Gears of War/Headscratchers

• Okay, is Sera a colony world of Earth, or are its inhabitants Human Aliens? The games never actually address this, and I've rarely heard a reliable-sounding citation of Word of God on the issue either.
  • It has been left deliberately vague.
    • The most commonly heard theory, and generally the most widely accepted, is that Sera is just an Alternate Universe Earth.
    • Another theory is that when you reverse the name Sera, you get Ares. Ares was renamed Mars by the Romans. Sera is fast becoming a desert world. Sera is Mars, We are The Human Aliens.
    • This troper hears this question a lot. It seems like everyone is expecting the Gears of War universe to tie in with Earth somewhere. But...does it have to be? Why can't it just be a regular ol' planet in a regular ol', non Earth related universe the creators just made up to tell their story? This troper figured that Earth and our universe was entirely nonexistent in Gears of War; that it's just its own standalone universe. I guess the 'This planet is REALLY A LONG LOST COLONY WORLD OF EARTH' reveal has been used so much in fiction, that everyone is just sorta standing around for it.
      • Well, the idea of a planet that's similar to but distinct from Earth is rather uncommon in sci-fi. It's more common in High Fantasy, but hardly ever used for sci-fi, almost every sci-fi work ties to the real Earth in some way.
    • OP here: In my case, I was figuring it was its own universe, or at least own corner of the universe. The only reason I considered the option of it being a colony world was a bogus citation of Word of God.
  • In the vein of this, if it is "just" a colony world, why do they keep fighting the Locusts year after year? It used to be a pretty nice planet, but after years of war, not so much.
  • No, it's not that everyone's expecting the "long lost colony of earth" reveal, it's that if it isn't a colony it raises a lot of plotholes. If humanity fully evolved on Sera instead of being recent colonists, how did they know nothing about the Locust? How believable would it be if tomorrow we discovered that there's a widespread sentient race under Earth's surface and for all of the hundreds of years that we've been mining and cave exploring we just never found any evidence of them until now? It would make sense if humanity created the Locust, which Gears of War 2 seemed to suggest, but this question was never answered in any of the games.

• Just how long was Tai in captivity for? Since unless "game time" was running fast, the locust broke him in what seemed to be 2 hours, tops. This troper suspects The Worf Effect.
  • I'd say it's pretty tough to say. Tai DID walk out of a crash vehicle while acting as if he barely noticed it, but he could of just gotten lucky of where he landed, or maybe he intended such a simple escape. He is a military veteran. But since the torture appeared to be pointless, we don't really know how they tortured him (aside from the big cuts), what they planned for him (or, if they made clear what they planned for him to him), that cell they put him it is very claustrophobic, and he have no idea he'd escape. Or maybe he saw the conditions of the prison camps and the prisoners, which could of brought him over the edge. If you're wondering about Baird, he probably wasn't imprisoned very long. Plus, with his Jerkass-ness, he's probably pretty close to being as emotionally down as it goes.
  • Tai couldn't have been in there very long, which I think goes to show just how nasty Locust torture really is.
    • Yeah, it kinda does sound like The Worf Effect.
  • This troper speculates that it wasn't what they did to Tai that made him crack, but what they did to Dizzy and made Tai watch.
    • My thoughts exactly. Seeing Dizzy survive something so brutal with nothing more than mild annoyance made Tai kill himself because he knew he'd never see anything that awesome again, and felt that his life was complete.
      • Dizzy never gets captured. In the Gears of War comic, Tai fights off Skorge long enough for Dizzy to escape.

