The Stockyard
The Stockyard was the engine of the Ironworks' slave economy, the largest slave pen and auction in the post-fall world. Located in Rail City, it processed thousands of lives through its pens every day during the Ironworks era, the bang of a gavel determining futures from dawn to dark.
The facility was a massive fortified compound. Electrified metal fences contained the enormous and inherently strong slave population. Watchtowers thronged with rifle-bearing guards overlooked every angle. The security was calibrated to the threat: Iron Slaves were physically powerful, and containing that many of them in one place required constant vigilance and overwhelming force.
The standing orders were precise in their brutality. One bullet wound in a slave meant patching up and returning to the pens. Two wounds and still alive meant torture to death for the edification of the other slaves, a public spectacle designed to crush any thought of resistance. Five wounds and still alive meant transfer to the Abbey of the First Fission, which was considered possibly worse than death.
The Coach managed the entire operation from Rail City, deciding which projects warranted additional Iron manpower, dispatching breeding stock where needed, and processing the bids that contractors and manufacturers placed for use of the Ironworks' fleet of enslaved laborers. The Stockyard was not merely a marketplace. It was the beating heart of the system, the place where the empire's dependence on forced labor was most naked and most efficient. Nothing but the sounds of chains clinking and muffled breathing filled the pens between auctions, and the silence was its own kind of violence.
The facility was a massive fortified compound. Electrified metal fences contained the enormous and inherently strong slave population. Watchtowers thronged with rifle-bearing guards overlooked every angle. The security was calibrated to the threat: Iron Slaves were physically powerful, and containing that many of them in one place required constant vigilance and overwhelming force.
The standing orders were precise in their brutality. One bullet wound in a slave meant patching up and returning to the pens. Two wounds and still alive meant torture to death for the edification of the other slaves, a public spectacle designed to crush any thought of resistance. Five wounds and still alive meant transfer to the Abbey of the First Fission, which was considered possibly worse than death.
The Coach managed the entire operation from Rail City, deciding which projects warranted additional Iron manpower, dispatching breeding stock where needed, and processing the bids that contractors and manufacturers placed for use of the Ironworks' fleet of enslaved laborers. The Stockyard was not merely a marketplace. It was the beating heart of the system, the place where the empire's dependence on forced labor was most naked and most efficient. Nothing but the sounds of chains clinking and muffled breathing filled the pens between auctions, and the silence was its own kind of violence.
