Round 4: Shinra Inc VS SeeD

Who'll be the winner?

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Shinra_Electric_Power_Company

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/SeeD

No idea, but I think whoever wins this will be the favourite for the final.

Hmmm.... technically SeeD are very powerful, and they have the GFs, but they're mercenaries to whom every battle is just a job, whereas a substantial number of Shinra's military, especially the SOLDIERs have an ideological commitment to Shinra. If Angeal is anything to go on, they are deliberately imbued with ideals of honour and duty; they conflate service to the company with serving the people; they aspire to be heroes (evidence: Zack and Cloud); loyalty is highly valued, and they have a strong attachment to each other. They probably have the edge in terms of morale and attitude.

This of course explains their feelings of betrayal and hatred towards Shinra when things go wrong. SeeD, on the other hand, fights for employers who don't owe them anything but money.

^ That's an interesting point. To continue your line of thought: SeeD can be hired for money, something Shinra have rather a lot of. They could conceivably bribe their way to victory.

I think the obvious counterpoint to that, though, is that we're assuming these factions are fighting for their survival. The premise of the poll already establishes that they're engaged in military conflict.

I'm not sure how to vote on this yet. I think for me it's going to require determining how comparable Galbadia (which SeeD can beat) is to Shin-Ra.

As far as ideological commitment goes, I don't think anyone in Shin-Ra but SOLDIER had that. The rank and file grunts are disposable, disrespected and apparently even physically abused by Heidegger. That one dude who was supposed to be guarding the elevator in Junon ignored his post in exchange for a paltry 10 gil, after all. If anyone can be bought, it's these guys.

What's interesting here is that SeeD at it's strongest has six people who can defeat Ultimacia, who is arguably more powerful then Sephiroth, Genesis, Angeal, and Zack combined. Also, neither Sephiroth or Genesis were at their strongest when they were with Shin-Ra so that levels the playing field a lot.

What I think the main difference between the two is that the bulk of Shin-Ra is a traditional military, if a numerous one, while SeeD can flip between conventional warfare and guerrilla warfare depending on the situation. If the Timber Job and the Ultimacia Assassination are anything to go by, SeeD is capable of Turk-like tactics, or even the type of stuff AVALANCHE was doing, but they have an entire military instead of just a few terrorist cells, so they can do it on a bigger scale.

I see this war going down with Shin-Ra sending out SOLDIERs and grunts to have a conventional war, while SeeD goes and assassinates key people in the Shin-Ra government, cuts supply lines, and takes out power sources.

I'll probably wait and see what else is said.

You make a good point, Tres. I don't know to what extent the rank and file would count in a battle of this kind. A SeeD could easily mete out to them the same treatment Zack did. It would be a battle of SOLDIER versus SeeD, and I do agree that the first thing Shinra would do if they thought they were being outclasses is buy themselves some SeeDs.

Mano a mano, Sephiroth versus Seifer? Zack versus Squall? Genesis versus Zell? Angeal versus Irvine?

Turks can and will counter-assassinate, and they won't have a crisis of conscience at the critical moment like Irvine did.

^^Although that would kinda give SeeD a heads-up that somebody was gunning for them... maybe if Shin-Ra was hiring from Galbania or Trabia Garden it wouldn't, but at the end of FFVIII, Balamb Garden beat Gabania Garden and Trabia Garden was destroyed. The personnel of both was probably folded into Balamb Garden then. Also, Shin-Ra would have to hire out a lot of SeeD in order for that to effect anything. From what we see in FFVIII, Cid gets a final say on what contracts SeeD takes on so they can probably just say no.

Why is everyone talking about Zack and Sephiroth? Don't forget Shinra also has Cloud, Cid Highwind, and the Turks.

But yeah, there are a lot of powerful people on both sides, too. Shinra has the aforementioned people, while SeeD has Squall, Zell, Selphie, Irvine, and Quistis.

I think I'll have to wait on this one.

Shin-Ra is at it's strongest right at the beginning of CC before Genesis leaves. At that time, Cloud is a mere grunt and it looks like the only thing Cid was doing for Shin-Ra was being a test pilot. So they kinda sorta don't count. The Turks would count for more if there were more of them or if they were stronger. With the way junctinoning works, the average SeeD is probably about the level of a SOLDIER 3rd class, while Squall and Co. are fast approaching, if not passing, Sephiroth's level

I'm with Obsidian on this. How much of a threat would Cloud have been while he was a grunt?

Sure, he could perform amazing feats in a moment of extreme crisis, but those were small-scale battles -- one-on-one in Sephiroth's case. How would he fare when assigned to the cannon fodder units? That's where he would be in this scenario, because that's all he was when he was with Shin-Ra.

