Damn those world saving Shinra! Someone stop them!

[Crop]

I've been replaying through FFVII lately, and I just got past the point where you have to collect the Huge Materia. It was there I thought I missed something in my previous playthroughs but no...Cloud and his motley crew of ship thieves hear about the Shinra plan to use Huge Materia to blow up the Meteor and then literally just say "we have to stop them, we have to get that huge materia!". It's not like they even have a plan to use the huge materia, they just jam it all in Bugenhagen's attic.

What's up with this? From what I've seen from Shinra in the second disk, they've been doing nothing but trying to stop Sephiroth and Meteor and doing GOOD for the world (apart from the attempted public executions)...I don't see why Cloud and the others don't help them, or at least just stay out of their way and let them have a bash. Let me try and break it down:

Shinra: They're fighting the Weapons, and manage to kill two of them, they're collecting special weapons to beat Sephiroth (as shown in the crashed gelnika), and they're moving the cannon to try and destroy Sephiroths barrier. Sound like worthy goals to me.

Cloud and co: They have no idea how they're going to destroy the barrier or Sephiroth. They pretty much just make it their mission to totally wreck anything the Shinra are doing.

So is there some hidden reason that they're trying to stop Shinra at this point in the game? Disk one I could see why, but now Sephiroth is clearly the huge threat. It's not like Shinra even want anything to do with Cloud and the others at this point, they're not even pursuing them. Now I know that the huge materia doesn't work anyway, even if you don't collect any of the pieces, but it's not like anyone knew that at the time.
They also even have the cheek to say "Shinra's plan failed" when the rocket doesn't blow up meteor. Yeah no thanks to you, you morons!

[Hollycat]

The secret is that Rufus Shinra stole Clouds dog.

I have no idea really, I've thought this before too, its all CLOUD AND CO's fault that the rocket failed. Even without the power of 4 materia each 330 times more powerful than a normal materia (including ultima and contain) it still almost blew up the rocket. And the materia in the rocket contained bahamut zero, who blows up planets. He coulda beat meteor, then sephiroth woulda been like. crap. I can't cast meteor again, and now I'm too ugly to show myself on the surface where two casts of KOTR will kill me.

[WhiteStorm]

...I don't see why Cloud and the others don't help them, or at least just stay out of their way and let them have a bash.

There would be no game if that were the case... or at least, Cloud and co. wouldn't be in the spotlight.

[BG-57]

Of course it could argued that Shinra is acting purely out of self-interest to deal with a problem they caused, both in Hojo's research and the continued ravaging of the planet's life energy. I wouldn't describe it as altruistic, and the public executions are merely a publicity stunt and attempts at scapegoating.

This is a company that is perfectly willing to drop a sector plate on top of a large part of their own population to deal with a terrorist group. Now AVALANCHE does have some blood on their hands for blowing up the reactors, but their motives make them more well intentioned extremists than outright evil.

That being said the scene aginst Sapphire Weapon was awesome (like a Godzilla movie if the JSDF's super weapon actually worked), and it was cool that the heros didn't have to take out all the Weapons on their own.

I would say that Shinra and the heros were working on parallel tracks, not really cooperating but the actions of one enabled the actions of the other.

[Jiro]

There is that one scene in AC where Reno says "and together we could rebuild Shinra!"

Basically yeah; Rufus has gone "oh smurf what has happened here" and is trying to fix it so they can sleep better at night (plus with that huge materia they'd be more powerful). Cloud and co. don't see anything but bad blood between them and "evil Shinra" so they just trash their plans for s and giggles.

[silentenigma]

I was under the impression that Cloud & Co. knew that the plan couldn't work (the NPCs at Cosmo Canyon say so if I recall correctly... or maybe I'm crazy), in addition to the fact that it was an abuse of nature and would put to waste a valuable resource.

Despite the awkward writing, I'm pretty sure the main point is that Shinra are still evil, their hasty plans are only a hindrance Cloud & Co., and they can't truly do anything to stop Meteor. It would have been nice if these points received emphasis during the time rather than after the fact.

[FFIX Choco Boy]

I thought that at some point C&C were told that the huge materia would just make Meteor stronger if they made contact.

