To what extent were the Turks informed of everything Hojo did?

Bonjour tout le monde!

I’ve sorta been a longtime creeper of this forum, and I swore to myself I was going to change that when I finally became a member a little while ago, but I went back to creeping....Till today! Alas, I finally have something to say (or rather, ask...).

The Turks, as we all know, were something like the FBI and CIA rolled into one. They obviously knew and were trusted with high profile information, but to what extent were they informed of everything that went on behind company doors? Would they know everything about the “research” that was conducted by Hojo for example? Would they have heard about what happened to Vincent, but kept quiet about it? Would they have been informed about Sephiroth’s origins? Or was Hojo afforded some special privacy given how much the company depended on him to find an access to the Promised Land? Like, “Nah, don’t snoop in Hojo’s business and piss him off because then how will we ever get our endless mako?”

Yay! Thanks in advance!

I don't know what the canon answer is, but I don't think Hojo would be too concerned with privacy himself. Shinra would probably want to keep things under wraps from the public, but not the Turks.

My feeling is that the Turks know a lot more than they're 'officially' privy to. But how they feel about it really depends on whether or not you prefer the sanitised Compilation Turks or the Turks of the OG

According to current canon, the Turks seem to be pretty much well informed on everything, as it's their job to neutralize any security leaks in the first place.

Octo said:

My feeling is that the Turks know a lot more than they're 'officially' privy to. But how they feel about it really depends on whether or not you prefer the sanitised Compilation Turks or the Turks of the OG

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Haha, I'm privy to the OG Turks myself. I love the idea of them of witnessing and partaking in ruthless things and growing numb to it after a while. That's just real life. The things that human beings are capable of for the sake of a job is terrifying.

Yay! This posting thing is a lot less painful than I anticipated. Thanks for the input.

ChipNoir said:

According to current canon, the Turks seem to be pretty much well informed on everything, as it's their job to neutralize any security leaks in the first place.

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That's what I'm leaning towards. Ah, awesome! It would have been cool to see the OG Turks reacting to Vincent in some way (assuming the player obtained him). I would imagine a story as juicy as his would've made for some solid, lasting company gossip, especially since it involves Sephiroth's mum.

They didn't know about Deepground, tho. And we recently had a very heated discussion about whether or not Tseng (and the others) knew who Cloud was when he cropped in Midgar fighting for Avalanche - like, did Reno know Cloud was the "sample" who escaped from Nibelheim with Zack when he encountered him in Aerith's church? TBH I can't even remember what the outcome was of that discussion.

Like Octo says, Hojo doesn't seem concerned with privacy, but there must be somebody with their head screwed on straight somewhere in the Shinra Corp who realises that if the public gets words of their human experimentations, their approval rating will go down. President Shinra rules through bread and circuses, not through fear.

Before Crisis also shows that not all members of the Turks are privy to certain information. The player Turk doesn't know about Aerith for instance. As for them knowing about Sephiroth's origins, I can see them knowing that he was meant to be an Ancient as everyone and their mother at Shinra seems to like telling Cloud all about it.

As for Hojo and what he gets up to, my memory of Before Crisis is shaky at best but the Turks didn't know about what he did to Elfe. Sure Veld/the Turks were responsible for rounding up survivors and taking them to Hojo but they didn't know/care about what happened to them afterwards. Otherwise Veld would have found out about Elfe a lot sooner and I bet Before Crisis would have been a much shorter game

LicoriceAllsorts said:

They didn't know about Deepground, tho. And we recently had a very heated discussion about whether or not Tseng (and the others) knew who Cloud was when he cropped in Midgar fighting for Avalanche - like, did Reno know Cloud was the "sample" who escaped from Nibelheim with Zack when he encountered him in Aerith's church? TBH I can't even remember what the outcome was of that discussion.

Like Octo says, Hojo doesn't seem concerned with privacy, but there must be somebody with their head screwed on straight somewhere in the Shinra Corp who realises that if the public gets words of their human experimentations, their approval rating will go down. President Shinra rules through bread and circuses, not through fear.

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Except that the public doesn't really seem to care. It's unrealistic to expect people to be blissfully unaware of what ShinRa does, and the police state they live in. For a man who doesn't rule through fear, he has a habit of razing places to the ground, and leaving the destitute to suffer. Admittedly Corel, Gongaga, and Wutai are far removed from Midgar, but the NPCs do talk, and I recall at least one Kalm person who brings up the conversation that without Mako, nobody would be able to function.

