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Post by LancerZero on Apr 11, 2007 3:45:08 GMT
I think it's high time we had a Burmecia-related topic on this board. =P The question goes like this: why does Burmecia exist in a place that would seem to be so inhospitable to a large-scale permanent settlement, still less the capitol city of a nation? There's a few different arguments I've heard on this one. Some I've invented myself. - Burmecia didn't used to be so rainy, but they were cursed by Kuja to make the attack easier. I don't agree much with this one, because I get the distinct impression from the architecture, etc, that it'd been rainy for quite some time. But for discussion's sake, I'll include it anyway.
- Burmecia wasn't originally rainy, but was cursed at some point in its past, many years ago. This would explain why they settled there in the first place - it was a good area - and is generally a convenient explanation.
- Burmecia has always been rainy. I've always found this to be a geographically easy and convenient explanation, but that raises another question: why would they choose to make their capitol in such a place?
- Burmecia wasn't rainy, but the nezumi MADE it rainy to protect it, like Cleyra's sandstorm. But though that would protect it from tourists, and make siege engines more difficult to operate and work with (yay muddy ground), I don't see how it could offer more advantages than it took away in overall ease of existence.
What do you guys think?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2007 11:40:57 GMT
Very interesting. The theory I have is discussed in my sorta-prequal-sequal-whathaveyou story (I called it FFIX-2 XD) and the problem with the rain is ultimately cleared up by Freya (you'd understand more if I told you the whole story, but it takes a very long time to tell everyone everything that happens ^_^' ).
The theory I had was that in the time of Elaris, the Sacred Dragoon (some powerful guy who was seen as a leader of Burmecia and protector) used to battle monsters in the desert around it. Of course, this was when security was crap and lots of monsters would try to get in. So Elaris discussed with the elders of the civilisation, and they agreed that since the monsters were used to the desert enviroment, they would be repulsed by rain. Therefore, Elaris created a sort of barrier around the nation where it would rain constantly. However, this has been a bit of an annoyance in the many years after Elaris passed away, and many wish that the rain had never come in the first place. The only way the rain could be stopped is by using the same source of power that Elaris used, but that would take ages by talking about successors and Crystal shards and I've already wasted your timez with this post anywayz <3 *looks* Just realised my theory is similar to Lancer's last one...meep.
I used to have a theory and blamed it on elves, but I changed my mind XD
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Post by lonesoviet on Apr 11, 2007 15:14:50 GMT
I have a more geographical approach. The rain was there forever, right? How long is usually considered forever? Since the start of recorded history? Maybe they settled there before they could remember, back when it was nice? then a series of events happened, and it just would not stop raining? Not wanting to leave, as they have already settled there, they just adapted?
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Eudemic
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Post by Eudemic on Apr 11, 2007 20:41:37 GMT
Ooh, try this one on for size! (I just thought of it, and r proud! ) I propose that the geology of the land under the City of Burmecia was uniquely able to support larger, heavier buildings; a rocky foothill island in a sea of muddy silt washed down from the Aerbs. This might not be true for the entire city, and probably isn't considering that it would be over-difficult for them to try to hew catacombs/sewers from solid stone, but it's likely for the palace and any other large buildings. (I'm going to work off of a 'Burmecian Exodus' theory here, but it's far from the only possibility.) Humans/Summoner drive the proto-Burmecians out of the areas that would become Lindblum (possibly beginning in South Western Alexandria) and through Gizmaluke's Grotto [note: This is possibly when the Burmecian/Gizmaluke relationship began. Maybe he saved them from a pursuing enemy?]. When they leave the Grotto they either head West, hit the Vube Desert and turn back, or simply head East and then North (skirting the Aerbs) until they find themselves at the site of what would become their capital city. It grows, the Burmecian nation expands and the rest is history.
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Post by LancerZero on Apr 11, 2007 20:41:58 GMT
Hmm . . . you make a good point, Gunny. Here's an idea: maybe it has something to do with the formation of Cleyra. If the Cleyrans made the tree somehow, and it made the desert by draining so much of the water, then perhaps it somehow influenced the local weather to create a "rain pocket" of sorts, a rain shadow of the Aerbs. Sorta like how it rains a lot in Seattle, because cold fronts get stuck behind the Cascade Mountains.
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Eudemic
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Post by Eudemic on Apr 11, 2007 20:55:52 GMT
I had a theory about Cleyra not actually being a desert so much as it just not being able to support plant life because the whirl wind around the tree kept picking up the top soil. . .
It WAS spinning in the right direction to bring stuff into/over the Burmecian plain.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2007 20:57:08 GMT
Someone should ask Square themselves XD
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Post by LancerZero on Apr 11, 2007 21:41:35 GMT
Eud: Your idea is interesting, and sounds plausible to me; like you said, it's far from the only possibility, but it's certainly one of them. Also:
I do agree with that; it makes sense in a number of different ways. =P
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Post by daimaoumyutsuu on Apr 12, 2007 5:44:30 GMT
Wait... why would a region with an extremely high rainfall still remain a plain and not a forest? Wet climates are supreme for vegetation.
