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[Nobody1225]

EDIT: As experimentation continues, the scope has expanded to also include the Age of Death.  The original text, below, will be left for posterity.
This experiment is not particularly epic, nor a demonstration of my DF Adventure Mode prowess, for the simple reason that cheating (the use of DF Companion) is involved.  Therefore, it is intended only as a demonstration and test of the following principle:

It is possible to kill every intelligent being in adventure mode.

The validity and limits of this hypothesis are here being tested.

Phase one of the experiment is complete: advancing a world into the Age of Emptiness (I was aiming for Age of Death, but Emptiness works) strictly through adventurer mode.  Documentation follows.

Phase One: Kill Everything

Spoiler: Step One: The World Before the Rampage (click to show/hide)

A pocket world was generated.  Due to previous raw modifications, a large number of megabeasts were created--this should not affect the outcome of the theory, since they'll all die, too.  Only ten years of history have been permitted to pass.

Spoiler: Step Two: A Champion Is Chosen (click to show/hide)

This is a dwarf, hip deep in gore and slaughter.  DF Companion was used to make her into a perfect killing machine.  This is only a proof of concept, not an epic tale of struggle and survival.

Spoiler: Step Three: Record of Carnage (click to show/hide)

Nothing is left alive at the end of the run.  The only things that do not have a death date listed are deities and forces.  Everything which died in the year 10 died at the hands of Datan Worlddoom.  Including Datan Worlddoom, who voluntarily chose suicide by starvation.

Spoiler: Step Four: Dwarf Mode to Acknowledge the Change of Age, followed by magma suicide (click to show/hide)

Fortress mode dwarves pop ex nihilo.  Despite the extinction of all living beings, embark is possible.  Not shown: following their magma suicide, both embark and reclaim were possible.

Phase Two: What Stays Dead in Fortress Mode?
The leading counter-hypothesis to the "Kill Everything" theory is that things will not stay dead: intelligent beings will respawn, from certain sites or the edges of the world map.  Testing this will take longer.

All historical figures, save deities, are dead; 65% of all historical figures are dead at the hands of a single dwarf.  An end-of-the-world bunker fortress will be created.  The survivalist complex will attempt to create as much wealth and food surplus as possible, to attract immigrants, thieves, and sieges.  Progress will be noted.

Phase Three: Savescum Testing: Adventure Mode Spawning?
Fortress Mode creates beings for at least the purposes of your starting seven, and probably other things as well; Phase Two is for testing what those things are.  Adventure Mode is better at respecting the contents of legends and the results of world gen.  We shall take a save-scum of the Age of Emptiness before the survival bunker went up, and kill a lot of time with an adventurer and see if there's anything new there.

Phase Four: 
Further experimentation must await the results of phases two and three.

Depending on results, the experiment may need to be re-run.  If new critters spawn at the edge of the world map (world-gen world, not embark-world), it may be possible to circumvent this outcome by creating a new pocket dimension surrounded entirely by ocean.  However, first we will see what, if anything, appears in the midst of the Age of Emptiness on a normally-designed world.

[LegoLord]

Well, you've gotten farther along this than any others who've tried to test it (that I've heard of).

[Sensei]

Yes, congratulations on reaching the Age of Emptiness. I think that's already new ground.

You earn the seal of dwarven science!

[Skorpion]

But do you get migrants or sieges with no other civs around?

[Sensei]

That's what the next phase will test.

[Shima]

This is very awesome.  Keep it up, we have to know everything possible about the Age of Emptiness.

[Puzzlemaker]

Dude, that is awesome.

Can you do another experiment?  Branch off, and start several forts and abandon them.  See if it changes the age, into age of dwarf or something.

[Zaranthan]

But do you get migrants or sieges with no other civs around?

You shouldn't. I've personally experimented by capping the dwarven population at two, letting world gen run for 300 years (so the only two dwarfs on the planet die of old age), and embarking. You get seven dorfs cast by the hand of god, and then nothing further. No migrants, no caravans, no nobles. It's worth noting that these seven (and any descendants they might produce) must be killed off, otherwise they form a wandering civ, and further embarks will get migrants and caravans from...god only knows where.

[Sensei]

>Orders >Dwarves stay inside
>Pull Lever

[Sysice]

Now do it with a large world. 
I think it makes it even more awesome that the game has an actual name for a period of time in which no sentient being walked the earth. It makes you think about how much Toady knew about the community when he came up with that bright idea... namely that almost everybody will be trying to bring it about.

[Skorpion]

But do you get migrants or sieges with no other civs around?

