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Sephiroth was the first SOLDIER ... wasn't he?

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
It seems like a silly question with an obvious answer to anyone who has played the original Final Fantasy VII and remembers that Sephiroth was the fruit of the Jenova Project: “Was Sephiroth the first SOLDIER”? As we have so often found to be the case with this game’s setting and mythos, however, the Compilation of FFVII complicated things.

Read on to find out that what you may have thought was very simple is actually far more convoluted (and more of a straight-up mess, really) than you could have expected:

Was Sephiroth the first SOLDIER?

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoy.
 

Octo

KULT OF KERMITU
AKA
Octo, Octorawk, Clarky Cat, Kissmammal2000
My head hurts. Why can't SE tell a story without doing loop-de-loops into their own rectums? But a good read nonetheless :monster:
 

Ite

Save your valediction (she/her)
AKA
Ite
It doesn't help that the name of the program is also the common term for an infantryman.
 
Beautiful article! Excellently put together and narrated sexily, as always. I especially appreciate that you take the time to put together something like this even in the middle of your busy personal life.


:success:

Edit: Article shared on my facebook page.
 
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Roger

He/him
AKA
Minato
長くて下らない戦争中に、神羅カンパニーがいろんな技術を開発したのは知ってんだろ?
今は魔晄屋だが、昔は兵器開発会社だったからな。
——————————————————————
You know Shinra developed a lot of technological gadgets during the meaningless war, right?
Now it’s a Mako company, but in the old days it was a weapons manufacturer.

I wouldn't call this evidence, Cid is mentioning that they used to be a weapons manufacturer as an explanation for all the gadgets they created during the meaningless war that the dialogue implies Cloud to be fully aware off. That war is still probably the Wutai War.

Them actually starting out as a weapons manufacturers helps explains projects like the Gelnikas, the airship, Shinra #26 and so on, but they were still recent projects, made when they had officially become a Electric Power Company.
 

lithiumkatana17

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Lith
Holy shite, my head hurts. The writers really screwed the pooch when they kept adding to the compilation, but you've done a great job sifting through that information to try and make sense of it all.

Awesome article! It really makes you think about things.
 

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
長くて下らない戦争中に、神羅カンパニーがいろんな技術を開発したのは知ってんだろ?
今は魔晄屋だが、昔は兵器開発会社だったからな。
——————————————————————
You know Shinra developed a lot of technological gadgets during the meaningless war, right?
Now it’s a Mako company, but in the old days it was a weapons manufacturer.

I wouldn't call this evidence, Cid is mentioning that they used to be a weapons manufacturer as an explanation for all the gadgets they created during the meaningless war that the dialogue implies Cloud to be fully aware off. That war is still probably the Wutai War.

Them actually starting out as a weapons manufacturers helps explains projects like the Gelnikas, the airship, Shinra #26 and so on, but they were still recent projects, made when they had officially become a Electric Power Company.
You may be right. I guess the line could easily be read either way; it just hadn't struck me that he may have been doing what you describe rather than setting a time for when the things he was talking about took place.

I'll go back and look at that section again.
 

cold_spirit

he/him
AKA
Alex T
I'm not sure how helpful this is, but the BradyGames guidebook for Crisis Core states that Sephiroth, Genesis, and Angeal are all "around 25" years old. Presumably this is their age at the start of Crisis Core. I didn't see the guide listed in the footnotes so I thought I'd mention it here.
 

hian

Purist
I really can't say much to this except - this is what happens when a bunch of people get together to make spin-offs to a title they haven't worked on for years.
Chances are a lot of these inconsistencies are born from various parts of SE not properly communicating, writers and designers working partly off of memories and notes etc. not off of playing the original and sticking strictly to the plot of that.

I don't think it can be squared in terms of what you have - it can only be "head-cannoned", in in that regards I agree with the conclusions of your article.

Although, as you already know, personally I just pretend the compilation didn't happen, and then I don't have to square it to begin with =P

Also, excellent research, excellent article (although perhaps a bit dry =P, but that's to expect from the topic I guess)!
 
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