Chairman Prescott, The Real Hero of Gears of War (SPOILERS!)

     Gears of War.  It brings to mind the glorious tales of navigating a world built entirely out of chest-high walls heroism, brotherhood, and the tragedies of wars unsung and uncountable. This Xbox360 series centers around the main protagonist Marcus Fenix and his struggles against the Locust. He is a Pendulum wars hero and is the hero of the human race and their war against the Locust, or so the games would have you believe. Upon closer scrutiny, I've found that the real hero is actually Chairman Prescott.
     While a lot of people (fictional or otherwise) will give him grief for his actions, it is these very same actions that allowed humanity to survive. Players are first introduced to this character in Queers Gears of War 2. He leads the Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG) as the Chairman, which is equivalent to being super-president of the United States. (Cut scene below, it is very much worth watching unless you don't like spoilers)

     Prescott is notorious for his decision to initiate the hammer of dawn strikes that covered the world in death.These strikes were initiated to slow the overwhelming invasion forces of the Locust that were threatening to overrun the planet, there were untold millions of civilians that died in these strikes as well. If not for his actions here, the COG would have been overwhelmed and humanity destroyed. Now in the third game the players learn that Adam Fenix (father of Marcus Fenix) was not actually killed by the locust but was instead kidnapped rescued by Prescott's elite (that is still up for debate) Onyx forces and airlifted via helicopter to a secret COG base known (or rather unknown) as Azura.

     Azura is a lavish island filled with some of the most beautiful architecture ever seen in Gears of War. Azura is filled with the world's finest citizens (chiefly scientists) and its original purpose was to serve as a doomsday bunker in the Pendulum wars. Now the common misconception is that Prescott himself authorized the building of Azura, but like most of Prescott's problems, this was the result of previous COG administrations. Azura is basically what would happen if the U.S. congress and Russian government tried to build a doomsday bunker, assuming congress actually had money.

TOTALLY doomsday-proof

      Now it was noted once or twice in Gears of War 3 that Prescott refused to stay on Azura during the majority of the war with the Locust because he needed to be with the people on the mainland... for some reason. I choose to believe he felt guilty about all of his actions, and this was his form of self-punishment. 

 

     When the Lambent problem came to light, Prescott forced Adam Fenix (who had decided it was a good idea to not tell humanity about the Locust who were threatening to invade the surface to escape the Lambent) to develop a cure or vaccine for Lambency. When those routes prove ineffective, Adam Fenix decides to build a special counter-weapon that is the size of a building to wipe out the infection. Many characters in the game seem to forget that the personnel, resources, and time had to be provided by someone, and that someone was Prescott. This entire operation was kept a secret from everyone not on Azura because of a little thing that those of us who have any experience with the military know as OPSEC (operational security). If this particular operation were to be compromised, it would kind of mean THE END OF THE WORLD. So I can't sympathize with these characters in Gears of War 3 who seem surprised at all that Azura would be kept secret from pretty much everyone. Their anger is ill-placed and without warrant. Prescott did what was necessary to ensure the survival of our species. 

     Now the most questionable thing that Prescott ever did was his disappearance between the events of Gears of War 2 and Gears of War 3. The reason given by the games and books was that Prescott was bringing samples of Lambency to Azura to assist in Adam Fenix's research and to oversee the operation during its final stages. One could of course reason that this was to further keep OPSEC in check, albeit it didn't really work because the Locust Queen invaded and overran the island anyway. (What makes the Onyx guard so elite again?)

They didn't even remember to bring the chest-high walls!

     In the end, Prescott is the main reason that humanity survived and the main reason Marcus Fenix had armor to soak up bullets, bullets with which to shoot other guys, and chest-high walls with which to prop his firm buttocks against. Despite what many people say, I find Prescott to be my favorite character (other than the Carmine brothers of course) in the Bros Gears of War franchise due to the inherent grey morality of his actions and his willingness to make the tough decisions. After all, someone had to make them, would you have made the same decisions? Let me know in the comments and thanks for reading. 

     By the way, I'd recommend reading the Gears of War novel The Slab because it elaborates upon several plot points that I find weren't properly explained in the games or previous novels. I've read it, and it is indeed a damn fine read if you just so happen to be a fan of Gears of War. (If you've read this far into the article, you probably are.)

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