Jenova Cells Can't be "Erased"

[Gym Leader Devil]

Just keep telling yourself that NB.

 

[Max Payne]

You just can't handle being schooled by Bahamut's mad logic skills sonny

 

[Gym Leader Devil]

Yeah, that must be it. I'm such a delusional fool, curses upon you for making me face the truth Dacon!

*tries and fails to keep a straight face*

So, I hear NB got banned, is that right? NB, if you're reading this, and that is true facts, I know you can't reply right now. But I miss ya buddy, you gave me many good lulz in this thread. As Johnny said to the Devil in the classic "Devil Went Down to Georgia," you come back if you ever wanna try again.

 

[Theozilla]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but I figured it was most appropriate to do so rather than create a new thread.

But basically my issue is that even after reading through the thread I am still a little uncertain on what's canon info.
But my question is this: is the overall consensus that Cloud post-ACC and anyone who was cured of Geostigma no longer have any Jenova cells in their bodies? And therefore in DoC, the people that DEEPGROUND did not abduct and instead killed, were individuals who either still had Geostigma (for some reason) and/or had been exposed to Jenova cell-infected Lifestream but never developed Geostigma symptoms (so they never had any reason to think they needed a cure)?

 

[Mariketsu]

For your DoC question: all the people that were shot or mauled by 'guard dogs' were all apparently Stigma-infected, based on their scan-readings. As for people who still had the Stigma, it kind of seemed to me the Great Gospel mainly healed those in and around Edge at the end of ACC (as well as the pool of water in the church). While it seems kind of odd (and didn't make much sense to me, going by what the film showed), there are still quite a lot of infectees around the planet, seeing as the Novellas stated there were victims as far as Wutai and such.

~ Raz

 

[Theozilla]

For your DoC question: all the people that were shot or mauled by 'guard dogs' were all apparently Stigma-infected, based on their scan-readings. As for people who still had the Stigma, it kind of seemed to me the Great Gospel mainly healed those in and around Edge at the end of ACC (as well as the pool of water in the church). While it seems kind of odd (and didn't make much sense to me, going by what the film showed), there are still quite a lot of infectees around the planet, seeing as the Novellas stated there were victims as far as Wutai and such.

~ Raz

But would the "Stigma-infected" only include those who had Geostigma symptoms, or would it also include those who had been exposed to/infected by the Jenova cell-tainted Lifestream (during Meterofall) but never developed Geostigma symptoms (which I assume there could be be a lot of)?

Because yeah, it would seem kind of odd if it only included the former (which I would think there are less of), because if someone started showing symptoms of the stigma would they want to travel to Edge/Aerith's church to get cured as soon as possible (this is also assuming that curing Geostigma rids the body of Jenova cells, which would presumably mean the cured wouldn't register on the scanners; unless being cured didn't remove Jenova cells then even cured people would register on scanners right?).
I wonder if Edge became like a place of pilgrimage for the remaining infectees around the world?

 

[Starling]

Degradation aside, Jenova cells seem pretty benign when outside sources aren't involved. In ACC they made a point that Geostigma was caused by Sephiroth's will affecting Jenova cells people were exposed to through tainted lifestream. I figured curing Geostigma was more about removing Sephiroth's influence than about removing Jenova cells. It's likely anyone who had Geostigma is considered impure for Deepground's purposes even if they got cured, like how sometimes people who've had some disease essentially still have it but have become immune to it. It's worth noting that Vincent shows up as purple and nothing is specifically said about what that's supposed to mean in this context.

Personally, I think everyone who had Geostigma would go get cured as soon as possible, probably by either going to the church and the water being sent to places with people who still have it. There's no way anyone wouldn't get themselves cured in the time between ACC and DoC.

 

[Theozilla]

Degradation aside, Jenova cells seem pretty benign when outside sources aren't involved. In ACC they made a point that Geostigma was caused by Sephiroth's will affecting Jenova cells people were exposed to through tainted lifestream. I figured curing Geostigma was more about removing Sephiroth's influence than about removing Jenova cells. It's likely anyone who had Geostigma is considered impure for Deepground's purposes even if they got cured, like how sometimes people who've had some disease essentially still have it but have become immune to it. It's worth noting that Vincent shows up as purple and nothing is specifically said about what that's supposed to mean in this context.

