North Bay
Pre-Collapse Identity
San Rafael was Marin County'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 San Francisco thirty minutes to the south. Novato was suburban, quiet, and home to the decommissioned Hamilton Air Force Base. Southern Marin 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 Marin County — the last sector of recognizable civilization before the drone patrols begin. San Rafael serves as the gateway community, the final transit point for anyone crossing the dam from San Francisco or heading north into territory where corporate administration thins to nothing. The sector lives in the shadow of what lies to the south: the Marin Restricted Zone, 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 San Francisco, 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 San Rafael 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
San Rafael Gateway (last major settlement before the Restricted Zone), the Dam Transit Corridor (crossing connecting North Bay to San Francisco), Hamilton AFB ruins (former military base — partially repurposed, partially decaying).
Sensory Detail
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.
Daily Life
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.