Gaia (Final Fantasy VII)

The Planet, also known as Gaia, is the name of the world in which Compilation of Final Fantasy VII takes place.

Geography
The Planet is made up of three unnamed continents: one in the east, one in the west, and one in the north. Other large islands include the Mideel island south of the Eastern Continent part of a long chain of islands, a large forested island that holds the Temple of the Ancients in the southwest of the Eastern Continent, and a long island to the west of the Western Continent that is home to Wutai. Most of the world has a temperate climate with large grassy plains broken up by tall mountains. The Northern Continent is made up of a massive plain of ice known as the Great Glacier. At the northern tip of the landmass is a gigantic crater called the Northern Crater that leads deep into the bowels of the Planet. The most prominent desert is in the Western Continent below Gold Saucer. A swampland can be found in the Eastern Continent in front of the Mythril Mines.

Nature
The Planet is not simply a planet in space, it is a living organism from which all living creatures are born and to where they all return upon death. Its life blood is the Lifestream, a flow of energy that contains all the knowledge of all the creatures that ever lived on its surface. Since the Planet is a living creature, it has a mind of its own. Humans with special powers, called Cetra, can speak directly with the Planet. Being alive, the Planet creates protectors called WEAPONs to be summoned whenever the Planet feels threatened. The most powerful of these, the Omega, can actually transport the Planet's Lifestream to the cosmos when the Planet inevitably dies like all organisms.

Minerva seems to have some kind of connection to the will of the Planet, and she may be its Goddess.

Ancient History
Approximately 2000 years before the start of Final Fantasy VII, the Planet was home to an ancient nomadic group of people called the Cetra. The Cetra were close to their homeworld, and could communicate with it. One day, an extraterrestrial being crashed into the Northern Continent, causing a massive wound in the Planet's surface that would one day be called the Northern Crater. This creature was Jenova. Jenova used her power to take the form of Cetra and trick their loved ones into letting their guard down. Slowly, Jenova destroyed most of the Cetra, until what remained of their number sealed Jenova away. Humans, a branch of the Cetra who abandoned their nomadic ways and built permanent settlements, largely survived the calamity, and became the dominant race on the Planet. The Cetra were reduced to almost nothing, the only signs of their existence being the ruins called the Forgotten Capital on the Northern Continent.

Shinra's Rise
2000 years later, humans have inhabited the Planet. A former weapons manufacturer, the Shinra Electric Power Company run by President Shinra, finds a way to harness the Planet's Lifestream to create Mako energy. With this power, humans build titanic mechanical wonders, such as the great city of Midgar on the Eastern Continent. However, the power slowly sucks the lifeblood out of the Planet, and the world is slowly dying. The area around Midgar becomes a dead-zone of perpetual night. Hoping to find the fabled Promised Land, Shinra hunts for the Cetra's remnants. Instead, all they find is the sealed Jenova. Thinking Jenova to be an "Ancient", Shinra starts the Jenova Project to breed a human with Cetra powers. The company slowly grows from a mere corporation to the world's de facto ruler. The only state that continues to oppose Shinra is Wutai. After the Wutai War, Shinra takes over that territory as well, and holds complete control over the Planet.

Following Shinra's conquest of Wutai, two separate threats appear to oppose its rule. AVALANCHE, an eco-terrorist army that wants to destroy Shinra and save the Planet from the threat posed by Mako power. One AVALANCHE commander called Fuhito betrays the organization and summons a monster called Zirconiade. A group of Shinra defectors from the Turks, a Shinra secret agent force, defeat Zirconiade in the Midgar slums. At the same time, Genesis Rhapsodos, a member of Shinra's special forces, the SOLDIERs, and a child of the Jenova Project, also defects from Shinra. He leads an army of his copies to fight the corporation and his former SOLDIER friends. During the fighting, Sephiroth, Jenova's "son" and the strongest of all SOLDIERs, goes insane and destroys the town of Nibelheim. A Shinra guard named Cloud Strife watches his hometown burn and defeats Sephiroth, who falls into the Lifestream, believed dead. Genesis is later defeated by a SOLDIER named Zack Fair and is captured by Shinra and used in new experiments.

