Sephiroth, Genesis and Angeal

[The Twilight Mexican]

I think Angeal's mom, Gillian, had a lot to do with it. This is all headcanon but she wanted her experiment to surpass Hojo's, right? So I could see her pushing, prodding, and urging li'l Angeal and Genesis to be jealous/aware of Sephiroth and push them to surpass him.

It was precisely the opposite. She didn't want Angeal to have anything to do with Shin-Ra or SOLDIER, and refused to give him permission to even take classes from Shin-Ra -- but he followed his friend in despite all this when the time came.

We know how it goes from there.

Where was Jenova found, do we know? It's supposed to be in the geological strata of 2000 years ago, but wouldn't the meteor strike mess up all the strata?

But the accumulated sediment since then would comprise a 2000-year old geological stratum, and that's how the one Jenova was found in was described.

 

[Clement Rage]

She appears to have been found somewhere on the Northern continent, but the North Cave itself and the glacier are ridiculously dangerous, and the Forgotten City is forgotten. So where does that leave us? Post Meteor strike, the whole continent is probably on fire.

We know the Cetra gathered, and Jenny started killing them all before eventually being stopped. Is there any more information?

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Jenova left the Northern Crater to hunt down the other Cetra Groups. She didn't *stay* there.

TKAA reveals that Jenova used Mimic (her power to make people see things that aren't there and to see her as something else) against the Cetra. She would tell them things they needed to hear to make them suspcioius of other Cetra and they all became paranoid and fought each other. The Cetra "dying out" is less Jenova killing them directly and more her setting them all against each other. Asside from his, she also passed on her Cells to them and turned them into monsters... probably something like... Jenova Copies... given what we see when that happens with Sephiroth, Genesis and Angeal Copies.

Somehow, a group of Cetra managed to figure out what was going on and got Jenova up to the Northern Crater where she first landed and sealed her there. How that happened, we don't know. It *seems* like this is when Shiva would have frozen the Northern Crater over into the Great Glacier.

What I find rather interesting about both the OG and TKAA is that they give the impression that the Cetra were just as... prone... to falling prey to Jenova's illusions and virus as humans are today. Just because they were Cetra and had a much stronger bond/relationship to the Planet didn't give them some special insight or immunity into what Jenova is. They still were fooled by her illusions as much as Cloud and Co. are by Sephiroth's illusions.

And Jenova's illusions that got to the Cetra were to the effect that... they become suspicious of the other Cetra Tribes until they fought each other and killed each other off over... *something*. Which... implies there was something more to the Cetra than just "taking care of the Planet". Something that they cared enough about to kill each other over... I am... rather curious as to what that was and if we'll maybe find it out in Remake.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

It was precisely the opposite. She didn't want Angeal to have anything to do with Shin-Ra or SOLDIER, and refused to give him permission to even take classes from Shin-Ra -- but he followed his friend in despite all this when the time came.

To add to this... Gillian is Lucrecia if Lucrecia *succeeded* in getting out of the Jenova Project with Sephiroth. Gillian managed to get out of Shinra with her kid that she had with the project head. And then got married to a decent man and managed to live a quiet life right up until the end when she committed suicide rather than deal with what she had done to her son (and his best friend). Like... Gillian is a *way* bigger Karma Houdini than Lucrecia is. She never has to deal personally with the fallout of any of her decisions while her son has to deal with the fact that she killed herself out of guilt... of course... the *main* reason Gillian got to do this was because everyone thought Angeal was a *failed* Cetra Clone. Shinra had no more use for Gillian or Angeal after that, so they didn't see a need to keep either of them in an active Science Department.

Like... Lucrecia and Gillian are pretty much foils of each other (really, every one involved with Project S and Project G is of each other). One of them feels horribly guilty, tries to fix what she *can* fix and then *can't* kill herself out of guilt afterwards, so she goes into the middle of nowhere to mourn that she never got to be a mom to her kid. The other gets to be a mom to her kid, never tells him the truth and never tries to fix anything, and succeeds in killing herself out of guilt... right when she *might* have a chance to try to fix something.

The two people who are really fighting over the Jenova Project are Hojo and Hollander after Gast leaves. Hojo wins because Sephiroth is a "successful" example of a cloned Cetra, while Genesis and Angeal are not. How... enthusiastic the woman involved with the projects were to be in them... and how they *came* to be in them is... less clear.

