Is it just me, or is it impossible how a naturally lush and natural canyon and forest exist in the same world as the ShinRa?

I mean, ShinRa's influence stretches as far as the mountain podunk of Nibelheim, or Gongaga, the reactor town in the rain forest south of Gold Saucer. How did they miss Cosmo Canyon in between the two? That area's gotta be teeming with Makou energy for them to suck up...

What, did the residents of Cosmo Canyon actually manage to fend ShinRa using pitch forks, or maybe flowers? "Peace, not war, man! Now smoke some joints with us!"

Fuckign hippies...

its called make believe

actually i believe Red XIII's dad, mother, and the rest of the tribe fought anyone who wanted to hurt the planet.. And now that they are all dead, he is the only left to protect.

its called make believe
No shit, but that doesn't mean they can't have any semblances of realism in it, or that they don't have to put logic into it. "Make-Believe" still has be believable on some level, otherwise it fails its purpose: to be believable.


actually i believe Red XIII's dad, mother, and the rest of the tribe fought anyone who wanted to hurt the planet.. And now that they are all dead, he is the only left to protect.
Red's family is all dead because they were at war with a rival tribe of the canyon, the Gi. Remember that dungeon/cave you access off of Cosmo Canyon, equivocally the backside of the canyon? That was the home of the Gi.

maybe bugenhagen could shoot bolts of lightening out his arse and that scared the shinra suits off;)

I think it had something to do with how the canyon was placed. Perhaps ShinRa tired to conquer and pillage Cosmo Canyon, but had to turn around because of the harsh environment?

maybe bugenhagen could shoot bolts of lightening out his arse and that scared the shinra suits off;)

nice Braveheart reference.... maybe its because Bugenhagen paid them off with twice as much gil than they make in a decade

nice Braveheart reference.... maybe its because Bugenhagen paid them off with twice as much gil than they make in a decade

lol thanks:P maybe. but he could be a total badass. like, maybe he has more artillery than barret's arm... like maybe he was an ex army vet or somthing;)

he went Rambo on their asses

I think it had something to do with how the canyon was placed. Perhaps ShinRa tired to conquer and pillage Cosmo Canyon, but had to turn around because of the harsh environment?
Ahh. I think it odd that the canyon would be desolate, but just right next door is a forest of unspoiled natural beauty...

bugenhagen used to work for shinra, so perhaps he convinced them not to exploit cosmo canyon
or perhaps there is no major mako source at cosmo canyon. i mean, they got gongaga, which is just a stone's throw away anyway. the mako reactors were everywhere like starbucks, but never right next door to each other.

bugenhagen had used blackmail/extortion

Cosmo canyon isn't unspoiled by Shinra corporation either. It's in the middle of a lightly settled region with few links to the cities where Shinra corporation extends its control,(They're not in the business of clearcutting forests, they're in the business of draining the planet of Mako), but the Shinra corporation actually built the settlement to begin with, prior to the construction of the Mako reactors. They were in the department of Exploring alternative energies such as Wind power and Solor power(the fuels that run the facilities in Cosmo Canyon.), but after the discovery of Mako power, their department was cut, and their people were fired. The place was already becoming the hippie haven of the world...

The canyon was desolate, quite simply because canyons are not vegetation friendly terrain... Although most places that have lush forests go to ground water before 10 feet under the ground, so a 200 Foot deep canyon in a lush forest would be incredibly peculiar from a geological standpoint, but not entirely impossible. From an environmental standpoint, it would allow someone to live in the midst of a forest without violating the forest by destroying it's trees and wildlife. Cosmo Canyon in geological terms is actually a feature caled a Rift Valley. While they possibly can exist, The only area above ocean level where the do exist is in Africa. A rift valley is formed by seismic activity instead of erosion, does not have to have a river in it, and it's more likely to have mountains in the middle of it, but the rift valleys in Africa, though not formed by rivers, became interconnected with rivers through erosion. The depression will also create a pressure zone over it, allowing percipiation that occurs in the areas around it, to not occur in it; however, the known rift valleys in Africa do not experience that drastic of a weather difference from the forests around them, what little difference they do experience is offset by the fact that the regions above drain into them. Since this rift valley in question is basically a depression in the ground, it's obviously not part of the same drainage system as the forest around it, or else it would be a lush forest as well even if it didn't get a single drop of it's own rain. In short, Cosmo Canyon's state as a desert surrounded by a forest, is possible, in fact it's form is one of very few conceivable scenarios whereby a desert could be surrounded by a forest; however it's highly improbable. Nonetheless the world of makebelieve can defy probaqbility all it wants, plus sometimes even the real world has been known to beat the odds with something. But Cosmo Canyon as it is will eventually become a forest or a body of water itself if the water level in the region doesn't go down drastically. Once it gets water into it's own weather system, it will get rain, and trees, and clouds, and won't deflect clouds above as much once it has clouds forming in it, meaning that it is inevitable that Cosmo Canyon would become like one of the Rift Valleys in Africa. The process of irrigating the small amounts of crops grown there would serve as a mechanism by which water is brought in. The water in the caverns would be seeping in through slight cracks in the rocks, and ultimately coming from the water table of the forest above. So if Cosmo Canyon existed in a real world, with it's current state being as it is in the game, it would be anywhere from a few hundred thousand, to as little as just a few hundred years before it was transformed into something that looked more like one of Africa's Rift valleys.

