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[Inconspicuous]

So my first fortress has lasted about 2 years, and I've been thinking: Who are you? Your orders are instantly cued, you can see whatever the dwarfs see, you can never die, just the fortress. So who/what are you?

Also, extra question, what was chapter one of the game, the title states that it is chapter two? Is this just a silly little thing added by the developers?

[Shonai_Dweller]

Slaves to Armok was the game they were working on before this one. To cut a long story short, it turned them off graphics forever and thus we have Dwarf Fortress in all its ascii glory.

Fan theories generally like to say the player is Armok. But that's only because it fits their juvenile blood-lust ultraviolence fantasies...

[Loam]

I consider the player to be the "general will," a nonspecific motivator driving all citizens to work for the betterment of the fortress. Mostly because I am the only being who cares about the betterment of the fortress; if the dwarves had it their way they'd just stand around Socializeing until the goblins came.
Things like job assignments, digging and construction designations, etc. can be seen as orders given by the authorities, on local or national levels depending on the order. The king probably doesn't care about ordering specific brewers to make booze, so that might be a manager job; the manager, conversely, doesn't have the power to order a new cistern dug out.

Probably depends on one's playstyle though. I take care of my dwarves. The people who use them as expendable slaves to cast giant obsidian pyramids - sounds about right for a fickle and violent god.

[Chase]

Slaves to Armok was the game they were working on before this one. To cut a long story short, it turned them of graphics forever and thus we have Dwarf Fortress in all its ascii glory.

Fan theories generally like to say the player is Armok. But that's only because it fits their juvenile blood-lust ultraviolence fantasies...

I like this answer the best. You are Armok!

[Inconspicuous]

Slaves to Armok was the game they were working on before this one. To cut a long story short, it turned them off graphics forever and thus we have Dwarf Fortress in all its ascii glory.

Fan theories generally like to say the player is Armok. But that's only because it fits their juvenile blood-lust ultraviolence fantasies...

Thank you for the answer. I usually try to not torture or traumatize my dwarfs, or execute my nobles. Also, completely off topic side note, my first fortress has fallen.

[Chase]

Slaves to Armok was the game they were working on before this one. To cut a long story short, it turned them off graphics forever and thus we have Dwarf Fortress in all its ascii glory.

Fan theories generally like to say the player is Armok. But that's only because it fits their juvenile blood-lust ultraviolence fantasies...

Thank you for the answer. I usually try to not torture or traumatize my dwarfs, or execute my nobles. Also, completely off topic side note, my first fortress has fallen.

On with the next one!

[Starver]

Also, completely off topic side note, my first fortress has fallen.

If it did not¹, your second fortess would never get the attention it deserves...  And thus the cycle of life continues!

¹ Or lapse into the stasis of abandonment, either procedural or metachronological because of your never willing or capable of reloading the old savegame ever again.

[Urist McVoyager]

I try to take care of mine, I just lack the attention to detail it takes to give a rat's ass about their mental and emotional well being sometimes.

Most of the time. I don't even pick out one to care for. I just build the fortress and set it up with a stable situation.

[Inconspicuous]

If it did not¹, your second fortess would never get the attention it deserves...  And thus the cycle of life continues!

¹ Or lapse into the stasis of abandonment, either procedural or metachronological because of your never willing or capable of reloading the old savegame ever again.

My second fort is built into a volcano on an island, far away from pesky elves and kobolds. Tons of hematite, and a friendly neighborhood spider man, who's bite will inflict necrosis on my soldiers! Also, my workshops are now next to the appropriate stockpiles, I've made getting mugs, glasses, and earthenware (I have sand AND clay, in a single 4x4 embark) for the dwarfs. Both of my two immigrant children have toys as well. Almost all thoughts are either happy, blissful or some other kind of synonym for good. Spices are available in abundance on the island, as well as plenty of wildlife.

So, compared to my last fort, the mundane and boring town where people randomly disappeared, only to turn up dead, lying around somewhere, and eventually ended up falling because of HFS...

This is pretty good.

Also, priority number 1 is dwarf happiness for this fort! We will make the island of good thoughts!

Once we take care of that menace, spiderman.

[Starver]

You need a bird man to eat the spider man.
Then, because that's absurd, a cat man to eat the bird man.
Then, fancy that, a dog man to do something (at least chase off) the cat man.
Goat man, cow man, and horse man follows, but by then your fortress is dead, of course.

(Perhaps from the fly men that came in after you dealt with the spider man.)

[Asin]

I consider the player to be the "general will," a nonspecific motivator driving all citizens to work for the betterment of the fortress. Mostly because I am the only being who cares about the betterment of the fortress; if the dwarves had it their way they'd just stand around Socializeing until the goblins came.
Things like job assignments, digging and construction designations, etc. can be seen as orders given by the authorities, on local or national levels depending on the order. The king probably doesn't care about ordering specific brewers to make booze, so that might be a manager job; the manager, conversely, doesn't have the power to order a new cistern dug out.

Probably depends on one's playstyle though. I take care of my dwarves. The people who use them as expendable slaves to cast giant obsidian pyramids - sounds about right for a fickle and violent god.

I agree!

My idea of Armok is this.

A god beyond gods. Something... eldritch.

The gods defeated him to keep him from destroying their worshipers and the world that THEY created. They keep him a secret, never to be revealed. If he were released, all would be dead.

[snow dwarf]

Answering the first question,  I like to name a dwarf Snow and think that I'm him and he is the one ordering everything even though he is not a mayor or something I think everyone listens to him cause he was given authority by the king.

[muldrake]

Slaves to Armok was the game they were working on before this one. To cut a long story short, it turned them off graphics forever and thus we have Dwarf Fortress in all its ascii glory.

Fan theories generally like to say the player is Armok. But that's only because it fits their juvenile blood-lust ultraviolence fantasies...

I can't buy the player as Armok.  I think "Slaves of Armok" refers to the players.

Armok is who destroys all our forts.

[Bumber]

Armok is DF itself.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Armok is DF itself.

For who else would keep his slaves in bondage for all eternity as they desperately await the coming of version 1.0? Smited with horsplosions, dying cats, suicidal marksdwarves, world destroying poets and weird uniform issues, we the Slaves to Armok endure. Even as the trees, bins and creeping fps death seek our undoing.