Eldar, the Dying Kindreds

[Chapter Master Jake]

It is said, almost forcefully, that the Eldar are a dying race and that with each battle, victorious or not, they are still falling to ruin. Now this makes me wonder... are Eldar sterile for some reason, either by choice or by happenstance? OR are they choosing to forgo mating because of some moral standard or cause? I know Slaanesh has their number in a big way and if the mere act of an Eldritch ****** is enough to unleash a tide of Slaaneshi daemons than I suppose it's understandable... but what's the author-approved reason they don't mate?

... Or do they, just very rarely and they don't have time for child rearing?

Eldar can live for tens of thousands of years if allowed to, and can accumulate vast wisdom, knowledge, and insight into space and time so I can only assume that IF they do mate and produce offspring that it does take a lot longer for the child to grow into an adult, thus the reason they are dying as a whole.

I await both informative and snobbish answers alike! Listening to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfMX1fz8l7s in the meantime. :D

edit: Also... do Eldar paint their wraithbone armor and weaponry, or is it colored as part of the bonesinger's song?

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Well, Craftworlders/Exodites seem to feel that overly emotional expressions (i.e. sex and romance) risk the attention of Slaanesh.

Additionally, it's established in Xenology that Eldar impregnation is a notably longer process than it is for humans (as in, spread across multiple separate nights). That might contribute to it.

Dark Eldar get around this by cloning lots of themselves, although they consider "Trueborn" individuals to be superior.

[buggle]

I always had the belief that souls began and ended in the warp. That a non psychic human soul was worth, say, an ounce of immateria and an eldar being 10,000 ounces ( orks being .005 ) so with the breeding of other races at such a quick pace it's rare in the instance of fertilisation that enough 'soul' is ready to be harvested

[Chapter Master Jake]

Well, Craftworlders/Exodites seem to feel that overly emotional expressions (i.e. sex and romance) risk the attention of Slaanesh.

Additionally, it's established in Xenology that Eldar impregnation is a notably longer process than it is for humans (as in, spread across multiple separate nights). That might contribute to it.

Dark Eldar get around this by cloning lots of themselves, although they consider "Trueborn" individuals to be superior.

So, coincidentally it IS a little bit of both, fear of Slaanesh AND an extensive, involved reproduction process. Quite interesting, and a little sad I must say. I've always been fascinated by Eldar and though they aren't a faction I think I'd fit into very well, they have a lot more respect from me since they face such adversity. I was always under the assumption that they didn't have the ability to reproduce anymore, but I see there's more to it than I could imagine.

As for the Dark Eldar, that is completely new news to my ears. If a species mastered a cloning technique that allows for fully functional soldiers with a will to survive and thrive in battle, then you have mastered a new type of warfare, regardless of how prolific the cloning process is. That raises it's own questions but this thread is more about the true Eldar people rather than the disparate slavers, raiders, and pirates of the shadows of the Webway.

The interesting thing about this though is indeed how prolific the Eldar seem to be to begin with. I know it's just a game, but in the background they've fought hundreds, if not thousands of MAJOR battles within the space of ten-thousand years against Humans, Orks, Tyranids, Chaos, Necrons and even Tau. They've lost tens of thousands of their people but they're still here and they're ferociously powerful regardless of number.

[Poseidon]

It's not so much they can't reproduce. They must save their race from the predations of the warp and other enemies. They are still producing at a good rate. it's their rate of death that is making them dwindle. They have to see the lines of fate and prevent things steps ahead to counteract a daemon prince or tendril of the hive mind from destroying a sector where a craftworld will be. It cost lives to fight these battles and they can't flee the galaxy so are trying to prevent their decline by attritioning themselves from their inevitable destruction. It takes longer but they haven't stopped producing children just can't keep up with protecting worlds and fates from being destroyed that will help them later on.

[Chapter Master Jake]

It's not so much they can't reproduce. They must save their race from the predations of the warp and other enemies. They are still producing at a good rate. it's their rate of death that is making them dwindle. They have to see the lines of fate and prevent things steps ahead to counteract a daemon prince or tendril of the hive mind from destroying a sector where a craftworld will be. It cost lives to fight these battles and they can't flee the galaxy so are trying to prevent their decline by attritioning themselves from their inevitable destruction. It takes longer but they haven't stopped producing children just can't keep up with protecting worlds and fates from being destroyed that will help them later on.

It almost seems to me that they suffer from over-thinking things, to be frank. I am empathetic towards these folks but I have to say it's rather silly that they allow themselves to be drawn into battles just because of their hunches. There's a difference between proactive and effective.

I'm surprised they don't come together and create a stronghold in a faraway corner of the galaxy were they can plan and breed in peace. :P

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Perhaps it's related to the amount of soul stones they possess. We know that they regularly have to harvest more, so they probably don't have a comfortable surplus of them. If they run out of soul stones, their newborn children would be doomed to having their souls devoured by a dark god. Pretty strong incentive to not breed that much.

I don't know if that line of reasoning's ever popped up in the fluff, but I'd probably mention it if I was writing an Eldar Codex for some bizarre reason.

