Did Shinra burn Nibelheim?

[Pixel]

When I was recording footage for the Kotaku thing, I noticed this. If you leave the mansion when you wake up, before going down to the basement when Sephiroth goes mad, Zangan is there, and says this.

I was always under the impression Sephiroth killed everyone and set the place on fire, but this makes me think Shinra showed up and started covering things up before Sephiroth left the mansion.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

The Shinra are really bad at eliminating any information that could be an embarassment to the company.

I assumed Zangan was talking about some event that had taken place in the past, not that the Shinra were there now; I wondered if it was possibly some kind of hint about Vincent. When he says, "You pick these things up when you travel as much as I do," it sounds as if he got his information from somewhere other than Nibelheim.

 

[demonwolf]

^ Same. I feel like it's just foreshadowing of the fact that ShinRa's gonna rebuild Nibelheim to cover up Seph's doing.

 

[Roger]

Could just be him giving an exceedingly cynical take on why Sephiroth, Zack and Cloud themselves are there in Nibelheim, it was a leaky valve in the reactor that made things unsafe.

 

[demonwolf]

^This made me laugh.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Could just be him giving an exceedingly cynical take on why Sephiroth, Zack and Cloud themselves are there in Nibelheim, it was a leaky valve in the reactor that made things unsafe.

Brilliant. That makes the most sense.

 

[lithiumkatana17]

I don't understand why Shinra personnel would already be in place to cover up Sephiroth's mess before it even happened... if that were the case, it really begs the question in why they wouldn't just incapacitate him then and there before the insanity really took hold. After Genesis and Angeal's defection, I'm sure there would be measures in place to have Sephiroth killed or imprisoned should the need arise.

At least, that's what I would do if I were President Shinra.

 

[Random Nobody]

Maybe it's just my memory, but I also never understood the impetus for the whole neo-Nibelheim charade either. It's not like much will come of it if the company suffers some bad PR. And they've done far worse and more direct things than produce a rogue agent.

 

[Nanaki Skywalker]

Didn't Tseng explicitly tell Zack that company policy was to erase all evidence of misconduct in Banora?

 

[Random Nobody]

Probably, but I also blocked out most of Crisis Core as I do with most traumatic events .

I guess my real question is, considering that ShinRa's abuses are rife and misconduct is a rule and no secret, why even bother. Considering that they've either supplanted or ingratiated themselves so thoroughly with most bodies of governance (on a global scale), what precisely is the average person going to do.

 

[demonwolf]

The difference between Banora/Corel etc and Nibelheim is that Shin-Ra meant to destroy the former. Sephiroth destroying Nibelheim is outside of their intention. Plus the fact that their poster boy Sephiroth was the one who went rogue is extremely bad business. They prolly calculated the cost between PR-ing against Seph vs. the cost of replacing a backwater town.

Or...SE just wanted to make the story convoluted in FF7 by bringing Cloud and co. to a perfectly fine Nibelheim despite his recount of it being destroyed.

 

[Roger]

Maybe it's just my memory, but I also never understood the impetus for the whole neo-Nibelheim charade either. It's not like much will come of it if the company suffers some bad PR. And they've done far worse and more direct things than produce a rogue agent.

They clearly managed to spin PR on the whole Wutai war thing raising Sephiroth up as a hero worshipped by all. And this was before Gongaga and Corel (I feel Shin-Ra got sloppy as years went by).

 

[Ite]

^^^

"The newspapers reported that Sephiroth was dead, but Shinra owns the newspapers..." doesn't really mix well with "What fire? Nothing happened here, everything is normal!"

Like, what was the story? How did Shinra originally spin the 'ultimate hero of ultimate destiny has kerplotzed' scoop?

"We know that many of you have enlisted your sons and daughters into the SOLDIER program. Not to worry any of you, but the public face of this experimental surgery has died at the age of 30. Of... something besides madness. In... Notbelheim."

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Probably, but I also blocked out most of Crisis Core as I do with most traumatic events .

I guess my real question is, considering that ShinRa's abuses are rife and misconduct is a rule and no secret, why even bother. Considering that they've either supplanted or ingratiated themselves so thoroughly with most bodies of governance (on a global scale), what precisely is the average person going to do.

The game tries to highlight a difference between President Shinra and his son Rufus: the President won't baulk at any atrocity but then spends a fortune covering it up so that the public will believe Shinra is kind and good. Rufus thinks it would be cheaper and more efficient to rule by fear: make a public example of a few people, and then neither expensive atrocities nor expensive cover-ups are needed.

Exactly why the President needs the public to believe Shinra is benevolent is a bit of a mystery, but clearly comes from something in his psyche rather than consulting with reality. Rufus has a much better handle on reality than his dad. Shinra has a total monopoly both on generating power and delivering it. The only way to avoid their grasp is by going offline, like Cosmo Canyon or Gongaga. In this scenario, there really isn't anything that is 'bad for business', since it's not as if people have an alternative supplier they can turn to. It's a bit like Amazon, I guess.

