In Final Fantasy 7 (the original), Shinra says that they plan to stop the Meteor by loading a rocket with Huge Materia, and sending it to blow up the Meteor. The next section of the game is going to different locations to steal the Huge Materia before Shinra can get/use it, ending with you stealing the Huge Materia from the rocket itself.
3-part question…
- If Shinra is attempting to destroy Meteor at this point, why does Cloud (you) want to stop them? I know that while on the rocket, Cloud makes some comment about how the Huge Materia is too special / important to lose it, but Shinra is attempting to save the entire Planet at this point.
- Why did Shinra still launch the rocket anyway if they didn't have all the Huge Materia to put on board as they planned?
- Is there an in-game explanation why it doesn't matter if you succeed in getting the Huge Materia or not? If you fail to get the Huge Materia in the mini-games during that part of the game; then wouldn't Shinra have put the Huge Materia on the rocket? Wasn't the whole point that the Huge Materia was the only thing they knew of capable of destroying Meteor?
I collected all 4 Huge Materia in my playthrough, but my understanding is that failing to collect and or all of them has no impact on the story or the results of Shinra's rocket launch.
Is this just one of those things where the story is a bit unclear/confusing; or did I miss something about Shinra's plan to destroy Meteor?
Best Answer
1. Lack of trust in Shinra and will to defeat Sephiroth: Cloud knows that even the Huge Materia would not be enough to destroy the Meteor, he knows that for the Meteor to be defeated, Sephiroth, his summoner, has to first be defeated. In fact if you visit Bugenhagen while playing Cid when the Huge Materia plot just starts, he explains that destroying it would critically injure the planet. Cloud and his team trust Bugenhagen hence it is very likely that Cid would share this critical information to Cloud. Cloud, having been betrayed several time by the Shinra, does not believe in anything they are doing. Shinra could be doing the right thing that he would still seek to oppose them as he thinks that Shinra is intrinsically evil and indeed has a history of solving issues in a pretty nasty ways (refer to pretty much any of the crew members: Barret/Dyne (crushed rebellion), Vincent and Nanaki (laboratory pets) etc if you still need to convince yourself). The crew members will still question the decision of Cloud to challenge Shinra regarding the huge materia.
2/3. Avoid potential retaliation from upper management: You have to think about Shinra as a huge corporation in a dystopian world. Shinra department in charge of the rocket knows that they can't just tell their bosses that they cannot launch it. In authoritarian regimes, failing people are always quick to be beheaded, leading to data manipulation in order to not encounter problems. Hence it is better to launch the rocket and pretend that the meteor was too strong to be stopped.