Well, it rains 24/7 on Burmecia. Is a permanent overcast enough to hinder tree growth? Those heavy days of rain may have that much cloud cover to block so much of the sunlight, but what about those drizzle days? Even some amount of shrubs should be around, but I don't recall the game providing that much detail (heck, it was so much effort for Square to even have Burmecia at all).
It's just not a natural climate, all this rain and no growth. That water has to be going somewhere if not making the already high water table feed plants. That giant Cleyra tree is big enough to sap the same volume of water as a forest. However, the roots would have to be only reaching northeast to suck up that rainwater. Do trees, with little water beneath them, grow their roots horizontally to hit a distant source of water?
Burmecia is also the lowest elevation city. All other cities are on plateaus and mountains. Wasn't the mist a deterrent for living close to sea level? If so, high rainfall would be the least concern Burmecians had to adapt to when they live in the mist. For living in it so long, they don't exhibit any problems (unless you think looking like a nezumi is the problem, there never was a statement that nezumi were always nezumi apart from humans).
Let's go over disdvantages to living there: Flooding = death Monsters = death Going Mist-crazy = death No trees? = no food
What advantage is so great that they had to keep living there? This isn't the same kind of intelligence that leads people to live in Tornado Alley or the San Andreas Faultline or the Middle East. If there's so much death from nature, I would assume only the smart people survived, and they'd make the intelligent decision to live elsewhere when the land offered nothing in return. Be aware, I speak of a range of time from prehistoric to iron-age, if there is such a classical model for Gaia at all.
What would convince people to live in lethal climate? Ignorance of better land Mountain barrier Precious resource Spiritual beliefs
The first and second ones are weak, the people would have to be lazy and stupid to not even wonder what the heck is on the other side of the mountains. That's not to say it doesn't happen, but a population has to have advanced enough to allow idiots to survive (somewhere before bronze-age technology you'll see that pattern) to gather together and decide to live in a stupid area.
Precious resource seems credible. What resource could it be? Maybe precious metal, like gold, but gold is among resources considered luxury and not necessary to survive, since they are too soft to kill or build things with (my point here might be vague, but I can't spare the time to fully detail my thought here, so I apologize if I seem too fast and jumping ideas). Iron is much more incentive, though other regions have iron, it seems. What's better than iron and would exist in this world? Mithril. Note you upgrade to mithril when Burmecia is accessible, an indicator that the connections to mithril-working are only reached when you travel to places in routine contact with Burmecia, supposing only Burmecia holds mithril sources. There's plenty enough advantage in mithril for Burmecians to park in an otherwise unpleasant area.
That last one I don't want to touch (also running low on brain power, it's taken me hours to make this post), since religion is very flimsy in the game to begin with. I would have said "culture" originally, but usually a cultural phenomenon began from a practical standpoint (or what was believed to be practical-- a bit more along than what religion can do). Cleyra is about as spiritual as the game gets, so any theory about spirituality and Burmecia would likely tie into Cleyra to be credible at all. Honestly, that would be brainstorm beaten to death.
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Post by ajcrescent on Apr 18, 2007 12:25:20 GMT
I think "eternal rain" is a metaphor explaining how frequently it rains. And I think it's just natural. I mean, the city is built at the base of a mountain range on the other side of a desert.
And actually Oni, I just had to point this out, I think there are way more spiritual places than Cleyra. Esto Gaza, Madain Sari, Daguerreo and Cone Petie come to mind. Plus, your theory about the mythril does make sense, but Burmecia apparently isn't the only area with alot of mythril. If you go to Estog Gaza before the Desert Palace, you'll see all they stock is mythril items, kinda like that one island in FF4. That might suggest there's alot of mythril in the area.
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Post by LancerZero on Apr 18, 2007 16:03:44 GMT
Ahh, but after doing some research, I discovered a problem with it being natural: all that moisture has to come from somewhere. And as Oni pointed out, Burmecia should be a rainforest rather than a plain. Anyhow, in the case of terrestrial rainforests, that moisture generally comes from the sea. So where could it come from in the case of Burmecia?
Maybe high-altitude winds bring it over the desert; and the Cleyran sandstorm spurs it along over southern Burmecia, where it is then funneled northward and trapped. That would also explain something else: that would mean that Burmecia was probably more normal before Cleyra's sandstorm was formed. Though, being in a basin, it probably collected plenty of meltwater from the mountains above, too.
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Post by Robshi on Apr 18, 2007 20:17:53 GMT
You know, Burmecia's rain could also come from the sea, it's on a northern coast. It could condense over the Aerb mountains and rain when it gets to Burmecia.
