Some thoughts on Old Ones.
Some people think that Old Ones were divine beings, but I think that on individual level most of them weren't much more powerful than Eldar or Orks etc. We know that Enslavers were a threat to them. Well, some of them probably were, like the Hrud god, but that's like judging about Eldar and humans by Phoenix Lords and Emperor with Primarchs.
I have heavy suspicions that their own creations(orks and/or eldar) played a huge role in their extinction. Orks are not easy to control, they always overthrow their superiors if they too weak to deserve loyalty. And they have the myth about eating mushrooms of the Brain Boyz, which may be based on their betrayal of their masters. Eldar are suspects too. They are sneaky bastards like that, they've benefited from it the most, becoming rulers of the galaxy for millions of years.
The Old One's power level individually isn't something I like to think about we don't know anything about them on such a personal level Qah is shattered and is very powerful even through it's umbral shards, but is it even an old one (probably) who knows?
As for what killed them again it was probably getting eaten by the C'tan and the Warp predators that were being spawned (though more recent stuff seems to give the C'tan a bigger and bigger role)
The orks "role" is hard to guess. The Beast is what they were before they were devolved and while the idea of the Krork turning on the Old Ones is possible (though again its impossible to say the Beast despite being closer than they have been in years was not a being mentally still an ork not a Krork according to the Eldar. Not even close) the orks like what we normally see were probably not a threat and they were orks by time the War in heaven ended.
The Eldar are also a tough one, because it is hard to tell how much they actually knew about the Old Ones who pretty much sculpted their entire existence and wrote their mythology to make them as perfect as possible, but finding direct references to them is hard for any number of reasons.
Ironically the one people who we can arguably rely on to place what happened to them are the Crons, who waited until the C'tan and Enslavers had finished them off before using the weapons they built to shatter the C'tan because they knew that they couldn't beat the Old Ones without them and then went to sleep as the galaxy was near lifeless, leaving the Eldar the battered bruised and broken "winners."
If the Eldar betrayed their creators they would remember it, with pride even in most cases, yet they do not though they have cultural continuity.
Yes, that's less likely than the Ork betrayal, which is much more probable to be true. Though it's still a possibility, and lack of information can be explained, for example, if it was a work of a relatively small group of radicals.
I would actually respond to this in a different light because I would find it entirely within character for the Eldar to write out the Old Ones, because fundamentally none of the Eldar's achievements are their own.
Their psycic and physical abilities given to them by the greatest masters of the warp and biology the galaxy has ever known rather than through evolution, their gods created by those same being to make sure their society was regulated because they couldn't be trusted on their own, their technology given to them to fight a war.
Even their precious web way is a hack a pale imitation of their creators genius who could travel through space and time with their infinitely more advanced maze.
In embers at least their inferiority in terms of tech compared to the Old Ones is the case, could the Eldar have created an eco system like avernus? And the defences of Avernus, we can only compare them to the Dark Eldar who still use the tech of the Eldar Empire and theirs is weaker and significantly less scary.
No I see it as perfectly rational from an eldar perspective to write out as much of the Old Ones as they could because as a species all their triumph's were handed too them.
Even their "victory" in the war in heaven happened because the Crons turned on the C'tan who slaughtered trillions of them before being defeated and then decided to go to bed so hard the Eldar either couldn't or were too lazy to finish the job even at their empire's height.
Its only now that they can have their own triumphs.
This is only my theory, but given how prideful the eldar are especially the Eldar Empire that went on to be the Dark Eldar can you really say it doesn't make a certain degree of sense.
don't we have that hero titan we've been waiting for scot to lose the young trait to upgrade? we might want to bit the bullet on the unrest and get him ready.
We can do that in 15 years.
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