The fact is, by the time FFVII rolls around, the people are too dependent on Mako to ever dare try to put ShinRa in check. The technology to produce it is proprietary, and I imagine the slightest attempt to even rival the technology would be met with the exact same situation as Thomas Edison. Intimidation, brutality, possibly incarceration and murder.

Even the Plate Fall strategy feels more like an attempt to deal with an implied power crisis, rather than any worry about Avalanche or improving the company's image. As long as the people are sucking from ShinRa's teet, they have complete control. They burnt a coal mining town. Think about that; Not only does that surpres the alleged resistance, but it also sets the entire coal caves on fire, removing a rival source of energy. I wouldn't be surprised if the reason the quicksand desert exists is because the ground is constantly unstable due to coal fires. Would make for a hell of an extra dungeon.

Whats scary is we're not that far away from it in reality. We sanction a ton of shit that Saudi Arabia does, that in other countries would merit declarations of war. But because of oil, we stay chummy. Art imitates life imitating art.

LicoriceAllsorts said:

They didn't know about Deepground, tho. And we recently had a very heated discussion about whether or not Tseng (and the others) knew who Cloud was when he cropped in Midgar fighting for Avalanche - like, did Reno know Cloud was the "sample" who escaped from Nibelheim with Zack when he encountered him in Aerith's church? TBH I can't even remember what the outcome was of that discussion.

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Ah, FFVII Rectons. Blowing holes in your canon since 2004.

Oooh, curses! I would've loved to have been there and maybe do more than creep when that discussion was unfolding. You wouldn't happen to have the link handy would you? I'll just comb through the forums for the thread if not.

LicoriceAllsorts said:

Like Octo says, Hojo doesn't seem concerned with privacy, but there must be somebody with their head screwed on straight somewhere in the Shinra Corp who realises that if the public gets words of their human experimentations, their approval rating will go down. President Shinra rules through bread and circuses, not through fear.

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True! But then that makes me wonder about the handling of Nibelheim and the ShinRa Manor there in general. Like, why wasn't Vincent's body incinerated or something? An immortal man coherent enough to remember that he worked for ShinRa at some point of his life and can turn into these demonic beasts when provoked in a fight seems pretty damning! But then, I suppose the general public would have to have been fine with the idea of human experimentation to extent when they produced super humans/heroes like SOLDIERs?

Teioh said:

Before Crisis also shows that not all members of the Turks are privy to certain information. The player Turk doesn't know about Aerith for instance. As for them knowing about Sephiroth's origins, I can see them knowing that he was meant to be an Ancient as everyone and their mother at Shinra seems to like telling Cloud all about it.

As for Hojo and what he gets up to, my memory of Before Crisis is shaky at best but the Turks didn't know about what he did to Elfe. Sure Veld/the Turks were responsible for rounding up survivors and taking them to Hojo but they didn't know/care about what happened to them afterwards. Otherwise Veld would have found out about Elfe a lot sooner and I bet Before Crisis would have been a much shorter game

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Ah! That information leads me to believe that there's a bit of a hierarchy when it comes to the Turks and information. Like, naturally, as the head Turk in the OG, Tseng might be informed of something that Elena is kept in the dark about. Hmm. That just seems like it would naturally lead to a disruption of group trust within the Turks, though. One would eventually catch on when they're the 'one Turk' being left out of all the juicy company information, right? And without that trust, I can't imagine the Turks would be able to hold themselves together for very long...

You make a good point about Vincent. IIRC the Turks in BC don't know he's alive and sleeping under the Nibelheim manor until they wake him up, which I think happened just after Zack's escape.

ChipNoir, pretty much everything you say is true - except maybe this:

Even the Plate Fall strategy feels more like an attempt to deal with an implied power crisis, rather than any worry about Avalanche or improving the company's image.

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If you're suggesting, as it seems you are, that Shinra dropped the Sector 7 plate not to crush Avalanche but to resolve a coming power crisis. That doesn't sound like canon at all.

But President Shinra doesn't rule by fear the way Rufus intended to; hence the cover-ups. Kalm was destroyed by accident, human error; Banora was bombed only after all the villagers were dead, killed by Genesis, and the purpose of the bombing was to eliminate Genesis' forces; Nibelheim was burned down by Sephiroth. Only Corel was deliberate, and the excuse or possible actual reason was counter-terrorism. Shinra's actions in every case were reactive, not pro-active, and were designed to minimise or constrain damage rather than to extend it or to use terror as a means of controlling the population.

