Baltimore War Factory

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>  | *I used to welcome death. But now...I've never been more scared of it. I've seen the mouth of hell. Its iron jaws. Its fiery vats. The furnace...oh god the furnace.... the screaming of damned as they burned...the cries for mercy...unanswered.... I am convinced that place is the entrance to hell itself.*
> And I am never, NEVER going back.
>  **- Testimony of escaped prisoner** | ”
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## Baltimore War Factory

The Factory's smog clouds most of the surrounding woodlands and blots out most natural sunlight

The Factory's many prisoner workers live in squalid conditions, and are given nothing in terms of protection. Those who cannot work are tossed into the furnaces.

### Inhabitants

True Sons

**The War Factory**, located in Baltimore, Maryland, sits in the heart of the New England Republic's industrial center. However, over months and months of expansion, the War Factory has grown to an astonishing 100 square miles, encompassing all of the city of Baltimore.

It is the primary source for the True Sons war machine, creating their weapons, armor, and vehicles in record time. The expansive facility also houses The Surgeon's interrogation quarters, a barracks for its hundreds of prisoner workers, and General Skyler Brook's office.

The former foreman of the plant was Captain Lucas Koestler, but after falling out of favor with General Brooks, he was killed and replaced by Colonel Erin Ralia. Ralia, not wanting to get her hands dirty as Koestler did, soon went about establishing a death squad to keep the workers in line known as Thanatos Squad, led by her head executioner Major Germaine Rakis, a former friend of Koestler. Since taking over, Ralia has since not only met Koestler's record quotas, but she's also doubled them.

## History

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>  | *Therefore hell hath enlarged herself and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiced, shall descend into it. -Isaiah 5:14*
>  **- Inscription on the front archway of the Factory** | ”
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The Baltimore War Factory was originally a steel mill run by Koestler Industries, the largest steel company in Baltimore, Maryland. The mill provided jobs to at least a third of the city's population and brought in countless thousands of jobs. But after CFO Dana Koestler's son, Lucas Koestler was arrested for nearly beating a girl to death, Dana, ever the overprotective mother, threatened to pull the company from the city. Knowing this would lead to financial ruin, the city bowed to her demands.

Lucas would go on to take over his father's role at head foreman at the mill, where he ruled the workers with a steel grip. Often abusing his workers for his own sadistic pleasure, Lucas was hated by the employees, but was seemingly untouchable with his mother at the helm.

That changed when the Dollar Flu hit Baltimore. The virus wiped out most of the upper executives, including Lucas's father, while the rest scattered to wealthy private bunkers in the countryside. Unwilling to give up control, Lucas locked down the mill and insisted the workers continue their production of steel. A six-man group of workers attempted to rebel against their tyrannical foreman, but Koestler bested them and tossed them into a vat of molten steel as punishment.

When Skyler Brooks and the True Sons￼ arrived at the plant, Brooks was impressed with the mill's efficacy, and turned it into both her headquarters and the primary factory for developing armor, vehicles, and weapons for the True Sons. The Factory is now mainly manned by prisoner workers convicted of crimes against the True Sons.

## The Factory Sector

Pipelines of fuel leading to the factory's furnaces

The War Factory is divided into five major sectors. The largest of the five is known as The Factory, and as its name suggests, contains the War Factory's expansive interior. Despite its origins as a steel mill, the True Sons have created a pipeline of supplies to use the furnaces, forges, and conveyor belts to craft everything from planes to tanks, to rifles, armor, and everything a True Son might need on the battlefield.

The Factory can field upwards of half a million workers at any given time, and owing to unsafe working conditions and forced labor, fields more output of resources and firepower than any pre-virus military factory.

## The Tower

Brooks' Tower. It is rumored to reach nearly thirty stories, and is the tallest point in Baltimore

A Memorandum of Misery. A handcrafted bronze sculpture requested by Brooks. As to what it means, your guess is as good of mine.

The Tower sector is the second largest sector within the Factory and lies dead center within the city of Baltimore. The Tower is comprised of two primary sectors, the towering concrete structure that serves as Skyler Brooks' office, and a large bronze sculpture in a plaza leading up the tower.

The sculpture, known as *A Memorandum of Misery*, is a strange creation. Forged from bronze, and rises a couple stories tall, it depicts a chained figure with something in his hand in a somewhat bowing posture, facing the Tower. Nothing on its creator or purpose for being designed is known, other than it was a personal request by General Brooks.

The words inscribed at the base are:

*"When misery is law, pain is meaningless. When grief is prevalent, death is a mercy. I cast my flesh into the fire, my bones to the waves, and my humanity into the deepest well. Cast forever into the earth. Then, as my wailing is lost to the wind, and my tears are washed away by the rain, misery is all that remains."*

Again, the meaning of the phrase is unknown. It is possible it alludes to Brooks' grief and misery over the loss of her only son, but no is brave or stupid enough to ask her.

## The Wall

Searchlights scanning the barracks while the wall stands firm

Coming soon...

## The Barracks

One of the 'Barracks' within the War Factory

The smallest of the five sectors, the Barracks houses the majority of the prisoner workers at the Factory. The name is somewhat misleading, as the word 'barrack' implies it's actually somewhat livable. That is technically true that the barracks are livable, in the same way that the NER is 'technically' a free country, and the workers are 'technically' not slaves.

In reality, the Barracks are a miserable place to live. Hundreds upon hundreds of workers are shoved in dire conditions, without running water, heating, or even electricity, as the grid is specifically routed to go around them.

Workers constantly perish from disease, cold, or petty squabbles over meager rations. Those who die are tossed by the guards into incinerators. Those unlucky few who survive each night are herded by the guards at sunrise into the Factory sector, where they work until well past sundown. Each worker gets on average 1-2 hours of sleep every day, and just enough rations to stay alive.

## The Trench

Interior of the Trench

The Trench is a large sector on the outskirts of the War Factory. True to its name, it is a massive trench dug beneath the surface, where the True Sons dispose of bodies, mainly of executed workers or those caught sneaking into the plant.

Almost nothing is known about the interior of the Trench, as anyone who is thrown down there is already dead. Or soon will be.

To be continued...