• This troper is bothered by the bizarre 'breeding farm' theories circulating about Seran women. It is true that within the Gears universe (specifically the comic), there is both misogyny and references to women being sent to 'farms'. But the concept of a breeding farm is more Epileptic Trees than anything. During wartime, plenty of societies will put women to work in munitions factories and on ordinary food farms (hey, soldiers need to eat). Where did the concept of a 'breeding farm' even originate?
  • Karen Traviss' abortion of a novel spawned the idea. This is the same novel where the Locust ignore a strategically critical food equipment convoy to kill the half-dozen Gears protecting it, as apparently killing a squad of Gears is more important than starving out all of Jacinto. Yeah.
    • Locust drones are supposedly pretty stupid in that regard, to be fair. The idea probably never occurred to them beyond "Gears. KILL!"
    • Except that the novel goes on at length as to the drones' actual intelligence and how they were setting elaborate traps, etc., specifically to target the Gears.
      • Well, as to that, there are innumerable species on Earth that demonstrate incredible intelligence in very limited areas. Just because something can create elaborate traps to catch prey (ex. many variations of spider) doesn't necessarily mean it'll find a way to herd the prey into the trap. Anyway, thanks for that response. I was considering reading Aspho Fields but the whole breeding farm theory just nipped that in the bud.
    • That was RAAM's strategy. Kill the Gears and humanity is left with basically nothing to fight with. In addition, the COG had a philosophy after E-Day. If you can't fight, you breed. There're only a few million humans left all in Jacinto, and if the COG wants to strike back at the Locust they need soldiers.
  • What this troper got from it was that drones were quite good at TACTICS (smallest scale of battle planning such as traps and ambushes) but total morons about STRATEGY (higher level planning like starving your enemy).
  • Anyway, there were female Raven pilots in both games, and I'm pretty sure there was a female gear in Gears2.
    • The underground offensive includes a female medic gear...who uses the same model as all the other standard gears, which (I have literally just thought of this) would almost imply that any of the COG soldiers we see but don't hear could in fact be female!
  • The "breeding camps" thing pops up in the latest comic issue - only they're rape camps. COG-operated rape camps.
    • This troper likes to believe they're only in non-Jacinto area. But yeah it is f* cking stupid, hey writers we get it the COG have to do a lot of horrible stuff in order to fight the Locust, we got it when they glassed their own cities, we don't need rape camps.
  • It's possible it was an attempt to demonstrate the effects of war, of rampant martial law, and the WTF moment is precisely the point - to make us feel uncomfortable that war isn't just violence and badassery, that it isn't just statistics and plans drafted up to win. The use of rape camps or otherwise taking captured women and using them to 'please' the soldiers has happened in human history. As recent as the 20th century in fact. It's not a pretty thing of war any more than torture, indiscriminate bombings, or what have you. It clearly isn't something that all women are subject too (Anya for instance, while not a COG soldier, is a COG and working in logistics), just whatever COG feels are undesirable.
    • Really, the problem with the rape-camps is that they're not there to "please" the troops - it's a medical facility explicitly intended to breed people to boost the population. Leaving out the fact that this effectively pulls a substantial part of the working population out of the workforce, it doesn't work well as anything but a long-term solution when they've already got a limited population that needs to be used in active, wartime duties. It also doesn't help that the "failures" of the camps - women who are sterile - are instead conscripted into the military. In other words, they brutally, repeatedly, and institutionally rape these women and then give them combat training and weapons. Do you see the massive problems here?
    • I actually think it's well in the C.O.G. nature to do something like that. Given their vague fascist undertone. And quite frankly the C.O.G. has been shown screwing up before. And i still think glassing the planet was a short sighted thing to do regardless of their rational. Which has probably helped the locust depopulate Sera of men women and children, then it did to undermine them. I actually think that was WORSE.
    • God, guys, do the research. They're not camps; they're farms. Sera has been in a sate of total war for over a century and in total war NOBODY is a civilian. If you're a woman and can't fight in the Army, then you fight with your body; by being paid (in rations which are at this point the most valuable thing on Sera) to breed. Of course, giving hormones to 10-year olds is a little extreme but it's not that different from the rest of what COG has done.

• Something that I haven't been able to figure out. Colonel Hoffman. He seems kind of important. He's part of command, he does... something that involves strategic decisions, I'm not sure, as it's left kind of vague along with everything else in this game. But he's only a Colonel. Not only that, but his model has 4 stars - the symbol of a General, an O-10. Something doesn't add up here.
  • "Colonel" is a fairly generic command rank, and we have no idea what the COG's military structure looks like, or what their insignia look like.
  • It's stated on the Gearspedia page that Hoffman dissed the Chairman before Prescott regarding a mission where non-COG allies were denied medals for aiding the COG in a nasty mission. Hoffman is the military backbone, but for the insult is never promoted beyond Colonel.
  • And everyone higher-ranking than him is probably dead.
    • Karen Traviss is a military fiction writer, and has strong associations with the British military. If you know this, the Pesanga are immediately obvious in their origins: expies of the Nepalese Gurkha regiments that the British government regularly recruits. A lot of punch for a bunch of little guys, check; bushcraft, check; outstanding valor in battle, check; big machete, verily checked (see Kukri); the facsimile is perfect right down to the fact that they were snubbed honors for their distinguished military service. Write what you know and all that.
    • In her defense, Traviss said that the Pesangas were really good scouts and stealth troops. That doesn't mean they're superior to the COG.