I'm not trying to make out that they were nice people. They had Turks, after all. I'm trying to point out that all these burnt villages don't add up to Rufus's express policy of using fear as a means of controlling the population. I'm not convinced that under President Shinra they lived in what we would understand to be a police state. I think it was something more complicated than that.

LicoriceAllsorts said:

You make a good point about Vincent. IIRC the Turks in BC don't know he's alive and sleeping under the Nibelheim manor until they wake him up, which I think happened just after Zack's escape.

ChipNoir, pretty much everything you say is true - except maybe this:

Even the Plate Fall strategy feels more like an attempt to deal with an implied power crisis, rather than any worry about Avalanche or improving the company's image.

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If you're suggesting, as it seems you are, that Shinra dropped the Sector 7 plate not to crush Avalanche but to resolve a coming power crisis. That doesn't sound like canon at all.

But President Shinra doesn't rule by fear the way Rufus intended to; hence the cover-ups. Kalm was destroyed by accident, human error; Banora was bombed only after all the villagers were dead, killed by Genesis, and the purpose of the bombing was to eliminate Genesis' forces; Nibelheim was burned down by Sephiroth. Only Corel was deliberate, and the excuse or possible actual reason was counter-terrorism. Shinra's actions in every case were reactive, not pro-active, and were designed to minimise or constrain damage rather than to extend it or to use terror as a means of controlling the population.

I'm not trying to make out that they were nice people. They had Turks, after all. I'm trying to point out that all these burnt villages don't add up to Rufus's express policy of using fear as a means of controlling the population. I'm not convinced that under President Shinra they lived in what we would understand to be a police state. I think it was something more complicated than that.

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I say power crisis under a few unusual criteria.

1. Look at the state of Midgar. The city itself is approaching squalled. It reminds me of Pre-Juliani New York City with shades of Detroit. It's dirty, littered with garbage, and showing signs of urban decay. Even the supposedly plentiful mako-energy is shown to not be 100% reliably functional. The remake even emphasizes that with free flowing trash fluttering around everywhere. Now it could just be that Sector 8 was written to be a less wealthy district even back in OG. But note also the landscape around Midgar; It's a wastland. Apart from Aerith's church and home, there's no greenery, and no natural wildlife. It's clearly being pushed to the edge of the depletion.

2. The sudden push for the Neo-Midgar project. Within 48 hours President ShinRa executes direct orders to capture Aerith, and moves the NM project forward. Why on earth did he choose that exact date to suddenly need to capture and study someone that they've allowed free-reign of the city for about 15 years? They knew where she was, they could have easily picked her up at any time.

These two unusual elements points to an oncoming power crisis. It makes perfect sense to me that there just isn't enough energy to power Midgar as a whole. For ShinRa's policies, it seems pretty reasonable to sacrifice a few to maintain the flow of Mako energy for the rest of the city, and doing so in a way that leaves no blame on ShinRa themselves.

True, it's probably not open fear. But either way, I stand by my corporatocracy theory. As far as ShinRa goes, people are just acceptable losses in favor of economic stability.

Good points. And it's definitely a corporatocracy and President Shinra definitely doesn't care about any given individual person, because he can just crush them whenever they get in his way. In a bizarre twist, Rufus's notion of rule-by-fear would actually be less destructive because the people would be too afraid to get in his way in the first place (theoretically).

They're the people that get sent to do the cover ups, so most of it. It's a big company, though, so Hojo was able to slip a few things past like Vincent and Elfe.

They didn't know about Deepground, tho

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Do we know that for certain?

And we recently had a very heated discussion about whether or not Tseng (and the others) knew who Cloud was when he cropped in Midgar fighting for Avalanche - like, did Reno know Cloud was the "sample" who escaped from Nibelheim with Zack when he encountered him in Aerith's church? TBH I can't even remember what the outcome was of that discussion.

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About as conclusive as they usually are.

It reminds me of Pre-Juliani New York City with shades of Detroit. It's dirty, littered with garbage, and showing signs of urban decay.

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With fewer rogue robot fights, I hope.

