The rebuild of Nibelheim? (Crisis Core Spoilers)

[Channy]

So I was thinking about it and realized... I just don't understand!... or rather, can't remember.

At the beginning of the game, Cloud comes back through Nibelheim, confused about it being rebuilt. And they never really explain why. 5 years is a long time, could they really rebuild the whole town, just like the way it used to be? And the townspeople acted as if it never happened? How, and more importantly, why?

 

[Makoeyes987]

....Wow.

You played Crisis Core. You had to have seen Zack be amazed at how Nibelheim was rebuilt after the fire as a Shinra cover up of the disaster. They say the same thing in the original FFVII and its all filled with Shinra officials and fake towns people.

Clearly they could rebuild the town, because they did

The real town survivors are the Sephiroth Copies.

 

[Munatik]

I always thought it was a cover-up by Shinra. That the town was rebuilt and the "townspeople" were actually planted by Shinra to make the town look normal. /cue X-Files theme

But why they would leave the mansion intact and completely wide open is another story.

 

[Tetsujin]

To cover up everything that happened. And the townspeople are all ShinRa employees. The original villagers mostly died.

 

[Makoeyes987]

The mansion doesn't need to be locked down or anything because the town is filled with nothing but Shinra. Why lock it out from the people its meant for? And no one else has any reason to be there.

Also in BC, right after the Nibelheim massacre the turks torched all the incriminating paper work and books Hojo wanted them to.

 

[Ryushikaze]

To cover up everything that happened. And the townspeople are all ShinRa employees. The original villagers mostly died.

Or became Hojo's test subjects only a few, like Tifa and Johnny, escaped that fate.

 

[Munatik]

That's true, plus the mansion was full of monsters (with one stuffed in a friggin' safe no less).

But I just find it curious that any Joe Schmoe in FFVII could enter Nibelheim and the mansion and find their way to the basement. Why didn't they simply move what they needed, destroy the rest of it and blame it on the fire? Or seal off the basement period?

I guess they didn't need to, but it seems like a loose end with the library and some of the equipment still down there.

 

[Channy]

oic. See I vaguely remembered the "cover up" idea, but not so much on the "it's filled with Shinra employees" part. But it still doesn't exactly... click. Sephiroth was (or at least people thought he was) dead after that incident.. So what exactly did Shinra have to hide? Wouldn't it have been better to leave it as a dead waste land memorial town... thing?

 

[Makoeyes987]

Uh, they have to hide the fact that one of their own men, who was tasked with protecting the people, went apeshit and murdered an entire town.

That doesn't really breed consumer confidence. Nor does it make people feel comfortable letting one entire company rule their entire livelihood.

It would disgrace the company and feed the opposition.

 

[Ryushikaze]

But I just find it curious that any Joe Schmoe in FFVII could enter Nibelheim and the mansion and find their way to the basement. Why didn't they simply move what they needed, destroy the rest of it and blame it on the fire? Or seal off the basement period?

I guess they didn't need to, but it seems like a loose end with the library and some of the equipment still down there.

It was still being used for experiments till Zack and Cloud broke out.

As for how they got in, Cloud just still had the key, from when Zack broke out. Or he used the unorthodox skeleton key commonly referred to as buster.

Really, it is technically an oversight, but honestly, it could be as simple as one of the workers forgetting to lock it that day, or any other negligent answer.

 

[Cthulhu]

So... why have employees do their act for over 5 years just to keep up appearances instead of just getting rid of it? The dead people in there were bound to have relatives and whatnot outside of town, they would've caused a lot more problems than random visitors would have.

 

[Makoeyes987]

The people just continued acting because they wanted it to keep up appearance and save face. It was their job. They were actors paid to play the part of Nibelheim villagers.

Furthermore, relatives who tried to visit Nibelheim or tried to reveal the truth were summarily killed by Shinra.

 

[Munatik]

That still doesn't really explain why they didn't just move everything to Midgar, including the experiments with Zack and Cloud. Hojo eventually moved the rest of Jenova to continue experimenting in Midgar, no?

Perhaps moving everything such a great distance would have been cumbersome and cause too much suspicion.

 

[Makoeyes987]

If they moved all the copies and experimental samples to Midgar where Jenova was, then how could they see if the copies were going to react to the Reunion instinct and go towards Jenova's main body?

That would defeat the purpose of seeing if they were going to go out on the move. And they also moved Jenova to Midgar because of her being damaged and they wanted to prevent another compromise of her location from happening again, thus...Midgar would be safest place. Don't forget that Genesis and his Copy army were also on the move looking to get their hands on Jenova.

Furthermore, Hojo did intend to use the Shinra Mansion as his base of operations for the experiments but as shown in CC's diary of the lab assistant, Hojo lost interest, and went back to Midgar, leaving the lab assistant to just keep record of their movements and report back anything new if it happened.

Hojo gets bored easily.

 

[Tetsujin]

If they moved all the copies and experimental samples to Midgar where Jenova was, then how could they see if the copies were going to react to the Reunion instinct and go towards Jenova's main body?

Leave Jenova in Nibelheim and the clones in Midgar instead of the other way round?

 

[Makoeyes987]

Then you have the problem of leaving Jenova out in the open for Genesis and his stooges to fuck the place up and steal her away

Why would you leave Jenova in the exact same place where she was nearly stolen and lost her head?

 

[Munatik]

I'm going with the bored!Hojo theory.

 

[Aya]

Genesis found Jenova anyway and hahaha Hojo gets bored easily and makes many mistakes. Even though he is pure evil he makes me laugh. In FFVII he was quite funny but in CC and Doc he lost his humour.

And jesus christ I never knew that if relatives tried to go to Nibelheim that ShinRa killed them. Bloody hell. lol

 

[Makoeyes987]

Genesis never found Jenova. Hence why he went after Cloud and Zack in CC.

 

[Aya]

He was in Nibelheim before Sephiroth and Zack was sent there. He was even in the reactor where Jenova was. And it is hard not to find her with "JENOVA" engraved on the wall.

 

[Cthulhu]

The people just continued acting because they wanted it to keep up appearance and save face. It was their job. They were actors paid to play the part of Nibelheim villagers.

Furthermore, relatives who tried to visit Nibelheim or tried to reveal the truth were summarily killed by Shinra.

If they'd kill all witnesses, why spend a fortune on employing a town full of actors for years? Makes no sense, imho .

 

[Makoeyes987]

Because people are going to notice that a major town like Nibelheim is empty and devoid of residents.

If one day someone drove into Athens, Texas and noticed that it was completely devoid of people yet the buildings, electricity, plumbing, etc were all in tact, there'd be a big problem and media frenzy. Towns have to be inhabited. You can't just leave a rebuilt town empty of citizens. They needed Nibelheim to be filled with people who were to act as if they were the people who lived there all the time.

 

[Masamune]

Because people are going to notice that a major town like Nibelheim is empty and devoid of residents.

Nibelheim was a hamlet by the mountains. Hardly a major town. Plot wise maybe, but not geographically.

 

[Ryushikaze]

It was, however, the site of one of the company's reactors. The complete vanishing of a village near one of their reactors would raise questions and investigations, and might expose their dealing at a critical stage.

 

[Gale]

While I agree that Shinra had to keep cover ups on Nibelheim, was there really anyone that could start a negative media frenzy on the company? I got the impression that Shinra controlled the press, so who has the authority to bring Shinra under investigation?