The Culture Explores 40K III: Just As Planned

[Gavinfoxx]

And quite probably, the Eldar would put in a few more minor unknown items of interest to the Eldar that the Eldar can't get access to. After all, if the Culture are going to do some research anyway, might as well get them to answer questions you wish you knew the answers to as well.
Tack on retrieval of a few Eldar artifacts as "tuition fees" (and primarily because the farseers will see they can get away with asking for them) and that sounds like a deal the Eldar could accept.

That's what I was going for, I guess. Though I would expect the conversation would be like, "Why are there no Eldar artifacts on this list?" "Naive Child! That is because every Eldar artifact can be assumed to be at the very least, psychoreactive -- from a paintbrush to a baby's doll! Further, we don't want you poking and prodding superior Eldar artifacts; they are profoundly more complex and correct than their Mon-keigh equivalents. No, if you are to understand things by taking them apart and keeping them, they must never be Eldar artifacts. The fact that you are doing non-invasive scans when you rapidly return them to us is galling enough!"



Also... this minor Craftworld probably wouldn't have the expertise to make all of the sorts of things that Eldar are capable of making in general. Hence, why it is a minor craftworld, rather than a major one, you know? Not that they'd let some upstart Mon-Keighs know that...

Anyway, why don't you make it Arach-Qin or Zahr-Tann? Those are some canonical 'minor' craftworlds with no particular details mentioned about them.