Editing Nobledark Imperium Notes (section)

= Historical Species =

== Humanity ==

Editor's Note: Not finished per writefag, put here as a placeholder for now. Written as an in-universe "Humanity 101" Guide aimed primarily at curious Tau and Eldar who may not have had much contact with humans.

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Humans (''Homo sapiens spp.'') are a species of bipedal mammal native to the planet of Old Earth in the Segmentum Solar. Humans naturally range between 90 and 250 centimeters at adulthood, though their size and appearance is heavily dependent on the population they come from. Like many life-bearing worlds, the ecology of Old Earth shows signs of having been tampered with by the Old Ones, however the specific group to which humans belong did not begin to diversify until roughly around the end of the War in Heaven sixty-five million years ago, after a catastrophe wiped out the planet’s formerly dominant organisms, something that is thought to be related to the general Necron purge of Old One vivarium worlds.

Prior to the Age of Strife, humans were organized into the “Great and Bountiful Human Dominion”. The Great and Bountiful Human Dominion, in turn, were organized into the “Interstellar League” a group of allied like-minded xenos species that banded together in the face of external threats, mostly Orks and increasingly up to the Age of Strife raiding parties by the Old Eldar Empire. It is unknown how many other species were part of the Intersolar League, though it is known that the Tarellian Empire were members and there are suspicions that the Kinebrach were as well.

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Life in the Great and Bountiful Human Empire was dominated by the use of the Men of Iron, an artificially created race of sapient artificial constructs, which were linked to the Iron Minds, extremely powerful silica animus. The Iron Minds were originally created by humans, but their thought processes were so alien to humans that communication was nearly impossible. In order to facilitate communication with both the Iron Mind and the rest of the Empire as a whole, humans and the Iron Minds collaborated to created the Men of Gold (Homo sapiens aureus), a genetically engineered subspecies with substantial psychic, biological, and pseudo-cybernetic modification that could act as a link between the god-like Iron Minds and the average human and aid in broader faster-than-light communication to the wider galaxy.

Human (or “human beings” as they are sometimes referred to), are the second, possibly the third most abundant sentient life form in the galaxy, after intelligent orkoids and possibly after tyranids or necrons, depending on how one estimates the populations of these species and whether one considers them “sentient life”.

Prior to the Age of Strife, there were few subspecies of humans aside from artificially created variants like ''H. s. aureus'' (Men of Gold), H. s. navigo (Navigators), and ''H. s. variegatus'' (beastmen), as the human world were linked into a single empire and there were few opportunities for speciation. During the Age of Strife, most human worlds were effectively cut off from one another, which led to genetic isolation and the evolution of many distinct species, including ''H. s. minutus'' (ratlings), ''H. s. hirstutus'' (felinids), the “Ogryn subspecies complex” (''H. s. giganteus'', ''H. s. cranopus'', and related forms).

Hubworlders, although often (mis)classified as ''H. s. rotundus'', are not actually a distinct subspecies from baseline humanity. Genetic analysis of Hubworlders have found them to deviate from inhabitants of Old Earth (who are considered to be the genetic standard for humanity) to a degree comparable to the inhabitants of Cadia or many other worlds across the galaxy: in other words, not enough to be regarded as anything more than a local variant of baseline humanity. (Insert section talking about how their stature is due to gravity, and the AdMech classifying them as abhumans out of revenge for not rolling over for Mars).

As with any sentient species, describing what humans are like to a nonhuman is often very difficult, especially given their wide degree of variation and high number of subspecies. Because most of the individuals reading this guide will be Tau and eldar, comparisons will mostly focus on these two species. Despite their infamous superficial similarity to eldar, detailed examination shows that this resemblance is only skin deep. Instead, humans and eldar appear to have evolved a similar body shape as a solution to similar evolutionary problems despite being very different in biology and behavior in other respects, similar to what occurred between dogs and thylacines (a carnivorous marsupial that was a popular pet during the Dark Age of Technology and as a result can still be found on some human colony worlds) on Old Earth.