• Could someone please explain to me where everyone is getting all the backstory from? Is it the novel? Is it the comic books? It can't find it in the manuals. Maybe I'm not reading between the lines on the stuff you pick up.
  • Lots of sources. A lot of backstory is in the "Destroyed Beauty" artbook for the original game. There's some background info in the comic books, as well as Aspho Fields, though whether you consider Aspho Fields canon or not is up in the air.

• The Hammer of Dawn, in Gears 1 it seems sort of last resort superweapon, but in Gears 2, we see that conventional gunpowder weapons like rockets, mortars or chainguns simple kicked the asses of all those Locust behemoths just as fine, if not better. So why use Hammer of Dawn? It has crippling restriction, it's not particularly powerful, and does its portability justify the expense for all these satellites?
  • The Hammer of Dawn you're using in-game is a low-yield tactical weapon. Its portable point-and-click air-support. Talk to any real-life infantryman, and he'll tell you that having the ability to direct air support at a target with literal pinpoint accuracy at minimal risk to your own person or your squadmates would be a godsend. There are also a wide range of Hammer of Dawn satellites, some with nuclear-weapons-level yields.
  • Most importantly, it's a weapon that the Locust can't get access to. If a position with rockets, mortars, etc were overrun, now the COG have to deal with Locust with extra rockets. With a HoD, the control key and laser can be sent with people to important locations and the worse that could happen is that they lockout that control and have to build a new one.

• Here's a funny one I'm surprised nobody mentioned: near the end of the first Act in Gears 1, when Kim gets killed by RAAM, Kim is calling to his squadmates to "Take cover" and "Regroup". Why, then, is he the only one standing up and the only one by himself?
  • Because he was stuck out in the open and too busy giving his squad orders to take cover.
  • Also, covering fire/distraction - by drawing enemy fire to himself, it gives time for the squad to get away. He probably knew very well he was going to die and figured it was better that one guy die rather than five.
  • Having just replayed that level, I can tell you that the reason he didn't move was because the street had been torn up by the crashing helicopter, cutting him off from the rest of the squad. He was close enough to the wreck to go around it, but would've run into the advancing Drones if he did that.
  • Also, firing non-stop at a bunch of enemies while yelling in slow-mo is pretty cool.

• I have a question: how many Hammer of Dawn satellites are there around Sera? That little beam that they fire doesn't seem particularly powerful, so I can only imagine that they have hundreds, if not thousands of the things in orbit if they managed to scorch the planet so badly. But if there are that many available, why is the lack of an available satellite considered that big a problem?
  • There are different Hammer of Dawn satellites. Some produce beams mostly used on the tactical level, while others produce beams comparable to WMD. Gameplay-wise, you generally only use the tactical ones because the heavier ones will scorch you as well as your opponents, and probably level the landscape all around you in the process. Imagine trying to use the beam you pack at the end of Gears 2 against the Imulsion-mutated Brumak on the tactical level against an enemy squad inside of ten to forty meters; that thing would boil Marcus and Dom down to the bone.

• Do we have any evidence that the scorched earth policy the government implemented was actually necessary? Because I don't exactly trust this government and they are the only ones I've heard say it was a good idea.
  • The Locust had access to massive amounts of COG hardware from overrun COG bases, and had substantial troop presence on the surface. Anyone not protected by the military was dead anyway. Scorched earth is the only viable alternative in such a situation.
    • But how do we know even that is true?
    • Because it's fact? Outright stated in the background material? COG ground forces were completely routed. Massive amounts of infrastructure and military hardware are in enemy hands. What other alternative is there beyond denying the enemy ground, material, and inflicting heavy losses to their forces?
    • It also devastated the Locust so badly that they had to retreat underground to get reinforcements. This gave the COG enough time to get to Jacinto and get some organization going.
    • Of course the reasoning came from the COG it self, so that's where the skepticism comes from. Either way the Kill Sat bombardments seems more of a Pyrrhic Victory.

