My Final Fantasy 7 Story Guide
 

This post was too long to be just one, so I had to divide it into four. They continue exactly from each other, so just treat it as one post.

I have been doing a lot of searching into the FF7 storyline (in the game itself, not on secondary theories). Anyways, this is a very misunderstood story, so I thought I might just make it clear to a lot of non-understanding people. This will go into the deeper aspects of Final Fantasy VII, not just the shallow aspects like "how cool Sephiroth is" or "how sad Aeris's death scene is".

Before you read, let me tell you the formation of my guide: First I will talk about the most important elements to the game, which are The Planet, Spirit Energy/Lifestream, and Jenova. Then I will go through FF7 and all the important aspects in complete chronoligical order starting with the ancient times of the Cetra, the JENOVA project involving Hojo, Gast, and Lucrecia, the incident that changed Sephiroth and Cloud's life five years prior to the game, and the game itself. I will also refer to the official script where you can find here: http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/psx/f..._script_d1.txt

Also, I will say here that though I am showing the great credit of Sephiroth here, I am not one of the rabid Sephiroth fans that think he's so cool and the best villain ever. I just thing he's unique, and has a good complex story himself.

Anyways, READ EVERYTHING I WRITE! Everything I write here is important, and I will use facts based on other facts I showed you throughout the post.

So let's start:
The Planet (which I will refer to as "Earth" throughout this post) is a spiritual being. It is a living being as you all know, because you hear it's cries throughout the game. But it's not a physical being, it is a mental being. It has no mass, and it consists of Spirit Energy. How do I explain Spirit Energy? Well, let the master explain it:
What he was saying is that Spirit Energy is a mental energy that gives people life. When a lifeform is born, it is gifted with Spirit Energy which gives it the power to feel and think. When life dies, it's Spirit Energy joines the Lifestream, or stream of souls and is once again under Earth's control to be reused. Spirit Energy is a very holy element of the game, and is Squaresoft's symbolic use for life.
It is based on the "Conservation of Energy" law. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only conserved. When life dies, it merely returns the Spirit Energy back to the planet so it can become reused.
Now remember this: The Planet is basically a God. In fact, you can say it is God for the living beings of Earth. That is because Spirit Energy is what allows us to feel and think, and separates life in the universe from mere matter floating around in the universe.
Spirit Energy is made up of the knowledge of life, and when it is sent into the lifestream the knowledge is mixed with each other making the eternal knowledge of the planet.

The Promised Land is something discussed thoroughly throught the game of FF7. The Promised Land is so commonly believed by the Shinra to be the area in the Northern Crater where Spirit Energy returns to it's system to be reused and make an unlimited supply of Mako for the Shinra. However that is false. The main theme of FF7 is the salvation of mankind. And Cetra were humans with mankind's salvation. The knowledge of the planet, and ability to communicate with the planet. They were allowed to join the Promised Land when they die. The Promised Land is a land of eternal happines, just like Heaven to us.

Now let's focus on another element Squaresoft used in the game; the anti-life, or the element of darkness and death: Jenova. Jenova was as we know, an Alien that landed on Earth during the time of the Cetra and Human conflict. It is referred to several times as the "Calamity from the skies" in the game. Note: at the beginning of the game you are under the impression that it is a Cetra. But that is before you find out it is an alien.
Jenova Cells are cells that were taken from Jenova in the "JENOVA Project." The Shinra corporation thought it was a Cetra, and wanted to inject it into high ranking Soldiers to give them extra Cetra powers. In fact, it was even injected into Lucrecia's womb when she was impregnated with Sephiroth so that the Cetra cells could merge with Sephiroth's stem cells (the cells a Fetus is made up of) and he could become a Cetra. And of course, this instead made him a living incarnation of Jenova, the Alien.
Jenova, and her cells are an element of the game that is used to oppose Spirit Energy. In fact, it is the element of evil.
Another thing is the Jenova reunion. Many didn't understand what it was, but Hojo states perfectly what it is.
You know that the Shinra company took apart Jenova to inject her cells into attempt Sephiroth Clones. The Reunion is simply what Jenova wants, which is to gather all of her separated cells injected into others, so they can rebuild her and she can regain her consciousness and power.