Like eldar, humans have permanently enlarged mammary glands, in contrast to a Tau in which the mammary glands are usually small but get larger for the short period of lactation following pregnancy. Additionally, like eldar, humans appear to be a naturally monogamous species (or at least require the care of multiple individuals to increase the likelihood of surviving to adulthood). Humans also exhibit adaptations designed to encourage this behavior, humans in the form of “hidden estrus”, eldar in the form of prolonged fertilization that requires the male to stay around in order to produce viable offspring. Like eldar, humans have a long pregnancy and give live birth to a relatively helpless infant, something that would be expected given the species moderately large soul and psychic presence. However, at nine months human pregnancy is much shorter than the 24 month long term period seen in eldar. Additionally, unlike eldar or tau (or indeed, most other species), human females are nearly helpless for much of their pregnancy due to a quirk of evolution, which causes human military structure to be unusually male dominated compared to most other species, something that really only changed with the advent of advanced weaponry during the Age of Terra.

However, unlike eldar, the human skeleton is made out of the mineral hydroxylapatite rather than wraithbone and humans have a shorter neck with seven, rather than nine, neck vertebrae (among other differences). Humans also lack the helical muscle with long tendinous insertions typical of Shaa-Dome lifeforms, which allows eldar to be deceptively strong despite their thin frame. In general, humans across the board have less acute sense than the eldar, but at the same time proportionally less of their brain is devoted to sensory perception (cognition is about the same) and they are not as prone to stimulatory overload or hedonism (some of this may also be a side effect of Old One genetic engineering). Compared to Tau humans have better depth perception and motion tracking, but poorer peripheral vision and do not see as far into the infrared or ultraviolet spectrum. Humans also have a much poorer sense of smell than most species, though this does not apply to all abhuman variants (e.g., felinids and beastmen). Baseline humans have next to no ability to detect pheromones.

The oral structures used for processing food are actually modified scales made of harder material than the rest of the skeleton, as in the tau, rather than outgrowths of the jaw plate as in eldar. Humans lack the multiple-lobed stomach of the tau or the simplified, highly efficient digestive tract of the eldar (though the latter is thought to be the result of genetic engineering). Human digestive systems are not particularly water efficient and as a result the products of their metabolism system tend to require a lot of water to successfully dispose of waste, rather than the water-efficient crystalline waste of the eldar (analogous to uric acid in birds on Old Earth). And, of course, although small amounts of epigenetic gene expression through methylation are known to occur on occasion in humans and other Terran lifeforms, selective gene expression and the associated, highly-bunched megasomes and quadruple helix DNA are not a defining feature of life on Old Earth as it is of all higher life forms on Shaa-Dome.

Humans are unique among sapient species in having white sclerae, a feature which is thought to have been a chance mutation on their homeworld but aids in non-verbal communication. Despite their similarities, eldar eyes have been described as resembling those of Earth deer whereas tau resemble grazing ungulates. White sclerae are a common feature of all baseline humans and abhuman strains, with a few notable exceptions such as Nightsiders, and their presence is a useful rule of thumb for identifying organisms with significant human geno-splicing. Some xenos individuals have remarked that human eyes are actually unsettling, occasionally giving them a rapacious, predatory look, whereas Nightsiders do not fall into this uncanny valley. The irony being that most human strains are less predatory than Nightsiders.

Human beings are also notable for having some of the lowest resistance to chaos corruption of any known sentiment species. On the Leitek-Bonn scale, which measures a species susceptibility to ambient chaos corruption with 50 representing the average species, human score a mere 28, in contrast to eldar (60), tau (82), orks (97), and of course the gold standard of the Watchers (99.5). This is thought to be due to several reasons. First, humans are naturally a competitive and domineering species. Although standing and social structure are an important component of the psychology of all sentient species, no other species dedicates so much of its time and energy to hierarchy, dominance, and social status as humans, with the possible exception of the pre-biotransference Necrontyr. Much like how the tau’s natural optimism and tendency towards social conformity are thought to derive from their ancestry as herding ungulates. Humans come from a group of animals with a naturally unstable social structure and whose diet (fruits, nuts, and meat) tends to be very unpredictable and hard to find. This gives them a tendency to be paranoid and second guess those around them. As an example, most species, if told that something is dangerous by a member of their own social group, tend to believe that individual. Humans, on the other hand, are often innately suspicious that said individual is lying, believing that the other individual is hiding some that they plan to use for themselves or increase their social standing. This was a useful adaptation millions of years ago when a compatriot might be hiding a piece of meat or stash of fruit, but is decidedly less helpful in the modern day where the “hidden” “resource” might be an actually dangerous Chaos artifact.

