Gaia (Final Fantasy VII)

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

The world is only ever referred to as "The Planet" in Final Fantasy VII, although the game has a location known as Gaea's Cliff. In Japanese-language promotional material for Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children the world was recognized as Gaia, but is never spoken of as such in the film. In August 2012 Square Enix launched the North American version of their Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary website, which introduced the numbered Final Fantasy games; in Final Fantasy VII's bio the world is identified as Gaia.

Geography
Gaia 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 Gaia has a temperate climate with large grassy plains broken up by tall mountains.

The Icicle Area taking up the entire 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 North Crater that has a cave inside known as the Northern Cave which leads deep into the bowels of Gaia. The most prominent desert is in the western continent below Gold Saucer. Marshlands can be found in the eastern continent in front of the Mythril Mine in the Grasslands Area.

Nature
Gaia is a living organism from which all its living creatures are born and to where they 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 Gaia is a living creature, it has a mind of its own and humans with special powers, called Cetra, can speak directly with Gaia. Gaia creates protectors called Weapons to be summoned whenever Gaia feels threatened. The most powerful of these, the Omega, can transport Gaia's Lifestream to the cosmos when Gaia inevitably dies like all organisms.

Minerva seems to have a connection to the will of Gaia, apparently being the embodiment of the Lifestream, but this is not elaborated on.

Ancient History
Approximately 2000 years before the start of Final Fantasy VII, Gaia was home to an ancient nomadic group of people called the Cetra who were close to their homeworld, and could communicate with it. One day, a shape-shifting extraterrestrial being crashed into the northern continent, causing a massive wound on Gaia's surface that would one day be called the North Crater. The alien used her power to take the form of Cetra and trick their loved ones into letting their guard down. It injected its cells into the Cetra, twisting and corrupting them, even mutating them into monsters.

The alien destroyed most of the Cetra, until what remained of their number sealed her 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 Gaia. The Cetra, now called the Ancients by humans, were reduced to almost nothing but legend, 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 Gaia. A former weapons manufacturer, the Shinra Electric Power Company run by President Shinra, finds a way to harness Gaia'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, but the power sucks the lifeblood out of Gaia, and the world is slowly dying. The area around Midgar becomes a dead-zone of perpetual night.

In their search for more Mako energy, Shinra hopes to find the fabled Promised Land and hunts for the Cetra's remnants. All they find is the sealed alien creature and it was given a name, Jenova. Thinking Jenova to be an "Ancient", Shinra starts the Jenova Project to breed a human with Cetra powers. The company grows from a mere corporation to the world's de facto ruler. The only state that continues to oppose Shinra is Wutai, but after the Wutai War, Shinra takes over that territory as well, and holds complete control over Gaia.

Following Shinra's conquest of Wutai, two separate threats appear to oppose its rule. AVALANCHE, an eco-terrorist army wants to destroy Shinra and save Gaia from the threat pose by Mako energy. An 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 SOLDIER, and a child of the Jenova Project, also defects from Shinra and leads an army of his copies to fight the corporation and his former SOLDIER friends.

During all this 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 Gaia and among the party is the last surviving Cetra, Aerith Gainsborough.

During the search, Sephiroth kills Aerith, and ends the race of the Cetra forever. Sephiroth's goal is to summon Meteor to inflict a massive wound unto Gaia, and take control of the Spirit Energy Gaia would summon to heal itself. With the Black Materia Sephiroth summons the Meteor.

Facing destruction, Gaia summons its protectors, the Weapons, but they fail to stop Sephiroth, and instead destroy Shinra Headquarters with Rufus still inside, ending Shinra's rule. Cloud and his party defeat Sephiroth, but as Meteor speeds towards Midgar, it is stopped by the ultimate White Magic spell 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 power come upon the world as Geostigma, a plague upon mankind. Three "pieces" of Sephiroth appear, hunting for Jenova's head to revive their "older brother". Kadaj, the leader, fuses with Jenova in the ruins of Midgar, recreating Sephiroth to rain destruction upon Gaia. Cloud Strife battles the resurrected Sephiroth, and defeats his old foe once more.

A year later, Deepground, Shinra's last secret, attacks mankind. Deepground was a secret organization based below Midgar who were trapped after Meteorfall. Their return marks 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, but Deepground succeeds in their plan to summon the Omega Weapon. Vincent transforms into Chaos and defeats Omega, saving Gaia.

Culture
There are only two known sentient races on Gaia: 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. Outside of worship of Gaia itself, and Wutai's worship of the summon Leviathan, no other established religions are known, although there exists a church in Midgar slums. 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 since the Midgar trains run on Midgar Standard Time.

Final Fantasy VII's world is modern and similar to our own, with television, cellphones, cars, planes, and all kinds of modern amenities that require 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. Only the major cities seem to enjoy 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 sends 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 city are many sub-locations:
 * Sector 0
 * Shinra Headquarters
 * Sector 1
 * Sector 1 Reactor
 * Sector 4
 * Sector 5
 * Sector 5 Reactor
 * Sector 6
 * Wall Market
 * Sector 7
 * Sector 8
 * 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 Manor
 * Mt. Nibel
 * Rocket Town – The site of Shinra's now defunct Space Program.
 * Ancient Forest
 * Lucrecia's Cave – Lucrecia Crescent's resting place.


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Northern Continent
The entire northern continent is in the Icicle Area.
 * Bone Village – Excavation site.
 * Sleeping Forest – A forest that cannot be passed through without the Lunar Harp.
 * Corel Valley - A valley beyond the Sleeping Forest.
 * Forgotten Capital – The only known intact Cetra settlement.
 * Corel Valley Cave - A cave out of Corel Valley leading out to the Snow Fields.
 * Icicle Inn – The world's northernmost settlement.
 * Great Glacier
 * North Crater - A crater caused by a fallen asteroid or meteor thousands of years ago.
 * Gaea's Cliff - The cliffs that make up the side of North Crater.
 * Whirlwind Maze - Situated inside of North Crater.
 * Northern Cave - Cave inside North Crater which leads down into Gaia.
 * Great Cavern of Wonders - Implied to be a cave situated next to Northern Cave, likely in North Crater (Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- only).
 * Chocobo Sage's House
 * Modeoheim (Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII-)

Other locations

 * Temple of the Ancients - Black Materia's resting place.
 * Mideel - A place where Lifestream is close to the surface.
 * Banora Village – Angeal Hewley and Genesis Rhapsodos's hometown Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII-).
 * 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 - A number of caves where Mako energy has crystallized into Materia over many years.
 * 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.
 * Bottom of the Sea
 * Cloud's Subconscious
 * }

Etymology
Gaia is the name of a Titan, a primordial deity, in Greek mythology. The Goddess Gaia personified the Earth. The Roman equivalent is Terra.

Trivia

 * A Final Fantasy VII pre-release image showing Highwind on the world map reveals a house that never exists in the final game, situated between Kalm and Chocobo Farm. It is unknown whether the house was put there just for the screenshot, of if it was an actual location planned for the game.
 * Much of Gaia's nature, such as its relation to living things, were also 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 Gaia. Anna mentions a "Spirit" which calls her onward to "become part of it again", similar to how all life returns to Gaia once it dies.
 * In Final Fantasy X-2, Square Enix dropped hints of a connection between Gaia and Spira, as Shinra and Rin discuss the potential of the Farplane as an energy source, though Shinra states 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 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 Gaia and found the Shinra Electric Power Company.