[Zahr Dalsk]

Also, the image I got of the Craftworlds is that, despite their huge size, they're very sparsely populated.. you won't have bustling marketplaces or anything like that, the Eldar are very spread out.

Precisely (though they still have very large populations, for the most part). And Commorragh, being extremely densely populated, would have a vast population indeed.

 

[Marius the Possessed]

Precisely (though they still have very large populations, for the most part). And Commorragh, being extremely densely populated, would have a vast population indeed.

True, but even a sparsely populated planet would have hundreds of millions, and the Craftworlds are the size of planets; not only is 'world' part of their name, but each is said to house a fleet large enough to forestall an assault by the Imperium. That is a pretty damn big fleet to scare off the Imperials.

And Commoragh is a city. Maybe a craftworld sized city, who knows, but there is still only one of them. And there are dozens of craftworlds. And Craftworld Eldar die in battle, but they don't fight when they come back home; the Dark Eldar do.

As for the idea that Dark Eldar reproduce faster, I find that hard to believe. Monogomy isn't really a Dark Eldar strong suit, and if a gamete needs multiple infusions from the same partner in order to become a zygote, that would mean the Dark Eldar actually reproduce less than their Craftworld Brethren.

 

[CaptainSarathai]

All I know is, and I read this in Lexicanum, is that Craftworld eldar were only a small portion of the entire Eldar Empire. Apparently, though, 'a small portion' means billions upon billions. The so called 'dark eldar' were about 90% of the population, most of which who died when Slaanesh was born. The remaining billions upon billions upon billions became the Dark Eldar. Hence why there are more. - I'm not pulling this out of my bum, blame GW for it's draconian numbers.

Nah, what you're forgetting are the Exodite eldar. The Exodite were those eldar who refused to board the craftworlds and flee. Many of them have since been hunted down by Chaos or by the Dark Eldar. Others have been slain by Orks, or the expansion of the Imperium. Thus- Craftworld Eldar might represent only 10%, but the Dark Eldar are supposedly smaller than that.

I can imagine that even the Dark Eldar understand the importance of reproduction. Slaanesh doesn't turn you into a kinky sex-fiend, it turns you into a being which thrives on sensory input. I can imagine some wild Dark Eldar... practices... but that's not their whole deal. They also dabble in ANYTHING that makes you FEEL. Drugs, sex, sound, self mutilation, basically they're rockstars. And rockstars might have any number of groupie girls knocking on their doors on any given Tuesday, but many of them do eventually find a wife and replace themselves.

 

[Willance]

First off Wow, i didn't believe that this was something people would be concerned about till I read it all.

But now i need to comment.

Just because the Eldar are "Dying" does not mean that they reproduce more or less then human. I was pointed out earlier that they are "Dying" Com paired to other races like Humans, Tau or Orks. You also need to remember that the long life span of a race would make for a disproportionat amount of Children compaired to other races. In the life span of a Millinium whats a few dozen years spent a a child, assuming that they don't leave childhood at the same rate as say humans.

Look to High Elves along with Dark Elves to help your question. In Defenders of Ulthwe by Graham McNeill it has two character sharing in casual intercorce for the sake of casual intercorce. Whoes to say that the Eldar don't do the samething.

 

[ze_poodle]

Just because the Eldar are "Dying" does not mean that they reproduce more or less then human. I was pointed out earlier that they are "Dying" Com paired to other races like Humans, Tau or Orks. You also need to remember that the long life span of a race would make for a disproportionat amount of Children compaired to other races. In the life span of a Millinium whats a few dozen years spent a a child, assuming that they don't leave childhood at the same rate as say humans.

It's precisely the opposite. The Eldar really are dying out. Their reproductive process is long, complicated, and prone to failure or interruption. The fact that many Craftworlds exist on a knife's edge and are forced to devote most of their population to warfare doesn't help things. With humans it's obscenely easy. Do it once on the right day (a one in thirty chance! the Eldar wish they had odds as good as that) and you have a little screaming soldier in nine months. Eldar reproduce over decades.

