Dominic Santiago

Corporal Dominic "Dom" Santiago is the deuteragonist of the Gears of War franchise, a flashback character in Gears of War 4 and will appear in the upcoming prequel Gears of War: E-Day. He was a Gear soldier in the Coalition of Ordered Governments' army and a commando during Pendulum Wars and the Locust War. 
Dom is the Hero of Timgad, and a veteran of the Pendulum Wars, and later fought in the Locust War alongside his friends. During the Lambent pandemic, Dom sacrificed himself to have his allies stop Queen Myrrah and the Locust Horde. After the war, Marcus and Anya named their son James Dominic, to honor Dom for being one of his closest friends and for his sacrifice.
He was voiced by Carlos Ferro, who also voiced Miran Trescu in the same series.
==History==
===Background===
Dom was the younger brother of Carlos Santiago and son of Eduardo Santiago and Eva Santiago. Born in a Pre E-Day Sera, he grew up listening to his father's war stories and going to school with Carlos and best friend Marcus Fenix. Dom later joined the army as a commando and took part in Operation Leveler. On Emergence Day, Dom lost both his children, and his wife Maria went into a deep depression and she later disappeared. Years later Dom freed his friend Marcus from Jacinto Maximum Security Prison and recruited him into Delta Squad.
His battlefield intensity is rivaled only by his loyalty to Marcus. Dom's friendly and outgoing nature lets him form relationships with factions throughout Sera, including the Stranded. He's always quick with a joke, but Dom's amiability masks an inner conflict that makes the war against the Locust far more personal. After being forced to euthanize his wife during Operation: Hollow Storm, Dom became more withdrawn from his squadmates, but continued to fight hard alongside them during the Stranded Insurgency and Lambent Pandemic.
When the COG collapsed, Dom joined the rest of Delta aboard the CNV Sovereign, serving as a member of a rapid response force that defended former COG communities. Dom was killed during the Mission to Mercy, sacrificing his life to destroy a fuel tank that wiped out a large Locust and Lambent force that had trapped Delta-One.
==Biography==
===Early Life===
Dominic "Dom" Santiago was born on Tyrus, 21 B.E. to Eduaro and Eva Santiago during the sixtieth year of the Pendulum Wars, and is the younger brother to Carlos. The family lived in the city of Ephyra, and attended Olafson Intermediate School by the time was eight years old. He met and befriended Marcus with Carols, and the group became close friends. When his mother asked how Marcus' parents were, Dom stated that they were nice, but distant than Eva and Eduaro. After Marcus' mother disappeared, he stated that he believed his mother was never coming back, and that his father wasn't telling him everything. Marcus would spend more time with Dom and his family, and Dom and Carols considered Marcus another brother.
Around this time, Dom became interested his neighbor Maria Flores, and five years later, the two began a romantic relationship and accidently got her pregnant. The two decided to get married, and told their parents despite being in school, but Dom's father accepted this and supported him. Wanting to support his wife and upcoming child, Dom decided to drop out of school and joined the army after his brother and Marcus joined previously, and had the two be his best men. At the beginning of Frost, Maria gave birth to a boy, and they named him Benedicto, and Dom enlisted by Thaw.
===Pendulum Wars===
Joining the army, Dom fought in several battles, becoming an experienced soldier, and Maria became pregnant again. Dom volunteered for commando training, and was assigned to the 26th Royal Tyran Infantry Special Tactics Group, and was taught survival techniques by Bernadette Mataki. Dom later passed his commando training, and was gifted with a command knife, later going on leave for fifteen days. Later on, Dom participated in Operation Leveler, helping to take over Aspho Point. Afterward, Dom reunited with Marcus, who saved his life from a Khimera, and learned that Carlos had been killed in the battle. For his actions, Dom was awarded the Embry Star, and returned home with his and children, and they lived in an apartment four a few years until they got enough money to rent a house in Ephrya.
===Emergence Day===
After the UIR surrendered and the Pendulum Wars was over, Maria sent the kids to her mother's so Dom and her could have a day to themselves. The day they did so was Emergence Day, as the Locust Horde attacked, killing Maria's parents, and Dom and Maria's children. Both Dom and Maria were able to evacuate to their house while the Locust attacked the city, but Maria was filled with depression and grief due to lost of her children. A year after Emergence Day, Dom continued to fight against the Locust, and four years later, Maria left Jacinto and vanished. Due to losing his parents, children and his wife vanishing, Dom holds a great amount of hatred for the Locust, due to them making it personal.
After Marcus was sent to trail for disobeying orders, Dom's testimony saved his friend from execution. Despite this, however, Marcus was still sent to the Jacinto Maximum Security Prison, and Dom lost the trust of many people due to him siding with Marcus. This also caused his superiors not to give him a promotion, believing that he was loyal to Marcus than the COG, despite them respecting his actions.
==Gears of War Series==
===Lightmass Offensive===
When the Coalition of Ordered Governments saw a possibility to end the war, they planned to have a unit enter the hollow to place a sonic resonator to map their tunnels, which would allow the COG to send a lightmass missile. Seeing the need of more frontline gears, Colonel Hoffman pardoned all Slab inmates except for Marcus. Wanting to save his friend, Dom traveled to the prison and rescued him, giving him gear equipment so they could be extracted. Joining Delta squad, Colonel Hoffman tasks Dom and the team to retrieve the sonic resonator from Alpha squad, who they've lost contact with. Dom and Marcus was under the command of Lieutenant Minh Young Kim, and the team managed to rescue Alpha squad members Private Augustus "Cole Train" Cole and Private Damon Baird. While preparing to be extracted by a king raven, Delta is attacked by the Locust Horde under the leadership of General RAAM, who murders Kim, his enemy whom he previously battled in Ilima.