Gillian at least is *still* remembered around the Science Department as being a good looking scientist who was working on a project to clone Cetra. Lucrecia is never brought up. Gillian also seems to have either done or had done experiments on herself when she *wasn't* pregnant. And Genesis was born before Angeal was. So there's a decent argument to make that Gillian might have been more on board than Lucrecia was given her kid wasn't involved in the project from the get-go. It was only later once Gillian got pregnant with Hollander's kid that the Project seems to have looked at if Angeal was a Cetra Clone or not. So... all signs point towards Gillian being involved with the project that bears her name in a lot more... equal sense than Lucrecia was. Like Gillian was really involved with it herself and was experimenting on herself rather than really experimenting on Angeal... Which didn't stop her from having second thoughts *later*... but still... that's... quite a bit different than how Lucrecia seemed to have gotten involved.

 

[waw]

Right, we have this weird storyline in which Jenova wipes out a good chunk of the Cetra, almost the whole race... but also is frozen/in stasis at least somewhat near where it first landed.

Personally, it makes sense that Hojo has some purpose to suppose his Reunion Theory, right? So it would make sense, in some way, if Jenova/the virus spread over the planet killing most of the life, and then reunion'd around the Northern Crater where it was sealed by the Cetra remnants.

*Yes, Hojo could have this theory just from studying Jenova cells.

Thanks for the further thoughts on Gillian. Being someone working in a company town, I've honestly had a hard time understanding what's real vs. the facade of her.

 

[Clement Rage]

The question then becomes how the hell Gast talked people into funding an archeological dig which involves hiking across a glacier, scaling a sheer cliff, setting up camp in a crater full of black dragons and Malboro long enough to find Jenova and cart her all the way back.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

On the companies dime with a lot of money backing it.

Shinra was *very* interested in the Cetra once upon a time because of their ability to open up the surface of the Planet so Liestream could gush out. Shinra wanted to bring the Cetra back so Shinra could utilize that ability to make mako reactors more cheaply... by not having to drill *down* where there was mako through all that earth.

So a site with possible Cetra remains? Would have been invaluable to them.

 

[Odysseus]

I have been under the assumption for a while that the JENOVA project was part of the president's efforts to find the promised land, and that Sephiroth was born in an effort to create a new Cetra to lead them there. Once they realized she wasn't what they thought she was, they started using her cells for other purposes.

I'm saying all that because it's an assumption I was making, but now I'm not sure if that reason for the project is actually supported by canon. I don't remember hearing the idea that they wanted Ancients to raise the lifestream to the surface for them to more cheaply make reactors before, nut I'm probably forgetting something.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Crisis Core explicitly stated that was the purpose in the notes found in Mako Reactor 5 in Chapter 4.

It is now an undisputed fact that the life form excavated from the Earth is indeed of the ancient race spoken of in legend. Furthermore, history records that these 'Ancients' channeled the power of this planet to tear the earth asunder. Using the cells of the unearthed Ancient, we have begun research on creating and mass-producing a race with comparable abilities. The primary objective of this research is to significantly reduce mako excavation costs.

That was the original purpose of the Jenova Project.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

One issue is that Shinra didn't find out Jenova *wasn't* a Cetra until like... at least five years after Sephiroth was born, (maybe even more like ten years). So the Jenova Project was already largly over and done with and had a clear "successful" Cetra Clone by the time Hojo found out what Jenova actually was. And by then... Sephiroth would be somewhere between five and ten years old and who knows how long SOLDIER in it's current form would have been going on...

The actual documents are in CC... in a very overlooked section as nothing interesting/emotional is happening on screen. It's just Zack and Sephiroth looking through a bunch of Hollander's papers in Reactor 5. During Chapter Three while Genesis is invading Midgar...
---------------------------------------------------------------
Sephiroth
These are...highly confidential research documents
that Hollander stole.
The stolen documents were in regard to "Project G,"
"Degradation," and "Ancients."
Some of them may have been left here.
Search this area carefully.

Report
"Project G - Summary"
Objective: Implant the cells of an Ancient into
a human fetus to imbue said fetus with the
Ancient’s abilities.

[insert other stuff here]

Report
"The Ancients Project - Outline"
It is now an undisputed fact that the life form
excavated from the earth is indeed of the
ancient race spoken of in legend.
Furthermore, history records that these "Ancients"
channeled the power of this planet to tear the
earth asunder.
Using the cells of the unearthed Ancient, we have
begun research on creating and mass-producing
a race with comparable abilities.
The primary objective of this research is to
significantly reduce mako excavation costs.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Fun note here! So about the "tear the earth asunder" line...

