Vect model spotted?

Captured slave, daring escape/rescue and stockholm syndrome. Only way I could see it happening.

Either that or Vect's an old (ancient)-school romantic with a secret webway passage between his palace and the boudoire of said Iyandeni princess...

"But the Seers will never approve my love!"

"To hell with the Seers, I'm older than them anyway. We're meant to be together."

"Wait...who's this Lelith b*tch that's just messaged you? Says thanks for the stadium you built her..."

"..."

Either that's why the dark eldar only deliver messages via Scourge or else she received that message in a much much more awkward fashion lol

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Side note: how do you make clones follow orders instead of trying to take power for themselves? I mean, if they're ACTUALLY a clone of Vect, do you think they'd really let OG vect order them around? Wouldn't they ALSO be tactical geniuses and gods of betrayal? Or are they like, programmed, bio-mechanical Vect android look-alikes?

The books answered this quite nicely: Subtle forms of mind control.

Ynneadwraith wrote:

Captured slave, daring escape/rescue and stockholm syndrome. Only way I could see it happening.

Either that or Vect's an old (ancient)-school romantic with a secret webway passage between his palace and the boudoire of said Iyandeni princess...

"But the Seers will never approve my love!"

"To hell with the Seers, I'm older than them anyway. We're meant to be together."

"Wait...who's this Lelith b*tch that's just messaged you? Says thanks for the stadium you built her..."

"..."

I love it, I would give it all the likes if I could

Thanks dude I'm here all week

Remember, the BRB explicitly states that the stories we come up with are just as much canon as what's in the codex.

Adorabael Vect (shamelessly ripped from 1d4chan) is as real as you want him to be

Ynneadwraith wrote:

Captured slave, daring escape/rescue and stockholm syndrome. Only way I could see it happening.

This goes back to our discussion about DE society, and whether or not they feel things like compassion. The fact is, a lot of players reduce DE to their lowest common denominator and make them all about fear, pain, murder, carnage, etc, but that's doing them a disservice.

They DO feed off of, and enjoy all of those things, but they also enjoy and feed off of non-violent emotions like lust, desire, or even positive things like love. There is nothing to say that a dark eldar can't simultaneously be an accomplished seducer ah la "Don Juan", while having a robust personal hobby of torture and murder.

Several important figures throughout human history can be shown to have EXACTLY those 3 traits in common.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Furthermore, any bad guy who thinks he's a bad guy is a poorly written work of fiction, which I don't believe DE to be. There are many instances where the writers have attempted to justify DE perversion. What better way than to sustain their very lives? We as humans commit horrendous acts against animals to sustain ourselves(food). If those same acts were replaced with "sentient" slaves, it'd be difficult to find much difference between our own society and that of the DE.

They're caged/enslaved from birth, fed food not for their health but to make them most paletable to us, and forced to labour on our behalf. They're killed and butchered in the safest(for us) and most efficient manner, not necessarily the most humane or least painful manner. They're mutilated(horns cut off), burned, branded, castrated(to keep cattle docile), locked in small boxes so their muscles stay tender(veal), and hunted for fun(venison, turkey, wild everything, really). And these are just the ones that are legal in the US.

Elsewhere, they're forced to fight in what amount to arenas, to the death, for the amusement of human onlookers, amongst other attrocities.

Now, I'm not a member of some animal activists group trying to make people feel bad. Personally, I know there are reasons many of these things NEED to be done in order to safeguard humanity. But when you compare these things to what DE do, and equate their slaves to their food(which they are), then they're almost a direct mirror reflection of humanity, and our relationship with animals domesticated for food. And I don't know about you, but despite being an evil, meat-eating enabler of attrocity, I love my mother.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Ynneadwraith wrote:

Captured slave, daring escape/rescue and stockholm syndrome. Only way I could see it happening.

This goes back to our discussion about DE society, and whether or not they feel things like compassion. The fact is, a lot of players reduce DE to their lowest common denominator and make them all about fear, pain, murder, carnage, etc, but that's doing them a disservice.

They DO feed off of, and enjoy all of those things, but they also enjoy and feed off of non-violent emotions like lust, desire, or even positive things like love. There is nothing to say that a dark eldar can't simultaneously be an accomplished seducer ah la "Don Juan", while having a robust personal hobby of torture and murder.

Several important figures throughout human history can be shown to have EXACTLY those 3 traits in common.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Furthermore, any bad guy who thinks he's a bad guy is a poorly written work of fiction, which I don't believe DE to be. There are many instances where the writers have attempted to justify DE perversion. What better way than to sustain their very lives? We as humans commit horrendous acts against animals to sustain ourselves(food). If those same acts were replaced with "sentient" slaves, it'd be difficult to find much difference between our own society and that of the DE.