As for Shinra's involvement in the place. They simply lost intrest in the place after Mako was discovered elsewhere, and the mako that was under Cosmo Canyon flowed more abundantly elswere, near Costa Del Sol and the Golden Saucer. That's not to say they haven't showed up every time something there piques their interest.(as they are there numerous times throughout the game.) Even their procurment of Red XIII was not illegitiment. He chose to go with Hojo, then Hojo made him into a test subject. It was Hojo's usage of him as a guinea pig that was illegitiment, seeing as Hojo had deceived him, but Red came of his own free will to begin with. He wasn't forced to go, although he would have probably been forced to go if he hadn't have gone, but that's beside the point.

It doesn't strike me as odd that ShinRa hasn't destroyed the forest yet. They control the world, but they don't control every minute detail of every person's life. They aren't some sort of hypercompetent power, that could go anywhere without any pretense and do whatever they wanted. There has to be justification for their prescense for any detatchment of their forces to be deployed, even though said justification is in their terms on their terms. They have a procedure by which they enact their many acts of genocide and ecocide upon the various places of the world, and with practically no one living in the forests south of Nibelheim, other that scattered populations of primitives and demihumans, and a hippie outpost in some vally that by all logic shouldn't be a desert, there just isn't any wat to justify its despoilment to the bottom line, that being profit margin.

They can't colonize the area. Because their control resources are spread thin enough as it is holding on to the cities they control already, building a new city would be pointless(Their intentions, when building the New Midgar, was to abandon the old one.), and that's part of the reason why the exterminated many of the settlements within their sphere of influence. ShinRa was not as powerful as many players seem think they are. They are in fact very dominant and very powerful, but their structure is held together by incredibly fragile bonds, and their drives are as human as anyone elses, as are their limitations.

good point

1338, you didn't even read the entire post, thus insulting the original poster with that patronizing remark.

You disappoint me, 1338. I thought you'd be better, 1338.

1338, you didn't even read the entire post, thus insulting the original poster with that patronizing remark.

You disappoint me, 1338. I thought you'd be better, 1338.


You didn't read it either rofl

No, but I didn't say anything about it, did I?

OKAY. Zachron, so you're saying that

1) Cosmo Canyon would otherwise logically stand the chance of being irrigated,

2) ShinRa's lost interest in Cosmo Canyon, since there's no resources left to be exploit, and they're having trouble maintaining sphere of influence of what they have already,

3) The machines left behind in Cosmo Canyon are of ShinRa design, but don't use Makou

?

1338, you didn't even read the entire post, thus insulting the original poster with that patronizing remark.

You disappoint me, 1338. I thought you'd be better, 1338.

yes i did you fucker... and its 1138

Must all topics on these boards turn into a gay lovers' spat? Cut it out, and go do something more constructive with your time, rather than post whatever comes out of your butt crack, at the bottom of each topic. Try playing video games or something. Then maybe you'll have more worthwhile to say.

Shinra left it alone because they were afraid of being bored to death by Bugenhagen. That old man put me to sleep countless times with the control in my hand on my tries at playing through that game again. OH MAN IT DRAGGED. Cosmo Canyon = boring.

yes i did you fucker... and its 1138

1338, you really should let those negative emotions go. They can't be good for your health, 1338.

Shinra left it alone because they were afraid of being bored to death by Bugenhagen. That old man put me to sleep countless times with the control in my hand on my tries at playing through that game again. OH MAN IT DRAGGED. Cosmo Canyon = boring.



i also agree that cosmo canyon is one of the most boring points in the game.... and its 1138... i said it calmly

im sure im wrong but wasnt there some protective something of some kind surrounding it? like thats why your car broke down outside of it...

maybe im confusing my ff games.


also the theme for cosmo canyon was the best of the game, just sayin.

OKAY. Zachron, so you're saying that

1) Cosmo Canyon would otherwise logically stand the chance of being irrigated,

2) ShinRa's lost interest in Cosmo Canyon, since there's no resources left to be exploit, and they're having trouble maintaining sphere of influence of what they have already,

3) The machines left behind in Cosmo Canyon are of ShinRa design, but don't use Makou

?

Yep, that's the gist of it. While on number 2 it wasn't so much a lack of resources, so much as the overexpansion of their sphere of influence. (That's why the Nation of Wutai retains it's independence, despite having been defeated by ShinRa. The war wasn't to take control of Wutai, but to disrupt it's economy so that it could not spawn a potential competitor to ShinRa.)