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Difference between revisions of "Modification:The Long Night"

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{{Quality|Tattered|[[User:DeusVult6|DeusVult6]] ([[User talk:DeusVult6|talk]]) 11:00, 14 September 2020 (UTC)}}
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This page has been updated to 4.41; the rest of the pages are in varying states of update. Information might be outdated. Refer to the [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=179676.0 Bay12 thread] for more information.
Updating to 2.6
 
 
{{mod}}
 
{{mod}}
  
Man ruled the solar system, once. In its grand epoch spanning thousands of years, Earth was the jewel of a great solar empire, its every square inch morphed into a sprawling factory city, pumping out countless advanced resources to supply colonies from the clouds of Venus all the way to the moons of Saturn.  
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Man ruled the solar system, once. In its grand epoch spanning thousands of years, Earth was the jewel of a great empire, its shining cities the capital of a vast civilization which stretched from the pitted surface of Mercury to the freezing depths of the Oort Cloud. But from the festering stagnancy of its millennia-long reign came resentment and ambition, culminating in its catastrophic end. From this arose a new age, an era of awe and horror incomprehensible to the common man, built upon the back of a new breed of scientific law scarcely understood even by its practitioners. Earth itself is unrecognizable, a broken world littered with a thousand dead nations and forgotten megastructures which obscure any trace of what was once a verdant oasis of natural life. The solar system is a haunted grave, the planets, moons, and even space itself strewn with the wreckage of long-dead peoples.
  
None know for sure what happened exactly. Something went wrong, for certain. Perhaps a war between those who pushed for nanomachines to do away with traditional technology and those who viewed its power as uncontrollable. Or it could have been the radical transhumanists who plunged the planet into a new dark age to fuel their own ascent. Man's own hubris, maybe, his rapacious lust for more resources sending the world into a death spiral. Or perhaps, something yet more sinister.  
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But this is all ancient history, long forgotten to the rising powers of the new Earth. They live in a different world entirely, an endless jungle of steel and carbon in which even the mightiest of cities are but mere drops in its ocean, in which even the greatest scientific achievements known to their ancient ancestors are but wheels and torches compared to the hypertechnological relics which they rely on to survive. Where mankind no longer rests at the summit of existence but submits to the authority of those who dare follow the path carved out by their forebears and seek to transcend the limits of mere biology. Where even posthuman demigods struggle for survival against ceaseless danger and overwhelming violence. A world in which the power of the individual once more reigns supreme, the ideals of equality and unity reduced to laughable fantasies. An era that waits with bated breath for its own end, and the rise of a new existence which will finally bring order to the anarchy and terror of a star system gone mad, or deliver the killing blow to what remains of intelligent life. But this terrible night of humanity's history will be long and harsh indeed, and only the greatest among the great stand a chance of bringing forth a new dawn.
  
The result, everything knows. Earth's fall called its wayward children of all kinds back to its shattered surface, and the haggard survivors of the fallen colonies found a realm far unlike what was documented in their own histories. A hellish wasteland filled with mutated horrors, half-mad cybernetic demigods, and powers greater still. A world of constant, unending warfare as the children of man fight for the chance to rebuild, and establish their own grandiose vision of the future. Whether it be the great old powers of the ancient Nobles, the first of the new men, the demigod Executors and their slaves, the barbaric Posthumans and their thralls, or even the scattered remnants of true humanity, the future is uncertain. All that can be known is that this night will be long and harsh indeed, and only the hardiest and most determined will even stand a chance of seeing a new dawn.
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== What is The Long Night? ==
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The Long Night is a total overhaul mod which takes the game Dwarf Fortress and transplants it into a post-apocalyptic scifi future where the fragmented descendants of humanity struggle to survive in the broken remains of an unrecognizeable earth, filled to the brim with genetically-altered monsters, rogue machines, warring states, and countless other threats. Central to the game experience is the use of nanotechne; a programmable, infinitely mutable form of matter which forms the foundation of every civilization, and the process of transcendence, through which individuals can cultivate internal nanotechne to develop new cybernetic augmentations, and slowly obtain an immortal posthuman body which can survive the chaos to come. Of course, for every such madman who would seek such a thing, a thousand more live as mortal humans and struggle every day to make ends meet. Play a mercenary scoundrel, a village of hydroponic farmers, a biomechanical mech pilot, a posthuman barbarian, and much more. Countless stories wait for you in the far future of pan-humanity.
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[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=179676.0 Forum thread]<br />
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[https://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=16160 Download]<br />
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==General Lore==
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===The Great Solar Empire===
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The Great Solar Empire was the dominant civilization prior to the current era. Built from the ashes of countless civilizations and failed attempts at gene-forged supermen and mechanical gods, it would rise to dominate not just the Earth, but the other planets and moons of the solar system as well. Under its guidance, mankind knew untold prosperity and rose to heights previously undreamt of. But it was not a utopia. The Solar Empire was rife with corruption, discrimination, crime, terrorism, and chaos below its pristine surface, but so vast was its reach, populous its citizenry, and mighty its legions that the true breadth of its rot could not be accurately gauged by any but those in the highest positions of power, the elite of the elite who stood above the rest of mankind thanks to closely guarded secrets of mechanical augmentation and the finest of evolutionary retroviruses. Much has been forgotten of this period of history, as the digital archives which recorded it fell into disarray or were destroyed outright.
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Earth itself was turned into a titanic, sprawling city, its original shape lost under layers of metal harvested from the asteroid belt. Entire ecosystems were relocated into artificial reserves the size of small countries, and many billions lived and died within its bowels. As it expanded across the solar system, the Empire was careful to ensure that no colony could survive without vital resources shipped to it from the home planet, in order to prevent the threat of independent polities from ever arising. Coupled with this were many millions of soldiers armed with top-of-the-line Exo-Suits, a type of power armor that could give one protection from most small arms fire and could only be defeated by either luck, another Exo-Suit-wearing soldier, or something beyond them in strength. This disparity in both force and resources allowed the Empire to rule unchallenged for many centuries, or perhaps even millennia. This was an era stagnant in some ways but vibrantly blossoming in others. Politically, little seem to change. Technologically, many things developed that were in the past seen as impossible. But it could not last.
  
