Mythtaken: “It’s Always Night in Midgar!”

[Tennyo]

Nothing grows in Midgar and yet they survive anyway. Clearly they import whatever they need so they could probably manage without sunlight just fine. It's like those people who live so close to one of the poles they get several months of darkness or near-darkness.

Ah, but, that isn't what I meant. Tets illustrated it best with that Spaceballs pic.

How would the people breathe?

 

[Starling]

I think I already pointed out reasons for going the unrealistic route with Midgar having smog-induced permanent night (or at least as dim as being stuck in a storm) would be something around the lines of rule of cool, which is the kind of thing that ignores stuff like people not being able to breather if it were that polluted. Goes with the cyberpunk feel of Midgar quite nicely.

 

[Ite]

Well people would get used to it. I mean they do in Delhi and Beijing even though people die of pollution there.

But then there is the argument for the Plate being above all that, which busts the smog-ceiling myth all over again.

(It is very painful to give up a piece of headcanon.)

 

[Starling]

Don't they say the air is cleaner above plate than below? Does smog only go so high?

 

[Geostigma]

Just some questions skipped most of the thread.

Isn't Aeriths home in Midgar city limits? That whole area seemed bright and sunny , and wasn't there sunlight shining right through the roof of the church onto the flowers?

 

[Roger]

Just some questions skipped most of the thread.

Isn't Aeriths home in Midgar city limits? That whole area seemed bright and sunny , and wasn't there sunlight shining right through the roof of the church onto the flowers?

Just yellow flood lights or whatever, she lives entirely under the plate.

 

[Ryushikaze]

Just some questions skipped most of the thread.

Isn't Aeriths home in Midgar city limits? That whole area seemed bright and sunny , and wasn't there sunlight shining right through the roof of the church onto the flowers?

Just yellow flood lights or whatever, she lives entirely under the plate.

The light isn't yellow. It's whitish, and appears to be coming in from a strange angle. Similarly, the light in the church also looks like natural daylight, and aren't both her house and the church right near joins in the plates?

 

[ForceStealer]

The church is near, or perhaps even beyond, the edge of the plate, so I figured that was light from beyond the plate. The house I was never quite as sure about. Neither the the light, the flowers, nor the blue water.

 

[Tetsujin]

The church is right between the plates. That's how Zack and Cloud managed to land there after falling from reactor 5, if you remember.

 

[Jason Tandro]

Right between the plates, but still under the plates. When you re-enter Midgar via the gate in Disk 3, you go through the external gates under the plate and then the first area you're at is the area next to the church.

 

[Flare]

Thanks Tets for the article, I never knew there were quite so many clues to Midgar in daytime in the OG. I always wondered if it was a 'world thing', like Midgar was usually always dark, or just artistic flair, as in making it dark to make it look more gloomy and oppressive.
Guess it was artistic flair.
I'm glad to see Midgar in broad daylight in the new trailer though; it made me super giddy.

 

[Ite]

Well yeah the long and short of it is that most of the development team didn't get the memo on what Midgar was supposed to be, so you have NPCs saying off-canon nonsense, and slum backgrounds that look like botanical gardens. Wall Market also covered in grass.

So is the line "you can't grow anything in Midgar" a lie? A translation error? Until the remake solidifies a "proper" canon we might have to *gasp* use our imaginations.

 

[Starling]

Some people like having more solid canon, even if only to settle certain debates. Others are perfectly fine with minimalist plots. Vagueness about things you want clarification on can be frustrating.

 

[Tennyo]

I always assumed the flowers at Aerith's house were able to grow because of her Cetra powers. Maybe she transplanted them from the church.

 

[Jason Tandro]

I always assumed the flowers at Aerith's house were able to grow because of her Cetra powers. Maybe she transplanted them from the church.

This was more or less my headcanon. Magical lifestream falderal mixed with Disney Princess Powers and fairy tears.

That or they're really plastic flowers and Aeris is just crazy. Wouldn't that be a dark twist? o.O

 

[Flare]

Some people like having more solid canon, even if only to settle certain debates. Others are perfectly fine with minimalist plots. Vagueness about things you want clarification on can be frustrating.

While I do like vagueness on certain things, because it leads to fun speculations, I also love learning more in-depth and 'casual' info for this world. Like just getting a taste/glimpse of how people live in that world would be enjoyable for me.
Some things like Jenova might be better off having some mystery to her still.

 

[Channy]

Wall Market also covered in grass.

So is the line "you can't grow anything in Midgar" a lie? A translation error? Until the remake solidifies a "proper" canon we might have to *gasp* use our imaginations.

Might not be actual grass ..... could be radioactive Mako sewage bubbling up and staining the ground.

 

[Lex]

we might have to *gasp* use our imaginations.

I love this quote Ite, because it's what I'm now calling "Lic Syndrome" XD. You and many others have spent so many years in your writing crafting your own VII headcanon and you await terrified The Remake, which is possibly going to bulldoze some of it away. Just remember that your world is always going to exist for you to come back to <3

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I have a new head canon now, which is that Lex is a megastar on Loveless Avenue, and his name is up in lights all over the city.

You're right about "Lic Syndrome". It's in the gaps between the flagstones that our flowers grow. If you concrete that over....

But I really did like the idea that Midgar was shrouded in perpetual gloom due to the effluent from the reactors, like London between the wars or so many Chinese cities today. It seemed part and parcel of the complete "anti-nature" quality of the place. "What do we need sunlight for? We have mako energy twenty-four hours a day!" Until the remake tells me otherwise, I shall assume that Midgar is usually shrouded in gloom, but that sometimes the skies clear and the sun does come out. I admit that an HD realization of this metal city glinting in the sun would be pretty awesome, but then so would an ominous cloud of pollution hovering on the horizon!!

