Plot Changes a Possibility?

[Makoeyes987]

Well Reeve Tuesti is in charge of Urban Development. That's not a mystery

The point I was making is, Shinra is not worried or concerned with risks towards the civilian population. It simply isn't a concern. Nothing has forced them to be concerned over it.

There are no regulations. No building codes. No oversight or government policy and procedures that limit or guide Shinra's policy making whatsoever. They do what they want. Such real life concerns such as residential proximity industrial do not exist in FFVII.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I think Mayo's point is that Reeve shows concern over such things, but that it looks slightly silly for the guy who designed this city to have been so upset with Barret over the fallout of an explosion whose consequences were exacerbated by the design of the city.

And perhaps there's a point to be made along those lines -- while Reeve obviously didn't count on a terrorist attack, certainly the potential for meltdowns or overflows was there even before?

But most likely this was lower-rent housing to begin with. People well off enough to be on the plate, but still not the wealthiest. We know even the plate had its low-income areas, and in bigger cities, there's always going to be some people who live on the edge of the industrial area.

 

[FFShinra]

I agree that the explosion will be something given the size of the reactor, I dunno about it wiping out a quarter of two sectors though, given that Aerith seems to be reasonably close and in the trailer the street she's on is actually less damaged than it is in the original game.

Thats just it, the proximity of Aerith to the reactor means it shouldn't actually explode the way it did in the original game because otherwise, even without the shockwave effect, the immediate surrounding area, which includes the Loveless street corner, should be leveled. It obviously won't be, but then how do they show the destruction of the reactor, get the needed death toll, and (from a more cinematic perspective) also show how cool the explosion is?

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

How old is Reeve anyway? They start building Midgar almost thirty years before the start of the OG. Either he's visiting the same plastic surgeon as Reno or he inherited the design of Midgar from whoever was in charge of urban planning before him and just had to make the best of it.

 

[ForceStealer]

Uh oh, FF7 timeline question. Everyone get your abacuses out.

 

[Makoeyes987]

There probably was someone else who worked on it, cause yeah. Reeve is younger than the history of Midgar's initial development.

And perhaps there's a point to be made along those lines -- while Reeve obviously didn't count on a terrorist attack, certainly the potential for meltdowns or overflows was there even before?

But most likely this was lower-rent housing to begin with. People well off enough to be on the plate, but still not the wealthiest. We know even the plate had its low-income areas, and in bigger cities, there's always going to be some people who live on the edge of the industrial area.

Right, and I was saying that Shinra probably didn't give much thought or concern to safety risks or the inherent dangers of having city residents in such close proximity to the reactors. Shinra probably wanted to save space and maximize all available real estate in Midgar so that additional plate expansion wouldn't be necessary. Shinra answers to no one so the common safety principles developers and corporations have to keep in mind and adhere to in construction are simply just absent. Reeve not taking that factor into consideration (if he's the one responsible) could easily be chalked up to simple mismanagement due to there being no division of Urban Development focused specifically on safety planning and risk assessment.

Whether it's due to flagrant disregard for human life or a result of lack of oversight, the outcome is sadly the same.

 

[Kain424]

the proximity of Aerith to the reactor means it shouldn't actually explode the way it did in the original game because otherwise, even without the shockwave effect, the immediate surrounding area, which includes the Loveless street corner, should be leveled.

That would depend on the type of explosion, the substance used in creating the explosion, and the physical effect on something as unknown to us as Mako. It may be only a certain amount of damage, not necessarily city block leveling.

 

[FFShinra]

Thats kinda why I'm asking the thread how they go about it, keeping in mind the need for it to be visually spectacular, devastating to Midgarites, and yet also not destroy Aerith's street corner.

 

[Kain424]

Indeed, the more I look at that new intro, the more I wonder how they will do it. If we assume the reactor bombed is kept as the #1 reactor, wholesale obliteration of the reactor would, yeah, more or less destroy several blocks on the way toward where Aerith is. Then again, the initial blast may be large, and the reactor crumbles back into itself. We'll have to see how they handle it.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Surely it also depends on how the reactor is designed and engineered? Maybe it's designed to contain explosions and direct their force upward through the very large chimney? Possibly as a security measure or possibly to protect against Chernobyl style accidents within the reactor? Although I don't know if that's a risk with mako. The reactors aren't just reactors, they're also the major supports for the outer rim of the plates, so it's possible their external structure is much bigger than the reactor per se contained within would need.

I really love this photo because it makes the wide gaps between the sectors more obvious, and it's easier to see how beams of sunlight might shine on Aerith's house. There's some kind of flyover running along the edge of the plate and highrises against the curtain wall. There doesn't seem to be any means of driving directly from sector 1 to sector 8. Just a footbridge. There is what looks like a reactor entrance on a level that's dropped down maybe 50 feet (I'm not good at measurements) from the street level of the sectors. No wonder all kinds of crap was always falling down to the slums. Can you imagine the fly tipping?

