Hacienda Polanco was the home of the Rattlers. It was here where they kept and controlled a group of slave laborers in Santa Barbara.[1]
History[]
Before the outbreak, Hacienda Polanco was a sprawling, luxurious seaside resort. At some point after Outbreak Day it was taken over by the Rattlers and converted into a slave camp for the group. Over the years, they captured many infected and humans alike, with the former chained up and used as guard dogs while the latter (dubbed "strays" before their initial capture) are forced into slavery.[2] Those who resist too often are sent to "the pillars", wooden beams set out on the beach where they are strung up and left to die from exposure to the elements.[1]
The Rattlers housed the prisoners in a ground-floor cell in the resort complex, held behind bars and taken out to work on the farms all day, and beaten if they stepped out of line or refused to work.[2] It was possible to escape the complex; those who do escape are dubbed "runaways" that the Rattlers chase to recapture. They purposely harm slaves in a way that wounds them but does not kill them, evidenced by one Rattler stopping another from beating Abby to death with a baseball bat and a patrol leader instructing her squad to shoot runaways in their legs to keep them from running.
Given the fate that awaits those captured, some runaways steal guns to commit suicide. In fact, numerous notes can be found in the area written by residents who either escaped or killed themselves to avoid being captured and enslaved in the base.[1]
Events of The Last of Us Part II[]
After Abby Anderson and Lev contacted the Fireflies on Catalina Island by radio, they were ambushed and taken prisoner by a group of Rattlers as they attempted to leave the abandoned Firefly base at 2425 Constance.
A couple of months later, Ellie (searching for Abby) is caught in one of the group's traps. She is found by two Rattlers--the same men who captured Abby and Lev--hours later, who cut her down and plan to take her back to their camp. However, she takes advantage of one Rattler's attempt to scare her with a captured clicker hanging nearby, instead grabbing him and pulling him toward it, helping the clicker bite him to death and then taking his gun and shooting the other Rattler in the legs. She then interrogates him for information regarding Abby's location before executing him.
After following a stretch of railroad tracks, she eventually reaches the Rattlers' base, recognizable by a large round building with a domed roof. Sneaking her way in and then fighting through the Rattlers inside, she reaches the cells where the enslaved people are kept. In a brutal fight, she manages to defeat the Rattler guarding the cells and (despite one prisoner wanting to kill her) learns that Abby and Lev attempted to escape and have been taken to the pillars on the beach. The prisoners, finally free, steal several guns from a nearby gun locker and then launch an assault on the Rattlers, setting at least one of the complex's buildings ablaze and killing many of them outright in revenge.[1]
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