Further Reading

To maximize the size of Gaia, we needed the known landmasses and their inflexible maximum size to be the smallest percentage of Gaia's surface area as possible. Northern Crater--basically the northernmost point on the map--is very cold. Obviously. Mideel--basically the southernmost point on the map--is visibly subtropical, meaning that the size of the map only encompasses about one hemisphere of the planet at best.

To the right is the canon dictation of the [known] land masses of Gaia. Comparing the climate of Northern Crater to comparable climates on Earth, we determined that Northern Crater could be as far south as 58º latitude--about level with the cities of Oslo, Norway and Juneau, Alaska, and running through the countries of Estonia, Sweden, Denmark, and the Alberta province of Canada. Similarly, Mideel could be as far north as 24º latitude, lining it up with the Bahamas, Okinawa, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Egypt, or around the center of the Florida keys. Thusly, the change in latitude from Mideel to Northern Crater is 58º - 24º = 34º change in latitude. After attacking an enlarged printout of Gaia's map with a cartographer's entire arsenal, we found this distance between latitudes to be 14.9 cm, meaning each degree of latitude is 14.9 / 34º = .438 cm on this particular map. Note: these decimals are approximated when posted here; in our calculations they were not rounded off in any way.

Now, changing gears for a moment, the canon timeline of events that took place in Advent Children (shown above) shows Cloud's initial motorcylce fight in the desert at 12:00 pm, and the Turks escaping Northern Crater at 2:00 pm, though the text indicates that these scene were actually switched during production. Thusly, the Turks left Northern Crater at 12:00 pm, Cloud was in or near Edge for the motorcycle fight at 2:00 pm, and he emerges from Healin Forest at 3:00 pm, and talks to the Turks at 3:30 pm. He visits Zack's grave at the edge of Midgar at 4:30, and is back at Aerith's church by 5:00 pm.

We can deduce from this that the travel time between Edge and Healin is at maximum one hour on Cloud's bike. An exceptional racing bike tops out at around 240 kph (150 mph), meaning that Healin is at most 240 km (150 mi) from Edge. On our enlarged printout, the distance from Edge to our triangulated location of Healin was 5.9 cm, meaning that each centimeter on our printout was 240 / 5.9 = 40.667 km (150 / 5.9 = 25.423 mi). The distance from Northern Crater to Edge was 8.85 cm, so considering Reno most likely made a stop at headquarters before taking Rufus to Healin, he traveled a distance of 8.85 + 5.9 = 15.05 cm on our map, which equates to 15.05 * 40.667 = 612.203 km (15.05 * 25.423 = 382.627 mi).

In the FFVII Ultimania Omega, stats are detailed for all of the machinery used in the original game. The maximum speed of the helicopters used in-game is listed at 150 knots--about 278 kilometers/hour. Come the events of Advent Children, two years have passed, so it served to reason that ShinRa could have facilitated modifications to their current fleet. However, given the state the world is in post-FFVII, with the destruction of Midgar by Meteor and the fact that Rufus Shinra suffers from a severe case of geostigma and the entire company is somewhat in shambles, significant progress in aviation was probably not high on their to-do list. We went with a slight advancement and supposed that small modifications could have feasibly been made in this state of affairs to where the choppers can fly up and perhaps just over 300 kph.

Given the above estimate that Reno's helicopter has an average cruising speed of 300 kph (186.410 mph), this means that it should have taken him at least 612.203 / 300 = 2.040 hours to arrive in Healin. As they were not confirmed to be in Healin until 3:30 pm, when Cloud talks to them, Reno's maximum travel time is 3.5 hours, well over our estimated minimum of 2.040. In this way, we double-checked our calculations to make sure it was probable for all modes of transportation, not just Cloud's motorcycle. So now we have derived the scale for distance (1 cm = 40.677 km = 25.423 mi) and the scale for degrees of latitude (1º latitude = .438 cm). A simple equasion later, and we determine that each degree of latitude is 40.677 * .438 = 17.826 km/º (25.423 * .438 = 11.135 mi/º).