Personally, I think everyone who had Geostigma would go get cured as soon as possible, probably by either going to the church and the water being sent to places with people who still have it. There's no way anyone wouldn't get themselves cured in the time between ACC and DoC.

Interesting, so you think then that Cloud and Denzel (and other cured Geostigma victims) still contain, albeit harmless now, Jenova cells in their body post ACC then?
I personally don't know what to think, based on this thread history Squall_of_SeeD seemed pretty convinced that Jenova were removed/destroyed upon curing, while Neo Bahamut (who got banned apparently) seemed convinced they weren't, either scenario I think can fit with the DoC scanner/abduction plot points

As for Vincent showing up purple (the other colors were red/green IIRC) on the scanner I think that was indicative of his weird physiology (plus Chaos) and I don't believe Vincent had Jenova cells injected into him IIRC.

 

[Starling]

I don't think Vincent has Jenova cells but his unique colour means they could say out of nowhere that he does and the scanner image wouldn't confirm or deny it. The most likely explanation is indeed that having Chaos somehow grants him unique classification or that he's marked differently because he's a target they want for a different purpose, considering they're pursuing him with knowledge of the experiments that were done on him. If the civilians didn't have their blood types listed, I'd figure that was why they knew his. I have no idea how a scanner is supposed to detect that kind of thing.

Like I said before, there are real life cases of people being asymptomatic carriers of pathogens, one of the best known being Typhoid Mary. In the case of Jenova cells as we've seen them, they don't seem to be capable of spreading unless directly injected into someone or through direct contact with lifestream containing it, which makes you wonder how it spread among the Cetra when Jenova was properly active.

Another similar real life example is that there are bacteria that are opportunistic, in that they're relatively harmless unless something causes them to get out of hand, such as a suppressed immune system following a different illness or something upsetting the normal bacterial flora found in your gut. This happens to be why stress, exhaustion and cold weather makes people more prone to illness and why you shouldn't take vaccines when sick.

I've read through the thread a while back and remember being dissatisfied with the discussion in some way, though I don't think I have time to reread the whole thing until tomorrow. I know that regardless of any issue with Neo Bahamut, he raised some fair points.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Jenova Cells mixed with Mako are pretty much "powers as the plot demands" as far as FFVII goes. However, what is consistent is that both are needed for the crazy Jenova effects to be activated.

Here's a summation of the people we know have Jenova Cells and Mako in them and what it does...

Lucrecia has J-Cells and Mako and who knows what else... somehow this cocktail makes her extremely ill and makes it hard for her to kill herself either during or after her pregnancy.

Gilian had some sort of J-Cell experimentation going on. We don't know what type, but it happened. No adverse effects are mentioned though and it's the lack of effects (good or bad) that causes Hollander to think his experiments with J-Cells failed.

Sephiroth has J-Cells from Lucrecia and mako and whatever else Hojo has done with him. He's got a crazy reaction/syniergy with Jenova's original body as well as anyone with his Jenova cells in them. He's also been within the Lifestream and has a lot of control over Mako/Lifestream that has his taint within it. Things he can do with the J-Cell/mako mixture include controlling Jenova's old body and getting into the heads of people with his cells in them. He doesn't seem to be able to copy his own cells/DNA into people like Angeal and Genesis can.

All SOLDIERs have some mixture of J-Cells and mako in them. Aside from being stronger then normal people are, there aren't any adverse effects until other strains of J-Cells get introduced to their systems. Interestingly, it's not the the J-Cells that put a limit on who gets to be SOLDIERs but the mako...

Angeal and Genesis have J-Cells/DNA via Gilian, but they were effectively dormant until both of them went into SOLDER and got exposed to the J-Cells and mako that are involved in making SOLDIERs. Then the integration of Jenova's DNA into their own starts breaking down... They can copy their own cells/DNA into people/animals (and Angeal can do this in reverse), but this comes at the cost of degrading their own DNA.