Delta retreat to a tomb after Kim's death, and Fenix is promoted to sergeant and leader of the squad, much to Baird's chagrin. When a berserker enters the tomb, Dom and Marcus lure the creature and kill it with a hammer of dawn while Baird and Cole guard the resonator. Colonel Hoffman then tasks Delta to plant the resonator in the hollow, but also informs them that they can't send them a king raven due to heavy presence of Locust. Dom offers the team assistance by going to a Stranded outpost, where he manages to convince Franklin to let him have a junker. Delta-One use the junker to travel to the Lethia Imulsion Facility, where they plant the resonator and escape. Despite the success of the mission, Colonel Hoffman informs them that the resonator failed to map the tunnels, and Baird advised they travel to the Fenix estate for the full map. 
After collecting the data from the estate, Dom and Marcus travel to Timgad Station to reach a train that is carrying a lightmass bomb. On the train, Dom and Marcus kill General RAAM and set the bomb, and escape before the train falls into acid and the bomb explodes. Dom and Delta were honored for their heroics, having scored a needed victory for humanity over the Locust Horde.
===Hollow Storm===
Six months after the Lightmass Offensive, Dom continued his service against the Locust in the city of Jacinto, which was being sieged by the horde. Dom decided to travel to the Jacinto medical bay after hearing conflicting reports that Maria was there, but she wasn't there, frustrating him. After protecting the medical bay with Tai Kaliso and training the rookie Benjamin Carmine, Dom participated in Operation: Hollow Storm, which was a counterattack to eliminate all of the Locust that survived the Lightmass Offensive. Traveling to Landown, Dom and the team met up with Cole and Baird, and witnessed Kaliso commit suicide after he went through "processing" by the Locust. When being extracted by a king raven, Dom and his team were eaten alive by a riftworm, which they killed to escape and avenged Carmine's death. Though Delta wanted to be extracted from the area, Hoffman ordered them to investigate the New Hope Research facility to see if they could find the Locust stronghold.
Going through the facility, Dom and Marcus found clues that led them to Mount Kadar, which was a the Locust stronghold that connected to the hollow. Entering the mountain, Dom saw Chaps, a man he helped, and showed him a picture of Maria. Chaps revealed that she was a member of Stu's group, but they were captured by Locust and taken to camps. Dom became determined to find his wife, but found Maria had been "processed" by the Locust, being a empty shell. Dom decides to euthanize her, and becomes more determined to kill the Locust Horde. After killing High Priest Skorge and failing to kill Queen Myrrah, Dom and the team learned that the only way to defeat the Locust was to flood their tunnels. The group returned to Jacinto, and Dom assisted Marcus in evacuating everyone from the city and sinking it to prevent the Locust from claiming it.
After the events of Operation: Hollow Storm, the Coalition fell apart, leaving only the remnants of the army and the Stranded attempting insurgents. Dom started to suffer from depression, and had Samantha Byrne give him a memorial tattoo of Maria while on board the CNV Sovereign. To keep his mind off his loss, Dom started gardening on the ship and grew a beard due to his depression. Additionally, a Lambent pandemic arrived, turning humans and Locust into glowing creatures that attempted to murder both humanity and the Locust.
===Lambent Pandemic===
When the CNV Sovereign was attacked by the Locust, Dom assisted his allies in defending ship while being annoyed by the horde for destroying his crops. During the battle, a Leviathan attacked the Sovereign, but it was destroyed when Baird used a crate of tickers to destroy the creature. Dom survived the crashing of the ship, and participated in defending Chairman Richard Prescott, but the chairman died of his injuries. Before dying, he gave Marcus a key that would give them information on a disc, which Colonel Hoffman had at Anvil Gate. Dom joined Delta to assist Colonel Hoffman in defending Anvil Gate, and watched the message from the disc, which gave the location of Azura.
Colonel Hoffman advised the group to use a naval submarine to reach Azura, and also managed to travel underneath the adaptive weather system that was protecting the island. Needing fuel, Dom suggested they traveled Maria's hometown, Mercy, so they could collect fuel for the submarine. At the city, they found it deserted until they came across a civilian, who advised them to leave. Investigating, the group found the civilian dead and that humans had become infected by the imulsion, turning into Lambent like creatures. When Dom and the team were surrounded, he decided to sacrifice himself by ramming a tanker into a fuel line. Marcus and the group mourned his death, which was avenged by Fenix when he killed Queen Myrrah with Santiago's commando knife. After Adam Fenix used the imulsion countermeasure weapon to stop the Locust and Lambent, the war was over.
===Legacy===
Dom was deeply mourned by his allies, and his name was inscribed at the Tomb of the Unknowns along with other gears who died during the Locust War. Marcus honored Dom's memory by giving his and Anya's son, James, Dom's first name as his middle initial. Marcus also started gardening to grow crops at the Stroud estate.
==Gallery==
DOM.jpg|Dom during Operation: Hollow Storm in Gears of War 2.
DomGW3.jpg|Dom, now bearded, as he appears in Gears of War 3.
Dom UE.png|Dom in Gears of War: Ultimate Edition.
GOW-4-Pendulum-War-Dom.png|Dom in Gears of War 4, in the flashback of his time during the Pendulum Wars.
==Trivia==
*He was originally named Dom Glynn.
*In Gears of War Epic Games planned on allowing players choose the gender of Dominic between a male Dom and a female Dominique. This idea was scrapped and fans would not be able to play as female characters until Gears of War 3.
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