abstract
| - These dissidents had then come to be known as the Exodites, uniquely far-sighted and pragmatic members of their race, and reviled by fellow Eldar as dour fanatics obsessed with misery and self-denial. In fact, some were driven insane -- their dire premonitions ceaselessly haunting their every dream -- most likely an effect of the psychic ability all Eldar innately possessed. Other Exodites were genuine survivalists who firmly chose exile over degradation and destruction. All of those who sought new life began their exodus in an assortment of various Eldar spacecraft. Many died during the course of their long journeys, some reached new worlds only to be slain by marauding Orks or their chosen colony planet's natural predators. But many more persevered and survived, heading into the galactic east, as far from the Eldar empire's core worlds as they could reach. The Exodites settled upon worlds within the fringes of the Milky Way Galaxy as early as the 26th Millennium. Many of these savage worlds were harsh and life was inescapably brutal for a people unused to all forms of extensive physical work and self-denial. When the final cataclysm of the Fall erupted in the 30th Millennium and the psychic birth pangs of Slaanesh consumed the Eldar homeworlds, the majority of Exodite colonies were far enough away from the psychic epicenter, and survived. The resultant psychic implosion wiped out the remaining doomed of the race, leaving a yawning hole in the fabric of space, a Warp rift which later came to be known as the Eye of Terror. While many Eldar Craftworlds survived, able to ride out the resulting psychic shock wave, the Exodites were already relatively safe -- or else they perished, their souls consumed by She Who Thirsts along with the rest of their race.
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