Things came up yesterday, which is I didn’t finish the story. Nothing big, but time is limited in life, so, ya know. It’s a good thing I don’t have readers, so let’s mosey!
Barrett walks into Rocket Town, home to the parties Dragoon and Pilot, Cid, and we gain a little backstory. It’s obvious stuff, but the while population is retired engineers who worked on the once standing rocket in the middle of town. Barrett sees a few kids playing and asks if he can join them. A grown man asking to play with kids is a bit strange, but if you want to reset your image, you gotta start somewhere. They run away, which makes sense, and Barrett looks to his gun arm. Suddenly, a familiar, but still unknown, voice is heard. He says that Barrett is scary even without the gun.
The voice then introduces himself as one of the crewmen on the Highwind, the airship the party flew on during the game. He, upon request, escorts Barrett to Cid and his new, in progress, airship. A massive explosion is heard that causes Barrett to hit the deck. The crewman remains undaunted and joking mentions that that’s where Cid is.
Barrett and Cid jovially swear at each other as they each fill the other in on their lives. We know one side, so I'll skip it, but Cid says that Red occasionally drops by, Yuffie is teaching martial arts in Wutai, and Vincent is nowhere to be found. Barrett asks if he can aid in the new airship construction, to which Cid replies that everything works except there’s no fuel. Coal isn’t good enough, and all the Mako Reactors are broken. A plot point I skipped over last time was Barrett's thinking that using a little Mako can’t hurt if it’s for the good of all mankind. Say to farm, or for emergency services. Cid, however, says that the reactors are down for two reasons. Reason one is people saw the destruction the Lifestream caused when it emerged to fight Meteor. The second reason is that all the wells have dried up. No one knows how to build a new reactor, and even if they did, good luck finding equipment to construct it in the middle of nowhere, as the flow of the stream has also changed.
Barrett began to feel as though the Planet itself has turned against him, and it causes him to get mad and shoot up Cid’s roof. He’s then told to fix it if he still wants to help with construction. Barrett then fixes the holes.
A few hours, presumably, later and Cid tells Barrett about oil. Oil was once thought to be the future until Mako came along, and it became an afterthought. There are, though, a few refineries here and there that, if repaired, might work. One such was where we first saw Shera, which is where the two men go.
They see Shera, and the first thing Barrett notices is her hand is covered in Geostigma. She’s able to subdue the pain but knows that she doesn’t have much time if she’s gonna help with anything. During the conversation between the three, they all become adamant that they can re-save the world and find a new energy source even through broken equipment, sketchy fuel, and planet interference.
Barrett returns to Sakaki’s workshop, where he’s greeted with a warm, wooden hand. Sadly, Barrett can’t accept it yet as he’s not done fighting. In a line I really like, Barrett says “If my fightin' means somebody else doesn't have to, then that's my calling. No, my penance.” Sakaki knows that the man he’s never really liked has changed and shows him a new hand. It’s rusty, but state of the art and will be waiting for him when he’s done fighting. The story ends with Barrett promising to write Marlene a letter when the world is at peace.
The hippy environmentalist in me hates this story. Oil isn’t the answer, brother. I don’t know if Gaia has a nuclear equivalent or green energy, but I think CO2 might just upset the planet you’re trying to protect. A bit of a hard sell to me. Regardless, it’s a happy...ish ending, and we know they figure something out. The whole non-Midgar party makes their appearances in Advent Children via Cid’s new airship, Shera II. Not sure what to say, but Case of Nanaki is next, and I’m just thinking about that. Sorry, Barrett.
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