I tend to take the position that there was at least a city and a group of outlying "dormitory" towns in the area of Midgar before the building of the Plate started. I suspect the deserted city discovered in the Deepground levels below the Shinra tower is what remains of the original Midgar city.
I figure the Shinra clan would have their origins in the Midgar region, but about four or five generations back the group which is now the core of the clan (the family which resulted in Rufus Shinra) figured out a way of capitalising on the mako pools in some locations. This group was a cadet branch of the family, based out around the Nibel area - there's very clear evidence in-game that the Mt Nibel reactor was the first reactor created (visually, it's about two generations removed from the other reactors - very steam-punk, all gears and cogwheels; it's also implied in the mention that "reactor 1" was authorised for use in the Jenova project). It revolutionised power generation, and made electricity easy to supply with minimal pollution (or so it seemed at the time).
Around the same time (possibly triggered by a planetary reaction) there was a major seismic event in Midgar (home to the main branch of the Shinra family - Scarlet, Heidegger and Palmer are descendants of this main branch), causing the loss of most of the city. The Nibel branch of the Shinra family come to Midgar, take power, and begin to rebuild. During the process of rebuilding, they institute the construction of the original set of mako reactors (9 in total) situated in Midgar. Controlling the power supply makes the Shinra family as a whole very powerful, but it also makes them targets. It's at this time they start building their army, and create the basis of the Shinra Tower as a fortification. The smaller dormitory towns which later became sectors of greater Midgar were named after the nearest reactors on the paperwork, and the power company just refused to deal with anyone who didn't refer to their sector by reactor number.
The plan to expand the fortifications of the tower as an exercise in corporate intimidation was a brainchild of the grandfather of Rufus Shinra. His son ("President Shinra" or "Old Man Shinra") wasn't really interested in it, but carried on the building project as a way of showing off how powerful the Shinra family had become. It turned into a way of rewarding people who were loyal to the company - they got given quarters above the Plate. However, he wasn't that attached to the city itself - I suspect his preference was actually for Junon (look at which city got turned into a major fortified army base, complete with a huge defensive cannon, underwater reactor, submarine base, airport facility, deep-water port, etc). My guess is there were plans afoot to move the main base of Shinra Corporate operations to Junon, and leave Midgar City to collapse into Deepground by the time of the original game - this is shown in the rather incomplete "map" of Midgar - at least one sector isn't finished, and probably never will be. My guess is that's the area over sector six - Don Corneo strikes me as a descendant of another cadet branch of the Shinra family (I'm going on family resemblance here - he looks a lot like OM Shinra, physically), and is paying big "tribute" to the main family holdings in order to keep a bit of open air over the sector - which is why the ascent to the upper plate is possible through Wall Market after the Sector 7 plate has been dropped.
Why let Midgar City collapse? Mainly because no matter how much engineering skill was expended, the city would still be on rather uncertain seismic ground above an area which was once rich in Lifestream, but which has been being drained badly enough to create badlands clear out to Kalm and almost three-quarters of the way to the Junon ranges as well. Basically it's like building on clay soil which is gradually drained of any water - there's going to be subsidence, and it's going to get worse and worse.
(And yes, I am a member of the Overthinker's Club... however did you guess?)
It's so nice to know I'm not alone. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Personally I take the stance that the Shinra family has an issue with an obsessive focus on some single goal. In Rufus the fixation was first on ruling the world, then after game on redeeming the company. His father was focus on finding the Promised land. The president's grandfather on building Midgar, and his father was the one who discovered that Mako could be used as an energy source and built the reactors.
I agree with you that the ShinRa company was probably originally based on the Eastern Continent, probably Rocket Town (which is why that project was built there because there was already a sizable ShinRa presence but was relatively ignored by the other directors so that Palmer wouldn't have anyone looking over his shoulder--Junon is clearly Scarlet's favorite with the huge ass cannon). Nibelheim was chosen as the site of the first reactor because it was close enough to be monitored by ShinRa current HQ but far enough away that if it blows they won't go with it. The HQ was later moved to the Easter Continent with the building of Midgar. (which I believe Reeve announced the completion of in the beginning of CC but I'm too lazy right now to actually check, feel free to take this with a grain of salt.)
I don't see how the Midgar area could be seismically unstable because it doesn't look like a fault line in anywhere in the area. If you look at a real world map of current active fault lines you will see that they tend to follow along the edges of continents. Wutai is clearly in a seismically unstable area. Junon and Costa del Sol maybe simply by virtue of being on the coast. I could buy Midgar possibly being on a caldera (check out info on the Yellowstone caldera if you want to see something that will scare the shit out of you).