As far as I can tell, Cloud doesn't have Jenova-Cells as much as he's got Sephiroth's cells, and a hefty dose of mako.

Hojo... who knows what the heck he did to himself... It's pretty obvious though that it involves Jenova, mako and a whole lot of other stuff.

Technically speaking, DEEPGROUND never actually plays around with Jenova-Cells. Instead it plays around with a lot of mako and the cells of people who have been exposed to Jenova.

It's worth mentioning that FFVII makes a difference between J-Cells and the cells of people who have been exposed to J-Cells. Sephrioth's cells have a lot of the same effects that J-Cells do, but not all those effects. The effects of Jenova seem to get watered down as they copy themselves into other beings as well and it seems that the attributes need to be "jumpstarted" with mako for them to be fully developed.

Geostigma is what happens when the Lifestream/Mako inside of people goes into overdrive trying to get rid of the J-Cells/Serphiroth-Cells inside of them. If anything's it's kinda like an auto-immune disease.

And we've hit headcannon territory...

Personally, I think that most of the J-Cells abilities all go back to their ability to copy stuff (whether that be DNA, thoughts, memories, etc.) from one being to another. Probably to keep themselves from dying out. In order to do this, they need an energy source, like the Lifestream. Because everyone is different, no attempt to copy Jenova's abilities into another living being is going to go the same way. Especially with the energy (mako) levels all being different.

The Lifestream, meanwhile is trying to keep itself from being taken over by the J-Cells. So it's trying to get rid of them via Geostigma. Unfortunately, there's to many J-Cells (or people with parts of J-Cells in them) for the Lifestream to completely get rid of it without killing a bunch of people. Personally I think the cure for Geostigma wasn't so much that the Lifestream/Aerith got rid of the J-Cells so much as it was getting the J-Cells to not be working against the Lifestream by killing the mental force behind the J-Cells, which is Sephiroth. After all, Cloud doesn't loose any of the abilities he got from Sephrioth/Jenova, his body just stopped fighting against those parts of him...

But that's all headcannon, a lot of which is based on how in real life, the closest thing to Jenova's copying mechanism sounds a lot like the way a virus takes over normal cells. You can't just get rid of DNA in cells; if anything, that DNA gets copied over into any new cells that split off from the infected one. Fortunately in real life, those infected cells usually get killed off by the bodies immune system or they just die. But given that J-Cells have an actual mind behind them... I wouldn't put it past them to get the Lifestream to not notice them until they became an actual threat. Which is pretty much what happened with the Cetra anyway...

*sigh*

All this world-building talk is making me think I should write out my headcannon of Vincent's experimentation from the Lifestream's pov...

 

[Starling]

Actually, viruses in real life function by entering compatible cells, discarding their outer shell and getting the cell to replicate the viral components without incorporating the host cell's genetic material, often until it bursts. If the virus fails to get the host cell to replicate anything, the infection stops right there. Because of the virus' inability to reproduce on its own, it generally isn't considered alive. Retroviruses essentially insert their code into the cell's DNA, causing it to replicate it as part of its own genetic code. At this stage it's termed a provirus and may remain in that state for a while before being replicated in actual viral form. This kind of virus can remain in a host organism indefinitely and can be found in human genetics dating quite a while back.

There are multiple kinds of viruses, which are specialized to infect particular cells, bacteria (bacteriophage) or even other viruses (virophage). Some have extra layers that make them more difficult to eliminate, much like certain types of bacteria can encapsulate their genetic material in a dormant state that makes them extremely difficult to properly get rid of. Viruses can contain either DNA or RNA and hijack cells by taking over the DNA/RNA transcription process in order to synthesize the proteins it's made of.

