Space Men

[Let's dedicate this one to our own space man, Neil Armstrong.]

The Final Fantasy series has grown from humble beginnings. While the first game had little in the way of plot and character development, the series grew from there and now interweaves a multitude of thematic issues into the games we love and enjoy. The powers that books, film and television have to be critiques of contemporary issues have been discussed and debated time and time again, but not often are the elements that make up video games examined. They are, of course, a rich field just waiting to be sown with ideas for the player to experience, whether or not they are readily apparent at the beginning. Often some of these themes go unnoticed, too minor an element to receive focus but very relevant all the same. There is one particular element I would like to explore with you, an element that stems from the fan favourite Final Fantasy VII and interlocked quite strongly with two of its characters.

Welcome to the Final Frontier
Space. Space. I love space. Science fiction has been one of my favourite genres of fiction, and I was always captivated by the stars. There is endless and unknown potential lurking just outside our reach. Space has been the setting for numerous video games, some of the most notable being the Halo series, the Mass Effect series and another Square Enix series in Star Ocean. While they are all, in my opinion, rather interesting looks at the future of space in regards to humanity, Final Fantasy VII is far more relevant at a contemporary level.

Although the plot deals with space faring monsters who ride planets as vessels, actual interplanetary travel is out of the grasp of the denizens of Final Fantasy VII’s planet. That is not for wont of trying; Shinra Inc. has a number of sections within its corporate makeup, including the Space Exploration Department. To walk us through the dynamics of Shinra’s Space Exploration Department and how it ties into real world examples, let’s look at the first of our two characters: Palmer.

"Rate hike! Rate hike! Tra, la, la! And please include our Space Program in the budget!" - Palmer
As a character, Palmer is not the most competent. He is a cowardly and childish buffoon who garners little to no respect from his colleagues. Having Palmer as the head of the Space Exploration Department at Shinra Inc. bodes ill for the space program itself. His passion is undeniable, but his actual dedication to securing funding is questionable.

The first time the player encounters any aspect of space or space exploration in the game is actually upon rescuing Aeris from the Church in the Slums. The strange looking object that the foolish flower girl slides down is a failed and unexploded rocket crashed in Midgar. However it is not until later, when the party overhears the Shinra Executives’ meeting that the player receives their first bit of actual space-related exposition.

Shinra wants resources, primarily Mako. This is the most simplified breakdown of their goals and aims. When President Shinra orders a tax increase, Palmer shows some excitement, asking for the extra revenue – or at least some part – for the continuation of his program. His request is denied, and discussion shifts towards finding “the Promised Land,” a place rich in Mako energy. What Shinra does not realise – or does not care about – is that the use of Mako energy is having an extremely negative environmental impact on the planet. In fact, these practices are literally killing it. While fixing environmental issues might not be a priority for Shinra, it is for governments around the real world. Numerous conferences and summits are held discussing the problems and various solutions, with initiatives enacted to try and reduce the problem. What neither Shinra nor real world governments seem to realise is that space holds an abundance of resources that are – to the best of our knowledge – unclaimed and exploitable.

There are of course several factors detrimental to this approach that must be acknowledged. First of all, destroying another planet hardly seems ethically superior to destroying our own planet. Additionally, the technology to travel to these planets, extract the resources and then transport then back for use is seemingly out of reach. However this only reinforces the potential benefits that such an approach holds, and should be an encouragement to pursue advancement rather than shy away from it. The current level of funding awarded to NASA by the US Government is less than 1% of the country’s annual budget, and appears to be on a decline. The reason for this is simple – there are higher priorities, namely defence. Shinra’s excuse is somewhat different, being a combination between the priority of reaching the Promised Land – and gaining untold and immeasurable economic profits – and a series of previously unsuccessful rocket launches.

If there is one thing that the US Government could teach the Shinra, it is that one should not abandon space purely because of mistakes and failures. However it is easy to understand why there would be a difference in ethos, with one being a country superpower and the other being a business superpower, despite both serving similar roles in terms of government. It seems fated that space slip from the priorities of nations until such a time as it is a desperate necessity, leading to some very broken dreams of space travel and exploration. Palmer is no doubt disappointed that he will likely never see his rockets launch, and I myself and saddened that mankind may yet to have walked on another world in my lifetime, but there is another whose dreams were crushed by the diminishing importance of space programs. Let me introduce our second character for this feature: Cid Highwind.

