Fall of the Eldar

 The Fall of the Eldar.

By Dr Rekton Blackbringer

Though we know little of the Eldar themselves, beyond the Temporal Refugees that arrives in the year 5665. Those Refugees being a somewhat artistic conclave rather than a scientific, military or political organisation, so having little useful information on their society beyond what the Imperium can glean from the few interactions between the Conclave and the Imperium as a whole. 

What we can say from what we have learned from the Conclave and Imperial Archaeologists that the Eldar and their nation known as the Eldar Hegemony was an egalitarian meritocracy that allowed for fluid movement between social strata. with a heavy focus on beauty and practicality in their technology and architecture, their magical practices are not well known but it is theorised that it was similar to the practices of Elven High Magic on the World of Toril in the Gygax Multiverse (Often Known as the D&D Multiverse). The Hegemony spanned the entire continent of Elysium, lasting longer than the entirety of human civilisation on Earth, some 12,000 years by the timeframe of the last Human Transplant. This begs the question, why did the Eldar Hegemony fall?

Sadly we will never know the truth of the matter, too much was lost in the destruction of the million years of warfare that followed the collapse of the Eldar social order. We do, however, have many theories. The most popular two are the Strauss-Howe Generational Theory and The Orc Invasion Theory. I will first endeavour to tackle the more complicated Strauss-Howe Generational Theory and then explain the Orc Invasion Theory.

The Strauss-Howe Generational Theory is often called The Fourth Turning Theory, as it explains the cycle of civilization through the metaphor of a wheel Turning every human generation. 

The first Turning AKA the High 

The first Turning happens after a status quo shattering crisis, either an unexpected war or economic collapse. One noted example being the Merovingian Presidency at the end of our Republican era and the subsequent Civil War. The administration of the First Turning is dynamic, optimistic and unified in purpose. This often leaves those on the fringes feeling constrained by conformity until the second Turning

The Second Turning AKA the Awakening 

The Awakening is where the youth of the High start to rebel, seeking greater freedom of thought and spirituality. Greater autonomy from their parents of the High, seeing that moment of great prosperity as spiritually and culturally impoverished. This is countered in the third Turning.

The Third Turning AKA the Unravelling 

The Unravelling is where the Cynicism of the Awakening goes, into their children. Who look upon their parents as squandering greatness in favour of pleasure and indulgence, as the current Lord Inquisitor put it in a recent interview on the subject. 

"Earth's Generation X was the first to see how badly they were fucked over by their Hippie parents who either hoarded or squandered the intergenerational wealth handed to them by their parents in favour of free love, drugs and Communism which lead to the economic disaster of the late seventies and early eighties. This metastasized into a distrust of government institutions and the status quo, leading into increased individualism and the various Culture Wars of the late 2010s"

I cannot speak to the events of Earth, but it seems that we best learn from our Vampire brethren in the Imperium lest we enter into this cynical cycle and the following Crisis.

The Fourth Turning AKA the Crisis

The Crisis is the resetting of everything, often a time of upheaval through warfare, revolutions or worse, the board is swept clean and the cycle begins again. In my conversations with the Lord Inquisitor he alluded the the time he came from, Earth's 2025, was the very beginning of a new crisis marked with rises in poverty, corporate greed, government incompetence, corruption, war, Death cults masquerading as environmentalism, and mental illnesses. 

Thankfully with the increased lifespans of Humans and the other races this cycle takes far longer than the one hundred year cycles of Earth, the Lord Inquisitor has noticed that the Imperium is still in it's High phase after five thousand years, which gave him the idea that the Eldar Hegemony had a similarly long Strauss-Howe generational cycle. Which brings me to the Orc Invasion Theory.

The Orc Invasion

This theory is predicated on the coincidence of evidence of Orc civilization beginning at the same time as the Eldar Hegemony's final crisis and fall a simple if incomplete theory, in my humble opinion and that of my colleagues in the Imperial College of History. The arrival of my kind was part of the Eldar Fall but not it's only cause as in the waning centuries there was a distinct lack of beauty in the Eldar's architecture, reverting to a style known as Brutalism, a form of architecture that consists of stark slab sided buildings that inspired nothing but nihilism. From our other investigations we have found a reduction in the Eldar Military to the extent that my ancestors had almost no opposition in their raids which angered the Eldar population splitting it into four groups, the Elves we know today after a million years of almost constant war.

About the Author

Doctor Rekton Blackbringer is an Orc Alumni of the Imperial Scholar Historia, he currently resides in the Human city of Barcelona in the North-East of the Imperial Province of Iberia for health reasons due to his extreme age for his kind.