Craftworld Eldar Population

[eldargal]

Always re-read you codices:


I can't believe I missed this in the DE codex, page 20:


Sensing the end, a portion of the Eldar race combine and modify their spaceships into Craftworlds, gigantic living vessals able to accomodate an entire planet's population. One by one they begin to escape the corruption that plagued their empire. Hundreds of Craftworlds sail into the sea of stars in search of the relative safety of the untramelled void.

Obviously we have no idea what the population of an Eldar world was, but know the total was in the trillions. Even if we assume just one billion per Craftworld and only one hundred Craftworlds survive to M41 that would still be 100bn ignoring the fact they have grown by tens or hundreds of times in size. I can't find my second edition codex where I believe it mentions the tens/hundred fold increase to cite it.

Even if we took a ten fold increase that would be one thousand billion Eldar.
So, lots of Eldar. Obviously the figures are estimates, but conservative ones. We know for sure atleast thirty Craftworlds survive. Even if they started with one billion and ended with a tenfold increase that would still be 300bn Craftworlders.

You could argue that 'entire planet's population could mean a relatively sparsely populated colony, but much of the Eldar fluff states the empire was centred on a unknown number Crone worlds and the population was in the trillions.

[Hive Mind]

So much bio-mass, so little time...

[DrLove42]

The fact to also consider is three fold;

1) we know some Craftworlds are smaller than others

2) Many craftworlds are diminshed. Iyanden for instance, following the Hive Fleet is heavily diminished

3) Some craftworlds have died....if you believe a single space marine chapter, or single Nid could could a whole craftworld

[Freefall945]

Hey, that's way more than I thought. Awesome. Go Eldar! Down but not out!

[energongoodie]

Spoiler.

According to Aurelian, craftworld Zu'lasa only carried Two hundred thousand souls on board before it crashed.

[Wildeybeast]

Don't gorget all those dead people they have wandering around!

[Etra]

The hardcover 4th ed book described the Eldar as, "The Dying."

I don't think it's reasonable to assume that over time, their population has increased. Even if you changed history and presumed the following:

They were never attacked
They never lost troops in combat
None of them defected to Chaos
Nothing particularly out of the ordinary happened to them

Their population would stay constant or diminish. Think about any post-modern civilization where the birth rate declines and the aggregate population shrinks. England, France, Japan, China, America - all the native populations are decreasing as a result of contraception and a decreasing birth rate. Women stay in school or in business longer, they put off child-birth until their early to mid thirties, and have fewer children. If these country's populations increased, it's only because of immigration.

Are many non-Eldar flocking to live in Craftworlds? No.

The closest analogy to the decline of the Eldar would be Tolkien Elves, who were suffering a millennial-long decline for the same reasons.

With growth and vitality comes production. What is the age of the "youngest" Craftworld? When was the last time a new Craftworld was built? These are vital questions.

Edit *** *** *** *** *** ***

The Codex entry said hundreds... so we can pin-point that there were less than one thousand Craftworlds at any one time. One thousand is the ceiling to any estimate.
The total number of Eldar may have been a trillion, but at a time of such upheaval where you need to evacuate all the planets, we can assume many Eldar were left behind (the old, the infirm, the sick, the young, etc.).
We know Eldar are not as prolific as humans, so assuming one billion per planet would be appropriate for humans, but probably too much for Eldar.
The Craftworlds supply their guests with all the food and raw material they need to produce the things they need to live. Let's talk about that...

A human needs about 0.5 hectares of space to produce via agriculture and animal husbandry the diverse diet they need to stay healthy and sire children. New persons need their own 0.5 hectares of land. This assumes there is no soil degradation from erosion or other destructive natural events, and a perfect application of fertilizer.

