North Bay
The air is cleaner here than almost anywhere in the Sprawl — Pacific moisture, coastal vegetation, and distance from industrial operations combine to produce something that almost smells like the pre-Cascade world. The dominant sound is wind through coastal scrub and the distant mechanical hum of the dam's turbines. At night, the southern sky is dark where the Restricted Zone begins — no lights, no activity, just the occasional blink of a drone's navigation beacon. The silence from that direction is the loudest thing in the sector.
You live in a quiet town at the edge of a quiet zone, and you've learned not to ask why it's quiet or what lives in the silence to the south.
Pre-Collapse Identity
The Gateway was the Perimeter's seat of government — a small downtown with a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed civic center, boutique shops, and residents who considered themselves culturally distinct from the western Rim thirty minutes to the south. Novato was suburban, quiet, and home to the decommissioned Hamilton Air Force Base. Southern the Perimeter was where wealth met wilderness — mountain biking, organic grocery stores, and the particular brand of environmental consciousness that comes with a median home price above two million dollars.
Current Character
The non-restricted portion of the Perimeter — the last sector of recognizable civilization before the drone patrols begin. The Gateway serves as the gateway community, the final transit point for anyone crossing the dam from the western Rim or heading north into territory where corporate administration thins to nothing. The sector lives in the shadow of what lies to the south: The Perimeter, whose drone patrols are visible on clear days, whose silence is audible on quiet nights, and whose existence the residents of the North Bay have learned to treat as normal the way people near volcanoes learn to treat tremors as normal. Transit across the dam connects to the western Rim, making the sector technically accessible, but the Rothwell influence in local property markets ensures that accessibility is theoretical for most.
Terrain & Atmosphere
Coastal hills and valley floors — greener than the East Bay, damper than the peninsula, and more sparsely settled than anything inside Ring 3. Pre-Cascade suburban development persists in the Gateway and Novato, though the edges have been reclaimed by coastal scrub and chaparral. The terrain rises to the south toward the Restricted Zone, and the transition is visible — maintained roads giving way to overgrown trails, surveillance cameras appearing on poles where street lights used to be, and warning signs in seven languages marking the boundary beyond which the drones have authority.
Corporate Presence
No corporation dominates, though Rothwell influence permeates the property markets — real estate here is expensive, exclusive, and quietly controlled by Foundation-aligned interests. Multiple small operations exist in the commercial districts. The real power dynamic is geographic: the dam transit corridor connects the North Bay to the Sprawl's core, and whoever controls dam access controls the sector's lifeline.
Key Locations
The Gateway Gateway (last major settlement before the Restricted Zone), the Dam Transit Corridor (crossing connecting North Bay to the western Rim), Hamilton AFB ruins (former military base — partially repurposed, partially decaying).
Sub-Sectors
Eight grid squares of suburban quiet and coastal wind, living in the drone-shadow of the Restricted Zone to the south.
The Gateway
192.7 km²
The last real city before the Restricted Zone — a downtown of pre-Cascade civic buildings, a Frank Lloyd Wright civic center that still stands because even the Cascade respected good architecture, and a population that defines itself by proximity to two things: the dam crossing to the west and the drone perimeter to the south. Transit through the Gateway is the only reliable land route between the North Bay and the Sprawl's core, which makes the city a chokepoint disguised as a community. Rothwell-aligned property interests control the real estate quietly enough that most residents don't notice the pattern. The Tarmac — the old airfield east of town — serves as a smuggler's landing strip and informal trade corridor, its cracked runway long enough for light aircraft that don't file flight plans. The Curve, a distinctive arc-shaped building on the civic center's eastern edge, has become the Gateway's most recognizable landmark, its sweeping facade visible from the highway approach. The southern neighborhoods look toward hills where surveillance cameras replaced street lights, and the children grow up knowing which direction not to hike.
Landmarks
- The Gateway — Last real city before the Restricted Zone.
- The Tarmac — Former military airfield. Smuggler's route.
- The Curve — Distinctive arc-shaped civic building.
Factions
The Eucalyptus Streets
32.9 km²
Northern suburban sprawl, quiet streets ending in coastal scrub and the smell of eucalyptus.
The Ranch Flats
42.9 km²
Valley floor between the coastal hills, agricultural smallholdings and former horse ranches gone feral.
The Cypress Cliffs
113.9 km²
Western coastal terrain, cliffs and wind-bent cypress above cold Pacific water.
The Old Airfield
132.4 km²
Former military base ruins — hangars, runways, and officer housing in various states of repurposing and decay.
The Fire Roads
107.2 km²
Eastern hillside, dry grass and fire roads leading nowhere anyone goes voluntarily.
The Drone Shadow
84.9 km²
Southern buffer — the last inhabited grid squares before the warning signs begin, drone shadows visible on clear days.
The Queue
115.1 km²
Dam approach corridor, where transit infrastructure funnels toward the crossing and checkpoint queues form at dawn.