Sorceress War

The Sorceress War refers to a war in Final Fantasy VIII that occurred approximately 17 years prior to the game's main events. The war was named for its initiator, Sorceress Adel, who was on a quest for global domination.

The war's effects are seen and mentioned throughout the game, most notably the orphans whose parents and family died during the war. A large half of Laguna Loire's story also occurs during the war.

Prelude
Vinzer Deling became the president of Galbadia sometime beyond nineteen years prior to game events, whereupon he began to unite the independent nations within the Galbadian continent by amassing a military dictatorship. It is unknown how Sorceress Adel came to her position of power within Esthar, whether it was a coup or election, however, she, too, wanted to unite the world under her power.

Battlefield
The two year-long war spread across the globe with reported events occurring in the Centra, Galbadia and Esthar continents.

Battle
The war was initiated by the tyrannical Sorceress Adel, who ruled over the technological nation of Esthar and terrorized it with her magic. She attempted to take over Galbadia using a combination of her magic and Esthar's technology, but Galbadia resisted fiercely. Esthar took a serious blow when Timber lost its independence to Galbadia, granting Galbadia access to its vast natural resources. During the ferocious fighting, many children ended up orphaned, among them Squall Leonhart, Zell Dincht, Irvine Kinneas, Selphie Tilmitt, Quistis Trepe, and Seifer Almasy.

Two events occurred that turned the tide in Esthar's favor: First was Sorceress Adel's discovery of the Crystal Pillar, a device that could react with the moon to cause a phenomenon called the Lunar Cry. The last Lunar Cry destroyed the Centra civilization, and Adel planned to use it as a weapon against Galbadia by building a special enclosure dubbed the Lunatic Pandora around the Pillar to amplify the Lunar Cry's power. The second breakthrough came when Dr. Odine stumbled across the secret of junctioning Guardian Forces to human minds, allowing humans access to an incomplete kind of magic known as Para-Magic.

However, as Adel realised she was growing old and would have no one to pass her Empire on to, Adel began desiring a successor to her Sorceress powers, and she began to search for an appropriate girl to carry on her legacy. The girl she chose was Ellone, a mysterious orphan from Winhill who had the ability to send another person's consciousness back in time. Esthar troops kidnapped Ellone and took her to Esthar, where Dr. Odine imprinted her brainwaves into a computer to create the Junction Machine Ellone to simulate her time-traveling powers. However, Laguna Loire rescued Ellone and joined the rebellion against Adel that hatched an ingenious plan to get rid of her. Although she was too powerful for any non-Sorceress to defeat, Laguna managed to trick Adel into a special sealing container using Ellone's facsimile, then launched the container into space. The container's anti-transmission waves were the cause of the worldwide radio interference, which would render wireless communication useless for the next seventeen years.

Aftermath
With Adel disposed, Laguna became the president of Esthar and ordered the Crystal Pillar to be sunk into the ocean. Esthar then sealed itself away from the rest of the world, and became known as the Silent Esthar.

The war's aftermath can still be felt even seventeen years after its conclusion, with the abundance of war orphans (most of which are now in their mid to late teens) and the static over radio-wave transmissions. Relations between Esthar and Galbadia were never patched up, mostly due to the former cutting itself off from the rest of the world.