Because the Eldar are all-knowing space elves, we can assume they are perfect farmers. A Hectare is is 10 square kilometers. Because Eldar are frail compared to a human, let's presume their dietary needs are half that of a normal human.
2.5 sq km per Eldar
200,000 Eldar on Craftworld Zu'lasa
The Craftworld was 500,000 square kilometers large, as a minimum, to service that size of a population. This excludes space for cities, homes, factories, vehicle depots, highways, theaters, etc. So Zu'lasa was even larger.
Estimate that 'food' production took up 3/4 of all space, and Zu'lasa grows to about 667,000 sq km.
Los Angeles County is 10,670 sq km.
California is 423,970 sq km.
The Moon is 37,900,000 sq km.

The Earth is 510,000,000 square kilometers. Working backward, we can then theorize that 382,500,000 sq km goes to food production, supporting a maximum population of 153,000,000 Eldar.

An Earth-sized Craftworld with perfect management of it's resources wouldn't support more than 200 million Eldar. And because we know that some Eldar have died from attacks, been corrupted by Chaos, and that accidents happen, there would be less.

So, again working backwards, sub-1,000 Craftworlds (999) X 153 million comes to a maximum population (of all Eldar) to be ~153 billion Eldar. That's the ceiling. We also know that no new Craftworld has been made since the original evacuation and that many Craftworlds are under-populated.

The conclusion of all this is that all the Eldar couldn't fill up a single human Forgeworld, which is what any player expects. The point of the Eldar is that there are few of them. That's what makes them special.

[Etra]

Wow, wait a minute, I was thinking about it those numbers are full of crap.

People eat twice the amount of Eldar, yet there are 7 billion of us here on Earth, and there's room for more. And most of Earth is covered in water, so there's less REAL space than I gave the Eldar credit for. I'll do some test equations and get back to ya.

I think Eldargal might be right :)

[eldargal]

We know the Craftworlds have grown in size tens or hundreds of times since the fall, that wouldn't occur in what is basically a planet ship without commensurate population growth. Therefore while it is not stated outright the Eldar population growth has, we can infer that is has quite solidly. As you say we have 7bn people or so on earth and it is one average planet that may or may not be filled to/beyond capacity. The Eldar had at least 16 Crone Worlds of unknown size and were post-subsistence, post-industrial top dogs of the galaxy for millions of years.

There will be negative growth factors too:

Many Craftworlds would be destroyed, many of the later ones would not be filled to capacity, some of them would have unloaded their populations onto Exodite worlds etc. BUT the fact remains there are at least 30 Craftworlds surviving with tens or hundreds of times growth, I personally consider the weight of evidence to be firmly in the 'tens to hundreds of billions' of Eldar camp.

Which is not a lot in a galaxy where the Imperium has quadrillions of humans, and there are god knows how many Orks an Tyranids and whatnot as well. Your last line is accurate to an extent, the entire Eldar population of the galaxy would only fill a a couple of dozen Hive Worlds at most.:) Which is another reason I consider it likely, a population in the low billions on a galactic scale is just completely implausible.

[Old_Paladin]

I think it's important to realize that just because the craftworlds have become tens times as large doesn't mean the populations have increased at all.

I think Gandolf's words in the extended edition of Return of the King discribing the fall of Gondor easily echo the Eldar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzxAcIJRumU

Their worlds are vast empty halls where Kings once sat, endless tombs for countless generations of the dead, countless chamber and observitories for their Seers, and art-houses for the great works of their past.
The Eldar are a people that value the lost glory of the days of old, thinking of little else, and waiting to die.

[eldargal]

Tolkien Elves aren't Eldar. I don't mean to sound dismissive but when 99.99% of your race has been annihilated you don't sit around wasting scant resources making your ship bigger, and bigger, and bigger without reason. The ship would either stay the same size if their population declined or they would dismantle sections or resettle on a Maiden/Exodite World.

[scadugenga]

The original RT book explained that Craftworlds held in the "tens of thousands" of eldar per craftworld.

But that was many, many retcons ago. ;)

Now craftworlds are huge gigantic things--comprising entire ecospheres. It's absolutely feasible for them to have millions, if not more, in population numbers.