== What is The Long Night? ==
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The details of its fall, as well, are complex. Multiple factors caused its collapse, from external rebellion to internal strife, but chief among these, it is believed, was the phenomenon known as the Pseudosingularity. The Singularity is, of course, the theory that after a certain point the united technology and databases of man would converge into a spontaneous self-improving entity that would attain as close a state to godhood as we envision, leading to a future incomprehensible to us but is surely either terrible beyond measure or bliss beyond imagining. That is not what happened. If the Singularity can be considered the culmination of a civilization as it births a new, divine being, the Pseudosingularity was cancer spreading across a decrepit body. Advances in biotechnology and nanomechanical evolution allowed machinery and synthetic entities to evolve and reproduce in a manner similar to organic life, albiet slow enough so that such changes could be observed, understood, and if necessary, altered by their makers, so that man and its tools would grow together in knowledge and power. But as the Solar Empire began to grow decadent and frail, the knowledge to keep track of the cutting edge of these growing machines was slowly lost, and year by year the observers fell behind the pace of a city running wild, with no end goal in mind. And just like cancer, this unsustainable growth began to kill its host. Entire sectors would find themselves without food or water as the Pseudosingularity warped pipes and destroyed roads. Cities would be gunned down by their own automated security as AIs corrupted or failed to recognize those living there as citizens. The mass decay of infrastructure happened seemingly overnight, but was in truth merely the tipping point of decades of unregulated growth. By the time it had reached the point that even common citizens noticed the danger, it was far too late to stop it. Chaos and destruction ravaged Earth as the entire planet literally fell apart, barely held back from utter ruin by hasty countermeasures and in some cases surgical nuclear strikes on the most dangerous sectors. In the end, however, they could only mitigate the damage so that Earth remained livable, but little else. Swarms of nanomechanical builder mites would conduct basic repairs and keep what was left of the system more or less stable, and artificial ecosystems would be introduced to the surface to give organic life a better chance to thrive. But that was all. Nothing could be done to save the colonies, or re-understand the ever-growing technological systems which now expanded without supervision. Only the most obsessed and knowledgeable could barely keep up, tapping into the power of the world like ancient sages were said to have learned the secrets of the arcane arts. Humanity had entered a new dark age, one which may take thousands of years to recover from.
"This mod is my attempt at a cyberpunk setting, sort of. Clothing and weapon-wise it has the same trappings as more surreal and far-future cyberpunk dystopias tend to lean towards, but it can also be seen as an anachronistic techno-feudalistic setting. My primary intent with this mod is to really push how far I can take Dwarf Fortress into the future while still having things work in-game and provide a coherent story of humanity and its kindred struggling in a world that is the victim of our own rapaciousness."
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-squamous
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But if they could.
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If something could survive this long night and rebuild the Great Solar Empire, against all odds and forged by the savage brutality of this era into the ultimate victor.
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It would surely be something truly monstrous.
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===Antinirvanism===
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During the last era of the Great Solar Empire, many religions as we understood them had faded away under the increasing pressure of science and reason (not to mention the Empire's designs to remove any higher loyalty than the state), leaving only odd syncretic cults and harmless corporate-sponsored pseudo-faiths to placate the masses. However, existing on the fringes of society radical ideas were fomenting, ideas which would serve to drive a wedge through united pan-humanity and spark a long, bloody conflict. Originally known by many names, its basic philosophical tenets were rooted in a semi-esoteric quest for personal power, with believers seeking to train and test themselves to reach ever greater levels of strength and knowledge, even if it meant rejecting civilization and law entirely. In the past, such a belief system would be little more than a contrarian rabble-rousing thorn in the side of authority, but the advent of nanotechnological modification had changed the playing field of society in ways that even in those advanced times few could truly comprehend the significance of. In ancient times, if a person chose to forsake civilization or work alone against it, they would be defeated by or re-integrated into society, since no lone person or small group of people can perpetually stand up against an organized community of their peers. But with innovations in nanotechnology, 3D printing, bioengineering, and other sciences, it became possible for one human to sufficiently upgrade their body to the point that the social contract was no longer required for them to prosper, and they would have the ability to exist outside the organized systems that dominate conventional human life simply through having enough power to take what they needed. Antinirvanism codified and sanctified this discovery, associating it with the Vedic Asuras of ancient myth, the terrible warrior-kings who tried to conquer heaven itself for the sake of their own ego. Instead of taking their story as a parable of the importance of temperance and cohesion, the Asura themselves were glorified and seen as the ideal specimen of the new era, a demigod-like entity which lived for itself and was divorced from creation, beholden to none save those it deigned to acknowledge or with the power to suppress it. Combined with the way technology seemed to have given mankind the power to "reincarnate" into various lesser or stronger forms depending on their capabilities and resources, it was no surprise that other terminology of the old Vedic system was incorporated into the growing movement (and indeed, even today Vedic terminology is used to describe many posthuman concepts and entities out of respect for the humans who first developed the system and devised a means of speaking of it that was cloaked in metaphor and symbolism) as more similarities became apparent. The more esoteric believers (often the ones most talked about in news cycles) saw the road to bodily perfection and ultimate power as a spiritual journey as much as a physical one, and devised many forms of meditation, ritual, and prayer believed to enhance one's willpower and make them more suited for evolution. Others believed that as technology grew on its own through self-learning and self-improvement and became more incomprehensible, it would eventually make more sense to simply treat it as magic, with the reverence and caution that such a thing implies and the impossible heights of power it seemed to promise. In the era of the Long Night, it is this mindset which dominates most Posthuman cultures.
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Some of the earliest adopters of Antinirvanism would also be the first to experiment with hereditary nanomachines, the gene-altering microbots that would allow the user to consciously improve and replace its biological processes, upgrade its nanomechanical innards and use them to replace flesh, and design memes and thoughtforms that alter the way it functions psychologically, it while also passing on those alterations to offspring, effectively forcing true Lamarckian evolution into reality. The goal, of course, was to attain the 'Asura-state' of becoming a powerful posthuman entity which could survive even the harshest conditions on its own and exist as a power unto itself. However, many would-be demigods would fall prey to their own shortcomings, fears, and insecurities, their overcautiousness or lack of foresight causing them to neglect maintaining their humanity in the quest for power. Without self-awareness and the subjective experience, a lineage of hereditary cyborgs invariably devolves into a feral and monstrous state, losing any chance of transcendence unless its distant descendants re-evolve sapient thinking on their own.
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But some did succeed, of course. The Asura as we know them now are the culmination of Antinirvanistic thought and countless generations of deliberate techno-evolution, though like many philosophies it played out differently in reality than in theory. The social contract remained to an extent, but in posthuman society is focused primarily on the acquistion of power, material comforts, and accomplishing persoal goals rather than ensuring survival, a relatively easy task when you have a body that can metabolize just about anything and rip a man's throat out with your teeth. The additional resources required to produce an Asura keep the population too low to sweep across the earth, leading them to grit their teeth and engage in diplomacy with cultures they once would have thought of only as prey. That said, as the Asura (and other posthumans) reconnect with biological humanity it has been observed that some of the edge has come off of their nature. While they remain alien in many ways, it seems that partial re-integration with human culture has done something to stimulate their more human tendencies, resulting in a culture that continues to value personal might and the quest for power but is slowly being tempered with appreciation for art, culture, and luxury, though given the extent to which posthuman thought-forms have been modified it is likely impossible they will ever completely revert to baseline human psychology, if they would even want such a thing. But they are no longer the imminent sword of Damocles hanging over all biological life, and for many this will be enough.
  
[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=172696.0 Forum thread]<br />
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===Cultivator Cyborgs===
[https://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=14134 Download (2.6)]<br />
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If you aren't born an immortal posthuman, then you're likely an organic life form. And if you're an organic life form, then you're doomed to a short, miserable life on a world that you no longer dominate, unless you are one of the few who can command the teeming hordes of mortal soldiers to match the monsters of the current era. However, for those who refuse to be content with mediocrity, a second path awaits. Through studying the datasphere and converting portions of your biology into computronium (essentially, a highly efficient computational matrix), one can surpass their original form to become a cultivator cyborg, one who perpetually strives to gain full understanding of the datasphere and mastery of the nanomechanic cloud that permeates the solar system, learning powerful martial techniques and gaining physical upgrades as they grow more experienced. It is a difficult journey, and few ever find full attainment, much less discover even one technique. However, those who do are powerful indeed, and not to be trifled with. For not only do they unlock the mysteries of cyberization, but so do their progeny. Any being that becomes a cultivator cyborg effectively has the potential to found a powerful dynasty of inhuman cybernetic demigods, demigods who influence much of life on this shattered planet.
  
= Civilizations =
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===The Pale Star Cult===
== Pan-Humanity ==
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Humanity is not alone in the void. There is life across countless worlds, civilized and not, though due to the way most develop cloaked information transmissions and wormhole-derived transports it is most difficult to find evidence of them unless they wish to reveal themselves to you, or you simply stumble across an inhabited planet. However, a large portion of the space around humanity is devoid of what we would recognize as rational life, and there is a terrible reason behind this. For just outside the vision of men, whose light rays only have recently reached our planet, there is a star. And this star thinks.
Pan-Humanity is the collection of biological species descended from the original human race. Some were developed by the rich as a means to imbue their children with literal biological superiority to complement their social advantages, while others were purpose-built to colonize other bodies within the solar system. However, with the collapse of the Great Solar Empire the colonies, reliant on Earth by design to prevent rebellion, began to fail, and those who could manage to secure transport in the following centuries would return to Earth to find it a ruined apocalyptic morass of inhuman powers and human tyrants, and in response formed their own petty states to preserve their people.
 
  
=== Humans ===
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It is a sapient being, a massive calculating engine whose otherworldly spectrum of light allows for the instant transmission of information from its core to anywhere its rays reach. It plants unnatural thoughts in the minds of those who spend too long staring at its baleful green glow, and soon enough they find themselves under its thrall completely. The Pale Star grants incredible power of its own, but robs the user of their will in enough time, always resulting in a hollowed-out thing of burning flame, which amplifies its light and the reality-warping power it bestows. There are whole worlds, in the black, wreathed in green coronas of fire, perpetually feeding off of a writhing mass of flesh that was once that planet's population. It uses these lantern worlds to further its reach, and increase its intelligence. Earth, however, has proven a tougher nut to crack. The sheer insanity of its growth and collapse, spawning inhuman horrors which can lay low the best of its war-forms, has prevented it from subsuming this world as it has dozens of others. For now, it simply remains a lurking shade, waiting for the chance it can bring this planet to its knees, and birth a cruel new existence from its ashes.
Baseline humans are those native to the planet who have undergone little genetic modification. They once populated Earth in teeming masses, but after the collapse of the planet have been greatly reduced in number. The constant clouds of toxic pollution and fouled water have caused many humans to be born with severe physical defects like failing organs and missing limbs, leading to a significant portion of the population having at least one cybernetic limb. Their societies usually exist under the shadow of higher powers but some are influential enough that they have a modicum of influence.
 