• And while were talking about messed up tactics, what about the Locust? 14 years into the war, and then they bring out the Worm that can sink cities? Really? They didn't see the value of that sooner?
  • I can't remember where I read this, because as noted the back story is scattered, but the worm was supposedly a byproduct of the Lightmass bomb you set off in 1.
    • It's hinted that the worm (well, worms actually; there are supposedly three - well, two now - of the damn things) was hibernating, and the Lightmass Bomb woke it up.

• The network system of tunnels bugs me, more specifically, why didn't the Locusts just hollow out the foundations of the settlements and then they'd all just collapse without, storming out storming the surface and robbing themselves of the initiative?
  • Because the only human settlement worth noting is Jacinto, which they can't hollow out.
  • As noted above, that is EXACTLY what they did with great success during the opening days of the war. Indeed, E-Day was pretty much them doing this to one settlement after another and then moving on. The only reason Jacinto survived was because the solid foundation upon which it rests apparently is prohibitively difficult to tunnel through, thus forcing the Locust to launch frontal assaults against the fairly entrenched defenses. The plot of Gears 2 was basically their attempt to find something big enough to sink Jacinto and prepare it for the slaughter in a massive project that must have been a massive engineering project and the Gears' discovery that preventing them from doing it was more or less hopeless and the only way to save the city's populace (if not the city itself) was to sink it before the Locust were ready and thus flood the Hollows. TL;DR: They do it all the time. Jacinto was the only city we know of they couldn't do so easily due to the natural protection it lies on, and they eventually found a way to sink it despite even THAT.

• How come the gears don't have flashlights for use against the Krill?

Tai: Might versus light.
Carmine: ...Meaning?
Tai: That I'd take an extra gun over a flashlight any day.

• • In the future, apparently, there will be no duct tape. Also, THE FUCKING CENTAUR DOESN'T HAVE HEADLIGHTS.
    • What are you talking about? There's a whole scene about its headlights breaking down.
  • What good are flashlights going to do? The kryll will just fly around the beams and swarm from multiple directions.
  • They don't seem to be afraid of a little light, as a flood-light or something rather significant is needed to keep them at bay. And even then only the big UV lights like on the APC appear to hurt them.

• Surely all of the Gears are issued helmets? It's fair enough if you want a better field of vision, but it just seems monumentally stupid to leave free breathing apparatus at home, especially when you're fighting against enemies that aren't shy about using biological weapons.
  • Dom and Carmine talk about that in 2. Basically, it's spotting snipers vs. the occasional dust cloud. Doesn't quite explain why the COG doesn't issue the filters alone if the snipers are such a problem they allow the Gears to go around without helmets.
  • Considering that the helmetless Gears never seem to ever spot snipers until they start firing, it doesn't really seem like much of a justification. Anthony wearing a helmet is explained to be why he didn't see the sniper, but he was shot in the back of the head while behind cover. The helmetless Gears were facing the sniper. It doesn't matter what field of vision the helmet restricted, he was hit from behind, while the helmetless people couldn't see the sniper either.
  • To answer bluntly, there is no actual justification for the lack of helmets. It seems likely that the main characters don't wear helmets so that they're separated from the redshirts for the player. The conversation in Gears 2 was probably a tongue-in-cheek answer to this question.