In the OG, Aerith uses a similar term when she says the Cetra "unlock the Planet". The term used for "unlock" is a *lot* broader than just "unlock" though... It's more a general term for "to open up" in both a literal and figurative sense. So it should be more like... "The Cetra open the Planet up."

In CC, the term for "tear the earth asunder" is a similar concept, but narrower in scope. It's specifically about cutting something open, or cutting/clearing a path through something. So there's an aspect of... force... involved that wasn't there in the OG.

 

[Clement Rage]

Shinra can't already know about the crater, though, because then they would already know about how much raw mako was there and wouldn't be so surprised that it was the promised land.

NEW HEADCANON RULINGl: Jenny was dug up in bone village.

 

[waw]

Shinra can't already know about the crater, though, because then they would already know about how much raw mako was there and wouldn't be so surprised that it was the promised land.

NEW HEADCANON RULINGl: Jenny was dug up in bone village.

Yes, this has always bugged me. If they made it all the way into the Northern Crater, or even arguably near it, they'd know. OG's Rufus visit makes me think it's a new discovery. Now, could Gast and his excavation team have scaled it all, found Jenova, gotten out, and not told Shinra about the Mako there? Yup but... man that's weird!

We do have Zack's CC Great Cave of Wonders (name?) that may be a location Jenova was found in too. It's weird as it's implied to be around the Northern Crater, but it also has Emerald which is supposedly sleeping closer to Banora....

I really wish we get to see Jenova's Excavation Site.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

In the Japanese, the "Great Cavern of Wonders" has the same kind of title as the "Northern Crater" just with "of Wonders" instead of "of the North" One of the CC Lore Books even reveals Modeoheim is on an island off the same "Great Caveren of the North" as the Northern Crater. The mission descriptions about the "Great Cavern of Wonders" make it sound like it's leads to the interior of the "Great Cave of the North" by another route than what Cloud and Co. take. I don't know why they keep switching up English localization...

北の大空洞 - Northern Crater (lit. Great Cavern of the North)
謎の大空洞 - Great Cavern of Wonders

"Great Cavern of Wonders" mission description...
--------------------------------------------------------------
Underground Caves
We unearthed a second subterranean den near
the great northern cave. We cannot determine
whether it was naturally formed, or made by
human hands. Shinra sent in a science team,
which never came back. This is where you come in.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"The great northern cave" is 北の大空洞 in the JP mission description. So effectively... "the Great Cavern of Wonders" seems to really be "Northern Crater". It's just another entrance to the vast cave network that makes up the Northern Crater.

The mission descriptions reveal that not just Shinra, but Genesis' Troops and Wutai are after whatever is in the "Great Cavern of Wonders". However, there's *a lot* of monsters and the mako energy in the cave is *really* high and it's causing a lot of technology to go berserk. There's also more than one entrance to the "Great Cavern of Wonders" and the place is like a maze. Which... fits up really well with how the Great Northern Cave dungeon works in the OG! Additionally, the monsters in the "Great Cavern of Wonders" keep getting stronger the further into the cave everyone pushes until the monsters are so strong, only a SOLDIER 1st Class can fight them. The source of the energy ends up being Minerva... effectively the Planet's Summon. Zack fights her and defeats her... at the bottom of what is probably Northern Crater. Hum... who else do we know that kills a god in the Lifestream at the bottom of Northern Crater?

Modeoheim's history entry in the CC Complete Guide is very useful here....
--------------------------------------------------------------
History of Modeoheim
Modeoheim is located on an island near the Great Cavern of the North in FFVII, a land rich in mako. Because of this, it was chosen as a site for the construction of a mako reactor, and the construction workers and researchers who were working on the reactor at that time founded the village. However, it seems that when the construction of the mako reactor was suspended, the population gradually declined and the village became a ghost town. The reason for suspending the construction is unclear, but it is likely that problems with the environment and access to transportation were a major factor.It was later used by Genesis and his associates, who took advantage of its seclusion and well-equipped research facilities.

← The architecture of the buildings in the village and the surrounding vegetation are very similar to those of the village of Icicle Inn in the same region.

