of the galaxy, so what common root is shared between Eldar and humans? It all seems suspect to me.

Because Eldar are just space Elfs. Elfs got popular in the fantasy culture when Tolkien borrowed them from Norse mythology. (Or Germanic mythology witch norse seems to be derived from.) Tolkiens elfs looks like humans, and thus the simalereties remain.

Note that folklore and mythological creatures who do not look like humans often do not get as good publicety. (Here is looking at you Nøkken.)

I prefer the idea that humanity isn't special, that they weren't created.

That their current success is entirely down to hard work and not an inbuilt ability to succeed.

Other races in 40k were created or tampered with (tau). It's boring if they all are.

If we assume necrons look like their robots with skin on, they look pretty humanoid. Eldar came next and were similar in appearance - maybe the old ones created them to fight the necrons on the same playing field.

humans would have convergently evolved with that body plan.

Warhammer 40K is Fantasy in space.

Eldar are Space Elves. Thats basically why.

There's a book with Cawl where he talks to a Ctan. The Ctan looks at him and tells him that humans have the touch of the Old Ones on them. By which I infer that the Ctan at least thinks the Old ones have meddled in our evolution.

Bubble theory.

I'm here reading the the posts. I just reply minimally since I have less insight and typing on a ps4 is slower than mankind's intergalactic mass extinction. I'll go with the theory that the C'tan or Old Ones had a hand in our creation even if we did start as a possum like mammal.

This galaxy is teeming with vermin!

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Because convergent evolution. Turns out being bipedal with arms allows for tool use.

Yeah, but so would four legs and two arms. Or maybe just longer lived Octopuses.

Having the exact same numbers of fingers and toes, the same layout of eyes, nose, mouth, brain, spine, joints, etc., requires more explanation than “convergent evolution”. Convergent evolution does not explain the presence of psykers in the human race, especially in the absence of psykers in our closest earthly relatives.

Saying, “space elves” is an explanation outside of the setting. We still need an explanation inside the setting. There is too much backstory and interconnectedness to just throw hands in the air and declare it doesn’t matter. For any setting that aspires to something more than Flash Gordon kitsch, there needs to be at least the bones of a reasonable explanation.

This was answered very well already.

The Old Ones.

But I dont know how that carries over now that Newcron fluff exists. Didnt the Old Ones win the War in Heaven now? I cant remember all the ret-cons :/

 argonak wrote:
There's a book with Cawl where he talks to a Ctan. The Ctan looks at him and tells him that humans have the touch of the Old Ones on them. By which I infer that the Ctan at least thinks the Old ones have meddled in our evolution.

Which book is that?

I've wondered if it could be the Warp--as in, the idea of a 'sapient race' being humanoid was imprinted on the warp because of the war in heaven and that influence has subtly cropped up in various places across the galaxy since then. So while humans did indeed evolve, that evolution was nudged in a certain direction. It would still leave room for the variations on humanoid we see as well as for non-humanoid-sapient races.

But regardless I would say the Necrontyr are likely the 'original' humanoid with the Old Ones borrowing that form when creating races to fight them (that does seem like the kind of douchey the Old Ones would subscribe to).

Eldar, as noted, were DESIGNED by their "gods" that way. "one can't improve on perfection".

Humans are the result of haphazard random mutations from a lower life form begetting convergent evolution.

If you want to establish if their is a genetic route that makes both races related and there for not put their similarities down to luck, you need to find examples of cross breeding.


If they can cross breed they must be related

mrFickle wrote:
If they can cross breed they must be related

Looking for the missing Ultramarine librarian!!