• The Lancer's chainsaw bayonet seems to saw straight through enemies' chests in a matter of seconds. So why don't the people who wield them just go for the neck and make it a simple slashing attack? (Yes, it's a matter of balance in multiplayer, but other than that it doesn't make sense.)
  • Have you ever actually hit someone in the neck or taken a hit to the head or neck? It's quite flexible and you can maneuver it pretty quickly out of harm's way. Plus, it's a substantially smaller target than the torso, which also contains a lot more blood and vital organs, not to mention that the guy you're trying to kill has arms with a weapon or another chainsaw he could train on you. Attacking high for the neck would leave your vitals very open to an attack. Besides, chainsaw's don't cut like swords. They tear out chunks of matter and they are very heavy and dangerous to use. If you hit someone with a heavy implement like a chainsaw in an evasive target like the neck, the last thing you want is for the blade to go through a quickly with all the momentum of your swing, which then goes directly into your thigh (which too has a lot of blood vessels) or into your squadmates. Also, if you've ever done sparring, it's a lot easier to evade a strike aimed at your head or neck than it is to evade someone aiming for your torso. Bottom line: the neck is a tempting, but difficult target to hit with something than cuts by exerting pressure and ripping while the torso is a much safer target to go after and also makes being counterattacked by your victim much less likely.
    • Oh, yeah? Well... your FACE!
    • That is a very good response for the average soldier in the COG, but I kinda think the whole "going for the neck" would make a lot of logical sense for the very-experienced ultra-huge protagonists of the games who probably could pull that off. I just assume the lengthy cutting is also done because it's brutally bloodier and cooler.
    • Not really. The protagonists are practical individuals who will go for the easier target, which is the chest. The neck is smaller and harder to hit, and when you're in the thick of it, you're going to aim for the easiest target, which is the torso.
    • The fact that the main characters are such skilled and experienced soldiers makes it more likely that they would aim for the torso over the neck. Experienced soldiers only get that way by using the most reliable method of bringing down the enemy; experienced troops in real life, for example, always aim for center of mass when firing. Aiming for the head/neck is something more likely to happen when one is inexperienced and doesn't know any better, while the experienced soldier will hit the reliable target - in this case, chainsawing the torso.

• Why did Dom kill Maria? She was a prisoner of war. She had been tortured and deprived of food and water for a long time. Of course she's going to look sick. So, upon seeing a POW with a severe case of PTSD, he shoots her. Why? He already expressed that Maria and her safety was more important than his own, more important than than the mission, and more important than Sera. Then how is she too much of a burden? He didn't want her to suffer? It would be considered extremely, extremely immoral to kill a POW because of the tragedy she's suffered. The state she was in did not necessarily mean that's how she'll always be for the rest of her life. I know the comics said something about her dying anyway, but that's even more damning in my book: because he didn't know that, it means he had no idea that she would have died anyway. He didn't know what was wrong with her, only that something was wrong. But without knowing the details, he couldn't possibly fathom how critical her state was. Earlier in the game he was willing to move slowly to protect a box of explosives. But he couldn't move slowly to protect Maria? What would have have done if she were weak, but still seemed sane? Would he have killed her then for being a burden, for being weak? I doubt it. Is there some piece I'm missing that made this alright?
  • I think you are understating just how bad off Maria was. She was so weak that she couldn't hold herself up, and clearly emaciated to the point that starvation was likely close at hand. Her mental faculties were degraded; she was unable to even respond to simple human contact, much less recognize and acknowledge any sort of communication, or more importantly, command. Heck, the scars on her head may have even indicated brain damage. Dom's been a soldier for a long time; he's seen people die from just about every cause under the sun. He knows when someone's time is short, and Maria wasn't going to make it out of the Hollow. Even if she'd been conscious and mobile, Dom and Marcus couldn't go back. They had a mission to complete, and were smack in the middle of hostile territory. She would have never made it back on her own, especially not in her current state, and the couldn't escort her. Dom only had two options: Leave her, to face death (or worse, recapture) at the hands of the Locust, or bring her with them and risk putting all of their lives in danger. Dom didn't kill her because of how much she'd suffered (though that probably helped the decision), he killed her because there was no way he could get her out, and he didn't want her to suffer again. I hate to sound cliche, but its very likely what Maria would have wanted.
    • I don't know if you've ever seen anyone with PTSD, but it can be very, very severe. She is a POW. Being nearly catatonic for a few minutes is not unheard of. As I already said, I'm positive she would have died anyway. But Dom didn't know that—he expressed as much in the comic. He didn't even try to save her. As I said earlier, Dom had already prioritized Maria over the mission. What if she had been somewhat functional? What if she could speak? Do you think she would have shot her then? My issue is that he didn't even consider for a second that she could be saved. He just shot her.
    • Dom has over the course of the series been characterized as a man who is very passionate and not entirely rational when it comes to his friends and family, as evidenced by the fact that he went so off-mission to find Maria. He's quick to react and act. Coupled with what they saw regarding Tai, and knowing how mentally unstable Maria was before she disappeared, Dom seeing Maria in such a state appears to have pushed him over the Despair Event Horizon, and he acted on his passions without thinking. That's in-character for him.
  • Tai, one of the toughest men in the world, committed suicide after suffering only a few hours' worth of torture at the hands of the Locust. Maria suffered even longer, without the training or mental fortitude that Tai would have possessed. Furthermore, she's an unarmed noncombatant who is in no position whatsoever to assist them in combat, and they're surrounded by literally millions of Locust with no immediate way out. They can't extract her, and they've seen what happened to Tai and other Gears. What is Dom supposed to do?
  • It's also probably likely that There Are No Therapists in the limping and low-population COG. If there are any, they're probably already busy with the people who actually can fight or otherwise provide help to human race while they are undergoing treatment where even if Marie could be saved, it'd probably require years and humanity being at a point far above not struggling to survive which the universe just doesn't have at the moment. Shooting her was probably the most realistic thing to do at the time. On the other hand, that is a realistic viewpoint where Dom's constant search for his wife is fairly unrealistic and naive on it's own. It's a wonder she was alive at all in retrospect, and how she was when found was not all that surprising if she went insane. In that manner, it is kind of strange that Dom's logic suddenly trumped in his long entirely-sentiment search.
    • I think closure was the important thing for Dom. If he'd known Maria was dead he could have lived with that, but it was the not knowing that was destroying him. I think he built up this idealized scenario where he'd rescue her and everything would be fine. Then being faced with the cold hard reality, he just realised how naive he'd been and how hopeless her chances were.
    • Have you ever had your dreams crushed to dust? Dom felt that when he noticed that all the fighting he did to rescue Maria was pointless: She was just another lobotomized, starving slave for the Locust. Yeah, he didn't knew if she would survive. But if she DID survived, she would be brain damaged, with scars and sings of abuse for the rest of her life. That excluding possible episodes where her memories could get back to the torture, in a world where the only safe haven of humanity just got sunk down a few hours later. So let's say he saved her. I think he would feel incredibly bad afterwards.
  • It boils down to there being no right choice only a personal one. The other options they had were they try to take her with them which would be extremely hazardous for everyone or they leave her (which is just as worse). He has no real good options... just a lot of bad ones. Had he any better option that didn't include her getting shot by Locust, he probably would have taken it. As it is, the best he could do was close things on terms he could control in a way he could keep painless.

