askchapo

Entire thing is incredibly suspicious. Their civilization lasted for at least 65 million years. 65 MILLION years, meaning it was incredibly static and they didn't fallen at any point in this time. And we know they didn't until 20-something millenium because there was apparently peace with humanity, full power Eldar empire could destroy humanity at any time, but they instead allowed humans to take nearly entire galaxy (with their empire being fairly small territorially, most of their population concentrated in what later became Eye of Terror). Now can you imagine what would happen if entire Eldar empire was like drukhari? They would slaughter or enslave humanity, which didn't happen. Conclusion is that they weren't decadent as a species.

Incidentally, their fall happened roughly at the same time Emperor started to seek to lead the humanity. But what prevented him? Humanity being too powerful, Dark Age human empires would't accepted his rule easy, and Eldar with their incredibly powerful psykers posed a mortal threat too.

My theory is that being crazy deranged nazi (and most powerful psyker in galaxy) he caused the fall of Eldar, possibly using small decadent faction (remember that the main source on decadency of Eldar is Vect words and he's not really famous for truthfulness and he also have every reason to portray every Eldar as being as fucked up as he is) thus starting the turmoil that would eventually turn into Age of Strife and prepare the galaxy for his conquest.

How did you think they made Slaanesh in the first place?

Dark Eldar are what the majority of Eldar were before the Fall. They're the remnants of Eldar civilization who avoided Slaanesh because they were in the Webway when the fourth Chaos God was born. Harlequins were in a similar situation, where the Laughing God whisked them into the Webway to hide.

Craftworld and Exodite Eldar are outliers. They were weird doomsday fanatics who decided to cut themselves off from the rest of Eldar society. Craftworld Eldar fled aboard craftworlds, of course, while Exodites settled on planets around the outskirts of the galaxy. Then when the Fall happened, they became the majority of the Eldar race existing in realspace because everyone else was consumed by Slaanesh.

Since the Fall, Eldar have entered into a dark age. They can't use their psychic abilities to their full potential because it makes them easily possessed by demons. They can't reincarnate like they used to because that involves their souls surviving in the Warp. The various groups have different ideas on how to solve these problems. Dark Eldar feed Slaanesh souls in their place to reincarnate and extend their immortality, while banning the use of psychic powers entirely. Craftworlders, Exodites, and most corsairs rely on spiritstones to bind their souls to a physical object so they don't have to enter the warp, while using the smallest of psychic powers on-par with the ones used by humans.

But anywho, their whole race had become engulfed in hedonistic nihilism due to their immortality and ability to reincarnate, coupled with infinite resources. Post-Fall, they've had to condition themselves in different ways to avoid these behaviors. Or in the case of Drukhari, double-down and use others to maintain their sadism.

I thought the Dark Eldar were a toned down vestige of mainstream Eldar society? Like they can't just respawn after a quick dip in the warp any more so they had to dial back their excesses a bit and focus more on predatory sadism for safety.