"General" Sephiroth?

[The Twilight Mexican]

Yeah, look at Lazard. Dude's pretty far on his way.

Also, the term "SOLDIER Degradation" is identified as applying to G-Series SOLDIERs in general:

https://thelifestream.net/lifestrea...risis-core-complete-guide-keyword-collection/

https://thelifestream.net/lifestrea...sis-core-complete-guide-keyword-collection/2/

 

[Makoeyes987]

Genesis was defective at almost every possible level

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Genesis' Degeneration problems ironically stem from him having too little Jenova Cell/DNA integration with his own Cells/DNA. If it was more integraded... he wouldn't have degenerated. Angeal has more integration... but still not enough. Sephroth finally has enough.

Fortunately for the rest of SOLDIER... their Jenova Cells have whatever was done to Sephrioth's Jenova Cells done to them. So they don't degrade either even though they get Jenova Cells much later than Genesis, Angel and Sephrioth did...

 

[cold_spirit]

That's a really good summary @Obsidian Fire. Helped me understand the big deal CC makes about S-cells in the latter half of the story. Also explains why degradation isn't an issue in the OG and so on, never thought of that.

In fact, the last page or so of posts have helped me appreciate the tragic irony of Lazard's transformation and resolution, a character I basically forgot about. And I last played CC just two years ago lol

 

[Kuraudo.]

While it doesn't pinpoint the origin of the terms "Commander" and "General" in Sephiroth fanon, my theory has always been that it originates from people misremembering the English manuals' description of Sephiroth as an "Officer".

The English manuals (including North American, English European and PC version) all describe Sephiroth's job as "Top ranking SOLDIER officer". Notably, Sephiroth isn't referred to as an officer in any other material.

Spoiler: North American manual

View attachment 8481

Spoiler: English European manual

View attachment 8482

Of course this is merely my speculation and the fanon job title for Sephiroth could have easily spawned even without the presence of the English manuals.

That's interesting. Also On the official website it's "Top ranking SOLDIER officer"

https://finalfantasyviipc.square-enix-games.com/en

 

[Obsidian Fire]

It's also buried in the 10 Anniversary Ultimania's Term List

SOLDIER

「 FFVII – BC – CC – LO 」

Those who are injected with Jenova cells, and are exposed to high concentrations of mako to be made into the ShinRa Company’s enhanced soldiers. They are armed with superhuman strength and endurance, and although they possess amazing reflexes, it is rare to find people with the strength to handle the operation needed for the adaption, and occasionally those subjects who fail during the research stage fall victim to reckless human experiments. SOLDIERs are ranked from 1st, to 2nd, to 3rd according to combat efficiency, and included within 1st is Sephiroth, the figure ranked highest of all.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

it's odd, though, because in the Remake President Shinra - and Elmyra - seemed to hint that they believed all SOLDIERs degraded, or had their lives cut short. Elmyra talks about a 'trade-off', iirc.

 

[Odysseus]

I think the remake Ultimania went out of it's way to say that Cloud wouldn't, which makes it an odd tidbit to throw into the game.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Only the President mentions degrading, and it's in reference to Cloud being a deserter SOLDIER.

And the last time there was a mass SOLDIER dessertion was in Crisis Core... Which happened all on account on of a SOLDIER degrading.

Elmyra's "trade off" comment probably refers to how SOLDIERs gain power but become akin to freaks owned by Shinra.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I find it odd that we're assuming the President is so poorly briefed, he thinks Cloud is a Genesis deserter.
It really seems impossible for them not to know that Cloud is the "specimen" that escaped from Nibelheim. How could they not know that?

 

[Odysseus]

Remember that Cloud was reported as dead by the grunts who killed Zack. They have no reason to think it's him, except for Tseng who should definitely know it's him lol.

 

[Roger]

I feel there's a pretty big gap between understandably failing to connect him to the escapees from Nibelheim that year and deciding he's part of Genesis's troops deployed to Wutai 7 years ago. Cloud's not that old and quite crucially does not look physically identical to Genesis. Also the President says "this is classified off course but all SOLDIERs know the truth." To which Cloud replies "yeah". Again, the Genesis incident took place ages ago. There's a whole generation of SOLDIERs that surely joined up after Zack and Sephiroth were classified deceased that have no reason to be clued into this classified information that is no way pertinent to anything presently going on.