• After the conclusion of Gears 3, I find myself with unanswered questions:
  • What was Adam Fenix's relationship with Myrrah?
    • Details are unclear, but they made contact sometime before E-Day, and Myrrah wanted him to come up with a way to stop the Lambent.
  • Why was Myrrah so human-like compared to the Locust?
    • Most likely a result of Niles' research into the Sires.
  • What was the purpose of the New Hope facility and the Sires within?
    • Unknown. Likely something to do with the Locust; Niles mentions something about the Sires being some kind of "genetic bridge: presumably between human and Locust. Better than even chance that Myrrah was created by the project and somehow became the leader of the Locust.
  • How did Fenix determine the true nature of the Imulsion?
    • Researching it.
    • The fact it was having a possessive effect on the Locust would obviously raise some questions, and any way to stop it would be to understand what it is. His ultimate conclusion was made after nearly 20 years of research into it.
  • Why does Imulsion cause Lambency?
    • Lifecycle. Explicitly noted in Fenix's research notes in his office.
    • That research also states that Imulsion is a life-form that alters the current definition of "life-form" (no reaction to stimuli and no apparent neural processes). It also has both viral and parasitic properties, which explains the key plot point that enough exposure to the stuff would eventually cause the lambency effect.

• so what are the locust supposed to be exactly? This question has been dogging me since Gears of War 1 and Gears of War 3 still leaves it unanswered. All we get as an explanation is some rather vague dialogue hinting that Humans and Locusts may be related somehow, so what are they then? Did humans and Locust share a common ancestor? Are they the result of genetic tempering? Geez Epic, i was really hoping we'd put this one to rest already.
  • They're another sapient species that has always existed on Sera. Therein ends the explanation.
    • Which opens up a whole mess of other questions, like why humans never noticed the locust until they were kicking down their doors, and why the locust never attempted contact with humans until they decided to commit genocide.

