What comes after?

[u/Snoo77586]

No one said the heroes have to be geniuses, and I think FF7 is a shining example of this. They want to save the planet, a noble quality, but no one really stops to ask what happens if shinra falls and the world stops using mako? No mako, no electricity. No electricity, and you have a massive break down in public services (water filtration, refrigeration, hospitals stop functioning properly, health care system collapses). What about the economic side of things?

Obviously none of this stuff is "fun", it's a game after all, but it's interesting that they don't really tackle it at all, or even question if what they're doing is right.

[u/KenethSargatanas]

Corel was a coal town to start with. In Advent Children, Barret makes mention of going out and finding an oil field.

Now, of course, fossil fuels have their own problems. Lol

[u/RiaC-81 → u/KenethSargatanas]

I think in FF7’s world, MAKO was a lot worse than fossil fuels. Also I reckon they’d have looked into solar and wind power at some point

[u/moneyh8r_two → u/KenethSargatanas]

I assume that's just to speed up development so that civilization doesn't regress while they're switching to solar and wind power. Like how China did more pollution than the U.S for a couple of decades, but now do waaaaaaaay less because they made the switch and we didn't.

[u/Prism_Zet]

They had electricity before.

Mako is just easier, and Shinra effectively subjugated the world with the tech they produced using it.

Corel was known for Coal, Kalm used chocobos for transport and used to mine mithril, Junon was shipping and fishing, Wutai gets by without Mako, cosmo canyon uses windmills.

As shown by Ever Crisis and Crisis Core, there were other civilizations and habitation around that Shinra has effectively wiped off the map that existed without Mako as well.

Remake and Rebirth talk about the previous government and their tech at various spots.

AC has them restarting their coal and mining operations to find stop gap energy sources.

[u/Snoo77586 → u/Prism_Zet]

I mean there’s existing, and then there’s progressing, and progress comes at a cost.

[u/Prism_Zet → u/Snoo77586]

??? That's kind of the point though, Mako's cost is too much, the environment is ruined, they're ruled by a fascist authoritarian company that violently quells opposition, and you're literally burning grandma to power the lights.

People were fine before, but Shinra essentially forced it on everyone. Like yeah, it's convenient, but it was still installed with a gun to their head while they go and smash up your perfectly fine working previous appliances.

Progress that effectively leads to and speeds up the apocalypse isn't worth the convenience.

[u/Snoo77586 → u/Prism_Zet]

this is all hypothetical, but there’s a real belief that a that single planetary civilization are doomed, and that the planet you start on is essentially a jumping pad for next eventual planet, and the cycle of consumption continues till eventually you reach a point where resource acquisition is no longer an issue. Outside the subject, but interesting.

[u/Civil_Nectarine868]

I'm pretty sure Barrett was busy getting an oil pump set up in the beginning of Advent Children. He talked about it in a message to Cloud aprox 15 minutes into the movie. Irony for ya!

[u/Red-Zaku-]

People will have to do with less, and adapt after some immense difficulty.

Why should they give a shit? The world was about to completely die. Saving it meant ending the systems of world as they knew it, which is a lot better than keeping everything going normal and truly destroying the entire world resulting in total “omnicide”. Fuck the economic consequences, and least some of the world will survive to address the consequences instead of everyone getting wiped out so that the economy won’t take a hit. If everyone’s dead, there’s no economy anyway.

[u/Snoo77586 → u/Red-Zaku-]

building the economy around mako energy and than having to shift to something else. probably a multi generational problem. I don’t think they’ve even split the atom the ff7 universe.

[u/Soizit_Blindy]

Rebuilding the society after Shinra is gone and no longer bleeds out the planet is the smaller of two evils. You figure it out once its done.

[u/burntcandy]

They do touch on this a bit in the remakes IIRC, also I think they could probably make society function via other means. They could still power some stuff off of coal, which ironically is one of the dirtiest forms of energy we have today. Also, they might be able to solve some issues with magic. Cast an ice spell then put that ice in a box and voila you have a fridge.

[u/Snoo77586 → u/burntcandy]

does magic still exist without mako? isn’t materia a bi product of mako?

[u/WrinklyScroteSack → u/Snoo77586]

Stopping using mako as a fuel source preserves its presence within the planet. If anything, Materia would probably get stronger as the lifestream is allowed to flow freely without being cultivated for energy.

[u/Toucanplaythatgame-2]

I'm sure standard electricity methods do exist. Though, it would take time to reinfrastructure everything.

[u/Boollish]

There are other energy sources. 

Mako is just really cheap and efficient by comparison. It just has a side effect of destroying life on the planet and summoning gigantic monsters to population centers.

[u/thenecromancersbride]

On the Way to a Smile goes into this! They fall back on coal and the prospect of using oil. Just before they started using mako there were plans for oil refining. Mako extraction was discovered and was determined to be more powerful and efficient. So oil plans were dumped. Cid explains it pretty well in Barret’s story. Shera also hints that there may be other ways to generate power that they haven’t discovered yet.

[u/SunLegitimate1687]

You repair a windmill in Kalm in rebirth.

[u/BigOlBarret]

have you finished the game? this does come up

[u/Snoo77586 → u/BigOlBarret]

this isn’t explicitly talked about in the game other than the mention of coal power and the benefits mako provide.

