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[TempAcc]

Idk, I don't think the Eldar are limited in such a way as to be inferior to humanity in the long run. While humanity is pretty much confirmed as to being the wildcard of the galaxy due to having a shitton of psyker potential that is developing at a pretty fast rate, the Eldar are still kind of developing in their own way. The eldar have probably reached the pinnacle of what physicial evolution allows, but haven't been able to transition into fully spiritual beings like the old ones did because, you know, the spiritual world became chaos and there's an entire chaos god dedicated to capturing their souls, so transcending the materium is probably not such a great idea at the moment. The Eldar are probably completely aware of that, too.

They could've totally followed into the Old Ones' steps if they didn't fall into hedonism and general degradation, and while the surviving non-dark eldar kinda got better later (spiritualy, at least), they probably stunted their evolution intentionaly so they don't become even more vulnerable to slaanesh. This is why they're now relying on soul stones and the whole Ynnead infinity circuit thing, so they can safely store their souls in the materium, power up and then, perhaps, when its safe enough, pick up the pace and transition into fully spiritual beings.

Humanity, on the other hand, while certainly being vulnerable to chaos, is also kind of scary to chaos. Its pretty much stablished that the fates of chaos and humanity are intertwined, and that the Emperor's real goal was to usher a new age for humanity, to bring it to a whole new evolutionary level while at the same time protecting it from chaos, to the point it wouldn't need him anymore. He's kind of still trying to do it, just in a less direct manner.

The Tau are weird. Due to their doctrine, their government spreads and gains power pretty fast, and their technological progress is clearly at a faster rate then anyone else in the galaxy, but their spiritual progress is almost null. They don't have psyker potential (so far) and their souls are really tiny in comparison to pretty much anyone but the necrons, who (mostly) don't have souls (altough the ones that DO have souls are pretty powerful). The reason chaos doesn't care about them is simply because there's bigger fish on the table. I mean, would you care to eat bread crumbs when there's steak and fancy lobster dishes readily available to you?

[Sheb]

I like bread crumbs. Also, how do we know that the Emperor is really still alive? What if it was just the constant sacrfice of psychers that generated the whole shebang, without the Emperor actually doing anything?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The Choir just powers the Astronomicon, they're basically a giant battery to replace the Emperor's lost power. The actual direction of the Astronomicon, holding shut the Imperial Webway, and divine intervention for thousands of people across the galaxy is all Big E.

[Tack]

Eh. It's disputed. As in, in canon it's disputed. Nobody is really sure and that's the way GW likes to play it.


Also afaik Necrons don't have any souls. It was the whole point of the Deceiver's plan, they entered the necrodermis and discarded the souls, which the C'tan gorged themselves upon in order to become powerful enough to battle the old ones/eldar gods (because the war in heaven has a bunch of lore disputes.)
(Which is a humorous bit of lore seeing as C'tan are supposed to be purely physical beings which are anathema to the warp, which is supposed to be basically what souls are.

[TempAcc]

I thought necron lords did have souls, though? Its just that their souls are permanently incased in necrodermis and thus completely inacessible to the warp and etc. Necron lords are actualy sentient, after all.

[miauw62]

Very very big tanks doesn't surpass that, IMO.

are you trying to say that dakka isnt the best measure for technological prowess?

[Tack]

That's not an argument I wanna have. Logic vs Dakka never ends well for logic.

Necrons have had their entire lore basically get diced, powdered and reforged over the last few codeces, so I couldn't say what is, or was.
I know that they have more personality as they go up through the ranks, although whether or not that's soul-based, I couldn't find in the 7th E codex with a cursory glance.

I'll take the time to pore through it later.

[Flying Dice]

That's not an argument I wanna have. Logic vs Dakka never ends well for logic.

Necrons have had their entire lore basically get diced, powdered and reforged over the last few codeces snorted by GW's writers when they reworked other codices, so I couldn't say what is, or was.
I know that they have more personality as they go up through the ranks, although whether or not that's soul-based, I couldn't find in the 7th E codex with a cursory glance.

I'll take the time to pore through it later.

Seems to be closer to the truth, honestly.

[Kot]

TBH, if we look at things like Speranza (mentioned time bending sentient factory battleship with black hole gun), the Castigator-class titan which was not only xbawkshueg, it also utilized full AI and utilized synthetic muscules, Panacea, etc. it turns out that during Dark Ages of Technology, Imperium was literally the most advanced faction, even more than Necrons and Eldar.
On the other hand, things like Land Cultivator and myriad other things they produce from STCs don't really seem to be that advanced.

[Tack]

Better cloning, better lasers, hover tech. The haemonculi are probably on the same level as the Emperor was re: genetic tampering, they just prefer bigger, uglier and more impressionable creations.

Not saying that humans in the dark age of technology didn't have some kickass inventions, but races which have been around a lot longer are a lot more advanced, which makes much more sense than HUMANS R BETTER COS WE R SPESHUL.

All in all, the winner of the 'technology race' has got to be the Necrons. Apart from the necrodermis which was given to them by gods, they've got some pretty kickass stuff.