• How did the Locust get into Azura? All the defenses, like the minefield and the torpedo launchers, are still online and able to kill when you get there, but somehow the Locust have moved a small army there, including air support. There are some Locust boats there, but I doubt they sailed through the hurricane and the minefield in those. Is there some note that I'm missing?
  • The same way they get everywhere that isn't Jacinto. They tunneled and emerged underneath it.
    • Wait, so the COG completely fortified the island against invasion by air and sea, but forgot that the Locust (of all creatures) can tunnel?
    • Hinted with the books; Locust can't tunnel so close to the sea. You kinda get a mild case of drowned. It's the reason why Vectes wasn't invaded and there were many groups of stranded living off the sea. So yeah it's pretty odd but I figured they didn't permanently have storm up, they must have brought it down to receive ravens and supplies.
    • No one said that the COG "forgot" that the Locust can tunnel. The fact is that the COG can't defend most areas because the Locust can tunnel right through just about anything that wasn't Jacinto. This is stated explicitly in the very first game when they discuss Locust tunnelling: "Command's tried everything, but nothing works." Azura's only real defense was secrecy; once the Locust found Azura, that was it.
  • I gathered that the defenses got shut off somehow (Prescott would have had to get off somehow) and the Locust used the opportunity to move in. I have no idea how, maybe the generators went down for lack of spare parts because the COG disintegrated.

• So, why do the Locust fire out of the ground now? I guess they wanted to get rid of the emergence hole mechanic, but having them rocket 10 feet into the air when they appear seems pretty silly.
  • I was very confused when they managed to do it on a bridge. What, do they sleep under the tarmac or something?
  • The Locust can't use regular tunnels anymore, because the Hollow is both flooded and because the Lambent are tromping about down there. Instead it looks like they dig small tunnels under ground and then charge up out of the ground somehow. Its likely that they're being assisted by younger Corpsers; maybe the younger Corpsers are the ones throwing them up out of the ground.

• Why did they "have to" sink Jacinto? Couldn't they have just breached the seawall beneath the city and let the Hollow flood instead of collapsing everything? I think the Hollow was a natural formation, not a massive Locust engineering project.
  • Nope, the Hollow was all done by the Locust. And breaching the seawall would have sunk the city anyway. There were giant holes all around the city, it was going to sink sooner or later, the point was getting all the humans out so they didn't die when it did.

• Why was Delta not effected by the heavy exposure to imulsion throughout the series? At the end of Gears of 3, Adam's weapon destroys anything 'tainted' by the imulsion- including humans that were exposed to heavy amounts. Shouldn't Delta have been killed too, seeing as they spent a large portion of the first two games wandering through imulsion filled caves, and spend all three games being sprayed with imulsion chunks from enemies?
  • It seems to affect only after long, systematic exposure. The rig workers in Mercy or the miners in Char must have been in closer proximity to it then Delta were after their brief missions. Notice also how many Locust escaped infection even after living much closer to it their entire lives.

• So... are we ever going to see the fourth Carmine brother? The trilogy is over now, and we don't even have a name.

• Okay, so I have a question that regards Locust Strategy: why is it that RAAM used the berserkers when he was in charge, but Skorge didn't use them? The berserkers seemed to work well for RAAM, so one has to wonder why the second general didn't use them...
  • I wouldn't say they exactly worked great. The first time you see one it immediately kills its handlers and goes rampaging. Having something that kills discriminitely might not be good to have running around near your own guys.
  • Alternatively there might just not be that many berserkers, expecially after the Lightmass bombing and Jacinto Sinking so he might not even have any he can afford to use.

• What differentiates a Locust from just a hostile Seran animal? I assume the Locust are at least the underground dudes with guns, that's an army, but what are the giant worms, the Leviathan, and the Reavers?

• Where did Imulsion come from?

• How did Adam Fenix survive getting crushed by rubble in front of Marcus' eyes?

• What made all the spiderwebs in the submarine bay?