Reply To: Gears of War 2

First, I believe Gears 3 will be somewhat of a prequel for the most part. I believe the story will be about 60% of previous events (roughly the first 3 acts), namely the end of the Pendulum Wars and just before E-day. Why? Well, first off, there’s been heavy reference to the Pendulum Wars and Marcus’ rogue mission to save his father during this time. It was referenced when Marcus’ returned back home in Gears 1, and then again, during Dom’s quest to find his wife Maria. Dom expected to Marcus to understand his plight since he went through an almost similar event. However, due to all this intrigue around Adam Fenix, why do we only know so few vague details about this event? It was something big and huge since Marcus was imprisoned for it. Anyways… and another big piece of evidence, I believe is the interpretation of the ending. “This is Adam Fenix. Is anyone out there? Can you hear me? This is Adam Fenix. Can you hear me? What have you done?” If anything, to me, this sounds more like some sort of distress signal broadcast due to the quality and sense of age to the recording.. sounding similar to Niles’ recorded voice in the New Hope Facility. I believe in Gears 3, we’ll actually have the experience to play through this event and uncover a lot more information about this event and the emergence of the Locusts.

Other indicators that this may lead to previous events is the Carmine scheme. So far they’ve introduced the Carmine’s in alphabetical order (Anthony, Benjamin, and Clay. Plus still one other brother, which I suspect will be in a 4th installment, and his name begin with a D.) Also, I believe that their relative ages also play a clue. See collectible, Cog Tag CSID:838186-22A03-SF (Denizens, Intenstinal Fortitude, Collectible 2). It’s a letter to Clay Carmine. The Carmines are a military family, so Clay is either a retired veteran, or is serving currently at this time. However, since he is the oldest, or at least older, that I believe a flashback would be in need to introduce him as the new rookie. I believe he’ll end up dying once time flashes forward again, and Delta meets up with an old friend. And then Gears 4 ends up having a “Saving Private Carmine” side-mission.

Anyways, characters to expect in Gears 3. Obviously, Tai should make an appearance for sure. He was only in what? 2 Acts in Gears 2? And obviously he knew Marcus from before. Possibly because they were on a squad together back in the Pendulum Wars. It makes sense. Dizzy will take his place upon going forward to the “present” time since Dizzy still alive, since no mention of his death was made in Gears 2. And of course, Clay should make his obvious appearance. And finally, I believe a Sgt. Jonathan Harper will appear as well. You may go.. who the hell is Sgt Jonathan Harper? Go look through the collectibles. It seems strange to me that they would put that many objects surrounding one person. First Act, there’s a medical file describing the symptoms of Rust Lung in a Sgt. John Harper. At the beginning of Act 2, there’s a journal entry for Sgt. Harper, stating he just set foot in the Hollow. In Act 4, Jonathan Harper is now a captive of the Locust and has started a journal while being imprisoned. And finally in Act 5, you collect his dog tags. That’s 4 out of 41 collectibles centered around 1 individual. He’s a 9 year veteran when his medical file was taken.. so I imagine he’s been around for awhile.

Gears 3 should focus on the emergence and creation of the Locusts. Yes, creation. Look at the New Hope facility. They were attempting to make some new sort of super soldier.. however, it got out of hand for obvious reasons. The main question is.. how are they creating these Locusts? My theory.. Imulsion. I believe these scientists first noted the mutagenic properties of Imulsion when the COG or whoever, started mining Imulsion. They probably noticed the Kryll, which had similar biological features to a native bat found in underground caverns. The caverns that had Imulsion naturally flowing in them caused the bats to mutate into the Kryll. The Kryll are fairly easy to handle since all that is needed is a UV light to kill them. But note, the Kryll were highly aggressive, swarmed like a single unit, and were highly volatile. A team of scientists decided to experiment by exposing human test subjects to Imulsion. They needed to do so in secrecy, hence the need of the New Hope Facility and its ridiculous security system. And as noted, the test subjects experienced a rapid growth in their nails, reduced growth in hair, labored breathing, swelling of joints, amongst other symptoms. These subjects ultimately became the Sires, highly aggressive creatures with swarming, hive-like tendencies. I believe that Adam Fenix was possibly a member of this team as well as one Myrrah, yes, the infamous Locust queen (she did look rather human, remember?).

Adam most likely tried to escape the Facility, but was instead captured and held in some Locust stronghold.. maybe even with some intentions to be experimented on. Now, I know I have met some opposition to this theory, but for me, this is the only thing that makes logical sense. In Gears 2, you discover that the Locusts are taking prisoners. And no one knows why. Most just conjecture that they’re sadists and just want to torture poor defenseless humans. However, I contest that the Locusts are capturing humans to make them into Locusts. We know Imulsion has mutagenic properties. And the Locust live in close proximity to the Imulsion. And they follow the direct orders of the Locust Queen. She seems to still be mostly rational and have direction, just as one would expect from a hive mind. She has been mutated as well, however, her mutation probably gave her some physical changes, but mostly, I believe she was able to produce some sort of pheromone that which these Locusts respond to. Since she cannot reproduce, the Locust hive is forced to capture and make new Locust drones and the like to continue to grow in number. Baird notes that they would have seen little Locusts if indeed could reproduce. (Check the Locust Invasion Drawing in the Hive chapter). Locusts start out as adults since the Locust generally capture humans that are at least in their mid-teens.

The mutation first starts with Rust Lung. Rust Lung is caused by overexposure to Imulsion. Since it essentially cripples the subject, it makes it easy for capture. The prisoners are then moved underground into tiny holding cells. This is to provide a controlled environment with reproducible results. Plus it’s for their own protection. If for some reason the mutation goes wrong and the subject becomes too much for the Queen to handle or has some other adverse effect, they can just dump the container and prisoner inside into the Imulsion and be done with it. This explains the pasty white skin (lack of exposure to sunlight), lack of hair (mutation effects + Rust Lung), labored breathing (Rust Lung), and their proficiency with modern weaponry and technology. All other forms of Locust, Tickers, Wretches, Brumaks, etc.. are probably various forums of wildlife naturally found on Sera, mutated for the Hive’s purposes. However, the mutations can continue even further, thus the side effects of the Lambent locusts, in which the Queen has no control over.

The final acts of Gears 3 will most likely propel the story even further, more notably exposing the true history of the Locusts and the COG army. Gears 3 will have some other Locust general to kill.. saving the Queen for Gears 4.