[Wolf Kanno]

This is really one of the biggest issues I have with the plot in the second disc (well not to mention that stupid double whammy plot twist about Cloud) cause while Shin-Ra is certainly only fighting for their own self-preservation and they were certainly the main cause of all this from happening, like Crop points out, it's not like Cloud's party actually had a plan. The truth about Holy doesn't even come to light until after Cloud and co. have sabotaged Shin-Ra's efforts to save the planet. So they pretty much wasted time of figuring out their own way of saving the Planet by screwing with Shin-Ra's plan which at the time could have been the planet's only hope.

They really had no good reason to do so beyond some hippie environmentalist mentality The game does a piss poor job of explaining why the heroes are in the right, nor does it really give any literary focus of presenting the heroes as not completely good, they simply come across as stupid and their justification is that Shin-Ra is evil. I'm guessing something was lost in translation but I don't really care anymore.

[Mo-Nercy]

I was under the impression that Shinra were being evil using the precious, one-of-a-kind (or four rather) Huge Materia to destroy Meteor whereas we're all supposed to assume that the best course of action is to true a handful of terrorists with the fate of world. Even though they don't even set out to do anything about Meteor. They just go to beat up Sephiroth whilst the Planet gets bailed out by the Lifestream.

[Rostum]

It's a shame that Shinra get wiped out. It would have been interesting to see what Rufus would have planned for his confrontation with Sephiroth. That and the only good parts of the game were the scenes that involved Shinra / Turks. In fact, without Rufus I'd wonder what Cloud & Co.'s plan would have been? They would have been totally screwed.

[Crop]

(plus with that huge materia they'd be more powerful)

They wouldn't after they used it. They HAVE the Huge Materia, and they're willing to use up this valuable resource to help save the planet.

I thought that at some point C&C were told that the huge materia would just make Meteor stronger if they made contact.

If this is said, it's said after the part where they launch the rocket into meteor, because that's the part I'm at and it hasn't been mentioned.

They just go to beat up Sephiroth

And they couldn't have even done that without Shinra.

Don't get me wrong I know Shinra are pretty much evil, what with the plate dropping, planet killing etc. But they'd probably use everything they have to defeat the Weapons, destroy the barrier, and then probably jam a bomb down the crater, blow the hell out of Sephiroth and then send soldiers down there to finish the job.

I'd have thought it would be better for Cloud and the others to take a little RnR in Costa Del Sol and wait until the weakened Shinra are all they have to deal with, they would have time to do so then at least (Since Shinra arn't an immediate threat out to destroy the planet) and it's not like they had a problem with blowing up the reactors before.

I guess it's probably just bad writing, or bad plot development or whatever, but I had hoped I had just missed something big because this just puts me off a huge part of the second disk.

[Jiro]

I guess they would've just sat around for a while until they figured out the deal with Holy.

[VeloZer0]

I recall Reeve saying they were going to send squads of SOLDIERs to attack Sephiroth, but after the disc 2 closing events ShinRa was to disorganized to get such an attack together.

And if Cloud & co. didn't have the Sister Ray to blow up Sephiroth's shield they could have always blown it up with some sort of heavy materia bomb they went to a lot of trouble to acquire.

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

"There was no guarantee the Huge Materia would work, not to mention the negative impacts it might have had on the Planet if it was loaded with all four HM's (even with NO Huge Materia, or a single one, the rocket's explosion was still powerful enough to make a hole in Meteor's outer shell).

Besides, Shinra intended to destroy Corel AGAIN (the railway passes right through it) and invade Fort Condor to get Huge Materia, not even caring about who was going to get hurt or killed in the process. That's the main problem with Shinra's plan, and that's why the party opposed it."

-Some guy from some other forum

[Wolf Kanno]

Well Fort Condor being taken out is more of the rebels fault since they are holed up there to save an endangered species over the whole damn planet, and no one said Shin-Ra weren't being jerks about all of this. Besides, the party doesn't even realize that Corel is in danger until they get there (meaning they were their to thwart them anyway without the destruction of Corel as an incentive) so I still feel the party is being illogical.