What was the reason behind the war of Wutai and Midgar?

[Chris]

I never did understand what the reason was behind the war between Wutai and Midgar? any suggestions?



Better watch out as war is nothing but a conflict between stupid humans!

[Zifnab]

Global domination for Shinra, I'd say. For most of the civilisations it seems Shinra was able to buy their way with promises of a better life if they obey. Wutai obviously refused their promises and so war was waged.

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

It's explained that Wutai actually started the war. Basically, Godo would rather have run a global empire than an isolated city-state, so he began a campaign for worldwide influence. Meanwhile, President Shin-Ra had his own plans for world domination in mind, so the two forces clashed. We basically know the rest; after some fighting, Wutai was put firmly in its place and became a shadow of its former, gloriously ambitious self, and Godo resorted to sending his daughter out into the world to steal materia in large quantities and bring it back to fortify the homeland once more.

[Big D]

Yeah, it oculd well have been commercialism...
Cid called it a "pointless war" or something similar. ShinRa used to be a weapons and machinery manufacturer, back before they branched off into Mako; they dominated the market across two continents, and undoubtedly wanted Wutai to buy their stuff, too. Wutai wanted to continue their proud and independent traditions, ShinRa got upset and waged war. After the war, Wutai kept a measure of independence, but their market is flooded with ShinRa merchandise and nothing much else. This could be why Godo is seen as a 'sell out'.

Materia may have been involved, too. There's very little in Wutai when Cloud and co get there. Yet Yuffie believes she can make Wutai strong again by finding materia... maybe materia was what made Wutai strong and famous in the first place, before ShinRa wanted those materia for its own military/commerical purposes.
Edit: I don't recall where it was said that Wutai started the war, what part of the game was that?

I assumed that, like any conflict, either side could've avoided it, but Gogo wanted to stick to his ideals or somesuch.

[Chris]

I don't recall that either ??

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

I believe Godo is the one who talks about it. You probably need to speak to him at a certain point in the game to incite the conversation. I can't recall for certain; it's been a long time.

[-N-]

After beating him in the Pagoda, I believe.

It was like Materia v. Mako, and Mako won. Godo tried to rule the world one way, Shinra the other. If you still have trouble understanding it, it's got a lot of parallels with Japan bowing to the U.S. at the end of WWII, or the Samurais falling to the Western-trained Japanese Army.

It's also believed that Jenova accelerated the occurence of this war for her ends of destroying the world.

[nik0tine]

war cannot be waged for any other purpose than for greed or power

[Big D]

[q=princeofdarknez]It's also believed that Jenova accelerated the occurence of this war for her ends of destroying the world.[/q]Well, if by "believed" you mean "speculated by conspiracy theorists"

That's one of the fairly extreme theories relating to Jenova's power and influence, one I don't find it necessary to believe... just like I'm not convinced that Jenova herself inspired the Jenova Project and the construction of Mako reactors.