History Main / TheNightThatNeverEnds

* ''VideoGame/MightAndMagicVIII'' features the Nightshade Brazier, which can produce this effect in a region, and was developed by the Necromancer's Guild of Jadame but stolen by their enemies in the Church of the Sun. At one point in the main quest you have to choose between allying with the Guild or the Church, and the Guild's quest is to retrieve the Brazier so they can plunge their home region of Shadowspire into perpetual night, thus allowing their vampiric troops to defend Shadowspire from attack in the day, freeing up other forces to go on the offensive (it also gives their vampiric ''citizens'' more freedom to move about without having to acquire a highly expensive sun-protecting amulet).

* The Great Smoke of London in December 1952 would probably be the closest example in human history. The light-blocker was smoke from fireplaces and factories, with smog from cars and buses, which was not unusual. However, add cold weather, an anti-cyclone over London, and a lack of winds, and Londoners got a smoke denser than usual, with visibility only being a meter, and that was during the day. Out of all mechanized transport, only the London Underground operated anywhere near properly -- buses had to have people in front holding torches. Concerts and movies had to be cancelled, because of the smog seeping indoors. Worse, it turned out to be a worse environmental disaster than originally thought. Estimates vary but between 4,000 to 12,000 people died during the week of smog.

* ''Series/{{Sanctuary}}'': Played with in "Carentan", where a localised time bubble causes time to pass at an accelerated rate for the inhabitants of a french town. Because of this, [[YearInsideHourOutside six years pass for every day]] outside of the bubble and the nights last for over ''3 years''. Due to the lack of sunlight during this period, the temperature drops to near-freezing and one of the inhabitants explains that many people do not survive.

** While the Hollow World of TabletopGame/{{Mystara}} usually experiences EndlessDaytime, the disruptions brought on by the Wrath of the Immortals causes the planetary interior's central sun to go dark for a week. Most inhabitants thought that the world was coming to an end.

** ''TabletopGame/LaNotteEterna'' takes place on a world where a war in the heavens resulted in Laon, the sun god, being captured, and consequently, the sun has not risen on that world in over a hundred and sixty years. As one can imagine, this has had drastic effects on that world; the rise of the vampires has been the least of their problems.

** This is the sign for the Elder Evil (from the book of the same name) Father Llymic, who becomes slowed (and eventually frozen over) when the sun is shining. In the final battle with the monster, the sun has completely gone out, allowing him to burst free of his icy prison and try to wreak havoc over the entire world.

In practice, these endless nights tend to be apocalyptic in scope. The lack of sunlight kills and withers plant life, spreading faming and destroying ecosystems. The loss of solar radiation will also cause temperatures to plunge, causing sufficiently long-lasting examples of this to often cause an EndlessWinter or a GlacialApocalypse. Sometimes, something -- magic, geothermal heat, technology, or good old handwavium -- will allow life to trudge along more or less stably, but this is still not going to be a pleasant experience for people caught in it. The few exceptions tend to be monsters that are WeakenedByTheLight, which will be free to run rampant across the world; vampires in particular tend to greatly enjoy these events.

This trope usually involves a BigBad's attempt to bring about either an eternal or extremely long night, [[ForTheEvulz for whatever reason]]. He could be trying to put out the sun,[[note]]it takes eight minutes for light from the sun to get to Earth[[/note]] block it, [[PartlyCloudyWithAChanceOfDeath or just find a metaphorical light switch]]. This is often the goal of a [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampire]], for [[WeakenedByTheLight obvious reasons]]. The only requirement is that the darkness is supposed to last a ridiculous length of time, ranging from a hundred years to an eternity. It rarely does, though, thanks to those pesky [[BigDamnHeroes heroes]], who somehow manage to get past all of the looting, panic, and [[NightOfTheLivingMooks mooks]] to CueTheSun.

Often the setting for a literal DarkestHour, and can result in widespread DarknessEqualsDeath. Don't be surprised if a DarkWorld happens to have a bad case of this.

Compare AlwaysNight and PartlyCloudyWithAChanceOfDeath. Can sometimes overlap with TheStarsAreGoingOut, TotalEclipseOfThePlot, SpringIsLate, EndlessWinter and HostileTerraforming. Contrast CueTheSun, EndlessDaytime.

