Here's a simple question: Why Nibelhiem?

[Cat Rage Room]

Why was Nibelhiem chosen to be the place where some of the most fucked up secrets, experiments, and mistakes of Shinra occurred? I know it had to be SOMEWHERE, but Nibelhiem?

 

[Nocturne]

Surrounded by mountains, so I doubt alot of people would go searching in there.

Plus, the Shinra mansion was there before hand I suppose. I doubt anyone wanted to mess with them.

 

[Channy]

Midgar had a lot of shit going on as it was. Plus, this is where Cloud was born. The hero's hometown ALWAYS has shit going down on the inside, be it tragedies or mysteries no one's supposed to know about. I mean, how many anime's have we seen that the main character's home town gets torched, or people are brutally murdered or some shit.

 

[Max Payne]

Secluded area in the mountains, relatively small populace, and little opposition in the area?

It seems like a nice place for it.

 

[Suzaku]

Shinra has plenty of dark secrets all over the FF world, and Nibelheim certainly wasn't the only one.

Deepground, Kalm, and Banora all immediately spring to mind.

 

[Ravynne Nevyrmore]

Banora, obviously, but what was going on in Kalm?

 

[NoenGaruth]

Kalm was covered in BC, something happened there an the place got torched IIRC, thats when Verdot lost his wife and Felicia(Elfe).

Someone who can remember that part might wanna elaborate.

 

[Tennyo]

Nibelheim was maybe also chosen because it had a very secluded reactor. That's where a lot of stuff went down and it served as a good place to store Jenova.

 

[Cat Rage Room]

Which leads me to wonder why they built a reactor there anyway. What the fuck is out there?

 

[Channy]

....CLOUD. >_>

If the reactor wasn't there, then Tifa wouldn't have gone exploring looking for her mum, Cloud wouldn't have gone after her. He wouldn't leave to become SOLDIER because he wouldn't have much knowledge of Shinra without the reactor, ergo... no hero.

 

[Makoeyes987]

I think he wants a more in-universe explanation...

The reason the first mako reactor was built on Mt. Nibel was because the Nibel mountains had high readings for Spirit Energy. Mt. Nibel is rich in mako, and thus they built the first one there, and established themselves in that mountainous region.

I mean, look around. There are several natural mako fountains in the Nibel Mountains. It would make sense they'd try to utilize it and build a reactor there, regardless of how far out in the wilderness it was.

 

[megas_sephiroth]

Niflheim is, in norse mythology, the land of the dead... After naming their town after that place, nothing good could come their way. :p

 

[Dawnbreaker]

I think Mako's is the most plausible in-game explaination. I distinctly remember Sephiroth mentioning how strong the mako smell was there, and he talked about the mako fountains which showed high concentrations of mako. It just happens to be where a Mako Reactor would get good use. Of course, it also happens to serve a number of plot devices, but we're not talking about that. xD

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

Why was Nibelhiem chosen to be the place where some of the most fucked up secrets, experiments, and mistakes of Shinra occurred? I know it had to be SOMEWHERE, but Nibelhiem?

Middle of no-where, ample supply of mako.
Hard to get to.
Small demographic meaning no-one would visit and notice anything.

 

[HylianMogget]

I always assumed it was more because of the high concentration of mako there than anything else, what with the mako fountain(s?) in the mountains and all. There's isolation, too, but it always kind of seemed to me that most of the towns in FFVII were sort of out of the way; still, I guess it is particularly isolated there.

 

[S and G]

When you first visit Nibelheim during Cloud's flashback in the original game, the receptionist at Gramps' Inn talks about how the area used to be covered with trees, but that the landscape has withered over the years due to the Mako Reactor. This old landscape is also hinted at during Vincent's flashbacks in DC of he and Lucrecia in the hills beyond Nibelheim. As well as the points made above regarding the 'strong Mako smell' and the obvious abundance of Mako as seen in the Mako fountains in FF7 and CC, it can be concluded that Shinra obviously saw the Mount Nibel area as a good place to build their first Reactor. Given that it was their first Reactor, it may very well have held some sentimental value to President Shinra.

 

[Roger]

I like that theory, the out of way theory doesn't hold much water considering the Junon reactor is located well, underwater. Now that's safe.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

A mako reactor outside of Midgar means....

Nothing else out there.
Or so say Zack and Cloud.
I got the impression that nearly all the reactors were built in remote backwoods places where there was plenty of easily accessible mako.

"Nibelheim" the name is taken from Wagner's 'Ring Cycle' and actually means 'mist-home' (ie, Cloud!). Wagner used it as the name for the kingdom of the dwarves; his spelling was a Germanisation of Niflheim, which literally means 'land of mists' or 'fog-home' but which was, as someone said above, the Norse home of the dead. So as a name it's doubly appropriate.

Maybe the reasoning behind choosing Nibelheim went something like this: the relationship between Cloud and Tifa makes it essential that the crisis takes place in his home town, so that home town has to be somewhere where Shinra would store Jenova and have a laboratory, so it has to have a mako reactor, because otherwise, why would Shinra be active there?

I don't know how to indicate a spoiler, otherwise I'd fill in the story of Kalm.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Well again, I think said before that the reason Nibelheim was chosen was because it was the location of the first mako reactor, and it had an abundance of mako energy there in the Nibel mountains.

It being isolated does make it safer. And barring some underwater terrorism going on (or a hulking green WEAPON out for blood) why would there be anything to fear regarding their Junon underwater reactor? It's isolated and guarded. Only those with Shinra clearance can even enter the facility.

 

[Ryushikaze]

Spoilers are indicated by

Spoiler

tags, which are coupled with an end tag.

As for why Nibelheim? It's in the middle of nowhere, rich in energy, and where they proved their first practical applications for mako, so research facilities are already in place. As for why Jenova was stored there- they never moved it after the expiriments.

 

[Max Payne]

The Nibelheim mountain had fucking mako energy leaking out in the goddamn caves.

 

[Cat Rage Room]

Woah, I totally forgot about this topic.

Maybe the reasoning behind choosing Nibelheim went something like this: the relationship between Cloud and Tifa makes it essential that the crisis takes place in his home town, so that home town has to be somewhere where Shinra would store Jenova and have a laboratory, so it has to have a mako reactor, because otherwise, why would Shinra be active there?

That answers the question of why the narrative chose Nibelheim as the town where a lot of things go down (along with most other RPGs), but that doesn't answer the question of why that's the case within the story.

Not to say that the question hasn't been answered already.

 

[Aki]

I like the idea of the "big evil cooperation" just going into back water places and putting their reactors up. Like how Supermarkets just build in small areas and take all the economy.


I assume like many others have said, it was simple to extract the mako from the area already. Sort of a prototype reactor to start with. Due to it being unaccessable to most people it was a good place to keep its experiments.

 

[Smaddy]

And also, Nibleheim is remote enough where if something goes wrong -- and boy did things go totally wrong there -- it can go fairly undetected, and could be contained/controlled by ShinRa quickly. If they'd done experimenting with Jenova in Midgar, there's too much risk of getting too many people involved with it.