[Poseidon]

They see the future as paths. They know one of those options will happen they might be surprised which one it is because the paths that diverge can have huge effects. They are not surprised that they will happen. They choose the option most favorable to themselves and then the galaxy. They can't join up into a stronghold. Their stronghold was the eye of terror bc that turned out fantastic. Ynead is their actual hope and end.

[Charon]

As for the Dark Eldar, that is completely new news to my ears. If a species mastered a cloning technique that allows for fully functional soldiers with a will to survive and thrive in battle, then you have mastered a new type of warfare, regardless of how prolific the cloning process is. That raises it's own questions but this thread is more about the true Eldar people rather than the disparate slavers, raiders, and pirates of the shadows of the Webway.

Erm....
Even we are able to clone in the same way the DE do. They dont create instant Soliders, they create children. Difference beeing that they are carried out "in vitro" and not in their mothers womb.
The reason why they do this (and why the Eldar - not the Dark Eldar - are considered dying) is the long and problematic pregnancy.
At the end every Eldar race will die. Craftworlders are dwindling as every conflict tolls their numbers, Exodites are stationary and cant evade an invasion and the Dark Eldar will vanish when the Webway collapses entirely.

[Morgrim]

DE don't quite 'clone' in the sense that we tend to take it. Rather, a dark eldar embryo still has to go through all the same long fertilisation process but they have artificial wombs that can host it during the even longer growth and development process, which frees up the mother to still fight and lets her reproduce faster. Additionally they have a sort of insurance process where a soul can be tethered to their body in such a way that if you're fast enough recovering the corpse they can be restored and effectively brought back to life. If you're not fast enough Slaanesh eats the soul and they're dead for good.

Neither way gives you soldiers any faster than traditional reproduction, they just both allow for a greater volume to be grown at any one time. The restoration process cannot be used for Craftworlders (it involves torture and soul absorption) but theoretically the artificial wombs could. Possibly they're leery of the technique for other cultural reasons, or it's never been offered to them in trade.

[John Bower]

As to Orks I didn't think they had a 'soul' as such, they're definitely fun guys (fungi?) to be around, but no soul as such, they just regrow a new presence when they get offed. Eldar I think are just like somebody said, a mix of the time and risk to actually mate. They feel much more intense passion (in fact any feelings) more than the other races, which was why they fell so hard and 'created' slannesh.

[Charon]

Has nothing to do with Slaanesh. If these where the primary emotions involved in creating Slaanesh, it would be more like a Aphrodite equivalent.
DE Codex states that its in fact the pregnacy which is long and complicated.

[-Tom-]

The reason they are 'dwindling' so often in the fluff is most likely because it's one of those cool words to use in this sort of thing so get it stuffed into the fluff as much as you can. Just look how many times words like 'preternatural' crop up in GW stuff.

Path of the Seer book mentions checking out the outcomes of different threads of fate for Alaitoc after the battle with the Imperium. They foresee a great loss of life with some of the tactics, but also that they will recover their losses and rebuild. So, it is important to note that not all the fluff suggests that they are a dying race.

I think there are some potential misconceptions with some of the fluff too. Population growth rate is small, so even if the overall Eldar population is increasing, compared to other races, it is increasing at a lower rate so the amount by which they are outnumbered will increase over time.


As for the other question from the OP about Wraithbone, I would view wraithbone as being more of a 'material science' than a single 'material'. It is described as being a living material. So, let's assume that the Eldar have the technology to have nanotechnology that operates inside all their structures... perhaps the warp-spiders that live inside the wraithbone are actually genetically engineered / nanotech contracts themselves in the first place that then work as caretakers for the material. Perhaps there are smaller, microscopic variants of them even.

We have the ability ourselves, right now, to create transparent metal alloys. One example of this is at CERN, where there are a load of rods in the detector that appear to be glass. They're actually a Lead-Tungstate alloy, designed to be transparent to allow light through, while being very dense to absorb energy from particles passing through.

So, if I had to write the fluff for wraithbone in a sci-fi way, (vs a space magic way), I'd have it being any material that contained the nanotech-warp-spiders, which are the things that actually maintain/repair/build the macro-material (be it a falcon hull, a cockpit 'window' or shuriken ammo) from working with individual atoms, putting them exactly where they are wanted, and so building up into super-molecules. Maybe for a cockpit canopy we want a bit of that lead-tungstate mentioned earlier so it'd really dense and good at absorbing energy from weapons fire... but, better than our current tech, they can build the whole thing as one seamless crystal so there are no imperfections, which would lead to weak spots.

The colour of it might then depend on exactly what it was made from in any specific material... but could also be entirely aesthetic as it could easily enough have a thin coating in just the same was as we'd anodise or paint something.

[Necron2.0]

I thought >>this<< (http://www.flashgitz.net/2013/09/the-population-problem.html) explained the Eldar "issue" quite nicely.

[Ravingbantha]

its a typical storyline with elves (elder being space elves). But the idea is that they rarely breed, its part of the trade off for living so long. I guess it's a 'natures ballance' kinda thing. Imagine a race that breeds like humans, but lives for several thousands of years.