 

[Random Nobody]

Or...SE just wanted to make the story convoluted in FF7 by bringing Cloud and co. to a perfectly fine Nibelheim despite his recount of it being destroyed.

....Well, SE loves nothing if not convolution (and let's be honest: the writing in the OG never was the tightest), so this actually is probably the best meta explanation for it.

But even if we accept that there's some compelling reason ShinRa needs to execute a cover-up (whatever it may be), seems to me there are less absurd and inefficient ways to go about it.

As far as I remember, the company didn't go out of its way to assassinate people connected to the village (there was ostensibly a significant number who'd moved out before the incident), so it's hard to see exactly what they were accomplishing. I guess it's down to how economically/geographically/socially significant Nibelheim was or was not. I'd guess it wasn't very, being a mountain podunk with no manufacturing power in the middle of nowhere, but if it were important enough to be noticed if wiped off the map...using explosives and burying the town in rocks or something seems a lot cheaper and less involved. Publicly claiming it was lost to natural disaster cannot possibly be messier and more doomed to failure than building Twilight Zone town.

 

[Roger]

Well, they don't know what happened to Sephiroth, or Jenova's head. And the Shinra mansion and the Nibelheim Reactor is filled with evidence concerning secrets they don't want people to know. They want every pair of eyes in the vicinity to be on their payroll and that requires housing so they just the next step.

 

[Nanaki Skywalker]

Or...SE just wanted to make the story convoluted in FF7 by bringing Cloud and co. to a perfectly fine Nibelheim despite his recount of it being destroyed.

....Well, SE loves nothing if not convolution (and let's be honest: the writing in the OG never was the tightest), so this actually is probably the best meta explanation for it.

But even if we accept that there's some compelling reason ShinRa needs to execute a cover-up (whatever it may be), seems to me there are less absurd and inefficient ways to go about it.

As far as I remember, the company didn't go out of its way to assassinate people connected to the village (there was ostensibly a significant number who'd moved out before the incident), so it's hard to see exactly what they were accomplishing. I guess it's down to how economically/geographically/socially significant Nibelheim was or was not. I'd guess it wasn't very, being a mountain podunk with no manufacturing power in the middle of nowhere, but if it were important enough to be noticed if wiped off the map...using explosives and burying the town in rocks or something seems a lot cheaper and less involved. Publicly claiming it was lost to natural disaster cannot possibly be messier and more doomed to failure than building Twilight Zone town.

In Sector 7, right before you leave for the No. 5 Reactor, you can speak to Johnny's father a few times, and if you answer his question about where you're from, he makes mention about a "reactor accident" that was "in the news." This makes it clear that there was at least some degree of media coverage on it, and Shinra's propaganda machine spun the incident as nothing more than a Mako Reactor accident.

 

[ChipNoir]

The thing is; Most people wouldn't care as long as things added up in their mind. And if we know anything about people as a whole, they will fill in the blanks for themselves as long as you leave the right evidence. So rebuilding the town just returns things to the status quo: Nibelhiem is just a backwater town that occasionally provides canon fodder for the military, and provides power for Rocket Town, and has a historical landmark. Nothing that anyone would look twice at.

As for survivors? They've all been rounded up by Hojo to become the next Sephiroth. All those deliciously creepy cloaked figures shambling around.

My question is why one of them somehow got all the way to Midgar.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

As far as I remember, the company didn't go out of its way to assassinate people connected to the village (there was ostensibly a significant number who'd moved out before the incident), so it's hard to see exactly what they were accomplishing. I guess it's down to how economically/geographically/socially significant Nibelheim was or was not. I'd guess it wasn't very, being a mountain podunk with no manufacturing power in the middle of nowhere, but if it were important enough to be noticed if wiped off the map...using explosives and burying the town in rocks or something seems a lot cheaper and less involved. Publicly claiming it was lost to natural disaster cannot possibly be messier and more doomed to failure than building Twilight Zone town.

I remember President Shinra calling the Nibel reactor Shin-Ra's most important one because of its historical significance (it being the first mako reactor). I don't know to what extent the public at large saw it as significant, though.

In Sector 7, right before you leave for the No. 5 Reactor, you can speak to Johnny's father a few times, and if you answer his question about where you're from, he makes mention about a "reactor accident" that was "in the news." This makes it clear that there was at least some degree of media coverage on it, and Shinra's propaganda machine spun the incident as nothing more than a Mako Reactor accident.

He may have just been talking about the malfunction that Cloud, et. al. were sent to investigate, though?

As for survivors? They've all been rounded up by Hojo to become the next Sephiroth. All those deliciously creepy cloaked figures shambling around.

Hojo was just using them to test his Reunion Theory, not to make them into Sephiroth 2.0.

My question is why one of them somehow got all the way to Midgar.

Two, counting Cloud.

