I believe Deling City and Midgar to be the same place.
I also believe the Shinra to be Estharians from FH which were corrupted by Hojo´s experiments.Hojo is a Shumi possessed by Hyne(this time Hyne behaves pretty much like himself without a banana on his neck,ah,ah,ah,ah).
In fact one of my theories on FF7 is that president Shinra is Cloud´s father.
I also believe Kefka to be possessed by Hyne.Looks like him alot.And to completely change the worlds topografy is definitely his purpose on every Final Fantasy (not just to destroy the world).All this catastrophes were needed in order to perform Time Compression.
