Wutai War

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I wonder if we'll have fleeting encounters with Yuffie three or four times before we finally reach the part of the story where we can add her as a playable character?

about Wutai Village: I have been puzzling for years as to how a state powerful enough to challenge the dominance of Shinra, and keep a war going for - is it 7 years? - could have as its capital city a tiny village.

 

[Odysseus]

about Wutai Village: I have been puzzling for years as to how a state powerful enough to challenge the dominance of Shinra, and keep a war going for - is it 7 years? - could have as its capital city a tiny village.

Some elements of the original game are not especially well thought out, Wutai being a major one. Given their land has rough, mountainous terrain and that they are surrounded by the Ocean, Shinra may not have had an easy means of approaching the capital. It would make sense to me if a large part of the war was fought using Naval warfare, but we're never given an indication that either Wutai or Shinra have a Navy.

 

[FFShinra]

Junon is literally a naval fortress with a submarine fleet. Sure, we don't see every possible class of warship during the OG, but I think there is enough implication that Shinra has a navy. It wouldn't surprise me if a large component of the war was naval. Explains the Junon Cannon as well, apart from its possible use as a strategic bombardment weapon.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I still think Wutai is up for a big overhaul. Yeah it could be all lies and we discover it's just a tourist destination now but... I doubt this. Who's going to vacation in Wutai if the idea is that it's very unstable?

Perhaps its actual status is known only to middle management and above in Shin-Ra, and it is utilized as a resort primarily for them? May explain why the Turks would be there instead of a more obvious vacation spot like Costa del Sol.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I really hope the guys at SE are having fun with their worldbuilding.

 

[Odysseus]

I really hope the guys at SE are having fun with their worldbuilding.

Part of why I enjoy the remake is that they take the weird, disparaging elements of FFVII's world and weave them into something functional. Junon will probably have a lot more war-time lore attached to it, at least I hope so. I always imagined the cannon as a relic from the war, anyway.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I want to know why, when and how the sector 7 old lady with the broom killed Wutai soldiers with her bare hands during the war.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I want to know why, when and how the sector 7 old lady with the broom killed Wutai soldiers with her bare hands during the war.

During the war, and because she had already broken her broom beating other Wutai soldiers to death.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Did she do this killing in Wutai, or did they come to Midgar? And why was a fifty year old woman fighting hand to hand combat anyway?

 

[Clement Rage]

Maybe she is a refugee who once lived somewhere else?

I'll admit, I'm concerned about Remake Wutai. I feel like they'll expand into some overcomplicated backstory that makes less sense than what we have.

 

[waw]

about Wutai Village: I have been puzzling for years as to how a state powerful enough to challenge the dominance of Shinra, and keep a war going for - is it 7 years? - could have as its capital city a tiny village.

I'm not sure the village is that tiny. Old school Final Fantasies greatly reduced the scope of towns to only create functional assets. Think of Baron, that town we see couldn't populate the Baron kingdom or the Red Wings even. I always assumed the Wutai capitol was far larger than what we experience.

We should also keep in mind:
1. original FF7 materials had Shinra funding both sides of the war.
2. the curious character of Mr. Rayner (in Tseng's, Legend's, and Veld's backstories/side chapters for BC) has this weird relationship with an "anti-Shinra" group and possible "rival" to Shinra while working for Shinra. I think there's elements here to eventually establish that Shinra sold Wutai weapons to ramp up the war and just played both sides Palpatine style.
3. I actually assume Wutai had old school FF airship. o.O

Shinra may not have had an easy means of approaching the capital. It would make sense to me if a large part of the war was fought using Naval warfare, but we're never given an indication that either Wutai or Shinra have a Navy.

It wouldn't surprise me if a large component of the war was naval. Explains the Junon Cannon as well, apart from its possible use as a strategic bombardment weapon.

Yeah, we definitely see subs, ships, and it's pretty clear that Shinra's helicopters can fly from Midgar to Icicle Inn at least. They had an aerial fleet if nothing else.

May explain why the Turks would be there instead of a more obvious vacation spot like Costa del Sol.

I got the feeling that Costa del Sol was developed as a vacation spot. The Bomb creatures that emerged around the Mako Reactor heats up the water there so Shinra capitalized on it, similar to the Gold Saucer. All of this to make a tourist economy that beats out Wutai.

Japan was banking on a tourist industry and the US kept building theme parks in an economic cold war. There might be something here.

I'm concerned about Remake Wutai. I feel like they'll expand into some overcomplicated backstory that makes less sense than what we have.

I really trust we'll get something great here.

 

[waw]

I wanted to revisit this this thread a bit given Sonon's memories and info relating to the Wutai War. We get several "new" pieces of information with him.

-Sonon and Melphie were students under Godo. Godo had students that were all ninjas and, apparently, some of the best Wutai had to offer. It makes Godo's absence in Crisis Core all the more conspicuous to me.
-Shinra definitely utilized war machines as well as SOLDIER during the Wutai War. This may not seem significant, but in the OG, Airbuster was hinted as a new Technosoldier and I've seen some interpret this as a post-Seph's Nibelheim Incident Shinra moving away from relying on SOLDIER. That isn't exactly the case here. And yes, CC made it clear these machines were in heavy presence during the war, but this further cements it for me.
-Wutai must have been able to resist war machines and SOLDIER over a long period of time. Just what was going if SOLDIER were superhumans to some degree that these Ninja and such could resist them that long? Could Yuffie and Sonon go toe to toe with SOLDIERs and beat 2nd and 3rd classers? The DLC tells me yes. It makes me wonder how long Godo could last with someone like Sephiroth.