Their status as an endangered species is a large part of their theme, and it's repeated everywhere. They were once rulers of the galaxy, they were once the monarchs of infinity, but now their empire is gone and their time has passed. They were created for a war that is long over, and their creators are long dead. Their children follow them.

If they had peace, worlds, and time, they could rebuild and grow again. But the galaxy is big and bad and they find it hard to achieve any of those three things. So they're dying. It's sad, but that's what Eldar players love about them.

 

[Dire]

...just as we, Biel-Tanite players love our Craftworld for it's inhabitants frenzied struggle not for survival, but rather for domination.

Apart from that, if we are speaking about emotions it's important to include the cultural differences between Craftworld - even in books may you read, Kaelor of ,,Eldar Prophecy" being filled with all of it, individuals that seemed to be just more consumed by strong emotions than humans. At the other hand there are Ulthiwans such as Auric of "Farseer", who had (or maybe expressed?) little emotions while happy, sad, succeding, afraid or seeing his own death. He remained indifferent during whole book, despite number of various things that happenned (one thing to note: his Warlock was rather impulsive...).

 

[Willance]

If their reproductive cycle is so long and complicated how did they ever prosper. Their Birth death cycle has to be fast enough for them to have conquered the galaxy like they did in the past. I find it imposable to believe that a race can ever exist and not die out in a thousand years if it has fewer then two children in its life span that grow to the age of reproduction and are successful. If that can't happen natural then the race is doomed before it leaves the Gene pool.

The "Dying" concept is cool in the eldar I'll agree but with out hard references to GW fluff i can't believe that its as difficult as the major opinion says it is.

Their are plenty of other explanations for the "Dying" idea that GW has said that are far more likly then an imposable reproductive cycle. Here are just a few i can think of off the top of my head.

Warp Explosion creating a God.
Having Space Marines invade and wipe out a craftworld (Craftworld Idharae in 852.M41, Codex Space Marines).
Having Tyranids invade and almost wipe out a craftworld. (Iyanden, Codex Eldar)
Being so spread out that it is unlikle that you'll find a mate.
Having Chaos Demons find your sould particularly tastie.
Being such an independant person that you don't settle down and go off to travel the webway for eternity.

 

[Marius the Possessed]

All of those examples contribute to their racial death, yes. But as for prospering, remember that the Eldar rose in a galaxy that had been almost wiped clean of sentient life, first by the Necrons and then by the Enslaver Plague. They had virtually no-one left to compete against (except for the Orks), and whoever was left were not as technologically or psychically advanced as the Eldar.

Also, the Eldar never spread across the galaxy like the Imperium. They were content to sit in their little region of space (where the Eye of Terror now is), and use the webway to get around, rather than have a bunch of colonies and outposts.

 

[Zarathustra]

Dont the Dark Eldar get "recruits" from the craftworld Eldar?

There are regular Eldar who go out and turn to the dark side, like the pirates. Whats to say some dont go further and become Dark Eldar?


As for reproduction, the idea that it is highly emotional which is not good for the Eldar (as it can cause them to stray to the dark side..) seems appropriate. The Dark Eldar could and probably do reproduce more then regular Eldar, but considering the violent life they live perhaps many of them die before they reproduce?

 

[Adahn]

I agree with Willance - I think the whole 'it's too hard for them to reproduce' is an easy and convenient excuse. It's just conjecture on people's part to say that it's too dangerous and that they don't even bother. I'm certain that they don't have intercourse as much as humans, but if they're even a smidgen close to what a human being is emotionally speaking, I doubt an eldar can go his entire lifetime without ever experiencing a single twinge of emotion toward another Eldar. Not only is that unlikely, but fluff wise it's dull as hell.