[eldargal]

Yep, RT was basically DnD in Space, they hadn't quite worked out that DnD scale doesn't work on a galactic level.:) Mind you some of them still have trouble, Graham McNeil wrote about Ulthwe being 14km long in Fulgrim apparently. That is only 40% larger than some of its ships of which a Craftworld can have multiple fleets docked in its ports.:rolleyes: It would be like saying a primarch was three feet tall.

[Anggul]

There are indeed still a lot of Eldar left.

Thing is, there's a lot more of everything else around. While a craftworld could easily battle and defeat another planet, there are considerably more planets populated by others.

When you consider that there was an galactic empire of them, in the wider picture, the billions left are still just a drop in the ocean. That said, there are also the Dark Eldar, Exodites and Corsairs, of which there are many.

We must also remember that a great deal of the craftworlds originally built never made it out of the cataclysm, Altansar being one which only just didn't make it. It gave us Dark Reapers though, so overall I think that was a decent trade. :p

[eldargal]

Exactly. People think 'ooh hundreds of billions of eldar is far too many, ooh' but when there are a quadrillion humans in the galaxy it really isn't.

[Psychosplodge]

People eat twice the amount of Eldar, yet there are 7 billion of us here on Earth, and there's room for more. )

I contest that there's room for more, we've probably got 3-5 billion too many really. in order to give everone a western standard of living anyway.


Exactly. People think 'ooh hundreds of billions of eldar is far too many, ooh' but when there are a quadrillion humans in the galaxy it really isn't.

And hence if they live in city ships, they need to be MASSIVE!
Did I understand "path of the seer" correctly, do they "sing" wraith bone into existence out of the warp/nothing? because if they are creating matter out of nothing they're not limited by finding resources to build/extend the craftworld...

[eldargal]

Yes, and no, labour is a resource, if the population is shrinking there will be fewer bonesingers, fewer bonesingers means less work, less work means a focus on maintenance and essential services over expanding a Craftworld to no purpose. As far as we know they don't need anything other than bonesingers to create wraithbone.

Edit: Oh and I forgot, not everything on an Eldar vehicle is wraithbone, let alone a Craftworld. It all may be psychically created but there may be other resources involved in some fashion, we just don't know. But certainly it would be miniscule compared to the material demands of a similarly sized human population.

[Bitrider]

So how far back in the published fluff can or should we go back for information? Since RT seems to have a scale problem, that seems to far back. I have a copy of Eldar codex 2nd edition I have been pouring through.

[Old_Paladin]

Tolkien Elves aren't Eldar.
That's an odd statement to make, considering the phrase I linked to was about the humans of Gondor.


I don't mean to sound dismissive but when 99.99% of your race has been annihilated you don't sit around wasting scant resources making your ship bigger, and bigger, and bigger without reason. The ship would either stay the same size if their population declined or they would dismantle sections or resettle on a Maiden/Exodite World.

You do when you're as prideful as the Eldar.
If there is a noble house that falls into decline, or disappears all together; you don't dismantle their great halls. You also don't move a lesser great house into that space (it would be disrespectful; especally when their souls have to spend an eternity together in the infinity circuit).
The newly elevated house will just begin to build its own great hall, with its own thoughts and designs of grandure.
I've read a lot more notes about the empty homes and silent halls on crarftworlds, then I ever have about thriving populations and happy families.

I don't see the Eldar ever destroying or replacing anything they've ever made.
Their works of art are going to continue to expand and be displayed. The tombs and resting places of soul-stones is going to increase vastly. Vaults to house wraith constructs [guard, lords and the massive wraith-ships] will do nothing but grow over time.

[eldargal]

They aren't Gondorians either.:)

Your second point is a very big assumption. In PotS Thirianna leaves her old apartment when she becomes a seer, taking new quarters in the Seer area. Likewise her father who is a Bonesinger lives in bonesinger quarters. We don't even know the Eldar have the concept of a 'family home' that could be left vacant if the family dies out. Even if a small number of noble Eldar houses were left vacant it is cleat the majority of the populace on the Path system would occupy houses formerly occupied by other Eldar quite happily, which means they would not be wasting time building new houses and leaving old ones vacant.