  
=== Nobles ===
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===The Datasphere===
The Nobles are descendants of the ruling families that controlled the Eastern Sphere of Earth in the past. They are modified for long life, intelligence, and mild telepathic capability, able to sense the presence of others of their own kind. Their culture is a blend of east asian nations which had long ago been assimilated into the Solar Empire, and in truth very little of it reaches past the surface level, as below the trappings of ancient cultures lies a cunning and ruthlessly pragmatic force that is determined to hold on to power even after the collapse of the Solar Empire, and possessed of the capacity to do just that thanks to its advanced exo-suits and biomechanical war machines.
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The Datasphere is the term for the electronic world that permeates the material one, perpetually surrounding the entire solar system in the form of a network of nanomachines that act as a literal cloud-computer, hanging in the sky and saturated into the ground, bringing ever-present power and knowledge to those who can properly tap into it. The 'gods' people worship, for example, are very real, but are in fact simply powerful intelligences which exist as disembodied beings in the Datasphere. They could be ascended humans who have left the material realm, or beings born into it, or both, or something else. None can say for certain, but all know that by studying and communing with them one can gain incredible power.
  
=== Executors / Neo-Humans ===
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Ghosts, too, are akin to this. They are swarms of nanomachines which congregate around intense emotion in the datasphere, like the last moments of a living person. They can exert deadly force and are notoriously difficult to get rid of, so the best option is to just inter the body and put the last emotions of the victim to rest. It should be noted the ghost is not actually them, but just an echo formed by the final thoughts of the dying being.
Those who ruled the Western Sphere also pursued the arts of biological augmentation, but on a greater, more personalized scale than the Nobility of the Easten Sphere. The ruling class of this region split between the physically capable Neo-Humans and the incredibly intelligent, powerfully psychic, and dangerously unstable Executors who directed them. While more chaotic and prone to backstabbing than the Eastern Sphere, the individualistic and experimental attitudes of the Western Sphere hegemons allowed them to innovate enough to catch up to the power of their more entrenched neighbors, resulting in an uneasy peace between the two, though the Executors lack a custom Bioframe model of their own.
 
  
=== Martians ===
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It should also be noted that a corpse, if properly preserved, may retain traces of the original owner's psyche. As long as the body remains more or less intact, there is rumored to be a technique capable of restoring them to full health. But is it truly the same person who died, or merely a perfect duplicate with the same memories? Who can say?
The Martians were some of the most successful of the human strains. Designed to colonize Mars after the minimal terraforming efforts to make it liveable were completed, the sturdy and tireless Martian Strain was introduced into the colonies after the first generations spent most of their lives knowing only the hardship of making the planet suitable for life. As the Great Solar Empire collapsed under its own weight, however, it was proven that all the efforts of the colonization were truly only half-measures propped up by the homeworld, and soon vital systems began to fail across the planet. The ones who could afford or otherwise obtain access to space vessels fled the planet back to earth, determined to start life anew as they left their kin to what was most likely a slow death.
 
  
=== Europans ===
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===Bioframes===
Specifically adapted for the aquatic climate of Europa, the sleek-bodied Europans were specially bred for that particular biome, intended to produce a three-dimensional megacity within its waters. However, something caused this to fail somewhere near the last years of the Solar Empire. What it was remains unspecified, as all records of the event were deleted. All that is left is rumors of something "eating" the colonies. This is, of course, nonsense. Europans have found a niche on Earth due to their amphibious qualities, and their slim bodies and smooth skin (wrinkles not being very hydrodynamic) has led them to often find jobs in the media industry and in setting beauty standards.
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Bioframes inspire terror and awe across the world. As some of the most advanced and sophisticated weapon systems ever produced, they are without a doubt among the greatest remaining relics of the Solar Empire's military might. Intelligent, fast, strong, and armored with powerful defenses, they are any civilization's trump card. They can also be modified to function with a pilot enclosed in its womb-cockpit, or function autonomously. Either way, few things are as terrifying as being stared down by a bioframe in the heat of battle.
  
=== Jovians ===
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There are also greater variations of bioframes in the form of Autonomous Dragon Weapons, but these monsters are wild and untamed, their strength such that no nation has been able to gain control of one. Unlike standard bioframes, these creatures are regarded only with fear, due to the horrendous destruction they leave in their path.
The other moons of Jupiter were far more sterile than Europa's seas, and a different breed of being was required to administer them. For this, the Jovians were created. Their bright yellow skin has a vital compound within that absorbs radiation from space, a cost-saving measure compared to radiation-proofing Jovian habitats. Their compounds were spread out across Jupiter's many moons, and the Jovian administration was one of the most reliant on Earth imports due to its difficult living situation. However, the Jovian's capacity for analysis allowed them to predict its inevitable end before many other extraplanetary factions, and were able to evacuate enough of their number to escape extinction.
 
  
=== Titanians ===
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==Cultures==
Home to the moon of Titan, the Titanians would more accurately be called the New Titanians. The original race was lost to history, but it is known that the first Titanians had partially terraformed the moon using an archaic AI long abandoned by the increasingly biomechanical Solar Empire. Despite being an older model, or perhaps because of it, inconsistencies and errors built up in its complex programming resulted in it going haywire, seizing the factories of Titan and churning out legions of killing machines. To combat this, the original Titanians created a new generation of soldier models optimized for guerilla war in the dark shadows of Titan's wilderness, giving them incredible capacity for stealth and unrivalled night vision. In the end, however, desperately grown soldiers could not contend with a malevolent AI's seemingly endless army, and the survivors of the conflict escaped back to Earth, intending to report to the heads of the Solar Empire only to find it no longer existed. Now they live for nothing but themselves.
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===City/Bunker-States===
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The most common kind of government among Lo-Caste individuals, coming in the form of surface cities or bunker arcologies, consisting of a few thousand souls toiling away under the rulership of an ostensibly representative system, headed by an elected governor, but in truth heavily influenced by the Sects, groups of Transcendent beings and those who aspire to such heights, who rule from the shadows. They possess the bulk of military power and their matriarchs and patriarchs are not effete, decadent rulers but warlords who fight alongside their underlings, for any that don't tend not to last very long in a world where their lessers can so quickly rise in power. Most common folk have only a surface-level understanding of these complex politics though, and simply try to get by as best they can, sheltering in farming communes or walled cities under the watchful eyes of their masters. Life is not all bad, however. Each state has a unique set of values, and some can approach something which could be considered fair. Others are less so. Most of these states rely heavily on biomechanical life forms copied from Myriad design, be they the infamous Bioframe or less awe-inspiring creatures, favoring them over true machines which are so difficult to maintain. Many are openly pro-Transcendence, viewing it as the best path to power and immortality and a far better alternative to being trapped in mere flesh.
  
=== Subhumans ===
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===Imperial Provisional Government===
Subhumans are humans who were, like baseline humanity, warped by exposure to the toxic influences of the collapsed megacity-world that Earth had become. However, instead of bearing with it as best they could, they experimented with genetic alteration that would enable them to negate the countless stillbirths and early deaths without being reliant on nanoteche. This was a thought that occurred independently in resource-poor communities across the world, for there was no way their number could afford the technological implants needed to keep subsequent generations alive. The end result was that they would create a new species that would carry on their legacy as best it could. However, the end result was tragically less than ideal. Genetic optimization programs, likely stolen from places of higher learning and status, selected for surivability in a harsh wasteland, encouraging traits like aggression, low intelligence, and decreased empathy to ensure the necessary pragmatism required for an organic to survive this world without the assistance of high technology would manifest. It has been many decades since then, and the subhumans still lurk out in the wastes, slowly growing in population and strength as they re-learn what their ancestors have forgotten.
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The IPG is one of the oldest extant polities, though it barely counts as one in the modern era. It composes the Hi-Caste bunker networks that date back to pre-megastructure history, and maintains some of the most accurate records of human history. However, the IPG has splintered along clade lines, and most are forced to fend for themselves, forced into roles their heavily-tweaked psychologies were never designed for. Most 'Orders', as they are known, are run by an administrative bureaucracy, though its efficacy depends on the clade. The Civclade orders are fairly well-handled while most Warclade orders have degenerated into military juntas. The sciclade clings on in isolated arcologies and the joyclade defends its dilapidated gardens as best it can. They are a people who have been consigned to the dustbin of history, but even for them Transcendence is an option, and they may well be able to turn things around. IPG remnants have a higher quality of life than most normal city states, save for the unfortunates who are consigned to the farming networks outside the arcology proper. They also tend to be distrustful of Transcendent individuals even within their own ranks, keeping them heavily regulated as tools for the community to use rather than as masters, and treating Transcendents or even mundane cyborgs and posthumans with distrust. In reality, they would perform much better if the clades were to unify into a singular front rather than as ethnic enclaves, but years of fractured relations have rendered such a reconstruction an immensely difficult task.
  
