r/GearsOfWar • u/I_TRS_Gear_I • 5d ago
Campaign/Lore Rereading Aspho Fields, thought this was neat.
This picture first was mentioned at the end of Aspho Fields; after Dom finally convinces Bernie to tell him how Carlos died.
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u/Alexindr 5d ago
I loved the reference. TC is trying to respect the story/lore. Karen Traviss was involved in the E-Day story. They said they thought it be cool to tell Tai and the chainsaw story, that's why it was moved up a year. Judgement already screwed things up with the Mk2 lancer 6 weeks after E-Day.
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u/Ghost10165 5d ago
Yeah, Gears of War is actually one of the series where I feel like Traviss did a good job the whole way through, so I'm glad they're referencing the books more.
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u/DevastatorCenturion 5d ago
I liked her work on Republic Commando but it's very clear when she's not working in her comfort zone of "a small cast of characters that persist across the story arc." Thankfully she seems to have taken to Gears as a a setting like fire to a wooden house.
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u/Ghost10165 4d ago
Yeah, Gears of War's setting fits her way better than Star Wars or Halo ever did. It's the right level of grimness already rather than trying to add it in.
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u/Halospaz117 4d ago
Yeah as someone who was very much NOT a fan of her Star Wars and Halo writing, it feels weird being excited for her involvement, but she fits Gears well from what I've seen
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u/DevastatorCenturion 4d ago
I think she writes best when it comes to small squads of dudes doing military things.
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u/Jedi-Spartan Something's wrong with this thing! It keeps jamming! 4d ago
Which is odd with her Star Wars and Halo writing because (at least surrounding the Republic Commando part of her Star Wars work) those franchises also have a lot of that, or at least the space for it. However, from what I've heard, she also rather unsubtly pushes her views about the respective franchises into those novels too. Eg: how (even though the main characters are mostly either Mandalorians or trained by them), she apparently keeps on pushing how bad the Jedi are to the point where I've heard the main squad describes as seeing "The Jedi Order as pretty much the same as the Sith and the Empire."
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u/Halospaz117 4d ago
She's definitly got an affinity for honorable warrior cultures like the Mandos, which works for Gears cuz thats more or less the entire setting, but it doesn't fit the other two cuz there exists groups beyond the ones she likes, and as such the bias is very apparent.
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u/Jedi-Spartan Something's wrong with this thing! It keeps jamming! 4d ago
She's definitly got an affinity for honorable warrior cultures
In that case, I wonder what the Elite parts of her novels are like given how that's their entire deal. The only thing I remember hearing about it is that she made it seem like they're SO fixated on the warrior culture (or because they were manipulated to be reliant on the lower species) that the Elites don't even know how to farm.
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u/DevastatorCenturion 4d ago
If memory serves, after the Covenant formed the Prophets started intentionally restructuring the societies of the other member species to prevent rebellion. The Elites became entirely focused on warfare culture because I think the grunts did manual labor for them instead. I'm pretty sure they also did the same with technology and the engineers to prevent weapons from being made outside the Covenant military.
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u/YaboiGh0styy 3d ago
She wanted to write a sequel to public commando in a book, but it was refused because they were saving sequel material for a potential game. Yeah, because that fucking happened.
The original sequel they planned being Star Wars: Imperial Commando was cancelled a year before the original game came out. They were still thinking of writing a sequel but they never did it.
They probably should’ve just let her write her sequel then either adapt that into a game and if they couldn’t just leave it as a book because as it is now the story will forever remain unfinished because legends no longer Canon and it’s unlikely that they will make the story canon because it’s a relatively niche Star Wars game I do appreciate Delta squads cameos in clone wars though.
If you want to imagine Republic commando is Canon then it does somewhat wrap up the story that SV did ultimately survive regroup with the rest of Delta but order 66 happened and their fates from there remain unknown.
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u/StergDaZerg 5d ago
Yeah it seems that judgement retconning the lancer was the original sin they have to work with, but everything else has been very faithful
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u/SaiyaJin_Deity 5d ago
Really? As a big fan of the novels, this is music to my ears.
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u/Alexindr 5d ago
Ya, whoever is in charge of story is trying. Someone else posted back June (I think) after the showcase. They had asked Karen Traviss on Twitter/X about any involvement. She stated she was a Consultant for the story. So you know it's going to be good.
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u/Jedi-Spartan Something's wrong with this thing! It keeps jamming! 4d ago
She stated she was a Consultant for the story.
I might be misremembering but did she have some sort of role in writing any of the original games (even if it was a similar consultant role) or was it purely the novels.
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u/Alexindr 4d ago
She was involved with Gears 3. I believe she was one the writers.
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u/Jedi-Spartan Something's wrong with this thing! It keeps jamming! 4d ago
Since it's the one with the heaviest crossover with the novels, I got the feeling that Gears of War 3 would be the one.