Depending on what he got sent up against under those circumstances, he might get killed outright before he could even have a Limit Break moment.

Not sure what to expect from Cid, honestly. The Turks' performance is well-established, though.

I agree with Licorice that this would ultimately be a conflict decided by SOLDIER taking on the SeeDs. Seeing as Squall can contend with Sephiroth when he's as powerful as in FFVII, he could definitely beat Seph from when he was with Shin-Ra. Added to that, Seifer was apparently able to take out Odin singlehandedly, so he's pretty boss as well.

Presumably, then, all of SOLDIER could be beaten provided SeeD had the numbers to match them and all SeeDs were comparable to at least 3rd Class SOLDIERs. It's probably safe to say that all of them weren't at Squall and Seifer's level, and the cadets certainly wouldn't be.

It's also doubtful that there were literally hundreds of full-fledged SeeDs to match the hundreds of SOLDIERs. However, would SeeD cadets be comparable to 3rd Class SOLDIERs when junctioned to GFs? There's definitely hundreds of them, if not more than a thousand. But even if so, are there enough GFs to factilitate this?

There must be a lot if Garden hands them out like candy to cadets at exam time, and if Selphie found a GF in a random monster she killed when she was 12 years old.

I really don't know how to decide this particular element of the whole thing.

Other factors are much more easily weighed. The Ragnarok would give SeeD an immediate edge over the Sister Ray -- and Shin-Ra's entire military for that matter. We're talking about a ship with a max speed of 11.8 km/s, or 42,480 km/h. That's 7.33 miles per second -- twelve times the maximum speed of an SR-71 Blackbird. Which -- correct me if I'm wrong -- is the fastest manned vehicle ever used for military purposes in the real world.

Even at just a quarter of the Ragnarok's max speed, Shin-Ra wouldn't have anything that could even get a tracking lock on it, much less hit it or catch up to it. Though that previous poll has already been decided, the fact that Esthar would have had three such ships up against Shin-Ra is a big reason I don't see Shin-Ra having won that conflict either.

Anyway, yeah, Shin-Ra's airforce, such as it is, would be decimated by the Ragnarok alone, as would the Sister Ray and any in-the-open ground forces that weren't SOLDIERs.

You know what, I'm going to go ahead and give this one to SeeD. I don't think it's unreasonable to decide that the SeeD cadets should at least match the 3rd Class SOLDIERs.

There are plenty of Turks in BC. And they're player characters too.

And even though Cid is a pilot, FFVII shows he has great ability in battle as well, and he's handy with a spear, and seems to like guns, and is probably good with too. Not to mention Cid could use his piloting abilities to fly an attack craft.

EDIT: I'm probably going to give this to SeeD, though. Although I'm not sure if we can count Seifer as a SeeD, since he failed to pass. Or did they make him a SeeD in the ending or something? It's been a while since I played FFVIII.

He was a cadet prior to defecting, so he's been part of the organization. I doubt he would have been accepted back in, but if we're counting Sephiroth for Shin-Ra ...

Well Seph counts for Shinra since he was still part of them when they were at their best.

I'm starting to reconsider counting protagonists in these match ups. It tilts the scales too much; it's too say to say "Of course X country wins, they have the main characters".

Kinda defeats the point.

There's no issue with including them as long as your justification for X winning isn't that they have playable characters. For instance, if the Red Rose Rebellion went up against SeeD, we wouldn't say that Squall's crew and Firion's just cancel one another out.

We would say that SeeD would stomp a mudhole in their asses, seeing as Firion was easily wounded by Sephiroth and only allowed to live because a) Seph was bored and b) Warrior of Light showed up. Since Squall can actually fight both Warrior of Light and Sephiroth without getting demolished, we know he's stronger than Firion.

That too though, Dissidia to me is a boring indicator as well. I mean I'm not saying it shouldn't be valid, but the military buff in me just sees these match ups as battles of straight up military prowess, logistics, force strength, stuff like that. Of course the presence of personnel such as Sephiroth shouldn't be ignored, but stuff like "When this happened in Dissidia..." kinda dilutes the thing for me.

Maybe it's not because I'm not a big fan of Dissidia and its influence on the canon, I always thought the matchups portrayed in the game shouldn't be really taken as hard core fact when it cames to determining how strong a certain person is. When it comes to "what military would beat what military", and this is a conversation I've had before, I never really think much into the main heroes too much at all.

Nor do I, but it becomes necesary when weighing units like Sephiroth. You have to ask yourself, "Who might be his equal number on the other side?"