They're caged/enslaved from birth, fed food not for their health but to make them most paletable to us, and forced to labour on our behalf. They're killed and butchered in the safest(for us) and most efficient manner, not necessarily the most humane or least painful manner. They're mutilated(horns cut off), burned, branded, castrated(to keep cattle docile), locked in small boxes so their muscles stay tender(veal), and hunted for fun(venison, turkey, wild everything, really). And these are just the ones that are legal in the US.

Elsewhere, they're forced to fight in what amount to arenas, to the death, for the amusement of human onlookers, amongst other attrocities.

Now, I'm not a member of some animal activists group trying to make people feel bad. Personally, I know there are reasons many of these things NEED to be done in order to safeguard humanity. But when you compare these things to what DE do, and equate their slaves to their food(which they are), then they're almost a direct mirror reflection of humanity, and our relationship with animals domesticated for food. And I don't know about you, but despite being an evil, meat-eating enabler of attrocity, I love my mother.

I agree with this completely.

Well if we are tlaking about their society, i have often pondered on why people think that slaanesh units workign along side dark eldar would be a bad thing or 'non-fluffy'.

the dark eldar fear slaanesh, sure. but you never hear the words god fearing before.

s/he-it-the-that gains power from torture and (EXPLETIVE DELETED}, thus the worship of she who thirsts is what the dark eldar do best.

I think that they would feel compassion, it would probably disgust them though unless it was EXTREME compassion, I suppose.

Dark Eldar are still highly empathic or they would not be able to feed on the suffering of others to the point where it invigorates them and reverses the hollowing.

DE just in denial, they would never openly worship anything but themselves.

Attempting to apply human morals to nonhumans doesn't make sense.

I think DE are totally capable of love, in a messed up kind of way (a DE mother might love her child, but not in an empathetic way--her love is a selfish love, based in her love of her own identity as a mother). However, they don't see themselves as good. Path of the Renegade makes it pretty clear that they are fairly self aware about just how vile and selfish they are.

(Further, it's entirely possible to have self aware villains. Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon, Mark Millar's Wanted, Unforgiven--all critically acclaimed works. Not to mention all the work with less critical fame but no paucity of support, like Nightmare on Elm Street, the Exorcist, Angel, and Highlander.)

I know a guy like that, he had 30+ children with different women in order to make himself immortal in his own way. he is a sicko and deserves to go to jail for totally unrelated issues, but its a story and unfortunately true.

Yeah, it's a shame so many DE players look at DE from a Space Marine/Imperial perspective. A lot of it has to do with the writing, and how it is often from the perspective of an imperium narrator, but also because people seem to pay more attention to the "exciting bits" in writing, and skim over the parts that give real insight into DE existence.

I wouldn't be interested in such one-dimensional DE. The complexity of DE existence is what makes them attractive to me. Of all the factions in 40k(other than IG), I think DE are the most relatable. I think they are the closest to current human reality. Honestly, in some ways, even moreso than IG. Certainly far moreso than selflessly heroic space marines who have no sexual desire and know no fear.

The last 3 posts exemplify what I'm talking about with ignoring the fluff that GW has given us. We have no reason to believe the love of a dark eldar would be a twisted, messed up kind of love, other than that they would apply their belief structure(which doesn't really value non-DE life all that highly), but that doesn't mean they wouldn't value the object of their love highly. On the contrary, a mother may very well kill for her child in DE society, whereas in human society, a mother would just SAY she'd kill for her child, but never have to follow through.

As for applying human emotion to xenos, we HAVE to unless we're directed otherwise, and we have NOT been directed otherwise. To the contrary, we've specifically been told that dark eldar experience the entire array of emotion that humans do, including love, and the specific quote adds: "perhaps even to a greater extent than humans."

So we're directly told that they DO feel said emotion, and the only comparitive point we have, in the absence of direct description to the contrary, is our own emotion, and how it makes us feel/behave.

To deny ourselves comparing human emotions to any alien beings would make aliens completely unknowable and wholly unrelatable to the point where describing their behaviors and feelings would be completely irrelevent. If you say human words don't mean the same thing when you apply them to the xenos, then that makes xenos wholly indescribable, you see?

We're told why dark eldar ended up being "dark" instead of "carebear eldar" in the same paragraph. It's quite simple:

1. Fear, pain, and sorrow tend to be much sharper, more intense emotions than positive emotions are, and so they provide more sustenence.

