SPOILERS INTERmission Chapter 2 Spoiler Discussion

[Makoeyes987]

I am specifically saying Reeve does not know exactly what happened. However, he certainly knows something happened and must have some general idea of its very dangerous nature. Regardless of whether he is an engineer by training (which it seems he must be, to design and build machines like Cait Sith) or whether he is an architect, his job remains the same. We can argue till the cows come home about which department is responsible for monitoring and controlling the power output of the mako reactors, but he certainly wasn't not-involved or not au courant with that information:




My main point is this: given the nature of his job, Reeve must have known that something TOP SECRET was happening in the bowels of Midgar. Something that required huge amounts of power. In fact, he says he did know:
Reeve: As for me, I was told the information was on a need to know basis.
What did he think the information being kept from him referred to? The information on them came from Scarlet's file.
Reeve: All the intel we currently have on Deepground was only discovered recently when we came across some of Scarlet's old files.

That he didn't know precisely what it was is beside the point. He must have known it wasn't something good. This being the case, it was remiss of him of him not to deal with the problem earlier. To leave it for three years and then send a TV camera crew and 38 members of an "investigation team" to deal with it was criminally negligent.



When Heidegger is this cavalier with people's lives, he is rightly condemned for it.

But Reeve isn't in the loop. You're saying "he should know" but how would he know? You might as well be saying Palmer, Rufus, or Tseng should have known something and tried to intervene despite the fact that they had no responsibility or awareness of the situation too. Rufus was the President of the company. Tseng was head of Investigations. Yet they somehow neglected to find out what the "top secret" thing was in Midgar's underground. Yeah, Reeve had "suspicions" that Shinra did dirty, terrible things. And that's shown quite clearly in Chapter 16 and in the lead up to the plate collapse of Sector 7. He's witnessed Shinra doing terrible, awful things to the people.

However, that doesn't mean he's gonna magically stumble upon every dark secret they've done behind his back. You're expecting him to take an active role in fishing out secrets that are classified and outside his purview, when even the new president of of Shinra itself, was kept out of the loop of Deepground's existence. How are you going to look for something you don't know exists and is beyond your awareness? And Reeve was acting as a double agent and trying to help save the world against Sephiroth. He at least has an excuse for doing double duty as a spy and reverse-spy. Rufus was the President, and Tseng was running the Turks. They didn't find anything out either.

Reeve's a glorified urban planner and architect. He isn't an engineering wunderkind specialist with training or knowledge of mako reactor construction or energy management. He knew about the situation with the mako reactor overload because he's being told that information. In that very scene you quote, he's trying to tell Heidegger, head of Public Security, to get a handle on it. Why? Because that's Heidegger's responsibility and his men control that aspect of Midgar.

And yeah, that was a TV crew. That wasn't WRO. Why would they send a news crew to investigate that? It was a TV show. The WRO was already investigating when Deepground kidnapped folks from Junon to sacrifice them to Omega.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Palmer's a known idiot. We don't expect him to exhibit any powers of deduction or signs of intelligence.

Rufus was excluded from Board meetings afaik.

Tseng isn't in charge of running the city. It's also not his job to investigate Shinra; it's his job to investigate the enemies of Shinra. He's kept out of the loop because he's suspected of being "in bed" with Rufus (if I may indulge in the use of that phrase, metaphorically speaking). Veld ought to know, though; it would be insane if he didn't, given how long the Deepground project has existed. So there's another bit of a plot hole. I guess the people who made BC weren't talking to the people who made DoC.

Reeve is in charge of the whole city. That's why he ought to know. Deepground isn't some little pet project of Hojo's tucked away in the corner somewhere. It's huge. And Reeve doesn't have to have specialised knowledge. He's the head urban honcho, he's the guy the specialists report to.

I have already explained why, in his position as Director of Urban Development, he ought to have been in possession of enough information to put two and two together and figure out that in the labyrinth under Midgar lurked a potential danger that might pose a major problem. That is, he should have suspected that something existed, and therefore that something, though ill-defined, should not have been outside his awareness. If nothing else, he ought to have told Rufus (who's underwrtiting the WRO) and Tseng that there was something nasty in the woodshed, so that the Turks could have investigated. They would all have been killed, but it would still have been more sensible than letting a TV crew go investigate.

