Eldar, the Dying Kindreds

[John Bower]

As to Orks I didn't think they had a 'soul' as such, they're definitely fun guys (fungi?) to be around, but no soul as such, they just regrow a new presence when they get offed. Eldar I think are just like somebody said, a mix of the time and risk to actually mate. They feel much more intense passion (in fact any feelings) more than the other races, which was why they fell so hard and 'created' slannesh.

[Charon]

Has nothing to do with Slaanesh. If these where the primary emotions involved in creating Slaanesh, it would be more like a Aphrodite equivalent.
DE Codex states that its in fact the pregnacy which is long and complicated.

[-Tom-]

The reason they are 'dwindling' so often in the fluff is most likely because it's one of those cool words to use in this sort of thing so get it stuffed into the fluff as much as you can. Just look how many times words like 'preternatural' crop up in GW stuff.

Path of the Seer book mentions checking out the outcomes of different threads of fate for Alaitoc after the battle with the Imperium. They foresee a great loss of life with some of the tactics, but also that they will recover their losses and rebuild. So, it is important to note that not all the fluff suggests that they are a dying race.

I think there are some potential misconceptions with some of the fluff too. Population growth rate is small, so even if the overall Eldar population is increasing, compared to other races, it is increasing at a lower rate so the amount by which they are outnumbered will increase over time.


As for the other question from the OP about Wraithbone, I would view wraithbone as being more of a 'material science' than a single 'material'. It is described as being a living material. So, let's assume that the Eldar have the technology to have nanotechnology that operates inside all their structures... perhaps the warp-spiders that live inside the wraithbone are actually genetically engineered / nanotech contracts themselves in the first place that then work as caretakers for the material. Perhaps there are smaller, microscopic variants of them even.

We have the ability ourselves, right now, to create transparent metal alloys. One example of this is at CERN, where there are a load of rods in the detector that appear to be glass. They're actually a Lead-Tungstate alloy, designed to be transparent to allow light through, while being very dense to absorb energy from particles passing through.

So, if I had to write the fluff for wraithbone in a sci-fi way, (vs a space magic way), I'd have it being any material that contained the nanotech-warp-spiders, which are the things that actually maintain/repair/build the macro-material (be it a falcon hull, a cockpit 'window' or shuriken ammo) from working with individual atoms, putting them exactly where they are wanted, and so building up into super-molecules. Maybe for a cockpit canopy we want a bit of that lead-tungstate mentioned earlier so it'd really dense and good at absorbing energy from weapons fire... but, better than our current tech, they can build the whole thing as one seamless crystal so there are no imperfections, which would lead to weak spots.

The colour of it might then depend on exactly what it was made from in any specific material... but could also be entirely aesthetic as it could easily enough have a thin coating in just the same was as we'd anodise or paint something.

[Necron2.0]

I thought [url="http://www.flashgitz.net/2013/09/the-population-problem.html"]>>this<<[/url] explained the Eldar "issue" quite nicely.

[Ravingbantha]

its a typical storyline with elves (elder being space elves). But the idea is that they rarely breed, its part of the trade off for living so long. I guess it's a 'natures ballance' kinda thing. Imagine a race that breeds like humans, but lives for several thousands of years.