Brockton Bay

<infobox> <title source="name"><default>Brockton Bay</default></title>

<image source="image"><default>File:Placeholder location.png</default></image> <header>Basic Information</header> <image source="map"></image> <label>Type</label> <label>Location</label> <label>Teams</label> <label>Inhabitants</label> <header>First Appearance</header> <label>Worm Debut</label> <label>Ward Debut</label> </infobox> Brockton Bay is a fictional coastal city in which most of Worm takes place. It houses PRT Department ENE.

Geography

Brockton Bay is located in the northeast of the United States,<ref name="1.2e1"/> north of Boston.<ref name="II1.2">Daybreak 1.2</ref> The Atlantic Ocean borders it on the east,<ref name="1.2e1">Thanks to the surrounding geography and the ocean bordering us on the east, Brockton Bay had some of the mildest winters you could find in the Northeastern States, and some of the most comfortably warm summers. - Gestation 1.2</ref><ref name="3.4e1">I took the same general route I took on my morning runs, heading east, towards the Bay. This time, though, instead of turning up towards the Boardwalk, I headed south.
Back in its heyday, every inch of the city had been a bustling metropolis. Ships were coming and going at all hours, trains were coming through to deliver goods to be shipped overseas and the city teemed with people. The northern end of the bay – especially the area close to the water – was all about the industry. Ships, warehouses, factories, railroad and the homes for everyone who worked those jobs. You also had the ferry running across the bay itself. - Agitation 3.4</ref><ref>Bitch took turns and moved sorta aimlessly as she headed East, towards the water and the beaches. - Hive 5.10</ref> while mountains or hills border it on the other sides, especially to the west.<ref>We were on the West end of the Docks, judging by how far the water was, and how close we were to the mountains that surrounded the city. - Tangle 6.8</ref><ref name="8.2e1"/><ref>It was out of the way, placed atop Captain's Hill, at the base of the mountains to the west of the city. - Excerpt from Extermination 8.8</ref> The state it resides in is never mentioned.

Brockton Bay had a civilian population of around three hundred and fifty thousand as of the Battle against Leviathan,<ref>I was scared. A huge part of me wanted to just close my eyes and hope Leviathan didn't come, that I wouldn't have to deal with him. It would be nice to join the three hundred and fifty thousand other Brockton Bay residents that were trusting the heroes to handle things, find a peace of sorts in surrender and helplessness. - Excerpt from Extermination 8.4</ref> which declined significantly with the subsequent evacuation.<ref>The humans outnumbered parahumans by eight-thousand to one, give or take, in urban areas. Outside of the more densely populated areas, it dropped to a more manageable one to twenty-six-thousand ratio. But here in Brockton Bay, many had evacuated. Few places in the world, if any, sported the imbalanced proportion that Brockton Bay now featured. What was it now? One parahuman to every two thousand people? One parahuman to every five hundred people? - Excerpt from Interlude 13</ref> It was probably in the top 10 US cities in terms of total cape population.<ref name="1.3">Gestation 1.3</ref>

The city was founded over an underground lake or aquifer.<ref name="8.2e1">The television screen showed a cross section of Brockton Bay as seen from ground level. The West end of the city was bordered by hills, and the terrain sloped gradually from the base of the mountain down to the water. Directly below the image of the buildings that marked the city's location, there was a large cavern, bordered by rock on all sides except the part nearest the beach, which was sand. It was marked blue – filled with water.

"Brockton Bay, this location, is a soft target. The city was originally founded at this location because of the proximity to the coastline for trade routes and an aquifier that provided the first settlers with access to fresh water. This aquifier, essentially an underground lake beneath the city, is our weak point." - Excerpt from Extermination 8.2</ref>

Being a coastal city along with its surrounding geography, Brockton Bay has a fairly mild climate. The summers are comfortably warm and the winters are one of the mildest in the Northeastern States. This may be one reason people in costume congregated there.<ref>Gestation 1.2</ref><ref name="9.2c1">Comment by Wildbow</ref><ref name=R11V/>

There were blocks of shipping containers scattered throughout the city, a legacy of a brief period where they were used as cheap off-the-books housing before this was banned.<ref name="4.5">Shell 4.5</ref>