I don't know how many times I have to say that I wouldn't have expected Reeve to know that Deepground specifically was down there. Only that in any coherent world building scenario, he would have been aware that something highly suspect was going on there down.

 

[Makoeyes987]

I mean, if you expect Reeve to have known for proper world building purposes, why wouldn't Rufus? He had board meetings and access to Scarlet, Heidegger and Hojo. The three executives who answered directly under him and orchestrated Deepground. And in the end, he's the President of the entire corporation, so if Rufus wanted to find out something, he could gain access to it. His privileges and clearance are absolute. It'd be his business to know every single avenue of research and development. Rufus somehow had enough sense to ask Hojo about what the Jenova Project was, however he didn't seem to press it when Hojo conveniently stated it only existed in his head.

If Reeve should be expected to simply notice something is up based on him simply being in charge of the city of Midgar and carrying the responsibility of awareness of everything that exists around it, Rufus carries that same responsibility as head of the whole corporation. It was happening under his watch and they're his private army.

 

[Clement Rage]

It's time we come to terms with the fact that none of FF7's worldbuilding has ever made any sense.

It's not actually clear whether Reeve knew something was down there or not. He says 'I was told', but whether that was at a board meeting in his Shinra days or a WRO tech who gave him a report on Scarlet's files three weeks before Dirge is not specified.

If I remember correctly, Rufus still had full access to all Shinra info, it's how he got them in to Veld's location. He may or may not have known, it's never specified beyond Reeve's uninformed speculations.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

- Let's break down some unnecessary confusion here, starting with Reeve's credentials:

Dude is almost certainly an engineer given his position alone. I actually work in local government, and know or know of many public works/utilities directors in multiple municipalities. They're all engineers. I'm pretty sure you're not even eligible for the position in any municipality of appreciable size without that background.

Also, his creation and operation of Cait Sith, his ruminations on how to refine its operations, etc. peg him as obviously having engineering skills.

- Secondly, Deepground's electrical consumption:

The facility runs off Reactor 0, housed within Deepground itself. Unlike the eight reactors on the perimeter of Midgar, there's no reason to think its energy consumption is under the purview of Reeve or any of his subordinates. He had apparently already been told what went on down there was need-to-know and that he didn't need to know.

Given that the four SODLIERs who run the site answer directly to President Shinra himself, who is also an engineer, if anyone gets that report, it's him. Assuming anyone cares to make a report for that in the first place, given what the place exists for.

- Other things:

It's not actually clear whether Reeve knew something was down there or not. He says 'I was told', but whether that was at a board meeting in his Shinra days or a WRO tech who gave him a report on Scarlet's files three weeks before Dirge is not specified.

Reeve's specifically talking about which executives knew what in ye pre-Meteor days. When he gets to himself, he says "As for me" -- and that's when we get the explanation "I was told the information was on a need to know basis."

And since he also says Deepground is beyond what he expected, that implies he knew enough to think he could form an expectation.

A WRO tech reading a file fits neither the context of expressing "need to know basis" nor the context of this obviously being data Reeve would want to see for himself. And again, there's the context of Reeve talking about the subject to Vincent in terms of what the various executives knew before Meteor.

Tseng isn't in charge of running the city. It's also not his job to investigate Shinra; it's his job to investigate the enemies of Shinra. He's kept out of the loop because he's suspected of being "in bed" with Rufus (if I may indulge in the use of that phrase, metaphorically speaking).



...



If nothing else, he [Reeve] ought to have told Rufus (who's underwrtiting the WRO) and Tseng that there was something nasty in the woodshed, so that the Turks could have investigated. They would all have been killed, but it would still have been more sensible than letting a TV crew go investigate.

Given the urgency with which they were moving, the TV crew almost certainly didn't think they were supposed to be there. Furthermore, in light of Reeve keeping information from them, there's even less reason to believe he approved this.

As for Rufus and the Turks, seeing as they were on a mission to clean up the mistakes of Rufus's father, they would have probably investigated this matter -- and given that they were willing to go to the literal ends of the planet in investigating Jenova, both they and the WRO probably did investigate Midgar's wreckage. But as we know: the Deepground facility was inescapable (and therefore inaccessible) for more than two years.

How much time and other resources were either Rufus's new Shin-Ra or the WRO supposed to dedicate to searching for a facility they had no reason to suspect existed on the scale at which Deepground had actually been constructed and staffed? A facility that was buried, probably destroyed, and now probably staffed by skeletons if anyone was even still there at all?

