Let’s assume through some miracle that the Aeldari and the craftworlders most of all manage to finally solve their Slaanesh issue. Not through any mass suicide a la Ynnead. They just, do a ritual, Slaanesh is banished from the galaxy and that’s that.
What’s after?
Are they gonna start raising an empire? Are the Craftworlders going to settle down? Do the Dark Eldar just implode now that there’s no Slaanesh biting at them? Do the Harlequins even change?
I guess I’m just confused at how if the Eldar shake themselves free of Slaanesh they’re going to move on and be a power player in the galaxy again. Seems arduous.
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My understanding is that their civilization has stagnated from a population cap caused by the scarcity of Spirit Stones. There’s a free Spirit Stone needed before a new Eldar can be born, so either another Eldar must die first, or it needs to be acquired through other means.
With that cap removed, I suppose they could try and expand. I am not sure if they would be immediately willing to colonize planets, as the Craftworlds can be generally relatively easily adapted to house as many Eldar more as needed, and honestly if they really wanted to, they could have done that already.
I reckon that the Eldar, even if they’re only remotely similar to us, are not going to learn from history. So without the sword of Damocles – Slaanesh – hanging above their heads, I think they resume their path of hedonism.
Meaning that the Eldar might slowly become like the Dark Eldar, though not that extreme. And in turn, the Dark Eldar will probably become more like the Eldar again, finding each other in the middle. (I’m not too deep in Eldar lore, but if I’m not mistaken, part of the depravity of the Dark Eldar is out of necessity. If someone can elaborate on this, please do).
But yes, nothing good will come from anything, in the Warhammer universe, haha.
Conquest seems unlikely by the way, as the Webway has fallen into disrepair, which was a massive advantage to the Eldar of old.
Even with Slaanesh out of the picture, I don’t know if they could ever reach galactic dominance again. Their reproductive process is a very long, several times longer than a human pregnancy. And with the threats to the galaxy in the modern day, I don’t know if they’d have the time to reach that critical mass needed to become the dominant species again.
In all likelihood, they would seek to grow their population more so that they aren’t balanced on the edge of extinction but would otherwise remain much the same. Craftworlds are already much safer than a planet (they are so heavily armed and armoured that the Imperium would rather ignore them unless they absolutely have to deal with one), and they can move around to avoid dangers like the Tyranids and Orks.
The Drukhari wouldn’t change on a large scale. Sure, they no longer need to do the things they do to survive, but the upper echelons won’t want change to threaten their power, and most of the various leaders got as far as they did because they enjoyed the work. So, while some Drukhari might leave Commoragh, most will stay there and keep being the freaks that they are.
Thematically, the Eldar are like Elves: their civilization is in a decline that is deeply and intrinsically tied to their own hubris. The fact that they view themselves as hot shit and the pinnacle of perfection is a barrier to change.
One thing that’s important to realize about the Craftworld Eldar is that they’re not representative of pre-Fall Eldar. They’re not refugees who survived a random catastrophe; they are the ones who avoided a catastrophe, by self-selecting as the most stodgy, reactionary, uptight space-puritans imaginable.
They are not going to change their ways. Freed from the constraints of Slaanesh, they are going to continue acting the same way because they’re the ones who were already doing that before Slaanesh. If anything, the birth of Slaanesh reinforced their own self-image of having chosen the morally correct path and that straying from that path is for children and idiots. So they’re going to continue being hard-nosed about self-discipline. And they’re going to continue being reclusive because they view anyone other than themselves with contempt.
Individual Craftworlds may have expansionist policies, but largely I suspect they’ll stick to reclaiming territory they view and rightfully theirs for historical reasons, or just not having a forwarding address so no one can send them mail.
Well, the Dark Eldar would effectively dissolve. Their cities in the webway would become pointless without needing the protection from the warp, and they’d be able to use their psyker powers again without fear of being eaten. They’d likely reemerge and go right back to empire building in real space. The craftworlders would become effectively pointless without needing to band together for protection and would probably join the new Eldar society, while the exodites would continue being exodites. Whether or not with their dwindling population they could actually retake the galaxy though is suspect. They’d be much, much more powerful, but they reproduce slowly and would be right in the sights of every other faction, plus the Necrons would obviously be non-plussed at their reemergence as a powerful psychic race.
They repopulate and scour the galaxy using their psychic might. The average unbound Eldar using their full psychic might is like, as strong as Magnus.
The Eldar slaughter the currently active tomb kings, recovery their lost maiden worlds, and then hunker down until they have the population to cripple the Imperium of Man and the other threats to the Galaxy. This beginning another few million years of Eldar supremacy.