Now, let's start with story time!
What are the Cetra? The Cetra are beings with a special power: They can communicate with the Planet (remember that, it's important). But how do they separate themselves from humans? Well here's a perfect explanation:
That's right, the humans are actually Cetra that refused to migrate in search of the Promised Land. They eventually lost the knowledge of the Cetra, and de-evolved into humans. This was a big conflict between humans and Cetra. And to make matters worse, something happened then:
Jenova landed. I would like to use the part of the script with the Ilfana and Gast tapes, but that's not in the script. Ilfana basically says that it looked like their dead mothers and brothers, and tricked them. That means, she made herself look like deceised Cetra.
One important aspect of the game is that the power of Jenova is to create illusions.
Jenova then plagued the Cetra, and killed almost all of them. The remaining Cetra barely able to fight, managed to defeat Jenova, and put her in a comatose, putting her back into the meteor at the North Crater (it's a crater now since it landed). However, Jenova has no Spirit Energy to return to the Planet, and therefore Jenova cannot truly die.

Anyways, now let's go to the next part of the story. Over the years, the Cetra have been very very few, and dying off. Slightly prior to the events of FF7, there was only one pure Cetra left on the planet named Ilfana (Aeris wasn't pure Cetra, only half Cetra, her father was human). Over the time, the humans (which were numerous now) built a corporation they called the Shinra corporation. It is basically a corporation that supplies electricity to Midgar, but they also own Midgar, and a Soldier aspect. In fact, they practically run the world, sorta like the U.S. runs this world currently. However, they are also a sort of dirty company. They have something called "The Turks" which is a secret organization owned by Shinra, and is practically the Maffia. They are given secret hits, and do things for Shinra that aren't open to the public. Another important thing about Shirna: They use Mako Reactors. What it does is it connects to the Planet's Spirit Energy, uses it and mixes it with chemicals to create "Mako Energy" which is used to power up people's electricity. However it is also used to inject into Soldiers to make them more powerful. The sinister aspect of it is that it wastes the Planet's Spirit Energy, and may soon erase all the Spirit Energy in the system, thus getting rid of life altogether and changing the universe back into a void of meaningless floating materials.

Anyways, the Shinra had just discovered the comatose body of Jenova in the Northern Crater, which they thought was a Cetra. They decided to start the "JENOVA Project" which was taking cells from this Jenova body, and inserting them in top ranking Soldiers making them have the power of a Cetra. They assigned their three top scientists to this project: Hojo, Gast, and Lucrecia.
Proffessor Gast was married to Ilfana, who was the only surviving Cetra at the time. She gave him great knowledge of the Planet and it's history, and knowing the truth about Jenova, Proffessor Gast refused to work on the project. All that was left was Lucrecia and Hojo.
Now at the time, the head of the Turks was Vincent Valentine. He was practically at a top ranking Shinra level, and knew Lucrecia. More than knew, he was in love with Lucrecia, but Lucrecia rejected him because she loved Hojo.

Later on Hojo impregnated Lucrecia. Then he got a great idea for the JENOVA project: If he were to inject Jenova Cells into an unborn fetus in Lucrecia's womb, the cells would merge with the Fetus's stem cells, and make him an actual Cetra, reviving the Cetra race. Of course, us knowing what Jenova actually is, allows us to see a different outcome.


Now before I continue, this is an integral part of Sephiroth's life. When his zygote was injected with Jenova Cells, he practically merged with Jenova and became a human incarnation of her. In fact, though Lucrecia is technically the mother of Sephiroth, we can say that Jenova is the true mother of Sephiroth. This injection gave birth to a spawn of Jenova, or a child of Jenova. Now, a lot of theories suggest that throughout the game of FF7, Sephiroth was a puppet of Jenova being controlled head to toe by her. This is in fact false, and I can explain why, so keep reading the story.