From here on out, it was rather simple. There are 90º of latitude from the north pole to the equator of any spherical body, and another 90º from the equator to the south pole. This totals 180º of latitude from the north pole to the south pole, meaning that the circumference of the entire sphere is roughly equivalent to 360º of latitude. Note: rotating bodies are never entirely spherical and the circumference at the equator is slightly larger than the circumference around the poles, meaning that the measure each degree of latitude is slightly smaller than the measure of an equatorial degree of longitude. However, this is all approximation and the difference is negligible for our purposes.

Following this logic, we determined Gaia's approximate circumference as 17.826 * 360 = 6417.547 km (11.135 * 360 = 4010.967 mi). With this total circumference, we were able to create a map of the entire surface of Gaia, with the FFVII landmasses placed at their appropriate latitudes. We did not have the skills or the patience to create a sinusoidal or equal area projection of Gaia, so this map can be considered a basic latitude-longitude projection.

Note: the circumference estimation in km was based on the initial motorcycle speed estimation of 240 kph. The circumference estimation in mi was based on the initial speed of 150 mph. These two speeds are roughly equivalent but not exactly equal; 150 mph = 241.402 kph and 240 kph = 149.128 mph. So, the km estimations are always slightly smaller than their mi counterparts, resulting in a minor discrepancy. This discrepancy is negligible, though, resulting in a difference in circumference of only 37.491 km (23.296 mi), which really won't affect much of anything.

From the timeline of the events of Advent Children, we can deduce that Gaia has a 24-hour day comparable to that of Earth. Each 15º of longitude constitute a single timezone, and so we were able to divide Gaia into 24 timezones, each of 6417.547 / 24 = 267.397 km (4010.967 / 24 = 167.123 mi). Using Ajit (the Forgotten Capital) as the Prime Meridian, we created a map of timezones. Each vertical line represents 15º longitude (one timezone), and each horizontal line represents 10º latitude, with the equator in bold.

Just to afford us some sense of scale, a map of the entire surface of Gaia was superimposed over a map of the United States, demonstrating just how small the circumference of the planet is. Please bear in mind that the second map is only for size-comparative purposes and does not show the proper latitude of Gaia's landmasses.

Its size being as it is, Gaia must be a moon, since no planet can be that size and still be a planet. There are two scenes in Advent Children that indicate Gaia itself has a moon in its sky, however this can easily support the idea that Gaia is one of multiple moons to a larger planet--Spira, for example--and has little bearing on whether or not Gaia itself can be classified as a moon.

Zooming back in on the known landmasses of Gaia, we created a more detailed depiction of the lines of latitude and longitude. The top line of latitude is 60º, with Northern Crater at its aforementioned 58º, each line representing a change of 2º latitude. The thick red vertical lines demonstrate where the timezones would be divided, one hour being lost per timezone as one travels east, and every vertical line indicates a change of 5º longitude.

Since the landmasses of Gaia cover such a small percentage of the planet itself, there are only four timezones represented on land. Since Midgar seemed to be the largest and most populated, industrial city in the game, it served to reason that it was thus the most important. To prevent temporal issues that would have arisen from the fact that traveling east causes one to lose daylight, we chose to unite these timezones under one blanket timezone: Midgar Standard Time--similar to how on Earth we use Greenwich Standard Time to synch up official timepieces. While each timezone does run on its own hourly marker, we chose to show the events of Advent Children as having a timestamp from a consistent source, giving us Midgar Standard Time.

Gravity and Physics of the Native Gaians

Moving right along, a significant amount of complaints seem to arise as to the physics--or lack thereof--depicted in Advent Children. I find it a bit unusual that the relatively comparable lack of physics in the original game itself is apparently perfectly excusable, but a lack of physics in a movie is complete and utter blasphemy. *eyebrow* Whatever. Either way, most of the issues with the physical sciences can be easily rectified with a simple explanation--and no, it's not 'magic'. It is, in fact, significantly more concrete than that. It's gravity. Gaia is an exceedingly small body, ergo the gravity thereupon would be significantly less than that of, say, Earth. This means that objects fall slower, things are lighter, and motion has potential to be much faster.

