What If...?

[Psiko]

Before I begin, I must emphasize that you will be required to add some depth to this thread should you decide to post. I don't want to see anything along the lines of "Yeah, that would be cool." or any other pointless, spammeriffic posts along those lines. I'd like to see a great intelligent thread filled with vibrant speculation in here. That being said, I'll begin with describing what this thread is all about.

What if...? What if Ghestal killed Kefka on the Floating Continent? What if Cid refused to help you escape from the Magitek Factory? What if Ultros was the true villian behind it all? What if Leo overthrew the Empire?

These are the kinds of questions I want to see in here. What do YOU think the game would be like if certain things were to be altered? What if Terra never gained control over her Esper side? What if Celes betrayed your group for real? What if the Espers didn't want to talk peace?

How drastically would the game change in each of these situations? Please, and I cannot emphasize this enough, go into details about what YOU think would be changed by the altered event. I don't expect you to hit on all the possibilities in one post. In fact, if you want to cover a scenario per week, that would be perfectly fine. Just remember to be THOROUGH!

As for my first alternate, I'll go with the following:

What if Ghestal killed Kefka on the Floating Continent?

To be perfectly honest, I feel that this would have been much more difficult. Kefka is a great villain because he is a lunatic. He knows no limitations, has no restraints. Thus why the world was destroyed. On the other hand, Ghestal is a much more cold and calculating villain. He convinced the Returners AND the Espers that he wanted to talk peace, only to turn around and betray them all. Kefka could never have pulled that off. While Kefka's goal is destruction of the world, Ghestal wants domination.

Instead of altering the statues, Ghestal would have tapped into their power. This would have made him insanely powerful. All of the cities in the world would be under Imperial control, and you'd have to spend the game liberating cities. Why? Because you get captured on the Floating Continent and he has each member locked up in a different part of the world. The first to get free would be Terra, calling on her Esper side. After you regain your companions, you all head to Vector for the final showdown. Of course, by this time Vector has grown tremendously, and through the Esper experimentations he has created super monsters. If you thought Kefka's Tower was hard, you should try getting through Neo-Vector. Death is almost certain!

[Dauragon]

Excellent thread. I'll start with a different one.

What if Cid refused to help you escape the Magitek factory?

This would be quite interesting, I think. Cid not helping you out would obviously place him as an enemy of the Returners, thus a supporter of the Empire. Had he not helped than Kefka would have without doubt caught them all, and then proceeded to imprison them for the time being. Of course, being the heroes that they are, the party would have to escape from the prison in order to avoid being experimented on and perhaps brainwashed (Terra, circa beginning, anyone?). Perhaps a battle against one of the party members may ensue should something go wrong, although I believe the boss at the end of the dungeon would be a magitek-armored Cid, with several other magitek-armored soldiers to back him up. His weaponry would be a combination of Edgar's various tools, and could easily unleash status-effect hell. Once defeated, the party could then escape and continue the quest as it would normally flow.

However, after the destruction of the Floating Continent, Celes would wind up all by herself, not having to run and catch fish for Cid. Mind you, it's quite possible that she might not even wind up on that island, due to the fact that it was Cid who helped her out. In fact, it's quite possible that may even die, although for a character of her importance, highly unlikely. Rather than starting the WoR with her looking for everyone else, it would be everyone else looking for her.

[Iudicium]

What if General Leo stayed in Doma?

If General Leo stayed in Doma, Kefka wouldn't have poisoned the citezens of Doma. Cyan wouldn't leave the castle because he had to defend the castle. And poor Sabin wouldn't be able to go through the imperial camp and wouldn't know how to get to Narshe. If Sabin didn't make it to the veldt he and Cyan wouldn't have met Gau and get the helmet that allows them to go underwater.

Because Sabin didn't meet Cyan and Gau, that would mean that there would be three less people to protect the esper in Narshe. Therefore the imperial army would have gotten their hands on the esper and possibly kill Terra and friends.

And if the characters all die, Emperor Gestahl wouldn't be able to trick the returners into sending Terra and friends to find the espers. And if they didn't go to Thamasa, General Leo might be alive. If that happens, Kefka would not have moved the statues and the world would remain the same. However the Empire would still be at Large.

[awall]

Here's one I've been thinking about today... I tried to do this adding as few new events as possible to the game, mostly just rearranging things.