I can get down with that. I just want to avoid "X side wins because they have Y". For example, I can see Archadia losing to Alexandria, but not because of Beatrix alone. So on and so forth.

Ragnarok vs. Sister Ray? More like Ragnarok fires on the upper floors of the Shin-Ra Tower. That would get rid of a bunch of department heads quickly...

And I did not know the Ragnarok was that fast... SeeD definetly has the upper hand when it comes to transportation.

Hawkeye said:

He was a cadet prior to defecting, so he's been part of the organization. I doubt he would have been accepted back in, but if we're counting Sephiroth for Shin-Ra ...

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We're counting each organisation at the height of their strength, for SeeD that was when late-game partymembers were among them, Squall was leading them and undoubtably after the Garden had become airborne. So, no Seifer if you ask me.

I think Shinra's clear advantage are its access to resources to fuel a war with SeeD. I could only imagine SeeD winning if it was a swift victory.

SeeD are too reliant on the Ragnarok and Balamb Garden. The latter could be easily taken out with a certain Shinra rocket. Then what? The angsty teenage SeeDs suffering heavy losses perform an out-numbered ground assault with one aircraft (though highly advanced etc). I suspect the Ragnarok would be the last bastion for SeeD, which might work if it has infinite fuel and ammunition =p.

And then Deepground mop up afterward . Not that I know this, since I haven't played DoC to have any clue =p. I haven't voted yet though. My gut certainly says Shinra.

You know, I forgot all about Deepground. While I'm sure Squall and co. could handle Sephiroth, Genesis, Angeal and Zack, throwing the Tsviets in there on top of it makes for a whole other kettle of fish.

Squall could certainly handle any one of them, but there's only one of him, then Rinoa, Quistis, Zell, Selphie and Irvine. Unless the other full-fledged SeeDs are on their level, that would put them at a disadvantage against the elite SOLDIERs. Nero alone could prove disastrous for SeeD.

While the ordinary Deepground SOLDIERs don't seem like they would necessarily be more of a threat than the 3rds on the surface, even if the SeeD cadets were comparable to 3rds, there's still hundreds of these bastards.

Yeah, with Deepground added into the mix, things look a lot better for Shin-Ra than I previously thought.

Hmmm. Tough choice.

In terms of aerial strength, SeeD does have the upper hand if we include Ragnarok, which was originally Esthar's. (There were 2 others, but they were used to move Adel's Tomb out into space and no one knows what happens to them. We can assume that they got infested by space monsters that killed off the crew inside.) The Ragnarok is armed with a 609mm charged particle cannon, two 152mm Multi-barreled Lasers and 2 retractable claws, but I doubt the claws can be of any use in actual aerial combat. But the cannon and lasers have enough power to blow a hole into the Lunatic Pandora at point blank range, even after punching through its shield with relative ease. It is also capable of going into space and re-entering their planet's atmosphere.
Other than Ragnarok, we have the 3 mobile Gardens -- this is assuming that Galbadia, Trabia and Balamb are working together. (In an earlier match, Galbadia's Garden was included as a part of Galbadia, so maybe not..?)(Also, Trabia got nuked by missiles, but let's assume that they're not nuked.) As mobile shelters, the Gardens -- the buildings, do not have any shields or weapons, but is capable of ramming into things, as shown in the Battle of the Gardens.

ShinRa in terms of aerial fire power -- Has the Highwind. (We're assuming that the Highwind crew did not have a mutiny yet.) Not as fast as Ragnarok, but it is capable of chasing down the Ultimate WEAPON and ramming itself into it a few times without the ship suffering from damage. The FF Wikia states that it does not have any weaponry, but it is possible for it to have weapons fitted on (according to the weight) and as shown in Cid's Limit Break, it can shoot missiles. Can't go into space though.
Aside from the Highwind, we also have the Gelnika as a transport plane (unknown if it can use weapons) and military helicopters (can shoot missiles and has mounted guns).

As for trained human personnel...

ShinRa has SOLDIER (genetically enhanced by Mako and Jenova cells), Peacekeeping Troops (normal humans with military training) and the Turks (also human, but specially trained.) SOLDIERS have been seen making use of materia, but what about the Troopers and Turks? I want to assume that they can use materia though...
I won't go into too much detail about the strength of SOLDIER operatives since we already know them oh so well and their achievements, but it should be noted that the Turks -- if we're including the Turks from Before Crisis -- were able to take down Zirconiade, supposedly the ultimate summon and the Jade WEAPON, although it took them numerous battles across the planet to do it.

