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Technocratic Society
May 24, 2026 at 09:51 AM
Added dev-blog phrasing, engineering markers, surface contrast, forced-adaptation origin, internal fracture, open questions sections
The Underdwellers' civilization model is described in pre-launch material as a thriving technocratic society. After centuries cut off from the surface, the descendants of the original exile had become disciplined, ordered, and educated. The depths were home; their society was built on engineering, knowledge, and structured craft rather than on the worship-leaning rhythms of the surface civilization they had left behind.
Engineering. Cities grown from rock and metal. Endless caverns mapped and lit. Excavations that reached outward in all directions.
Education. The civilization was hardened by subterranean life and disciplined into a learned society.
Order. Pre-launch material emphasizes the structured, planned quality of Underdweller settlements.
Memory loss. Even as their craft thrived, their memory of the surface faded. Sun and sky became metaphors.
After the rediscovery, Sky Cults formed among the Underdwellers. The cults represent a partial rejection of the technocratic identity in favor of religious awe at the sky. Pre-release lore implies that this fracture is internal to the Underdweller civilization rather than a clean external split.
Whether the technocratic society uses magic, runes, machines, or some hybrid, and whether the surface civilization's revived beliefs include explicit anti-technocratic doctrine, are unrevealed.
The 2026-03-04 Lore Part I dev material is the canonical text on the Underdwellers' technocratic identity: "Forgotten by their former overlord and hardened by their subterranean life they developed a thriving technocratic society." The same blog adds "disciplined, ordered, educated" as the markers of that identity, and frames the technocratic phase as the long second act of Underdweller history.
The dev material lists specific engineering markers: "Endless caverns lit by fire and luminescent crystals. Cities grown from rock and metal." And the expansionist drive: "Dug not only to survive, but to expand and explore, outward in all directions, mapping the underworld as if it were their rightful dominion." That last sentence is the cultural identity in one phrase: the Underdwellers are not refugees making do; they are a civilization that has claimed the depths as their rightful domain.
The current surface-vs-underground conflict is partly a values clash between two civilizations' epistemologies. The Underdwellers' technocratic order built on engineering and structured craft contrasts with what pre-launch material implies is a surface civilization rooted in revived beliefs and worship. The contact between them was always going to be uncomfortable; the actual war is a downstream consequence of that mismatch as much as of territory.
The technocratic identity was not chosen but forced by The Surface Cataclysm. Cut off from the surface by the betraying earth, the descendants of the exile had to invent a new society from scratch in the dark. Engineering became the survival skill that defined the civilization, and centuries of that skill being the only one that mattered hardened into a culture.
The technocratic identity fractured when the Underdwellers broke back to the surface and encountered the sky. Parts of the population responded with religious awe and formed Sky Cults; other parts stayed underground or remained skeptical. The cults are internal to the same civilization rather than a separate population, which makes the fracture a question of which identity wins inside the same society rather than a clean external split.
Whether the technocratic society uses magic, runes, machines, or some hybrid, whether their tools survive in the present day, and whether the current surface civilization explicitly defines itself in anti-technocratic terms are all unrevealed in pre-launch material.
