Chairman Richard Prescott

Politics runs in the veins of Coalition Chairman Richard Prescott. As a boy, Prescott watched his father and grandfather, themselves politicians, guide Sera through difficult times. Now, Prescott has enacted several orders that grant the Coalition sweeping authority to help defeat the Locust. These decisions have made him unpopular with those who feel the Coalition has overstepped its bounds and, in the name of security, become an authoritarian regime. Regardless of these accusations, Prescott remains dedicated to ensuring humanity’s survival, no matter the cost.

Prescott's willingness to use extreme measures was shown early in the Locust War. Roughly 1 year after Emergence day (1 A.E.), the Coalition of Ordered Governments, The COG, was on the back foot. Locust attacks had caught all Coalition member states off guard. They were ready for a conventional assault from a human enemy, not from an enemy that can attack from right under your feet and knows nothing of fear or pain. All the member states had retreated their forces to their own lands and were fighting hard, and failing, to survive. Everywhere the Locust attacked, they slaughtered every man, woman and child they came across and took any and all usable resources and began using them for their own ends. Even the most conservative estimates said that Tyrus (Delta Squad's home country and centre of the COG) would be overrun within one month and human extinction would follow swiftly after that. With that in mind, Chairman Prescott convened a secret meeting with the COG Attorney General Milon Audley, the Chief of Defense of the COG General Bardry Salaman, the Director of Special Forces Colonel Victor Hoffman and the Coalition's top scientist Adam Fenix. It was in this meeting that he laid out his plan to save a small part of human civilisation rather than let it fall to the Locust.

During the meeting, Prescott consulted with the Attorney General about instating the Fortification Act, without bringing it to a vote in the Coalition. This act would declare martial law throughout the Coalition, however without the vote, he couldn't enforce it outside Tyrus without declaring war on every COG state. However it would be legal and constitutional and necessary for the rest of his plan. The plan was for an announcement of the declaration of martial law, the order for all military forces to withdraw back to Jacinto, and a call for all citizens capable of making the journey to evacuate to Ephrya, capital city of the COG and Tyrus, and the only place the Locust couldn't dig under and into. This was due to it being built on Jacinto Plateau, a solid granite landmass. The plan was that once the people started moving, the Locust would attack and try to slaughter all these humans. Many would make it to Ephrya, but not all. Prescott knew this, as well as the fact that they could not accommodate the thousands or possibly millions of refugees that would come flooding into Jacinto. The reason Adam Fenix was called to this meeting was simple: three days after the evacuation call went out, the newly finished Hammer of Dawn satellite network would be activated and would burn all Locust infested areas with two key objectives. The first was to assert denial, they could not allow the Locust to continue to use Coalition equipment and technology against them. The second objective was to cause the Locust as many casualties as possible with the hope that they would be wiped out, or sufficiently weakened so that the remains of the COG military at Jacinto could finish the job. Three days was chosen as it would give people sufficient time to get to safety and would not allow the Locust time to figure out what was about to happen and get out of harm's way.

Three weeks after the meeting, with everything buttoned down and the plan ready to be put into action, Chairman Prescott went to the people to make his announcement and start the clock. This is the speech he made to the people of Sera:

With that call the three day countdown began and people began to flock to Jacinto to safety. The Locust detected this mass movement and attacked just as planned and just as planned the satellite network fire three days later and burned Sera's cities and countless numbers of its citizens. Before pressing the button to start the firing sequence Prescott's only words were "Forgive us".

He is a more present influence in Gears of War 2, giving a rousing speech at the beginning of the game. Near the end, he is briefed on Marcus Fenix's last ditch plan to sink Jacinto into the Hollow and completely destroy the Locust Horde. Despite his statement about the insanity of the plan, he agrees it is the best course of action.

Gears of War 3

18 months before Gears of War 3, Chairman Prescott decided to leave the COG and as a repurcussion it fell apart leaving the soldiers and civilians living on warships and looking for food. He returns at the start of the game as wishes to speak to the captain of Marcus's ship while giving Marcus a data disk that will help Colonel Hoffman crack an encyption on how to defeat the Locust. A couple of hours later, he is shot in the chest and dies from a collapses lung and a blood filled chest cavity.