 

[cold_spirit]

It's super weird because President Shinra is seemingly referring to all SOLDIERS and the mere mention of this fact gets a reaction from Cloud, yet the Ultimania states it doesn't affect him or anyone else who appears in Remake. Plus it's not like G-Type SOLDIERS are relevant to the moment anyway. Really curious what the developer's intent with this is supposed to be. Wish I could read the Ultimania's exact wording.

I think the remake Ultimania went out of it's way to say that Cloud wouldn't, which makes it an odd tidbit to throw into the game.

Is this what you're remembering?

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1259027897773256708

 

[Odysseus]

Perhaps it's been retconned that G types are just a normal type of Soldier? Hojo mentions that some are still around, anyway, along with S types.

 

[Makoeyes987]

It's not a retcon, nothing at all comes close to confirming that. And that would be mentioned somewhere.

The G-Types they probably still have are more than likely G-Copies Hojo has as specimens.

Or...

It may be the Tsviets themselves. But I find that unlikely because they've never been referred to as G-Types, ever.

Those Failed Experiments could, for all we know, be all that's left of G-Copies that have been degraded and been experimented on by Hojo. Giving degrading G copies certain... Jenova cells.... Does cause horrible mutations, after all.

Also, I doubt President Shinra would care about the particular details of how SOLDIER works. He would not be abreast in real time of every development, especially since it doesn't directly involve profits. Look at how he treated Hojo in that executive meeting. He didn't care about the specifics of how Hojo would get what he wanted done. He just wanted results.

He's not the kind of person who cares about lore details.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Well, maybe, but I disagree. He seems to be an engineer by training, and engineers care about details.
Unless, of course, that museum photo is a deep fake.
In any case, I think he would care. He's not stupid. And he would know, unless Heidegger lied to him, which is perfectly possible.
That is to say, he may not want to hear about the specific details of the experiment Hojo plans to conduct on Aerith, but he would want to know whether ALL Shinra's SOLDIERs are going to degrade, or just that sub-section of them who deserted with Genesis and degraded because of the shit Genesis and Hollander did to them, not the shit Sinra did to them. I think he would want to know that.

 

[Cae Lumis]

Alternatively, while President Shinra himself may have been an engineer in his youth, power and time behind the executive's chair at the top of Shinra might have dulled his senses and ability to care about "trivial" subjects such as what S and G-Type SOLDIERs mean beyond their progenitor genetics.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

If I were leading that company, I wouldn't consider the potential degradation of my elite shock troops to be a trivial matter. If you think of the big CEOs today, do you think any of them would find it a trivial matter?

 

[Clement Rage]

Pretty longstanding plot hole. If anyone within shinra knows who Cloud is, they have no reason to keep it quiet.

Best explanation I've got is that Prez is deliberately being inaccurate to see if Cloud catches it as a test if he really is an unknown SOLDIER.

 

[waw]

Also, I doubt President Shinra would care about the particular details of how SOLDIER works. He would not be abreast in real time of every development, especially since it doesn't directly involve profits. Look at how he treated Hojo in that executive meeting. He didn't care about the specifics of how Hojo would get what he wanted done. He just wanted results.

He's not the kind of person who cares about lore details.

You really may be right about this, but I find that to be such an obtuse way of writing the character, I really hope you're wrong. Shinra is a megalomaniac. SOLDIER has had numerous problems including the mass desertion that threatened Shinra's very existence. If the President continues, at least by then, to ignore oversight and watching the program, he's a complete and utter idiot that shouldn't have been able to build his empire.

I feel there's a pretty big gap between understandably failing to connect him to the escapees from Nibelheim that year and deciding he's part of Genesis's troops deployed to Wutai 7 years ago. Cloud's not that old and quite crucially does not look physically identical to Genesis. Also the President says "this is classified off course but all SOLDIERs know the truth." To which Cloud replies "yeah". Again, the Genesis incident took place ages ago. There's a whole generation of SOLDIERs that surely joined up after Zack and Sephiroth were classified deceased that have no reason to be clued into this classified information that is no way pertinent to anything presently going on.