The point is, the residents of present-day Gaia descended from those Ancients who arrived on the planet some two millennia ago. And if those Ancients were originally from Spira, then much of the argument for lack of physics dies right there. Supposing Spira is a full-fledged planet (as opposed to a moon or a dwarf-planet), the gravity on it would be significantly higher than that of Gaia. Therefore, the indigenous creatures of Spira would have evolved to be able to withstand and function in an environment with that higher amount of gravity--their bone structure would be sturdier than that of a creature that evolved in lowered gravity, and the musculature of the Spirans would be exponentially stronger than someone from a lowered-gravity environment. When the Spirans arrived on Gaia, they probably had a hard time adjusting right away--think moon-bouncing. But as time passed, they would adapt...like ya do...to be able to walk on Gaia as any native creature would. However, there isn't enough time in two millennia for evolution to take any drastic steps to adjust the skeletal and muscular makeups of these people; meaning that, while they appear to move in normal Earth-style gravity, their bodies are used to a level of gravity that is much greater. So much like martial artists can manipulate their bodies in ways that your average Joe cannot, highly skilled people on Gaia like Cloud and Tifa and Vincent and the Turks all appear to be able to utterly defy physics, because their trained bodies simply allow them to use their muscles and inert bodily strength to overcome an amount of gravity significantly smaller than that which they were designed for. So while they walk as if gravity holds them down like anyone else, the evolutionary process that molded their race to function in high-gravity gives them almost superhuman strength in a low-gravity environment.

Think like how Goku from DBZ trained in space at 100x the gravity of Earth, and then when he got to Earth, he was the friggin' strongest dude EVER. Now take that amazing strength, and make it built-in. In order to pull the feats Cloud and the others do, their bodies obviously had to be trained for it. However the strength and sturdiness comes standard in Gaians--their origins demand it.

It is that alien origin of all Gaians that would allow for Cloud to carry and swing his enormous sword, for the Remnants to make their bikes literally jump off the surface of the planet (which, for the record, you can actually do on Earth with the right shocks on your bike...), for Reno to climb buildings and do handsprings in midair, and since objects are inherently lighter and fall more slowly in lowered gravity, this even permits Rude to get cracked on the head by a metal billboard and get up dusting off his sleeves. Especially if the sign was made of, say, aluminum. On a sidenote, Nanaki/Red XIII is somewhat exempt from these particular stipulations; his species is native to Gaia. However, he is a feline of sorts, and felines have a tendency to defy several levels of physics in the first place.

Inter-Planetary Medicine, and the Remarkable Powers of the Lifestream

So...continuing our thoughts on the defiance of physics, let's take a look at the lack of science that pretty much makes a video game a video game--restorative magic, items, and abilities. Sure, it's completely acceptable to bring your dead party back to life, but Rude can't get cracked on the head with a sign and live to tell about it? O_o Buh? It is this dichotomy of acceptance that makes me question the sanity of the fandom in the first place sometimes, but even so, we have a card to play in this situation as well. While harnessing the power of the Lifestream is one thing that has no immediate parallel in reality, a lot of restorative items can be easily explained with simple medicinal Earth-logic.

Potions, Ethers, and other Items

Since the Final Fantasy worlds revolve around magic and the use thereof, coming up with a feasible method of explaining materia and Potions and the like to the satisfaction of our scientific OCD was trying. But we finally came up with something that satisfied canon and our anal-retentiveness. Since Potions and Hi-Potions restore a specific amount of HP (100 and 500 respectively), the amount of healing a Potion can do is exact and does not vary based on who is using it. The same goes for Ethers--each Ether restores 100 MP, no variation. This was easy to explain; dosages. [w] amount of [x] substance will heal [y] amount of [z] damage. However, an X-Potion restores a character's full health. Ergo, an X-Potion is not a specific strength or percentage; it's going to be different for every character. This took a little pondering, and we finally decided that since X-Potions cannot be bought in shops and are difficult to come by anyway, we'd take a little artistic liberty and say that an X-Potion is not a specific type of potion that magically restores you to full-health--rather it's...sort of like a prescription. You have it calibrated to your specific stats. Each X-Potion is made exactly to the specifications of who it is being made for, which would logically be the only way anyone who uses one could be restored to full-health without severely overdosing a low-level character, or falling short for a high-level character. Now, this also presents the issue of potential overdose if you're not that hurt. Well duh, an X-Potion is a pretty coveted item; you only use it when you're about to KO anyway. ^_^

This rule also applies to other such items, including Turbo Ethers, which restore all of one's MP, and Elixirs, which fully restore both HP and MP. Granted, having a magical item calibrated to your specific stats is probably difficult, expensive, and time-consuming, thus explaining why these items are harder to come by and not available for purchase in shops.