You shouldn't. I've personally experimented by capping the dwarven population at two, letting world gen run for 300 years (so the only two dwarfs on the planet die of old age), and embarking. You get seven dorfs cast by the hand of god, and then nothing further. No migrants, no caravans, no nobles. It's worth noting that these seven (and any descendants they might produce) must be killed off, otherwise they form a wandering civ, and further embarks will get migrants and caravans from...god only knows where.

I figured as much.

This has given me a thought. Repopulating the world with dwarves, through multiple embarks.

[Duke 2.0]

 Hmm.
 Now this is all theoretical, but what if one were to mod all creatures to die upon entering the map/playable area and wander the world making sure these creatures died, what would happen when all mobile life was killed off? As trees are not tracked there is no need to make the temperature hot enough to burn the ground.

[Dakk]

Using the old age method doesn't work because goblins and elves stay around when everyone else has died. To actualy bring about an age of emptyness you gotta eliminate all gobbo and elven civs AND kill the megabeasts and semi megabeasts (which are also immortal and considered sentient).

[Nobody1225]

Phase Two has begun.  Concrete data not yet obtained, but these are the notes I've got before it was necessary to shut down for the night:

• There's a bit of an ominous feel to the embark planner.  After all, if the Omnicide Finality Hypothesis is correct, the items and skills purchased will have to last you out--forever.  (There's a succession game and story there if it is, though I wouldn't use this world and save.)
• Goblins appeared on the "Civilizations" list in summer, as is normal.  In the cases of both the Dwarven and Goblin civilizations, these lands had no important leaders.
• Took a moment to save-scum after the goblins showed up on the civilization list, to see if goblins really had appeared somewhere out there in the world.  Dwarves ordered to drop mountain on heads, and new adventurer set out.  No sign of any intelligent life at any site or elsewhere; Dwarf Companion used to assist in this endeavor (as Companion seems to be able to notice the existence of any other creature in memory, as long as I found the right sites it's unlikely I'd miss them).
• However, legends mode, in addition to the seven dwarves embarked with, seems to have four new entries "missing"--undiscovered?  I'm not entirely sure how that fraction works, especially since I've instructed the init and world gen options to reveal all historical events and to cull nothing.
• Obviously, if nothing else works HFS is a source of potential named critters to skew the balance of the world out of an Age of Emptiness into something else.  The site chosen for the survivalist bunker has HFS, but breaching shall be delayed until a number of years have passed, to see if critters can be lured into spawning in other ways.

Can you do another experiment?  Branch off, and start several forts and abandon them.  See if it changes the age, into age of dwarf or something.

I'll do what I can tomorrow: I'm fairly confident that the age will indeed advance to the Age of the Dwarf.  Wouldn't take long to test.

Now do it with a large world. 

Okay...but I'm turning down the max population to 50 and the number of starting civs to 5, first!

I think it makes it even more awesome that the game has an actual name for a period of time in which no sentient being walked the earth. It makes you think about how much Toady knew about the community when he came up with that bright idea... namely that almost everybody will be trying to bring it about.

I'd go so far as to say that the fact the game specifically acknowledges the age makes me want to achieve it.  For the same reason I wasn't interested in trying to mountaineer in adventure mode until I learned that Toady had coded an in-game recognition for reaching the summit of a peak or volcano.

Of course, there's other ages, too, that I'd like to see--but one thing at a time, and the Age of the Emptiness has unfussy and concrete parameters to fulfill (I'm still not sure what the precise Myth/Legends/Heroes megabeast parameters and ratios are, I don't understand what in-game mechanic makes or breaks the difference between Golden Ages and Twilight Ages, Fairy Tales is fussy, and I meant to get the Age of Death when I got Emptiness, so....).

Now this is all theoretical, but what if one were to mod all creatures to die upon entering the map/playable area and wander the world making sure these creatures died, what would happen when all mobile life was killed off? As trees are not tracked there is no need to make the temperature hot enough to burn the ground.

My understanding is that normal wildlife isn't tracked either--the wolf packs that attack you seem to be rolled up as needed, not drawn from an existing pool.  So while there's a certain, ah, charm in extending omnicide from all intelligent life to all animal life, I don't think you could currently get the game to recognize it right now.  I invite correction if someone knows better in this regard.

[BurnedToast]

Animal populations are tracked. If you export world information when you generate a world, it spits out a text file (region1-world_sites_and_pops.txt) that lists all the creatures in the world. I just created a medium world right now for example and it has 48067 wolves (and 101518 groundhogs, and 3130614 two-legged rhino lizards, and......)

I'm not 100% sure if animals that ambush you in adventure mode are drawn from that list, or if they are generated on the spot. Something else to test I suppose.