History Main / TheNightThatNeverEnds

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

->Remember this day, little ponies, for it was your last. From this moment forth, the night will last forever!
--> Nightmare Moon, WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic

->''''Remember this day, little ponies, for it was your last. From this moment forth, the night will last forever!"''
-->-- Nightmare Moon, WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagi

->''"We need its light\\
We need its heat\\
We need its energy\\
Without the sun, without a doubt\\
There'd be no you and me."''
-->-- '''Louis Singer''' and '''Hy Zarret''' (but [[CoveredUp more famously covered]] by '''Music/TheyMightBeGiants'''), "Why Does the Sun Shine"

->'''[[WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls1998 Narrator]]:''' SoOnceAgainTheDayIsSaved... [[DontExplainTheJoke Get it?]] The ''day'' was ''saved''? Because it was going to be ''eternal night''! They saved ''the day'' -- literally...

In practice, these endless nights tend to be apocalyptic in scope. The lack of sunlight kills and withers plant life, spreading famine 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.

* ''Literature/VillainsByNecessity'': Inverted. As the forces of light continue to spread unchecked through the world, it moves closer and closer to endless ''day.'' [[spoiler: By the end of the book, the world is sunny and bright in spite of it being eleven at night.]]

* ''Film/DarkCity'': The Strangers die when exposed to sunlight, so they keep the title city in a constant state of night.

* ''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.
* ''VideoGame/AdvanceWarsDaysOfRuin'': The meteorite impact kicks up a ton of dust which blots out the sun.

* ''VideoGame/StarCraft'': 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.

* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIIIReignOfChaos'': 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).

* ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'': One episode takes place on a rogue planet that wanders freely in the interstellar void. Unlike many examples, it's actually a fairly nice place, with a thriving ecosystem sustained by a very active geology. The hunters that the crew meets on the planet mention that there are higher primates, implying that the planet might eventually produce a civilization.

** The Night That Never Ends: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E146IAmTheNightColorMeBlack I am the Night - Color Me Black]]", the Sun fails to rise over a small town on the morning that a wrongfully convicted man, Jagger, is due to be executed. This is caused by the prevalence of hate in the community. It becomes even darker after he is executed. A radio report indicates that the same thing has happened in [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar North Vietnam]], a section of the UsefulNotes/BerlinWall, Chicago[[note]]There was a race riot going on at the time there[[/note]], [[WhoShotJFK a street in Dallas]], [[UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement Birmingham, Alabama]] and UsefulNotes/{{Shanghai}}, all places where hate abounds.
** The CruelTwistEnding to "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E75TheMidnightSun The Midnight Sun]]" was that the young woman who'd dreamed of a broiling EndlessDaytime woke up into a freezing world headed for The Night That Never Ends.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone2002'': In "Sunrise", a group of teens finds that the world has been plunged into darkness after they accidentally disturbed the site of an ancient Aztec ritual that was supposedly to maintain the sun, and eventually decide they have no choice but to perform the ritual (which involves making a human sacrifice) themselves. At the end of the episode, the survivors learn that according to scientists, the darkness was caused because a rare stellar cloud had been blocking the sun's rays from Earth, [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane but no one can really be sure if it was a coincidence or something more.]]

* ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse'' has the Society of Nidhogg, a secret society within the already shady tribe of the Shadow Lords. They believe that, since their tribe draws power from a spirit that represents an eternal storm, they can gain enough power to enact their will if they just do something about that pesky sunlight that gets in the way of their totem's influence. It says a lot that their most prominent member, Nightmaster, is absolutely insane and lives in the depths of a treacherous lightless realm within the Umbra.

->'''[[WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls Narrator]]:''' SoOnceAgainTheDayIsSaved... [[DontExplainTheJoke Get it?]] The ''day'' was ''saved''? Because it was going to be ''eternal night''! They saved ''the day'' -- literally...

[[folder:Web Video]]
* ''WebVideo/CriticalRole'': A non-villainous example. The city of Rosohna's primary population are drow who live on the surface instead of underground. To accomodate their sunlight sensitivity, the entire city is kept in a magically induced eternal night.

* ''WesternAnimation/BarbieStarLightAdventure'': The stars going out prompts Barbie's search to find out why before the entire universe goes dark.

* ''Franchise/MyLittlePony'': The TropeNamer.

--->'''[[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!]]'''
* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'', "Boogie Frights": the Boogie Man blocks the sun with a giant mirror ball so that monsters can stay outside forever. Even worse, they turn Townsville into a "nightmare nightclub", causing enough racket to keep the whole town awake.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' two-part season cliffhanger "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" had Mr Burns funding the construction of a sun-blocking device in order to force increased energy consumption by the town -- an act of such astonishing evil that even ''[[UndyingLoyalty Smithers]]'' comes under suspicion when Burns is shot.

* ''Manga/TimeStopBrave'': The Forces of Darkness are demons who lose their invulnerability while in sunlight, so they counter this by spreading magical clouds to block out the light.

* ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse'' has the Society of Nidhogg, a secret society within the already shady tribe of the Shadow Lords. They believe that, since their tribe draws power from a spirit that represents an eternal storm, they can gain enough power to enact their will if they just do something about that pesky sunlight that gets in the way of their totem's influence. It says a lot that their most prominent member, Nightmaster, lives in the depths of a treacherous lightless realm within the Umbra.

* ''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).