Most other items remain unchanged; they need no particular explanation... Just as a Potion is basically a portable one-use Cure spell, Dream Powders, Ice Crystals, Ink, Echo Screens, and other such items are in the same vein; they are simply a means to an end that negates the need for materia or the MP to use it.

Zombies?

We also ran into a bit of a quandary on the subject of Phoenix Downs or Life spells that will revive a KO'd character in-game. Now...biology and physics would argue that it is pretty much physically impossible to bring someone back to life once they are "dead", so we took a bit of artistic (scientific?) liberty with the definition of these sorts of items/magic, and added the stipulation that they do not re-animate someone who is dead...but rather revive someone who is unconscious so that they may heal themselves and continue battle. After all, save for the Full Life spell, both revival magic and the Phoenix Down only return a small percentage of the character's total HP...so it served more to reason (and science) that reversing death would be...unreasonable. Ergo, these sorts of items/materia can only revive someone who is unconscious and restore the amount of health and magic applicable. If you die, you're screwed. Sorry.

...Otherwise, we come back to the age-old argument, "Well, why didn't they just use a Phoenix Down on Aerith?"

Just as with the Phoenix Down item, Restore materia can only revive someone who is unconscious--it cannot bring you back from the dead. This is a scientific impossibility on just about every level of every reality feasible. Certainly there are feats stranger than fiction that have happened in real life, but there is no medicine in a bottle that will bring your mortally wounded girlfriend back from the dead after she's been skewered by a nine-foot sword. On a similar tangent, there are undead monsters that are actually cured by attacks and killed by Phoenix Down and Life spells. If you destroy something that is reanimated dead by the spell that would bring someone back from the dead... My head spins from all this circular logic. No matter how you look at it, magic or not, it makes no sense.

Part of the reason being able to bring people back from the dead is such a ridiculous prospect in the first place is that it erases fear of death. Perhaps even more important than the literal circle of life being interrupted by this false immortality is that the entire psyche of society would unravel. If dying is of no consequence, then no one would be afraid to try ridiculous death-defying stunts. No one would listen to rules held up by deadly force, because teh very word 'deadly' would mean nothing. Without fear of death, it wouldn't matter if people did foolhardy reckless things, because they would know that anybody could just bring them back to life. Certainly in an actual video-game setting, being able to revive your fallen party is going to be a necessary stretch of reality in order to defeat your final boss. In a game, if you only had one chance, nobody would get very far. But in 'real life'--in writing a story where the characters are three-dimensional and living out an actual life instead of simply acting as a two-dimensional pixellated avatar for the person holding the controller--fear of death is a necessary evil. Without it, there would be no villains (why bother killing anyone if they could all be brought back? What an exercise in futility!) and there would be no heroes (kill the villain, and his sidekick just brings him back? What a useless, vicious cycle!). In order to maintain that every mortal would have some awareness of his own mortality, that mortality needs to exist, and if the Lifestream itself negated that mortality, it would be killing itself slowly, if its power truly lay in the energy of dead souls.

Dead is dead. If death were truly reversible, Aerith would have been brought back. President Shinra would have been brought back. The Turks wouldn't have been commanded to kill Veld in Before Crisis, because it would have made no difference--they could have just as easily had someone bring him back to life.

Materia/MP

All right. Here's the big one. Here's the deal, kids. You really can't science magic. That's the nature of the beast--it's like oil and water. You can put them in the same jar, and they'll still separate into two levels of stuff that will never mix and get along peacefully no matter how many times you shake it up. However, we can make things a little more consistent by placing some limitations and stipulations on what materia can do, and how it can be used.