* ''Franchise/SailorMoon'' fanfic ''Thy Kingdom Come'' has an alternate universe villain Calcite. In the vanilla setting, Calcite and his friends and family are [[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch genetically predisposed towards good in a species of demons]]. But in the universe, he goes above and beyond to [[SealedEvilInACan capture the dark goddess Metallica within himself]] to attain [[GodhoodSeeker god-like powers]]. He is much smarter than other series villains and quickly dispatches the Sailor Senshi before launching an invasion of Earth from the Dark Kingdom. Actually, "invasion" is a bit of a misnomer. He make a grand announcement to all the world leaders, they defiantly vow to resist him to the last breath, and then he sets a magic dome of darkness over every landmass on the planet. Within a matter of months, there are massive ecological disruptions as plants cannot grow, animals can't eat plants that aren't there, and so forth. Calcite then imports nocturnal-growing plants from the Dark Kingdom and feeds them to the nations that surrender. Dark Kingdom flora and fauna quickly adapt and thrive and fill in the missing ecological niches. Too keep the planet from ''total'' extinction, the sun still shines on the oceans after about a hundred miles away from land to promote plankton growth and so on. After he is defeated and the sun is restored, there is ''another'' wave of extinctions as the Dark Kingdom-based life dies off, along with another big percentage of humanity who have adapted to it to survive.
* ''Fanfic/AnonymoosesMonsterGirlSaga'' has this eventually happen to the kingdom of Yaleria. Unusually, this is presented in a positive manner as it benefits the undead who take over.
* A variant in ''Fanfic/TwilightTheTerrible'': while it's ''technically'' EndlessDaytime because the sun is always visible, it's also always stuck on the edge of the horizon, meaning plants aren't getting enough sunlight and it's always cold, meaning this fic has a mix of EndlessDaytime and the effects this trope would cause. Incidentally, seeing the effects of [[{{Pun}} The Twilight That Never Ends]] causes Nightmare Moon to give up on her ''own'' plans to put this trope in place (well, that and a good talking to from canonverse's Luna).
* ''Fanfic/TheMLPLoops'':
** Since the [[GroundhogDayLoop baseline loop]] starts just a few days before Nightmare Moon returns, this comes up a ''lot''. The loopers generally defeat her in a variety of amusing ways very quickly, but occasionally they just talk her down by pointing out (or letting her do it and figure out for herself) that [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome eternal night has a lot of consequences she's not prepared for]]. Among other things, since the world is ([[MultipleChoicePast usually]]) a globe, if half the world is Eternal Night then the other half is Eternal Day, which ruins the symbolism and causes severe weather problems. At one point, Gilda suggests that since the Griffon Lands are in the twilight region of the Eternal Night, Nightmare Moon could "wobble" things to give the griffins a relatively normal day/night cycle while the ponies still have their Eternal Night.
** In a few early loops, Twilight pretends to go crazy and declares an Eternal Twilight across the land. Of course, this makes even less sense than Eternal Night, as only a very narrow band will be Eternal Twilight. She initially gives up, but later comes back by creating magical cloud cover that blocks the majority of light but also provides just enough to be considered twilight.
* ''Fanfic/ADiplomaticVisit'': In the fourth story, ''The Diplomat's Life'', [[spoiler:during the fight with the Pony of Shadows, it's revealed that this is their plan, enveloping the entire planet in darkness. Given that Umbrea (another of their people) intended the same thing as Nightmare Moon, it's not surprising (Rainbow Dash even lampshades it with "Eternal night? Again? Tch. Figures.").]]
* ''Fanfic/ABrighterDark'''s Nohr lacks a sun. [[ArtisticLicensePhysics The implications this has for the ecosystem are not addressed]].

* In ''Series/{{Angel}}'', The Beast blocked out the sun over Los Angeles, giving vampires and other demons a chance to come out and play without worrying about their curfew. After a few days or weeks of this, L.A. begins to look distinctly AfterTheEnd[[BuffySpeak ish]]. If not for [[NiceJobFixingItVillain Angelus]], the block would have spread all over the world.
* Every planetary surface visited in the original ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|1978}}'' was cloaked in night for at least the first 14 episodes.