"Look at this busted rocket. I was supposed to be the first man in space with this." – Cid Highwind
Cid is a hot headed, cussing, former Shinra pilot who was to be the first man in outer space. His dreams were crushed when Shera, an engineer, stayed inside during the launch to run some last minute checks on the oxygen tanks. Cid could not bring himself to sacrifice her, so he hit the emergency shutdown and with this failure, Shinra pulled their funding and moved into Mako energy. Cid is a representation of the stargazers, those of us who long to explore the vast unknown that is space and learn all of its secrets. Despite the lack of attention and funding from Shinra, Cid remains a sense of hope that he might one day achieve his dreams of flying into space. Unlike the rest of us dreamers, he does get a chance to blast off, but it is very short lived.

With the Meteor Crisis in full swing, Shinra heads to Rocket Town and fills the Shinra No. 26 rocket with explosives and a Huge Materia in an attempt to destroy the approaching disaster. Cid and the party show up with enough time to sneak on board before the rocket launches. They loot the Huge Materia and head to an escape pod just before the rocket collides with Meteor, failing to even so much as dent it. As explosive and tense as Cid’s brief stint in space might seem, it really is an anticlimactic experience for him. He might have made it past the planet’s atmosphere, but he didn’t go much further; any dreams he might have had of exploring the wide reaches of space died with that rocket and the collapse of Shinra.

While Cid and any other space fanatics in the world of Final Fantasy VII have little choice other than relying on Shinra and its space program, we in the real world have other alternatives. Sir Richard Branson created Virign Galactic, a space tourism company under his Virign banner. Excalibur Almaz, a British space company, provides six month holidays for the cashed-up at £100m per person. Lastly, Planetary Resources Inc. is a company interested in mining near-Earth asteroids; finally somebody who realises the potential resources out beyond the clouds. Discussion also continues surrounding the Higgs-Boson particle, a discovery which may very well lead to Faster Than Light travel. Space and science continues to tease us, entreating us to learn more and continue to discover.

Intergalactic exploration need not be a dream given up a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Though Palmer and Cid’s collective dreams hardly came to fruition, we have a much better chance at achieving those goals. Maybe not immediately, but neither Cid nor Palmer were meant to spritely young men – despite Cid’s age being only 35 – so while we await mass produced space travel, brush up on your skills and knowledge and you too could be the next lard-guzzling space program executive or foul-mouth space explorer. See you on the other side, space cadets.

hey this was a good post :aimsad:

Well, it was, but I don't really quite know how to reply to it. Yes, there's space travel in FFVII and it's something of a dream, a bird beginning to take flight. Uh... that's... all I got. Sorry :shobon:

Good enough for me :monster:

That was a good read!

This was a fun read. It's been so long since I've played past the very beginning of VII that I really can't contribute much here.

It might be interesting to contrast space travel in VII to other games in the series. The only other games I can think of that address space travel at all is IV and VIII; VIII probably being the more interesting of the two to discuss just because it's more in line with your post.

In VII we have the corporation superpower of Shinra. As you mentioned, through the failures of Cid and previous attempts to get to space, the program had funding cut because it wasn't seen as profitable and they focused their attention to Mako.

However, in VIII, we have governments and war in play when the issue of space travel come up. The Space Race in our world really began through a power struggle and fear of war. Rather than abandoning space due to a perceived economic disadvantage, we go into space for a more tactical advantage and to create a perceived higher status as a world super power. VIII is different, but still similar in the extent that the advances made to get to space involved fear of Adel and the plan to seal her up and keep her guarded in space.

And now I'm not sure where I was going with my thoughts. It's just interesting to look at these two different perspectives with space travel. Cid Highwind should have been born in the world of VIII during the Sorceress War instead, haha.

Though the post didn't cover it for obvious reasons, my favorite space moment in FF history is the Lunar Whale in FFIV. That really captured my imaginations when I was a kid. Though I do have to give props to FFVII for depicting space travel much like real life....sort of.