Kieron_ODuibhir
Sinister Amanuensis
- AKA
- TrisakAminawn
I always saw Jenova's contamination style as a sort of supercharged retrovirus. And those can totally hijack your DNA to write themselves into your living self and far more into your kids. In fact one of the main ways actual genetic modifications to living cells in real life are achieved is by hacking retroviruses and letting them do the more complex work of hacking the eukaryotes in question.
Gaian cloning technology is not nearly as advanced as ours and as far as I can tell they just injected cells and hoped for the best and look at that these 'Ancient' cells rewrite the cells of adult organisms. I wonder how effective they'd be at an embryonic stage! (If monsters are all the result of the Virus then maybe monster DNA sometimes works this way too but less so? What did Hojo even do to Vincent's body, after all.)
I think the phase of the Jenova Project Cloud got roped into was in part Hojo seeing if Jenova's genetic reprogramming ability had been inherited by Sephiroth in such a way that his cells could rewrite people into him, instead of just passing on the Jenova contamination faithfully. Results: inconclusive. Genesis and Angeal had inherited that part, though.
I've sort of assumed the reason Sephiroth is so far ahead of the pack in terms of assimilating that level of Jenova and mako without physical issues is that 1) Lucretia was on the Project, Lucretia is really good at energy systems and 2) Because her cells were infiltrated by Jenova before he was conceived, he inherited her in his mitochondrial DNA and so on and never had to adapt to the retroviral alterations because they'd always been there.
Genesis' clones weren't made in test tubes--they were approximately 1/3 of the SOLDIER department. (Who I will never ever believe consented to having their identities overwritten to become his mindslaves.) And when Genesis tests to see if Zack's S-cells after Hojo's experiments will help with his condition, he does it by feeding Zack's hair (with some actual cells at the root i assume for my sanity) to one of his clones.
Which becomes a ravening monster. Exactly how Jenova contamination plays out in any given case appears to vary wildly and may be partly dependent on her will, at least once the concentration is high enough, but I tend to assume that transformation there was an approximate example of what The Virus was and how it happened. The monsters probably contaminated the wounds of anyone who survived their attacks, and the whole thing had an expansion pattern like your average zombie apocalypse. As has been discussed elsewhere, contagion that relies on direct physical contact is not very efficient as diseases go, so a real zombie apocalypse won't move very fast. But like a sort of super-rabies, it would be hard to stamp out without immunization, either, once it spread beyond a certain limited space.
Which is why Jenova softened the Cetra up and got to know them by haunting them before 'appearing as a friend' and 'giving them the virus.' She had to make sure to spread it to a lot of people in the initial incubation period so the contagion couldn't be contained.
So yeah, I don't think there are any stringent laboratory needs for Jenova contamination. I think it and the Virus that destroyed the Cetra are the same thing. Hojo just medicalized it and combined it with mako injections to make SOLDIER.
Gaian cloning technology is not nearly as advanced as ours and as far as I can tell they just injected cells and hoped for the best and look at that these 'Ancient' cells rewrite the cells of adult organisms. I wonder how effective they'd be at an embryonic stage! (If monsters are all the result of the Virus then maybe monster DNA sometimes works this way too but less so? What did Hojo even do to Vincent's body, after all.)
I think the phase of the Jenova Project Cloud got roped into was in part Hojo seeing if Jenova's genetic reprogramming ability had been inherited by Sephiroth in such a way that his cells could rewrite people into him, instead of just passing on the Jenova contamination faithfully. Results: inconclusive. Genesis and Angeal had inherited that part, though.
I've sort of assumed the reason Sephiroth is so far ahead of the pack in terms of assimilating that level of Jenova and mako without physical issues is that 1) Lucretia was on the Project, Lucretia is really good at energy systems and 2) Because her cells were infiltrated by Jenova before he was conceived, he inherited her in his mitochondrial DNA and so on and never had to adapt to the retroviral alterations because they'd always been there.
Genesis' clones weren't made in test tubes--they were approximately 1/3 of the SOLDIER department. (Who I will never ever believe consented to having their identities overwritten to become his mindslaves.) And when Genesis tests to see if Zack's S-cells after Hojo's experiments will help with his condition, he does it by feeding Zack's hair (with some actual cells at the root i assume for my sanity) to one of his clones.
Which becomes a ravening monster. Exactly how Jenova contamination plays out in any given case appears to vary wildly and may be partly dependent on her will, at least once the concentration is high enough, but I tend to assume that transformation there was an approximate example of what The Virus was and how it happened. The monsters probably contaminated the wounds of anyone who survived their attacks, and the whole thing had an expansion pattern like your average zombie apocalypse. As has been discussed elsewhere, contagion that relies on direct physical contact is not very efficient as diseases go, so a real zombie apocalypse won't move very fast. But like a sort of super-rabies, it would be hard to stamp out without immunization, either, once it spread beyond a certain limited space.
Which is why Jenova softened the Cetra up and got to know them by haunting them before 'appearing as a friend' and 'giving them the virus.' She had to make sure to spread it to a lot of people in the initial incubation period so the contagion couldn't be contained.
So yeah, I don't think there are any stringent laboratory needs for Jenova contamination. I think it and the Virus that destroyed the Cetra are the same thing. Hojo just medicalized it and combined it with mako injections to make SOLDIER.