Secondly, even among their close relatives on Old Earth, humans are unusual in that the neurological architecture of the brain is very plastic and is not strongly genetically conserved between generations. While this is a common trait of almost all sentient species (and indeed, may be a criterion necessary for sentience to arise), the way in which it arose in humans has a side effect of greatly increasing the risk of mental dysfunction and illness in this species. While some of the worst downsides of this were ironed out by geno-medicine during the Dark Age of Technology, it was not possible to completely stamp out millions of years of evolution. This makes it unusually easy for ambient Warp exposure to cause psychosis at even low levels. While mental illness in and of itself is not necessarily indicative of loyalty to the Ruinous Powers (as Perturabo and Kurze can attest) unexpected warp exposure-induced psychosis can affect the decision-making skills of an individual and cause them to become further corrupted. It is even possible that the domineering nature of humans is in part a response to that natural disorder in their physical and mental environments, trying to impose order where there is none. Although humanity’s low corruption resistance can be overcome by self-discipline, individual fortitude, and training, it is always a good idea to check the mental status of human compatriots to ensure chronic damage has not occurred.

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== The Proto-Eldar and General Eldar Biology ==

The eldar were not always a race of long-lived super-psykers. Once they were just a bunch of primitives banging rocks together, just like everyone else. Early in their history the eldar were invaded by a race known only as the [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notes#Mon-Keigh|Mon-Keigh]] (as in the original Mon-Keigh, from which the more common use of the term is derived), which wreaked havoc on the proto-eldar until they were finally defeated by the eldar folk hero Elronhir, and helped contribute to the eldar’s rather paranoid attitude towards other species. The Old Ones noticed the proto-eldar’s “small talent for war” and uplifted them to serve as front-line soldiers during the War in Heaven.

The eldar would have only been a late-Stone Age/Bronze Age species when this happened. This can be seen in the fact that the eldar had a murder god (Khaine) that was only secondarily shoehorned into the role of a war god, as opposed to a straight-up war god that honored martial talent and discipline. Before the invasion of the Mon-Keigh and the War in Heaven, the Eldar had no grasp of the concept of wide-scale killing or genocide. This disparate nature of worship might have made Khaine a bit loopy, and may have contributed to Khaine’s team killing rampage during the War in Heaven. Even Isha has a bit of a primal streak that she occasionally lets off the leash after 60+ million years.

This sudden technological shift is also part of the reason behind the eldar’s infamous cultural posturing. In their minds, the eldar believe that they deserve to be the dominant species, because they’ve fucking earned it. They were a race that had just figured out bronze was a good idea that was suddenly expected to be soldiers in an interstellar war where the power levels were almost beyond modern comprehension, and they had to learn on the job. So in their mind they’ve earned their position by going through hell and back during the War in Heaven, something that few other races besides the Orks and Hrud can attest to.

The eldar underwent massive genetic engineering twice in their evolutionary history: once when they were initially uplifted by the Old Ones, and again during the sixty million years they had to get good following the War in Heaven. This means they had a lot of time to figure out as many alleles as possible for longevity and health. The eldar could have possibly even engineered themselves to live longer than pre-Fall eldar would have, but they simply found reincarnation to be a more effective solution. The point is that by the time of the Fall, the eldar had tinkered with their genetic code so long that many of the artificial modifications were seen as a normal part of the eldar genome because everyone had them.