Souls are released into the infinity circuit, with a wraithbone tree sprouting over the stone. There are no immense tomb vaults and whatnot, as to wraithguard they are rare and seldom used, Iyanden which uses them mroe than any other Craftworld is abnormal and even they hate doing it. I just think you are grasping at straws to try and explain an exponential expansion of the Craftworld without commensurate population growth. The fact is there is no other convincing explanation.

[Fellend]

I can think of a few.
Areas being damaged beyond reparation
Areas being tainted by the warp or other ... taint
Areas being declared holy (or heoric, for example this house belonged to the great BLA that did BLA)
Hubris (Yes I do really need 60000 square meters, I am after all the great BLA!)
Population growth followed by a great decline
Nid or Ork infection (hey if they can infect and live impossible to get rid of in a world why not a craft world)
Started production of one thing but found out they needed another so they left it half done

While none of these would explain a huge areas of terrain. It all adds up. After all Eldars are people too =)

[Anggul]

They aren't Gondorians either.:)

I believe he was referring to the fact that although they were mostly populated, wars and the increase in the number of young Eldar leaving to become wanderers mean that there would be places on the Craftworlds which were are sparsely populated compared to what they once were, which is a fair enough statement.

I agree that the place wouldn't grow for no reason, but it stands to reason that at certain points there would be a lot more 'vacancies' to put it in our terms. Iyanden and Alaitoc would be prime examples. Iyanden because of Tyranidness, and Alaitoc because a lot of their population become rangers. That and Eldar take their sweet time with breeding. :p

[Old_Paladin]

Souls are released into the infinity circuit, with a wraithbone tree sprouting over the stone. There are no immense tomb vaults and whatnot.

Really? That supposed to take less space?
If they removed the 2 million tombs in Paris and planted trees instead, you think that would take up less space?

If their is 1 tree for every 3 eldar dead (some stones get re-used, some might be lost). Then you'd need at least, 25% growth of space every generation.
There have been how many generations of Eldar since the fall?

That's A LOT* of trees.

* and I'm still assuming that the trees die naturally over time, but it would take a long time; and that the Eldar wouldn't be selfish enough to cut down said soul-trees.

[eldargal]

Depends on the size of the tree, of which there is no indication. It could be quite small. Also the tree part may no longer be canon, it hasn't been referenced that I know of since 2nd edition and in 4th edition it simply says the spirit stones 'take root' in the Infinty Circuit. So I still think you are grasping at straws.

[Old_Paladin]

Honestly, I kind of feel the same about you though.

There has never been anything published (other then a single line that craftworlds have gotten physically larger) that ever hints at a population boom post-Fall.
There has been a lot published about them being a dying race; and every year sees less and less of them alive, on a steady march to oblivion.


The only way I see a population growth from the crafworlds is from refugees from all the other fallen craftworlds.
So maybe, maybe, 20 craftworlds have grown in population. At the cost of the destruction of 200 other craftworlds.

[eldargal]

The dying is, in my view, metaphorical. This is also supported by the 4th ed codex where it says:

In this way the death of the Eldar heralded the birth of the Imperium, and mankind inherited the stars
This is clearly a metaphor, and I contend the metaphor continues with the Eldar 'dying'. Given the expansion of the Craftworlds from an already 'gigantic' size that while the Eldar population may be trending down it has in the past grown to warrant this increase in size. The Eldar ARE dying, but it is a cultural and psychological death, they lost their Empire, their power and are hunted by agod they birthed. They are wracked with guilt and effectively as a species have severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

I do NOT believe they are facing extinction anymore than the Imperium is, as the 40k setting is a dichotomy of entropy and hope. The Eldar are fighting to survive, as is the Imperium, and the Eldar are no more literally dying than the Imperium is literally collapsing.