→There is a small unfinished reactor in Modeoheim, but Shinra doesn't seem to think it's important.
--------------------------------------------------------------

So it seems like Shinra knows the Northern Crater is there and that it has a lot of mako. It's just too far north and too cold and too many monsters and too much like a maze to be profitable to take advantage of it. It would be like making a nuclear reactor in the far north/south when there's a lot of more convient and less dangerous places to stick one.

This also makes for a... repeating pattern... of fighting god-like beings at the bottom of caves filled with lots of mako energy. Minerva (the Godess) is fought by Zack at the bottom of the "Great Cavern of Wonders" (which is filled with Lifestream). Genesis Avatar is fought in the Light of Doom at the Banora Underground (which is also filled with mako). Safer Sephiroth is fought at the bottom of the "Great Cavern of the North" by Cloud and Co. (which is definetly in the Lifestream itself). Kinda wonder if Remake will do anything else with this concept...

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Maybe the knowledge of the mako-filled Northern Crater is yet another secret President Shinra kept from Rufus?

 

[Obsidian Fire]

I don't know why he would keep it a secret. The thing is that no one knows what is down there. Zack gets sent there *because* people keep dying when Shinra sends them to poke around. The only people strong enough to keep up with the monsters are SOLDIER 1st Classes. So it makes sense it would be written off as not being worth it to go there again. It's not that Shinra doesn't know there's mako down there; they do. It's that it's so hard to get to and use that it's not economically worth doing. As far as retcons from the OG goes, it's a very small one in the scheme of things. It's not like *every* place where there is mako has a reactor either. Mideel has tons and yet there's no mako reactor there. Why is anyone's guess.

It's also worth pointing out that Cloud and Co. use two different approaches to get to the Northern Crater and Zack uses a 3rd. The first way is through the Whirlwind Maze which leads to where the Weapons and Sephiroth are. This is a different way than landing the Highwind in the Crater that is used later. It also seems to be different than the "Great Cavern of Wonders", Shinra sends Zack through.

So Shinra could easily have never have found the Whirlwind Maze. The Northern Crater is huge and the edges of it sharply flare upward. There is a huge cave network there too (think oh... Mamoth Cave system in the US). This makes it *very* easy to have everyone poking around the Northern Cave at different exits/entrances and finding different weird things without coming across parts that have been previously discovered.

So have "Great Cavern of Wonders" be one area, have wherever Jenova was found be in another area, have Whilwind Maze be another area, etc. All going down further into the Planet and mako...

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Only thing, though, is that we see Shin-Ra's aircraft (even helicopters) are capable of reaching the crater. It never really made sense that they wouldn't have found it.

 

[Clement Rage]

The whole point of Neo-Midgar is to find a place where lots of Mako is to exploit it. iIf he knows where it is, then there's no point in searching for the Promised Land.

None of the reactors are built anywhere practical. Corel, Nibelheim, and Fort Condor are on top of mountains, Gongaga is in the middle of a thick forest, Junon is underwater. I don't think practicality is a concern.

Holzoff seems to think Gaia's cliff has never been climbed.

The Highwind can reach the crater, but that's unique tech which only one exists. Helicopter manages it in AC, after they know something worth finding is there. Doesn't mean its easy or worth doing. The City of the Ancients and the Temple appear to also be lost. Seems like the planet is more unexplored than we realise.

 

[Makoeyes987]

The Mako Reactors are built in locations where there were high levels of detectable spirit energy. The fact the locations look barren and dead is a testament to how much mako was depleted from those locations.

And the Northern Crater is but one part of a large northern continent. One can know the general location of the crater but not have actually fully explored or excavated the location, particularly the dangerous area past the cliffs where the "Promised Land" supposedly lies. Jenova was found near the Northern Crater. Not at it's center. There's an entire geographical area along the crater' circumference and general vicinity that Jenova could've met it's previous end. It not where Sephiroth tunneled himself to hide later on.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

The Highwind can reach the crater, but that's unique tech which only one exists. Helicopter manages it in AC, after they know something worth finding is there. Doesn't mean its easy or worth doing.

But President Shinra forms a secret special unit that flies hither, thither, and yonder to check out places that they think might be clues given to them by Aerith's drawings -- and they spend literal decades and God knows how much money on Jenova, Sephiroth, Aerith, etc. Nobody ever thought it could be worthwhile to just fly around looking for the mako vapors that climb hundreds of feet in the relative vicinity of the place where they a) found the thing they thought was an Ancient; and b) later captured an actual Ancient, who verified that Ancients had lived in that region in large numbers in antiquity?

