Fremont-Hayward
Pre-Collapse Identity
Fremont had the Tesla factory, the NUMMI plant before that, and Niles Canyon where silent films were shot a century before anyone thought of electric cars. Hayward was working-class, home to a state university, and sitting on the most dangerous fault in the Bay Area. Union City and Newark were residential suburbs that existed because Fremont and Hayward existed.
Current Character
The Southeast Bay industrial zone — Ironclad's manufacturing network spreading across the old automotive and tech factory infrastructure. The Tesla factory and Solyndra ruins were absorbed, gutted, and repurposed for fabrication that serves the Sprawl's material needs. The Hayward fault zone runs beneath everything, creating geological instability that manifests as cracked foundations, shifting ground, and sinkholes that open without warning and swallow whatever was built on the assumption that the earth was solid. The marshland border to the west merges into the south bay's transitional zone, where the ground gets soft and the settlements get precarious. Wholesome sends agricultural outreach from the south, extending food distribution networks that map dependency as precisely as they map hunger.
Terrain & Atmosphere
Flat suburban grid with gentle hills at the eastern edge, where the Hayward fault zone creates visible geological scars — offset fences, cracked pavement, buildings that lean incrementally more each year. The western edge transitions to marshland, soft and unreliable. Between the fault and the marsh, the terrain is deceptively stable-looking — suburban streets, factory complexes, parking lots — all built on ground that periodically reminds everyone it's alive. The air carries manufacturing emissions from the east and marsh gas from the west.
Corporate Presence
Ironclad controls the manufacturing plants — large-footprint factory complexes producing fabricated goods for the Sprawl. Wholesome pushes agricultural outreach from the south, distributing food to manufacturing workers and building the dependency networks that are their actual product. The contested border between industrial and agricultural territory plays out as environmental warfare: Ironclad's factory waste versus Wholesome's need for clean soil and water. The people between them get contaminated water and corporate press releases from both sides.
Key Locations
The Factory District (former Tesla/NUMMI/Solyndra facilities — Ironclad manufacturing), the Fault Line (visible geological displacement running through the sector), the Marsh Border (western edge transitioning to south bay wetlands).
Sensory Detail
The ground vibrates. Not metaphorically — the combination of heavy manufacturing equipment and seismic micro-activity creates a perpetual low-frequency tremor that you feel in your teeth and your joints. The smell alternates between industrial output (machine oil, heated metal, chemical coolant) and marsh (brine, decomposition, methane). Sinkholes open with a sound like a giant clearing its throat, and the silence afterward is worse.
Daily Life
You work in a factory built on a fault line next to a marsh, and the ground shakes just often enough that you never fully trust the floor beneath your feet.