SeeD, although human, has trained combat specialists with the goal of taking down 'Mecia. According to the FF Wikia, Balamb Garden is the only one that trains SeeD cadets, conducts the SeeD exam and is the only one with SeeDs stationed at it? Galbadia's Garden focuses more on weapon technology. I might be wrong on this, but I think that Galbadia's Garden is the only Garden that doesn't have its students train with the Junction system/Para-Magic, which was why Irvine was able to remember Edea when others did not.
In addition to the normal SeeDs, there is also the White SeeDs -- an elite secret force of SeeDs. In the future, the dead bodies of SeeDs are wearing the White SeeD uniform, so I think they're the ones leading the fight against 'Mecia?

I kinda hesitate to use this term, but interestingly enough, both ShinRa and SeeD sorta makes use of child soldiers -- In SeeD, children as young as 5 can apply to be come a Cadet and between the ages of 15 and 19, can take the test to become a SeeD. With SOLDIER one can be as young as 14 years old provided they are strong enough to get in -- by extension I think that the same age limit can be applied to the Troopers, since Cloud failed to get into SOLDIER and joined the Peacekeepers instead. Not too sure about the Turks, but it was said that Cissnei was recruited to the Turks from an orphanage and trained from a very young age and is one of the youngest Turks around.
Some of the age brackets overlap -- SeeD has the age brackets ranging from 15 to 19 (I don't remember exactly if there was any SeeDs beyond the age of 19, but there might be some.) whereas SOLDIER has an estimated bracket from 14 to 25 (There might be older SOLDIERS, but I'm not sure. The oldest members that we know of is Angeal, Gen and Seph. Dunno about the Deepground peeps though.). For the PK Troops, we're not too sure about the age bracket but I'm assuming that they've been around before SOLDIER, so there's prolly some Troopers in their 30s and 40s, possibly 50s? Turks have no age brackets -- you leave in a body bag.
An average SeeD at most, had 10+ years of training (10, if they became SeeD at 15, 14, if they graduated at 19.) and a couple of years of field experience. SOLDIERs, excluding the Big 3, were normal humans without presumable training before they became SOLDIERs -- Cloud and Zack were normal countryside boys. Prior to joining SOLDIER, I assume that they train and after getting into SOLDIER, they are showered with Mako and Jenova Cells. (It's been a while since I last played, so do correct me if I'm wrong on this.) They train some more and do missions when not fighting in a war.

Other things/factors to take into consideration:

ShinRa

ShinRa's Machine Weapons -- The Black Widow, The Break/Barrier/Missiles/Any other variation that I'm missing/Machines, The Bee/Red Saucers, The Head series, The Crazy Series, the Sweepers and whatever the like I'm missing from the list. Yes, I'm aware that some of these machines go crazy in Crisis Core's missions but let us assume that in the fight against SeeD, these machines are working fine.
Something special to note: The Proud Clod. It was built to take down WEAPONS, but since we never see it happen, we have no idea if it is capable of taking down a WEAPON. hmm.

ShinRa's Science Mutations/Experiments -- mostly those crazy dogs with whips on their head. I forget if they're Hojo's or Hollander's or just some project they did for shit and giggles, but they can be weaponized. This is also assuming that Hollander did not defect from ShinRa.

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Crisis_Core_-Final_Fantasy_VII-_Enemies
The list I used to check for the machines and beasts.

Also, ShinRa kinda sorta has a Naval force? They do have ships and submarines...

The Sister Ray: Was used to shoot at the Diamond Weapon and take down Sephiroth's barrier at the Northern Crater. After it fired once, parts of it fall off the cannon and the blow back accidentally destroys a part of ShinRa HQ. I assume that because it was moved so hastily from Junon to Midgar, the Sister Ray was not properly attached to the building, and that the building is not structurally meant to hold up a giant cannon. Also, Seph, Gen and Angeal accidentally destroy the cannon, but only in a simulation, which may or may not be telling of how easy it is to destroy it.

As for SeeD...

The White SeeD -- They have their own ship, but it is not known if the boat has weapons.

Gardens also have assault boats, which they used during the Siege of Dollet.

There's also the Training Center which is full of monsters, but unlike ShinRa, it is unknown if they can weaponize them.

I'm pretty sure I'm missing some stuff about SeeD....

...This post is littered with assumptions since I haven't played VII/Crisis Core/VIII in a while, so if I got anything wrong, I'm sorry. OTL. All in all, I haven't really come up with a conclusion as to who would win in this post, but I might save it for a later post.

Edit: Derp. Forgot about Deepground and White SeeD.

Obsidian Fire said:

Ragnarok vs. Sister Ray? More like Ragnarok fires on the upper floors of the Shin-Ra Tower. That would get rid of a bunch of department heads quickly...

Click to expand...

Yes, you'd think so,