-and-

2. It's easier to invoke fear, pain, or sorrow. With a flick of your wrist, you can flay flesh. But to harness love, it might take you half a lifetime to nurture such a thing into existence.

So we're told that it's a simple case of efficiency. DE are just as susceptible to falling in love, becoming enamored with someone they idolize, or being "friends" as humans are. They just HAVE to sustain themselves, and are often driven to do dreadful things to make that happen. And each time, I'm sure it gets easier. Most of the time, they would likely prefer non-DE "victims", which to them doesn't seem "bad" because it's their equivalent to us getting a burger at McDonalds. But even humans eat other humans when left with no other alternatives. But it's a tortured existence being DE, to be sure. Imagine being perfectly capable of empathy and compassion, yet being driven to do horrible things, perhaps even to someone you like, in order to sustain yourself, lest you become one of the parched, causing you to indescriminantly lash out at anyone you're able to. Sounds almost like one of the many morally grey decisions we have to make in our day to day lives.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Spoiler:

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Spoiler:

Yeah I agree with you while I don't think it's impossible to have a society comprised of psychopaths, I don't think that's what the Dark Eldar are.

I do however think that the structure of their society, and the nature of their situation, drives them to outwardly behave very similarly to how psychopaths would. From what I see, Dark Eldar society violently punishes displays of weakness or vulnerability. Letting anyone know that you've fallen for someone (including the person you've fallen for) would be incredibly risky as it's a vulnerability that your peers would exploit in a heartbeat. I don't doubt at all that it does happen, but it would probably be illicit and secret.

Ooh, you could write some fantastic narratives with that. Two DEldar that care deeply for each other, but have to go through their lives hiding that fact from everyone around them, not sure who to trust (if anyone). You could do some really nice internal struggles between a selfish desire for personal survival and risking everything to save the other...

I also think that it's important not to pigeon-hole any particular population into 'they're all psychopaths (deldar)' or 'they're all prissy space elves (craftworlders)'. I'd imagine that deldar run the whole gamut of the psychopathy spectrum. Some would be genuine psychopaths who feel nothing for others, some would be learned psychopaths who have given up on empathy through exposure or survival instinct, and some would feel a degree of angst about the terrible things they have to do to survive, and all the various shades inbetween.

The difficulty would be working out which was which, given that to survive in DEldar society you'd probably need to act fairly indistinguishably from those on the higher end of the psychopathy spectrum.

(Slightly) back on topic...

As for Vect and an Iyandeni princess it was less the biological ability of them to get together, more the logistics.

Vect's running Commorragh, which from what I understand is a pretty full-time job. Miss Iyanden M40 is a high-ranking and presumably highly valued Craftworlder. Where would they even meet? It's not as if there's an exchange programme...

"Mature, highly motivated urban professional seeks angst-ridden royalty for 3-5 illicit encounters (depending on how accurate Xenology is)"

I would be behind Sliscus as the father but he may not be old enough.

I don't think Dark Eldar are incapable of love but the thought of Vect ploughing in even the most elegant possible way steals from his mystique a bit. I suppose that's silly considering his old pimp mobile came with its own ummm... entertainment?

Vampire: The Masquerade
edit: without the masquerade, cause we're cool.

Quote :

Yeah, it's a shame so many DE players look at DE from a Space Marine/Imperial perspective. A lot of it has to do with the writing, and how it is often from the perspective of an imperium narrator, but also because people seem to pay more attention to the "exciting bits" in writing, and skim over the parts that give real insight into DE existence.

Cool perspective. However Imperial perspective is correct about Eldar. What eldar think of themself may be not whole picture.

 Here is what i think of it - all of them are damned and cursed people. They are old civilisation, and have been improving themself for very long time, they ascended to be a psychic race, and that psychic ascendance test they failed as a species.

They frak up real royally, losing all their achievements because they cant control excessive power they mirror in the warp. They created fatal warp connection, the Slaanesh, which essentially killed most of them and doomed the rest. They became doomed cursed people, and their doom and curse is malign interlligence in the warp, that is connected to them, to each and every one of them.

That fatal warp connection in Dark Eldar is mirroring in their thoughts and behavior, but it is deeply supressed. They themself think they arent driven to acts of cruelty by leaking of their soul - they think it is their will to live so, their freedome to assault and torture. But it isnt.

Its much like we humans often dont realise our psychic traumas, supressing them and rationalising our behaviour, often erratic, when in fact its traumas that have the reign and dictating what we feel and have to do.