We all know that different materia do different things. As in any battle in-game, lower-level materia will cast a weaker spell. Elemental materia was probably the easiest to define in an out-of-game context--Fire materia, for example, will burn an opponent briefly with a Fire spell, moderately with a Fira spell, and significantly with a Firaga spell. We could even take Fire, Ice, and Lightning materia in particular to the next level of specificity and venture than a level one spell would give a first-degree burn/frostbite, a level two spell a second-degree, and a level three spell a third. Earth materia was a little harder to pinpoint, but in the end it seemed logical that since materia is made of Lifestream itself, an Earth materia could command the earth beneath the feet of an enemy to quake at a certain intensity. Status-effect materia was also relatively simple to pull out of a game context--things like confusion, petrification, and berserk-status can be easily inflicted with a chemical substance. Even Mini and Toad can be achieved with hallucinogenic means.

We hit something of a roadblock with Time materia. Despite the fact that it's magic to begin with, the ability to weild power over time itself is not only dangerous, but somewhat non sequitur in what is otherwise endeavoring to maintain some grip on reality. Messing with time only ends in tears--Doc Brown and Marty McFly can attest to this. So we again turn to the Lifestream for some assistance here, and assume that as Earth materia can control the earth beneath someone's feet, Time materia can control the very internal so-called biological clock within every human being. If the Lifestream is made up of soul energy, then it's certainly acceptable to assume someone with hold on the Lifestream would have hold on your soul and the internal mechanisms that make everyone click. Time materia doesn't give the holder power over time...it gives the holder power over the energy and mobility of the person they are casting the spell on.

As mentioned previously, spells at different levels obviously cause different amounts of damage. Mastered materia might even have the capability to kill someone with a single spell (in a different means than a Death spell, which has a limited success-rate)...however this, too, would have some restrictions. MP, not to put too fine a point on it. Obviously, stronger spells require more MP to use. But how were we to translate MP into something that could be grasped out of a game context? Simple--mental stamina. The best mages are strong, disciplined individuals with a good hold on self-control and a steady hand on their own abilities. In any RPG-style game, if you intend for your character to be a mage, you train/equip/level them to have a higher MP bar than, say, your tank. This would apply the same way to an out-of-game setting; people who use materia learn to temper their minds to be able to properly weild materia well. Using a powerful spell can leave a weak mage drained and vulnerable. Using multiple powerful spells can leave even a seasoned mage stumbling. An amateur who tries his hand at a level-three spell from a mastered materia will likely find himself either unable to do anything, (not enough MP to cast the spell), or knocked flat-unconscious from the sheer mental drain of overexerting oneself magically. It takes a lot of work to master a materia...so in removing this world from a console and putting its people in a real-world setting, we maintained that difficulty by making a mastered spell cost a significant amount of energy.

For example, Cloud's MP maxes out at L99 at 905. The most draining spell one can cast is Shield, at 180. This means Cloud can cast this spell AT MOST five times before he is mentally exhausted and will likely pass out. He can only summon Knights of the Round three times before he would need to rest or consume ether. However, Cloud is also a warrior who has trained to be able to use materia properly. Cloud's beginning stats are at L6, and at that point, his MP is a measly 54. Aeris, who is a mage by default, starts the game at L1 with 23 MP. The point here is that while come Advent Children, we can assume that all recurring adult characters as well as new villains such as the Remnants can be considered at the equivalent of L99 stats. However most of the people in Edge are not warriors, are not mages, and are likely not at a high level. Your average person on the street is not a black belt, and cannot bench-press their weight. Ergo, most people probably not only don't know the proper method for using materia, but are liable to wear themselves out even trying.

Cure and Regen

Now we come to the subject of Cure. Why does this get its own bullet point, you ask? Restorative magic in general is something of a sticky subject to make feasible in a three-dimensional setting. If Cure were simply a miraculous fix-all, it would present a similar issue that lack of fear of death does. But if we restrict it too fiercely, it no longer lies within the parameters the original game setting gave us. So after some deliberation and several passes through some medical informational sources, we decided that, while Cure is a powerful and extremely useful spell, even it has some limitations.

