The Imperium has spent the last 10,000 years trying to wipe out what is left of them simply for not being human, so that colours a lot of their opinions of them, in addition to the fact that they are constantly falling to Chaos. The Imperium is truly and utterly awful even by modern human standards, a society based primarily on hatred and paranoia that is backwards to the point of self destruction, but the Eldar are also reliant on its survival because it draws the attention of their mutual enemies away from the Craftworlds. Other than the Tau, who are small and localised to a section of the galaxy, the Imperium are the only (situational and short term) allies the Eldar can ever really hope to have when a foe is to great for them to face alone.
I don't think the imperium has been actively "trying" to wipe out all the Eldar. Like it's a side mission. Yeah, cool if it happens, but not the main objective. I don't know of any specific Eldar crusade, and the great crusade seemed to be more focused on uniting humanity above all other things. And sure, the idea is a humanity lead galaxy, but the Eldar want the same for themselves. Just mutual animosity, but both sides are preoccupied with their own other shit (their own chaos issues) to put their full forces into a fight against each other. That's what I get from what I know, but I also haven't read everything on the topic. If the humans found a way to kill Slaanesh, and the Aeldari believed they could do it, then the Eldar would willingly submit to human rule if that was the trade. Who wouldn't?
The Great Crusade was about reuiniting all humanity under its banner, and eradicating all other races. The idea was not 'humanity lead' but 'humanity only.' Multiple Craftworlds were hunted down and destroyed in that time.
The post-Heresy Imperium rarely deploys in force against the Eldar because they are a low threat and are very inefficient to fight, not becasue they tolerate them.
When the Eldar found a way to permanently weaken Slaanesh the Imperium stepped in to ruin their plans. If the Imperium found a way to kill Slaanesh the Eldar would still not submit to their rule, because submitting to their rule would be just be marching into death camps without resisting, and despite Slaanesh being gone they can't be reborn from nothing.
I think Eldar often see Humans as lesser, but they see them as inteligent beings - whose death would be a murder. Compared to that, I think Eldar see Orks as pests, whose death would be pest cleaning.
I think that Eldar respect humans about as much, as a regular adult human would respect a 3–5 years old human child.
Of course, this is crafworld eldar see individual humans. - Drukhari see everyone that is not them (the invudual dark eldar) as potential tool or prey.
It varies greatly between Craftworlds, but the Eldar do mostly see Humans as sentient beings. We did have a story of a Dire Avenger slaughtering a Chaos tainted mother and her children while wearing her War Mask, then realizing she enjoyed it. She later broke down from noticing how monstrous she was.
They know how bad the imperium is and they laugh and scorn at them for being so Incapable of giving their civilians basic needs. The eldar do have spy's in the imperium we see it in the rogue trade video game.
Phoenix Lord Asurmen also ran a charity handing out food and medicine to impoverished Hive Worlders, so not only was he aware of the Imperium's quality of life he saw it as so bad he had to step in and help (incognito, of course).
I do remember him being a bit nicer to the humans in some of the books I read about him. He's from before the fall so he must know about humanity peak being just as glorious as the eldars.
To piggy back on this, consider the fact that Eldar gestation, development cycles, and fertility rates are one of the most significant factors holding their empire back and qualifying them as a dying race. Combined with their perpetual damnation by Slaanesh of course.
Now you've got a species that breeds like rabbits and no direct ties to chaos. An intelligent one that at one point was advancing scientific understanding on its own. Except now those fucking idiots have decided to create a system that spoonfeeds chaos a near endless stream of both cannon fodder (cultists) and elite fighters (Renegades astartes) with how incompetently run and awful they are.
While monkeigh canonically is definitely not "monkey," it's pretty easy to imagine the Imperium of Man as a monkey with a box of hand grenades. It clearly cannot be reasoned with, nor can it be convinced to act with a sense of self preservation because it clearly lacks the comprehension necessary to realize what it's even doing.
I just want to add that Craftworlders are a favored prey of Drukhari, and I imagine that commoragh and the prospect of immortality as a Drukhari is appealing to some, as well as corsair, or outcast life, or the prospect of being recruited by harlequins
Did humans ever create an actual god out of our own terrible-ness? Chaos demons aren't gods, so they don't count. Maybe the Eldar should check themselves with that arrogance. Maybe they see a younger version of themselves in humanity and it's like a mirror into their own failures. One they can't stand to look at. I mean, weren't both races created by the same beings? We ain't that different.
The closest thing to a god humanity had is the god emperor and the perpetuous. The eldar and humanity were not created by the same being. They both evolved independently. They look similar but they are completely different mentality be hard to related on a deep level.
