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 EverythingA 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.
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.
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.
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.