Cure can fix most injuries. It can mend broken bones, close lacerations, and even heal gunshot wounds. Cure and Potions can, in a nutshell, heal any wound so long as the body is still alive. Regen works the same way--it simply heals you in increments instead of all at once. However, what these spells cannot do is heal bruising or swelling. The reason for this is simply that these are instances where the body has to actually physically reabsorb the fluids causing the problem, and forcing this could cause more harm than good to the person involved. Cure cannot heal a concussion, for example, because forcing the swelling around the brain to go down instantaneously could severely damage the brain itself. A concussion is caused by the impact of your brain against the inside of your skull, resulting in bleeding and possible damage of nerve fibers. These are not things that should be rushed when healing--this is your brain we're talking about, folks. We postulate that perhaps part of what a Phoenix Down or Life spell does is assist in the speedy reduction of this swelling, resulting in your party awakening from an unconscious state...but it does not fix the problem, and in an out of game context, using something of this nature is likely not recommended if the unconscious person is out due to acute severe head trauma.

Immunity and Tolerance?

One could assume that, as the Lifestream is made up of soul energy, an immunity or tolerance to such a thing would be unlikely. However at the same time, if the body is constantly healed by an artificial means, regardless of the source, the body would stop relying on its own restorative or regenerative powers when injured. In order to maintain this principle, we implemented the idea that natural maladies would be handled differently than unnatural ones.

Poison materia, for example, casts a Bio effect, basically making the affected person ill and lose small amounts of HP at intermittent intervals. This is different from someone actually getting sick. Gaians are, for all intensive purposes, akin to humans, meaning their bodies have a similar immune system to our own. Anyone who's ever had a cold can attest to the fact that there is no ten-second cure-all for such things. However, an inflicted status effect such as Bio can be reversed with an Antidote, Remedy, or Heal materia, since it was an artificially instigated ailment and will not rectify itself without the use of external remedial assistance. These items would not, however, affect someone who had been stricken with, say, bronchitis. In the same way Life spells would have the capability to negate fear of death if they could actualy reverse it, if all illnesses, no matter how bad, could be cured with an item that could be bought for about forty bucks in a store or a materia that can be purchased, medicinal establishments would go out of business, and further advancement of nonmagical capabilities would come to a screeching halt.

Similarly, in the case of small injuries that would easily heal on their own, Cure should not be used unnecessarily. Too much of a good thing can be bad, of course, and restorative magic and items should be no exception to this. The more pain relievers one consumes, the more the body requires to achieve the same effect over time. And while a Potion will heal the same amount of damage each time, regardless of a tolerance, if one's body comes to rely to heavily on external means to repair itself, its ability to heal without assistance may become severely stunted, leaving that person at a significant disadvantage should they run out of Potions...

In Conclusion

While certainly this is all very scientific and mathematical and is squared off with perfected angles and triangulated locations...there are some things that yet require some suspension of disbelief. That is, in effect, what makes Final Fantasy just what it is--fantasy. Surely some unbelievable physics couldn't have really entirely ruined Advent Children for those members of the fandom who complain about it. I believe Suzaku said it best:

「In the same vein as many of these other errors, I've got some more:

1. Lions don't have flaming tails and can't talk.
2. Magic isn't real.
3. Monsters don't exist.
4. You can't be revived after you are dead like that.
5. There are probably more but I can't remember any more right now.

Seriously. Two words explain just about all of these "mistakes". Final Fantasy.

This movie is based on FANTASY. Not reality. Therefore, it's not a mistake that someone can do these things. If you're level 99, as almost all the characters in AC are, you can jump far, slice through energy attacks, and survive a gunshot to your goggle glasses.」

And there you have it, kids. If you're spending your time complaining about the physics of a video game, you might want to invest in some new hobbies. ^_~ Certainly making a game realistic makes it easier to relate to, but where's the fun without blowing shit up and having somewhat fantastically wild motorcycle chases through ruined cities, am I right? Science is fun...but fantasy is better. And when you can combine them, then you've got the best of both worlds.

You can see more of our theories on the world of FFVII on our Even Further Reading page!