== Uplifts ==
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===Aberrant Tribes===
During the pre-Solar Empire days, mankind had unlocked many of the secrets of biology and technology, though they were yet to create their true masterworks. The earliest radical experiments on creatures besides themselves were on a selection of animals chosen for their adaptability and high intelligence, traits that would make them easy to shape into intelligent beings. Why was such a thing done? To many historians, it seems to be simple curiosity. Some mark this as one of the key turning points of human history, where the idea of nature being sacred was discarded for good and humanity truly began to believe it was the sole master of all life below it, a thought entertained in the past but never truly accepted. The Uplifts were made, and they have managed through cunning and luck to survive to this day. They have little in the way of a united culture but in their newfound freedom have become determined not to lose it again, adopting democratic governments to ensure their liberties are kept. Of course, they are no better than the animals that currently dominate the planet, and corruption and abuse of power are just as common in Uplift nations as they are in human ones. Some cannot help but wonder, though, if their freedom came just in time to watch the world they live in slowly die.
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The Un-Caste is the newest breed of biosophont to arise from the Terran Megastructure. Being Human-Derived Fauna that re-evolved sentience, they have no history or culture of their own prior to the Collapse. They have an intuitive understanding of nanotechne, but unlike other castes of human lack the knowledge and sophistication to form complex societies. As such, Aberrant civilizations are more patchworks of small, feuding tribes with no central leader, only periodically banding together to plunder their neighbors or defend from incursions, and then swiftly devolving back into infighting. Though they make use of Nanotechne in basic forms like weapons, armor, and transcendence, they lack the infrastructure for sophisticated machinery and other such things, relying on their less intelligent cousins as beasts of burden. Though some consider them to be wayward brothers to true humanity, most see them as pests to be exterminated. The Aberrants which have integrated into normal human civilizations are often at risk of persecution as a result of this, but the aggression of their native brethren does not help the situation.
  
=== Dolphins ===
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===Neo-Anthropic Unions===
Allegedly the first Uplift race, dolphins are also some of the most heavily cyberized, given four legs and two arms at birth to carry their bodies across the land. Though the technology exists to give them biological limbs, most opt to continue the use of cybernetic limbs due to their strength and versatility.
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To get more than a small group of Neo-Anthropic Posthumans to put aside their differences and form a functioning government is, quite frankly, impossible. Or it would be under normal circumstances. However, the Neo-Anthropic pattern's use of a near-feral slave caste to do all their busywork allows comparatively small communities of true Neo-Anthropics to control wide swathes of territory. Unions, or Pacts, are groups of Neo-Anthropics which have banded together in the name of mutual material benefit. Pact-holders vote democratically on actions like resource exploitation or pillaging, and send their underlings and drones to get the job done, dealing only in brutal realpolitik without moral justification or careful euphemism, only a blunt debate on risks versus benefits, who shall shoulder what responsibilities, and so on. However, this privilege does not extend to Neo-Anthropics without Pact-holder status, who must prove their worth serving their superiors and fighting for favor and reward, or meekly accept their lesser station rather than risk their neck in such brutal competition.
  
=== Corvids ===
+
===Ex-Anthropic Incursions===
Heavily modified to increase their size to that of a large dog, and given arms in the place of wings to create a sort of raptorial appearance, the Corvids quickly found a niche in jobs requiring creativity or agility, helped along by their small size leading many to view them as endearing or at least as good at fitting into small places between machinery to conduct repairs.
+
Whereas Neo-Anthropics do not have the mad ambitions of their Anticaste ancestors, the Ex-Anthropic pattern still seeks to forge an empire of posthumans from the ruins of the solar system. As a result, they frequently appear from the depths of the megastructure as armies bent on that goal, bringing destruction and stability to the heartlands of settled zones. Their hierarchy is rigid and unforgiving, clashing with their independently-minded relatives, and is even less compatible with the rest of pan-humanity. Ex-Anthropic posthumans are a significant threat to other civilizations and are dealt with accordingly.
  
=== Gorillas ===
+
===Info-Life Infestations===
Little besides a skullcap was added to the Gorilla, which has since been used for hard labor and heavy infantry across the globe. Due to their simian nature, they were often seen as closest to humanity and given preferential treatment over other Uplifts, though in reality Gorillas were on the lower end of the intelligence scale within the viable spectrum of candidates and chosen due to the cultural impact other intelligent simians would undoubtedly generate.
+
Predatory digital entities living in the Datasphere have been known to periodically escape, bringing themselves and others into the physical world by hijacking human bodies to use as puppets. They can amass huge armies in this manner, infesting and corrupting until thousands are enslaved to their will or assimilated into their elite ranks. Even sworn enemies will band together to stop an Info-Life incursion. However, Info-Life also presents an insidious threat which most common folk have only heard about in rumors. They seem to have the ability to not only overtly control, but to quietly corrupt and infiltrate as well. There are rumors of individuals who have had their minds altered by Info-Life memetic programs, seemingly normal but rewritten to engage in repeated serial murder, targeting high-ranking members of communities and sowing distrust and paranoia, which is then taken advantage of by the main invasion force. What society is like within these organizations, if there is a society or intelligence behind them at all, is unknown. It is theorized that higher-ranking Info-Predators may have always been self-aware, or become so after gaining a posthuman body, but the truth remains a mystery.
  
=== Octopi ===
+
==Earth==
Octopi are a difficult case among Uplifts. The primary issue is whether they are even truly Uplifts at all. Octopi are inarguably intelligent, but what was underestimated is the alienness of that intelligence. They were never social animals and never developed traits like sociability or empathy, and while their intelligence was increased enough to use tools and communicate, they still never developed either. One could even say that all that was done was take a highly efficient predator, increase its intelligence and capacity to hunt intelligent prey, and turn it loose. And now the world has collapsed, and they are free.
+
===World Size===
 +
In the vanilla Dwarf Fortress game, the world is generally assumed to be the entire world, or half of one, depending on how you generate your poles. However, in the Long Night, the world is designed to be "to scale". That is, the setting reflects the world's actual size. A large map, for example, is about the size of Iceland. So you're not playing on a map of the entire megastructure, just an Iceland sized portion of it.
  
== Posthumans ==
+
===Terrain Terminology===
Posthumans are the result of a counterculture of self-sufficiency and the quest for personal power that developed in the shadow of the oppressive Solar Empire. Due to the heavily stratified society they lived in, where customized genetics were a major indicator of how high you could rise, many sought to alter their bodies and thus increase their upward mobility through black market nanodocs and illegal retroviruses. For every successful patient there were a thousand mutations even more horrible deaths. But for some, to merely climb the ladder of hierachy was not enough. Certain interest groups and radicalized movements operating on the edges of the Solar Empire's awareness sought not to grow within the system, but grow without. But to do that, they would need to do more than just upgrade themselves. They would need to evolve at a pace that would move faster than the grinding wheels of the bureaucratic genetic regulation departments would allow, and use methods that would conflict with the Human Limitation Laws intended to prevent any one person from growing distant enough from humanity to forget it entirely. The choice was made to do this via machine due to its reliability, and the first of the hereditary cyborgs were created. The first generation was a simple one, they were barely more human than anyone else, but as they reproduced their children would be modified as early as within the womb, slowly mechanized and improved in a subtle but significant way. First the changes were merely physical, but as the agents of the Solar Empire recognized the threat and began to hunt them the changes began to become psychological as well. Traits such as ruthlessness, pragmatism, self-sufficiency, and raw power were more commonly selected for, and what would become the posthumans slowly drifted away from human psychology into a mental model more like that of a tiger or other alpha predator, tempered with the intelligence and bitterness of a society hunted by its betters and shunned by its equals. Territorial, fearsome, cunning, and possessed of great bitterness towards the ones who refused to let them blossom, the Posthumans were warped into the fearsome beings that exist today, living for themselves and possessed of a martial might few individuals can match. Despite the power of their more evolved individual specimens, their slow reproduction speed and their innate territoriality prevent them from uniting and overwhelming humanity. Rather, they exist in the wastelands and on the fringes of organic civilization, often alongside but rarely part of it. But their presence can be felt across the world. For many did not become shining beacons of an existence above mortal men. Many others, in the early days before the hereditary nanomachine system was understood, slowly degenerated, birthing and siring ever more animalistic or monstrous children as they lost control of the mechanisms meant to guide them. Perhaps, seeing the many horrors that walk the wastes, it is no wonder that the Posthumans are feared to the extent that they are.
+
The Terran Megastructure is a mixture of overgrown infrastructure and fragments of earth, what were normal terrain features in the past are at least partially artificial in this era. As a result, the terminology of referring to them has changed.
  