* Played with in the ''Series/{{Sanctuary}}'' episode "Carentan", where a localised time bubble causes time to pass at an accelerated rate for the inhabitants of a french town. Because of this, [[YearInsideHourOutside six years pass for every day]] outside of the bubble and the nights last for over ''3 years''. Due to the lack of sunlight during this period, the temperature drops to near-freezing and one of the inhabitants explains that many people do not survive.
* One episode of ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' took place on a rogue planet (see RealLife below). Unlike many examples, it was actually a fairly nice place, with a thriving ecosystem sustained by a very active geology. The hunters that they met on the planet mentioned that there were higher primates, implying the planet might eventually produce a civilization.
* In ''Series/TinMan'', the ultimate goal of the WickedWitch is to lock the position of the BinarySuns behind the moon during a rare [[TotalEclipseOfThePlot double eclipse]], using a large {{Magitek}} device originally intended to slow the suns down for better crop growth.

* In Literature/TheBible, the Ninth Plague that {{God}} sends upon Egypt is three days of total darkness, which affected the Egyptians but not the Hebrew slaves.
** Hell has a literal example of this trope.

* In ''VideoGame/NinetyNineNights'', the King of Ninety-Nine Nights is so named because during his last reign he caused darkness to fall for ninety-nine straight days.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'', Yharnam is a land without sunlight, lit only by the moon. [[spoiler: This is justified however, as the Hunter is trapped inside a dream. And the Moon existed as a [[EldritchAbomination presence]]. Should they free themselves from the dream, the morning sun would be seen again. However, if the Hunter chooses to free [[DeathSeeker Gehrman]] by killing him and taking on his role or become a [[EldritchAbomination Great One]] by defeating [[TrueFinalBoss the Moon Presence]], the Hunter will never see the sun again.]]
* The titular castle of ''Castlevania'', in virtually every game in the franchise, is accompanied by an aura of eternal night, usually complete with a full moon. The source of this unnatural night is explained in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaLamentOfInnocence''. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]], since the primary antagonists of the series happen to be vampires. The eternal night usually ends after the antagonist is defeated, [[CueTheSun allowing the sun to shine as the castle itself crumbles to its foundations.]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Faria}}'', the endgame has the EvilSorcerer magically blocking the sun's light from reaching Faria, whose inhabitants are freezing.

** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII'', Xande sinks most of the world into perpetual darkness and suspended animation because he does not wish to die after being [[BlessedWithSuck blessed with mortality]].
** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyThe4HeroesOfLight'', the second half of the game gives the world a red-and-black sky and the "night" music becomes permanent while on foot [[spoiler:thanks to the time-breaking flood of darkness you unleashed from Rolan's soul]].

* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'', it is ''always'' nighttime at Ganon's Castle. Even if you go there in the middle of the day, time will jump to nightfall and stay locked there until you leave.
* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'': Ganondorf casts a curse onto the Great Sea that [[http://zelda.wikia.com/wiki/Endless_Night prevents dawn from ever coming]]. Fortunately, this does Link more good than bad, as it ensures that Link will [[TakeYourTime always get Nayru's Pearl first]] due to the pirates taking time off at Windfall Island until morning; the curse is lifted once the Pearl is obtained. This same curse is also used in a more-localized fashion in the Forsaken Fortress, Ganondorf's base of operations. [[spoiler:When Ganondorf abandons the joint to go after Zelda, however, the curse is lifted there, as well.]]

* ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic VIII'' features the Nightshade Brazier, which can produce this effect in a region, and was developed by the Necromancer's Guild of Jadame but stolen by their enemies in the Church of the Sun. At one point in the main quest you have to choose between allying with the Guild or the Church, and the Guild's quest is to retrieve the Brazier so they can plunge their home region of Shadowspire into perpetual night, thus allowing their vampiric troops to defend Shadowspire from attack in the day, freeing up other forces to go on the offensive (it also gives their vampiric ''citizens'' more freedom to move about without having to acquire a highly expensive sun-protecting amulet).
* ''VideoGame/AdvanceWarsDaysOfRuin'': The meteorite impact kicks up a ton of dust which blots out the sun.

* In ''VideoGame/ShadowMan'', you're tasked with collecting an artifact which will bring nighttime immediately, as opposed to simply waiting for it to come naturally. While this probably wouldn't be permanent, the practical effect is that eternal day is switched to eternal night, allowing you to use your Shadow Man powers in Liveside so you can kill the bosses in that realm. You can't simply wait for night because their plan needs to be stopped right now; giving them any free time is simply out of the question.

