Remaking Cetrans

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Maybe? I'm not a population geneticist. I know, for example, that certain medical conditions are more prevalent in certain ethnic groups, but having that condition doesn't confirm you as a member of that group and not having it doesn't exclude you.

There is this study of the maternal mitochondrial DNA and the paternal Y-chromosome in a very isolated (because very murderous) Amazonian tribe. But to the best of my knowledge, people who study this kind of thing are more interested in figuring out a map and timeline of how humans spread over the globe than they are in establishing genetic markers for race, which would feel uncomfortably close to eugenics.

Maybe the Cetra magic is in the mitochondria?

 

[waw]

Mitochondria would make some sense. Or it could be a brain switch like the OG jenova plan.

My only issue with saying Ifalna cell experiments failed is the time shinra took to kidnap aerith as well as Hojo's desire to breed her with SOLDIER.

 

[Tetsujin]

Apologies in advance but I'm gonna be that annoying pedantic guy to point out that they're referred to as Cetra, not Cetran/s
Cetran would imply they're from a place called Cetra but Cetra is not a place, it's a people.

 

[waw]

You know, I never caught that. Usually what would be the "Cetrans" form is "Ancients" and I shy away from that name as it always struck me as perjorative to a fictional race.

But I also never took "Cetrans" to mean from "Cetra." Instead, I've always viewed it as akin to "humans." A plural form. But I guess Cetra is a very Japanese word, both Plural and Singular.

 

[BlueCollarNerd]

Maybe the Cetra magic is in the mitochondria?

Sounds like parasite eve

I think the only reason they wish to preserve the cetra is to learn their skills in communicating with the planet to help them make gil someway.

Might be a little off topic but, is buganhagan close to becoming a cetra. He talks of hearing the planet crying. Or is that just all part of his machine.

 

[Clement Rage]

OG lore is that everyone was Cetra until some people stopped being nomadic. Maybe the Planet took away their powers.

Aeris can only hear the planet imperfectly in the old church and the Temple. If it could be learned, then Hojo would know how, he'd surely have kept a watch on Ifalna while she was captive.

Shinra's plan to make a Cetra was to find the Promised Land so they could put a reactor there. SOLDIER was a happy accident.

 

[Makoeyes987]

The Cetra are a race. Not everyone is or was a Cetra. People can sometimes hear the cries of the planet, but being Cetra is a specific race of humans. They're not everyone.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

The Cetra are a race. Not everyone is or was a Cetra. People can sometimes hear the cries of the planet, but being Cetra is a specific race of humans. They're not everyone.

Clement was remarking that everyone was Cetra in the past. That's what the game tells us.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Ahh okay. It's just a common misconception about the Cetra, that they aren't a race or anything lol

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

But what do we mean when we call them a race? They don't look physically distinct from anyone else. Ifalna and Aerith can blend right into a crowd. Regular humans are entirely descended from Cetras. They're the Ancients, the ancestors.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

OG lore is that everyone was Cetra until some people stopped being nomadic. Maybe the Planet took away their powers.

It's... a tad more complicated than this.

The only person who says this is Sephrioth while he's going crazy in the Nibelehim Incident. And even that is something he read out of the books in the Shinra Manor... which are of... questionable... authority at best. If not outright wrong in a lot of places.

Other than that we don't have anything to go off of about the difference between Cetra and "normal" humans from... an actual credible source. We know what the Cetra did and what they believed... but how they and "normal" humans interacted is never brought up anywhere else.

Sephiroth
You ignorant traitor. I'll tell you.
This Planet originally belonged to the Cetra. Cetra was a itinerant race. They would migrate in, settle the Planet, then move on...
At the end of their harsh, hard journey, they would find the Promised Land and supreme happiness.
But, those that disliked the journey appeared. Those who stopped their migrations built shelters and elected to lead an easier life.
They took that which the Cetra and the planet had made without giving back one whit in return!
Those are your ancestors.

Cloud
Sephiroth...

Sephiroth
Long ago, disaster struck this planet.
Your ancestors escaped... They survived because they hid.
The Planet was saved by sacrificing the Cetra. After that, your ancestors continued to increase.
Now all that's left of the Cetra is in these reports.

The bit about Cetra moving around and the bit about the Promised Land we know are right because Ifalna talks about it. As does on of the Elders in Cosmo Canyon. That the Cetra were fewer after the disaster is true... but because Jenova traveled around the world killing them.

The part about "normal" humans taking the Planet from the Cetra or stopping their migrations or leaving the Cetra? Nothing else is said about that in the entire OG again. We also don't know what "normal" humans did while Jenova was around either. So that part especially is... potentially problematic.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Potentially problematic in that Square Enix could decide to develop their canon in any direction.
It's funny that Sephiroth is still identifying with the Cetra at that point, or at least regards himself as on their side, and regular humans as the "traitors".
Don't any of the Ultimanias have anything to say about this?