 

[Starling]

I like the idea of it always being night in Midgar because it helps make it a cyberpunk dystopia wear dreams die, in contrast to other locations that aren't well off but still have sunlight. It also makes it more ominous and imposing as the seat of Shinra's power and as a result, the prime example of what they do to places.

 

[Ite]

Just finished purging the Shield (what I called the smog ceiling of Midgar) from my novelization. It actually makes the story tighter, so, thanks Tetsujin!

...........still headcanon tho. Lic Syndrome.

......................I am devoted to making Lic Syndrome as common a phrase in this fandom as "Gaia," hopefully even more prominent!

 

[Channy]

Nooooo not the shield. DX I liked it

 

[Starling]

It does? Well, if removing it somehow improves the story, then I guess I shouldn't be too upset about it. Is anyone particularly familiar with how pollution affects weather?

 

[Mayo Master]

It does? Well, if removing it somehow improves the story, then I guess I shouldn't be too upset about it. Is anyone particularly familiar with how pollution affects weather?

Well, usually it's the other way around: weather affects pollution. Basically, an area gets more polluted if there is an elevated concentration of noxious agents in the air (city smogs are mostly made of NO2 which results from imperfect combustion from engines using fuels).
If the weather tends to be with little wind and high pressure (anticyclonic conditions - usually synonym of good weather), then smog pollution builds up, like if you'd put a lid over the area. If the weather is windy, then you tend to disperse pollutants. If the weather is rainy, then you wash away the pollutants from the air, but you end up with acid rains

By the way, from my point of view, I see very little reason for any smog to build up over Midgar in the first place. As I said, smog pollution is a byproduct of the combustion of fuels, and I would tend to believe that mako energy would not cause any such pollution. In a sense, mako energy would actually be clean (just consuming the life of the Planet, which is bad enough). However, it is mentioned in the game that the air in the slums is polluted. By what? I've not given much thought about that (if you discard mako energy from the list of potential causes). Any thoughts?

 

[Starling]

The plate is likely sufficiently enclosed to trap pollution under it and impede proper air circulation, which would lower air quality. Midgar probably doesn't get particularly strong winds either.

I think most of Midgar's waste gets dumped in the slums. Dusty air from the train tunnels? Vents direct it below plate. Whatever waste the reactors emit that doesn't evaporate? Probably the slums, which would make mako poisoning a bigger issue down there. Garbage? Slums, as the train graveyard and sector 6 seem to indicate. They have to get all that scrap from somewhere, after all. Sewage? Dump it in the slums. Slum sewage? Under Corneo's mansion, apparently. I sure hope Cloud, Aerith and Tifa got showers ASAP after wading through that; it's probably the nastiest part of the slums. Case of Denzel mentioned the slum's rat population being too contaminated with bacteria from unclean water polluted by waste from the upper plate, meaning their water supply definitely wasn't clean. I bet even Deepground's waste gets dumped in the slums, one way or another.

As the narrative illustrates, the lifeblood of the planet was never intended to be used as power, so using it for that purpose leads to consequences that may reach beyond the surroundings becoming lifeless and the planet's gradual death. Mako is a liquid processed in a reactor and used in engines, suggesting similarities with the processes nuclear energy and fossil fuels use to produce electricity. Mako is likely extracted in a similar way to oil, which would in turn give Barret more to work with when he sets out to use it as an alternative fuel source (they really should've at least mentioned solar or air power when they did that).

The mako powered vehicles in the Shinra building are presented in a way that implies mako powered engines work much the same way as if they were using gasoline as fuel. This would mean that mako is ignited in order to produce energy and then emits fumes, which would lead to air pollution.

The reactors, especially considering their

Spoiler: original concept art,

seem to be made to evoke

Spoiler: nuclear plants,

which work by burning radioactive material to produce steam. In this case, the byproduct of energy production would be steam and waste radioactive material. Considering most mako reactor emissions glow, it seems Shinra just lets waste mako evaporate with the steam, which would again lead to air pollution.

Knowing this, it's a matter of whether or not processed mako dissipates normally or lingers in some way, as well as if other waste product would contribute to the air pollution. Even though it's not bad enough to make it look like night, Midgar's often overcast skies are likely at least in part due to pollution. While I'm not sure they get acid rain from it, there could be traces of mako in the rain water, though it's unclear how much it would take to cause mako poisoning. It can't be good for the general health of the population though, considering it's processed waste product rather than directly from the lifestream.

I've done some digging on particularly bad cases of air pollution and ended up with these:

Spoiler: The great smog of 1952:

The smog was mostly from coal and lasted 5 days.

Spoiler: China smog of 2013:

Apparently another case involving coal. Northeastern China had 4 days of smog, while eastern China only had 1, about 2 weeks earlier.

Spoiler: Examples of smog at night

Besides coal clearly leading to the worst air pollution, it seems pollution events really do generally occur from stagnant air more often than not. The worst air pollution incident is considered the Bhopal disaster, which was a gas leak from a local pesticide plant. Knowing the above images are about as bad as it tends to get IRL, here's some screenshots of Midgar that illustrate the overall air quality:

Spoiler: Midgar as seen in the trailer

Spoiler: Screenshots of Midgar in the OG and CC

Even though CC's depiction of the slums is too clean compared to all the other depictions, it still seems to show some haze at times. From the above examples, both above and below plate appear to have a fair bit of air pollution.