Except that the public doesn't really seem to care. It's unrealistic to expect people to be blissfully unaware of what ShinRa does, and the police state they live in. For a man who doesn't rule through fear, he has a habit of razing places to the ground, and leaving the destitute to suffer.

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By historical precedent, people likely know that something is up, but don't want to be first to stick their head over the parapet, and know that enquiring too closely could be bad for them.

Rufus's notion of rule-by-fear would actually be less destructive because the people would be too afraid to get in his way in the first place (theoretically).

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Or trigger more open resistance. Either way's a gamble.

Regarding Deepground, it's probably safe to say the Turks didn't know about it. Since Reeve didn't find out until it was uncovered in some of Scarlet's files -- despite Veld working with him, and despite Rufus (whom Tseng is loyal to) funding the WRO -- it seems unlikely anyone knew on the surface world outside of the President, Hojo, Heidegger and Scarlet.

LicoriceAllsorts said:

In a bizarre twist, Rufus's notion of rule-by-fear would actually be less destructive because the people would be too afraid to get in his way in the first place (theoretically).

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Even more ironic is that Rufus ends up being less like Rule-by-Fear Rufus than his dad.

They existed in Dirge of Cerberus, knew stuff was happening and didn't get involved. I don't see how knowing or not knowing about Deepground necessarily would change things. They only contacted Cloud in Advent Children because Kadaj was coming specifically for the President in the first place and they were put in a posution of having to save their own skins.

Regarding Deepground, it's probably safe to say the Turks didn't know about it. Since Reeve didn't find out until it was uncovered in some of Scarlet's files -- despite Veld working with him, and despite Rufus (whom Tseng is loyal to) funding the WRO -- it seems unlikely anyone knew on the surface world outside of the President, Hojo, Heidegger and Scarlet.

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That's Reeve's speculation, but he's just guessing, he doesn't actually know who knew what. DG does a lot of kidnapping, and the Turks are their go to people for kidnapping, so they might easily know something even if not all the details.

Rufus (probably) funds the WRO, but doesn't seem to have operational control and they don't work closely together, Reeve claims he hasn't even met his backer directly. And Veld is definitely the type to keep things to himself.

To be upfront, my only experience with DoC was watching a walkthrough of it some ten years ago, haha, so I had to do some research to refresh my memory on Deepground. Apparently the facility that houses Deepground was originally the medical unit for SOLDIERs and it didn't develop into a secondary military program similar to SOLDIER until after the war, so I'm inclined to think that the Turks would know about that because, why keep that secret?

Random Turk: The mission was successful, sir, but we've got a few injured SOLDIERs on hand.
Random Superior: Oh, yes, well have them directed to <mumble rumble>.
RT: I'm sorry?
RS: I said <mutter butter>. Directly, please.

And then it eventually developed into a facility to create "EVEN MORE PERFECT" (Cell, anyone?) SOLDIERs.

This recton frustrates me though because now it has me thinking, why the flap wouldn't ShinRa use these "Super SOLDIERs" against Cloud and Co.? Unless, of course, we go back to the possibility that Rufus hadn't a clue about them given how estranged he was from his dad. Regardless, wouldn't it become common knowledge that the medical facility had a little sinister makeover? Or are we to assume that it was just one of those things that was kept sort of hush-hush, and a Turk might of known that there was a facility there once upon a time but was just never informed of what it turned into? Hmmm.

You raise a good point, Fancy Tree, that there should have been no reason for the Turks to be unaware of the facility while it was still for medical treatment. That being said, since Deepground has been a horror show rather than a medical facility since around the time of Genesis's birth, that's going back at least 25 years before the original game. It's unlikely any currently living Turks would have been around for that.

Possible exceptions: Veld and Vincent. Their time with the Turks precedes the birth of the Jenova Project kids. However, we also know that Vincent didn't know anything at all about Deepground -- not even that there had been a SOLDIER medical facility down there.

That leaves me to think that if anyone in the Turks would have known, it would be Veld. I don't think he did either, though.

Clement Rage said:

Regarding Deepground, it's probably safe to say the Turks didn't know about it. Since Reeve didn't find out until it was uncovered in some of Scarlet's files -- despite Veld working with him, and despite Rufus (whom Tseng is loyal to) funding the WRO -- it seems unlikely anyone knew on the surface world outside of the President, Hojo, Heidegger and Scarlet.