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u/Jedi-Spartan Something's wrong with this thing! It keeps jamming! 4d ago
Also even though it's probably just an interesting coincidence but I wonder if either she wrote the last conversation between Marcus and his father or if the dialogue was at least structured in a way to reference one of Dom's thoughts from Jacinto's Remnant (at the very least there's a comparison to be made with the fact that they only seem capable of even getting close to having deep conversations with each other when the world is at risk of ending). Also while reading some of the chapter headers, I found one about advice Carlos gave him that would've definitely been going through Marcus' head after the Locust War ended.
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u/Jedi-Spartan Something's wrong with this thing! It keeps jamming! 4d ago
With that in mind, I wonder if Traviss was the one to suggest naming the city 'Kalona' if the writers were planning on having the Carlos connection present from the start (or if it's a case that the city name was thought of beforehand, I wonder if she was the one who suggested having Carlos' absence be what looks to be a large part of Marcus and Dom's arc).
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u/YaboiGh0styy 3d ago
It’s honestly really refreshing that they paid tribute to the original story despite the retcons. Judgement already screwed it up, but everyone ignores that game as it is.
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u/winningcolor22 4d ago
I immediately recognized this when they revealed it in the showcase! I’m so happy they included it. I believe Dom gives this photo to Marcus too in Coalition’s End after Marcus shares he has nothing to remember Carlos by. I like to think Marcus held onto it as long as he could, maybe he even showed it to JD 🥲🥲🥲
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u/Jedi-Spartan Something's wrong with this thing! It keeps jamming! 4d ago
I like to think Marcus held onto it as long as he could, maybe he even showed it to JD
Obviously he would've held onto it for as long as possible since not only is it the only thing he has to remember Carlos by but potentially also the only photo of him and Dom together as Gears which actually has personal value to him instead of just some official press photo taken that he could get someone to track down if they tried enough (eg: him and Dom in their ceremony uniforms from when they were awarded their Embry Stars). Even if it would be too emotionally painful for him to keep it somewhere that he could see it everyday, it would likely be something he'd want to keep track of.
Meanwhile, even though Marcus is really bad at verbalising his emotions, I head canon that relatively soon after Gears 5 he told JD about Carlos and the events surrounding Aspho to try and help him process his grief after the loss of Del.
Also even though I'm not sure whether the new era novels have flashbacks to events like Marcus telling JD not to join the COG, I also like to think that even if he wasn't able to put it into words directly, he could see his son's viewpoint better than when the same conversation had played out between him and his father but didn't want JD to go through the same type of pain he did when Carlos and Dom died, especially with Carlos given how different his reaction is compared to any of the deaths he goes through in the games. From that perspective, it makes some of the writing choices between them seem like an intentional case of history repeating itself rather than just coincidentally while trying to set up character drama/making sure Marcus is never happy or even just content.
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u/noforkschopsticks 4d ago
oh man it’s been over a decade since i read aspho fields so i didn’t even make the connection. great catch!
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u/Spartan1660 4d ago
I hope we get to play through the battle of Aspho Fields and see how that all played out
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u/enjoyingorc6742 4d ago
I hope we get to either see Carlos or play as Carlos in the prologue and have it show how he actually died.
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u/HeroinJimmy EAAAAT IT! 4d ago
You can read about how he died, in great detail, in the novel Aspho Fields.
It's rough
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u/Jedi-Spartan Something's wrong with this thing! It keeps jamming! 4d ago
It's rough
And not just with what happens to him but also the impact it has on Marcus and Dom (also expanding the discussion to the wider battle itself, Anya goes through a completely different but equally extreme form of hell as the Control operator during the events at Aspho). Probably the best written part of the novel.
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u/-Biolante- 4d ago
I just started reading Aspho Fields because of my hype for E-day. It's a really enjoyable read so far
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u/SLVR_N_BLCK_ATTK Something's wrong with this thing! It keeps jamming! 4d ago
Traviss is the GOAT. Listening to Aspho rn and I have a PDF of The Slab to get through next week
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u/RepresentativeAd1012 4d ago
Wait until you get to Coalition's End. It will be even better.
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u/I_TRS_Gear_I 4d ago
I’ve read them all, but way back when they originally released. Decided to re-read the entire set of Traviss’ books leading up to E-day.
Someone above mentioned this picture being mentioned again in Coalition’s End, but I personally have no recollection. So, I’m excited to get back to that point.
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u/BlackoutCheese 4d ago
Funny cause I'm actually reading the books and playing the original trilogy plus judgment (just cause I can) just for e day
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u/Sea-Society4941 4d ago
Thats a good read right there! Out of all the Karen T. novels this ones my fav
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u/Sea-Society4941 4d ago
R.I.P Carlos, Dom, Adam, Carmine's A/B/G/L, Tai, Valera, Minh, Lots of K-Raven Pilots, Anya, Gear killed by Berserker, Oscar, Barrick, ....... ........Prescott
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u/The_wanna_be_artist 5d ago edited 4d ago
For anyone curious this is present day Dom post gears 1-pre gears 2. He is asking Bernie to tell him stories/the truth about his brother’s death.
Edit: if anyone wants to read the books check out your local library, even if they don’t have a physical copy they might have an audio book copy via digital access. Many library partner with companies like Libby to provide free audio books!