Post by tseng on Nov 12, 2010 15:01:21 GMT -5
PART ONE
Life in the underbelly of Lower Junon was, in many ways, no different than the slums of Midgar-Edge. It was home to the unfortunate, impoverished and the unsavorily. Like the back alleys of Midgar-Edge, this was the part of Junon that the more fortunate did not want to see. Here, people barely scraped by on the table scraps of Upper Junon.
Who was to blame for their lot in life? Ask anyone on the street, and they’d finger ShinRa.
ShinRa was to blame for the existence of the slums. ShinRa took all the jobs. ShinRa took all the money. ShinRa took all the resources.
Whatever their circumstance, those who lived in the slums decided that they were entitled to what they didn’t have—and ShinRa had plenty. In the years that lead up to Meteor Fall, it had become common belief that if someone took down the ShinRa, all hardship would suddenly come to an end. There would be no poverty. There would be no slums. Their lives would suddenly turn to Sunshine and Rainbows. What anti-ShinRa activists failed to realize was that ShinRa was not at fault.
ShinRa did not create poverty—it inherited it.
Poverty was the normal condition for mankind. It was something that would exist regardless of who was in charge. Wealth, on the other hand, was something that had to be created and maintained. With the advances afforded by Shinra, cities were built. Such expanding productivity allowed for a higher standard of living, as well as, opportunities for the poorer to improve their own living conditions. Sure, as ShinRa rose higher, the gap between the rich and poor got wider; however, the overall standard for living amongst both the top and the bottom had risen to new heights. While ShinRa supplied new jobs during their time of economic productivity, the impoverished—though they still existed—were better off.
Therefore, when ShinRa did fall, life did not automatically get better.
There was no sudden distribution of wealth, there were no jobs, and the poor certainly did not get any less poor. Poverty had increased phenomenally during the subsequent economic depression. Hundreds of thousands were left jobless and homeless. Disease filled the streets and the smell of death had come to permeate the air. Since the fall of ShinRa, every day had become a struggle for survival amidst a jungle of trashed streets, gratified walls, barred windows, drive-by shootings, and an increasing cesspool of criminal activity.
In the resulting vacuum of power, life for both the rich and poor had only got worse as wannabe crime-lords vied to fill the gap and seize what ShinRa had lost. Although the WRO tried their best to curb the problem, the snowball was already rolling downhill. Already, the port in Costa Del Sol had fallen to a smuggling ring, and if the vestige of ShinRa was not able to pull itself from its cindered remains, it was only a matter of time before Junon followed.
Despite the efforts of ShinRa’s private military or the WRO’s peacekeeping taskforce, fighting this new crime wave was proving to be trickier than Sephiroth and Deep Ground had ever been.
This time, the enemy was not a man or an army.
It was a social pathology .
Therefore, it was with great caution that Tseng set out from ShinRa's Headquarters to venture through Lower Junon's back alleys at half past midnight.
Life in the underbelly of Lower Junon was, in many ways, no different than the slums of Midgar-Edge. It was home to the unfortunate, impoverished and the unsavorily. Like the back alleys of Midgar-Edge, this was the part of Junon that the more fortunate did not want to see. Here, people barely scraped by on the table scraps of Upper Junon.
Who was to blame for their lot in life? Ask anyone on the street, and they’d finger ShinRa.
ShinRa was to blame for the existence of the slums. ShinRa took all the jobs. ShinRa took all the money. ShinRa took all the resources.
Whatever their circumstance, those who lived in the slums decided that they were entitled to what they didn’t have—and ShinRa had plenty. In the years that lead up to Meteor Fall, it had become common belief that if someone took down the ShinRa, all hardship would suddenly come to an end. There would be no poverty. There would be no slums. Their lives would suddenly turn to Sunshine and Rainbows. What anti-ShinRa activists failed to realize was that ShinRa was not at fault.
ShinRa did not create poverty—it inherited it.
Poverty was the normal condition for mankind. It was something that would exist regardless of who was in charge. Wealth, on the other hand, was something that had to be created and maintained. With the advances afforded by Shinra, cities were built. Such expanding productivity allowed for a higher standard of living, as well as, opportunities for the poorer to improve their own living conditions. Sure, as ShinRa rose higher, the gap between the rich and poor got wider; however, the overall standard for living amongst both the top and the bottom had risen to new heights. While ShinRa supplied new jobs during their time of economic productivity, the impoverished—though they still existed—were better off.
Therefore, when ShinRa did fall, life did not automatically get better.
There was no sudden distribution of wealth, there were no jobs, and the poor certainly did not get any less poor. Poverty had increased phenomenally during the subsequent economic depression. Hundreds of thousands were left jobless and homeless. Disease filled the streets and the smell of death had come to permeate the air. Since the fall of ShinRa, every day had become a struggle for survival amidst a jungle of trashed streets, gratified walls, barred windows, drive-by shootings, and an increasing cesspool of criminal activity.
In the resulting vacuum of power, life for both the rich and poor had only got worse as wannabe crime-lords vied to fill the gap and seize what ShinRa had lost. Although the WRO tried their best to curb the problem, the snowball was already rolling downhill. Already, the port in Costa Del Sol had fallen to a smuggling ring, and if the vestige of ShinRa was not able to pull itself from its cindered remains, it was only a matter of time before Junon followed.
Despite the efforts of ShinRa’s private military or the WRO’s peacekeeping taskforce, fighting this new crime wave was proving to be trickier than Sephiroth and Deep Ground had ever been.
This time, the enemy was not a man or an army.
It was a social pathology .
Therefore, it was with great caution that Tseng set out from ShinRa's Headquarters to venture through Lower Junon's back alleys at half past midnight.
to be continued...