Where is 7th Heaven positioned in Edge?

[Shademp]

I just spent three solid hours searching for an answer to this. I looked at official artwork, watched both versions of Advent Children, played Dirge of Cerberus and read Case of Tifa. Any visual cue I thought to be a hint turned out to be false. For example a "Chocobo House" sign seen at the beginning of ACC is not the same as seen later when Denzel runs off to the bar when Edge is under attack.

Anybody know if there is official word on where 7th Heaven is? My best guess would be that "The Kids Are Alright" might have something to say, but the plot summary does not reveal this.


Another question. I recall there being an official "FFVII shopping bag" with Edge signs on it, but I can't find it. The Loveless bag is easy to find. If not a bag, it might have been a sticker or a shirt with Edge motifs on it. Anybody know which product I'm talking about?


Observations: Edge was built east of Midgar. In this artwork

Spoiler

the sections of Edge are numbered 1 through 8, much like Midgar's sectors. Some signs refer to "Sectors", but I can't be sure if the people of Edge refer to sectors of the town like they used to speak of the Midgar sectors.

The numbering is not clearly present in Advent Children. The numbers on the ground do not exist here or in Dirge of Cerberus, but DoC has signs which properly label each area in accordance to the official artwork. It would be fitting if 7th Heaven was situated in the 7th sector, in the southern area of Edge. However the bar was being built before the name "7th Heaven" was decided (see Case of Tifa) so if the bar is there, it's by pure coincidence.


One huge oddity is from the scene when Cloud rescues Denzel and Tifa in the middle of ACC. Cloud has just left Marlene at the bar and so he should be arriving directly from that spot. However when Denzel later runs off to 7th Heaven, he runs to the opposite end of town that Cloud just drove from. To make sense of this we have to assume that one party or the other took detours, for one reason or another.



EDIT:

Spoiler: More observations

The top of Shinra HQ looks like this when staring straightly (to the west) at it from the Meteor Monument.

Spoiler

In the DoC ending, we partially see the shapes of Shinra HQ when seeing the 7th Heaven area.

Spoiler

It should only look like this if you are in the south or southwest part of Edge, meaning that this is either in Sector 7 or Sector 8 of Edge.

I guess that sort-of answers my question... But it would be nice if there was a written word on this matter.

 

[BloodyCloud]

I'm glad I'm not the only who's thought about this. I've debated about posting the same, but was too chicken haha. Anyways, awesome observations, thanks for this little insight.

 

[Unlucky]

Great question. I admit I've never thought about it, but now I'm equally curious.

By any chance,

Spoiler: is this what you're looking for?

 

[Ghost X]

The following picture would probably put a nail in the coffin as to Edge's location.

Spoiler

As for where 7th Heaven is amongst that, g'luck.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I thought the new 7th Heaven was on Silence Street. But that doesn't make sense because Silence Street appears to be a dead end on the map, and we know the 7th Heaven street is not a dead end because Kadaj rides his bike through it.

 

[Unlucky]

^We just didn't see him turn back because that would be minus cool points.. And I recall that was Yazoo.

Anyway.. from Chapter 4 of hito's translation of The Kids Are Alright:

I circled around another third of the parameter of the plaza, and entered one of the roads that radiated out from it. This street, one of the the first built in this town's still short history, was my favourite. It had the nicest paving job of any of the other streets, and a lot of the houses that lined each side were so fancy, so refined that you'd have no idea they were made with scrap materials. You could walk the entire street in a matter of minutes, but for those few minutes it felt like you were back in the old Midgar. It felt like Sector 7. Hatred for Shinra aside, Midgar was our home.

Seventh Heaven, a diner we often used for work meetings, was located on this pleasant little street.

Weird, I don't remember the 7th Heaven area to be noticeably fancier than the rest of Edge. But there it is-- 7th Heaven is located in a little street. Not that that helps a lot...

Spoiler: tidbit about Silence St

.: In the first scenes of Edge in ACC, in the scene where the children were watching a crane moving a house part, there's a sticker of Silence Street on one of the cargo boxes they were sitting on. So that place may be Silence Street.

Also this:

According to the script of Advent Children, the first picture is from a scene early in the movie when Edge is first shown.

The second is from ACC, during the start of the bike chase after Kadaj obtains the Jenova remnants.

I assume Silence Street was changed into a short, dead-end street in ACC.

 

[Lex]

None of those signs really indicate that Silence Street is a dead end IMO, just that the street is called Silence street and that's where it's located? Surely if it was intended as a dead end there'd be a line across the end of it. The ACC one is even shaped like an arrow, indicating that it continues.