I tend to take the position that there was at least a city and a group of outlying "dormitory" towns in the area of Midgar before the building of the Plate started. I suspect the deserted city discovered in the Deepground levels below the Shinra tower is what remains of the original Midgar city.
I figure the Shinra clan would have their origins in the Midgar region, but about four or five generations back the group which is now the core of the clan (the family which resulted in Rufus Shinra) figured out a way of capitalising on the mako pools in some locations. This group was a cadet branch of the family, based out around the Nibel area - there's very clear evidence in-game that the Mt Nibel reactor was the first reactor created (visually, it's about two generations removed from the other reactors - very steam-punk, all gears and cogwheels; it's also implied in the mention that "reactor 1" was authorised for use in the Jenova project). It revolutionised power generation, and made electricity easy to supply with minimal pollution (or so it seemed at the time).
Around the same time (possibly triggered by a planetary reaction) there was a major seismic event in Midgar (home to the main branch of the Shinra family - Scarlet, Heidegger and Palmer are descendants of this main branch), causing the loss of most of the city. The Nibel branch of the Shinra family come to Midgar, take power, and begin to rebuild. During the process of rebuilding, they institute the construction of the original set of mako reactors (9 in total) situated in Midgar. Controlling the power supply makes the Shinra family as a whole very powerful, but it also makes them targets. It's at this time they start building their army, and create the basis of the Shinra Tower as a fortification. The smaller dormitory towns which later became sectors of greater Midgar were named after the nearest reactors on the paperwork, and the power company just refused to deal with anyone who didn't refer to their sector by reactor number.
The plan to expand the fortifications of the tower as an exercise in corporate intimidation was a brainchild of the grandfather of Rufus Shinra. His son ("President Shinra" or "Old Man Shinra") wasn't really interested in it, but carried on the building project as a way of showing off how powerful the Shinra family had become. It turned into a way of rewarding people who were loyal to the company - they got given quarters above the Plate. However, he wasn't that attached to the city itself - I suspect his preference was actually for Junon (look at which city got turned into a major fortified army base, complete with a huge defensive cannon, underwater reactor, submarine base, airport facility, deep-water port, etc). My guess is there were plans afoot to move the main base of Shinra Corporate operations to Junon, and leave Midgar City to collapse into Deepground by the time of the original game - this is shown in the rather incomplete "map" of Midgar - at least one sector isn't finished, and probably never will be. My guess is that's the area over sector six - Don Corneo strikes me as a descendant of another cadet branch of the Shinra family (I'm going on family resemblance here - he looks a lot like OM Shinra, physically), and is paying big "tribute" to the main family holdings in order to keep a bit of open air over the sector - which is why the ascent to the upper plate is possible through Wall Market after the Sector 7 plate has been dropped.
Why let Midgar City collapse? Mainly because no matter how much engineering skill was expended, the city would still be on rather uncertain seismic ground above an area which was once rich in Lifestream, but which has been being drained badly enough to create badlands clear out to Kalm and almost three-quarters of the way to the Junon ranges as well. Basically it's like building on clay soil which is gradually drained of any water - there's going to be subsidence, and it's going to get worse and worse.
(And yes, I am a member of the Overthinker's Club... however did you guess?)
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Personally I take the stance that the Shinra family has an issue with an obsessive focus on some single goal. In Rufus the fixation was first on ruling the world, then after game on redeeming the company. His father was focus on finding the Promised land. The president's grandfather on building Midgar, and his father was the one who discovered that Mako could be used as an energy source and built the reactors.
I agree with you that the ShinRa company was probably originally based on the Eastern Continent, probably Rocket Town (which is why that project was built there because there was already a sizable ShinRa presence but was relatively ignored by the other directors so that Palmer wouldn't have anyone looking over his shoulder--Junon is clearly Scarlet's favorite with the huge ass cannon). Nibelheim was chosen as the site of the first reactor because it was close enough to be monitored by ShinRa current HQ but far enough away that if it blows they won't go with it. The HQ was later moved to the Easter Continent with the building of Midgar. (which I believe Reeve announced the completion of in the beginning of CC but I'm too lazy right now to actually check, feel free to take this with a grain of salt.)
I don't see how the Midgar area could be seismically unstable because it doesn't look like a fault line in anywhere in the area. If you look at a real world map of current active fault lines you will see that they tend to follow along the edges of continents. Wutai is clearly in a seismically unstable area. Junon and Costa del Sol maybe simply by virtue of being on the coast. I could buy Midgar possibly being on a caldera (check out info on the Yellowstone caldera if you want to see something that will scare the shit out of you).
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