|
An empire with massive global influence. Pretentions on a space program. Massively advanced and wealthy through the harvesting of a powerful subsurface energy source. The destruction of the environment. Proud media proclamations about the dawning of a new age of peace and prosperity, flicking on television screens in the cramped, dark ghetto homes of the lower portions of a massive metropolis.
On power plants, laboratories, automobiles, and military uniforms, the banner of the corporate empire is displayed, worldwide.
A sudden explosion rocks the most powerful city in the world. One of the largest structures involved in the extraction of the energy souce fueling the corporate empire's power collapses into dust and ash, leaving countless innocent civilians dead. The shock of the event is indescribable..
The corporate empire's President appears on the television, promising that the terrorists responsible will be caught.
Wait. We were talking about Final Fantasy VII.
The members of AVALANCHE, the "terrorist" group which starts the attack on the corporate empire "SHINRA" in Final Fantasy VII, is made up primarily of the poor and impoverished. The people who were left behind, exploited and oppressed in SHINRA's race for wealth and power. One of its members, and later the leader and protagonist of the resistance, is an ex-member of SHINRA's most elite military corps, who had helped in SHINRA operations guarding Mako facilities in outlying areas, and essentially helping the burgeoning empire's growth.
The typical citizen of Midgar in Final Fantasy VII, even the poor people living underneath the upper plate in the ghettoes like Sector 7, simply believed AVALANCHE to be terrorists, which is precisely what they were told on their television screens.
When confronted with the mass destruction SHINRA had wrought, the new President, son of the previous President, Rufus, dismissed the good of the people as something that can be bought.
Of course, since we played Final Fantasy VII as the protagonists, not as the antagonists, we saw through the smokescreens and propaganda. We knew SHINRA to be a corporate monster- an embodiment of greed and where it leads when totally unfettered by any pesky oversight by or consideration for the welfare of the people. It intentionally collapsed the Sector 7 plate of Midgar in order to be sure it crushed the "terrorists" who were operating out of the area beneath, even though they killed hundreds or thousands of totally innocent civilians in the process. They consistently put morality, principles, and human life aside in favor of wealth, power, and influence. In sum, they were the consummate military conglomerate. They secretly conducted experiments with Mako and JENOVA cells- which purportedly changed the nature and biology of the subject- in their search for ever greater power, and later, as we learn, in the search for methods which would allow them to access ever greater amounts of Mako energy. (WEAPON, METEOR, the Ancients- anything which would summon a great deal of Mako energy from beneath the ground and make it harvestable.)
As the gamer, we knew evil when we saw it. What Sephiroth and SHINRA had in common throughout the game was a complete disregard for human life and the life of the planet itself if either got in the way of personal avarice, wealth, or power. SHINRA, through its mining of Mako energy, diminished the capacity of the planet to support life, creating huge sheaths of desolation around Mako reactors and slowly making it impossible to grow plants in or near the cities. Sephiroth, himself a manifestation of JENOVA and essentially a bioweapon SHINRA had long hoped to create, sought in his madness and obsession a way in which to gain ultimate power by creating a serious enough injury in the surface of the planet that Mako energy would rush into the crater. The way to do it- METEOR magic. And when it happened, there he planned to be, in the center, taking all that energy as his own, so that he (or rather, JENOVA) could carry out its ancient goal of destroying the planet and all the people who had opposed it.
The two goals were, ironically, intertwined. The destruction of the planet and the power and energy which could be snatched by the lucky victor by destroying the planet served as the impetus which drove the antagonists throughout the game, and motivated the player to fight against it.
Had the game simply dealt with the casual Midgar resident in the slums, we never would have had the information or inclination to look at the greater forces at work in the game's story world. How uncontrolled ambition for power and wealth which considered human life and the well being and sustainability of the planet expendable threatened to consume, and then destroy, everything and everyone on the planet- including those who thought they would benefit from that destructiveness.
As we all know, despite heroic efforts, the game ended with the arguably complete annihilation of the human race from the planet, although, in exchange, the continued survival of the planet itself was guaranteed.
Luckily, Final Fantasy VII is a game and we can hope for a better future than could the children watching Mako energy- the Lifestream- flow into Midgar just as METEOR was about to collide with the planet, in a last-ditch effort to prevent complete destruction.
Do you root for AVALANCHE? Or are you watching your TV screen, so completely used to the plate hanging above you that you scarcely notice it anymore?
Thanks to Squaresoft and Final Fantasy VII for being so thought-provoking, and so relevant to our real human world, even years after the release of the game.
|
RSS feed
iTunes