 

[Hanna]

On whether Shinra had concerns about safety and people possibly living too close to the reactors - if it's anything like real life, most likely there are people and departments inside the company who care more, and those who care less. Though Reeve and his staff may have been responsible for overseeing the urban development, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't have the final say over it. It's so common that departments that take care of social and environmental issues in corporations may have actually good intentions and concerns, but end up getting ran over by other departments that are closer to making the final business decisions.

Also, those who wanted to put housing so close to the reactors may also have had motivations beyond just making money. Like "so many people want to live in Midgar, so we have to provide as much housing as possible to allow them to move here", "there have been accidents elsewhere, but we've learned from them and the tech we use here is a lot safer" etc. etc. I'm not saying that's definitely how it is since we don't really have that much detail (keeping my fingers crossed for this in the Remake), but I think it's more interesting to assume Shinra is a mix of different kind of people with different motivations, rather than just making it a monolith that doesn't care about anything but money.

 

[Erotic Materia]

Though Reeve and his staff may have been responsible for overseeing the urban development, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't have the final say over it.

A valid point. Reeve definitely makes a point of mitigating possible damage wherever possible, but he gets railroaded by President Shinra on at least one occasion that we can see (i.e. the bombing of sector 7's support beam).

 

[FFShinra]

Surely it also depends on how the reactor is designed and engineered? Maybe it's designed to contain explosions and direct their force upward through the very large chimney? Possibly as a security measure or possibly to protect against Chernobyl style accidents within the reactor? Although I don't know if that's a risk with mako. The reactors aren't just reactors, they're also the major supports for the outer rim of the plates, so it's possible their external structure is much bigger than the reactor per se contained within would need.

I agree with this. And thats kinda why I worry about the explosion being sort of meh.

 

[Erotic Materia]

If we assume the reactor bombed is kept as the #1 reactor, wholesale obliteration of the reactor would, yeah, more or less destroy several blocks on the way toward where Aerith is. Then again, the initial blast may be large, and the reactor crumbles back into itself.

I mean, you could still devastate the area that Aeris was in and have her survive. Like an "omg you're so lucky" situation.

 

[FFShinra]

You could. Indeed, if they go that route, I'd be happy. But the trailers seem to show otherwise. Not much in the way of actual damage other than flickering lights and some trash. Which, to be fair, is how they show things in the original game too. I guess I'm trying to reconcile their graphical realism with how things go down in FF7.

Maybe they'll make it more devastating by the time it gets to release.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I suspect they will want to minimise Avalanche's culpability.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

You could. Indeed, if they go that route, I'd be happy. But the trailers seem to show otherwise. Not much in the way of actual damage other than flickering lights and some trash. Which, to be fair, is how they show things in the original game too. I guess I'm trying to reconcile their graphical realism with how things go down in FF7.

Wasn't there a bar behind Aerith where the second level of the building had crushed the first? I seem to remember things looked pretty devastating.

I suspect they will want to minimise Avalanche's culpability.

Let's hope not.

 

[FFShinra]

Wasn't there a bar behind Aerith where the second level of the building had crushed the first? I seem to remember things looked pretty devastating.


Let's hope not.

Wait really? *goes to watch trailer again*

And yeah, I do not want the moral ambiguity going away.

EDIT- That one shot from after Jessie hands the materia to Cloud? I guess I was confused by one of the shots that came right after that, showing the loveless theatre...

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Wait really? *goes to watch trailer again*

I mean in the original. The remake trailer definitely seems to have undersold what happened in the original, at least on that plaza.

 

[FFShinra]

Ah right. Yeah, there was a lot of damage and chaos in the first meeting with Aerith. It didn't show much, but implied a lot.

 

[Mayo Master]

Regarding the damage / death toll from the explosion of a reactor:
if you consider most industrial disasters, while detonations can be deadly, most deaths would be caused by the collapse of buildings or shrapnels, rather than the shockwave itself. In the past, catastrophic detonations have caused death tolls in the realm of ~dozens.
The deadliest disasters have rather resulted from either a "fireball"-type explosion (BLEVE) where people were killed by the heat, or the uncontrolled release of a toxic substance (Chernobyl could be classified as an example of the latter). Those situations can cause the death toll to go into hundreds.

 

[AerithLives]

Crisis Core never happened. NEVER!!! They'll ruin everything if they try and merge too much from it (especially Genesis) into FF7R.

 

[Makoeyes987]

I swear to God, Genesis has become the bogeyman of FFVII.

He's become more ominous than Sephiroth at this point.

LOL like for real... But I'd put the chances of Genesis showing up in the Remake somewhere between...

As likely as Cloud is to remember Sora...

And as unlikely as expecting Sephiroth to appear in front of Aerith, asking to buy a pear because he thought of a wonderful present to give to someone.

 

[jazzflower92]

Crisis Core never happened. NEVER!!! They'll ruin everything if they try and merge too much from it (especially Genesis) into FF7R.

Forget that ever happened.

 

[Rydeen]

Genesis is the boogeyman to good storytelling