Gears of War depicts a complex world that only gets bigger with each new game. It is therefore unsurprising that the fictional planet, Sera, has a detailed backstory with a long history of constant warfare. One of the most important events to the world of Gears of War is the Pendulum Wars, a brutal clash between two global superpowers.
While not the central focus of the games, the impact of the Pendulum Wars can still be felt by Gears 5 and plays heavily into the stories of several major characters. From Marcus Fenix to Kait Diaz, the Pendulum Wars are a crucial part of Gears of War lore.
10 Brought An Age Of Peace
Sera actually had a short period, known as the Age of Silence, which saw humanity making a conscious effort to stop fighting and focus resources that would be used militarily, instead, on improving society. For a time, this actually led to significant improvements in the quality of life for many people and became remembered as a Golden Age. While not entirely without conflict, it was nothing compared to the wars before and after.
That all changed when resources needed for power started to become depleted, leading to conflict over what remained, and a search for something new. As is, unfortunately, human nature, it was not long before people started taking up arms again. Ruins from this age are regularly explored throughout the games, and play a major role in their "destroyed beauty" aesthetic.
9 Lasted 79 Years
History has shown that humans are capable of waging wars for insanely long periods of time. There is a reason the Seven Years' War and the Hundred Years' wars earned their names. This is also true of Sera, with the Pendulum Wars running a full 79 years. That is just over twice the length of the Cold War (1947-1991). And just like the Cold War, the Pendulum Wars were prolonged because of two superpowered nations taking up arms and competing to outdo each other, dragging other governments and countries into their rivalry along the way.
This also would have meant the war was being fought by several generations and was not even finished by the same people who started it.
8 Most Of Those 79 Years Were A Stalemate
One of the main reasons the Pendulum Wars lasted so long was because both sides were evenly matched. Neither was willing to back down or negotiate a truce, and they both had the means of countering each other's offensives. This resulted in a lengthy deadlock in which soldiers on both sides were fighting and dying in a desperate attempt to gain even the slightest advantage, not unlike soldiers in World War I fighting and dying over inches of land.
Like World War I, the majority of the Pendulum Wars consisted of pointless, chaotic violence followed by a hollow victory. "Pendulum" is a fitting name for this reason, as a pendulum constantly swings side to side, just like how the war never stayed in one side's favor for very long.
7 Started By Immulsion
Just like the real-life Gulf and Iraq Wars, the Pendulum Wars began because of a desire for resources. Immulsion, a gasoline-like substance, proved to be an effective power source when others were becoming scarce. Immulsion's abundance combined with an inexpensive refinement process led to a massive scramble to begin mining and distributing it.
Governments who could obtain the most immulsion quickly turned into global superpowers. They then turned their sights toward smaller nations with large deposits, not unlike oil playing into real-life wars in the Middle East.
6 Established The COG
Although the initial groundwork was laid before the Pendulum Wars, the organization known as the Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG) started to gain power once the fighting began. The COG originally acted in a peacekeeping role, with the intent of helping civilians, but as the war progressed, its power grew.
The COG learned how to gain favor, and over time, went on to absorb other governments into itself, expanding its territory and becoming a formidable opponent of Gorasanya. Their victory at the end of the Pendulum Wars allowed the COG to be established as the dominant superpower.
5 Major Players In The Pendulum Wars
The two main factions that rose out of the Pendulum Wars are still around by the time of the games. On one side was The Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG), the faction that players work with throughout Gears of War. The other side was a country known as Gorasnaya, a thinly-veiled analog for the Soviet Union.
Although the COG is more prominently featured in the games, Gorasnaya does play into at least two installments. Judgement introduced Garron Paduk, a Gorasanyan soldier reluctantly fighting with the COG, while Gears 5 actually has Kait visiting the country and learning about its space program.
4 Resulted In One Of The Most Powerful Weapons
The Hammer of Dawn is an orbital cannon capable of making the largest nukes look like water balloons. It's used several times over the course of the games. While it may seem like a relief when it successfully takes down a rampaging brumak, it was at one point a very serious threat to the COG.
The Hammer of Dawn was originally created in Gorasnaya as a weapon to be used in the Pendulum Wars. The COG, quickly realizing the dangerous advantage posed by their enemy having access to orbital cannons that could disintegrate just about anything in their path, launched a campaign to steal the weapon before it could be used. The mission was successful, and the COG was able to easily defeat Gorasnaya with its own technology.
3 Several Major Characters Were Present At The War's End
Many of the central characters in Gears of War had a notable role in the Pendulum Wars, especially in the original trilogy. This includes protagonist Marcus Fenix and his best friend Dominic "Dom" Santiago. Colonel Hoffman was in charge during the Battle of Aspho Fields, which ended up being crucial to actually ending the Pendulum Wars. This was the mission that resulted in the COG commandeering the Hammer of Dawn, gaining a massive advantage over Gorasnaya, and finally making an end to the war possible.
2 Victory Was Short-Lived
After 79 years of endless fighting, the COG finally emerged victorious and ended the Pendulum Wars. While the end of the long war was celebrated, it only allowed for a brief period of peace- at least as much as peace could be managed under the current circumstances. With their main opponent defeated, there was nobody left to challenge the COG's authority and it quickly took over Sera. They attempted to repair the damage done in the Pendulum Wars, but only six weeks later, a new threat appeared. Around the world, strange creatures were coming out of the ground and slaughtering humans on masse. This became known as Emergence Day, or E-Day, which marked the beginning of the Locust War.
1 Directly Responsible For The Locust War
One of the most prominent themes in Gears of War is the idea of war as a cycle. The end of one war only seems to set the stage for another. The Pendulum Wars are no different. Miners tasked with collecting imulsion often fell victim to a condition called rustlung (similar to the real-life "black lung" disease that often affects coal miners), and the COG's attempt at finding a cure led to unethical experiments in genetic mutation, which shifted towards making super soldiers.
The result of those experiments was the locust race, who rebelled against the scientists and escaped from the Mount Kadar research laboratory. By creating the locusts and pushing Myrrah, at that point a test subject, to her breaking point, the Pendulum Wars made it possible for E-Day to happen, and their impact can still be felt by Kait in Gears 5.