 

[Ghost X]

Ninja'd...

My interpretation of that second sign is it doesn't look like a dead end at all. You have a small arrow at the top of the street, signifying it continues on. What I would argue is there is no definitive location for 7th Heaven, beyond it being on that street. I don't think developers would spend that much resources on developing a full-on map of Edge, unless they were going to use it. For example, there aren't street maps of Midgar from the OG, etc, are there?

 

[Lex]

No but I wish there were <3

One of my favourite things about Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a location called Hengsha (which has two "levels") and playing it I felt like I was in Midgar. I would honestly be very shocked if they didn't borrow the design from Midgar, seriously:

Spoiler

I would love to see a Midgar map. There's a nifty fan made Midgar train map out there though.

 

[Unlucky]

Mmmyeah, didn't notice that little red sign that seems to indicate a dead end. But yeah, we have no definite answer for that.

I'm with Shad about 7th Heaven most probably being in the south/ southwest region.

I would love to see a Midgar map. There's a nifty fan made Midgar train map out there though.

This so much.

 

[ForceStealer]

The scale model in the Sony building in Japan was excellent, but I know it doesn't have the detail an artwork map would have.

Spoiler

I loved how you could clearly tell different sectors were primarily industrial or residential.

 

[Shademp]

By any chance,

Spoiler: is this what you're looking for?

YES! That's what I was thinking of. Thank you!

Looking at this, it appears that Silence Street is an off-shot from "Midgar Edge Sector 4th". The 4th sector is directly to the northeast. Which makes it look a bit odd when Kadaj and Cloud makes a turn and we see this sign which was printed onto the shopping bag. They appear to be driving northeast, *AWAY* from Midgar. But they arrive at the Highway, which in another sign is said to be to the northwest. I suppose this makes the length of the bike chase scene more credible, with them first driving in an eastern direction (away from Midgar) then getting to the Highway which leads them towards Midgar.

EDIT: The "Highway Paytoll 10 km ahead" note is curious though, if you read further down this post. It makes Edge look waaaaay bigger than in the first establishing shot we see of Edge in ACC.

The following picture would probably put a nail in the coffin as to Edge's location.

There is a possibilty that 7th Heaven is not even in that shot. If we take a look at a huge version of that pic...

Spoiler

...you can't even clearly spot the Meteor monument. It *might* be here (within red square) but we can't say for sure :

Spoiler

If that is where the Meteor monument is, does that match up with the shot when the camera has descended to the monument area?

Spoiler

I *think* that Shinra HQ would rise higher into the background, if the monument area was within the red square I made before.

Looking at this visual anecdote and the sign we see for a brief moment

I think that both the monument and 7th Heaven is actually not even within the view of the first, establishing shot of Edge in ACC.

The sign reads that Midgar is 2 miles away (3218.7 meters). In my intuition, Midgar is always closer than 2 miles from the central road in the first establishing shot.


OTHER: Both the aforementioned sign and the establishing shot of Midgar shows a port on the south side of Edge (left side). Which makes very little sense because the sea is on the north side. If you are going to have a port, then why not have it right at the ocean? I suppose there are, to us, unseen channels that cross the continent and which might be used for shipping material. Still, the port SHOULD be in the north.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I always wondered about the sea too, partly because on the world map it was always a long way away from Midgar, not lapping at its very gates. How does the image from ACC orientate compared to the closing shot in the ending of the OG?

 

[Ghost X]

Climate change... >.>

 

[Shademp]

Sidenote: When ripping FMVs from the original game using jpsdec, for some reason the resolution of the ending FMVs will always be 640x192 instead of the standard 320x224. I've always assumed that 640x192 is just the innate resolution of those sequences, but I'm not sure.

There is no shot from the Holy-Lifestream-Meteor sequence that clearly shows the ocean being right on Midgar's doorstep, because we don't see enough of the ground at all. We see that the ocean is close, but not how close (because Holy covers all of Midgar and possibly an even wider circumference).

In the frame right after this one we see Holy.


The 500 Years Later, both OG and AC, has water very close to Midgar (in all directions) but that's obviously not relevant for the discussion about "present time" Midgar and Edge.

AC and DoC match each other though, as we clearly see the ocean creeping up close to Midgar.

Spoiler: Midgar Battle

The shot from the Denzel OVA also matches this.

Spoiler

In short, the overworld from the original game can be discarded, unless we assume that the rise of the lifestream and the Meteorfall incident somehow changed the landscape (which the former is, canonically, meant to have done).

FFVII is just filled with examples of artistic license.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

That's what i thought, that Meteorfall and the Lifestream eruption created major changes in the geography of the planet. It wouldn't be the first time this has happened in a FF world, or even in the FFVII world.

