How can a long lived species that reproduces slowly prevent themselves from going extinct?
We Eldar are a beautiful race that have a maximum life span of 500 years. We are stronger, faster, more intelligent, sexier, and frankly just superior to you humans in every way. However, we cannot reproduce as often due to biological reasons, as our children are born a few decades apart from each other. This prevents us from out-competing other lower life forms, who breed much more quickly.
This creates a problem for our species. It is very difficult to bounce back from an event which kills a large number of us. If there is a biological plague that kills a few million, or a war against another race in which many of us die, or even a natural disaster, it takes a long time for our species to replenish it's numbers. During this period, we become vulnerable to other lower species who would seek to take advantage of our predicament.
How can the Eldar prevent this from happening and compete with savage humans with this kind of weakness?
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The strength of the race is shared amongst all Eldar, such that when one Eldar dies, their strength is bequeathed to all of the fair-folk, ther lifespan and any magical or fay abilities (eg. glamour, stealth) would similarly be shared amongst the survivors.
The Eldar are not as other races, their need to mate is amplified by the crisis of being few in number, their reproductive vigour could increase correspondingly, should the author desire.
This has the net effects that when the numbers are fewer, the individuals are more formidable and stronger and more magnificent to behold - yet when the numbers are greater, they would be no longer quite so superior in every way - in fact, given sufficient time to breed a large enough population they'd hardly be distinguishable from us poor human stock, apart from a telltale oddly shaped earlobes.
Humbly submitted by a human ally of the Eldar.
Answer inspired by this answer to a previous question
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