[Xantalos]

Word there. Hell, they even invented necrodermis themselves, just didn't think to use it for the bio-transference until the C'Tan proposed it and they have the Celestial Orrery. Sperenza's cool, but that thing's a whole different scale.

[TempAcc]

Ye, necrons invented the necrodermis themselves, but it was the c'tan that used it on them, while at the same time conveniently eating most of their souls. Necrons did become immortal like they wanted to be, just the boring kind of immortal :v

[MetalSlimeHunt]

So you know the whole opening spiel about 40k's setting? I noticed something about it today.

It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries The Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods

By the will. Of the gods.

Oh yes, just as planned indeed.

[Kot]

Humanity had cloning, humanity had hover tech, humanity had much better lasers, humanity bended time, humanity had killer AI robots, humanity had basically everyfuckingthing.
The most advanced and powerful Necron thing is proably that Sun gun which compresses stars and then uses them as ammuniton, which is pretty amusing, but then Speranza (I bring it again because examples of fully working DAoT tech are rare) had black hole gun, and there was proably a lot more Speranzas.
It should be noted this in no way means that Humanity invented the toys themselves - they proably just stole a good bunch of it off Eldar ruins, reverse engineered some Necrons and so on.

[Loud Whispers]

Yeah, pretty sure Khornes champion was pretty luck- wait.
But the question was "did humanity progress tech past the Eldar", and I would say the answer is no. They made artificial intelligence and gigantic war machines- Hell, Imperial Knights are for cutting wood, Leman Russes are tractors and the Land Raiders and Baneblade were light and medium tanks, respectively, apparently.
Humanity was pretty up there.
However, the Eldar have pocket holography, organic structures, spirit stones and monofilament.
Regardless of whether they developed that technology on their own or was gifted it by the old ones, the point is they were at a tech level which is basically the culmination of the most farfetched advancements a human writer could dream up today.
Very very big tanks doesn't surpass that, IMO.
The only thing I can think might be the exception is Plasma. Eldar, Tau and Humans all have it, but I'm unsure on whether humans prefer the higher-risk, higher-reward plasma they currently use, or are unable to develop a safer way to use it because heresy.

Humans have archaeotech plasma guns that don't overheat and they have much larger (and also ancient-tech) tank-mounted heavy plasma cannons and super heavy plasma cannons (in addition to bigger, older space plasma cannons) without overheating issues. I guess it's more an issue of making it smaller and man-portable, as whatever tech they used for that is probably super heresy/lost/hidden. Consider that some Inquisitors have plasma cannons that can be hidden in rings and such in tiny weapons that can fit your digits, and such weapons are of redonkulus value because they're probably irreplaceable if you don't have a barrel of monkeys

Irregardless of whether dark age of technology humans surpassed or fell below eldar at their civilization's height in civilian and military fields - I'd say the thing that unambiguously proves the eldar civilization in its prime was superior is the fact that they created the webway (used to be the Old Ones, but got retconned to Eldar using stolen old one knowledge). The reason why the Imperium is so far superior to the tiny Tau enclaves is not because the Tau lack dakka (even if they lack CQC like the filthy xenos they are), but because of logistics - the Imperium can more safely use the warp to travel distances that would otherwise make the Imperium logistically impossible. The Eldar created a system that allowed them to maintain their Empire without the risk of people getting nom'd, at least until they started getting nom'd. If Magnus had not tried to be a good little boy then humanity might have been able to cross that threshold and surpass the Eldar at their greatest, but in canon if the setting ever progresses it will take another grim dark series of milennium before humanity is collectively powerful enough to IMPERATOR VULT into the eye of chaos and win, allowing themselves to set up a webway 2.0

I think though the Eldar are has-beens when it comes to who is best in the 40k universe. The real contenders are tyranids (more evolutionary capability than humans, if they manage to consume enough of the universe then a psychic swarm will no doubt promptly begin nomming the chaos gods until only the hive mind remains), or the Orks.
Orks will never die
Orks have psychic potential to create their own gods
Ork tech doesn't need to be good at all because simply believing it works will make it work
Stompas weren't made because Orks wanted a Titan, stompas were made because one Ork thought the Imperium's Titans were vessels of the human God and so wanted to make vessels for Gork and Mork to stomp theirs. So it did, and the Orks believed them as walking vessels of Gork and Mork so they worked and stomped many Titans

Just saying, it's supposed to be impressive that Khaldor Draigo has been raving in the Eye of Terror for so long without being corrupted, there's currently a Khornate planet continually being invaded by an Ork warband that destroyed multiple chaos worlds (literally, their final world was one where they started attacking the planet itself) that ended with the ork warboss castrating its demon lord with a power klaw.
Only it didn't end, because the fight was so good they get resurrected after every battle to continue doing battle with the demons of Khorne, and this warboss is all "I told you I knew where the good fights were." Uncorrupted fungus warriors. It's funny to imagine all the Slaaneshi and Tzeentchi worlds destroyed by Orks because they had literally nothing to offer them