* The ''VideoGame/StarCraft'' world Shakuras was shrouded in perpetual twilight for a considerable length of time. There were no plants, but plenty of fossils. The world lightened up after a significant plot event, but the ExpandedUniverse novels tell us the world is still fairly dark.
* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfXillia'', Fenmont is a localized and benign version of the trope. The city is situated within a spirit clime that creates an unending night. This is apparently just normal for the city.
* The ''VideoGame/TokyoXtremeRacer'' series features a non-villainous example of this due to the attempt to integrate the system's clock into the game. There is an InUniverseGameClock that matches up to the system clock, and is used for certain events, such as Wanderer opponents that only appear at certain times. However, the game is always set at night to reflect the nature of street racing as a nighttime activity; even if there's broad daylight outside your room and your system clock is set correctly, you will never see a single second of daylight in-game. Downplayed in ''Import Tuner Challenge'' where you can select the Daybreak option.

* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'': The Moonstone is a Night Elf item that causes an eclipse, giving thirty seconds of nighttime (they're the only faction with spells that only work at night).
* Near the end of ''Videogame/{{Tyranny}}'', depending on your choices you can potentially gain the ability to cast the "Edict of Nightfall", which will plunge the lands into eternal darkness. This causes both plants and animals to wither away while the people will freeze without a sun. Gameplay-wise, this grants you a sneak attack bonus while enemies all have penalties to perception and accuracy.

* In ''WesternAnimation/BarbieStarLightAdventure'', the stars going out prompts Barbie's search to find out why before the entire universe goes dark.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Ben 10}}'', Zs'Skayr (to whom sunlight is fatal) tries covering the sunlit side of the Earth with a shell of radioactive material in one episode, so he can rule it as his domain. (The fact that this will mutate the entire population of the Earth is an unfortunate side effect.)
* ''WesternAnimation/Castlevania2017'': In Season 2, Alucard mentions he's seen plans Dracula wrote in old books for using smoke-producing aerial machines and other scientific methods to permanently darken the skies and block out the sun. He seems to be indicating that bringing such an endless night will be the next phase if Dracula and his vampire War Council succeed in [[KillAllHumans Killing All Humans]]. However, it's implied to be {{subverted}}, as it becomes clear over the course of the series that [[spoiler:Dracula is a grief-fueled OmnicidalManiac DeathSeeker who wholly expects the vampires and then himself to die if he succeeds in wiping out all humans]].
* In ''WesternAnimation/ElenaOfAvalor'', Orizaba, a moth fairy, has attempted to cause one using the Eye of Midnight out of belief that it would be better for everyone. In ancient times, she was sealed away by the Maruvians before she could succeed and Elena has to reseal her when a TotalEclipseOfThePlot frees her in one episode.
* In ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'', the combined power of Tarakudo's nine generals could summon enough Shadowkhan to shroud the earth in darkness.
** Later revealed that in order to do this, they can't summon any of their Shadowkhan.

** Using the Rainbow of Darkness to cause eternal night was the goal of Tirac in the very first ''My Little Pony'' animated adaption, a television special from 1984. Said bad guy, a demonic-looking centaur, says the trope name word for word.[[note]][[AdaptationalNameChange Tirek]] reappeared in the finale of Season 4 of Friendship is Magic with a different goal.[[/note]]
** This is also the plot of the villain in the pilot episode of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' (a clear shout out to the 1984 special).
-->'''[[MadGod Nightmare]] [[FallenAngel Moon]]:''' Remember this day, little ponies, for it was your last. From this moment forth, [[PunctuatedForEmphasis THE NIGHT. WILL LAST.]] '''[[PunctuatedForEmphasis FOREVER!]]'''
** Because of [[PaintingTheFrostOnWindows the hands-on nature]] of... well, nature in ''Friendship is Magic'', some fans have grossly underestimated the threat posed by this scheme. WordOfGod has made clear, however, that this ''would'' cause [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the death of every living thing in Equestria]], by starvation if nothing else. It remains unclear whether Nightmare Moon herself was aware of this; preventing the sun from ever rising again may have been an attempt to force the ponies to appreciate the night ([[GreenEyedMonster and, by extension, her]]), or perhaps her bitterness at their [[DarkIsNotEvil misguided fear]] of [[TheSacredDarkness the night]] was such that her ultimate goal was to [[OmnicidalManiac exterminate them all]] (and maybe even [[SuicidalCosmicTemperTantrum herself along with them]]). [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS5E26TheCutieRemarkPart2 The season 5 finale]], however, [[GodDoesNotOwnThisWorld may have refuted this]] by having the BadFuture where she ruled [[NoEndorHolocaust show no signs of such apocalypse]] and actually look the least terrible of all the {{Alternate Timeline}}s visited. Whether this is because it's truly averted, that it's just not deep enough into Nightmare Moon's rule to start showing the signs, or if Nightmare Moon ''did'' know and simply [[AWizardDidIt invested in learning a spell that could deal with this]] is left unsaid since Twilight doesn't stick around long enough to learn much besides the basics.
*** The [[PeripheryDemographic fandom]] has taken this to new extremes of FridgeHorror. The ''Pony Psychology'' series has an entire chapter of WhatTheHellHero dedicated to Luna confronting Celestia over this, and Celestia painting the horror for her. In addition, several webcomics portray in gruesome detail just what a slow, agonizing death eternal night would be.