Resident Groups and Organizations

PRT/Protectorate

PRT Department #ENE: Brockton Bay
Director	Emily Piggot {{#switch: former	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Thomas Calvert {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • James Tagg {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }}
Staff	Renick (Deputy Director) • Jessica Yamada (Parahuman Psychologist)
The Protectorate
Leader	Armsmaster {{#switch: former	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Miss Militia
Members	Adamant • Assault • Battery {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Challenger • Clockblocker • Dauntless • Dovetail • Sere • Triumph • Velocity {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }}
The Wards
Team Captains	Battery • Triumph • Aegis {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Weld • Clockblocker • Crucible
Members	Browbeat {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Chariot • Flechette • Gallant {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Glory Girl {{#switch: former	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Kid Win • Shadow Stalker • Toggle • Vista

Non-Governmental Heroes

• New Wave

Villains

• Azn Bad Boys
• Coil's Organization
• Empire Eighty-Eight
  • Fenrir's Chosen
  • The Pure
• Faultline's Crew
• The Merchants
• The Undersiders
• Travelers
• Über & Leet
• Red Hand
• The Teeth
• Accord and his Ambassadors

Rogues

• Parian

Points of Interest

Main Areas

• Downtown
• Docks
• Boardwalk

Landmarks

• Captain's Hill
• Crater Lake
• Protectorate ENE Headquarters
• The Scar
• Brockton Bay Portal

Memorials

• Endbringer Fight Memorial (Captain's Hill)
• Regent's Memorial (Crater Lake)
• Time-distortion Memorial (Boardwalk)

Schools

• Arcadia High
• Immaculata High
• Winslow High
• Clarendon High<ref>Interlude 10</ref>

Other Locations

• Boat Graveyard
• Brockton Bay Central Bank
• Brockton Bay Central Library
• Forsberg Gallery
• Fugly Bob's
• Hillside Mall
• Lord Street Market
• Medhall Corporation
• Palanquin (Nightclub)
• PRT ENE Headquarters
• Ruby Dreams
• Somer's Rock
• The Towers
• Weymouth Shopping center (Described as being the closest mall to Taylor's house)<ref>What spooked me was that I'd been through the Weymouth shopping center more than a hundred times. It was the closest mall to my house. - Excerpt from Extermination 8.5</ref>

History

Origins

Brockton Bay had originally been a big trading post and port, back when America was being colonized.<ref name="6.2">Tangle 6.2</ref> Its location was chosen because of the aquifer (which provided fresh water) and proximity to the coast (which provided access to trade routes.)<ref name="8.2e1"/>

During its heyday, trains and ships were constantly coming to and from the city, carrying goods. The north end of the Bay was given over almost entirely to the shipping industry, and there was a regular ferry across the Bay.<ref name="3.4e1"/>

Villain Influx

When the import/export business in Brockton Bay had dried up, there had been a whole lot of people who were suddenly out of work. The richest and most resourceful people in town had managed to make more money, turning the city's resources towards tech and banking, but all of the people who had been employed on the ships and in the warehouses had few options left to them. They faced leaving Brockton Bay, sticking around while scraping up what little work they could or turning to more illicit activity.<ref name="R11V">You're confusing 'from Brockton Bay' with 'In Brockton Bay'.

Marquis was a villain for a while and did villainous stuff around the Northeastern US states. He then settled in a city that had a lot of opportunity and subpar law enforcement and continued to operate there and around there. Along the way, he hooked up with a groupie that had freckles, then they parted ways. A while before canon, said groupie finds out she has cancer, goes to Brockton Bay to find Marquis, and after verifying that he's not an utter monster and he has resources to take care of her kid, gives him custody. Panacea was not born in Brockton Bay.

Lung came from elsewhere by similar metrics - opportunity and lax law enforcement (at least to start) and stayed. Bakuda came from elsewhere.

Allfather? Same idea. Kaiser came from Allfather.