Hojo injecting Lucrecia's womb was a dangerous part of the project. Vincent, who wanted the best for Lucrecia opposed Hojo. They had a big arguement, and eventually Hojo shot Vincent. However, to keep Vincent alive (well barely alive) he injected Vincent with cells. The game never told us whether it was Jenova cells or not; nor does it matter, but I'll assume it is Jenova cells since they keep you alive. Anyways, he then put him to sleep in the Neibelheim underground coffin. It was another of Hojo's crazy experiments... an experiment with the undead perhaps.

Anyways Lucrecia is believed to have died giving birth to Sephiroth, even though we know she actually was alive since we see her in the waterfall living alone. But she never saw her child Sephiroth, and he was raised by Hojo alone.

Sephiroth went through a lot in his life. He became a top SOLDIER, and was Shinra's greatest prize. He was even the war hero of the Wutai war. Now let's get to a different point about him: Though he was a human spawn, or child of Jenova, he was practically a baby to Jenova's standards. He couldn't use his true power yet, the power of Jenova. But he was much much stronger than any other human in existance. His magic however, was still limited to the materia he had equipped. He couldn't use Bizzaro Energy, or Pale Horseman.

Now meanwhile, a child named Cloud was born in Neibelheim. The game already confirmed that Cloud was in fact not created five years ago as a Sephiroth clone. He was born regularly, however he was experimented on so he could become a Sephiroth clone. But let's get back to his beginning. He was an antisocial child. He could never summon up the courage to talk to Tifa, a rather popular girl. But he did join SOLDIER so that he could impress her. As we find out in the Lifestream, he never actually made the cut for Soldier, and he had to be a pathetic Shinra Guard that wears a mask. It was Zack who went into Soldier. Let's continue.

Sephiroth was sent on a mission by the Shinra. This mission was merely a small one, but it became the conflict of the game. The mission was to get rid of some monsters harassing Neibelheim, which could be due to a malfunction in the Neibelheim Mako Reactor. Sephiroth was sent along with Zack, and two Shinra MPs. Now Cloud (one of the Shinra MPs) was ashamed to show his face to Tifa, seeing as how he didn't make it to SOLDIER, and therefore he kept his mask on for the duration of the mission.

Let's skip to the important part. Sephiroth found out that he was an incarnation of Jenova. However, he believed at the time that Jenova was a Cetra, and he didn't truly understand what he was. Therefore, his intention at the time was to get revenge for the Cetra, because of the ancient Human-Cetra conflict, and give the planet back to him and his mother "the cetra".
That's right, the Sephiroth that burned down Neibelheim (and looked so cool to you rabid Sephiroth fans) was just an ignorant Sephiroth who didn't know the truth yet. But then his life changed completely.
He went to see "Mother" after he burned Neibelheim. Tifa went to kill Sephiroth for killing her father, but she failed, and got slashed across the stomache by him. Zack ignored her and ran past to kill Sephiroth, but he also got slashed by Sephiroth. Finally Cloud came, took Tifa aside, and went to get Sephiroth. Sephiroth severed Jenova's head (that's right, he took her head off) and walked with it past Cloud, but Cloud ran after him. Sephiroth told him not to push his luck, but he did, and Sephiroth stabbed him in the stomache. Then Cloud, summoning up some strength, took the sword by the blade, and threw Sephiroth into the Mako Stream.

This changed Sephiroth completely. The Mako Stream was connected to the Planet's Spirit Energy. Sephiroth went through the stream of Spirit Energy, or Lifestream, and was taken to the one place on Earth where Lifestream gathers into the system of Spirit Energy so it can be reused as a new life. The Northern Crater. For five years Sephiroth has been tranced in the giant Mako Crystal, absorbing a GREAT amount of Spirit Energy. As he tells you, he has "gained the knowledge of the ancients". But he has gained much more than that. He has gained so much Spirit Energy, it might even be the equivalent of 1000 lives. He had so much power now. And with the knowledge of the Ancients, he learned the truth about Jenova (being an alien). He learned the truth about HIMSELF! He is a spawn of Jenova, who for thousands of years has been comatose. The Spirit Energy made him so powerful, and combined with the fact that he's a spawn of Jenova, he used his Jenova powers to gain control of Jenova's body. But as I stated earlier, Jenova is basically Squaresoft's symbolic antitheses of Spirit Energy. It is the dark element. And Sephiroth, who is both a spawn of Jenova, and now a powerful being with excess Planet Energy, he is no longer merely a spawn of Jenova; but in fact he is an EVOLUTION of Jenova! He has the combined power of Jenova and the Planet.
But he only gained a miniscule amount of Spirit Energy compared to the amount that exists in the entire planet. So that gave him an idea:

That above quote, said by Sephiroth in the Temple of Ancients, is KEY to his intentions. He now wants to summon meteor, creating an injury so great the Planet will gather all of it's Spirit Energy to heal. And he will be there absorbing the Spirit Energy.
Now Sephiroth was supposed to go by Jenova's intention, which was to lead the reunion and give her back all her cells making her whole. But Sephiroth didn't want that. He wanted to ecome one with the planet.
You see, absorbing all the Spirit Energy would make him BECOME the planet. Remember how I said that the planet is a God? Well Sephiroth wants to become that God. For all we know, he could have a holy and great purpose, to salvate the planet of anything evil like Shinra, and keep it pure. This is another brilliant way of how Jenova and Spirit Energy are the opposite and conflicting elements of the game: one intention is to create the Jenova reunion so that Jenova can destroy the planet. The other intention is to absorb all the Spirit Energy so that he can purify the planet.
Now Sephiroth is gonna use Cloud as a tool for his big plan. Because the Planet is a mental being, the excess of Spirit Energy gives you the ability to exist mentally. Sephiroth mentally embedded himself into Cloud's mind, making him go mad several times throughout the game, and battling Cloud's will.


Okay, just before the events of the game, here is what happens RIGHT after Cloud throws Sephiroth into the Mako. Cloud is lying down injured after Sephiroth stabbed him. Hojo came, and found Cloud and Zack's body lying in the reactor. He persumed Sephiroth to be dead, and so it was all over the newspapers (don't believe everything you read people). But he had another intention. He took Cloud and Zack into testing in the Neibelheim Mansion. He injected Jenova cells in them in attempt to make them Sephiroth Clones. The Jenova Cells didn't have much of an effect against Zack's strong mind, but it did against Cloud's weak mind. Zack escaped one day, and took Cloud with him.

Zack and Cloud were hitchhiking to Midgar. Cloud was quite mental and barely conscious because of the Jenova Cells' effect on him. Also the Mako Energy's effect on him, since they were injected with that too. Zack told Cloud much of his story, and Cloud, in a mental state of Jenova's madness mixed Zack's story with his own, which is why Cloud puts his place in Zack when he's telling his past. The Shinra Guards catch them, kill Zack, and assume Cloud is done for anyways so they leave him. Cloud then takes Zack's personal weapon, the Buster Sword.

Let's move on to the game. Well, the first important part of the game.
What was the Sephiroth you were seeing throughout the game? I thought he was contained in the gaint crystal of energy in the North Crater. It wasn't an image projected by Sephiroth, because projected images can't physically kill, and we saw Sephiroth physically kill President Shinra, and Aeris (along with a bunch of unimportant Shinra employees). So let's fastforward to the first, truly important event in FF7: In the Shinra Tower. This was Sephiroth's first strike ever since he absorbed the Spirit Energy and gained the knowledge of the Cetra.

Cloud and party saw something in the tower: Jenova's headless body (Sephiroth dismemebered the head, remember?) It was taken from the Neibelheim Reactor, and put into the Tower. Anyways, Cloud and party got locked up by Shinra. But then Cloud awoke and his cell door was open. Remember Sephiroth wanted to use Cloud as a puppet for his intention?

Well here's the amazing part now. Since Jenova is taken apart (especially the head) and is completely comatose, Sephiroth (being a spawn with the great power of Spirit Energy) is in complete control of Jenova's body. Not only that, he has the power of Jenova; the power of illusion. So he literally made Jenova's headless body escape the pod. And Jenova's headless body goes on a reign of killing throughout the game. And he uses the power of illusion to make it's appearance the appearance of Sephiroth, so that he can make people familiar with who's the brain here, and who's controlling this body.

