It’s hard to talk about Gears of War without talking about one of the coolest parts of the games: a giant space laser. The Hammer of Dawn is a staple of the franchise, appearing in almost every game and offering the player a chance to fire said laser in the most epic of fashions.
While Gears 5 doesn’t give the players the same honor and instead passes it off to another supporting character, the Hammer of Dawn is still an exciting relic to behold. While you’re playing the game and not smoking those banned cigarettes, it is good to keep a running log of all the things that make the Hammer of Dawn a compelling and integral part of Gears of War lore.
10 It Started Out Political
The Hammer of Dawn once served as more of a scare-tactic than an actual tool for war. It began as a method of forcing political figures to rethink their decisions on the Pendulum Wars. This orbital weapon wasn’t intended to be used directly, but instead, serve as a constant threat looming overhead.
However, once a weapon is fired once, it’s hard to reign in the desire to fire it again and again. It forced Premier Yori Deschenko back to the table during the Locust Wars, so the perhaps weapon might not have strayed too far from its original intention.
9 Total Destruction
With a name like “Hammer of Dawn”, you’d better believe that this thing can rain down some chaos. The satellite cannon is responsible for much of the environment of Sera and otherwise. If you’re wondering just how powerful the Hammer of Dawn is, here’s a list of things that happened when it was fired on Sera during the Locust War:
And yes, this monster machine was initially still designed to be more of a threatening presence than a weapon.
8 It’s Not Playable in Gears 4
You’d think that such an iconic part of the Gears franchise would appear in every game for the player to use to obliterate swaths of life, but Gears 4 is the exception. The weapon only appears in flashbacks and serves no in-game purpose. So that begs the question: what’s worse between two options?
Should the devs give The Hammer of Dawn the Gears 4 treatment where it doesn’t truly appear in-game and only in memories/flashbacks? Or should they pull a Gears of War: Judgement and dangle it just out of playable reach for future games?
7 It Requires Targeting Beacons Now
When the Hammer was first created, the accuracy was pinpoint. It could target small areas for maximum damage and truly obliterate whatever was unfortunate enough to be in its way. However, as it has gotten older, the targeting system has lost its edge.
Now, in Gears 5, the Hammer requires targeting beacons to keep the accuracy up to date. In Gears 5, you physically place the beacons for the inevitable Hammer of Dawn strike that appears in most games.
6 It’s Imulsion Powered
Like most things in the Gears of War universe, the Hammer of Dawn laser is powered by Imulsion. Imulsion is the parasitic golden goo that, when refined by the Lightmass Process, becomes an incredibly powerful and volatile energy source.
It is this same goo that gives the Hammer its destructive power. Imulsion coupled with a space cannon? It’s no surprise that the entirety of Sera felt its wrath.
5 The UIR Made It First
The Union of Independent Republics (UIR also known as the Independent Alliances) were the ones who brought satellite power cannons into the world of galactic warfare. The Hammer of Dawn was supposed to be the ultimate weapon to end all future wars.
The pure Imulsion crystals helped give the UIR version of the Hammer of Dawn unmatchable accuracy (until the satellites were abandoned and thus later required beacons). They were the first to have a functioning satellite weapon thus granting the UIR a great lead in the Gears of War space race.
4 The COG Fired It First
As it goes with anything even remotely related to war, many factions eyed the UIR’s super weapon. The Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG), UIR’s main rival, had their own plans for the Hammer of Dawn.
Their own prototypes were only theoretical, so in an attempt to beat the UIR to the punch, the COG stole the blueprints from the UIR and reverse-engineered the Hammer of Dawn into their own creation. In a cruel sense of irony or wartime karma, the COG unleashed their version of the Hammer unto their favorite rival. Such is war, right?
3 The Hammer Can Be Stopped
One of the primary drawbacks in the design of the Hammer of Dawn is its reliance on satellites and targeting beacons. If the satellites and the beacons do not have direct contact, the Hammer can’t be fired.
The Locust exploited this flaw by using their Seeders (eight-legged beasts with two mouths) to flood the sky with spores to interrupt the line of sight. Firing the Hammer without a target is possible in theory, but it would be wildly unpredictable and therefore too dangerous to use.
2 Echoes The Space Race And The Nuclear Weapons Race
Gears of War isn’t shy about how it takes inspiration from real-world influences. In the 1940s, the U.S. and the Soviet Union battled for scientific superiority in warfare and a place in history as the first one on the moon. The Hammer of Dawn can be seen as a marrying of these two prospects into one: a space-based satellite that inflicts maximum damage for war purposes.
The destruction of Sera and the devastation the Hammer wrought is eerily similar to what happened when the United States dropped nuclear bombs on Japan in World War 2. But in the case of Gears of War, the Hammer of Dawn caused entire environmental shifts and mass extinction.
1 It’s Referenced In Rick And Morty
Rick and Morty is a television show known for its snarky humor and pop culture references, and Gears of War made the cut! In the third season’s finale “The Rickchurian Mortydate”, there are civilizations of opposing forces, battles for dominance on an intergalactic level, and a satellite that is used to track Rick and Morty’s whereabouts by the President.
If you’re attentive enough to catch the reference in the episode, it is a nice nod to the long-running Gears of War franchise.
NEXT: Gears 5: The 10 Best Characters In The Game, Ranked