That's as much solid intel to go on as Rufus and the Turks had when seeking out possible remains of Jenova. They didn't know for certain they could find what they were looking for there when they went to the crater.

 

[waw]

The whole point of Neo-Midgar is to find a place where lots of Mako is to exploit it. iIf he knows where it is, then there's no point in searching for the Promised Land.

We may be missing the obvious here. Is it possible President Shinra knew about the Northern Crater and wrote it off as too dangerous, unstable, etc to be the Promised Land despite being Mako rich? Rufus, with his differing views on power could see it as the Promised Land due the Mako nature and hubris that the monsters can be resolved?

Or yet another idea: Was President Shinra waiting to turn the Northern Crater into Neo Midgar? Did he need Aerith to join wilingly to help make the Mako there more "stable" to mine properly? After all, the Whirlwind Maze would make construction difficult. I can't recall right now, given OG dialog, could the Northern Crater be the President's promised land? "Leading" them to it may not be "discovering" it. Thoughts?

[literally spitballing here]

The Mako Reactors are built in locations where there were high levels of detectable spirit energy. The fact the locations look barren and dead is a testament to how much mako was depleted from those locations.

I used to think this, too, but more recent additions in the canon has shifted my view. I'm actually thinking now that the Mako is pooling in these desolate areas due to them being desolate, rather than making them desolate. Isn't there something about the Cetra using Mako to heal the planet? If so, it makes sense to send it to barren, broken areas to become vibrant again, rather than say, dropping a Mako Reactor in the middle of the Ancient Forest (ostensibly the most vibrant place on the planet.)

Things to look for: Was the Midgar Area vibrant before Midgar was built? (This is true for the Nibelheim Mountains, Junon, Corel, etc). I don't think we actually see any area get turned barren despite fan canon/interpretation over the years since OG's release. I think OG ties it to the barren Midgar reason a bit, but as materials have expanded, I don't recall any sign that it was fertile prior to the construction.

It creates a unique problem for Shinra that helps prompt the need for a military (beyond just wealth and power). Their core invention/investment situations human settlement in the unlivable, barren, struggling ecosystems - life is hard in these regions. A military is absolutely needed to help ease these hardships, but the onset of power, electricity, and all the other wonders of Mako means people are drawn to live there regardless of the dangers.

I would be happy to be proven wrong, I loved believing the Reactors sucked the life out of the planet and that made the surrounding area infertile... but I think that last part is the leap many of us have made. I did for years.

 

[Makoeyes987]

But that's not how it works.

The Cetra used "planet reading" and shifting the *natural* energy of the planet to cultivate the land and foster its growth. Lifestream is that natural spirit energy. Mako is the refined, liquid energy state that's used as fuel for energy in Shinra technology. That state of spirit energy is not natural and eventually destroys it. Mako doesn't pool in natural locations, it's extracted and refined.

It's stated numerous times by AVALANCHE, particularly Barret, Bugenhagen, and other characters within Planetology that Mako Reactors literally suck the life energy of the surrounding environment and deplete the spirit energy reserves of the planet near them. Simply look at Midgar 500 years the future, when the mako reactors are shut off and destroyed and you clearly see Midgar is a verdant and lively place like the surrounding parts of the continent that do not have mako reactors syphoning Lifestream 24/7 to power a massive metropolis.

In fact you don't even have to wait 500 years, Midgar begins growing greener 3 years after FFVII.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Lifestream is that natural spirit energy. Mako is the refined, liquid energy state that's used as fuel for energy in Shinra technology. That state of spirit energy is not natural and eventually destroys it. Mako doesn't pool in natural locations, it's extracted and refined.

As far as I can tell, there is no difference between "mako" and "the Lifestream". At least not by the time the Compilation was created. Multiple keyword entries conflate both the Lifestream and mako with the exact same thing: "spirit energy". Mako *is* what the Lifestream is made of. It's just what Shinra calls the Lifestream as a "raw material". Saying the Lifestream is made out of mako is like saying the ocean is made out of water. And then saying *both* the ocean and water are made out of hydrogen dioxide.