GW seems to be altering this aspect of the Eldar over time, come to think about it:

RT/1st Edition: Miniscule numbers of Eldar, a single victorious battle can result in enough Eldar casualties to doom the Craftworld (WD127).
2nd Edition: Eldar are dying etc.
3rd Edition: Eldar power is waning in the eyes of the Imperium (fair enough), only Iyanden is singled out as being on the brink of extinction. Biel-Tan is said to be actively attempting to restore the Eldar Empire.
4th edition: Only one mention of a 'gradual decline' in population.
5th edition BRB: No mention of dying, but references a fight to survival for the 'dwindling' race. Dwindling being a gradual decline, again not necessarily a literal dying out.
5th ed DE codex: Hints at Craftworlds being much, much larger in scale and population than hitherto thought.

It will be interesting to see where they take this in 6th edition. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the references to population decline dissapear even more entirely to be replaced by more talk of the decline of the race in general terms, which fits in with my 'dying is a metaphor' theory.

The short version, I do think the Eldar population is in 'gradual decline' in the 41st millennium, but I also believe it has increased over the past ten thousand years. I expect this to be made more clear in the next codex.

[mjasghar786]

B4 they were hazy on timing
Unfortunately that means they are messing it up now
Afaicr 4th ed codex and 5th rb and de cod say the fall was a mere 10k ago - enough time for 20 odd sm generations
And maybe 1 eldar gen? Now yes there were 1000s of craft worlds but they have said most were still in the area if the eye when it started and most/many of those surviving died anyway
As I read it craft world eldar are less fertile cos they restrict their lives / de make up their numbers by force growing most of their race / exodites are increasing in numbers as they live fully within a restricted life
Numbers are weird in 40k anyway - the artwork routinely shows 1000s of SMs of a single chapter and the fluff has 100s of them dying in ways that prevent gene seed retrival yet not having any effect

[Old_Paladin]

... a very good argument...

Ok, that is a faultless argument; I respect that.


I'll still contend that I think your original numbers are too high and that many craftworlds will get much larger with very little increase in population*. Although a few significant ones will have population growth, just not as extreme as you presented.

I think no more then 5-10 billion Eldar per current craftworld is probably the most realistic; unless their current sizes are staggeringly larger then I imagine them (I think of them as being no more then 1-2 earth sized planets long, although significantly lower in height and width).


*Originally, I doubt they were built with significant populations in mind. The numbers of Eldar that disliked the trends of their, then current, civilization would be too few; and they didn't know an apocalyptic event was about to occur.
I see them as generational ships converted from intergalactic cargo ships. It is a ship that a month before held 100,000 people with room to spare and wide open semi-continents, and is now holding a billion people and is bursting well past capacity.

It was never meant to hold so many people so you need to add:
-space for new homes for the survivors
-additional land for the significant increase in food, water and atmosphere
-then the upper classes are going to want separate, fancier dwellings
-expansion of luxuries; places for high art, theater and entertainment
It was never meant as a warship (this wasn't needed in an Empire), so you add:
-additional ship-to-ship weapon emplacements
-enlarged hanger bays, changing from pleasure schooners and cargo landers, to actual warcraft
- forges and armouries for the new militia; with tanks, small arms and titans
The increase in size and mass should require:
-an increase in engine size
-and the increase in power-plant size
The introduction of soul-stones means
-the addition of the infinity circuit
Then the return of the Phoenix Lords
-the temples expand from small places of worship to actual homes for military orders; adding housing, armouries, training grounds, etc.

I don't think it would be unreasonable that after many generations that the ship could go from being a severely over crowded, sterile vessel; to a massive, but roomy, world ship. Able to defend itself, preserve the culture that they desire and introduce the new culture that would happen after the significant changes to their reality. With all of it starting with a population of a billion and finishing with a population of only a billion, but requiring massive expansion of the Craftworld.
In all likelihood, in the 'calm' years following the Fall, but before the rise of the Emperium of Man, the ship could well have expanded three or more times in population. Before suffering potential decline due to the current problems with Chaos, the xenophobic Emperium, Orks, Necrons, Nids...

[eldargal]

Well my figures are entirely arbitrary, I'm not trying to say 'this is how many there are' but rather 'this is how many their could be based on what we now know about the initial size of the Craftworlds'.:) I probably should have been more clear about that, the context where this came up was a discussion on Warseer where people were saying there would be <10bn Eldar left in total at most, perhaps only hundreds of millions. I think that is far too low based on what I've quoted.