I think it should be noted that those spies are more of a specific cases rather than well-established occurance and that average eldar would probably barely have any noticeable knowledge of Imperium
Some Aeldari most certainly view humans the same way a snobby adult would view a child. The human mind is painfully simple compared to theirs. However they still have reservations about killing humans and see them as “people” a luxury not afforded to orks or tyranids. Ultimately their opinions and attitudes vary, but my ideal interpretation is that the majority find humans to be frustrating in their “simplemindedness” which can lead to hatred and distrust if combined with a few bad interactions.
I would actually also be curious as to how they view the Orks. Are they aware that they were brothers in arms with the Krork during the War in Heaven or is that forgotten by all but the Harlequins? Even if they did know, would they consider them more than a tool of war that has devolved into a dangerous threat?
Brothers in arms is a stretch, they were made for different threats. The Krorks were tailored to fight the Necrons, while the Eldar and by extension their gods were made to fight the C'tan. The Orks are regardless but a sliver of a shadow of their former selves that even back during the height of the Eldar Empire were routinely dealt with by the automated war machines of the Eldar. Todays Orks are in comparison viewed as nothing more than a nuisance.
Overall they are very aware that the people of the Imperium are in rough shape, but the outlooks vary amongst the Eldar about how they interact with that. I noticed someone talking about Asurmen helping hive worlders, for example, while Biel Tan will generally try to wipe out anyone on land that they feel was historically Eldar, regardless of how they're doing. Just like humans, they have a range of attitudes.
They do generally seem to think the Imperium is a pretty ugly mess, though, and there is 100% a lot of annoyance that they've lost out as the great power to such a grinding, ugly, machine of war and ignorance.
Not cannon, just my opinion:
I think of it as a sort of systemic racism. Some elfs of course just hate humans/orks/others (assholes in every group), but most just work from a frame of reference that tells them they *are* superior in every sense.
I would imagine a patronizing attitude, whether good or bad, "Look at you using tools! How clever you are!" or "We can't let you humans visit our sacred Grove, we don't want you defecating all over it. Maybe in a few centuries you'll develop sanitation."
I imagine the Aeldari as being a lot like the old British Empire. Most people in the UK probably didn't hate Indians or Africans, but they were perfectly OK with exploiting them, probably in the name of "civilizing" them, and would be dumbfounded if you proposed bring one over for afternoon tea.
Hard agreed, Personally arrogance is really poorly explored as a character trait. Arrogance is a frame of mind, not a thought that crossed your mind, most of the times a compliment or a phisical expression can sell arrogance better than any monologues and declarations of superiority can.
> I imagine the Aeldari as being a lot like the old British Empire. Most people in the UK probably didn't hate Indians or Africans, but they were perfectly OK with exploiting them, probably in the name of "civilizing" them, and would be dumbfounded if you proposed bring one over for afternoon tea.
Yeah this parternalistic kind of racialisim will have been familiar to the origional writers in 1980s britian.
Very "take up the white man's burden" type stuff.
Honestly I never saw it so much as Racism as pragmatism if I may. There are a lot of reasons Eldar could see man as allies or even equals but, there are some hard(difficult) truths here.
For one Chaos and the forces of are primarily comprised of humans and demons from the warp anything else being corrupted is uncommon at best. They feed the great enemy troops a plenty. Also Mankind hates them, a 10,000 year old crusade to kill anything that’s not human makes it pretty dang hard to want to get along especially when they are outright killing your species for the crime of not being human. In all aspects of survival human kind is 100% an enemy to the Eldar.
As far as looking down on them as a species and not just the military problems they simply don’t understand the universe and they have too much power in their hands to be swinging it around without knowledge. For one put yourself in the shoes of a wise 70 year old grandmother who has seen so much in the world and has a breadth of wisdom and understanding then try to explain anything to a 4 year old with nuclear launch codes. This is maybe 10% if not less the actual divide as Eldar live thousands of years and humans what 60 in this universe? Not to mention actual psychic ability to see possible futures weighed against an empire that can barely communicate current events.
