Warhammer 40K: Was There A Secret Eldar-Human War? – PRIME
Let’s take a look at a crazy theory about a dark part of human history – and who may be behind it.
For the most part modern human history starts with the rise of the Emperor and the Unification Wars. Before that very little is known of humanity’s spread to the stars and what it did there, until you reach all the way back to what we considered the present day. But humanity did spread to the stars, populating countless worlds and reaching great heights. Yet there were not alone among the stars, what great stories are we missing in these lost years? Let’s take a look at one possibility.
The First Steller Empire
Sometime around M18, humankind developed the twin technologies of the Warp Drive and Geller Field. Though mankind had already started its Steller exodus and reached other worlds, the slow travel times meant expansion was slow and each colony was isolated. The creation of the Warp Drive opened the galaxy to quick colonization and humanity bloomed, spreading across the vast reaches. Here, during the Dark Age of Technology (in fact a Golden Age) human technology reached a height never since matched. This period is also sometimes known as the first human Steller Empire, though in truth we don’t know what kind of government or governments it had. Most worlds of the Imperium can trace their human population back to this period.
End of End Era
Though we don’t have exact dates, this Golden Age did come to an end. The Golden Age started as early as M15 and ended by M25. We don’t know exactly why the Dark Age of Technology came to an end. There have been various reasons given – too many rogue Psykers, powerful warp storms, wars with the AI controlled Iron Men. Any of all of these could have happened. While the cause is unknown, the result is; anarchy, death, and the collapse of human civilization. The great light of human progress went out and the Age of Strife began. The cloak of Old Night would lay across human history, until the arrival of the Emperor. It’s easy to see the end of the Golden Age as a result of natural or internal issues, but what if there was an outside source for it?
Humans Were Not Alone
When humans spread to the stars they would not have found them to be empty. Huge numbers of Xenos races populated the worlds they sought to settle. Many of these would have been small and minor race. Some of the more powerful races in the 41st Millennium would also have been missing. The T’au were in their infancy, the Necrons slumbered still and Hive Fleets had not yet reached our galaxy. And yet some that we know well were still there. The Orks in their teaming multitudes lived among the stars and it was there as well that the Eldar Empire flourished.
Rival Empires? 
At the time of humankind’s great exodus the most powerful race in the Galaxy was the Eldar. This long-lived race had come to dominance after the end of the War in Heaven and built a massive and technologically advanced Empire. The history of this Empire is pretty sketchy, with very little known. We know it got its start sometime after the conflict with the Necrons, about 60 Million years ago, and that it ended in M30 with the birth of Slaanesh and the opening of the Eye of Terror. The Empire is said to have reached its height, of some 10,000 worlds, right before its destruction.
Given this, it seems that the Eldar Empire was a massive, and possibly still expanding concern right at the time when humans were spreading across the galaxy and building their own first Empire. These two technological races must have come in contact, indeed we know the the Xenos Cabal, which includes Eldar was active on Terra as far back and the 20th Century. Is it then possible that the two Empires fought a war, and that this was the reason behind the end of the Dark Age?
Evidence For A War
There isn’t a ton of evidence about any kind of war during this period, but that is mainly because we have almost no evidence for anything at all in this period. We do know that the Emperor certainly distrusts the Eldar, and all Xenos, and sought to destroy them. He knew a lot about them, and though they might seem like good allies for humans, He chose to wage war on them, maybe out of a lingering hatred for how they undermined the early human Empire.
The Eldar also tend to look down on humans as less advanced, and yet the technologies of the Dark Age often seem to rival Eldar tech in many ways. However if the Eldar had won a war against humans in the past it would make more sense for them to look down on them. Lastly, it just makes a certain amount of sense. It’s hard to think that these two massive empires were expanding in the galaxy at the same time and didn’t come into conflict.
Maybe that conflict helped end the human Golden Age, or maybe it’s just a crazy theory.