You are correct, originally the Craftworlds were just large trade ships carrying around one hundred Eldar families. But the line from the DE book seems to be retconning that to them being vast colony ships. Of course it could be a mix of both, that there were hundreds of Craftworlds build to evacuate AND large numbers of trade ships becoming Craftworlds by necessity.

[Lanparth]

I find it extremely unlikely there are massive halls of the dead on Craftworlds. Self contained communities, even with Wraithbone, would be unable to survive. And when push comes to shove, a Craftworld will do what it has to to survive (ie: Iyandin)

What I would say is that the Eldar may be in decline, but the same cannot be said for the Dark Eldar. This is namely because the Dark Eldar don't have a massive guilt complex. Now, admittedly, they don't have a guilt complex because they are all psychopaths, but that isn't the point :P

The Craftworld Eldar seem to feel self loathing and guilt over just about everything. From having offspring to starting something new. I think the biggest problem they have is they have no hope. They have no aspirations beyond general survivalist. Seers not only see the future for the Eldar, but damn them. To always know what decisions will lead to stifles them as well. It changes the outcomes of what the seer sees. If all the outcomes assumes the seer was able to forewarn their people, that means that is influencing all those outcomes.

I personally see the Eldar as cursed, and slowly declining in numbers, not just because they are like modern western civilization and in slow decline, but because they defeated, crushed by their own behaviors and completely unwilling to change except in the most dire circumstances, or absolute necessity.

Eldar are probably my favorite race (I can't paint them for crap however), but I gotta call a spade a space. Craftworld Eldar are a spade.

Dark Eldar on the other hand? The stars will go black before that infestation is finished. They'll be feeding Slaanesh with inflated numbers for some time.

Slaanesh: Mmmmm, om noms.

[Kasettar]

In an interview around when the current Dark Eldar codex came out, Phil Kelly said that the Craftworld Eldar were a race in decline, where as the Dark Eldar's population may have grown but they must constantly harvest souls/pain/pleasure/suffering to keep Slaanesh at bay. He likened them to a bucket with a hole in it that slowly leaks. As long as you keep filling, you will be okay. Also the Dark Eldar can regrow whole Eldar from bits and pieces of killed ones, so they have survivability. He also talked about halfbreeds and the like, where Dark Eldar were not as picky as their craftworld brethren and did whatever they wanted... literally.

Phil also talked about the Eldar using suns as unlimited power sources prior to the fall and so raw materials were never something the Dark Eldar had to raid for, raiding was for slaves and new ideas (via testing or encounter) for weapons/ poisons / experiences / etc. By that I think that Craftworlds would have similar technology (from pre-fall) and have unlimited energy to pair with Wraithbone, a material that seems to just require energy and psychic guidance. "The Eldar had long outgrown the need for labour or simple manual agriculture." They ain't farmers. Unlimited energy + material born of energy = no food problems.

I'm not really sure what we can derive from the important craftworld situations. Most places that endure constant warfare experience depopulation, however Biel-Tan is certainly near constantly at war but seems to be thriving...

I also wanted to comment about the Path of the Outcast, in previous editions it made it seem like a great many strayed and became lost forever, but this edition specifically talks about "most Eldar eventually return to the sanctuary of the Eldar path" after talking about the ways the lose Eldar on the path of the outcast.

It is likely that few Eldar suffer from famine, their technology should be strong enough to shield them from pestilence, I guess the Rule book is right, "There is only War."

I started off completely disagreeing with Eldargal, but when you look at it, lets say there is 70bn Eldar in the Galaxy... that's ten Earths... it would still be a drop in the ocean of the vastness of space. Split that population around thirty craftworlds, trade ships turned into space RVs, Maiden worlds, outcasts living in alien space and then spread it across the cosmos... you have some significantly smaller craftworlds, with some certainly being huge (a few billion), but others tiny and insignificant in population(thousands to hundreds of thousands).