Dark Eldar have literally no choice in what they do. They found the only way to stave off oblivion and cling to it with all the clutch they posess. It is the giant elephant in the room, that no one looks at. Their deep motivation - to save their soul whatever the cost, and its driving them on and on, and they care not who pay the price for it.

They are like junkies, and they know if they dont take the dose of pain, they are going to weaken and die. Thats why they arent very caring about each other - try find junkie who in their moments of need have drug will be caring and loving...they will do anything to get the drug. And their drug is pain, and their kindred's pain can be just as good as a slave pain. Its underlining in their personalities, its their basis.

I can't even begin to express how incorrect I find that statement, from both a personal and an objective viewpoint.

Quote :

I can't even begin to express how incorrect I find that statement, from both a personal and an objective viewpoint.

Well, try it. The basis is - if they dont torture, they become uninteligent husks and then die. Try rationalising them with that brutal cold fact. Also try imaging their brains and instincts wont yell "survive".

I'm going to try not to make any jabs at your control of the English language as I suspect it comes from your control of a language I myself have even less grasp on, but I would like to preface with the admission that we may simply be misunderstanding each other due to a language barrier.

Moving forward; your entire opening segment comes off in the most condescending tone possible to convey in text.

You assert that the species "ascended to be a psychic race" which is patently false.

You ignore the fact that their civilisation did not fail in a day and quite possibly spanned many more years than any human endeavor ever has.

Your assessment of their character is in no way particularly erroneous and in some instances we agree, but due to the condescending tone followed by inaccuracies and a flat dismissal of everything before the fall your entire post comes off as someone who wandered onto this forum after you got bored painting your 3rd Marine army.

Oh noes - that is actually Emperor's perspective on them, as i read it in newest Black Library book. His whole goal, Primarchs, Great Crusade, Space Marines was to avert the same fate that have befallen Eldar. They become great beacon in the warp, mingling their fate with it (wraithbone construction, powerfull psykers) and in their hubris did not see the danger. Until it was too late. Emperors whole goal was to avoid it, and break all connection with the warp.

I completely agree with it. That is the cause of the Fall, hubris and not understanding the danger.

They are not whole race, they are damaged. As much as i like DE i think they are deeply flawed. And its what makes their character.

Quote :

who wandered onto this forum after you got bored painting your 3rd Marine army.

Oh yeah, and registered on this forum 2 years before you.

I apologize. This is not a jab, but I am truly having trouble following some of your sentences. The emperors perspective means about as much to me as the flatulence of a cockroach.

And I don't mean you're new to the forum. I mean you sound like your mind lies firmly with the Imperium.

Now I have just finished a 16 shift and I am on 27 hours without sleep. This discussion will simply have to wait.

Well English is not my native, im trying my hardest, be assured. ))
Cleaned my post.

I know. And I commend you for having your current level of mastery in at least twice as many languages as I, bit I'm afraid that doesn't make it any easier for us to properly convey our thoughts.

Quote :

And I don't mean you're new to the forum. I mean you sound like your mind lies firmly with the Imperium.

Well, truth does not have a side. Vect surely understand all the flaws of his species even better then Emperor. For me flaws of the Dark Eldar actually make DE, as BetrayTheWorld said, relatable.

Disney's Monsters Inc is the story of how the Dark Eldar work. They go out and scare children (or raid systems) and take the screams and fear and use it for power. To the person above who said that Fear is a more intense feeling than positive emotions is lying! I saw the movie! Laughter was 10x more powerful than the screams were.

Dark Eldar should focus on laughter and love instead of fear. Our new PfP table will work on how many combats we don't engage in, how many times our grenades fling backwards into our own troops! Our new decurion rules will be that all grenades deviate 3d6 inches towards the origin of the grenade. Nothing else makes sense...

Oh by the way I was totally bs'ing there. Not being serious in any way. My DE may travel with clowns (my harlies) but those aren't the kind for bringing laughter... more like slaughter.

Sarkesian wrote:

Disney's Monsters Inc is the story of how the Dark Eldar work. They go out and scare children (or raid systems) and take the screams and fear and use it for power. To the person above who said that Fear is a more intense feeling than positive emotions is lying! I saw the movie! Laughter was 10x more powerful than the screams were.

Dark Eldar should focus on laughter and love instead of fear. Our new PfP table will work on how many combats we don't engage in, how many times our grenades fling backwards into our own troops! Our new decurion rules will be that all grenades deviate 3d6 inches towards the origin of the grenade. Nothing else makes sense...

Oh by the way I was totally bs'ing there. Not being serious in any way. My DE may travel with clowns (my harlies) but those aren't the kind for bringing laughter... more like slaughter.

You can't spell manslaughter without laughter.