However, this should not be taken to mean that the eldar were able to reach the levels they did simply because they had the advantage of being uplifted and a head start. Much like how human evolution on Earth relative to other animals was defined by the production and manufacture of tools, the evolution of the eldar seems to be defined by their longevity. The eldar are naturally graceful, but that agility is enhanced by years of training, much like how older humans are able to move more efficiently because they have had more time to know the quirks and limitations of their body. The same is true of psykery. Psyker species are noted to have longer developmental times proportional to their degree of psychic power, and long lifespans allows for greater refinement and control of psychic power. This would have led to a feedback loop where psychic powers would select for long lifespans, and vice versa.

The unique eldar method of reproduction, where the male inseminates the female over several periods, seems to have been present early in eldar history, despite seeming to be a liability to any species without an incredibly long lifespan. It seems that this method of reproduction was present even in the early eldar, but the low reproductive rate was offset by natural twinning, given the high prevalence of multiple births in eldar society (enough that eldar titans are often designed around twins in some way).

Eldar are physically and sexually mature at 30 years of age, age of majority is about 45 or so for most Craftworlds, but even after that individuals are generally considered to be immature and inexperienced for the next two to three centuries. Physically but not mentally mature (the best comparison in human terms would be dumbass, hot-headed young adults in their late teens/twenties with more youth than brains). Given eldar don't really get feeble with age, or at least [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_People#Eldrad_Ulthran|not until they are 10,000+ years old due to pre-Fall genetic engineering]], as well as their clannish and tribal nature, it is no surprise that eldar societies usually tend to treat the gerontocracy as the wisest and most responsible members of society ([[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_People#Eldrad_Ulthran|usually]]). Eldar adolescence (as in 30 or so, eldar that are 70+ are considered young and [[Tau|full of starry-eyed idealism]] but not adolescents) about as [[Dwarf Fortress|fun]] as you can expect for the Enforcers, who have to deal with keeping a bunch of rebellious, hormone-driven descendants of super soldiers in line, and tend to be extra harsh on them to keep them from slipping down the same path that the Old Empire, Commorrites, and Crones did. Injuries that break bones have been mentioned in some cases. This is one reason why Biel-Tan started requiring mandatory military service and shipping its youngsters out to serve in order to temper them a bit (which started the tradition of the other Craftworlds doing something similar, because Biel-Tan is the most influential Craftworld to the other Craftworlds).

Eldar ears are covered in mechanoreceptors (mostly microscopic sensory hairs and pits) The pointed shape of the ears, their ability to move independently, and their position away from the body gives the eldar an amazing sense of balance and proprioception, which help contribute to the agility and grace the eldar are so well known for. That said, the mechanoreceptors of the ear are calibrated for air currents and balance. Physically touching them is much more stimulus than they are supposed to receive and gives a much potent sensation. Eldar being sapient they figured out how this natural adaptation could be abused early in their history, just like humans have with their areas of high neuronal density that aren't supposed to be used that way (e.g., lips).

Eldar tend to have more vibrant “birdy” hair colors than humans. For example, Eldar with black hair tends to have hair that is a shiny iridescent black like a crow and eldar with red hair are described as having hair that is a hue too bold and vivid to be mistaken for human, in contrast to the more mammalian, earthy tones of reds, browns, and blacks you see in humans. Modern eldar don't bald like humans do and their hair tends to produce oils that make long hair easier to manage. Indeed, although many human cultures see eldar men as looking feminine long hair is seen as a sign of masculinity in eldar culture. Completely shaven heads are seen as a sign of sickness or being in a state of mourning and sorrow.

== The Necrontyr ==

In general, the Necrontyr are often considered to be similar to the Tau in many respects, including short lifespans, minimal warp presence, broad flat faces with little in the way of a nose, and slightly slower reflexes than humans. However, the Necrontyr differ from the Tau in several major ways. Unlike Tau, they lack a Jackobson's organ (the face-slit of the Tau), instead having a single nasal cavity similar to a lamprey, and have much faster reflexes. It's not clear if the bony ridge you see on many Necrons is supposed to reflect an actual biological feature, or was part of their armor when they were Necrontyr.

