Where are all the aeroplanes!?

[Forsaken Lover]

That`s why you guys shouldn`t use actual common sense.

"The Garden can fly. How? Why? Oh I see. It's because it has a giant spinny thing. That's how it can fly. Now it all makes total sense."

[Jiro]

If they had planes, then they would fly into Esthar and break the game's logic. Though if we look at it realistically, the lack of radio signals would probably be the most likely reason.

[Big D]

I know absolutely nothing about technology but couldnt the whole radio interference be a factor?

Good enough for me. That, and the fact that this is a world where a 17-year-old girl with nunchaku can defeat anything from a squad of armoured soldiers with assault rifles to a freaking army tank all by her lonesome.

[Iceglow]

Yeah basically as said, the reason Selphie was able to even affect the missiles headed for Balamb is that they were pre-loaded with computer instructions and then an AI program (going on the evidence that there was some kind of lens viewing the target making sure the missiles do reach the target in the FMV of the missile strikes) of some sort seems to take over, she messes with the targetting information of the computer allowing it to accept a much wider variance on the targets position which coupled with the fact that Garden was by now lifting off and moving towards Balamb town made the missiles miss. Had Garden not been moving it's quite clear that it would have sustained catastrophic damage still. Had the Gabaladians got a radio uplink to the missiles they could have corrected this however without an uplink they could never rectify the problems caused by Selphie's insertion team, setting the base self destruct was primarily to prevent the Gabaldians from launching more missiles once they made their escape or died.

[ theory]

Now at risk of sounding like I have lost the plot...

As for the technology levels of the game I believe or theorize at least that actually there has been some regression in the games tech levels. The reason I draw this conclusion is...

There appears to be evidence in the game that the centra continent used to have an advanced civilisation, probably destroyed in the same lunar cry responsible for shattering the continent itself several thousand years prior to the events of the game.

I can provide some meagre evidence of this myself from game sources heres my debatable evidence to support what is quite a big statement to make.

Centra has unexplained ruins which seemingly defy gravity and natural designs (the lost ruins where the player acquires the GF Odin and the GF Tonberry)

There is the comments made I believe during the start of Disc 2 where the Garden begins moving and crashing at FH where someone actually explains that all the Gardens were built atop old Centra civilisation bomb shelters that no one fully understood how they worked (Cid certainly didn't expect the Garden to begin moving and he built Garden if they understood the bomb shelters defence mechanisms they would have expected the movements of Garden to escape the missiles) Now there was bomb shelters that would imply there was a need for such shelters so a very powerful bomb existed during the reign of the people of the Centra continent and that there was also some form of countermeasures available. The lack of understanding of the technology seems to imply that the capabilities to produce it may have fallen out of knowledge probably due to the scattering of any survivors from the Lunar Cry that ruined the continent. However there also is evidence that seems to point out that the highly advanced Estharians would have benefitted the most of any Centra survivors, the Estharian technology level seems way beyond that of the Gabaldians (Ragnorak, the Lunar station, the fact that their cities and cars seem to be non combustion engined, though the cars on Esthar still use the item "fuel" look at it, it looks like the Dolorean after it's trip to the future) compare this to the technology of Gabaldia, Dollet, Timber, Balamb (I'd say Trabia too but there isn't really anything there apart from the Shumi village and Trabia Garden) Non-estharian civilisations tend to use what is clearly combustion engine technology, the main exception to this appears to be Garden, not sure what technology their boats/transports use but it seems to be a mix of technology levels but who knows.

Now I've kinda backed my line of reasoning in to a corner here, I have so far surmised that there was a civilisation on the Centra continent and that the centra continent was home to an advanced civilisation. I have also surmised that the Estharians may have benefitted the most but it is the people of FH (who are really for the most part, migrants from Esthar and Gabaldia who both happen to live together from what I got in game) who fix Garden so no one understood the technology but FH fixes it? Well look at it like this, most mechanics can't build you a car from raw materials they simply don't know how to do so. However because they know what the purpose of the machine is they can repair it because they understand what it must do. In the case of cars, cars must move from A - B and convey people and goods this allows them to look at the car and say "well it isn't doing what it is supposed to and therefore this must be broken and we can fix it by doing this" the people of FH fixing the Garden's steering problems is kinda like the example of the car. In now finally seeing what the technology did (in rather a blunt to the point way) they were clearly able to draw upon their current technology levels to fix the machinery and make it work for them.

Now if we were to accept my theory that the Centra civilisation was pretty advanced and some technology is now "lost technology" because of the fall of that civilisation and we accept that due to their technological prowess the Estharians benefitted the most from the fall of the Centra continent we could surmise that aeroplanes and helicopters or even airships (as it is a big reccuring theme in FF games, the obsession with lighter than air travel) fall in to lost technology or that they were considered obsolete to the Centra civilisation by the time of their fall and thus the technology died out completely before the game ever took place.

On the other hand it's entirely possible that the theory above is actually complete crap and I'm wrong about the tech climbdown.

[/theory]

Though even if the technology does exist in the game, without a radio there would be a huge issue with the planes and they probably wouldn't be used. 1) how would you guide a plane in to land/takeoff/attack a certain structure/target without radio contact, you can't exactly send a runner to it or have it trailing a hd cable. 2) Radar works on radio waves, therefore finding your way in a plane from A - B with all the problems that flight entails such as special needs for landing/taking off ect means flying long distances without radar becomes highly dangerous and unsafe. I think that by common sense logic the world would have left flight behind for the most part with the lack of radio contact though ofcourse we have to remember that during the memory segments of the game as young Laguna, Kiros and Ward we are actually prior to the radio blanking (which was only achieved by the actions of Laguna, Kiros and Ward in Esthar) and there seems to be no record of the Estharians or the Gabaldians using jets/planes during this time which imho lends weight to my theory that flight was considered a lost technology.