10th Anniversary Ultimania Terminology...
---------------------------------------------------
Mako
『FFVII』『BC』『CC』『DC』
The energy resource pumped up by Shinra from the interior of the Planet using its mako reactors. In addition to being consumed to power everything that makes life convenient, it has also been used as the foundation for the latest military technology, such as the creation of materia and the production of SOLDIERs. Mako is synonymous with spiritual energy, the energy of existence that makes up the Lifestream. Its overuse will ultimately mean the collapse of the Planet in the not-too-distant future. Therefore, after Shinra was broken up, people are searching for a way of life that does not rely on the convenience of mako.

The Lifestream
『FFVII』『АС』『BC』『CC』『DC』
The vast flow of spiritual energy that a Planet dwells in. Like the bloodstream flows through the human body, it circulates through the Planet and eventually becomes the source of birth for new life. All living things born in this way will ultimately die and return to the Lifestream. When this circulation of energy happens normally, the Planet is cultivated prosperously.

Materia
『FFVII』『АС』『BC』『CC』『DC』
A high-density condensation of mako energy in a solid and stable form. In some cases, it is formed naturally in places where mako energy is abundant, but most of the time it is artificially manufactured using technology developed by Shinra. Many of them, such as magic materia like "Fire" and "Blizzard", can be combined with weapons to give the user enormous combat power. Materia is a condensed form of the knowledge remembered by the Planet. Because of this, the longer a materia is used, the stronger the forces are that can be retrieved from its memory.

Mako Poisioning
『FFVII』『BC』『CC』『LO』
The symptoms of the spiritual collapse caused when a living being falls into the Lifestream or is exposed to high concentrations of Mako for an extended period of time. The Planet's memory, a vast amount of information, is condensed into Mako. If a person continues to be exposed to Mako, a large amount of knowledge will flood the brain beyond its capacity to handle, making it difficult to maintain normal spiritual activity.

Mako Reactor
『FFVII』『BC』『CC』『DC』『LO』
A facility for pumping mako out of the ground. Shinra has been building these facilities at magic-rich sites around the world to monopolize the supply of energy resources. There are many doubts about safety regulations, especially in the case of the reactors built in remote areas, which have been confirmed to be involved in large-scale accidents.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's... really obvious that as far as the devs are concerned... mako and Lifestream are the same thing. YMMV on if they characters in the game know that or not (or if they even *want* to know that)...

Did he need Aerith to join wilingly to help make the Mako there more "stable" to mine properly?

Join willingly? No. Want a Cetra to pull up mako from the Planet to make it easier to make into energy? Yes. That was the *entire reason* the Jenova Project was ever made to begin with. President Shinra waned a bunch of Cetra working for him to make creating mako reactors easier.

Things to look for: Was the Midgar Area vibrant before Midgar was built? (This is true for the Nibelheim Mountains, Junon, Corel, etc). I don't think we actually see any area get turned barren despite fan canon/interpretation over the years since OG's release. I think OG ties it to the barren Midgar reason a bit, but as materials have expanded, I don't recall any sign that it was fertile prior to the construction.

It absolutely was. The Midgar Timeline in the Remake Material Files says the Midgar area was a fertile region before Midgar was built there. As the years went by and more and more mako/Lifstream was sucked up... the plants died out and the very ground... seems to have stared becoming less structurally sound. It seems there was some kind of sink-hole/cave-in/collapse of the ground in the slum areas, which is why the slum areas are now... in this kind of canyon under Midgar. So... yeah... using mako means the area starts.. not just becoming more desolate but even the very ground becomes less stable...

It actually is more complicated than this. Even things like shipping in food doesn't work well *because* of the lack of mako in the region. Fresh food can't be stored long term because... *something* happens to it regardless of storage methods. It like... dries/rots/spoils *very* quickly *because* the mako reactors are pulling all the "spirit energy" out of the region... As a result, most food in Midgar is very processed. IE: it doesn't have a lot of whatever the mako reactors are pulling out of the area in it.

Mako does "pool" in... broken... let's say... areas. We see it gathering in Banora in CC after the town is bombed and slowly healing the damaged land there. The plants are also growing like *crazy* in Banora and the entire area/cave system is filled with mako. What was a burned out town (including all the foliage) seven years earlier is a lush orchard with full grown trees that looks... *a lot* further along in it's healing than it should be in just seven years. Granted, there's also not a mako reactor there that's sucking up all the mako in the area. There's also no Cetra directing the Lifestream to go there and fix stuff... the Lifestream just... knows to go there and do it somehow.