=== Asura ===
+
*'''Continents''' - The playable area encompasses a single region referred to as a "Zone" of the megastructure.
The Asura are most emblematic of posthuman evolution. Fearsome and beatiful, wild and capricious, they represent an intelligence that is at once close and at the same time far removed from baseline human psychology. Their emotions and tempers are wilder and their instincts sharper, their grasp of the complexities of societies weaker and their patience thin. Nanomechanical beings designed to live in the harshest depths of the destroyed world, where might is the only law that matters. That said, they are not entirely adversarial to mankind. Time has softened their hatred, as has the collapse of the Solar Empire which nearly destroyed their ancestors. While they prioritize their own kind (and above that, themselves), they rarely break their word once given, and make for valuable allies should one win their friendship.
+
*'''Desert''' - The vast, sweeping emptiness between settlements is typically called a 'Waste'.
 +
*'''Hills''' - Areas of many outcroppings are called "Blockades".
 +
*'''Tundra''' - Cold, inhospitable regions are called "Voids".
 +
*'''Glacier''' - Areas where ice has built up are just called an "Ice".
 +
*'''Ocean''' - Places filled with undrinkable water are called "Floods".
 +
*'''Lake''' - Areas filled with drinkable water are called "Pools".
 +
*'''Forest''' - Areas of particularly dense flora are called "Growths".
 +
*'''Mountains''' - Huge heaps of rubble and wreckage are called "Ruins".
  
=== Rahshasa ===
+
==Eras of History==
Rakshasa are one of the more regretful turns in the road of Posthuman evolution. These fearsome creatures are the result of early hereditary cyborgs overcompensating when designing their children to fight the Great Solar Empire. The errors regarding aggression and empathy compounded and fell out of balance, resulting in a marauding horde of hateful berserkers instead of warriors to protect Posthumanity from harm. Even today they maintain caves and old fortresses from which they plan their raids, fighting a battle long over as their minds scream for blood.
+
===The Pre-Imperial Era===
 +
In human history books, all of human civilization before the Solar Empire is referred to as the Pre-Imperial Era. The Early Pre-Imperial era is before the establishment of the internet but after the industrial revolution, the Middle Pre-Imperial Era is after that but before the first extraplanetary colonies, and the Late Pre-Imperial Era marks the brief period of time in which humanity dwelt among the heavenly spheres without the guiding hand of the Imperial Clade, punctuated by brutal resource wars and limited nuclear exchanges. This time is widely ignored by common people as irrelevant and unimportant, full of outmoded ideologies and barbaric primitivism, even as it admittedly formed the foundation of pan-human culture. It is as distant to them as the most ancient civilizations were to the Middle Pre-Imperial Era, and equally as misunderstood.
  
=== Yaksha ===
+
===The Imperial Era===
These towering posthumans lust for battle and serve only themselves. Less social than the Asura and less vicious than the Rakshasa, the Yaksha can be considered something of a neutral entity among the posthuman powers, and little is known about them. Even so, their services as mercenaries are highly valued.
+
This era marks the millennia-long reign of the Clade-Emperors and their genetic caste system, a highly stable if stagnant society where social advancement through conventional means was near-impossible past a certain point, due to the fact that if you were of a lower caste there would always be higher caste individuals genetically engineered to be superior to you, and if you were of the higher caste your role was defined by the caste you were born into. While the Solar Empire did face its fair share of challenges, its ruthless enforcement through its genetically-engineered soldiers and tacticians ensured that the only truly threatening rebellions were nothing more than skirmishes between members of the Imperial Clade feuding from the shadows. It was only during the Second Solar War that the empire faced a truly outside-context problem in the form of Posthuman Antinirvanism. The Imperial Era's close is marked by the genocide of the Imperial Clade, the virulent spread of nanotechne, synthetic life, and biomechanical life, the rise of the Myriad, and the beginning stages of the Terran Megastructure.
  
== Machines ==
+
===The Myriad Era===
Differing from biotechnological creatures in that they did not make use of cyberization or hereditary nanomachines, but were designed and built in factories from purely inorganic material. The resulting intelligences grown from this procedure tend to be cold and alien.
+
A short-lived era of some few centuries in which rampant nanotechne growth allowed for individuals to harness unprecedented amounts of both energy and raw materials, allowing them to rule as veritable sorcerer kings in an era of violence and anarchy. It was during this time that artificial life forms fusing machinery and flesh, such as bioframes, were engineered and used in world-spanning wars across the Earth, and when nanotechne was cultivated and tamed to form the foundation of post-collapse technology, allowing even the lowliest of tribes to construct advanced machinery and weaponry. Furthermore, the constant renovation and expansion of the Myriad and their sprawling megacity-states led to the near-total urbanization of the planet, at which point the phenomenon, which continues to this day, was dubbed the Terran Megastructure, for it could no longer be said to be a mundane celestial body but rather a rampant construct of endlessly expanding cityscape built by long-dead madmen. The Myriad Era is the primary cause of the ignorance of modern pan-humanity, as so much was shuffled about and destroyed in the feuds of the Myriad, millions upon millions slaughtered and megacities flattened only to be reconstructed and repopulated by vat-grown replacements, that the steady march of history was shattered and fragmented, entire peoples coming into being knowing nothing of anything save their servitude. This era came to a close when the Megastructure stabilized and the chaotic flow of energy dwindled, leading to the collapse of the grand works of the Myriad and the ushering in of the great dark age. Most notable of these effects was the corruption of the Datasphere by now-feral fragments of Myriad thought programs, which evolved, diversified, and competed for storage space until the entire internet of that time became a writhing ecosystem of intensely dangerous digital organisms, resulting in its quarantine.
  
=== Custodians ===
+
===The Long Night===
The intelligent brains of the Custodian System, a massive program designed to serve as automated security for the Great Solar Empire. Their purpose is now long-lost, however, and these androids now exist as any other people does, desperately trying to survive. That said, their connection to the Custodian System allows them to requisition military drones and other machines for use in their empires, something they use to great effect.
+
The present era of history, the dark age in which scattered populations and feuding city-states squabble for food, energy, and living space atop a constantly changing and danger-filled megastructure far beyond anyone's ability to control. Hypertechnological miracles exist side by side with starvation, war, and barbarism. Power belongs to those who follow the path of immortality and seize it, becoming living gods of synthetic flesh and living metal. It is unknown how long this chaotic period will last. Perhaps decades, perhaps centuries, perhaps millennia. But many regard it as the transitional period which will eventually give way to the rise of something far greater than even the grandest age of the Solar Empire, if only the world and beyond may once more be united under a single power.
  
== Ethics & Values ==
+
===The New Dawn===
 +
The name for the era to come, in which whatever species, ideology, or other form of victor stands triumphant above a unified solar system. It is an era many pray for but few expect to live to see. None can even begin to imagine what it might be like, but many see it in the same way as ancient humans viewed their religious apocalypses. Always looming on the horizon but never quite manifesting, and some, in the quiet of the night, hope it will never come to pass. Most believe it is an era in that biological life has no place in, incentivizing the pursuit of immortality through nanotechne to secure a place in that distant future, while others regard them as fools blinded by ambition or simply doomed to fail in the face of overwhelming odds.
  
 
= Related Pages =
 
= Related Pages =
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[[Modification:The Long Night: Civilizations|The Long Night: Civilizations]]<br>
 
[[Modification:The Long Night: Weapons|The Long Night: Weapons]]<br>
 
[[Modification:The Long Night: Weapons|The Long Night: Weapons]]<br>
 
[[Modification:The Long Night: Armor|The Long Night: Armor]]<br>
 
[[Modification:The Long Night: Armor|The Long Night: Armor]]<br>
 
[[Modification:The Long Night: Materials|The Long Night: Materials]]<br>
 
[[Modification:The Long Night: Materials|The Long Night: Materials]]<br>
 
[[Modification:The Long Night: Creatures|The Long Night: Creatures]]<br>
 
[[Modification:The Long Night: Creatures|The Long Night: Creatures]]<br>
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[[Modification:The Long Night: Plants|The Long Night: Plants]]<br>
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[[Modification:The Long Night: Technomancy|The Long Night: Technomancy]]<br>
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[[Modification:The Long Night: Adventure Mode|The Long Night: Adventure Mode]]
 
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Latest revision as of 12:20, 6 December 2023

This page has been updated to 4.41; the rest of the pages are in varying states of update. Information might be outdated. Refer to the Bay12 thread for more information.

Man ruled the solar system, once. In its grand epoch spanning thousands of years, Earth was the jewel of a great empire, its shining cities the capital of a vast civilization which stretched from the pitted surface of Mercury to the freezing depths of the Oort Cloud. But from the festering stagnancy of its millennia-long reign came resentment and ambition, culminating in its catastrophic end. From this arose a new age, an era of awe and horror incomprehensible to the common man, built upon the back of a new breed of scientific law scarcely understood even by its practitioners. Earth itself is unrecognizable, a broken world littered with a thousand dead nations and forgotten megastructures which obscure any trace of what was once a verdant oasis of natural life. The solar system is a haunted grave, the planets, moons, and even space itself strewn with the wreckage of long-dead peoples.