Meteor
Five years after he was defeated in Nibelheim, Sephiroth returns from the dead. Taking over Jenova's body and forcing her into his form, Sephiroth kills President Shinra. Rufus Shinra takes over his father's position and goes after Sephiroth. Cloud Strife and a party of his friends go off to follow Sephiroth around the Planet. Among the party is the last surviving Cetra, Aerith Gainsborough. During the search, Sephiroth kills Aerith, and thus ends the race of the Cetra forever. Sephiroth's goals are to summon Meteor to inflict a massive wound unto the Planet, and then take control of the Spirit Energy that the Planet would summon to heal itself. With the Black Materia Sephiroth summons the Meteor.

Facing destruction, the Planet summons its protectors, the monsters called WEAPONs, but they fail to stop Sephiroth, and instead destroy Shinra Headquarters with Rufus still inside, ending Shinra's rule. Cloud and his party go to defeat Sephiroth, but as Meteor speeds towards Midgar, it is stopped by Holy, though the colliding forces destroy Midgar and some of the surrounding area. During the confrontation, The Lifestream wells up and pushes Meteor out into space, allowing Holy to destroy it. This event is known as "Meteorfall" by the survivors.

Post-Meteorfall
After Meteorfall, Midgar is finished as the world capital. Shinra is replaced as the governing body by the World Regenesis Organization (WRO), with funding from the still-living Rufus Shinra. Two years following Sephiroth and Jenova's defeat, the remnants of their evil power come upon the world as Geostigma, a plague upon mankind. Three "pieces" of Sephiroth also appear, hunting for Jenova's head to revive their "older brother". Kadaj, the leader, manages to fuse with Jenova in the ruins of Midgar, recreating Sephiroth to rain destruction upon the Planet. Cloud Strife battles the resurrected Sephiroth, and defeats his old foe once more.

A year later, Deepground, Shinra's last secret, appears to attack mankind. Deepground was a secret organization based below Midgar, and so were trapped after Meteorfall. Their return marked a conflict between the WRO and Deepground, culminating in the Battle of Midgar. Vincent Valentine, a member of Cloud's party and target of Deepground, goes deep into Midgar and defeat the Deepground leaders. However, Deepground succeeds in their plan to summon the Omega Weapon. Vincent transforms into Chaos and defeats Omega, thus saving the Planet.

Culture
There are only two known sentient races on the Planet: humanoids, such as the Cetra and humans; and Red XIII's Species, who have far longer lifespans than humans but have never been known to build civilizations, existing only in small numbers. Moogles seem only to exist as legendary creatures in human imagination. Outside of worship of the Planet itself, and Wutai's worship of the summon Leviathan, no other established religions are known. The ancient epic LOVELESS mentions a Goddess, though no organized religion has been shown.

The world's calendar is the same as the real world Gregorian calendar, with twelve months of the same name and 365 days. Final Fantasy VII takes place in late 0007, early 0008, about ten years after the date of its real-world release. There is a day of celebration at the end of December similar to Christmas. The world seems to be divided into Time Zones as well, since the Midgar trains run on Midgar Standard Time.

Final Fantasy VII's world is heavily modern and similar to our own, with television, Cellphones, cars, planes, and all kinds of modern amenities that require massive power sources, such as Mako energy. Before Mako, the town of Corel was a coal exporter, and after Mako the people returned to fossil fuels again. However, only the major cities seem to enjoy all of the benefits of high technology, while the smaller towns around the world are stuck in a far less developed state. Thanks to easy transportation, several towns are tourist areas, such as the beach town of Costa del Sol, the resort of Wutai, and the ski-slopes of Icicle Inn. During the Meteor crisis, mankind successfully sent a manned-rocket into space. Modern armies and fleets of airships have also been shown.

