Craftworld Eldar Population

[Fellend]

I can think of a few.
Areas being damaged beyond reparation
Areas being tainted by the warp or other ... taint
Areas being declared holy (or heoric, for example this house belonged to the great BLA that did BLA)
Hubris (Yes I do really need 60000 square meters, I am after all the great BLA!)
Population growth followed by a great decline
Nid or Ork infection (hey if they can infect and live impossible to get rid of in a world why not a craft world)
Started production of one thing but found out they needed another so they left it half done

While none of these would explain a huge areas of terrain. It all adds up. After all Eldars are people too =)

[Anggul]

They aren't Gondorians either.

I believe he was referring to the fact that although they were mostly populated, wars and the increase in the number of young Eldar leaving to become wanderers mean that there would be places on the Craftworlds which were are sparsely populated compared to what they once were, which is a fair enough statement.

I agree that the place wouldn't grow for no reason, but it stands to reason that at certain points there would be a lot more 'vacancies' to put it in our terms. Iyanden and Alaitoc would be prime examples. Iyanden because of Tyranidness, and Alaitoc because a lot of their population become rangers. That and Eldar take their sweet time with breeding.

[Old_Paladin]

Souls are released into the infinity circuit, with a wraithbone tree sprouting over the stone. There are no immense tomb vaults and whatnot.

Really? That supposed to take less space?
If they removed the 2 million tombs in Paris and planted trees instead, you think that would take up less space?

If their is 1 tree for every 3 eldar dead (some stones get re-used, some might be lost). Then you'd need at least, 25% growth of space every generation.
There have been how many generations of Eldar since the fall?

That's A LOT* of trees.

* and I'm still assuming that the trees die naturally over time, but it would take a long time; and that the Eldar wouldn't be selfish enough to cut down said soul-trees.

[eldargal]

Depends on the size of the tree, of which there is no indication. It could be quite small. Also the tree part may no longer be canon, it hasn't been referenced that I know of since 2nd edition and in 4th edition it simply says the spirit stones 'take root' in the Infinty Circuit. So I still think you are grasping at straws.

[Old_Paladin]

Honestly, I kind of feel the same about you though.

There has never been anything published (other then a single line that craftworlds have gotten physically larger) that ever hints at a population boom post-Fall.
There has been a lot published about them being a dying race; and every year sees less and less of them alive, on a steady march to oblivion.


The only way I see a population growth from the crafworlds is from refugees from all the other fallen craftworlds.
So maybe, maybe, 20 craftworlds have grown in population. At the cost of the destruction of 200 other craftworlds.

[eldargal]

The dying is, in my view, metaphorical. This is also supported by the 4th ed codex where it says:

In this way the death of the Eldar heralded the birth of the Imperium, and mankind inherited the stars

This is clearly a metaphor, and I contend the metaphor continues with the Eldar 'dying'. Given the expansion of the Craftworlds from an already 'gigantic' size that while the Eldar population may be trending down it has in the past grown to warrant this increase in size. The Eldar ARE dying, but it is a cultural and psychological death, they lost their Empire, their power and are hunted by agod they birthed. They are wracked with guilt and effectively as a species have severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

I do NOT believe they are facing extinction anymore than the Imperium is, as the 40k setting is a dichotomy of entropy and hope. The Eldar are fighting to survive, as is the Imperium, and the Eldar are no more literally dying than the Imperium is literally collapsing.

GW seems to be altering this aspect of the Eldar over time, come to think about it:

RT/1st Edition: Miniscule numbers of Eldar, a single victorious battle can result in enough Eldar casualties to doom the Craftworld (WD127).
2nd Edition: Eldar are dying etc.
3rd Edition: Eldar power is waning in the eyes of the Imperium (fair enough), only Iyanden is singled out as being on the brink of extinction. Biel-Tan is said to be actively attempting to restore the Eldar Empire.
4th edition: Only one mention of a 'gradual decline' in population.
5th edition BRB: No mention of dying, but references a fight to survival for the 'dwindling' race. Dwindling being a gradual decline, again not necessarily a literal dying out.
5th ed DE codex: Hints at Craftworlds being much, much larger in scale and population than hitherto thought.

It will be interesting to see where they take this in 6th edition. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the references to population decline dissapear even more entirely to be replaced by more talk of the decline of the race in general terms, which fits in with my 'dying is a metaphor' theory.

The short version, I do think the Eldar population is in 'gradual decline' in the 41st millennium, but I also believe it has increased over the past ten thousand years. I expect this to be made more clear in the next codex.