I'm not at all opposed to the fact that they're dying, as was said, many people (not me) consider it a highly appealing part of the Eldar race as players - but there are other things that have contributed in a much more significant way than just their complicated reproductive cycle. Anyone who wants to have a baby, I mean really wants to have a baby tries - and I mean tries real hard can make it happen. With all their technology I'm sure they have much better fertility physicians than we do today.

 

[Marius the Possessed]

I'm sure Eldar aren't Vulcans by any measure. In the Chaos Daemons codex it speaks of a Craftworld that fell because a Slaaneshi daemon tricked an Eldar maiden into loving it, and the love was so strong that it blinded anti-daemon wards.

I think by controlled, they don't mean they aren't emotional, more likely they are just Amish-like in their restrictions on behaviour; which would make the Path of the Ranger like rumspringga, haha.

 

[Adahn]

Hmm I wouldn't say Amish. I'd rather say that Eldar are like Shao-Lin. They life a life of discipline and contemplation and but they're allowed to get married. - The Dark Eldar on the other hand, are their not-so-restrained BDSM snuff-loving cousins.

 

[Zahr Dalsk]

I'm sure Eldar aren't Vulcans by any measure.

True. Vulcans go by logic, Eldar by emotion.

In the Chaos Daemons codex it speaks of a Craftworld that fell because a Slaaneshi daemon tricked an Eldar maiden into loving it, and the love was so strong that it blinded anti-daemon wards.

I'm inclined to say that that was simply Chaos Daemons wanking off its own force, since it pretty much ignored the existence of Warp Spiders that are meant to be patrolling the Craftworld. Same with the idea of an Eldar randomly deciding to go against their entire rigid culture built around self-discipline.

 

[The_Giant_Mantis]

With all their technology I'm sure they have much better fertility physicians than we do today.

Just as a side note, Xenology's reasoning for the Eldar inability to speed up their reproduction through medical methods is that the technology which produced the Eldar themselves was far, far more advanced than anything the Eldar themselves have. Eldar cellular structure and DNA-analogue is incredibly complex..

Oddly, Dark Eldar actually seem to have more understanding here, as evidenced by Mandrakes (although that might be attributed to warp exposure or a side-effect of living in the webway.)

I really don't think Craftworld eldar would ever be allowed to 'marry' in the sense we understand it. Kinship ties are important, yes, but overfixation in this area is really destructive for Eldar. Eldar who get too close to each other blend psychically to the point where they can't function apart (Eldar twins, who have an exceptionally strong connection actually tend to die sympathetically when their twin is slain.)

 

[Adahn]

I really don't think Craftworld eldar would ever be allowed to 'marry' in the sense we understand it. Kinship ties are important, yes, but overfixation in this area is really destructive for Eldar. Eldar who get too close to each other blend psychically to the point where they can't function apart (Eldar twins, who have an exceptionally strong connection actually tend to die sympathetically when their twin is slain.)

Man... if I was to ever write a romantic tragedy, I'd pick two Eldar. I mean... wow, the raw emotion that must flow between them to actually link in such a way. I have to say I envy that, being so affected... feeling both strong and weak at the same time by a single person. I mean, to the point that one of the eldar would actually just will him/herself to die if the other did... that's classic Romeo and Juliette right there. Beautiful.

 

[The_Giant_Mantis]

Man... if I was to ever write a romantic tragedy, I'd pick two Eldar. I mean... wow, the raw emotion that must flow between them to actually link in such a way. I have to say I envy that, being so affected... feeling both strong and weak at the same time by a single person. I mean, to the point that one of the eldar would actually just will him/herself to die if the other did... that's classic Romeo and Juliette right there. Beautiful.

I'm not even convinced it's that, really.. Ultimately the feeling I got is that they kind of cease to be separate people. Kind of like a little hive-mind.. They wouldn't even be able to distinguish their 'other' as a person separate from themselves.

The larger Eldar titans are generally piloted by a pair of twins who function as a single unit. There is no other role such people can perform and they can't take the Eldar path. This means that after a time their focus will get the better of them and they'll become little more than a living machine bound symbiotically to each other and to the titan.