So Jenova's headless body, as the illusive Sephiroth goes on a killing spree, and frees Cloud who will be used for Sephiroth's plan. Sephiroth says to Shinra "you cannot have the promised land" and kills him. Now he believes that the Promised Land is the planet itself, because his idea of the promised land is to absorb all of the Planet's Spirit Energy, thus becoming one with the planet, or the Planet himself.

The next time you see Sephiroth (or Jenova's headless body disguised as Sephiroth, but controlled by Sephiroth) is on the cruise on your way to Costa Del Sol. He speaks with you, flies out of the screen, and comes back in the screen as his true form. You then fight a battle against what it really looks like; Jenova's headless body, or "Jenova BIRTH." After the battle it gets away, and you go to Costa Del Sol.

The next two times you see Jenova's headless body is in the Neibelheim basement, and the Temple of the Ancients. In the Neibelheim basement, he tells you about the Jenova Reunion. In the Temple of the Ancients he tells you about his plan to become one with the planet.

Aeris (who is only half Cetra, the product of Proffessor Gast and Ilfana) goes to stop Sephiroth from summoning meteor, but gets killed. However she summons the ultamite summon of the planet, the opposite to Meteor, "Holy". But Holy is meant to rid the planet of everything evil, as Bugenhagen tells you.

Here's another moment in the game to prove that the Sephiroth you see is Jenova's headless body. You fight Jenova Birth, and she finishes the sentence for Sephiroth.

Anyways, we are leading up to a key moment in the game itself. The moment you reach the Northern Crater for the first time, and fight Jenova DEATH. Read this quote because it's the final evidence of Jenova's headless body:
He says that the body is outlasting its usefulness, therefore he send Jenova's headless body against you for one last fight, and you defeat it.
You also see Sephiroth killing the black cloaked men that have Jenova Cells, and thus, preventing the reunion from happening.

Now that the Headless Jenova body is defeated (but not killed, it can't truly be killed since it has no Spirit Energy to return to the planet, it's just out of the way), the Sephiroth you see in the illusion of the Neibelheim fire is PURE illusion.

Finally, Cloud gives Sephiroth the Black Materia, and Sephiroth summons the Meteor to fulfill his plan.

Now let's go to the final battle, the last boss: Sephiroth. This is the most brilliant part of the game. This perfectly portrays the opposition of Jenova Cells, and Spirit Energy. Remember that Sephiroth had two opposite intentions? The intention to make the reunion follow through and revive Jenova, and the opposing intention to absorb all of the Planet's Spirit Energy and become one with the planet. These oppositions are portrayed perfectly by Sephiroth's two final forms: Bizzaro Sephiroth, and Safer Sephiroth.
Let's look at Bizzaro Sephiroth: The setting takes place in the underworld, underneath the planet, and it looks so much like hell. It is an evil setting, and Sephiroth is an evil black demon. Like a guardian of hell, almost even the devil himself. Now look at the next battle: Safer Sephiroth, or "Savior Sephiroth." He is an angel, using holy magic, and it takes place in the clouds in heaven. Remember Sephiroth's salvation for the planet? Make it as the Promised Land itself, without the evil of Shinra.
Anyways, Bizzaro Sephiroth is the Sephiroth formed from all the Jenova cells in him, portraying his evil and dark side. Safer Sephiroth is the Sephiroth formed from all the Spirit Energy he absorbed, portraying the holy salvational side of Sephiroth.

Anyways, lets go back to the power of Spirit Energy. It allowed Sephiroth to mentally exist in Cloud's mind manipulating him. Well his Spirit Energy power was SO strong, let's see how strong it was.
When you beat Safer Sephiroth, he didn't die like all the other bosses (turning red). He literally EVAPORATED before your eyes! And that tells you one thing. Sephiroth is physically defeated. You got rid of his physical body. However, he still mentally exists. Using the power of Spirit Energy, he embedded himself in Cloud's mind SO much, that he was literally alive, mentally. He was mentally alive in Cloud's head. And he used Cloud throughout the game to take over his body. Throughout the game Cloud had a weak mind and was easily manipulated by Sephiroth.
But then the final battle occured. Cloud physically remained in the same spot, but Sephiroth called him within his mind, for a battle of wills: Sephiroth vs Cloud. Now Cloud went through character developement throughout the game, and his will became so strong that he defeated Sephiroth in his mind. Then the lifestream came, and Sephiroth dissipated into it. This shows you that all the Spirit Energy that Sephiroth stole from the planet was returned to it, and Sephiroth was finally no more.
But what would have happened if Sephiroth WON that battle? Sephiroth would have become Cloud's body. Cloud's physical body would have opened his eyes before Tifa, BEING Sephiroth! Sephiroth would take over Cloud's body, and then continue with his plan to absorb all the Spirit Energy of the planet becoming God, or the Planet itself. But Cloud defeated Sephiroth, and got rid of the last trace of him.