The Turks are the big issue here. They've likely seen Cloud, know Cloud was with Zack, and should be able to make that connection somehow to Zack. Even if it's just the sword. Reno and Rude should be able to make that connection. That sword is too legendary and connected to Angeal to just be on some random SOLDIER's hands. I don't know. This is a weird sort of plothole that I really don't feel comfortable with.

My headcanon solution:

1. The Turks know but they're holding that info internal because they have this weird loyalty/respect for Zack and we'll see that play out in more detail as Remake goes on. Tseng knows, at least, even if Reno and Rude don't.

2. We don't know that ALL Genesis-deserters went through the process, so it could be that throughout the past years, some survived or surfaced, etc. I could see the bulk of Shinra wondering if this is the case for Cloud.

3. No one is freaked out that there's a rogue SOLDIER. This means desertion, leaving Shinra, etc isn't too out of the norm. Probably cases beyond Genesis/retirement, etc. I'm not sure there's anything "forcing" a SOLDIER to remain in Shinra's employ other than the Turks probably hunt you down. But we do see other SOLDIERs retired and out of service in the compilation (thinking the guy in Nibelheim in Kids are All Right as well as Shopkeep in Junon.

4. The decay/degredation that the President and Elmyra reference is both a holdover from earlier materials (mako addiction) and a process that's probably just not yet touched upon. We don't yet see many old SOLDIERs, and most that go through active duty meet a crazy end that we see. Angeal, Genesis, Sephiroth, and Zack, according to official Shinra files, must point to them all going some manner of insane before their end. SOLDIER has a cost... sanity, life expectancy, potential Mako dependency, and more.

 

[Roger]

The Turks are the big issue here. They've likely seen Cloud, know Cloud was with Zack, and should be able to make that connection somehow to Zack. Even if it's just the sword. Reno and Rude should be able to make that connection. That sword is too legendary and connected to Angeal to just be on some random SOLDIER's hands. I don't know. This is a weird sort of plothole that I really don't feel comfortable with.

Would they? Zack didn't know what the deal with Angeal's sword was until the day he defected and only because he asked him personally and he had been mentorring under the guy for a long time, Angeal wrote a bunch of letters home about his new puppy. Reno and Rude are not shown to have that kind of relationship with Angeal, Zack or Cloud in his infantryman days. Cissnei and Tseng are explicietly on missions that require them to know this stuff in Crisis Core. I don't know anything was introduced that demands Reno and Rude know the Buster Sword is a unique weapon that one person alone carries. Zack is a plenty distinctive target Buster Sword or no.

 

[waw]

I think there's room for it to be fine, but it does require, for me, a peculiar suspension of disbelief. The Turks are shown to put the mission above all else, other than the very ending of BC when it comes to Veld and Felicia. They have files on folks (at least, in Last Order), and Tseng and Cissnei have details and engagements with Zack and Angeal, right?

It's odd to me that the connection can't be made by Reno and Rude unless Tseng is explicitly burying certain details to protect Zack, and therefore Cloud. It could help explain why the party never fought Tseng in all of OG FF7. I feel that Hojo FINALLY acted correctly in Remake until the Whispers show up in that one particular scene...

But if a secret agent is being deployed to handle a dangerous individual, it stands to reason they'd read up on that dangerous individual. Maybe not in their first encounter, but by the time the party leaves Midgar, Tseng should hand them a dossier on Cloud, which would contain info on the Buster Sword and/or an investigation into if Zack AND Cloud both really died outside Midgar. Those would be fine enough cutscenes as the Turks investigate just what is going on with Cloud and the party and piecing together the history, or something.

That said, in AC, Reno makes the comment about working with Cloud to restart SOLDIER.... At some point, they become aware of who and what he is, I think.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

I think it would be less Tseng specifically hiding info on Cloud... and more the Turks as a whole. Zack interacted with Tseng and Cissnei the most, but he interacted plenty with Rude and Reno too. And *all* the Turks were called out to hunt Zack down. They just... weren't doing it to take him back to Shinra by the end. They were doing it to get to him before Shinra so Shinra wouldn't kill him.