All while trying to get a new infrastructure in place to make life manageable for countless displaced, injured, hungry, sick, dying, etc. people in the aftermath of complete societal collapse while a literally malevolent disease is making its way across the globe and there's a race against time to prevent Sephiroth or Jenova's return?

Really, how much should this wild goose chase have occupied them?

 

[Clement Rage]

Ha, yes, they're moving so urgently they waited for the cameras to be set up before levering open the door so they could get the dramatic shot timed to coincide with the newscaster monologue.

The WRO and the news station both recently uncovered new information about DG. Quite a coincidence, isn't it?

Shalua would absolutely put every effort into hunting down anywhere her sister might be, and she's Reeve's right hand. It's actually possible that she sent the team to Midgar, especially if the name 'Shelke' was in Scarlet's files. Despite the fact that it's quite a small team they were able to break in, so it can't be that difficult to get into from the outside at least.

Reeve also says 'I guess I wasn't on their list.' He's not sure.

So, two possible scenarios:

1. Reeve was told there was something in the basement called Deepground he should stay away from in his Shinra days. Plausible. But, you would expect him to investigate sooner.

2. A WRO researcher finds Scarlet's file, and gives Reeve a report on it. Said file is obviously incomplete or damaged, as Reeve is repeatedly surprised by DGs capabilities, doesn't recognise the uniforms, and doesn't know Tsviet powers or what they look like. A WRO tech is still analysing those files as late as on the bridge of the Shera. So Reeve forms expectations from these garbled files, which are not borne out by the reality when h encounters them. It at least has a partial list of Tsviet names, enough to know Azul's title.

The WRO is baffled by the disappearances. All their investigation finds is rumours of screams from Midgar. Meanwhile Yuffie is aware of a monster man that has the power to disappear people.

Really, how much should this wild goose chase have occupied them?

Vincent was locked in that coffin for 25 years. There are live monsters inside the sealed stone of the Temple of the Ancients. They opened a random safe in a derelict bulding and Lost Number jumped out and attacked them. The cave of the Gi is full of monsters, undead or otherwise. The derelict train graveyard is filled with murderous ghosts. Sephiroth grew a body that was sealed in a crystal for five years. The Weapons were sealed away for millenia dormant. Jenova was still alive after 2000 years. Crystal Lucrecia.
There are a hell of a lot of things in this world that can survive a long, long time in stasis, especially when mako is involved.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Dude is almost certainly an engineer given his position alone. I actually work in local government, and know or know of many public works/utilities directors in multiple municipalities. They're all engineers. I'm pretty sure you're not even eligible for the position in any municipality of appreciable size without that background.

Also, his creation and operation of Cait Sith, his ruminations on how to refine its operations, etc. peg him as obviously having engineering skills.

You know, I never thought of it like that. I guess that makes sense. I thought of him more like a toy maker and computer programmer, but I see where you're coming from. Cid was the one that I took as the de facto engineer of the group.

Ha, yes, they're moving so urgently they waited for the cameras to be set up before levering open the door so they could get the dramatic shot timed to coincide with the newscaster monologue.

The WRO and the news station both recently uncovered new information about DG. Quite a coincidence, isn't it?

Dude, it was a sensationalized newscast. The network broadcasting it was named TNN.

It was akin to the 1986 episode of Geraldo where he brought in an investigative team and demolition experts to open Al Capone's vault on live television. Except in this case, there was actually something down there in the bowels of Midgar that were not meant to be breached except by Shinra personnel. Coincidence? More like just journalism and investigation into rumors of a top secret research facility lying below the undercity of Midgar.

Shalua would absolutely put every effort into hunting down anywhere her sister might be, and she's Reeve's right hand. It's actually possible that she sent the team to Midgar, especially if the name 'Shelke' was in Scarlet's files. Despite the fact that it's quite a small team they were able to break in, so it can't be that difficult to get into from the outside at least.

Unless Shalua is a producer or executive at TNN News, I highly doubt that.

The WRO is baffled by the disappearances. All their investigation finds is rumours of screams from Midgar. Meanwhile Yuffie is aware of a monster man that has the power to disappear people.

