Gears of War: Jacinto's Remnant

Gears of War: Jacinto's Remnant

Author	Karen Traviss
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	Gears of War
Genre	Science fiction
Publisher	Del Rey Books
Publication date	July 28, 2009
Media type	Print
Pages	416[1]
ISBN	978-0-345-49944-8
Dewey Decimal	823/.92 22
LC Class	PR6120.R38 J33 2009
Preceded by	Gears of War: Aspho Fields
Followed by	Gears of War: Anvil Gate

Gears of War: Jacinto's Remnant is a 2009 science fiction novel by Karen Traviss, set in the Gears of War universe. The novel is the second in a series of five, following Gears of War: Aspho Fields. The events of Jacinto's Remnant occur after the conclusion of Gears of War 2, and focus on the Coalition of Ordered Governments attempting to find a new safe haven while fending off the last of the Locust Horde.^[1]

Plot

Gears of War: Jacinto's Remnant follows two storylines: one begins hours after the flooding of Jacinto as seen in Gears of War 2, and the other flashes back to 13 years earlier, one year and one month after E-Day.

Main Storyline

The main storyline opens three hours after Jacinto was flooded, as the COG and Jacinto's remaining citizens are evacuated to Port Farrall in the aftermath. With no other safe haven to go to, the cold, dreary settlement of Port Farral becomes the home of the COG and Delta Squad for the next seven weeks. The Locust Horde was dealt a potentially fatal blow with the flooding of the Hollow, and while there are sporadic attacks on Port Farrall, it appears that the threat they posed to humanity has been all but eliminated. Seeking a more habitable location to rebuild humanity, Chairman Prescott chooses the island of Vectes; the island was a former COG naval base in the Pendulum Wars, could support a population of thousands, and is on the other side of a marine trench that is too deep for the Locust to tunnel under.

Delta Squad, composed of Marcus Fenix, Dominic Santiago, Bernadette Mataki, Augustus Cole, Damon Baird, and Anya Stroud is dispatched to assess the island of Vectes. To their surprise, they discovered that the island, which was supposedly still quarantined because of toxic materials, was still kept up and inhabited by COG citizens. The town of Pelruan had been built to maintain the Vectes Naval Base, and its three thousand people have become self-sufficient after losing contact with the mainland following the Hammer of Dawn strikes. The people of Pelruan had gathered some news of the wider world from refugees and Stranded, but had been left unaware that Ephyra had fallen and 99% of Sera's population had perished since. Within two weeks, the COG moves the survivors of Jacinto to Vectes Naval Base and begins expanding the infrastructure. Prescott hopes to make the island into "New Jacinto," a place from which the rest of Sera could be repopulated.

Later, Chairman Prescott decides to offer citizenship to any non-criminal stranded. During an inspection of the stranded, they find and capture a local stranded leader named John Massy. The COG then attempt to locate and destroy the hostile settlements of Stranded in the nearby islands that have been raiding Vectes' fishing trawlers. While meeting with the "Lesser Islands Free Trade Area," a Stranded association, to trade Massy for a cease-fire, the COG's plans take several unexpected turns. A rival group of Stranded had attacked the LIFTA's negotiation ships; the other group promises peace with the COG in exchange for Massy, who they want to execute as a criminal. After Massy is traded, the Stranded ship is driven off by a submarine controlled by Gorasnaya. Gorasnaya was one of the small "Indie" nations that had refused to submit to the COG after the Union of Independent Republics surrendered at the end of the Pendulum Wars. The captain of the submarine, Captain Tescu, offers his navy and the location of an Imulsion drilling platform in exchange for refuge for Gorasnaya's four thousand surviving people. Delta Squad is then sent to investigate a local Vectes farm that had been raided by the local Stranded faction. The novel ends with Dom Santiago wondering if the Locust fought among themselves as humans did, and how they would deal with a war against their own kind.

Flashback

The flashback storyline opens two months after Richard Prescott assumes the Chairmanship of the Coalition of Ordered Governments due to the sudden death of the previous Chairman, Dalyell. Prescott wants to organize the remaining nations of Sera to counterattack the Locust Horde, but each nation is too worried about its own survival to spare its forces. With the Locust only weeks away from crushing the COG capital of Ephyra, Prescott decides to do the unthinkable: use the Hammer of Dawn satellite grid to destroy anything the Locust could use against humanity, and hopefully cripple Locust forces in the process. Prescott meets with his Cabinet and Adam Fenix, the creator of the Hammer of Dawn grid, to inform them that he will give the entire human population of Sera three days' warning to evacuate to Ephyra before it is closed off by the Fortification Act and the Hammer system is activated. Even though it will be impossible for many refugees to make the journey in time and the Hammer of Dawn strikes will destroy every human population center, dooming millions, Prescott asserts that there is no other choice and it is too late to do anything else.

Adam Fenix is able to work out a schedule for the Hammer of Dawn strikes, and despite his guilt over designing the weapons and being responsible for genocide, he too realizes that it is too late for any other plans. In preparation for the strikes, the COG recalls as many Gears from around the world as it can, then issues the evacuation warning. The Hammer of Dawn is activated three days later by Prescott, Victor Hoffman, and General Bardry Salaman. Afterwards, Hoffman and Delta Squad scout the regions wiped out by the strikes to search for evidence of the intended asset denial or the locust horde's defeat. The flashback storyline ends after they find a human survivor that refuses their help, blaming the Coalition of Ordered Governments for killing her family and leaving them "stranded."

References

Further reading

• Gears of War: Jacinto's Remnant, by Karen Traviss (2009) ISBN 0-345-49944-1

External links

• Gears of War Official Website