But this is all ancient history, long forgotten to the rising powers of the new Earth. They live in a different world entirely, an endless jungle of steel and carbon in which even the mightiest of cities are but mere drops in its ocean, in which even the greatest scientific achievements known to their ancient ancestors are but wheels and torches compared to the hypertechnological relics which they rely on to survive. Where mankind no longer rests at the summit of existence but submits to the authority of those who dare follow the path carved out by their forebears and seek to transcend the limits of mere biology. Where even posthuman demigods struggle for survival against ceaseless danger and overwhelming violence. A world in which the power of the individual once more reigns supreme, the ideals of equality and unity reduced to laughable fantasies. An era that waits with bated breath for its own end, and the rise of a new existence which will finally bring order to the anarchy and terror of a star system gone mad, or deliver the killing blow to what remains of intelligent life. But this terrible night of humanity's history will be long and harsh indeed, and only the greatest among the great stand a chance of bringing forth a new dawn.

What is The Long Night?[edit]

The Long Night is a total overhaul mod which takes the game Dwarf Fortress and transplants it into a post-apocalyptic scifi future where the fragmented descendants of humanity struggle to survive in the broken remains of an unrecognizeable earth, filled to the brim with genetically-altered monsters, rogue machines, warring states, and countless other threats. Central to the game experience is the use of nanotechne; a programmable, infinitely mutable form of matter which forms the foundation of every civilization, and the process of transcendence, through which individuals can cultivate internal nanotechne to develop new cybernetic augmentations, and slowly obtain an immortal posthuman body which can survive the chaos to come. Of course, for every such madman who would seek such a thing, a thousand more live as mortal humans and struggle every day to make ends meet. Play a mercenary scoundrel, a village of hydroponic farmers, a biomechanical mech pilot, a posthuman barbarian, and much more. Countless stories wait for you in the far future of pan-humanity.

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General Lore[edit]

The Great Solar Empire[edit]

The Great Solar Empire was the dominant civilization prior to the current era. Built from the ashes of countless civilizations and failed attempts at gene-forged supermen and mechanical gods, it would rise to dominate not just the Earth, but the other planets and moons of the solar system as well. Under its guidance, mankind knew untold prosperity and rose to heights previously undreamt of. But it was not a utopia. The Solar Empire was rife with corruption, discrimination, crime, terrorism, and chaos below its pristine surface, but so vast was its reach, populous its citizenry, and mighty its legions that the true breadth of its rot could not be accurately gauged by any but those in the highest positions of power, the elite of the elite who stood above the rest of mankind thanks to closely guarded secrets of mechanical augmentation and the finest of evolutionary retroviruses. Much has been forgotten of this period of history, as the digital archives which recorded it fell into disarray or were destroyed outright.

Earth itself was turned into a titanic, sprawling city, its original shape lost under layers of metal harvested from the asteroid belt. Entire ecosystems were relocated into artificial reserves the size of small countries, and many billions lived and died within its bowels. As it expanded across the solar system, the Empire was careful to ensure that no colony could survive without vital resources shipped to it from the home planet, in order to prevent the threat of independent polities from ever arising. Coupled with this were many millions of soldiers armed with top-of-the-line Exo-Suits, a type of power armor that could give one protection from most small arms fire and could only be defeated by either luck, another Exo-Suit-wearing soldier, or something beyond them in strength. This disparity in both force and resources allowed the Empire to rule unchallenged for many centuries, or perhaps even millennia. This was an era stagnant in some ways but vibrantly blossoming in others. Politically, little seem to change. Technologically, many things developed that were in the past seen as impossible. But it could not last.

The details of its fall, as well, are complex. Multiple factors caused its collapse, from external rebellion to internal strife, but chief among these, it is believed, was the phenomenon known as the Pseudosingularity. The Singularity is, of course, the theory that after a certain point the united technology and databases of man would converge into a spontaneous self-improving entity that would attain as close a state to godhood as we envision, leading to a future incomprehensible to us but is surely either terrible beyond measure or bliss beyond imagining. That is not what happened. If the Singularity can be considered the culmination of a civilization as it births a new, divine being, the Pseudosingularity was cancer spreading across a decrepit body. Advances in biotechnology and nanomechanical evolution allowed machinery and synthetic entities to evolve and reproduce in a manner similar to organic life, albiet slow enough so that such changes could be observed, understood, and if necessary, altered by their makers, so that man and its tools would grow together in knowledge and power. But as the Solar Empire began to grow decadent and frail, the knowledge to keep track of the cutting edge of these growing machines was slowly lost, and year by year the observers fell behind the pace of a city running wild, with no end goal in mind. And just like cancer, this unsustainable growth began to kill its host. Entire sectors would find themselves without food or water as the Pseudosingularity warped pipes and destroyed roads. Cities would be gunned down by their own automated security as AIs corrupted or failed to recognize those living there as citizens. The mass decay of infrastructure happened seemingly overnight, but was in truth merely the tipping point of decades of unregulated growth. By the time it had reached the point that even common citizens noticed the danger, it was far too late to stop it. Chaos and destruction ravaged Earth as the entire planet literally fell apart, barely held back from utter ruin by hasty countermeasures and in some cases surgical nuclear strikes on the most dangerous sectors. In the end, however, they could only mitigate the damage so that Earth remained livable, but little else. Swarms of nanomechanical builder mites would conduct basic repairs and keep what was left of the system more or less stable, and artificial ecosystems would be introduced to the surface to give organic life a better chance to thrive. But that was all. Nothing could be done to save the colonies, or re-understand the ever-growing technological systems which now expanded without supervision. Only the most obsessed and knowledgeable could barely keep up, tapping into the power of the world like ancient sages were said to have learned the secrets of the arcane arts. Humanity had entered a new dark age, one which may take thousands of years to recover from.

But if they could.

If something could survive this long night and rebuild the Great Solar Empire, against all odds and forged by the savage brutality of this era into the ultimate victor.

It would surely be something truly monstrous.

Antinirvanism[edit]

During the last era of the Great Solar Empire, many religions as we understood them had faded away under the increasing pressure of science and reason (not to mention the Empire's designs to remove any higher loyalty than the state), leaving only odd syncretic cults and harmless corporate-sponsored pseudo-faiths to placate the masses. However, existing on the fringes of society radical ideas were fomenting, ideas which would serve to drive a wedge through united pan-humanity and spark a long, bloody conflict. Originally known by many names, its basic philosophical tenets were rooted in a semi-esoteric quest for personal power, with believers seeking to train and test themselves to reach ever greater levels of strength and knowledge, even if it meant rejecting civilization and law entirely. In the past, such a belief system would be little more than a contrarian rabble-rousing thorn in the side of authority, but the advent of nanotechnological modification had changed the playing field of society in ways that even in those advanced times few could truly comprehend the significance of. In ancient times, if a person chose to forsake civilization or work alone against it, they would be defeated by or re-integrated into society, since no lone person or small group of people can perpetually stand up against an organized community of their peers. But with innovations in nanotechnology, 3D printing, bioengineering, and other sciences, it became possible for one human to sufficiently upgrade their body to the point that the social contract was no longer required for them to prosper, and they would have the ability to exist outside the organized systems that dominate conventional human life simply through having enough power to take what they needed. Antinirvanism codified and sanctified this discovery, associating it with the Vedic Asuras of ancient myth, the terrible warrior-kings who tried to conquer heaven itself for the sake of their own ego. Instead of taking their story as a parable of the importance of temperance and cohesion, the Asura themselves were glorified and seen as the ideal specimen of the new era, a demigod-like entity which lived for itself and was divorced from creation, beholden to none save those it deigned to acknowledge or with the power to suppress it. Combined with the way technology seemed to have given mankind the power to "reincarnate" into various lesser or stronger forms depending on their capabilities and resources, it was no surprise that other terminology of the old Vedic system was incorporated into the growing movement (and indeed, even today Vedic terminology is used to describe many posthuman concepts and entities out of respect for the humans who first developed the system and devised a means of speaking of it that was cloaked in metaphor and symbolism) as more similarities became apparent. The more esoteric believers (often the ones most talked about in news cycles) saw the road to bodily perfection and ultimate power as a spiritual journey as much as a physical one, and devised many forms of meditation, ritual, and prayer believed to enhance one's willpower and make them more suited for evolution. Others believed that as technology grew on its own through self-learning and self-improvement and became more incomprehensible, it would eventually make more sense to simply treat it as magic, with the reverence and caution that such a thing implies and the impossible heights of power it seemed to promise. In the era of the Long Night, it is this mindset which dominates most Posthuman cultures.