Eldar are very strange creatures, really.. They're very psychic and they're very, very prone to obsession and self-brainwashing.

 

[CaptainSarathai]

They're very psychic and they're very, very prone to obsession and self-brainwashing.

-so like every girlfriend I've ever had? :struggle:

Actually though, I can imagine that. Anyone who's ever been head-over-heels in love probably can too. My last girlfriend and I spent every available moment together. If she was sad, I would be sad, sometimes for seemingly no reason at all. I'd start to get anxious, and she'd start getting jittery as well. It was incredible. Friends could actually judge one of our moods, just by seeing the other. We had an insanely abusive relationship when I look back on it, but we were devoted enough and masochistic enough that we didn't split every time we should have. When we did split up, it's because she realized that we were only destroying our own lives by being together. It's also the point where I was almost sent to a psychiatric ward for trying to kill myself repeatedly.

Eldar would be the same. Completely losing your own identity and living for this third entity "us", is not romantic in the least. It's terrifying. I've shot my life all to hell, and the only way she managed to escape the same fate was by being a year behind me in school. Two Eldar in the same predicament would be even worse off, because their psychic links mean that there would be no escape for either of them.

Back onto the topic (kinda) though, about the Eldar marriage and family ties: I thought that the Saim Hann lived much like Samurai, in familial clans scattered across their craftworld. Wouldn't that infer marriage and kinship? Sure, they are more reckless and borderline than their brethren, but how are they coping where other eldar cannot?

 

[hotcod]

A few points firstly while the old ones were still around the complex breading wouldn't have been a problem. If anything it might have been an imposed control to keep a check on populations.

Secondly for the eldar to have had an empire they would have needed a base birth to death ratio that would let them expand but that dose not making them now "dying out" wrong or even stupid. While they had the empire and peace and whole planets full of people who where not scared to death of losing there souls if they enjoyed them self to much then reproducing was clearly not very problematic, it may take a while but they had time and the security and the freedom to make babies with out a problem. Now think of how the craftworld eldar spend there life, given that one of the basic elder units are in essence civilians then you get a good idea that breeding can be problematic. If takes a long time to breed while both partners are putting them selfs at risk, well, if one of them happens to die you've wasted a hell of a lot of time and effort. This is even before we talk about the fact that the act and those ties them selfs can now be problematic... there is also the paths to consider, eldar lost on a path are, i would say, less likely to breed since they are purely obsessed with there path.

All in all the point is that the eldar birth to death ratio is likely only just high enough at the best of times to sustain a growing population and they had that for a long long time. Now is far from the best of times with every part of it being problematic. It's why i think i like beil tan so much. The idea behind my armies fluff is my farseer can see the death of there race coming and the only way he can see to stop that is to re-establish some form of empire. The eldar need a number of true and secure homeworlds.

 

[Zarathustra]

Eldar are inherently psychic in a world where being inherently psychic draws attention from the warp and is thus dangerous. Perhaps many of their children die at an early age because of chaos/warp manifestations, and with the Eldar being very emotional it could be devestating and possibly cause those parents to go wild/evil/dark/portals to Chaos. Not something nice so most Eldar dont want to go through that experiance, and thus they dont have many children.




also..

If the Eldar live hundreds/thousands of years, then if the average Eldar mother (?) had one child a century it would still lead to a huge reproduction rate, though a slow one. Of course, if the atmosphere changed such that hooking up became rare and difficult, and thus reproduction became one child every 2-3 centuries and the mortality rate went up, then it could impose a huge damper on reproduction.

Perhaps it is only the young Eldar who are reproductive? out of willingness rather then physiology? If the Eldar are also uptight like we humans are, then the young are the most expendable in times of war (guardians = civilian militia, aspect warriors = decades/centuries of training), and with the Eldar now living in a violent war strewn universe the inexperianced soldier (militia) gets slaughtered.

 

[Willance]

The Giant Mantis, where are you getting your information of Xenobiology in warhammer fluff?