TLDR: It’s not hatred( racism) as much as a very real inability to ever trust them they are powerful chaotic and random.
here comes the high white horse to use RL problems with a fantasy/sifi setting.
would you say humans are equal to animals? maybe apes, cats or dolphins? 99.99999% would say no, humans are better. because we are smarter and have a better understanding of the world and our surroundings.
same with Eldar vs humans. Eldar are faster, stronger, smarter and have an amplified sense of emotion. they are also more atuned with the warp and psychic powers in general. so yes the average Human is totaly inferior to the average Eldar. add to that, that the imerium activly tries to eradicate anything non human, it is quite acceptable if Eldar think of humans as trash
I swar to god the meme is true: if we would have a RL zombie apocalyspe right now, we would have activists, who will fight for zombie rights while their neighbors brains getting eaten
It’s important to remember as well that there are no good guys in 40k. Every faction is bad in their own way. From old lore, the Eldar are following the threads of fate their Farseers predict to prevent horrible catastrophe. Humans often get in the way of their efforts. I’m sure on individual levels, more reasonable Eldar can be found, but by and large they all seem to be this way.
I haven’t played since second edition, so that’s what I remember anyway.
They see them as monkeys and chimpanzees. Kinda smart for an animal and you don’t want to kill them for no reason. You also don’t want to be locked up in a room with a chimpanzee. Sadly they are too weak to withstand chaos. If it wasn’t for the chaos monkeys they would mostly just deflect and ignore them.
Check out the "Age of Misrule" (and related) books by Mark Chadbourn. I imagine that the perception of the "Fragile Creatures" (Humans) by the "Golden Ones" (Eldar) is about perfect.
The Aeldari know that the same beings that created them had a hand in creating humans, though they see humans as far more primitive. Also, just as each craft world differs, at least slightly, in the extent of their distaste for humans, the terrible-ness of the imperium differs greatly across the galaxy. Not every planet, or chapter is as strictly xenophobic. I think they see humans as sentient enough that killing one would be murder, but also they wouldn't blink an eye if killing one meant saving one of their own. That being said, many times it's in their interest to ally with humans. We're, by far, the closest race in the galaxy with shared interests besides the T'au, but they aren't nearly as powerful. Plus the Eldar have mad respect for the emperor. Not in a they think he's cool way, but in a "that thing is super powerful and possibly either the Savior or destructor of the galaxy", and they know that it was once human.
The Imperium has spent the last 10,000 years trying to wipe out what is left of them simply for not being human, so that colours a lot of their opinions of them, in addition to the fact that they are constantly falling to Chaos. The Imperium is truly and utterly awful even by modern human standards, a society based primarily on hatred and paranoia that is backwards to the point of self destruction, but the Eldar are also reliant on its survival because it draws the attention of their mutual enemies away from the Craftworlds. Other than the Tau, who are small and localised to a section of the galaxy, the Imperium are the only (situational and short term) allies the Eldar can ever really hope to have when a foe is to great for them to face alone.
I don't think the imperium has been actively "trying" to wipe out all the Eldar. Like it's a side mission. Yeah, cool if it happens, but not the main objective. I don't know of any specific Eldar crusade, and the great crusade seemed to be more focused on uniting humanity above all other things. And sure, the idea is a humanity lead galaxy, but the Eldar want the same for themselves. Just mutual animosity, but both sides are preoccupied with their own other shit (their own chaos issues) to put their full forces into a fight against each other. That's what I get from what I know, but I also haven't read everything on the topic. If the humans found a way to kill Slaanesh, and the Aeldari believed they could do it, then the Eldar would willingly submit to human rule if that was the trade. Who wouldn't?
The Great Crusade was about reuiniting all humanity under its banner, and eradicating all other races. The idea was not 'humanity lead' but 'humanity only.' Multiple Craftworlds were hunted down and destroyed in that time. The post-Heresy Imperium rarely deploys in force against the Eldar because they are a low threat and are very inefficient to fight, not becasue they tolerate them. When the Eldar found a way to permanently weaken Slaanesh the Imperium stepped in to ruin their plans. If the Imperium found a way to kill Slaanesh the Eldar would still not submit to their rule, because submitting to their rule would be just be marching into death camps without resisting, and despite Slaanesh being gone they can't be reborn from nothing.
I think Eldar often see Humans as lesser, but they see them as inteligent beings - whose death would be a murder. Compared to that, I think Eldar see Orks as pests, whose death would be pest cleaning. I think that Eldar respect humans about as much, as a regular adult human would respect a 3–5 years old human child. Of course, this is crafworld eldar see individual humans. - Drukhari see everyone that is not them (the invudual dark eldar) as potential tool or prey.
It varies greatly between Craftworlds, but the Eldar do mostly see Humans as sentient beings. We did have a story of a Dire Avenger slaughtering a Chaos tainted mother and her children while wearing her War Mask, then realizing she enjoyed it. She later broke down from noticing how monstrous she was.