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That's Reeve's speculation, but he's just guessing, he doesn't actually know who knew what. DG does a lot of kidnapping, and the Turks are their go to people for kidnapping, so they might easily know something even if not all the details.

Rufus (probably) funds the WRO, but doesn't seem to have operational control and they don't work closely together, Reeve claims he hasn't even met his backer directly. And Veld is definitely the type to keep things to himself.

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Not that any of this is untrue, but since the objective of anyone involved with the WRO is presumably crushing threats that run counter to the goals of the WRO, there's no logical reason for Veld or Rufus to withhold this information.

FancySycamoreTree said:

To be upfront, my only experience with DoC was watching a walkthrough of it some ten years ago, haha, so I had to do some research to refresh my memory on Deepground. Apparently the facility that houses Deepground was originally the medical unit for SOLDIERs and it didn't develop into a secondary military program similar to SOLDIER until after the war, so I'm inclined to think that the Turks would know about that because, why keep that secret?

Random Turk: The mission was successful, sir, but we've got a few injured SOLDIERs on hand.
Random Superior: Oh, yes, well have them directed to <mumble rumble>.
RT: I'm sorry?
RS: I said <mutter butter>. Directly, please.

And then it eventually developed into a facility to create "EVEN MORE PERFECT" (Cell, anyone?) SOLDIERs.

This recton frustrates me though because now it has me thinking, why the flap wouldn't ShinRa use these "Super SOLDIERs" against Cloud and Co.? Unless, of course, we go back to the possibility that Rufus hadn't a clue about them given how estranged he was from his dad. Regardless, wouldn't it become common knowledge that the medical facility had a little sinister makeover? Or are we to assume that it was just one of those things that was kept sort of hush-hush, and a Turk might of known that there was a facility there once upon a time but was just never informed of what it turned into? Hmmm.

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They were still a work in progress. ShinRa had that army built out a lust for power, and perhaps some vague paranoia about relying on Sephiroth to be a one-man-army. Either way, as far as I can tell, they were never put into any action at all but simply amassed as a sort of secret weapon should another Avalanche uprising happen. Neo-Avalanche however is clearly not that kind of threat level.

The Twilight Mexican said:

since Deepground has been a horror show rather than a medical facility since around the time of Genesis's birth, that's going back at least 25 years before the original game. It's unlikely any currently living Turks would have been around for that.

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ChipNoir said:

They were still a work in progress. ShinRa had that army built out a lust for power, and perhaps some vague paranoia about relying on Sephiroth to be a one-man-army. Either way, as far as I can tell, they were never put into any action at all but simply amassed as a sort of secret weapon should another Avalanche uprising happen. Neo-Avalanche however is clearly not that kind of threat level.

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Ah, points taken from both post.

Btw, ChipNoir I wanted to take the time to say that I thought your power crisis theory bit was gorgeous. Has me seeing the drop on Sector Seven in a whole new light. Love it!

Not that any of this is untrue, but since the objective of anyone involved with the WRO is presumably crushing threats that run counter to the goals of the WRO, there's no logical reason for Veld or Rufus to withhold this information.

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This is the man that deliberately misled Cloud as to how dangerous the remnants were with the fate of the world at stake and carried on his person the means to recreate Sephiroth despite the fact that he had no way of keeping it safe from them.

Veld is gone to ground by now, and neither of them have any idea that DG survived Meteorfall.

This recton frustrates me though because now it has me thinking, why the flap wouldn't ShinRa use these "Super SOLDIERs" against Cloud and Co.?

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Because the project was a mistake from the beginning and Shinra is barely keeping them under control. The Tsviets are all freaks of nature, Nero and Weiss are too difficult to control, Rosso can't easily be prevented from slaughtering her own side for no reason, Azul is weak to magic, which Cloud's crew has in spades, Shelke is good in the Matrix but physically not that powerful.

Regardless, wouldn't it become common knowledge that the medical facility had a little sinister makeover? Or are we to assume that it was just one of those things that was kept sort of hush-hush, and a Turk might of known that there was a facility there once upon a time but was just never informed of what it turned into?

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Well, it was probably just quietly forgotten about. A medical facility during a war sees a lot of patients, many of them were likely secretly declared dead or lost in the records over time, then they could seal it off and say something like 'we had an outbreak of X disease' (the kind of thing that happens in military hospitals in wartime), seal it off to outsiders, let it run for a while, then pretend they've shut it down.