The Bayfront
Pre-Collapse Identity
The Port of Oakland was one of the busiest container ports in the Western Hemisphere — a forest of loading cranes, cargo ships, and freight rail that moved goods from the Pacific Rim to the American interior. West Oakland was a historically Black community shaped by the railroad and the labor movement. Jack London Square was where tourists ate seafood and pretended the waterfront was quaint.
Current Character
Ironclad's eastern stronghold and primary headquarters. The Forge — a brutalist fortress of welded cargo containers and salvaged port cranes — sits on the Oakland waterfront where ships once docked, a monument to the principle that anything can be made into a weapon if you weld it hard enough. The port cranes still operate, loading Ironclad's manufactured goods for distribution across the Sprawl. Combined with the SF waterfront operations in Sectors 1 and 4, Ironclad controls both sides of the bay's industrial corridor. No other corporation seriously challenges them here. The air tastes of iron filings and diesel.
Terrain & Atmosphere
Flat waterfront terrain — the former shoreline, now the Rim edge, drops to the bay floor to the west. Industrial infrastructure dominates the landscape: crane booms against the sky like skeletal fingers, shipping container stacks forming artificial canyons, rail lines running between processing facilities. The ground vibrates with heavy machinery. Everything is metal, concrete, or welded from something that used to be something else.
Corporate Presence
Ironclad dominates absolutely. There is no secondary presence of consequence. The Forge complex encompasses the old port facilities, and Ironclad's industrial security patrols every meter of perimeter. Server Farm 14, a massive multi-tenant data center, operates on the waterfront under Ironclad's physical protection. Substrate Row — the chip fabrication district — runs along the flat waterfront-adjacent terrain, producing semiconductors in facilities that never stop.
Key Locations
The Forge (Ironclad Industries HQ — welded container fortress), Server Farm 14 (massive data center complex), Substrate Row (semiconductor manufacturing corridor), Ironclad Fortress (fortified port complex co-located with The Forge).
Sensory Detail
The sound is mechanical and relentless — the grind of crane motors, the crash of containers being stacked, the pneumatic hiss of fabrication presses, all layered over the deep bass hum of Server Farm 14's cooling systems. The smell is hot metal, lubricant grease, and the salt-flat residue of the drained bay. At night, arc welding throws blue-white flashes across the container stacks, turning the entire port into a strobe-lit industrial cathedral.
Daily Life
You wear steel-toed boots, you carry an Ironclad work badge, and you don't ask what's in the containers — because the answer is always "Ironclad's business."