Politics is an ugly business at the best of times and the discussion of politics is even worse. To put it bluntly, this story contains a lot of politics. I am utterly neutral when it comes to politics and have no desire to argue the pros and cons of one particular ideology over another. This is simply a story designed to entertain, nothing more, nothing less.
This story is based on a hypothesis that suddenly came to me one day: what if AVALANCHE was less of an eco-terrorist group and more of a politically-revolutionary group dedicated to the ideals of Marxism-Leninism? What if their fight against Shinra was motivated by "class-struggle" on behalf of the common man instead of concern for the Planet? What if, after the end of FFVII, Cloud and his friends were able to establish a communist state in Midgar?
I'm not sure where the inspiration for this came from exactly, but a number of sources, including the graphic novel about a communist Superman (Superman: Red Son) and the general anti-capitalist themes prevalent in FFVII, were influential in leading me to create this story.
This story is very AU and eliminates all of the official sequels to FFVII. The personality of Cloud may also be slightly AU, but hopefully not too much.
I respectfully ask anyone who reads this to offer feedback on what they think of the whole idea, if that would be okay. I've nearly finished the second chapter and will not post the first one until that is finished, in a matter of days. Thanks very much for reading this.
I do not own FFVII or any of its characters, of course.