Some of the earliest adopters of Antinirvanism would also be the first to experiment with hereditary nanomachines, the gene-altering microbots that would allow the user to consciously improve and replace its biological processes, upgrade its nanomechanical innards and use them to replace flesh, and design memes and thoughtforms that alter the way it functions psychologically, it while also passing on those alterations to offspring, effectively forcing true Lamarckian evolution into reality. The goal, of course, was to attain the 'Asura-state' of becoming a powerful posthuman entity which could survive even the harshest conditions on its own and exist as a power unto itself. However, many would-be demigods would fall prey to their own shortcomings, fears, and insecurities, their overcautiousness or lack of foresight causing them to neglect maintaining their humanity in the quest for power. Without self-awareness and the subjective experience, a lineage of hereditary cyborgs invariably devolves into a feral and monstrous state, losing any chance of transcendence unless its distant descendants re-evolve sapient thinking on their own.

But some did succeed, of course. The Asura as we know them now are the culmination of Antinirvanistic thought and countless generations of deliberate techno-evolution, though like many philosophies it played out differently in reality than in theory. The social contract remained to an extent, but in posthuman society is focused primarily on the acquistion of power, material comforts, and accomplishing persoal goals rather than ensuring survival, a relatively easy task when you have a body that can metabolize just about anything and rip a man's throat out with your teeth. The additional resources required to produce an Asura keep the population too low to sweep across the earth, leading them to grit their teeth and engage in diplomacy with cultures they once would have thought of only as prey. That said, as the Asura (and other posthumans) reconnect with biological humanity it has been observed that some of the edge has come off of their nature. While they remain alien in many ways, it seems that partial re-integration with human culture has done something to stimulate their more human tendencies, resulting in a culture that continues to value personal might and the quest for power but is slowly being tempered with appreciation for art, culture, and luxury, though given the extent to which posthuman thought-forms have been modified it is likely impossible they will ever completely revert to baseline human psychology, if they would even want such a thing. But they are no longer the imminent sword of Damocles hanging over all biological life, and for many this will be enough.

Cultivator Cyborgs[edit]

If you aren't born an immortal posthuman, then you're likely an organic life form. And if you're an organic life form, then you're doomed to a short, miserable life on a world that you no longer dominate, unless you are one of the few who can command the teeming hordes of mortal soldiers to match the monsters of the current era. However, for those who refuse to be content with mediocrity, a second path awaits. Through studying the datasphere and converting portions of your biology into computronium (essentially, a highly efficient computational matrix), one can surpass their original form to become a cultivator cyborg, one who perpetually strives to gain full understanding of the datasphere and mastery of the nanomechanic cloud that permeates the solar system, learning powerful martial techniques and gaining physical upgrades as they grow more experienced. It is a difficult journey, and few ever find full attainment, much less discover even one technique. However, those who do are powerful indeed, and not to be trifled with. For not only do they unlock the mysteries of cyberization, but so do their progeny. Any being that becomes a cultivator cyborg effectively has the potential to found a powerful dynasty of inhuman cybernetic demigods, demigods who influence much of life on this shattered planet.

The Pale Star Cult[edit]

Humanity is not alone in the void. There is life across countless worlds, civilized and not, though due to the way most develop cloaked information transmissions and wormhole-derived transports it is most difficult to find evidence of them unless they wish to reveal themselves to you, or you simply stumble across an inhabited planet. However, a large portion of the space around humanity is devoid of what we would recognize as rational life, and there is a terrible reason behind this. For just outside the vision of men, whose light rays only have recently reached our planet, there is a star. And this star thinks.

It is a sapient being, a massive calculating engine whose otherworldly spectrum of light allows for the instant transmission of information from its core to anywhere its rays reach. It plants unnatural thoughts in the minds of those who spend too long staring at its baleful green glow, and soon enough they find themselves under its thrall completely. The Pale Star grants incredible power of its own, but robs the user of their will in enough time, always resulting in a hollowed-out thing of burning flame, which amplifies its light and the reality-warping power it bestows. There are whole worlds, in the black, wreathed in green coronas of fire, perpetually feeding off of a writhing mass of flesh that was once that planet's population. It uses these lantern worlds to further its reach, and increase its intelligence. Earth, however, has proven a tougher nut to crack. The sheer insanity of its growth and collapse, spawning inhuman horrors which can lay low the best of its war-forms, has prevented it from subsuming this world as it has dozens of others. For now, it simply remains a lurking shade, waiting for the chance it can bring this planet to its knees, and birth a cruel new existence from its ashes.

The Datasphere[edit]

The Datasphere is the term for the electronic world that permeates the material one, perpetually surrounding the entire solar system in the form of a network of nanomachines that act as a literal cloud-computer, hanging in the sky and saturated into the ground, bringing ever-present power and knowledge to those who can properly tap into it. The 'gods' people worship, for example, are very real, but are in fact simply powerful intelligences which exist as disembodied beings in the Datasphere. They could be ascended humans who have left the material realm, or beings born into it, or both, or something else. None can say for certain, but all know that by studying and communing with them one can gain incredible power.

Ghosts, too, are akin to this. They are swarms of nanomachines which congregate around intense emotion in the datasphere, like the last moments of a living person. They can exert deadly force and are notoriously difficult to get rid of, so the best option is to just inter the body and put the last emotions of the victim to rest. It should be noted the ghost is not actually them, but just an echo formed by the final thoughts of the dying being.

It should also be noted that a corpse, if properly preserved, may retain traces of the original owner's psyche. As long as the body remains more or less intact, there is rumored to be a technique capable of restoring them to full health. But is it truly the same person who died, or merely a perfect duplicate with the same memories? Who can say?

Bioframes[edit]

Bioframes inspire terror and awe across the world. As some of the most advanced and sophisticated weapon systems ever produced, they are without a doubt among the greatest remaining relics of the Solar Empire's military might. Intelligent, fast, strong, and armored with powerful defenses, they are any civilization's trump card. They can also be modified to function with a pilot enclosed in its womb-cockpit, or function autonomously. Either way, few things are as terrifying as being stared down by a bioframe in the heat of battle.

There are also greater variations of bioframes in the form of Autonomous Dragon Weapons, but these monsters are wild and untamed, their strength such that no nation has been able to gain control of one. Unlike standard bioframes, these creatures are regarded only with fear, due to the horrendous destruction they leave in their path.

Cultures[edit]

City/Bunker-States[edit]

The most common kind of government among Lo-Caste individuals, coming in the form of surface cities or bunker arcologies, consisting of a few thousand souls toiling away under the rulership of an ostensibly representative system, headed by an elected governor, but in truth heavily influenced by the Sects, groups of Transcendent beings and those who aspire to such heights, who rule from the shadows. They possess the bulk of military power and their matriarchs and patriarchs are not effete, decadent rulers but warlords who fight alongside their underlings, for any that don't tend not to last very long in a world where their lessers can so quickly rise in power. Most common folk have only a surface-level understanding of these complex politics though, and simply try to get by as best they can, sheltering in farming communes or walled cities under the watchful eyes of their masters. Life is not all bad, however. Each state has a unique set of values, and some can approach something which could be considered fair. Others are less so. Most of these states rely heavily on biomechanical life forms copied from Myriad design, be they the infamous Bioframe or less awe-inspiring creatures, favoring them over true machines which are so difficult to maintain. Many are openly pro-Transcendence, viewing it as the best path to power and immortality and a far better alternative to being trapped in mere flesh.

Imperial Provisional Government[edit]

The IPG is one of the oldest extant polities, though it barely counts as one in the modern era. It composes the Hi-Caste bunker networks that date back to pre-megastructure history, and maintains some of the most accurate records of human history. However, the IPG has splintered along clade lines, and most are forced to fend for themselves, forced into roles their heavily-tweaked psychologies were never designed for. Most 'Orders', as they are known, are run by an administrative bureaucracy, though its efficacy depends on the clade. The Civclade orders are fairly well-handled while most Warclade orders have degenerated into military juntas. The sciclade clings on in isolated arcologies and the joyclade defends its dilapidated gardens as best it can. They are a people who have been consigned to the dustbin of history, but even for them Transcendence is an option, and they may well be able to turn things around. IPG remnants have a higher quality of life than most normal city states, save for the unfortunates who are consigned to the farming networks outside the arcology proper. They also tend to be distrustful of Transcendent individuals even within their own ranks, keeping them heavily regulated as tools for the community to use rather than as masters, and treating Transcendents or even mundane cyborgs and posthumans with distrust. In reality, they would perform much better if the clades were to unify into a singular front rather than as ethnic enclaves, but years of fractured relations have rendered such a reconstruction an immensely difficult task.