* Samhain attempts to bring this about (along with eternal Halloween) in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheRealGhostbusters''.

* Thanks to ''[[WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003 TMNT: Fast Forward]]'' BigBad Sh'Okanabo and his progeny's [[WeaksauceWeakness weaksauce]] aversion to Earth's sun, part of his ultimate plan for world domination involved preventing the sun from reaching Earth via a series of satellites. It worked, too...for a few minutes.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Trollhunters}}'', this trope (referred to in-universe as "Eternal Night") is [[GreaterScopeVillain Morgana's]] ultimate plan in Season 3, to enable the Gumm-Gumms to conquer the surface world without fear of sunlight killing them. During the GrandFinale, she puts this into motion by [[TotalEclipseOfThePlot causing an eclipse]], allowing a full invasion of Arcadia [[spoiler: though once she's [[SealedEvilInACan sealed in the Shadow Realm]], Merlin undoes the spell]].
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/XiaolinShowdown'', the {{Snowlem}} Raksha used the Lunar Locket to have the moon block out the sun, plunging the world into endless night, cold, and snow.
* In ''WesternAnimation/Xyber9NewDawn'', this was the EvilOverlord Machestro's ultimate plan. The Eye of Darkness would block the sun, allowing him and his legions to rule the surface world without being WeakenedByTheLight.
* In ''WesternAnimation/YinYangYo'', this was the goal of Carl the Evil Cockroach Wizard. As it turned out, this was also the Night Master's intentions so that he could be all powerful. Carl got upset over him copying his idea.

* In Palladium's game ''TabletopGame/{{Nightbane}}'', the Day of Darkness -- 24 full hours of unnatural darkness (no stars, just a solid sheet of darkness across the sky) -- heralded the weakening of the barrier between our world and the Nightlands, allowing the Nightlords and their minions easy access to our world.

* ''TabletopGame/LaNotteEterna'' takes place on a world where a war in the heavens resulted in the sun god being captured, and consequently, the sun has not risen on that world in over a hundred and sixty years. As one can imagine, this has had drastic effects on that world; the rise of the vampires has been the least of their problems.

* The game ''Ten Candles'' is set after an unexplained event causes all natural light to cease. The cycle of day and night ''technically'' continue, but only in terms of temperature. Then ''They'' show up and begin hunting people down. (What ''They'' are is defined by the GM, assuming [[NothingIsScarier it needs to be defined]].)

* In ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'', the Night Lords legion's homeworld was Nostramo, a polluted hellhole with a black, sunless sky, and as part of their terror tactics, those Astartes have worked out how to trigger similar phenomena on worlds they attack. In fact, one of the reasons for Nostramo's eventual rebellion was that when the Emperor arrived, he showed the Nostramans that there was light in the galaxy they would never get to see.

* ''Fanfic/AbraxasHrodvitnon'': It's eventually confirmed that [[Characters/AbraxasHrodvitnonTitansAndOtherCreatures Ghidorah]] inflicts this on most of the alien worlds that it conquers, using its WeatherManipulation to turn the conquered planets' skies into neverending tempests in Ghidorah's own image which no sunlight can penetrate through.

** Those aren't confined to the moon. The Norwegian village of Rjukan used to be entirely in darkness from September to March, until a large mirror was built on a nearby hillside.