Location List
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Eastern Continent

 * Midgar - Controlled and built by the Shinra corporation. A large city split up into sectors. Below the giant 'plate' which supports the Shinra HQ, people live in slums. Inside the massive city are many sub-locations:
 * Sector 0
 * Sector 1
 * Sector 5
 * Sector 6
 * Sector 7
 * Sector 8
 * Wall Market
 * Sector 1 Reactor
 * Sector 5 Reactor
 * Shinra Headquarters
 * Kalm – Town near Midgar.
 * Chocobo Farm
 * Mythril Mine – People of Kalm used to mine mythril in the mines, but due to the advent of Mako Energy the mines have since been abandoned.
 * Fort Condor – An Anti-Shinra outpost, south of the Mythril Mines.
 * Junon – Shinra's military base.
 * Junon Underwater Reactor
 * Healen Lodge – A clinic for Geostigma sufferers in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.
 * Edge – After Midgar's destruction Edge was built north of Midgar's remains.
 * WRO Headquarters (Dirge of Cerberus -Final Fantasy VII- only) – The Headquarters of the World Regenesis Organization, located just outside of the Midgar wastes.

Western Continent

 * Costa del Sol – Touristic hotspot.
 * Mt. Corel – The first Mako Reactor was built here.
 * North Corel – A shanty town that emerged after Shinra destroyed the original Corel.
 * Gold Saucer – An amusement park built over the destroyed town of Corel.
 * Corel Prison – The old town of Corel later became a desert prison.
 * Gongaga - Was damaged by an exploding Mako Reactor.
 * Cosmo Canyon – The center of the study of Planet and Lifestream.
 * Nibelheim – Was razed by Sephiroth, but later rebuilt by Shinra to cover up the incident.
 * Shinra Mansion
 * Mt. Nibel
 * Rocket Town – The site of Shinra's now defunct Space Program.
 * Ancient Forest
 * Crystal Cave – Lucrecia Crescent's resting place.


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Northern Continent

 * Forgotten Capital – The only known intact Cetra settlement, and last resting place of Aerith.
 * Bone Village – Excavation site.
 * Sleeping Forest – Forest surrounding the City of the Ancients.
 * Icicle Inn – The world's northernmost settlement, Aerith's birthplace.
 * Great Glacier
 * Gaea's Cliff
 * Northern Crater – Crater that houses the WEAPONs.
 * Great Cavern of Wonders (Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- only)
 * Chocobo Sage's House
 * Modeoheim (Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- only)

Other locations

 * Temple of the Ancients - Black Materia's resting place.
 * Mideel
 * Banora Village – Angeal Hewley and Genesis Rhapsodos's hometown. (Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- only).
 * Wutai – The remnants of the Wutai nation now serves mostly as a tourist resort.
 * Goblin Island
 * Round Island – Knights of the Round can be found here.
 * Materia Caves
 * Sunken Gelnika – Plane that was attacked by a WEAPON and sunk to the bottom of the ocean
 * Shinra Cargo Ship - Cargo ship that goes between Junon and Costa Del Sol.
 * Cloud's Subconscious
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Trivia

 * Much of the Planet's nature, such as its relation to living things, were said in the CGI movie, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. These ideas are called the Gaia Theory.
 * In the Nintendo DS version of Final Fantasy IV, the scene between Anna's ghost and Edward makes an allusion to something similar to the Planet. Anna mentions a "Spirit" which calls her onward to "become part of it again," similar to how all life returns to the Planet once it dies.
 * Some sources credit the official name "Gaia" to the Final Fantasy VII world, including an informative pamphlet for Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. This is also supported in the cliff at the top of the Planet, Gaea's Cliff (ガイアの絶壁, Gaia no Zeppeki), an alternate translation of "Gaia's Cliff." However, within the Compilation, the world is simply known as the "Planet," and has not explicitly been referred to as Gaia in any game to date.
 * In Final Fantasy X-2, Square Enix dropped hints of a connection between The Planet and Spira, as Shinra and Rin discuss the potential of the Farplane as an energy source, though Shinra states that the technology to safely and successfully refine energy from the Farplane would not be developed for generations. This connection is confirmed in the Final Fantasy X-2 Ultimania guide, where Kazushige Nojima states that Rin would fund Shinra's efforts to refine energy from the Farplane using the remains of Vegnagun, but failed. His descendants, a thousand years later when space travel was developed, would travel to the Planet and found the Shinra Electric Power Company.