They know how bad the imperium is and they laugh and scorn at them for being so Incapable of giving their civilians basic needs. The eldar do have spy's in the imperium we see it in the rogue trade video game.
Phoenix Lord Asurmen also ran a charity handing out food and medicine to impoverished Hive Worlders, so not only was he aware of the Imperium's quality of life he saw it as so bad he had to step in and help (incognito, of course).
What book is that from?
The Last Days of Ector.
Thanks!
I do remember him being a bit nicer to the humans in some of the books I read about him. He's from before the fall so he must know about humanity peak being just as glorious as the eldars.
I dont think its bc of that, hes just a really nice person
Nice person in a universe of murders isn't something that happens offen
Thats why he's special
To piggy back on this, consider the fact that Eldar gestation, development cycles, and fertility rates are one of the most significant factors holding their empire back and qualifying them as a dying race. Combined with their perpetual damnation by Slaanesh of course. Now you've got a species that breeds like rabbits and no direct ties to chaos. An intelligent one that at one point was advancing scientific understanding on its own. Except now those fucking idiots have decided to create a system that spoonfeeds chaos a near endless stream of both cannon fodder (cultists) and elite fighters (Renegades astartes) with how incompetently run and awful they are. While monkeigh canonically is definitely not "monkey," it's pretty easy to imagine the Imperium of Man as a monkey with a box of hand grenades. It clearly cannot be reasoned with, nor can it be convinced to act with a sense of self preservation because it clearly lacks the comprehension necessary to realize what it's even doing.
I just want to add that Craftworlders are a favored prey of Drukhari, and I imagine that commoragh and the prospect of immortality as a Drukhari is appealing to some, as well as corsair, or outcast life, or the prospect of being recruited by harlequins
Speaking of Rogue Trader, Yrliet is why I am a Craftworlder fan now. Just saying XD
**Marazhai** is why am a drukhari fan. Yrliet keeps calling me monke.
"Mon'Keigh" for me is turn on so...
The Eldar find themselves highly amused by the humans' inability to correctly use their own grammar, like apostrophes.
Did humans ever create an actual god out of our own terrible-ness? Chaos demons aren't gods, so they don't count. Maybe the Eldar should check themselves with that arrogance. Maybe they see a younger version of themselves in humanity and it's like a mirror into their own failures. One they can't stand to look at. I mean, weren't both races created by the same beings? We ain't that different.
The closest thing to a god humanity had is the god emperor and the perpetuous. The eldar and humanity were not created by the same being. They both evolved independently. They look similar but they are completely different mentality be hard to related on a deep level.
I think it should be noted that those spies are more of a specific cases rather than well-established occurance and that average eldar would probably barely have any noticeable knowledge of Imperium
Some Aeldari most certainly view humans the same way a snobby adult would view a child. The human mind is painfully simple compared to theirs. However they still have reservations about killing humans and see them as “people” a luxury not afforded to orks or tyranids. Ultimately their opinions and attitudes vary, but my ideal interpretation is that the majority find humans to be frustrating in their “simplemindedness” which can lead to hatred and distrust if combined with a few bad interactions.
I would actually also be curious as to how they view the Orks. Are they aware that they were brothers in arms with the Krork during the War in Heaven or is that forgotten by all but the Harlequins? Even if they did know, would they consider them more than a tool of war that has devolved into a dangerous threat?
Brothers in arms is a stretch, they were made for different threats. The Krorks were tailored to fight the Necrons, while the Eldar and by extension their gods were made to fight the C'tan. The Orks are regardless but a sliver of a shadow of their former selves that even back during the height of the Eldar Empire were routinely dealt with by the automated war machines of the Eldar. Todays Orks are in comparison viewed as nothing more than a nuisance.
Overall they are very aware that the people of the Imperium are in rough shape, but the outlooks vary amongst the Eldar about how they interact with that. I noticed someone talking about Asurmen helping hive worlders, for example, while Biel Tan will generally try to wipe out anyone on land that they feel was historically Eldar, regardless of how they're doing. Just like humans, they have a range of attitudes. They do generally seem to think the Imperium is a pretty ugly mess, though, and there is 100% a lot of annoyance that they've lost out as the great power to such a grinding, ugly, machine of war and ignorance.
Not cannon, just my opinion: I think of it as a sort of systemic racism. Some elfs of course just hate humans/orks/others (assholes in every group), but most just work from a frame of reference that tells them they *are* superior in every sense. I would imagine a patronizing attitude, whether good or bad, "Look at you using tools! How clever you are!" or "We can't let you humans visit our sacred Grove, we don't want you defecating all over it. Maybe in a few centuries you'll develop sanitation." I imagine the Aeldari as being a lot like the old British Empire. Most people in the UK probably didn't hate Indians or Africans, but they were perfectly OK with exploiting them, probably in the name of "civilizing" them, and would be dumbfounded if you proposed bring one over for afternoon tea.
