Chicago was once the largest city in the former U.S. State of Illinois. Prior to the outbreak of civil war, it was the one of largest cities in the United States.
Mentions and Events[]
In "Birth Day", Offred mentions in her inner monologue that "Guardians of the Faithful and American soldiers still fight with tanks in the remains of Chicago", confirming that a war is still ongoing at that point in the series.
In Season 3, the fighting in Chicago has intensified. Gilead has recently ramped-up the deployment of Guardians and ground-level Commanders to the front lines, training many of them at Fort Stevens before transporting them via rail to the city[citation needed]. In "Useful", several Commanders meet and discuss plans for expanding the Fort Stevens training facility to support their troop surge to Chicago.
They also discuss plans for conducting mass executions of prisoners (particularly Unwomen) captured in Chicago, as well as a sustained bombing campaign in the city. Commander Joseph Lawrence advises against the proposal and appears to have arranged for many of the women to be sent to the Colonies in lieu of execution.
Lawrence also advises against saturation bombing due to the "resources" that could be mined from the city, namely fertile women and children ("Women can be useful")[1].
In Season 4, it is mentioned that Gilead is once on the verge of finally taking Chicago, but the city appears to have not been annexed and its spirit remains intact for now. After losing Brianna, Alma, and two others when they escape Aunt Lydia one more time, June and Janine find a train going west, to the Chicago war zone, carrying soldiers and supplies for the Guardians that still fight on that side of the country. They hide in refrigerator wagon full of cold milk during the night, and when the train crashes in the morning, they are found by American rebels in the conflict zone.
The city, being one of the ground zeros of the war, is very much destroyed and burned to the ground. The buildings are full of bullet holes, many skyscrapers are reduced to dust, and war aircrafts can be heard flying through the sky, most probably being from the Gilead side. The two women are taken to a hidden rebel base where many amateur soldiers train and fight. It is revealed that Chicago was prepared for about a year in case the fighting reached the city allowing the city to be used as a exodus of people out of the United States by train, boat and plane. It is also revealed that regular retail lasted during the same period when the East Coast collapsed. Likely some normalcy existed as well while it prepared for potential fighting.
In “Vows”, when the CERA team is preparing to leave for Canada, it is shown that Chicago is home to a large number of civilians (or non-rebels) who were stranded in the conflict zone once the civil war began. Lacking food and resources, many of these people attempted to break the barricade separating them from the aid center, with the hope of boarding the boat and fleeing to Canada for safety.
In a flashback shortly after the takeover in Fairytale, Naomi Putnam asks Serena about the situation of "rebels in Chicago", signifying that Chicago was always a point of conflict since the beginning of the war.