Taylor talks in an early chapter about the dynamics that led to Brockton Bay being attractive to capes - once capes were there, it became more attractive to both capes and shards. This fosters the cape-centric, higher power level environment that we see in Worm. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref>

This all contributed to a boom in the local supervillain population. The potential for big money coupled with the number of eager-to-please mooks and henchmen made it the city to be for the villains in the late 90s.<ref name="1.3"/>

During this period, there was a brief boom in storage lockers, which people would use as off-the-books housing. The closely-packed storage facilities attracted crime and disease. The local government cracked down on the practice, and the storage facilities were largely abandoned by homeless people in favour of the increasingly-empty warehouses and factories.<ref name="4.5"/>

The Slaughterhouse Nine under Jack Slash visited the area and would later decimate The Teeth.

It took a few years for the hero presence to establish and organize themselves, but they did, and there was something of an equilibrium following the establishment and organization of the hero presence.<ref name="1.3"/>

Early-Worm

Parahumans in Brockton Bay at the start of Worm
The Protectorate	Assault Armsmaster (team leader) Battery Dauntless Miss Militia Triumph (recently graduated) Velocity
The Wards	Aegis (team leader) Clockblocker Browbeat (considered independent by public) Gallant Kid Win Shadow Stalker Vista
New Wave	Flashbang Glory Girl Lady Photon (leader) Laserdream Manpower Panacea Shielder Brandish
Azn Bad Boys	Lung (leader) Oni Lee Bakuda (unknown to public)
Coil's Organization	Coil (leader) Chariot (unknown to public) Trainwreck (considered independent by public) Circus (considered independent by public)
Empire Eighty-Eight	Kaiser (leader) Fenja Menja Crusader Alabaster Hookwolf Stormtiger Cricket Krieg Victor Othala Rune
Faultline's Crew	Faultline (leader) Gregor the Snail Newter Labyrinth Spitfire
The Merchants	Skidmark (leader) Squealer Mush Whirlygig
The Undersiders	Regent Grue Tattletale Bitch
Independents	Uber & Leet<ref> Über and Leet, Circus, the Undersiders, Squealer, Trainwreck, Stain, others you've never heard of? They're going to stake out their ground, and one of two things is going to happen. Excerpt from Interlude 2</ref> Parian Purity (considered E88 by some of public) Taylor Hebert Perhaps eight others.<ref>Wildbow on Reddit</ref>

After Bakuda's scuffle with The Undersiders, she went on a bombing campaign, indiscriminately targeting several major locations across Brockton Bay. Initially, targets included a power transformer, a school, a bridge, train tracks, and other major services. At least 27 people were reported to have died in the attacks.<ref>Shell 4.11</ref>

Soon after, the bombs became coordinated against other gang and villain organization fronts. This led all the other villains of Brockton Bay to ally themselves against the ABB.

The ABB terror campaign climaxed when Bakuda attempted to hold the city for ransom with a threat of a 'superbomb', one authorities^[who?] feared to be equal to a nine megaton bomb. Through a concerted effort between the Protectorate and the Wards, both the ABB leader Lung and his lieutenant, Bakuda, were apprehended.<ref>Tangle 6.4</ref>

Leviathan's Attack

In May 15, 2011, Brockton Bay became the target of an attack by the Endbringer Leviathan. This event caused the loss of power and other services to significant parts of the city, the flooding of most of downtown and southern Brockton Bay and the formation of a sizable lake in the southern downtown area. It was speculated that a more successful attack on the part of Leviathan would have caused the collapse of large sections of the city into the aquifer it was built on.<ref name="8.2e1"/>

Fatalities
Escutcheon	Tyrone Venson
Erudite	Mavis Shoff
Fenja	Jessica Biermann
Fierceling
Frenetic
Furrow
Gallant	Dean Stansfield
Geomancer	Tim Mars
Good Neighbor	Roberto Peets
Hallow
Herald	Gordon Eckhart
Humble
Impel	Corey Steffons
Iron Falcon	Brent Woodrow
Jotun
Kaiser	Max Anders
Manpower	Neil Pelham
Mister Eminent
Oaf	Wesley Scheaffer
Pelter	Stefanie Lamana
Penitent
Quark	Caroline Ranson
Resolute	Georgia Woo
Saurian	Darlene Beckman
Sham
Shielder	Eric Pelham
Smackdown	Jennie Ryan
Snowflake	Charlotte Tom
Strider	Craig McNish
Uglymug
Velocity	Robin Swoyer
Vitiator
WCM
Zigzag	Bennie Debold and Geoff Schearn

The loss of Shielder and Manpower, and later Glory Girl and Panacea in the wake of these events largely ended the New Wave experiment.