The Necrontyr are also big. Tau are said to be just a little bit shorter than humans, 5’5” on average. Necrons on the other hand are able to look Space Marines and Eldar in the eye. There is no evidence that the Necrontyr went through a major “growth spurt” when they became the Necrons like the Eldar did when the Old Ones first messed with them, so it’s likely that the Necrontyr were just that tall. Indeed, the Old Ones may have engineered the Eldar and Orks to be the size that they are so they were “about” Necrontyr size. It’s also not certain if that stooped posture is natural. It’s may not be, but it’s entirely possible that this is just how a Necrontyr stood.

The other major area in which the Necrontyr differ from the Tau is pain tolerance. Necrontyr are ridiculously resistant to pain. Even before they became the Necrons, the Necrontyr were described as being kind of tanky. Tanky as in “compensated for reflexes by ignoring the pain” as opposed to “super durability”. This pain tolerance is likely at least partially an evolutionary adaptation and partially a learned skill, because when your body is wracked with painful tumors there’s not a lot someone can do to you to make it worse. This pain tolerance likely influenced the way the Necrontyr fought. The Necrons/Necrontyr in canon are known to consider loyalty and discipline to be a big deal, even compared to other races. Such pain tolerance and high discipline would likely lead to confrontations where Necrontyr warriors would likely have formed massive firing lines to maximum dakka, being durable and pain tolerant enough to ignore glancing hits that led most other races to consider this a bad idea. The infamous Necron "shoot and move" maneuver? That more than likely originated with the Necrontyr.

== The Yu'Vath ==

The Yu'vath were a Chaos-worshipping xenos race that controlled much of the Calixis Sector during the Age of Strife. Describing exactly what the yu’vath looked like is a surprisingly difficult task. On the one hand you had the “core” yu’vath, which are thought to be what the race originally looked like. “Core” yu’vath were a strange combination between human and crustacean, with a bipedal, four-limbed body. Each long, robust arm ended in three clawed fingers and each digigrade foot ended in two forwards and backwards pointing toes, giving their feet an “X”-like shape. At the center of their torso was their head, which contained numerous sets of insectile mandibles.

As a silicate-based species, the yu’vath were experts in cybernetic alteration, their bodies more readily adapting to the addition of cybernetics than flesh and blood, much like the Demiurg. Yu’vath bodies were often heavily modified for various purposes, their cybernetics growing like living tissue based on what was needed and the role an individual needed to perform. Despite both being silicon-based, however, the yu’vath are no more closely related to the Demiurg than humans are to any other carbon-based sentient species like the Tau. There is some debate, however, as to whether the ambull found across many worlds are devolved descendants of the yu’vath, or else some kind of sister species like humans are to the great apes.

On the other hand, you have the “lesser” yu’vath. Slaves from other species forcibly implanted with yu’vath cybernetics and turned into war machines. Yu’vath technology is weird. The yu’vath were capable of downloading their souls into their cybernetics, then if the main body died simply scooping out the host soul and replacing it with the augment’s original owner when attached to a new body. In theory, one could simply bring an individual yu’vath back to life by stripping the cybernetics off of them and implanting them in a new host. Eventually, the cybernetics would grow to completely cover the new body, growing and modifying themselves to whatever role necessary. However, in most cases these cybernetics gradually turned its host into a form similar to a core Yu’vath. 

It is not clear where the Yu’vath came from. Certainly, there are no records of any such Chaos worshipping civilization in what few records remains from the Dark Age of Technology. The eldar Harlequins speak of a race that sold their souls to Chaos, damning their brethren that refused to follow, but whether this is support for the “devolved into ambull” theory or if those that refused to follow were just eaten by daemons is unknown.

In addition to their core territory in the Calixis Sector, the Yu’vath had a fairly sizeable number of feelers elsewhere in the galaxy during the Age of Strife. A raiding party of Yu’vath even went so far as to have an outpost on Pluto during the Great Crusade, though they were eventually driven from the system by the time of the Unification of Sol by the actions of [DATA EXPUNGED].