 

[Makoeyes987]

Sephiroth didn't know better. He was working off the incorrect information of Professor Gast. It wasn't until he fell into the Lifestream that he learned the truth.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I thought he learnt from the library that Jenova was his mother. Or should I say, "mother". Obviously no mention of Lucretia in any of those records, lol. Hojo probably called her Incubator L. I guess no mention that Jenova is an alien in those records either.

I wonder how Cloud knows Sephiroth said those things. Zack must have told him.

 

[Odysseus]

Sephiroth already knew someone called "Jenova" was his mother, he was just told she died when he was born. The Library is where he found out he was a product of the Jenova experiment, though he wrongly believed she was a Cetra because that's what Gast thought.

wonder how Cloud knows Sephiroth said those things. Zack must have told him.

I've always been a bit confused on if he inherited Zack's memories because of Jenova, or if he just conflated what Zack told him with his own.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

The fandom in general seems unclear on that point. I've heard some people assert one thing, some the other.
Between Cloud's unreliable memory and Sephiroth's lying manipulativeness, it's hard to know what's true and what's false. Which is the point, I think.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Jenova cells can read minds and memories so they imprinted those memories of the event from Zack, onto Cloud's. It serves as the structure of his false persona.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Why would Jenova want to give Cloud Zack's memories? How is it in her interests, or Sephiroth's, to give him a false persona? This false persona is what enables him to function as an apparently coherent human being, and also helps him find the strength to resist Sephiroth/Jenova, and thus delay the Reunion. None of the other clones have false personas.

Isn't it equally probable that the Jenova treatments and mako poisoning only partly broke his mind, and his own psyche, struggling to survive, reconstructed a false persona out of his memories of Zack, whom it recognised as a stronger person than its original self.

 

[Odysseus]

I also think it's notable that Cloud only becomes "whole" after meeting Tifa again.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Jenova wasn't working to further any interests. It was instinctual. They mimic and served as the foundation for Cloud's personality when he was an empty shell. It wasn't until Sephiroth started manipulating and using Cloud that they actively started sabotaging Cloud's own existence.

The Jenova cells absolutely were what allowed Cloud to function and exist with tattered shreds of his persona. It's only until Sephiroth awakened that he exerted influence on Cloud and his cells. Cloud didn't have agency to do anything or reconstruct anything because he was mako poisoned. He was barely "there." A lot of his mind was buried.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Cloud can't have been an "empty shell", or Tifa wouldn't have been able to find the scattered bits of him and put them back together.

I like my own explanation more (i.e., that Cloud's fractured psyche adopted Zack's persona as a means of resisting the Jenova influence. Zack was a SOLDIER and he was 100% sane) but I am willing to accept that "The Jenova cells absolutely were what allowed Cloud to function and exist" if some evidence can be provided to support this.

 

[Makoeyes987]

An empty shell as in, an empty minded person. I meant Cloud didn't have any thoughts or anything most of his time while being carried by Zack. He was mako poisoned and almost a complete vegetable.

 

[waw]

The Zack-Cloud mind thing is quite interesting.

So, I don't know the real answer here but I can't help but notice that Jenova Cells connect Jenova-cell'd beings on some sort of telepathic level. I say this because we see the connection between Seph and all of his clones. We also know non-Seph clone SOLDIERs felt the pull of Jenova/Renuion in OG. We also see Genesis Copies seem to share his mind/intentions. Angeal's offshot things all seemed to have an Angeal Will/Imprint.

This leads me to believe that Jenovoids (tm) share a Noosphere in which they can all be overwhelmed by Jenova's native instinct. However, once beings grow with the J Cells, their sentience seems to be able to "battle" or struggle for dominance in the Noosphere. Theoretically, before the end of Crisis Core, I think Seph, Angeal, or Genesis could have become the dominant mind within Noosphere. That said, I think there can be pockets of minds and that Genesis wouldn't be overwhelmed by Sephiroth's dominant mind.

Julian May's writings actually get toward this, I think, if you're interested in an old school sci fi.

So if this explanation/understanding of the Jenovoid Hive Mind structure, I think it's entirely possible for Cloud to actually have Zack's memories telepathically imprint over his - that he can't tell what's real because he's really remembering and blending his and Zack's pasts together.

In this sense, I could see some form of Zack's mind helping to protect Cloud from Jenova/Sephiroth, similar to how Angeal seems to have protected Zack.

It's also interesting that Sephiroth doesn't awaken until Genesis seems to go dormant, which quite possibly could support the struggle for dominance in the Jenovoid Noosphere. "Curing" Genesis of Jenova (end of CC by Minerva) could cut Gen out of the noosphere and open the path for Sephiroth's dominance.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I can see how that would work within the lore, and tbh it does seem to be substantiated by AC, so I don't really have much of a leg to stand on here. However, my personal preference is that it's Cloud core resilience subconsicously drawing on his memories of Zack to make himself stronger, rather than some literally ethereal Zack melding with Cloud's psyche from beyond the grave in order to help him fight his battles.

 

[Sephiroth Crescent]

Back on the Cetra topic:

Could Sephiroth mimic the Cetra people as far as to conceivably deceit the Planet and become The One Chosen by the Planet to exert Destiny?
Just something random which came to my mind after your conversation.