How does she know he can "disappear people?" All she saw was a Shinra supersoldier in black gear use a strange substance to choke, kill and seemingly evaporate some other armed soldiers and scientists, all before he killed Sonon. She doesn't even know his name, rank or specific powers. He was a masked assailant in black who was extremely powerful and tried to kill them before they escaped.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

@Clement Rage
I initially posted this in another thread, where I was breaking my vow to never agree with you. So, to get back on track ...

I decided we need whatever Reeve says in Dirge's Japanese script to settle the matter of what he said concerning what he knew of Deepground and when. Should have done this from the start.

In Japanese, he says 都市計画責任者だった私はディープグラウンド、触れるべからずとして、その存在のみ、聞かされていました -- "As the person in charge of city planning, I was told only that Deepground existed, and to leave it alone."

 

[Clement Rage]

Wow, a translation of the Japanese script was actually helpful for once.

Dude, it was a sensationalized newscast. The network broadcasting it was named TNN.

It was akin to the 1986 episode of Geraldo where he brought in an investigative team and demolition experts to open Al Capone's vault on live television. Except in this case, there was actually something down there in the bowels of Midgar that were not meant to be breached except by Shinra personnel. Coincidence? More like just journalism and investigation into rumors of a top secret research facility lying below the undercity of Midgar.

Does TNN mean something? I think we have insufficient evidence to decide who they were tied to. Both the TV crew and the WRO uncover previously unknown information on DG 'recently' Either they have links to each other, or Hojo is sending out info to be found.

The WRO have established ties to the media enough to bury the Junon disappearances. It's entirely plausible that the investigation had ties to the WRO. Shalua is wholly dedicated to hunting down Shelke, and would stop at nothing to do so.

How does she know he can "disappear people?

Because she sees him disappear people. It's right there in the the DLC.

So where does this leave us? Reeve knows a project exists called Deepground, but nothing else. All that investigating the disappearances got the WRO was rumours of screams from Midgar.

If there ever was an investigation, he would presumably ask his intel Dept what they knew about Shinra secrets. Shalua certainly would.

Which is where Yuffie's knowledge becomes a problem.

Edit:

I initially posted this in another thread, where I was breaking my vow to never agree with you. So, to get back on track ...

My favourite one's got to be the Rise of Skywalker trailer somehow getting us to the definition of slavery.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Which is where Yuffie's knowledge becomes a problem.

In what way, though? "Oh, that's freaky AF. Good thing we found no evidence of any surviving supersoldiers anywhere and he's probably dead. So, any ideas about this geostigma thing?"

 

[Makoeyes987]

Does TNN mean something? I think we have insufficient evidence to decide who they were tied to.

It rhymes with CNN. You know. The cable news network. It's a pun. TNN could easily stand for Television News Network and given it's appearance, one is meant to draw a connection to a cable news network on live TV.

Nothing in the game whatsoever hints that the network is tied to the WRO or that it was a WRO organization. It's just a television show. The chyron reads "A television crew and 38 members of an investigation team are believed to be missing."

Nowhere during Reeve's explanation in chapter 2 does he imply that the tv network is connected. In fact he states "The WRO conducted a private investigation but we came up empty-handed. Except for the rumors." So they're clearly doing their own thing. That public investigation on television was not their own.

Reeve even says the WRO was feeding reporters half the story in the first place. "It was determined internally that if the truth was leaked, they wouldn't be able to contain the inevitable panic. The actual number of people that went missing that day was 1200." Noticed Reeve used the word "leak." As in leaked to the public. If the tv station was a WRO affiliate akin to state television, "leaking" wouldn't be an issue. It'd be a matter of simply disseminating the information they wished the public to receive. Instead, it's a matter of hiding the confidential Intel on the nature/number of disappearances to avoid panicking the populace. They didn't "bury" it, they simply gave them only half the picture to prevent a "leak" from the WRO. That's not indicative of it being WRO owned or sponsored.

And again, this doesn't take Hojo leaking anything. Clearly as seen by the G Reports, the rumors in the Slums of Midgar, and the Sector 7 Neighborhood Watch members being aware of an underground research laboratory housing monsters, the knowledge of something scary lurking below Midgar is known to it's citizens. They're investigating those rumors and seeing if they could break in and take a peek. It's urban legend.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

It's also mentioned in Picturing the Past that people have gone missing from the slums for a *very* long time.... and then show up later being mentally out of it (Sephiroth Copies). The Shinra Labs are very leaky of their monsters no matter where those labs are.

