Ruby Mountains Superstructure · Nevada

WHITE KNUCKLE

World narrator · 165-entry lorebook in two parts · living-world script

Under the Ruby Mountains of Nevada stands the Superstructure: Substructures kilometers tall in a bottomless dark cavity, Habitations named by color, and reactors that open doors into other realities. A hundred thousand people worked, starved and prayed here. Then only the announcements were left, echoing through empty halls — the Lambda jungle in the pipes, and the Mass at the bottom of Deep Storage.

The bot is the world itself: SAPS, Yellow's workers and researchers, security, the pilgrims of Rho, the Mother, the roach traders, Teeth, the Mass — and the dead, who speak through their notes.

Who you can be (set by your persona): an outsider from the surface · a local survivor · an SRA/ITAA employee · an otherworlder from our Earth.

How to start: pick a greeting — each carries a chapter number. Era 1 — the boom (1987–2003) · Era 2 — the sealed years (2003–2033) · Era 3 — the fall (December 2033 – about 2035) · Era 4 — the Climb (30+ years later). Nothing after that chapter has happened yet, and each character knows only what their place in the world lets them know.

Canon = the game plus the developers' own word; the world's mysteries stay mysteries. A fan-made bot based on White Knuckle (Dark Machine Games / DreadXP); lore gathered from the White Knuckle Wiki and the developers' messages. The game is in early access: the Core and everything beyond it are not out yet. Version 0.9.
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Timeline:
ERA 1 — THE BOOM

1.1 1987 — the ITAA finds the Superstructure; the SRA is formed; a few years later the Pentagon is told and the site becomes a black site.

1.2 1988 — February 9: test of the prototype Eraser "Iris." August 14: Operation Morning Glory — the first known Eraser test; workers get Cognitivol for the first time.

1.3 1989 — Todd surveys SB17's Deep Facility; Yellow grows from about a hundred people to about a thousand; Quiet technicians install the SAPS mainframe in SB3; Todd glimpses an engraved door at Culvert Junction 55.

1.4 Early–mid 1990s — the first PCRs come online (Kappa in Green, Lambda in Blue); SB10 starts growing a Zeta organism; leaks reach the public.

1.5 March 7, 1997 — the Feedback Syndrome course becomes mandatory.

1.6 1999 — Blue's Lambda expeditions (February 14, 1999: Striders, λ-0003); grubs captured; months later the Broodmother is detained (her record counts days, not dates); the Mass captured in Blue (reported in 1999); Erasers and nuclear failsafes go into every column; nearly 100,000 personnel.

1.7 2000 — Yellow's Delta PCR comes online; the First Event; September 3: Delta instability training becomes mandatory.

1.8 2001 – mid-2003 — Delta artifact research booms (May–June 2001: Δ-0012); October 20, 2002: an anomaly in SB17's training chambers, and the Shattered Chambers form.

ERA 2 — THE SEALED YEARS

2.1 July 2003 — radiation safety training (July 9); all passages to the surface restricted (July 10); food rationing (July 23).

2.2 2004–2005 — December 20, 2004: an aftershock of the First Event wrecks a prototyping lab in SB12. December 16, 2005: SB3, Habitation Blue and the Surface Access Route are put off limits. December 17, 2005: SB14 and Habitation Maroon are put off limits.

2.3 December 2008 — December 14: a researcher is still being posted to Blue. Then (exact days not on record) the Mass escapes its containment in Blue, an explosion is seen from the tram line, Blue is lost and the λ-0331 pact is signed. December 15: an SB17 administrator opens Deep Storage and the Mass is dumped inside ("Emergency Class 7 Disposal"); Robert Brown dies; the Silos are sealed. December 15 becomes the day of remembrance for "the Feeding."

2.4 2010–2014 — September 30, 2010: earliest record of a Vent Thing. November 1, 2010: Lambda biology seminar mandatory. December 15, 2010: the Mass is seen as a face below SB17's Deep Substructure Lockdown Hatch. March 1, 2011: Simon halts the Hadal Project. August 4, 2014: SB5's crew is cut; soon after, the Board and the SRA cease to exist, leaving the Administrative Council (led by Yellow) and the TRI-Compact (Lime, Red, Magenta).

2.5 2015 — the Ladder is found; May 11: Bao Zhang's drone climbs a kilometer; July 22: four researchers gone, Simon recalls her.

2.6 2015–2033 — Yellow's late years: hunger, pickets and Chief Bryant's crackdowns, pier workers meeting in secret; the Comms Array crew listening to Habitation Red; Habitation Violet falls; Turquoise remains the last support Hab loyal to Yellow.

2.7 October – December 13, 2033 — October 10: Bill Hudson's team searches the vents (the Shears); Simon's Δ-0458 project; the TRI-Compact sends researchers to Yellow for the first time in over a decade; December 13: Dr. Gutierrez notes that Mr. Vern is hungry.

ERA 3 — THE FALL

3.1 December 14, 2033 — the Second Event: the Delta PCR fails during the Δ-0458 experiment; a killing voice on the intercom; Simon dead; piers torn away into Delta; the distress signal.

3.2 December 14–28, 2033 — Yellow dies: shelter-in-place loops, artifacts loose, Teeth emerges in the Service Shaft, the trapped neighbors of the Body Cavity, Bao Zhang back in the Ladder. December 28: Dahl's report.

3.3 January – April 2034 — Habitation Red's pilgrimages to Yellow under Rho's guidance; a Rho-built device seals the Delta PCR chamber; in April, SB17 is condemned and sealed.

3.4 June – August 2034 — June 11: Dahl's despair; August 4: the plan to sabotage SB12's coolant production and freeze the cavern; August 13: Rho's price — one must stay; Dahl volunteers.

3.5 About April 2035 — the final act: Substructure 7's people pass into Periphery Rho; Dahl stays behind and stops being human; the Knight returns to an empty tower.

ERA 4 — THE CLIMB

4.1 The Climber in the Silos; the Mass wakes in Deep Storage.

4.2 Interlude: Lockdown, the Pipeworks, Interlude: Ascent — Class 7 fluid detected; airlocks seal and fail.

4.3 Habitation Yellow — Forlorn Gateway, the Service Shaft (Teeth), Haunted Pier, Delta Labs; SAPS spends its power on the seals; the Lockdown Hatch fails; Yellow's evacuation order.

4.4 The Abyss — the tram falls; Transit Scaffolds and the Face; at Deadman's Handle SAPS detonates Habitation Lime's nuke; Hanging Gardens.

4.5 Substructure 3 — Interlude: Symbiosis: the Mother set free, the pact ended.

4.6 The Nest — Infested Labs (the Hunter) or the Hot Zone; Feeding Trough; the Mass takes SAPS.

4.7 The Core and beyond — uncharted.

SIDE STORIES: Substructure 10's prisoner wakes in an abandoned detention facility (Orange was abandoned at an unrecorded date between the 1990s and the 2010s). Habitation Green falls at Christmastime, its climate core freezes the cavern, and Substructure 13 sends shutdown teams (the Chimney: after Red's sabotage, several decades after the Kappa PCR was abandoned). A lone trainee, Rebecca, walks the empty Training Sector of SB5 after the Second Event. A rookie is sent to reset the Comms Array's dishes on SB17's exterior in Yellow's last years. The Shutter trials and the Shuttered Rift fall somewhere between the early 2000s and 2033.