Spoiler: Diagrams on viral replication

In bacteria:

In cells:

Retroviruses:

Since Jenova cells are referred to as cells and treated as alive despite also being called a virus, I figured it could be a parasitic cell that behaves similarly but not quite like a retrovirus, in that it integrates itself into the host cell and risks losing lesser elements while assimilating new genetics from the host as a means of quickly adapting to a wide variety of organisms. Parasitic organisms need to be able to propagate faster than they can kill their hosts or else they go extinct, which is why less lethal ones tend to be more successful and the worse ones are highly contagious. As a fictional entity capitalizing on the horror of an unknown, planet destroying alien that wiped out an entire civilization, Jenova doesn't quite seem to behave like a conventional parasite.

For one thing, Jenova is a parasite on a planetary scale presumably capable of living indefinitely while continuously adding to itself through the infection of the local population. Since it's capable of copying, shapeshifting and imitating others, it's likely to integrate whatever useful traits it can get, allowing it to adapt to each planet's population and consume the planet's lifestream.

On a cellular level, Jenova presumably behaves similarly but not quite like a retrovirus, integrating itself into an individual's and effectively becoming part of it but not to create separate viruses, as it likely needs something more complex to be able to act the way it does. While there appears to be some kind of telepathic network meant to control its cells across several hosts through the main body, the cells seem to act symbiotically with the host if left without direction, if the various abilities it's granted are any indication. The cost of its ability to adapt to various individuals is that it's more prone to developing different strains with different aspects of Jenova's original abilities the longer it's left to branch out from its source, though it presumably has some means of preserving key aspects of itself given the cells may have some level of autonomy from the main body.

Applying that to my observations of the compilation, individuals born with Jenova cells best integrate the core aspects of the cells, allowing them to use whatever traits they inherited in much the same way Jenova presumably did. When Sephiroth was tossed into the reactor with Jenova's head, he integrated Jenova cells from the main body and effectively became whatever Jenova is in a matter that makes them functionally the same entity as far as controlling Jenova cells go.

Angeal and Genesis inherited a different aspect of Jenova's abilities, which in Genesis' case was flawed in a way that made him only capable of passing on his traits without copying off of others, which somehow led to his degradation. While this can't be verified, there's a good chance that G cells are different enough that Sephiroth wouldn't have been able to exert his influence on them, what with their copying and Sephiroth's lack of that ability. From what I understand the lack of copying ability in Sephiroth's case may simply be in terms of overwriting an individual's traits with another's to the extent of making exact copies rather than simply altering people in the manner seen in SOLDIER.

Regarding Geostigma, it was specifically noted that Sephiroth was a key factor in its occurrence since it never occurred before his death in the OG. Sephiroth is basically willing it to happen. Even though symptoms of an illness can be the body's attempts to get rid of a pathogen, they still tend to have a particular purpose. For example, fevers are the body trying to raise its temperature high enough to hinder pathogens with temperature preferences and raise efficiency of functions more effective at those temperatures. Autoimmune problems tend to involve things like exaggerated reactions to otherwise harmless things (anaphylactic shock, destruction of healthy cells due to seeing them as abnormal) or inability to properly respond to threats due to the autoimmune system being rendered insufficient or entirely useless (HIV, anything involving lack of white blood cells). If there's a legitimate threat beyond a normal immune system's capability of dealing with, the immune system isn't really the main issue. With that in mind, Geostigma likely works by Sephiroth directing Jenova cells to behave like a pathogen, forcing the body to respond accordingly and be unable to do anything about it until the body is exhausted and the individual dies, at which point Sephiroth gathers the negativity he generated for his negative lifestream. It seems to fit the definition of an autoimmune disease due to involving the body attacking its own tissue but I often feel like people pay too much attention to that aspect of it and forget it's not just about the body hindering itself. It's like if someone grafted a bunch of foreign tissue into someone, it properly integrated and then someone else goes and does something that causes the body to try to reject it, except in this case the autoimmune system is the person's internal lifestream fighting their entire body in an attempt to avoid being dragged into Sephiroth's negative lifestream.

All this world-building talk is making me think I should write out my headcannon of Vincent's experimentation from the Lifestream's pov...

If you feel like you can write that fic, do it. I'd love to read that.