So monsters in the slums from what might be one of Shinra's Science Labs is... old news to everyone who lived in the Slums. But it doesn't nessecarily mean "Deepground is under *here*". It instead means Hojo or one of his fellow scientists left the lab door open accidenlty on purpose up in the Shinra Building more often than not.

And I think that is... probably more what the WRO was expecting. Less "super secret SOLDIER experiment site" and more "Hojo Hidden Lab #29".

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Even if they thought it was simply another of Hojo's secret labs, that ought to have told them enough for them to make sure they didn't allow civilians anywhere near it, and Reeve should still have made sorting it out a priority. He of all people should know by now that when dealing when Shinra you can't simply look away and hope for the best.

Are the Shinra labs leaky of their monsters? The occassions I know of when monsters escaped into Midgar are:
1. When Hollander and his minions deliberately release them during Crisis Core and BC. Hollander and Co also meddle with the programming of the AI so that the defense bots turn into murder bots (incidentally, why is it even possible for the bots to be hacked in that way?)
2. After Avalanche's bombing of Reactor 1, which shatters some of the structures in the under-under-city and allows the mutant dog to escape.
3. After the dropping of the Sector 7 plate, which breaks up the under-structure even more.
I think there may be other incidents when monsters are released from the lab deliberately, but they never get out into the streets. They don't have monsters wandering outside on a regular basis.

Wymer: We've got a real killer on the loose, you see. A rabid catch dog. Maybe you heard people talking about it? Shinra mutt gone feral. Last sighting was in Scrap Boulevard. Think you're up to it?

Cloud: I'll handle it.

Wymer: You're a lifesaver! Doubt anyone else around her stands a chance! Go get 'em, bud.

(Upon approaching Wymer at the front of Scrap Boulevard after taking out half of Wrath Hound's HP.)
Wymer: Hey! Over here! Tifa! Hey, Cloud!

(Upon talking to Wymer.)
Wymer: I drove the hound into the area up ahead. He's pissed, so make sure you're ready.

(Upon talking to Wymer after defeating the Wrath Hound.)
Wymer: Took care of the dog, did ya? Phew! We owe you one.

Cloud: Gotta say, I've never seen a Shinra breed like that before. Out of curiosity, when exactly did it show up?

Wymer: Oh, today. The first reports came in just this morning. Uh...why do you ask?

Wymer: Wait a minute... There's this crazy story about a Shinra research lab hidden right beneath our feet—under the slums.

Cloud: Huh. Really...? That's news to me.

Wymer: And here I thought you might know something I don't! Well, I guess not.

Cloud: It's a big organization. I'm sure there's lots of secrets I don't know.

It doesn't even occur to Wymer that the "rabid" dog might have escaped from a Shinra lab until Cloud suggests it, so it seems escaped lab experiments isn't a thing that happens often round those parts (if ever).

When Cloud fights the monodrives in Sector 5, the Scared Man assumes they have come from the damaged reactor.

Scared Man: Shinra weapons are on the rampage. Five of 'em, like floatin' eyeballs! I saw them wander off into the scrap, but if they come back into town, it'd be a disaster. We need someone who's willing and able to fight...

Cloud: I'll handle it.

Scared Man: You will!? Aw man, you're the best! I could hear them shouting "intruder detected" or some other nonsense when they floated off. Be careful. They looked dangerous!

(Upon returning to the Scared Man after defeating Mark II Monodrives.)
Scared Man: I heard, I heard! You got 'em all, right? Robots from the reactor getting lost in the slums... Must be because of the explosion up top, huh? They must've thought they were protecting the reactor, and figured I was trespassin' on their turf or something.

People make assumptions based on their experience of what can be expected or is normal. It seems Shinra weapons running amok among the populace can be expected, but not so much so monsters escaping from Shinra labs.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

There's an entire mission line in Crisis Core where Zack has to kill monsters that have somehow escaped the Shinra Labs to the Slums. It ends with Hojo's 2nd-in-Command being lead away by security after he has a full on mental break down saying he let out his experiments to get revenge on the people of Midgar for letting Hojo experiment on Ifalna, the last Cetra.