A similar thing has been happening at the Northern Crater ever since Jenova's meteor smashed into the land there. If it wasn't, Sephiroth would have no reason to *go* there to absorb all the energy being routed there to heal the land. I'm not saying the Cetra don't *help* with this process... but the Planet *can* do it on it's own. Just probably not as efficiently/quickly.

So the idea the Planet is sending more Lifestream to the Midgar area to try to fix it... only for that Lifestream to get sucked up by the mako reactors... would make a lot of sense. We see good evidence of this in both AC and DC... where not even two years after the reactors go down, there's river going though the wasteland. DC ups this to a full on sea/ocean. Which... we see in the Shinra VR version of the Cetra...

Speaking of which... the biggest piece of propaganda in the Shinra VR show is not the Cetra... it's that the Midgar region was a barren desert before Midgar was built. It *should* have been a grassland like what we find out by Kalm...

Their core invention/investment situations human settlement in the unlivable, barren, struggling ecosystems - life is hard in these regions.

Oh, it's worse! Shinra actually *knew* that the reactors made the land barren *before* they even built Midgar. They just didn't care. In fact, they tired to make it less noticable by *building* the Plate on Midgar so most people wouldn't live on the land and *notice* what

The Midgar Timeline in the Remake Material Ultimania is *fascinating* read really, there's a huge ammount of information in there regarding what the area was like before the reactors started up and what Shinra's logic in making Midgar was.... and it's... *worse* than anyone thought...

 

[Makoeyes987]

It's... really obvious that as far as the devs are concerned... mako and Lifestream are the same thing. YMMV on if they characters in the game know that or not (or if they even *want* to know that)...

Mako and Lifestream are terms used interchangeably, however there is a difference between the two substances in-universe when it comes to the process of creating energy.

In FFVII, Bugenhagen explains that the mako reactors suck up the spirit energy of the planet, refine it into mako energy, and thus depletes it as fuel.

Bugenhagen
Ho Ho Hoooo. Spirit energy is efficient BECAUSE it exists within nature.
When Spirit energy is forcefully extracted, and manufactured, it can't accomplish its true purpose.

Cloud
You're talking about Mako energy, right?

Bugenhagen
Everyday Mako reactors suck up Spirit energy, diminishing it.
Spirit energy gets compressed in the reactors and processed into Mako energy. All living things are being used up and thrown away.
In other words, Mako energy will only destroy the Planet.

This refining process creates mako energy, the commodity used for energy. It's pure Lifestream out in nature, unless it condenses naturally and becomes things like materia and the like.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

This re-translation was... a bit crazy... because especially that first sentence isn't.... *anywhere*... in the Japanese... Where the English Localization picked up the idea of spirit energy being efficient because it's natural, I have *no* idea. At least everything else is there in the JP in some form... Also missing from the original English localization is that "mako energy" is indeed just a title given to "the life of the Planet".
JP
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ブーゲンハーゲン
「ホーホーホウ。精神エネルギーは自然の流れの中でこそその役割を果たすのじゃ」
「むりやり吸い上げられ加工された精神エネルギーは本来の役割を果たさん」

CLOUD
「魔晄エネルギーのことを言ってるのか？」

ブーゲンハーゲン
「魔晄炉に吸い上げられずんずん減っていく精神エネルギー」
「魔晄炉によって過度に凝縮される精神エネルギー。魔晄エネルギーなどと名づけられ使いすてられているのは、すべて星の命じゃ」
「すなわち魔晄エネルギーはこの星を滅ぼすのみ……じゃ」[/QUOTE]
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More literal English
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Bugenhagen
Ho Ho Hoooo.
Spiritual energy only fulfills its role through natural processes.
When it is forcibly pumped up and reprocessed, it cannot fulfill its primary role.

Cloud
Are you talking about mako energy?

Bugenhagen
Spirit energy rapidly decreases when it is pumped up and excessively condensed by the mako reactors.
What is disposed of and called "mako energy" is the life of the Planet.
In other words... using mako energy will only destroy the Planet.
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So "mako energy" and "Lifestream"... have been interchangeable as a concept since the OG. Games (and Ultimanas) sinse the OG have revealed that this "condensation" isn't the whole story. That *mako* is "transformed" into something else in the mako reactors... and it's that transformation that turns it from mako/lifestream/spirit energy into something that isn't mako/lifestream/spirit energy.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Huh. That's interesting. I remember this was discussed before, and going by that and something else I can't recall, I thought mako and Lifestream were different in terms of the states of the spirit energy.

Well, that answers that.