[mjasghar786]

B4 they were hazy on timing
Unfortunately that means they are messing it up now
Afaicr 4th ed codex and 5th rb and de cod say the fall was a mere 10k ago - enough time for 20 odd sm generations
And maybe 1 eldar gen? Now yes there were 1000s of craft worlds but they have said most were still in the area if the eye when it started and most/many of those surviving died anyway
As I read it craft world eldar are less fertile cos they restrict their lives / de make up their numbers by force growing most of their race / exodites are increasing in numbers as they live fully within a restricted life
Numbers are weird in 40k anyway - the artwork routinely shows 1000s of SMs of a single chapter and the fluff has 100s of them dying in ways that prevent gene seed retrival yet not having any effect

[Old_Paladin]

... a very good argument...

Ok, that is a faultless argument; I respect that.


I'll still contend that I think your original numbers are too high and that many craftworlds will get much larger with very little increase in population*. Although a few significant ones will have population growth, just not as extreme as you presented.

I think no more then 5-10 billion Eldar per current craftworld is probably the most realistic; unless their current sizes are staggeringly larger then I imagine them (I think of them as being no more then 1-2 earth sized planets long, although significantly lower in height and width).


*Originally, I doubt they were built with significant populations in mind. The numbers of Eldar that disliked the trends of their, then current, civilization would be too few; and they didn't know an apocalyptic event was about to occur.
I see them as generational ships converted from intergalactic cargo ships. It is a ship that a month before held 100,000 people with room to spare and wide open semi-continents, and is now holding a billion people and is bursting well past capacity.

It was never meant to hold so many people so you need to add:
-space for new homes for the survivors
-additional land for the significant increase in food, water and atmosphere
-then the upper classes are going to want separate, fancier dwellings
-expansion of luxuries; places for high art, theater and entertainment
It was never meant as a warship (this wasn't needed in an Empire), so you add:
-additional ship-to-ship weapon emplacements
-enlarged hanger bays, changing from pleasure schooners and cargo landers, to actual warcraft
- forges and armouries for the new militia; with tanks, small arms and titans
The increase in size and mass should require:
-an increase in engine size
-and the increase in power-plant size
The introduction of soul-stones means
-the addition of the infinity circuit
Then the return of the Phoenix Lords
-the temples expand from small places of worship to actual homes for military orders; adding housing, armouries, training grounds, etc.

I don't think it would be unreasonable that after many generations that the ship could go from being a severely over crowded, sterile vessel; to a massive, but roomy, world ship. Able to defend itself, preserve the culture that they desire and introduce the new culture that would happen after the significant changes to their reality. With all of it starting with a population of a billion and finishing with a population of only a billion, but requiring massive expansion of the Craftworld.
In all likelihood, in the 'calm' years following the Fall, but before the rise of the Emperium of Man, the ship could well have expanded three or more times in population. Before suffering potential decline due to the current problems with Chaos, the xenophobic Emperium, Orks, Necrons, Nids...

[eldargal]

Well my figures are entirely arbitrary, I'm not trying to say 'this is how many there are' but rather 'this is how many their could be based on what we now know about the initial size of the Craftworlds'. I probably should have been more clear about that, the context where this came up was a discussion on Warseer where people were saying there would be <10bn Eldar left in total at most, perhaps only hundreds of millions. I think that is far too low based on what I've quoted.

You are correct, originally the Craftworlds were just large trade ships carrying around one hundred Eldar families. But the line from the DE book seems to be retconning that to them being vast colony ships. Of course it could be a mix of both, that there were hundreds of Craftworlds build to evacuate AND large numbers of trade ships becoming Craftworlds by necessity.

[Lanparth]

I find it extremely unlikely there are massive halls of the dead on Craftworlds. Self contained communities, even with Wraithbone, would be unable to survive. And when push comes to shove, a Craftworld will do what it has to to survive (ie: Iyandin)

What I would say is that the Eldar may be in decline, but the same cannot be said for the Dark Eldar. This is namely because the Dark Eldar don't have a massive guilt complex. Now, admittedly, they don't have a guilt complex because they are all psychopaths, but that isn't the point :P

The Craftworld Eldar seem to feel self loathing and guilt over just about everything. From having offspring to starting something new. I think the biggest problem they have is they have no hope. They have no aspirations beyond general survivalist. Seers not only see the future for the Eldar, but damn them. To always know what decisions will lead to stifles them as well. It changes the outcomes of what the seer sees. If all the outcomes assumes the seer was able to forewarn their people, that means that is influencing all those outcomes.

I personally see the Eldar as cursed, and slowly declining in numbers, not just because they are like modern western civilization and in slow decline, but because they defeated, crushed by their own behaviors and completely unwilling to change except in the most dire circumstances, or absolute necessity.

Eldar are probably my favorite race (I can't paint them for crap however), but I gotta call a spade a space. Craftworld Eldar are a spade.

Dark Eldar on the other hand? The stars will go black before that infestation is finished. They'll be feeding Slaanesh with inflated numbers for some time.

Slaanesh: Mmmmm, om noms.