There's no way Reno doesn't recognize the Buster Sword. It only belonged to a SOLDIER that was second or third to Sephrioth in power and that SOLDIER's student who was crazy good himself. And both those individuals left Shinra and the Turks were involved in hunting them down.

What gets more complicated is the Turks' relationship to Shinra. They really don't like Heidegger or the rest of the Executives or President Shinra due to the events of Before Crisis. So them not sharing information they don't have to as a group is... honestly very in-character. The only person in Shinra they are really loyal to is Rufus, because Rufus pretty much lied to all of Shinra for them when he didn't have to. So the Turks have a very good reason to not help Shinra as much as they can get away with.

 

[Odysseus]

Reasons I wish the golden hilt had been maintained for the Zack scene in the remake: it would have created a paper-thin yet plausible reason for the Turks to not necessarily think it's the same sword.

 

[Cae Lumis]

If I were leading that company, I wouldn't consider the potential degradation of my elite shock troops to be a trivial matter. If you think of the big CEOs today, do you think any of them would find it a trivial matter?

In real life, we've seen plenty of rich and powerful men run corporate empires while having the brains of an incompetent and unable to plan further ahead than a quick buck. I can easily imagine the most powerful man in the world, who's Company is a literal empire and de facto rules the world to have a major case of Power Desensitizing his ability to care about the SOLDIERs in his employ. Some SOLDIERs from a certain Progenitor-Type deteriorate due to some issue from said Progenitor that causes them to either die or be sent to be made "useful" down in the bowls of DeepGround and can be easily replaced by the dozen or so hopefuls who willingly want to become a SOLDIER themselves as far as he's concerned, and how is he supposed to know at just a far-away glance what kind of SOLDIER-Type Cloud is? Outwardly, G and S type SOLDIERs probably look the same to him and in all likelihood AREN'T outwardly different from each other (and that's not even taking the dehumanizing helmets that further obscure their appearance into account).

In all likelihood, he brought up G-Type degradation in an attempt of a power move against Cloud by doing a "I know something you're hiding, your time on this Earth isn't that long and your resistance to Shinra is pointless, so why continue?" and having a 50/50 chance of being correct in his guess. If he's wrong and Cloud's actually a stable S-Type instead? Ah well, the giant mecha he's about to unleash will burn his body anyway.

Assigning chess-master levels of intelligence or our personal level of caring for details and minutia about SOLDIER to President Shinra is outright bizarre. We knew from the Original Game that President Shinra... tends not to care so much about details and instead values results. Between his dismissive interaction with Cloud in the Original Game's version of his confrontation with Avalanche before Airbuster, to his meetings with Reeve where he outright ignores the expert telling him that dropping the Sector 7 Plate is a terrible idea both ethically AND in terms of engineering/ infrastructure. When he wants something done or has a particular aim... he's going to ignore what others tell him. So, why would he care about the differences between two different genetic types of SOLDIER? That's Hojo's job, not his.

I think it would be less Tseng specifically hiding info on Cloud... and more the Turks as a whole. Zack interacted with Tseng and Cissnei the most, but he interacted plenty with Rude and Reno too. And *all* the Turks were called out to hunt Zack down. They just... weren't doing it to take him back to Shinra by the end. They were doing it to get to him before Shinra so Shinra wouldn't kill him.

There's no way Reno doesn't recognize the Buster Sword. It only belonged to a SOLDIER that was second or third to Sephrioth in power and that SOLDIER's student who was crazy good himself. And both those individuals left Shinra and the Turks were involved in hunting them down.

What gets more complicated is the Turks' relationship to Shinra. They really don't like Heidegger or the rest of the Executives or President Shinra due to the events of Before Crisis. So them not sharing information they don't have to as a group is... honestly very in-character. The only person in Shinra they are really loyal to is Rufus, because Rufus pretty much lied to all of Shinra for them when he didn't have to. So the Turks have a very good reason to not help Shinra as much as they can get away with.

Couldn't have said it better myself.