Now to the final part. Sephiroth was holding Holy captive, but it was released now. But it was released too late, and it failed to stop Meteor. Lifestream stopped meteor, and as we saw, Lifestream was lead by Aeris (it showed her face gleaming in the lifestream after she commanded it to get rid of the meteor). But let's back up a bit.
First of all, Holy was supposed to rid the world of all the bad things. Now remember, when I said that the power of Cetra was to communicate with the planet? Well Aeris hadn't her salvation to go to the Promised Land yet. First, her soul of Spirit Energy communicated with the planet, and the planet allowed her one last task before she goes to the Promised Land. The task was to get rid of Meteor. So Holy, being a summon of the Planet itself already KNEW what Lifestream will do, therefore it did something else. Cloud said, "Holy is having the opposite effect." That means instead of stopping Meteor, it is helping Meteor destroy Midgar. That is because Midgar is bad for the planet. Midgar has reactors sucking the Spirit Energy of the Planet, and Holy destroyed it. Then Lifestream came, lead by Aeris, and she destroyed Meteor.

And the end, where Nanaki sees Midgar as a green land, and hears the laughter of children notify you of two things: Humans weren't bad for the planet, only the Shinra company. Therefore Holy allowed them to survive. Also, Holy got rid of all the Mako production in Midgar, making it a land of pure green.

That is the story of Final Fantasy VII. The most fascinating part in my opinion, is Sephiroth's connection to Jenova, and the Planet. The two opposites. And how he himself portrayed the opposition of the two. Thanks for reading up to here, and I hope that those of you who didn't understand the story of FF7 are completely enlightened now.

Well, this was very good, I thought. It did clear some things up that I couldn't quite connect on my own. I think the problem most people had with understanding the story was 1. Skipping side things like Proffessor Gast's tapes in the snow village(forgot the name 2. Tried to make it overcomplicated 3.Can't read between the lines.

I've been playing FF7 regularly since the very day it was released in the US, and your post managed to FINALLY clear some questions up for me. Thanks for taking the time and effort to research the story.

Alot of the confusion comes from the fact that square altered the story several times during production, so some confusion was caused by simple lack of communication between programmers and writers.

however you did a remarkable job piecing everything together.

one thing that still stands out in my mind is that if in fact Cloud and Tifa were from Nibelheim, but when they got to Nibelheim it was still there, down to the last scrap of crap laying on the ground. My only theory is Hojo purposely rebuilding Nibelheim to cover his tracks. It also makes no mention of what Tifa was doing from the time Cloud moved her to the side away from sephiroth to the time you first saw her in the bar. The only way to make that condusive to my theory is that she was purposely moved by Shinra or Hojo delayed the rebuilding of Nibelheim so that any survivors would scatter.

Yeah, I'm a pretty avid...follower of the ff7 story, and was scouring your explanation to make sure there were no inconsistencies. Very well written! There were even some things and symbolism that I did not realise!

One question, though--I realise that the black-cloaked men were going to the north crater for the reunion...but there was more than one (seemingly real) Sephiroth, right? He was all over the place, and while one may have been jenova's headless body, I thought that the story was that most of them were the jenova-injected soldiers/people who were transforming and being "summoned" to the north crater, which explains how he was everywhere at once. Corrections?

That's not a theory, it's stated in the game. Shinra had it completely rebuilt.

Tifa's fighter teacher (I forgot his name) found her and took her to Midgar to get healed, and she stayed there since you can't leave Midgar (Easily that is).