Slaughterhouse Nine Attack

Capitalizing on the chaos wrought by Leviathan, the Slaughterhouse Nine chose to visit Brockton Bay once more in order to recruit a ninth member. There they suffered a massive defeat, losing all but three of their members.

Battle against Echidna

Released in the wake of Coil's death, Echidna rampaged through a section of the city. Under the advisement of local thinkers, the attack was raised to an S-class threat before any major damage was done, allowing her to be subdued fairly quickly.

Aftermath of the event included Alexandria's civilian identity and the Triumvirate's association with Cauldron to be revealed and the defection of the majority of Protectorate Case-53s to Weld's Irregulars, as well as the creation of a portal to Earth Gimel.

At the time of Taylor's surrender and defection to the Protectorate, there were more than ten visiting heroes present in Brockton Bay.<ref>"Twelve minutes," Defiant said. "This isn't the time to be hard-nosed. You don't want this fight any more than we do. If this happens, your team will be at a very real risk of death or arrest. Three of the A.I. models, Dragon's, mine, the Brockton Bay heroes and no less than ten visiting heroes." - Excerpt from Cell 22.6</ref>

Portal

Following Tattletale, Labyrinth, and Scrub's creation of a portal to Earth Gimel, Brockton Bay became much more important, attracting both unpowered humans motivated by greed and capes going after the rich pickings created by this influx of wealth.

This portal was used as an evacuation point for most of the East Coast following Scion's attack.

Urban area on the Gimel side of portal is known as New Brockton, and became one of origin settlements for The City.

Trivia

• Many of the features of Brockton Bay were based on Vancouver.<ref name="4.5c1">East coast guy. A lot of the little details about Brockton Bay were pulled together from Vancouver. - Comment by Wildbow on Shell 4.5</ref> Such as the Thugs hired by the market people to protect their stalls.^{[citation needed]}
• While its surrounding state is never mentioned, being north of Boston and on the coast (and assuming geography and state/national boundaries to be the same as our own Earth) would place it in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, or Maine. If city sizes are also similar, Brockton Bay's population of 350,000 would make it the largest city in New Hampshire or Maine by a significant margin, but it is never presented as or implied to be such. Presumably, then, it's squeezed into Massachusetts in the roughly 25 miles of coast between Boston and the northern state border, where it would still be the second-largest city in the state. This is all speculative, of course; state or even national borders may be somewhat different in Earth Bet, or more people may live in major cities, making Brockton Bay less notable in comparison.
• With an average urban population ratio of one cape per eight thousand people, and Brockton Bay being possibly in the top-10 of cape populations in America, and the tenth-most populous city in America having roughly one million people, Brockton Bay can be estimated to have a cape population of approximately 120. Perhaps half that number are mentioned in-story, not counting capes who arrive from other locations and later-chapter triggers.

Alternative maps

• [1]
• [2]

Fanart Gallery

• Error creating thumbnail: File missing
  Image by Seraphaestus on Reddit.
• Error creating thumbnail: File missing
  Boardwalk Postcard by Lonsheep

References

<references/>

Site Navigation

PRT Department #ENE: Brockton Bay
Director	Emily Piggot {{#switch: former	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Thomas Calvert {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • James Tagg {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }}
Staff	Renick (Deputy Director) • Jessica Yamada (Parahuman Psychologist)
The Protectorate
Leader	Armsmaster {{#switch: former	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Miss Militia
Members	Adamant • Assault • Battery {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Challenger • Clockblocker • Dauntless • Dovetail • Sere • Triumph • Velocity {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }}
The Wards
Team Captains	Battery • Triumph • Aegis {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Weld • Clockblocker • Crucible
Members	Browbeat {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Chariot • Flechette • Gallant {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Glory Girl {{#switch: former	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Kid Win • Shadow Stalker • Toggle • Vista