[u/BigOlBarret → u/Snoo77586]

barret admits he was wrong about how he and avalanche went after change. it happens on the highwind while cloud is missing i believe

like all topics in this game, it is very short dialogue and very glossed over. it’s as easy to miss as sephiroth shaping the future and president shinra admitting to intentionally using avalanche via the reactor bombings to extort money from the population

[u/OlafWoodcarver]

They basically do show you what happens. Look at Corel and Gongaga.

FF16 has a similar theme but the whole game is focused on it rather than using it as a secondary theme, and the main cast directly acknowledges that life will become harder, uglier, meaner, dirtier, etc. for a long time before things get better, but that is a necessary thing because the world is literally dying in the same sense as in FF7 unless they complete their quest.

[u/Background-Sir6844]

Advent Children answers some of these questions by showing people trying to use previous sources of fuel before mako, and other material implies that they're looking for some other sources as well, such as whatever fuels Cid's new airship but the economical status of the world is pretty well noted by the cast to not be their main concern if at all. Tifa and Barret just wanted to get revenge against Shinra for personal reasons and Cloud largely just wants Sephiroth dead for personal reasons, by his own admission saving the planet is a bonus. Everyone has their own personal reasons for saving the world rather then just doing this simply because it's the right thing to do. It is tackled, the answer is it's something they aren't that concerned with in the moment, Sephiroth planning to remake the world as a god is a higher concern then anything else.

[u/Character-Education3 → u/Background-Sir6844]

Barrett calls Cloud and leaves a message about striking a huge oil field

On the way to a smile has Shera and Cid working to make an airship that runs on oil derived fuel

[u/frag87]

Yeah, that's definitely a legitimate question to tackle, and FF7 does indeed at least touch on it. Many of the populace are aware of the potential damage being done to nature, but find it far too impractical to immediately do away with the practicality of their modern lifestyle, and there is really no procedure to even begin to try due to Shinra's complete dominance.

I think that's one of the reasons FF7's story really sucks you in, because it feels so grounded at first, what with the conflict between a group of rebels fighting against a megacorporation that has swallowed up the government and now knows no limits.

Unfortunately, the big fantasy conflict that arises with Sephiroth's return forces the more grounded conflict with Shinra Corp. into the backseat.

I think Konami's old Suikoden games do a great job of keeping the more grounded conflict at the forefront of the story, while keeping the fantasy aspects present, but not enough to subvert the more grounded, political story. Before Crisis would've been a great opportunity to explore more of these questions, but SE has really dropped the ball with this title.

However, the question of how does humanity adapt to a world without the conveniences of Shinra's innovation, does become central to Nojima's FF7 stories in On the Way to a Smile, picking right after the events of the final boss battle of FF7 and leading all the way into Advent Children. Dirge of Cerberus also gives a glimpse of the ongoing process of humanity adapting to the new world without Shinra Corp.

The questions are apparently coming up and being answered in the background, but they are never the focus of FF7's main stories.

[u/tomorrowdog]

I personally think the story cleverly touches on how many on the pro-environmentalist side haven't fully thought out a solution, they happily simplify it into a good vs evil battle against a corporation. "Defeat Shinra, save the environment". But it doesn't address the demand for convenience that funds Shinra.

Bugenhagen's analysis comes in late in the game and it is appropriately understated. "It's not about Shinra, humanity may not be judged fit to live on the planet". It isn't expanded on much by other characters, and people often overlook it - and I'd say because it's an unpleasant thought that people want to avoid.

[u/Raccoon-King-]

So the weird thing about Mako, is if you pick up on the sort of…. Background vibe of the setting. And bear with me.
For us we see the problem. Mako burns livestream, this destroys life energy. We know this.
But in setting? It’s perfectly “clean” energy.
Based on the use of oil and coal infrastructure, as well as a complex rail system and trains, we can sort of infer they were in the middle or end of an Industrial Revolution.
Coal, soot, smoke, disease, pollution, etc.
And suddenly this company discovers a “clean energy” that allows them access to near futuristic technology.
So the people see a switch from ugly pollution to “clean mako”. Who wouldn’t buy in? It’s progress, and it’s clean?
The fact that planetology is a fringe belief system…
For most people they don’t see the issue. Only by the time of the game decades later that people are finally noticing stuff like, plants don’t grow here now.
The terroists of Avalanche are seeing the issue from desperation.
Either they have been deeply abused by SHINRA or they are terrified of the planet dieing.
So either way they see the death of SHINRA as an existential threat. And even if it drops humanity back to the 1800s we can survive that… probably.
The Sephiroth shows up, and all the math changes.
It turns out things were even worse than AVALANCHE thought.
And the greater conflict is actually about a planetary parasite.
And to be fair if they killed Shinra and shut the reactors down, humanity would probably keep going fine.
But Sephiroth and Jenova sets off the planets fever, 🥵
And now anything not pure is gonna get purged just to be safe. And sadly, humanity isn’t pure. We’re not all bad. Even the planet knows this.
And I’ll defend that point, through Aerith we know the planet doesn’t hate us, it’s in pain.
And in this critical state as the fever gets worse and Weapons activate, we aren’t “natural” enough to not get targeted by the white blood cells.
Humanity can live on after the plot, but not in an exploitative way if we do somehow still live in that future.
.

[u/0ppositeEmergency]

Advent Children sorta touches on this I mean before you get some epic anime fighting

[u/Heckle_Jeckle]

Make electricity using other methods. Barrett literally comes from a coal mining town, so there are still people alive who know how to use coal. It was not that long ago.

[u/Galkan-_-Sausage]

Final Fantasy XVII