Let me add more. This is completely about symbolism, and theme. This is actually just a copy-paste off another forum, but I wrote it so don't worry about that. I'm just saying this because you may see some things repeated, but this definately should give you a better understanding.

First off I will talk about the Cetra, and the Promised Land. The Cetra do not move from planet to planet, and I don't know who the hell came up with that. The Cetra were born from the planet as Aeris said in the following quote, but I want to make more points about that quote first. You see, what separates the Cetra from the Humans are knowledge. Long ago, Cetra were born, and they were born before humans. They migrated with the planet, and settled. That means that they let it be, they lived in forests. To migrate is to adapt to your environment. They did not cut down trees for shelter, and they especially did not steal any of the Spirit Energy from the Planet. Now because of their distinct knowledge of the Planet, they had the ability to communicate with the planet. Because the planet is a living being which I will establish later if you don't understand. But they communicated with the planet.
One day, half the Cetra decided that they don't want to migrate and settle with what the planet gives them, so they decided to build shelters. They harmed the planet by cutting down trees, destroying habitats, and worst of all, stealing Spirit Energy to produce Mako Energy and power their homes. Over the years, they have lost their knowledge of the Planet, and therefore they lost their connection with it. They de-evolved into humans.

Now onto the next point: The Promised Land. The Promised Land was misinterpreted by humans throughout the game. They thought for the longest time that it was in the north, where Mako Energy is gathered. This is why humans have no knowledge of the Planet, and they are lower than the Cetra. The Cetra knew that the Promised Land was not a physical place, but a mental place. A place of eternal happiness that only the Cetra could go to, not the humans. The REASON was because the Cetra are salvated humans. They are the race that knows about the Planet, and speaks with the planet. The humans have lost their salvation because they lost their connection with the planet, and truly stopped understanding what they were doing as they developed technology. The Promised Land is where the planet takes the soul of a salvated life once it dies, a mental existing place where you live among other salvated souls beyond the physical realm in a world of eternal happiness. The Planet did not allow this for humans because they turned on the planet and lost their knowledge.

And now, I will post two quotes which you will understand much better, now that you read my above paragraphs.




Now to get onto the next part. Spirit Energy. Spirit Energy is what makes this game unique because this is a world of philosophy. In our world, as science had shown us, the only form of energy comes in mass. Mass is energy. But Squaresoft is saying that what if there's a form of energy that has no mass? A mental energy. Spirit Energy.
In the world of Final Fantasy VII, the Planet is a being; a mental being. A being made entirely out of Spirit Energy. And Spirit Energy is the essence of life and wisdom. The Planet has a system of energy, and when life is born, the planet gifts them with Spirit Energy. This is what allows the lifeform to see, feel, and attain knowledge. It is what makes them life, and not just organisms. Spirit Energy is what separates the universe from just a void of floating materials.
In a way, the Planet is God. God is the essense that gifts people with life. Now of course, let's put a quote.

So this explains the Cetra's connection with the Planet, and how most of them lost it.

Now let's get to the next point. As there was a human-cetra conflict, we were gradually losing the salvation of mankind. Humans were de-purifying themselves. And then one thing came, and made it just about complete. Jenova. Jenova came and wiped out the Cetra, leaving only stupid humans left. I say stupid humans because now they have nobody to show them the path to salvation, and now they will continue to ignore their potential bond with the planet until the planet is dead. The only trace of Cetra left was a small line of the Cetra family, miniscule to the amount of humans there were taking over the world.

Now, let's skip to the reunion. Jenova's new child, or spawn: Sephiroth; was supposed to go through with the reunion and create Jenova. He of course, was stupid and naive at the time, thinking Jenova was a Cetra, and not truly knowing how to use his Jenova Cells (his magic was limited to the materia he had equipped.) But something happened that Jenova didn't plan on, he gained the knowledge of the Ancient, and the power of excess Spirit Energy. He gained the equivalent of perhaps 100 lives of Spirit Energy which not only made him powerful, but gave him the knowledge of the Ancients. So now he had two powers:
Jenova's power and,
the Planet's power.
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