It still doesn't explain how Cloud managed to go by motorbike from Edge to the Forgotten Capital, but I guess we can assume that in the upheaval of landforms caused by Meteor, a land bridge was created.

 

[Shademp]

Without official word, we have to assume that Cloud (and the Three Shades of Black trio) either went by boat, helicopter or that there was, indeed, a land bridge.

Checked if Crisis Core reveals anything about the ocean's proximity, but alas it does not.

 

[Cat Rage Room]

I just assumed he took transportation that was available to anyone else who traveled around the world in the past; likely a ship. Never really considered a land bridge.

 

[CameoAmalthea]

I always thought that in Midgar the original cities were built around a river (or rivers) that lead to the sea, as most large cities are either on around rivers. When construction of Midgar as a Unified City began Shinra damed, rerouted or trained the water to create more dry land to work with, getting rid of the rivers and wet lands which once surrounded the towns that made up the city. This allowed Shinra's workers dry land to construct their new city, building the base of the plate that would support the new upper city.

In this case, Meteor's gravitational effects and structural damage to dams could have resulted in mass flooding. In 500 years time the water ways have returned to their original state.

My theory is based largely on the fact that cities tend to be built around water, but Midgar in the Original Game doesn't seem to have any rivers.

 

[Shademp]

Raising the question here instead of creating a new topic.

In Episode: Denzel (the original version at the very least) a paragraph states:

The main street of Edge stretched from the outskirts of Midgar's Third and Fourth Sectors all the way to the East. The city itself was formed on this main street and expanded to the northwest.

This description of Edge being a neighbour to Midgar's Third and Fourth Sectors does not sit well with screens from the beginning of ACC.

Spoiler

A reactor looks like it is labeled as number 07 (most certainly doesn't look like 02, to me). Right next to it is a collapsed sector which presumably is the ruined Sector 7. This spins Midgar's position around with about 180 degrees, contradicting Episode: Denzel.

Zack's "grave" is supposed to be west of Midgar.

Spoiler

The reactor number is difficult to read, but it is either a 7 or a 2. When observing other scenes I honestly can't tell for sure. But the reactor number to the right, in the smaller red square, certainly looks like a 6. We also see a collapsed plate in this snapshot, which, going from the numbers, must be Sector 7...AGAIN!



I am not sure of the version of Denzel's story that Xcomp has uploaded. I wonder if the revised version still says that Edge is to the east of Midgar's Sector 3 & 4. From my initial analysis it looks like for ACC they spun around Midgar about 180 degrees. Naturally, more plates could have collapsed due to Meteor, but there is an odd smell to this mystery still...


EDIT: Watching Dirge of Cerberus FMVs and the Denzel OVA yielded no relevant observations.

 

[Pixel]

Spoiler

Im sure everyone noticed this ages ago, but i meant to point this out a while ago. The buildings are built in the hexagony pattern in the AC logo.

 

[Tetsujin]

Well, Midgar and Edge *are* the logo after all.

 

[Pixel]

If yo look at what street Cloud rides in from after dropping off Marlene, thats where seventh heaven is.

... or the direction Denzel runs after being rescued

 

[Shademp]

If yo look at what street Cloud rides in from after dropping off Marlene, thats where seventh heaven is.

I have tried looking at that many times, but there are not enough frames of reference to tell which direction he is coming from. It doesn't make sense either way, because when Denzel later runs away to 7th Heaven, he runs in the opposite direction of where Cloud just came from on his bike. At least that's the case in ACC. The original Advent Children might be more consistent, now that I think about it. But even with this theory that Denzel's direction is the one to trust, there are still not enough references to tell which cardinal direction (or street number) he is going down.

So far the best reference is the brief shot from the end of DoC, where we get an angle of the top of Shinra HQ in relation to 7th Heaven. The bar is in the south or southwest section of Edge, most likely. Close to the 7th street and/or 8th street.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Im sure everyone noticed this ages ago, but i meant to point this out a while ago. The buildings are built in the hexagony pattern in the AC logo.

Oddly, going by the logo, Edge is located on the opposite side of Midgar from Sector 7, while it's clearly directly across from it in the screenshot Shademp posted.

Man, how do they have such a hard time with consistency?

I am not sure of the version of Denzel's story that Xcomp has uploaded. I wonder if the revised version still says that Edge is to the east of Midgar's Sector 3 & 4.

I'll need to check this, but from my initial glossings a while back when I got the On the Way to a Smile hardback, there weren't any differences between the original Case of Denzel and Episode: Denzel.