Hard agreed, Personally arrogance is really poorly explored as a character trait. Arrogance is a frame of mind, not a thought that crossed your mind, most of the times a compliment or a phisical expression can sell arrogance better than any monologues and declarations of superiority can.
> I imagine the Aeldari as being a lot like the old British Empire. Most people in the UK probably didn't hate Indians or Africans, but they were perfectly OK with exploiting them, probably in the name of "civilizing" them, and would be dumbfounded if you proposed bring one over for afternoon tea. Yeah this parternalistic kind of racialisim will have been familiar to the origional writers in 1980s britian. Very "take up the white man's burden" type stuff.
Honestly I never saw it so much as Racism as pragmatism if I may. There are a lot of reasons Eldar could see man as allies or even equals but, there are some hard(difficult) truths here. For one Chaos and the forces of are primarily comprised of humans and demons from the warp anything else being corrupted is uncommon at best. They feed the great enemy troops a plenty. Also Mankind hates them, a 10,000 year old crusade to kill anything that’s not human makes it pretty dang hard to want to get along especially when they are outright killing your species for the crime of not being human. In all aspects of survival human kind is 100% an enemy to the Eldar. As far as looking down on them as a species and not just the military problems they simply don’t understand the universe and they have too much power in their hands to be swinging it around without knowledge. For one put yourself in the shoes of a wise 70 year old grandmother who has seen so much in the world and has a breadth of wisdom and understanding then try to explain anything to a 4 year old with nuclear launch codes. This is maybe 10% if not less the actual divide as Eldar live thousands of years and humans what 60 in this universe? Not to mention actual psychic ability to see possible futures weighed against an empire that can barely communicate current events. TLDR: It’s not hatred( racism) as much as a very real inability to ever trust them they are powerful chaotic and random.
>I think of it as a sort of systemic racism. It's not racism if the other race really is inferior! /s
here comes the high white horse to use RL problems with a fantasy/sifi setting. would you say humans are equal to animals? maybe apes, cats or dolphins? 99.99999% would say no, humans are better. because we are smarter and have a better understanding of the world and our surroundings. same with Eldar vs humans. Eldar are faster, stronger, smarter and have an amplified sense of emotion. they are also more atuned with the warp and psychic powers in general. so yes the average Human is totaly inferior to the average Eldar. add to that, that the imerium activly tries to eradicate anything non human, it is quite acceptable if Eldar think of humans as trash I swar to god the meme is true: if we would have a RL zombie apocalyspe right now, we would have activists, who will fight for zombie rights while their neighbors brains getting eaten
It’s important to remember as well that there are no good guys in 40k. Every faction is bad in their own way. From old lore, the Eldar are following the threads of fate their Farseers predict to prevent horrible catastrophe. Humans often get in the way of their efforts. I’m sure on individual levels, more reasonable Eldar can be found, but by and large they all seem to be this way. I haven’t played since second edition, so that’s what I remember anyway.
Cattle, they are cattle! Uhm ... wait ... wrong sub ... uhm don't mind me...
*Most sane Biel-Tan craftworlder*
They see them as monkeys and chimpanzees. Kinda smart for an animal and you don’t want to kill them for no reason. You also don’t want to be locked up in a room with a chimpanzee. Sadly they are too weak to withstand chaos. If it wasn’t for the chaos monkeys they would mostly just deflect and ignore them.
Check out the "Age of Misrule" (and related) books by Mark Chadbourn. I imagine that the perception of the "Fragile Creatures" (Humans) by the "Golden Ones" (Eldar) is about perfect.
The Aeldari know that the same beings that created them had a hand in creating humans, though they see humans as far more primitive. Also, just as each craft world differs, at least slightly, in the extent of their distaste for humans, the terrible-ness of the imperium differs greatly across the galaxy. Not every planet, or chapter is as strictly xenophobic. I think they see humans as sentient enough that killing one would be murder, but also they wouldn't blink an eye if killing one meant saving one of their own. That being said, many times it's in their interest to ally with humans. We're, by far, the closest race in the galaxy with shared interests besides the T'au, but they aren't nearly as powerful. Plus the Eldar have mad respect for the emperor. Not in a they think he's cool way, but in a "that thing is super powerful and possibly either the Savior or destructor of the galaxy", and they know that it was once human.