Between point A and point B? About Eldar, and unknown Epochs.

[Mr Mystery]

Evening.

Dunno where this one came from, but it's in my noggin so thought I'd share.

Eldar. Pointy eared, skinny bodied mysterious sods. And next to Necrons, easily the most technologically advanced race in the Galaxy - all flavours of them.

We know their current state, and what lead them to it. And we know that they participated in the war against the C'Tan, surviving where their masters (and possible creators*) did not.

But.....but what exactly occurred in between? I mean, that's a huge epoch of time. Millions of years of relative peace. Given what we know of their Empire immediately before the Fall, they were certainly masters of all they surveyed, and Orks likely barely a thorn in their side.

Yet after the war against the Necrons, they can't have been in great shape - certainly it seems they were left unable to launch wide scale assaults to cleanse known a Tomb Worlds - and it seems reasonable they'd have known where they were at that time.

And this got me thinking.....there may be a cyclical nature to the Galaxy's own narrative.

Consider Man. Between now, and approximately 30,000, Man rose and fall, with the Great Crusade seemingly being our own species last hurrah before the like the Eldar before us, we fall into unending decay, our Empire a pale shadow of what was, and an even paler shadow of what was intended (for what was intended, see Ultramar)

And in the current dark days? Tau. Pushing out from their home systems. Massive technological advancements which seem accelerated, but only against the backdrop of the Galactic Ennui. In the context of the real world - it's perhaps not that remarkable. Consider that man only began powered flight 112 years ago, and how far we've come despite near incessant warfare and strife since on both local and global scale.

Yet they're just as ignorant of the Warp as we are here in the real world. It could be argued that rather than 'not even slightly psychic' they're more a case of 'not even slightly psychic - yet'. Who knows what evolutionary weirdness leads to psychic awakening in a species? Indeed it seems in the 41st Milennium, Man is only just inheriting his psychic legacy....

And now I'm waffling.

In short....is the galaxy as cyclical as the Eldar believe? What were they doing as a species before their descent into indulgence? Is the Heresy Man's own version of The Fall, or a relatively minor speed bump the Eldar faced but have long forgotten?

[Morgrim]

I think the Imperium is more likely to be in the Decline that led to the Fall. Society starting to break down under its own weight, factions splintering off to do their own thing, multiple people calling out about imminent doom but disagreeing on what and how (just look at the factions in the Inquisition). It'll be a while before it builds to a peak and it'll be a different flavour of disaster, but it could happen.

Hell, given rumours spread about the Emperor, it could well result in a new Chaos God! Who will consume the souls of those that forged him because that is what baby gods do, and definitely result in the loss of the Astronomicon at least. Which will end the Imperium, because the percentage of navigators that can reliably pilot a warp jump without the beacon is far too small.*


*Navis Primer shows that it is possible at least, and that occasionally Inquisition ships, Rogue Traders and Mechanicum Explorators have to do it when they're out on the fringes of the galaxy. Or you can get an astropath on a known planet to make you a temporary beacon and use that. But astropaths are soulbound to the Emperor; if he ascends, they're gonna be the first to die. Bye-bye FTL communication, even if they CAN get ships moving between systems.

[reganator5000]

Part of the unknown period before the fall, which chronologically occurred maybe 50-100 years before the great crusade (as slaanesh's birth cries were what parted the warp storms that had imprisoned earth during the age of strife) was the dark age of technology- even though the Eldar empire hadn't fallen more than a couple of centuries earlier, the crusade found people all over the galaxy. From around the time of early human civilisation the eldar were in power as that was when the war in the heaven deposited the dragon on earth (either by the blackstone fortresses as in the original fluff, or possibly after being splintered by the 'crons depending how much of that wanted retconning). Assumably, that leaves the 'crons hibernating by 1900 or so, as otherwise they'd have seen the SETI broadcasts etc. and attacked modern era humanity (and we aren't currently ruled by omnicidal robots in our entirety).

The Eldar have their rise to power immediately as the 'crons hibernate, as that's why they wanted to take such a long nap. The Eldar have their unchallenged empire for a while. Then the dark age of technology happens, and obviously orks are getting everywhere as well, so there are two rapidly expanding lower races that effectively conquer almost the entire galaxy based on where their settlements were (everywhere) as short time after the Eldar's fall. Basically, this makes me believe they only survived as long as they did by being an outside context problem (the reason having self ruled countries made up of uncontacted tribes in Brazil doesn't threaten their territorial integrity, except all of AI enabled humanity- with their attatched superior warpflight ability- and rampaging super empires of orks were the guys waving spears at helicopters and buldozers.
Effectively, as we know the eldar empire was physically small, it's possible to conclude that their seeing everything as a cycle is just a symptom of the fall- they are just so used to seeing everything apart from themselves as meaningless, even if it happens on a larger scale than them (e.g. the dark age of technology, war with the steel men and the age of strife) because within relatively recent memory, their empire, was a tiny proportion of the galaxy (essentially a lower world count than the current eye of terror, as worlds not worth colonising by Eldar due to being to close to or far from the sun are still pretty neat when you are a red skinned energy being literally made of hatred and holding a piece of hell in your clawed talons) and that empire was immortal and impervious to attack- in fact the only thing that seems to keep the eldar from being a force to be reckoned with in the universe is that they forgot how to make baby eldar at some point (even the kabalites think trueborn are rare, which given the levels of careless excess in their society makes me think they have the approximate fertility of a eunuch with severe radiation poisoning). They still think things happen in cycles, because it hasn't occured to them that this will all blow over in a thousand years or so.
Effectively, when the ten thousand years of eldar exile has happened not only during Eldrads lifetime, but in the amount of time he's had his current job, it might be easier for him to think they are just going through a rough patch, the economy will get better soon, and they've got the exodite worlds trying to get over that dang infertility problem by re-enacting hippies the 60s.

The universe doesn't even seem very cyclical with the retconned crons- it goes old ones cross the stars, 'crons fight old ones, are beaten, 'crons and c'tan fight old ones, win, 'crons fight C'tan, win, crons nap, eldar have empire that conceives evil god, humans have empire that births wizards and evil death robots then collapses, eldar empire collapses as evil god is born, humans have empire that births wizards and evil emotionless killing machines then singularly doesn't collapse. The Eldar themselves don't fit the cycle at all, as they fall from the height of their power whilst everyone else messes up quite early on. The old ones were beaten by the 'crons gods, not the ones they made, the 'crons made their gods before their empire, as does humanity both times, which isn't killed by the emperor but by a bunch of things that were already there. Even if the Tau suicide via AI, that only really repeats the time man did the exact same thing, and if they suicide via psykers, neither the second human cycle, nor the 'crons, nor really the eldar (who were all already psykers, and suicided after too many discos) did the same.

[Morgrim]

I feel I should point out that Dark Eldar don't have a fertility problem at all. They don't have many Trueborn because Trueborn are gestated entirely in the womb of their mother. Given that eldar pregnancies last several earth years, during which time the mother is likely to be to the machinations of their enemies (at least in the later stages), it's kind of understandable that the vast majority transfer the embryeo to an external artificial womb ASAP.

[Mr Mystery]

It does seem that Trueborn is a matter of prestige over practicality.

Necrons were in hibernation long, long before the 1900's - certainly before Man evolved, and even possibly before life began on Earth (though the original Necron Codex suggests life on Earth was the doing of the Old Ones).