Shinra Corp.

Shinra started as a weapons manufacturer known as the Shinra Manufacturing Works. Upon discovering how to refine Lifestream into Mako energy as an electrical energy source they exploded in power and set up Mako Reactors all around the Planet. With their ever-increasing finances they expanded into many areas, including space exploration. As people became dependent on Shinra's energy and commodities, President Shinra, the owner of the company, became an autocrat.

 

Starting a private army, using Mako energy to power the elite SOLDIER class and funding an undercover corps called the Turks, Shinra ruled with an iron fist and began performing human experiments to create supersoldiers. When the people of Wutai disagreed with setting up Mako Reactors to their land Shinra started theWutai War, which lasted for nine years and ends with Shinra capturing Fort Tamblin, forcing the Wutai leader, Godo Kisaragi, to surrender. Soon after a rogue SOLDIER member Genesis Rhapsodos starts his campaign against Shinra, attacking many of Shinra's key locations, but the war is eventually quelled. It takes further six years to defeat the subsequent AVALANCHE Insurgency, but eventually Shinra wins that war as well.

 

Shinra constructed the metropolis of Midgar, which houses the Shinra Headquarters and eight large Mako Reactors. Shinra controls the city and the lives of its citizens, although the company introduced a figure-head mayor. Domino. It obtained control of much of the world's information and broadcasting services, and created a propaganda news service called "Shinra News". The main purpose of the propaganda machine is to declare those considered disloyal to Shinra dead and to distort events to Shinra's favor. In protest to Shinra's lies, an anti-Shinra news service called "Shinra Truths" appeared. Both can be viewed as emails inCrisis Core -Final Fantasy VII-.

Shinra pursues the Promised Land, a fertile land famous from Cetra legends, which Shinra believes to be a land full of Mako energy where they could relocate their center of operations in a project named Neo Midgar. Shinra goes through great lengths to create a person with Cetra's power who could lead them to the Promised Land, but in the end, Neo Midgar is never built.

 

Dissent had long been felt among the people under Shinra's rule. As the Mako Reactors destroy wildlife and outcast villages, people begin to despise their work. Many researched Mako and realized Shinra is ripping life out of the Planet. Some Shinra employees desert as they discover the truths of the company, such as First Class SOLDIERs Zack Fair, Genesis Rhapsodos, Sephiroth, and Angeal Hewley. One of SOLDIER's strongest units, 13th Unit Ragnarok, were reviled upon the discovery of Deepground and its purposes, before the entire company was silenced by the program's elite subjects, the Restrictors. Anti-Shinra groups, such as the eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE, and the Wutai Crescent Unit, spring up to combat the army. Even the Turks mutiny over their leader's unfair treatment and the human rights abuses the company regularly performs, causing a major fallout of many members.

President Shinra is killed when Sephiroth enacts his plan to summon Meteor to harm the Planet, and takes over Jenova's remains stored in the Shinra Headquarters, morphing her body into his image and slaying the President in his office. Vice President Rufus Shinra takes over the company and hunts Sephiroth down to North Crater, a site of immense Mako energy the company believes to be the Promised Land they have been looking for.

 

Meteor looming above the Shinra Headquarters.

Their dreams are cut short as Sephiroth summons Meteor and the Weapons, the Planet's defense mechanism, are awakened and attack Shinra's sites of power. Shinra fails to destroy the Meteor with the Shinra No. 26 rocket and in an attempt to destroy the energy barrier created by Sephiroth at North Crater, Shinra fires the Sister Ray, a powerful Mako cannon, destroying Diamond Weapon that fires a salvo of energy, damaging the Shinra Building.

 

President Rufus Shinra, thought to have been killed in the explosion at the Shinra Building, survives after a rescue and evacuation process by Vincent Valentineand Yuffie Kisaragi. With the leader of Shinra thought dead, the other Shinra executives go rogue. Reeve Tuesti, the head of Urban Development, is stripped of his title and imprisoned by Heidegger and Scarlet, the leaders of the Turks and Shinra army and Shinra's weapons development, who are soon killed while facingCloud's party. The "Great Sephiroth Plan", a planned military operation that would see the entire Shinra army dispatched to North Crater to fight Sephiroth once the barrier is destroyed, is cancelled as the company descends into chaos.

 

Professor Hojo, the head of Shinra's science department, is killed when he tries to use the Sister Ray to help Sephiroth. The final remaining Turks abandon their mission to hunt down Cloud's party and help evacuate Midgar instead. As the Meteor falls on the city it rips it apart. When the Lifestream ejects from the Planet to stop the Meteor, the people realize how important the Lifestream is, and Shinra can no longer use it popularly as an energy supply.

 

In a conversation between Reno and Rude in Healen Lodge in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete, it is revealed that some Shinra employees remain dedicated to the company, and return to the company remnants to help atone for their past sins. Whether this refers only to the Turks or other employees as well is unknown.