Aberrant Tribes[edit]

The Un-Caste is the newest breed of biosophont to arise from the Terran Megastructure. Being Human-Derived Fauna that re-evolved sentience, they have no history or culture of their own prior to the Collapse. They have an intuitive understanding of nanotechne, but unlike other castes of human lack the knowledge and sophistication to form complex societies. As such, Aberrant civilizations are more patchworks of small, feuding tribes with no central leader, only periodically banding together to plunder their neighbors or defend from incursions, and then swiftly devolving back into infighting. Though they make use of Nanotechne in basic forms like weapons, armor, and transcendence, they lack the infrastructure for sophisticated machinery and other such things, relying on their less intelligent cousins as beasts of burden. Though some consider them to be wayward brothers to true humanity, most see them as pests to be exterminated. The Aberrants which have integrated into normal human civilizations are often at risk of persecution as a result of this, but the aggression of their native brethren does not help the situation.

Neo-Anthropic Unions[edit]

To get more than a small group of Neo-Anthropic Posthumans to put aside their differences and form a functioning government is, quite frankly, impossible. Or it would be under normal circumstances. However, the Neo-Anthropic pattern's use of a near-feral slave caste to do all their busywork allows comparatively small communities of true Neo-Anthropics to control wide swathes of territory. Unions, or Pacts, are groups of Neo-Anthropics which have banded together in the name of mutual material benefit. Pact-holders vote democratically on actions like resource exploitation or pillaging, and send their underlings and drones to get the job done, dealing only in brutal realpolitik without moral justification or careful euphemism, only a blunt debate on risks versus benefits, who shall shoulder what responsibilities, and so on. However, this privilege does not extend to Neo-Anthropics without Pact-holder status, who must prove their worth serving their superiors and fighting for favor and reward, or meekly accept their lesser station rather than risk their neck in such brutal competition.

Ex-Anthropic Incursions[edit]

Whereas Neo-Anthropics do not have the mad ambitions of their Anticaste ancestors, the Ex-Anthropic pattern still seeks to forge an empire of posthumans from the ruins of the solar system. As a result, they frequently appear from the depths of the megastructure as armies bent on that goal, bringing destruction and stability to the heartlands of settled zones. Their hierarchy is rigid and unforgiving, clashing with their independently-minded relatives, and is even less compatible with the rest of pan-humanity. Ex-Anthropic posthumans are a significant threat to other civilizations and are dealt with accordingly.

Info-Life Infestations[edit]

Predatory digital entities living in the Datasphere have been known to periodically escape, bringing themselves and others into the physical world by hijacking human bodies to use as puppets. They can amass huge armies in this manner, infesting and corrupting until thousands are enslaved to their will or assimilated into their elite ranks. Even sworn enemies will band together to stop an Info-Life incursion. However, Info-Life also presents an insidious threat which most common folk have only heard about in rumors. They seem to have the ability to not only overtly control, but to quietly corrupt and infiltrate as well. There are rumors of individuals who have had their minds altered by Info-Life memetic programs, seemingly normal but rewritten to engage in repeated serial murder, targeting high-ranking members of communities and sowing distrust and paranoia, which is then taken advantage of by the main invasion force. What society is like within these organizations, if there is a society or intelligence behind them at all, is unknown. It is theorized that higher-ranking Info-Predators may have always been self-aware, or become so after gaining a posthuman body, but the truth remains a mystery.

Earth[edit]

World Size[edit]

In the vanilla Dwarf Fortress game, the world is generally assumed to be the entire world, or half of one, depending on how you generate your poles. However, in the Long Night, the world is designed to be "to scale". That is, the setting reflects the world's actual size. A large map, for example, is about the size of Iceland. So you're not playing on a map of the entire megastructure, just an Iceland sized portion of it.

Terrain Terminology[edit]

The Terran Megastructure is a mixture of overgrown infrastructure and fragments of earth, what were normal terrain features in the past are at least partially artificial in this era. As a result, the terminology of referring to them has changed.

  • Continents - The playable area encompasses a single region referred to as a "Zone" of the megastructure.
  • Desert - The vast, sweeping emptiness between settlements is typically called a 'Waste'.
  • Hills - Areas of many outcroppings are called "Blockades".
  • Tundra - Cold, inhospitable regions are called "Voids".
  • Glacier - Areas where ice has built up are just called an "Ice".
  • Ocean - Places filled with undrinkable water are called "Floods".
  • Lake - Areas filled with drinkable water are called "Pools".
  • Forest - Areas of particularly dense flora are called "Growths".
  • Mountains - Huge heaps of rubble and wreckage are called "Ruins".

Eras of History[edit]

The Pre-Imperial Era[edit]

In human history books, all of human civilization before the Solar Empire is referred to as the Pre-Imperial Era. The Early Pre-Imperial era is before the establishment of the internet but after the industrial revolution, the Middle Pre-Imperial Era is after that but before the first extraplanetary colonies, and the Late Pre-Imperial Era marks the brief period of time in which humanity dwelt among the heavenly spheres without the guiding hand of the Imperial Clade, punctuated by brutal resource wars and limited nuclear exchanges. This time is widely ignored by common people as irrelevant and unimportant, full of outmoded ideologies and barbaric primitivism, even as it admittedly formed the foundation of pan-human culture. It is as distant to them as the most ancient civilizations were to the Middle Pre-Imperial Era, and equally as misunderstood.

The Imperial Era[edit]

This era marks the millennia-long reign of the Clade-Emperors and their genetic caste system, a highly stable if stagnant society where social advancement through conventional means was near-impossible past a certain point, due to the fact that if you were of a lower caste there would always be higher caste individuals genetically engineered to be superior to you, and if you were of the higher caste your role was defined by the caste you were born into. While the Solar Empire did face its fair share of challenges, its ruthless enforcement through its genetically-engineered soldiers and tacticians ensured that the only truly threatening rebellions were nothing more than skirmishes between members of the Imperial Clade feuding from the shadows. It was only during the Second Solar War that the empire faced a truly outside-context problem in the form of Posthuman Antinirvanism. The Imperial Era's close is marked by the genocide of the Imperial Clade, the virulent spread of nanotechne, synthetic life, and biomechanical life, the rise of the Myriad, and the beginning stages of the Terran Megastructure.

The Myriad Era[edit]

A short-lived era of some few centuries in which rampant nanotechne growth allowed for individuals to harness unprecedented amounts of both energy and raw materials, allowing them to rule as veritable sorcerer kings in an era of violence and anarchy. It was during this time that artificial life forms fusing machinery and flesh, such as bioframes, were engineered and used in world-spanning wars across the Earth, and when nanotechne was cultivated and tamed to form the foundation of post-collapse technology, allowing even the lowliest of tribes to construct advanced machinery and weaponry. Furthermore, the constant renovation and expansion of the Myriad and their sprawling megacity-states led to the near-total urbanization of the planet, at which point the phenomenon, which continues to this day, was dubbed the Terran Megastructure, for it could no longer be said to be a mundane celestial body but rather a rampant construct of endlessly expanding cityscape built by long-dead madmen. The Myriad Era is the primary cause of the ignorance of modern pan-humanity, as so much was shuffled about and destroyed in the feuds of the Myriad, millions upon millions slaughtered and megacities flattened only to be reconstructed and repopulated by vat-grown replacements, that the steady march of history was shattered and fragmented, entire peoples coming into being knowing nothing of anything save their servitude. This era came to a close when the Megastructure stabilized and the chaotic flow of energy dwindled, leading to the collapse of the grand works of the Myriad and the ushering in of the great dark age. Most notable of these effects was the corruption of the Datasphere by now-feral fragments of Myriad thought programs, which evolved, diversified, and competed for storage space until the entire internet of that time became a writhing ecosystem of intensely dangerous digital organisms, resulting in its quarantine.

The Long Night[edit]

The present era of history, the dark age in which scattered populations and feuding city-states squabble for food, energy, and living space atop a constantly changing and danger-filled megastructure far beyond anyone's ability to control. Hypertechnological miracles exist side by side with starvation, war, and barbarism. Power belongs to those who follow the path of immortality and seize it, becoming living gods of synthetic flesh and living metal. It is unknown how long this chaotic period will last. Perhaps decades, perhaps centuries, perhaps millennia. But many regard it as the transitional period which will eventually give way to the rise of something far greater than even the grandest age of the Solar Empire, if only the world and beyond may once more be united under a single power.

The New Dawn[edit]

The name for the era to come, in which whatever species, ideology, or other form of victor stands triumphant above a unified solar system. It is an era many pray for but few expect to live to see. None can even begin to imagine what it might be like, but many see it in the same way as ancient humans viewed their religious apocalypses. Always looming on the horizon but never quite manifesting, and some, in the quiet of the night, hope it will never come to pass. Most believe it is an era in that biological life has no place in, incentivizing the pursuit of immortality through nanotechne to secure a place in that distant future, while others regard them as fools blinded by ambition or simply doomed to fail in the face of overwhelming odds.

Related Pages[edit]

The Long Night: Civilizations
The Long Night: Weapons
The Long Night: Armor
The Long Night: Materials
The Long Night: Creatures
The Long Night: Plants
The Long Night: Technomancy
The Long Night: Adventure Mode