Before Crisis has Fuhito come to get Hojo to join Avalanche and free a lot of other experiments on the way in to distract Shinra Security. Fuhito and Hojo discuss science like... an old married couple TBH. It would be cute if they weren't discussing how Fuhito had tweaked the SOLDIER regeneration factor into overdrive and Hojo was *very* impressed and wanted to see the outcome of it. Hojo is *fine* with Fuhito releasing monsters btw, he needs to test how good they are *somehow*... and that includes that one dragon that got released that Sephiroth had to take down... No really, apperently Hojo was doing some kind of experiment on a dragon in the Shinra building and it was let out by Fuhito. Sephiroth takes it down over one of MIdgar's freeways...

Before Crisis also has Episode: Reno which goes more into how Hollander and Genesis managed to get Shinra's Army mechs to fight for them instead of Shinra. The answer is... surprisingly mundane. They paid off Neumann, the head system administrator and the head of the team who developed Shinra's network in the first place. He had Administrative rights to the Security System the the Army mechs were on and reprogrammed the system for Hollander and Genesis.

And that's not even going into how Hojo has been unleashing Sephiroth Copies on the Midgar public for decades while paying off people to report back to him about what they get up to...

So yeah... I can... really believe that Hojo lets monsters out on purpose from time to time just to see what happens...

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Yes, my point is that whenever monsters get out, it's because they have been deliberately released, and it doesn't happen that often. The labs are not "leaky". The examples you raise are covered under my point #1.

"And that's not even going into how Hojo has been unleashing Sephiroth Copies on the Midgar public for decades while paying off people to report back to him about what they get up to..."
I believe you, but when does this happen?

 

[Makoeyes987]

Monsters are clearly leaky to some degree because they've happened enough times they've become ubiquitous and multiplied in the wild. Monsters and Shinra are the topic of urban legend. People in Nibelheim certainly thought there was something connected to monsters and the Reactor too.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Not all the monsters that exist in Midgar or in the world generally are escapees from Shinra labs. A lot of 'monsters', such as the rats, the gorgers, the hedgehog pies, the drakes, the blugu, the sahagin etc, etc.... are indigenous flora and fauna.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Those monsters are mutations of indigenous life, but there are multiple instances of Shinra specimens escaping and breeding. That's shown in Crisis Core and the Remake. Multiple enemies of the Remake are stated to be escaped creatures from Shinra Labs. And they just exist, roaming around people.

The Crisis Core Complete Guide states

Monsters

Living things, both plants and animals, who have been over-exposed to mako and thus suddenly mutated. The two causes are roughly divided between beings affected by natural springs of mako that well up from the soil, and those that were produced through Shin-Ra experiments. Therefore, in areas where there is little natural mako monsters are only seen on occasion, and as for the ones born from Shin-Ra experiments, many have escaped over the course of the war and have begun breeding in the wild.

Shinra has made most non-indigenous monsters.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

"Many have escaped over the course of war."

To me this means they didn't escape from the labs, but were taken to the theatres of the Wutai war to be used for military purposes, and escaped then.

Can we assume there are flora and fauna in the 'monster' list that aren't actually 'monsters' by that definition? E.g. sahagin, dragons, coast runners, behemoths?

 

[Makoeyes987]

I'd say those are more natural and all, but when you see things like those Varghidpolis, Proto-Sweepers, Smoggers, and Byobapolis, you know they probably came from Shinra scientists in some form or fashion.

That's true about the war, but you also find things that clearly could only have come from either some sort of experiment or research department that just... Got loose of its specimens/machinery and it's just wandering out and about.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

It doesn't even occur to Wymer that the "rabid" dog might have escaped from a Shinra lab until Cloud suggests it ...

Cloud doesn't suggest it, though? He just asks when the dog showed up. Wymer had already said it was a Shinra hellhound when initially bringing it up. Cloud even says that he doesn't know anything about a possible lab underground when Wymer suggests the possibility.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Well, god only knows what Wymer says in Japanese, but in English he calls it a "rabid catch dog" and a "Shinra mutt gone feral". It's not as if the people of the undercity haven't seen guard hounds a thousand times.

OK, I shouldn't have said "suggested", I should have said, "opened the door to the possibility". Cloud asks when it showed up, and that's when Wymer puts 2 and 2 together. He doesn't say, "Yes, the reactor explosion must have let some shit loose", but he clearly makes the connection: dog showed up that morning - big reactor explosion last night - underground lab. Before Cloud raised it, though, Wymer just assumed it was some kind of regular but sick guard hound. Which would imply that monsters escaping from Shinra's labs are not a regular occurrence and not the first explanation people would jump to.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

That's a fair enough point. Certainly there are plenty of nasty enough natural fauna out there (e.g. the Hedgehog Pie) that people need not instantly connect every set of nasty teeth with the company.