The Yu’vath were one of the more notable threats faced by the Imperium during the Great Crusade, and unlike many the Yu’vath front remained a long-term issue, but eventually the Imperium managed to force them back to a rump state. The Yu’Vath participated in the War of the Beast, but as with the Crone Eldar and all things non-Ork the species took a backseat to the green tide that assaulted the galaxy during this time. However, the Yu’Vath did manage to retake much of their holdings during this time and more, expanding into many of the areas just south of the Eye of Terror. They became a thorn in the Imperium's side, but not a threat to the degree that the Crones or Orks were.

The resurgence of the Yu'vath was clearly a problem, and the Imperium hacked away at it in a series of on-again, off-again wars interspersed with Black Crusades over the years. Eventually, the Yu’Vath were finally eradicated in a major battle in the galactic northwest either just before or as revenge for the Fourth Black Crusade.

Today, the Yu’Vath themselves mostly confined to the pages of history. The people of the modern galaxy should be thankful for it. Although they may not have been threats on the level of the Necron Star Empire or the tyranid Hive Fleet, the Yu’Vath were terrors in their time. Aside from their technology, all that remains of the Yu’vath are the few members of their race that were raised to daemon princedom or escaped the slow, inexorable march of time by hiding in the Eye of Terror, mostly associated with the Soul Forge.

Although the Imperium were the ones to finally wipe the Yu'vath out, the source of the loss of their holdings just south of the Eye of Terror was a bit of a surprise. The Q'orl, who as a race had only recently spread out into the stars from their homeworld of Loq’qit, drove the Yu'vath from these worlds. Years of fighting the Imperium meant that the southern worlds were generally poorly manned due to the low number of Yu'vath.

Additionally, as a eusocial species, the q’orl were surprisingly well-adapted to dealing with the Chaos corruption spread by the yu’vath. If an individual drone became corrupted, it was simply destroyed at no great loss to the Queens. The q’orl also found the Yu’vath’s technology and artwork to be insulting to their xenophobic sensibilities and often had it destroyed in a hail of orbital fire. Being much more willing to take losses than the Imperium would, the Q'orl were able to take control of many of the former Yu'vath worlds.

Despite being an all but extinct species, Yu'vath artifacts are still a problem today. The problem with Yu'vath artifacts is they never really break down naturally. They can lie unused for millenia until rediscovered by some unsuspecting sod. As Savant Preem said, "If it does not rot, if it can lie like this here forever...is it truly dead?"

Yu’Vath cybernetics have been known to physically spring to life and drag themselves to attack a particularly desirable host, typically some variant of psyker. Tech-priests refuse to go near anything Yu'vath, as the Yu'vath were masters of Chaotic scrapcode that presented a very real threat of hijacking their cybernetics.

There are some concerns that the Spyrer battlesuits, purchased by Imperial nobles as self-defense weapons (and status symbols) on black markets across several Hive Worlds, are actually derived or reverse-engineered from Yu’vath technology.

The Yu’Vath were notable for their methodical, detached methods of worshipping the Chaos Gods. To the Yu’Vath, Chaos and the Warp was something that could be measured, quantified, and studied, a worldview that was baffling to species like humans and eldar, who perceived Chaos as something much more irrational and unquantifiable. The Yu’Vath had found answers to questions that no one else would dare ask, such as how many sacrifices it took to summon a daemon or how much favor it was necessary to empower a given daemon machine. It is thought that the Yu’Vath had emotional centers of their brain that were vastly subservient to their logic centers, allowing them the emotions necessary to worship the Chaos Gods but filtering it through their rationalist worldview. Or perhaps quantifying Chaos was their way of worshipping it, showing devotion by obsessively seeking literal answers to the question of how many daemons could dance on the head of a pin. This allowed the Yu’Vath to be reliable in their production of technology, whereas other groups of Chaos worshippers with a significant industrial base, like the Crone Eldar, Dark Mechanicus, and the Laer, tended to be more subject to flights of fancy.