The DLC got me jacked for the game. But there's one last comment I want to make.

Fort Condor. It's not about the Wutai War as a boardgame. It's about Fort Condor. In my mind, and this is a shoddy comparison, it's like making an American battle game out of something considerably small like Bacon's Rebellion/Waco (I dont' know the scope of Ft. Condor's battles yet) rather than WWII, not long after WWII happens. I think this says a lot about the Midgarian people: they absolutely hate Wutai.

So how does one come to hate a foreign country so intensely?

 

[Eerie]

There is a loooooooooooot of propaganda anti-Wutai going on in Midgar. I've just asked in the chapter 17 thread, given there is a pagoda drawn by Aerith, what if the invasion of Wutai was decided just because they thought it was a possible place for the Promise Land?

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

These are very good questions though, Waw. If this were the OG FFVII, I'd say we shouldn't assume that Wutai are the good guys. However, this is Remake FFVII, which isn't so interested in moral nuance and shades of grey....

 

[Odysseus]

Did the company that dropped a section of their city for basically no reason (not even for a propaganda war in the OG) really seem to you like anything but one dimensional villains? Hell, the remake has Wutai trying to circumvent their ceasefire using espionage, which is a lot more duplicitous than anything we know about them from the original. Sonon's willingness to destroy Midgar outright, along with its people, also paints a pretty not so nice picture of Wutai's attitude.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Fair enough. I don't know anything about the Yuffie chapter. I was thinking more of how Barret's particular Avalanche cell have had their blood-guiltiness reduced.

 

[Odysseus]

That's true. FF7 came put in a different world, it's hard to have your characters be unabashed terrorists and also heroes nowadays. I think the compromise was having Barret's shortsighted rage play more directly into Shinra's agenda. If I recall, the excuse of dropping the plate to destroy Avalanche was removed in favor of doing it to sell a war to the people of Midgar by blaming it on Avalanche and Wutai, which wouldn't have been possible without Barret trying to destroy reactors 1 and 5. Avalanche is still responsible for a lot of death, but they're no longer the ones who pushed the button, I can see why that wouldn't sit well with people who liked that more direct moral ambiguity.

 

[FFShinra]

The conversation Sonon and Yuffie have in the Advanced Weapons facility about the political motives of their faction of Avalanche (socialist rather than environmentalist) lend credence to the idea that Wutai might have been this world's equivalent to the Empire in previous FFs before Shinra displaced them, since they seem to look down on said goals.

 

[waw]

It'd be very interesting to see what else was before Shinra, of course. I can see room for Wutai being the empire. I can also see something more oil based that Shinra displaced. I mean, imagine a Galbadian Empire of sorts with corruption and things and Shinra comes along selling a bill of libertarian goods and people now feel "free" under Shinra because a lack of laws and other restrictions, it's all just down to a FAIR economic transaction. Everywhere is just a company town.

So that said:

what if the invasion of Wutai was decided just because they thought it was a possible place for the Promise Land?

I supported the idea in that thread, Eerie and I think there's some room for it here. Da Chao Mountain has some strange properties, maybe it was worth mining. I would prefer if the war was brought about by a libertarian anarchic Shinra who wanted to abolish governments for a "better" world that was "freer." But I would also like to Shinra a bit more obsessive over the Promised Land.

 

[OWA-2]

Don't know if this was mentioned here yet, but was Godo arrested, in Remake? Because I remember Yuffie and Sonon talking about him, and Yuffie saying something like "he is probably still in jail".

 

[Obsidian Fire]

We don't know how Godo got in jail or who put him there. He certainly wasn't in jail in the OG... And I can see both Shinra and certain Wutai factions wanting to imprison him for different reasons...

 

[waw]

We don't know how Godo got in jail or who put him there. He certainly wasn't in jail in the OG... And I can see both Shinra and certain Wutai factions wanting to imprison him for different reasons...

Yeah, Wutai is far more complicated this time around. Which makes me wonder if the likes of Sera and/or Himemiko will be added back in. I doubt it buuut, here's hoping.

If there's a Wutai faction less-than-thrilled with Godo, it means we'll be getting a lot of new Wutaian NPCs I would think.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Who are Sera and Himemiko?

 

[FFShinra]

Yuffie's intro mentions a new government in Wutai. In the OG game, Godo is Lord of Wutai, and certainly was the one fighting Shinra during the War. In the Remake-verse, they have not yet clarified specifically what Godo does, other than train their special forces, but he could still easily be the (former) ruler or even just a high ranking general, a la Caraway.

I've always taken the two statements (of the provisional government and of Godo's arrest) as him being overthrown. As to why, it could be a multitude of things. Shinra could have engineered it as a way of forcing Wutai into surrender due to social unrest, it could have been as a result of him agreeing to stop the war while the public (including Yuffie) wanted to continue, or it could be some other possibility.

 

[Eerie]

Yuffie mentions that her father is behind bars in Remake, so that's an interesting point. Shinra is probably controlling the whole area with a puppet I guess? And Godo is in prison, for whatever reason we'll have to find. She seems quite unhappy with him, too, but that's probably because he did something she disapproves of without knowing the whole thing.