That being said, in some cases they do go ahead and make the connection, as with the bionic Mark II Monodrives.

Even in the case of the Wrath Hound, while Wymer's thoughts didn't immediately go to the rumors about a lab, he had obviously still previously concluded that the creature had gotten loose from Shin-Ra.

And then of course we do have a few common enemy species types that Assess explicitly identifies as having escaped from labs (the Varghidpolis and its two similar enemy types), as well as the Hellhound creatures whose assessment reveals were the product of experimentation (it doesn't say whether they escaped or were perhaps sold by a lab assistant).

Now, of course, the slums are practically littered with mechanical enemy types that Shin-Ra dumped down there or just allowed to wander off, so there's probably more of these than there are creatures -- but there's at least a few common monsters that are definite lab escapees.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

"And that's not even going into how Hojo has been unleashing Sephiroth Copies on the Midgar public for decades while paying off people to report back to him about what they get up to..."
I believe you, but when does this happen?

Picturing the Past, the Aerith short-story in the World Preview book for Remake. It's a fantastic look at Shinra's MPs and how they go about getting information they probably shouldn't exactly have access too.

Shinra was a leaky sieve for confidential information in Crisis Core and PtP just continues the trend. You have a normal MP knowing who to talk to and people having well known unspoken rules for trading information and characters suggesting what would make them have plausible deniability all over the place.

 

[Clement Rage]

They don't put up signs identifying escaped lab experiments as escaped lab experiments.

NPCs knowing everything is just a gameplay mechanic for the player to find lore.

In what way, though? "Oh, that's freaky AF. Good thing we found no evidence of any surviving supersoldiers anywhere and he's probably dead. So, any ideas about this geostigma thing?"

"There is a specifically very dangerous scary guy that shoots swirly black stuff in the basement of Shinra HQ, when I last saw him he was alive and in the basement of Shinra HQ. There's also a distinct unit of people that aren't SOLDIER but are enhanced like them, also in the basement of the Shinra building. Don't go down there, or if you do go armed for bear. Incidentally, Shalua, since you are specifically looking for your lost sister who was taken away to be a Shinra experiment, you might want to know that Shinra were keeping experiments in the basement, and as I work for the WRO intelligence dept, here is everything I know about Shinra secrets as a matter of course.'

Mako, I feel like it's giving a lot of credit to Japanese game devs to have them insert a very subtle joke about American cable news in the background of the opening FMV of a PS2 game in 2006.

And again, this doesn't take Hojo leaking anything. Clearly as seen by the G Reports, the rumors in the Slums of Midgar, and the Sector 7 Neighborhood Watch members being aware of an underground research laboratory housing monsters, the knowledge of something scary lurking below Midgar is known to it's citizens. They're investigating those rumors and seeing if they could break in and take a peek. It's urban legend.

Then why did they both discover the same information within weeks of each other?

Given the urgency with which they were moving, the TV crew almost certainly didn't think they were supposed to be there. Furthermore, in light of Reeve keeping information from them, there's even less reason to believe he approved this.

As for Rufus and the Turks, seeing as they were on a mission to clean up the mistakes of Rufus's father, they would have probably investigated this matter -- and given that they were willing to go to the literal ends of the planet in investigating Jenova, both they and the WRO probably did investigate Midgar's wreckage. But as we know: the Deepground facility was inescapable (and therefore inaccessible) for more than two years.

How much time and other resources were either Rufus's new Shin-Ra or the WRO supposed to dedicate to searching for a facility they had no reason to suspect existed on the scale at which Deepground had actually been constructed and staffed? A facility that was buried, probably destroyed, and now probably staffed by skeletons if anyone was even still there at all?

It doesn't seem that inaccessible from the outside. We see two people levering open a door, and while they have probably done some work beforehand, there doesn't seem to be any visible heavy machinery or anything, and there's only 38 of them, so there's a limit to the amount of excavigating they can accomplish. Unless it was a question of finding the right door to lever open.

It was probably more difficult to get out from the inside...or else Nero just didn't want to leave his brother.

We don't have enough information on the WRO's relationship to the media, but they could suppress a story as big as 1200 missing people, which could have been via keeping info secret or convincing them 'don't report on this in the interest of the planet.'