Meaningful Name: They certainly picked a good acronym for themselves since every citizen is expected to view themselves as a cog in a greater machine and conduct themselves accordingly.

Given that the Locust were known to attack anywhere without warning, not to mention the Locust had survived their prior doomsday weapons, just leaving them there with no way to raise the alarm if anything moved was incredibly bad, especially since several Locust forms could appear to be dead and still be alive.

Idiot Ball: After spending two entire decades fighting the Locust, what did the COG do with all the bodies of their ancient enemy? Decide, that since the bodies could not be destroyed due to being covered in indestructible cocoons, to just bury them by the thousands or hundreds of thousands in certain areas after the war, and then just leave them there with nothing to monitor them.

Grey-and-Grey Morality: The conflict with the UIR.

Said subjects would eventually slaughter all of the scientists, retreat underground, become the Locust Horde, and eventually rise up to take Sera, almost wiping out the COG right after the UIR was finally defeated.

Gone Horribly Right: Gears Tactics reveals that fringe elements of the COG secretly helped Niles take the subjects at the New Hope Research Facility to Mount Kadar to continue his research, so that they could obtain Super Soldiers that could help them finally win the Pendulum Wars.

Fun with Acronyms: Coalition of Ordered Governments, you say?.

Then E-Day hits and it rapidly becomes a Vestigial Empire as it's forced to stay on the Jacinto Plateau because everywhere else is too vulnerable to the Locust.

The Empire: Originally made up of a number of different republics and kingdoms, the COG is expansionistic during the Pendulum Wars, with a huge military that is fighting to expand its influence across the rest of the world.

Then there's the most evident part of both ideologies: Expanding your borders and ideals through military or political pressure.

Acting for the greater good, living frugally, and seeing yourself as equal with others are also values that the COG holds.

On the Communist side, people within the COG are encouraged to value the many over the few, as you can see in the Octus Canon.

On the fascism side, it advocates absolute loyalty to the state and nationalism, along with revering the army (with proportionate focus on its expansion), and requiring (whether societally or by law) to support the military and the state in some way.

Gears of war 2 characters