[Myu]

What a fascinating discussion. As I am re-reading the Eldar 2nd ed Codex, it's nice to hear it mentioned

[eldargal]

From the new Iyanden supplement (iPad sample) talking about the attack of Hive fleet Kraken:

Countless billions were slain, whole families, and bloodlines lost forever
Iyanden was the largest (or one of the largest) Craftworld prior to this attack, and we now know that consists of 'countess billions' and then some. Eldargal proven right re: Craftworld population.

Funnily enough this was apparently written by Ward who also removed the upper limit on SoB numbers in the WD codex. I don't care what anyone says, he has done right by eldar with this.:rolleyes:

[chromedog]

A Hectare is is 10 square kilometers.

It might seem nitpicky, but your numbers are off a little there. Just a wee smidgin.

A hectare is 10,000 square metres (a 100mx100m space). A square kilometre (1000mx1000m) is 1,000,000 square metres (or 100 hectares). 10 Square kilometres is therefore 10,000 square metres, or the equivalent of 1000 hectares.

Or did math, SI units and a whole lot of other crap change in the 20-odd years since I left uni?

[Aramel]

The Iyanden supplement also states that 4/5 of the craftworld's population died fighting Hive fleet Kraken. This means there should still be a few billion left (depends on how you interpret "countless" I guess). The supplement also gives two great examples of smaller Craftworlds that probably numbered in the millions and were ultimately overwhelmed. But I think it would not be a stretch to assume that the major Craftworlds may have anywhere from hundreds of millions to 10-50 billion Eldar.

As for population trends, I think it varies radically from Craftworld to Craftworld. The most extreme seems to be Mymeara, which we are distinctly told had an ever smaller and smaller fighting force in each engagement. But there are many factors to consider, not least is the fact that fully half of the Craftworld's military went off and died with the Phoenix Lord. Mymeara was also extremely isolated from other Eldar and fought most of its battles alone, likely suffering more losses as a result.

In the dark Eldar path books there are hints that Biel-Tan actively conscript Exodites. Given their expansionist tendencies, it is reasonable to assume that they have higher birth rates than most, given that population growth must be a top priority for them, right after getting as many Eldar as possible into Aspect shrines.

The supplement also brings up a point discussed earlier: living space aboard a Craftworld. It seems that Iyanden Eldar have very strong ties to their Houses, and the descriptions do seen to indicate that each house had their own "estate" within the ship, which were eventually occupied by the wraith guard/lords that refused to return to te infinity circuit. But, again, I think this is very specific to Craftworld culture. As Eldargirl explained, on Alaitoc, Eldar place very little value on where they live and likely do not have such strong family attachments. For them the Path is paramount.

I think it is very interesting to see the change in attitude towards ghost warriors as you progress through the supplement's lore. It goes from distasteful, but necessary, to possibly a future where all of Iyanden are of the living dead, some willingly. Though the goal of Iyanna's quest is not completely clear, it seems to imply the willing sacrifice of living Eldar to rouse the god of the dead. It also seems strange that the Eldar of the Craftworlds will perform necromancy, but not think to clone themselves as the Dark Eldar do. I assume the consequences must be even worse... A diluted soul perhaps? (DE don't really need those in themselves).

I am definitely looking forwards to more Craftworld supplements, and hope they do not take too long to arrive.

[Carresuith]

I would probably have to agree with Eldargal's proposed estimates. It seems that most Craftworlds are described as being 'continental' in scale -- it's probably fair to assume that if you're using the continents of Earth as a basis for that figure that Craftworlds can reach a size somewhere in the ballpark of 25,000,000 - 50,000,000 sq km. We can 'probably' assume that Craftworlds are not quite as sparsely populated as the continents of Earth are. The average population density of the entire land surface of the Earth is about 45 per sq km. Contrast that with the population density of Tokyo (~6,000 per sq km) or New York (~10,500 per sq km). We know enough to assume that there are still significant 'natural' spaces present on a Craftworld, although there is probably still no way to make a realistic estimate about percentages.