 

[ChipNoir]

As far as I remember, the company didn't go out of its way to assassinate people connected to the village (there was ostensibly a significant number who'd moved out before the incident), so it's hard to see exactly what they were accomplishing. I guess it's down to how economically/geographically/socially significant Nibelheim was or was not. I'd guess it wasn't very, being a mountain podunk with no manufacturing power in the middle of nowhere, but if it were important enough to be noticed if wiped off the map...using explosives and burying the town in rocks or something seems a lot cheaper and less involved. Publicly claiming it was lost to natural disaster cannot possibly be messier and more doomed to failure than building Twilight Zone town.

I remember President Shinra calling the Nibel reactor Shin-Ra's most important one because of its historical significance (it being the first mako reactor). I don't know to what extent the public at large saw it as significant, though.

In Sector 7, right before you leave for the No. 5 Reactor, you can speak to Johnny's father a few times, and if you answer his question about where you're from, he makes mention about a "reactor accident" that was "in the news." This makes it clear that there was at least some degree of media coverage on it, and Shinra's propaganda machine spun the incident as nothing more than a Mako Reactor accident.

He may have just been talking about the malfunction that Cloud, et. al. were sent to investigate, though?

As for survivors? They've all been rounded up by Hojo to become the next Sephiroth. All those deliciously creepy cloaked figures shambling around.

Hojo was just using them to test his Reunion Theory, not to make them into Sephiroth 2.0.

My question is why one of them somehow got all the way to Midgar.

Two, counting Cloud.

Cloud's been a little bit more functional than the rest.

Also I'm pretty well convinced the remake is going to follow my head canon that those are now all clones-to-be, intentionally created that way.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I would be very shocked if they completely changed a significant subplot of the game and deleted the Reunion -- not just because of its relevance to the original game, but because of its significance to the franchise as a whole (Advent Children, Reunion Tracks, Reunion Files, etc.).

And Cloud's more functional because he had Zack and Tifa.

 

[ChipNoir]

I would be very shocked if they completely changed a significant subplot of the game and deleted the Reunion -- not just because of its relevance to the original game, but because of its significance to the franchise as a whole (Advent Children, Reunion Tracks, Reunion Files, etc.).

And Cloud's more functional because he had Zack and Tifa.

The Reunion and what AC introduced with the Remnants can still work hand in hand though. They compliment each other, and the greater narrative: That the reason these Sephiroths keep appearing is because there were people wandering around with enough J-cells to make a new one, albeit one not strong enough to do anything without transforming into a JENOVA monstrocity.

Which frankly, was a missed opportunity. Instead of summoning Shin, they should have just had the three temporarily form into something like JENOVA Prime.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Why would they do that, though? Why change what the Remnants are? What the Seph copies are? Any of it?

 

[Cat Rage Room]

Exactly why the President needs the public to believe Shinra is benevolent is a bit of a mystery

I wager this is most probably because President Shinra oversaw the company during its founding and growth; before it could afford to get away with blatantly being corrupt and totalitarian.

During those nascent years when Shinra was enveloping the globe and its governments, it was vitally important for Shinra to maintain a facade of goodness and progress, because the company was vulnerable then. Remember that Rufus inherited the company after all that work was done, well after the need to do such things, and thus was in a better position and mindset to change things.

 

[ChipNoir]

Why would they do that, though? Why change what the Remnants are? What the Seph copies are? Any of it?

I had to reeducate myself on the Remnants, and you're right. They aren't really the same thing.

But I still really dig the idea that people can become Sephiroth clones, just because it would fill in some blanks as to why there are JENOVA entities that are traveling all over the world, often further ahead of Avalanche. In my mind, the proper way to rewrite this is that there are a certain number of people abroad, including Cloud, each with bits of Sephiroth and Jenova embedded in their make up through Hojo experimenting on them after the Nibelhiem incident.

After the five year cycle when enough of Sephiroth has reformed in the North Crater to give him the strength to command those JENOVA cells, Sephiroth begins puppeting them. Cloud has enough sanity left over that all Sephiroth can do is tug at his mind, while weaker willed 'clones' starting with Number II act on the REUNION impulse, which Sephiroth co-opts to get his hands on the Black Materia.

From that points, he's been using his clones to string Cloud along, guiding him across the planet towards the Keystone and Black Materia, eliminating obstacles, such as freeing them from ShinRa Inc, and getting rid of the second Midgar Zolum, and testing Cloud/Co to make sure that they're strong enough to survive the journey. Even killing Aerith feels less like riding himself of an obstacle, and more just further baiting Cloud into pursuing Sephiroth. Otherwise the sensible thing would be to take the Black Materia and bury it away. But because Cloud is so irrational and revenge driven, he continues to go after Sephiroth.

This feels like a much more coherent way to write out the plot of the remake, since it gives Sephiroth a concrete and insidious reason to drag Cloud into the plotline that has a certain fridge horror element, and connects JENOVA more strongly into the plot by making her REUNION have a bit more agency than just being a McGuffin.

Mostly though, I love the idea that they could take this concept to the Nth degree, where at North Crater, they find out that under the cloaks, at least one of those 'clones' is a Silver Haired Cloud copy, bringing Cloud's identity crisis into overdrive.