Hammer Valley Hydro
 | |
| General | |
|---|---|
| Company | Hammer Valley Hydro |
| Status |
Defunct Subsidary of Walter Corporation |
| Industry | Hydroelectricity |
| Key People |
Alex Hartman Founder |
Hammer Valley Hydro was a hydroelectric power company managed by Alex Hartman, later acquired and subsequently bankrupted by the Walter Corporation.
History[edit | edit source]
Hammer Valley Hydro was the company responsible for Stalburg's clean energy production. This service included maintenance of its hydroelectric dams: the Hammer Valley Dam, and later, the Two Gorges Dam.
After the construction of Two Gorges Dam, however, the company began facing financial issues from the expenses posed by the project. This was compounded when Stalburg Steel, one of Hammer Valley Hydro's major clients, went bankrupt, which shrunk the firm's revenue stream to almost nothing. With no other alternatives, Hartman was forced to sell the company. Initially, he intended to sell it to someone who may have been able to save the company, but they backed out at the last minute for unknown reasons. As a result, Hartman was forced to sell the company to the only other buyer, the Walter Corporation.
Hartman was hesitant to do so sell to Walter, aware that his two most prominent previous acquisitions, Stalburg Steel and the Bergmann Group, had gone bankrupt not long after being bought out. The chain of events that followed led to incredibly unsafe living conditions and, supposedly, the death of Hartman's wife and only child. Following this tragedy, Hartman became incredibly unstable and paranoid, ordering the control room at Hammer Valley Dam to be remotely locked and directing security to inspect workers' lunchboxes. Six months after being bought out by Walter Corporation, on June 14th, 1982, Hammer Valley Hydro filed for bankruptcy. This resulted in increased unemployment and raised concerns among city officials over the future of the city's energy production. Hartman developed a deep hatred for Jeff Walter, holding him personally responsible for everything that had happened.
Unbeknownst to Hartman, however, the Walter Corporation was secretly under the management of S.N.W., who had intentionally mismanaged the company and used it to buy out and bankrupt the major players in the city's industrial and infrastructure sectors in order to protect its interests. Hammer Valley Hydro was purchased in order to break its connections to the Bergmann Group, while that firm was purchased due to its dominant involvement in the city's subterranean infrastructure, which put the existence of the S.N.W. bunker underneath the Walter Tower at risk of being exposed to the public. S.N.W. would take advantage of Walter's ownership of Hammer Valley Hydro to install a secret uplink to provide power to the bunker while it was still operational, but this would fall into disrepair along with the rest of the dam after closure of the bunker. Over time, the dam would flood as a result of neglect, and a major crack would form in its downstream face.
After the firm's bankruptcy and the abandonment of the Hammer Valley Dam, Hartman would occasionally be seen entering the facility by employees at the nearby sawmill. He used his old offices there as a temporary base of operations while he gathered information that he believed pointed to Jeff Walter's complicity in recent events but later relocated to a small office in Stalburg's sewer system, thus leaving the dam completely abandoned.
INFRA[edit | edit source]
During the events of INFRA, Mark surveys the dam and partially restores power to several sections of it in order to progress. He can optionally re-connect the dam to the city grid, which will allow him to access the main hall of the S.N.W. bunker in Chapter 7.
Personnel[edit | edit source]
- Alex Hartman - CEO
- Katelyn - Secretary
- Emil - Employee
- Simon - Employee
Gallery[edit | edit source]
Aged poster advertising Hammer Valley Hydro.
Alternative unused variant of a poster.
Colorless logo.
Flooded generator within the dam.
Trivia[edit | edit source]
- To what extent the effect of Hammer Valley Hydro's bankruptcy actually on the sequence of events that led to the death of many, including Hartman's wife and only child, is unknown. It's possible that, when speaking of their death, Hartman is referring to the metro accident.