I like to think the rain is magical and truly eternal. Maybe it was a curse or a charm placed on the city. One fanfiction I read mentioned the rain was a curse from Bahamut for going back on their word to keep to their territory and respect the Dragon land.
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Post by ajcrescent on Apr 18, 2007 20:22:02 GMT
Burmecia's rain can't literally be eternal. Nothing could live there. It's far more likely to be a metaphor emphasizing how much it rains there.
And yeah, I agree, the water for the rain could easily be coming from the ocean.
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Post by LancerZero on Apr 19, 2007 2:22:29 GMT
The water for the rain could be coming from the ocean, I didn't overlook that possibility - except that the mountains to the north would have to be quite low. I'll do some research on exactly how high they could be without casting a rain shadow, but I suspect that if they're high enough to be the virtually impassable barriers the game portrays them to be, they're high enough to block rainclouds.
I do agree with AJ on this much: as I've said before, I think the "Realm of Eternal Rain" title is simply like calling Chicago "The Windy City", etc.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 19, 2007 8:49:34 GMT
Sounds mystical (I might have to change my fanfic theory a little bit) Oh, Lancer, they're not virtually impassible barriers, you just need a chocobo XD
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Post by Robshi on Apr 19, 2007 14:08:47 GMT
I don't know why you guys refuse to believe it is truly eternal rain. Treno has eternal night, so why can't Burmecia have everlasting rain? The Mist Continent is a magical place.
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Post by ajcrescent on Apr 19, 2007 14:45:59 GMT
Because, again, IF IT LITERALLY HAD ETERNAL RAIN, NOTHING COULD EVER SURVIVE THERE.
It's most likely a simple TITLE. Think about it. Does Chicago literally have wind all the time? Is St. Catharines, the Garden City, literally in full bloom all the time?
My question is, why do YOU refuse to believe it's NOT literally eternal? If you can find any kind of confirmation at all from a Square storywriter, anyone who worked on the game, anything from the game itself, etc, proving without a doubt that it most definitely is some kind of magical eternal rain that somehow doesn't make the entire area uninhabitable, go ahead and show us.
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Post by LancerZero on Apr 19, 2007 16:01:27 GMT
Mel: Actually, it won't let you cross the Aerbs on a chocobo. =P
Rob: Because, silly! XP If it truly never stopped raining, it would screw up so many things . . . that said, I guess in the end it's a stylistic preference. You're right, there's a lot of stuff that makes no scientific sense on the Mist continent, as it is a magical place. Personally, though, I just don't like dealing with the kinds of problems perpetual rain introduces when I write. =P
Ditto Treno - I just kinda say it's close enough to a large cleft in the mountains there that it stays in shadow for much of the day, so there's only a few hours of true daylight. The rest of the time is twilight, and of course the regular night the rest of the world experiences. But that, too, is a stylistic preference, granted.
AJ: Alrighty, you, sir, warrant a quote.
Now, your tone here is getting a bit excessively argumentative. And unnecessarily aggressive. Let's please just have a friendly discussion about possibilities and whatnot without it degenerating into a childish shoutfest of repetitive points, okay?
You are correct - if it literally had eternal rain, nothing on Earth could survive there. But, to be frank, there IS some pretty danged weird stuff living on Gaia, and the Mist continent is no exception. =P I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that in such a freakishly strange place, things could survive. I mean, this is a world with QU, remember! XD
So, this could really be argued either way, and nobody can win. Or that's how it seems to me. Personally, I'm more of AJ's view on this one, but I don't see anything wrong with Rob's, either.
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Post by ajcrescent on Apr 19, 2007 16:43:09 GMT
Well, I'm sorry if I sounded too harsh, but Rob can be so stubborn sometimes, it makes my head hurt. I don't think my post sounded aggressive at all though. Challenging, maybe. Aggressive, no, as that was not my intention. Plus, it was the way he said what he did that made me react, as though we're just too stubborn to see the truth {"I don't know why you guys refuse to believe it is truly eternal rain."}.
But honestly, if there really was never-ending rain, I don't think even Gaia's weirdness could prevent that area from becoming uninhabitable. Gaia seems geographically similar enough to Earth for that fact to apply. Not to mention there's no indication anywhere in any official material that it literally never ends.
You also made a good point about Treno, BTW--I always figured that had something to do with its place on the planet. Like how the North Pole has 24 hours of night every day for 6 months.
On another note, now that I think about, you actually can go over the Aerbs with a Chocobo, with its Mountain {Red} or Fly {Gold} ability, so technically Mel's right. XD
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Post by LancerZero on Apr 19, 2007 17:26:30 GMT
Ah. I never did anything with the chocobo, at all, so I didn't know that one. =P
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