Battle of San Francisco

### Result

Sacramentan victory* One thousand POWs impaled along I-280 under order of Servanus
* Central San Francisco leveled to the ground
* Capitulation of all Silicon Valley forces fighting outside San Francisco and San Jose on the 1st of March
* End of the Sacramentan Invasion of the Bay Area; annexation of the Bay Area and Silicon Valley and the end of the eponymous Republic

Belligerents|  Sacramentan Empire*Foederati:** Bragg Skullcrackers
* Napa tribes

The **Battle of San Francisco** was a battle between the Sacramentan Empire and its *foederati* allies of the Bragg Skullcrackers and the Napa tribes versus the Republic of the Bay and Silicon Valley, its tribal allies, and its hired mercenary forces as a part of the larger Sacramentan Invasion of the Bay Area. To date, it is the largest post-Impact battle in the history of California, with a combined army of approximately 64,000 Sacramentans and *foederati* having fought a defending San Franciscan force of 73,000 for a total involvement of nearly 137,000 troops. Predicated from the Sacramentan victories in seizing San Joaquin from the previous battle of the same name in addition to the encirclement and siege of Stockton in the Battle of Stockton, the Battle for San Francisco commenced when the *Consul of the Exterior* Citro Hull Servanus utilized his advantage against routed Bay troops by pressing them against the Diablo Range. This was followed by the Sacramantans wresting Mount Diablo away from Bay control, sending their forces on a full retreat into the ruins of the San Francisco metropolis, specifically the Richmond-Fremont urban corridor.

## Background

### Post-Impact San Francisco

San Francisco was one of the largest cities in the Americas to be destroyed following the collision of the Anthropocene Impactor with Earth in 2023. The arrival of nearly two hundred foot waves destroyed much of western San Francisco that laid below the wave size, and the previous airburst and seismic shocks from the impactor wrought compounding destruction on the city's infrastructure. With the collapse of general society following the Nicholls Event in 2021, San Francisco was woefully unprepared. It would not recover for decades, as the hundreds of thousands who still lived within the city either fled or died from injuries, starvation, disease, and other factors.

However, the city was gradually reclaimed by humanity in the 2050s with the rise of the Silicon Valley as a unified political entity. Under the hand of a technocratic democracy, the city's ruins were scavenged, restored, or left to be inhabited by drifters and citizens alike as the city gradually fell under Silicon Valley's rule. In 2070, the city was officially inducted into the country, thus changing the country's official name to the Republic of the Bay and Silicon Valley in honor of the San Francisco Bay. It became a trade powerhouse along the western coast of North America, with maritime connections to Vancouver, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Tijuana, in addition to connections with the nearby emerging Sacramento under the Sacramentan Empire.

### Relations between the Bay and Sacramento

The Bay's resurgent civilization was first spotted by *speculatores* belonging to Sacramento in the 2060s - however, the presence of Silicon Valley in the area in addition to its distance from Sacramento and the cost to reclaim such a city led to a loss of support for a campaign to annex the territory under the Sacramentan Empire. While Sacramento campaigned onward to bring to heel all tribes and gangs across California's Central Valley, it initiated sophisticated trade networks with the Silicon Valley that prospered when San Francisco officially became a part of the latter in 2070.

However, the relationship between the Silicon Valley and Sacramento often fluctuated between warm and cold, with the advent of 2160 bringing a definitive chill in local geopolitics. For years, Sacramento faced heavy price hikes in technological products imported from Silicon Valley, and in return retaliated with marking up foodstuff prices exported to the Bay Area. In February of that year, the daughter of patrician and senator John Firminus, Lucia Firminus, was found dead and defiled within an affluent hotel in the city limits of San Francisco by an *occulta speculator* looking into Silicon Valley's coverups. The Sacramentan Senate formally convened to send the Bay and Silicon Valley an ultimatum to hand over all suspects related to the homicide to Sacramento; when they denied due to seeing it as a gross violation of their sovereignty due to not being *foederati*, the Senate convened once more and voted for "forceful repercussions". Under senatorial orders, *Consul of the Exterior* Citro Hull Servanus began preparations for an invasion of the Bay while *Consul of the Interior* Cappadox Payne enforced an embargo on all trade heading towards the Bay.

The formal invasion of the country began on October 3rd, 2160, when Servanus's six legions and numerous auxiliary forces crossed the Sacramentan-Silicon Valley border at Old River, east of Knightsen, and started the Sacramentan Invasion of the Bay Area.

## History

### January 2nd: The battle begins

Following the dual victories at the battles of Antioch and the Vasco Caves, Exterior Consul Servanus ordered his legions to converge around Mount Diablo as a means to push into the Diablo Foothills region and uproot Silicon Valley troops stationed in the area. Seeing a situation in which his troops would be cut off at the north and south by Sacramentan troops and to the east and west by rough terrain, General William Rickley of Silicon Valley ordered a hasty retreat to the peaks of the Oakland Hills. However, Servanus's legions capitalized on this retreat by storming the foothills and chasing Rickley's troops over the hills and into Oakland proper.

### January 3rd — January 17th: The fight for the East Bay

On January 3rd, Servanus ordered his six legions to prepare to assault the rest of East Bay spanning from the cities of Richmond to Fremont in preparation for a breakthrough into San Francisco and San Jose. Meanwhile, he ordered *Magister militum* Michael Lorenzi to prepare for a combination of auxiliary and *foederati* troops under the banners of the Napa tribes and the Bragg Skullcrackers to assault the North Bay, with specific orders to wrest control over San Rafael and Mill Valley before marching on Fort Golden - a fortification built on the hills overlooking the northern portions of the Golden Gate Bridge. Communicating with *Magister militum* of the navy, Lycus Nivatacus Commius, Servanus planned to assault the San Francisco area with a three pronged assault: an amphibious assault from the westerly sea onto the remains of the old Sunset District of San Francisco, a northern assault through the Golden Gate Bridge to link with marine forces and to control the mouth of the Bay, and an eastern assault from the Oakland Hills through Fremont to cut off San Jose and the Silicon Valley from San Francisco proper. The first two phases would happen concurrently, but not until the land-based legions took control of the East Bay.

The legions were able to create a series of impromptu fortifications atop the Oakland Hills by the fifth of January after sustaining harassing attacks by Silicon Valley militias. Servanus gave the order for the most northerly camped legion, Legio III *Lincoln* under the command of Legate Stephanium Glaucia, to descend and lay siege to Richmond and begin the storming of the Richmond-Fremont urban corridor. Under Legate Glaucia, *Lincoln* assaulted down through the remains of Hasford Heights and into central Richmond, staving off attacks from militias and mercenaries as his legion marched towards the sea. However, a significant redoubt of Silicon Valley troops under Captain Ashley Longford was present in the fortifications of what was once Richmond High School, which stalled Glaucia's westward offensive for a time. However, with the bridges leading to San Francisco proper blown apart and with logistics cut off from the rest of the East Bay due to southerly legion advances, *Lincoln* was eventually able to reach the shores of San Francisco Bay by January 10th. Glaucia was ordered after this point to maintain his legion's position as the five other legions marched their way south, allowing troops to sack and pillage Richmond in the process. Captain Longford was publicly hanged on a flagpole outside of the school's entrance after refusing a surrender offer given on the 7th, and her soldiers enslaved.

## Humanitarian impacts

Over 500,000 people were enslaved, displaced, or killed as a result of the Battle of San Francisco, with the bulk of such being noncombatants. On the orders of Servanus, ten thousand prisoners of war were selected and impaled following cessation of hostilities, with their bodies being displayed along I-280 that runs from the bowels of San Francisco to the center of San Jose.