Another huge factor to take into account is precisely how much vertical density potential there is in certain areas. Are there 'subterranean' levels in the population centers? How deep do they go? How tall are the tallest buildings?

Also keep in mind that the Eldar probably developed conceptual hydroponics and aeroponics millions of years before human beings even figured out the rudimentary basics of agriculture. It is literally impossible to imagine how advanced their food production might be -- after all, this is a race that can manipulate life with function and create functional objects that are essentially 'alive.'

I imagine their food and energy production methods fall somewhere in between 'frighteningly' and 'mind-meltingly' efficient.

Anyway, I could very easily see populations of individual Craftworlds being in the billions.

Edited to add:

Even if we go with the aforementioned range of 'continental' size (25M-50M sq km), assumed a single 'habitable' level for the ship, and went with the average population density of what is a very sparsely populated planet (Earth; 45 / sq km), the Craftworld population range would fall within 1.125 Billion - 2.25 Billion. But I highly doubt it's that sparsely populated.

[Morgrim]

It also seems strange that the Eldar of the Craftworlds will perform necromancy, but not think to clone themselves as the Dark Eldar do. I assume the consequences must be even worse... A diluted soul perhaps? (DE don't really need those in themselves).

That depends what you mean by 'cloning themselves'. DE don't clone whole new individuals. They build new bodies and transfer the soul over, but the soul itself remains intact and can only be in one vessel at a time. (I can't remember where but there was a bit of fluff where they put xenos souls in the bodies of human slaves and freaked out a psyker, so clearly they're skilled at soul transfer.)

On a technical level there is nothing stopping a craftworlder doing the same thing, given that it IS actually possible for DE to use soulstones* and we can therefore assume the mechanics are the same for both. But the DE codex mentions that an aura of intense pain and suffering is required for the haemonculi to grow the body and this is not something that craftworlders would want to risk immersing themselves in. Presumably other ways could be developed but the DE have no interest in that.

*In The Masque of Vyle a Death Jester saves a dying Archon by offering him an empty soulstone. The dark eldar's essence is drawn into it protectively in the same way as a craftworlder.

[Aramel]

Right, I was referring to Trueborn (natural Eldar birth) as opposed to the lower class masses of the Dark Eldar that are born in test tubes. Cloning is probably the wrong term to use though, but I had assumed they would be using existing genetic material. Though I suppose it is possible that they have the technology to genetically engineer new Eldar without really "copying" existing Eldar. I don't think the lore goes into much detail as to how low-born Dark Eldar are made.

[eldargal]

Actually most Dark Eldar aren't clones as such, a fertilized egg is removed from the womb implanted into a amniotic tube thingy where it is gestated artificially. Trueborn are gestated the traditional way and clones are used to transfer the owners soul into when their existing body dies. Personally I think when that happens they cease to be a clone.

I think it is a safe bet that the Dark Eldar have also mastered artificial insemination so creating new dark eldar is something that some kabals could potentially be doing on al amost industrial scale.

[Aramel]

So basically Dark eldar can reproduce much faster than Craftworlders that way, right? I wonder why the less populous Craftworlds don't use that technology. My best guess is that the process reduces the artificial generation's psychic potential, which means those Eldar would be unable to use 90% of the Craftworld's technology.

[eldargal]

I think the Craftworlds view a lot of that technology as abhorrent, they don't want to use it, rather than it being harmful if they did. It's all just speculation though.

[Deadlift]

Eldar craft world population = 0. They're not real :D

Obvious troll is obvious ?

[Poseidal]

I calculated that for a moon sized craftworld, a population of about 7-8 billion would be around right, as a minimum.

Note that moon sized is actually one of the smaller craftworlds. In BFG, it tells you to treat them as gravity wells like planets, and they go all the way up to larger than Earth size (and this is mass, so it's not even just Earth size in comparison from two dimensions), which is far, far larger than the moon.

I would expect a 'major' Craftworld (Biel-Tan, Saim-Hann, Ulthwe and so on) to be on the larger size of this spectrum.