What if Kefka had reached Narshe before the Returners got there?

Edgar, Terra, and Bannon race up the Lete river to Narshe, only to discover that Kefka has gotten there first and converted Tritoch to magicite. The town was no match for him, and quickly surrendered; therefore, it's still fairly intact and hasn't lost much more than the esper.

Because Terra never encounters Tritoch, she never awakens as an Esper and thus stays with the party. Arvis, Bannon, and Edgar come up with a Plan B; they decide to attack South Figaro and take it back from the Empire. Afterward, they use its port to launch a naval attack against the Empire. They want to establish a toehold on the southern continent, but their manpower is significantly weaker than the Empire's; therefore they can't try to take over a city, but instead must go after a place that they'll be able to defend. They settle on attacking the base at the eastern border of the continent. After landing in the mountains, they launch a suprise attack against the base and manage to take it over.

Lo and behold, there's a cave attached to the back of the base. Terra leads a group down to explore it and finds the entrance to the Esper world. Many of the espers still believe her mother led Ghestal into their world and blame Terra for what happened to their friends, but there are a few espers (Stray, Kirin, Siren) who agree to help and ask Terra to go to the Magitek facility and rescue their friends. During this scene, Terra realizes her innate esper abilities.

The incident in the Magitek factory proceeds as it did in the normal game. However, since you have no airship, you escape on foot. On your way back to the base, you pass Albrook. The artist who is painting Ghestal's portrait comments that there's a secret in the painting if you examine it twice; Locke does so, and reads about the Treasure in the mountains shaped like a star. This reminds him of an old legend he heard about such a place being the resting place of the Phoenix, and this in turn reminds him of Rachael. He begs your party to travel back with him to Kohelington to check on her.

After visiting her, Locke has even more of a desire to find the Phoenix. He decides to seach the mountains around Zozo which, while not quite star-shaped, are the closest thing he knows of. Unfortunately, after climbing to the top of the tower Locke doesn't find Phoenix, but he does meet Ramuh, an esper who escaped the magitek factory. He asks you to take him back to the Esper cave to talk to the other espers there and tells them about what happens in the factory.

**EDIT**

The opera scene occurs right after you pick up Ramuh; you need a way to get back to the eastern base, but for some reason you can't take the boat you came on. Perhaps the empire has set up a blockade? In any case, you manage to get onto Setzer's airship.

Er... except that Celes is no longer with you. Perhaps Terra takes Maria's role? But that really doesn't seem like it'd work... the opera was really all about Celes, so it'd be a pity to have to exclude her. Not really sure how to handle this detail.

**END EDIT**

From this point on, the game proceeds moreorless as normal. If anybody was disappointed that I didn't come up with a drastically different storyline, sorry; however, I think it's much more fun to try to choreograph the game so that it'll work out even with a few major changes to the plot.

[Psiko]

What if Celes never left the Empire?

Oh. My. God.

To begin, Locke most likely would have never made it to Narshe. TunnelArmor would rape him like a little schoolboy. Without her Runic ability, he is doomed. There is one hero down.

Second is the loss of two defenders for the Esper, which would almost solidify the chance of Kekfa getting it. Following the loss at Narshe, Terra would not get all Esper-like and flee to Zozo, so you'd never meet up with Ramuh. Good-bye espers, leaving Terra as the only potential magic-user.

You wouldn't be able to do anything in the Opera House without "Maria", so kiss Setzer and his airship good-bye.

After a long boat-ride to Vector, you sneak into the Magitek Factory. Because you don't have Ramuh, Ifrit and Shiva sacrifice themselves rather than join you. At the end, Kekfa captures the entire party because Celes doesn't save you, nor does Cid consider helping you out because he remains true to Celes.

With no esper to reveal Terra's true self, you can't get tricked into opening the Sealed Gate, which means no false peace. Also, as a result, you miss out on Strago and Relm.

Kefka and the Emperor manage to find and activate the statues, which separates the floating continent from the world but, seeing as how you don't have Setzer, you are unable to follow. The world gets readjusted, and most likely fall into the molten core of the earth during all the changes.

End of game. You lose! =P

[Magitek]

What if the boy that says "Chung... Chung... Chung... Chung... Magitek Armor!" met the boy in FFX that said "I want to be a blitzball when I grow up!" ALL HELL WOULD BREAK LOOSE!!! haha j/k