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I seem to recall reading that Jenova shapeshifted to live amongst the Cetra and began infecting them.
Hojo & Sephiroth have much higher quantities of Jenovas cells in them than members of Soldier.
<_<
Short answers are going to be short, because while you have excellent questions and excellent info, there's still so much we don't know that it's almost impossible to say anything without speculation, which is something i'm not comfortable doing confidently.
That's a great question. It's the only time they mention that. The infection as Jenova's cells was a connection made after Advent Children. As the Geostigma is just J-cells 'infecting' people, it stands to reason that Jenova did something similar when it first arrived. The difference being, when Jenova was alive, it manipulated the J-cells and made the Cetra transform into monsters.
Ever see the movie The Thing? Same concept. It infects the host then takes it over and transforms it. That's the only REASONABLE explanation I can think of, at any rate. We just don't have any information to work with.
I wouldn't say the Cetra are the ONLY ones with these symptoms. Remember, the virus was 'active' in them willfully moving through them with a purpose. Hojo and Sephiroth are different cases because the J-cells in them are, for lack of a better word, inert. Anyone could have followed the path of the Cetra, nothing indicates that those reactions were exclusive to them.
I think a safe bet to say that Hojo and Sephiroth are the only ones that go made and shapeshift is because they willfully embraced the alien entity. They cast aside their humanity and that is what allowed them to become more than human -- but also proved to be their downfall.
Short answers are going to be short, because while you have excellent questions and excellent info, there's still so much we don't know that it's almost impossible to say anything without speculation, which is something i'm not comfortable doing confidently.
Lady Liberty said:
That's a great question. It's the only time they mention that. The infection as Jenova's cells was a connection made after Advent Children. As the Geostigma is just J-cells 'infecting' people, it stands to reason that Jenova did something similar when it first arrived. The difference being, when Jenova was alive, it manipulated the J-cells and made the Cetra transform into monsters.
Ever see the movie The Thing? Same concept. It infects the host then takes it over and transforms it. That's the only REASONABLE explanation I can think of, at any rate. We just don't have any information to work with.
I wouldn't say the Cetra are the ONLY ones with these symptoms. Remember, the virus was 'active' in them willfully moving through them with a purpose. Hojo and Sephiroth are different cases because the J-cells in them are, for lack of a better word, inert. Anyone could have followed the path of the Cetra, nothing indicates that those reactions were exclusive to them.
I think a safe bet to say that Hojo and Sephiroth are the only ones that go made and shapeshift is because they willfully embraced the alien entity. They cast aside their humanity and that is what allowed them to become more than human -- but also proved to be their downfall.
Roshidon
Blue Mage
Interesting read. I havn't really payed as much attention to the "virus" aspect of what Jenova did before the events of FF VII. I had pretty much gone with Dragon Mage's synopsis of Jenova going around like The Thing and absorbing everybody until the Cetra finally killed it. Although, maybe Jenova let out a virus as well as absorbing crap? 
Oy vey, machine-gun quotes. o_0 Such a pain to copy with this new touchpad.
Actually, you're pretty much spot on. It's generally assumed that Geostigma is very similar, if not identical, to the virus that Ifalna mentions. There's no way to know for sure, but it stands to reason. It would be folly to think that Geostigma and the initial virus are one and the same, however. The virus Jenova unleashed had a specific purpose, like The Thing, and that was to turn people into monsters. Imagine a fortified city -- nothing gets in by brute force, not even Jenova. However, if the residents of that city start turning into monsters overnight, suddenly all the military power is directed inward. And the more the soldiers fight, the more likely they are to get infected -- they may even be infected without knowing it. Chaos follows. The defenses are weak. Jenova can just walk right in and mop them up.
Geostigma, on the other hand, was more of a symptom of the J-cells in the body and the body trying to fight something it couldn't truly attack. It kills people by manipulating the immune system of the host body.
The only thing the initial virus and Geostigma have in common is that J-cells would have to be present in the host body.
The initial virus would have to be fast acting to be effective, whereas Geostigma is quite slow. I'd hesitate to even call Geostigma intentional -- it seems more like an accident that Sephiroth and the Remnants used to their advantage more than anything. There's no question in my mind that, had Jenova or even Sephiroth been capable, the J-cells in the Geostigma victims could easily replicate the effects of the initial virus unleashed on the Cetra. Whether Cetra or not, I doubt the effects would discriminate. It's just that Geostigma doesn't have a 'mind' behind it, telling it what to do. The cells are just there, and that's trouble enough.
Yes, but that's because the mind directing the virus -- Jenova -- is dead. So no, we wouldn't see anyone suffering symptoms of a mutational virus in the game because the architect of the virus is incapable of continuing it.
However, we have ample evidence that humans react to the mutational effects of Jenova in spades. Angeal and his wing. Genesis. Sephiroth. The most dramatic example would be Vincent, since Hojo transferred the shape-shifting gene from Jenova into Vincent's DNA code -- which is why he doesn't age, or apparently need food. So there's nothing to say that the Cetra were special in any way for being mutated by the virus the way they were -- we know humans are just as susceptible to it.
I do mean them, yes.
The purpose of the virus was to infect and spread through the Cetra, yes, but it was also meant to transform them into monsters. Which it did very well. This actually is a great plot reason for all the monsters in the game and the occasional mention in places of monster patrols. They are left-overs of the Cetra-Jenova war, implying the planet was much safer and more peaceful at one time.
Understand that the virus and the J-cells are one and the same. You can't have one without the other being present. Like Geostigma, the J-cells are what cause the virus and affect mutation in the host body. This is just the most popular theory, however. It is a good one, though, and makes the most sense out of what knowledge we have.
The Cetra literally transforming into monsters also explains how the Cetra died out the way they did. By the time they finally managed to kill Jenova, their genetic pool was so devastated that recovery would've been very slow -- they'd have to live with the vanilla humans to survive also, because their cities were destroyed in the wars with mutated-Cetra that tore their cities apart. This explains why there's so few Cetra relics and cities left -- they were all literally destroyed in the fighting. The Forgotten City was spared only because it was protected by the Sleeping Forest. Either Jenova couldn't reach it and thus spread the monster-making virus, or it was stopped before it could get there.
In a limited sense. Consider if Jenova were alive and able to manipulate every cell of its being -- those cells would be much more dangerous and be doing a LOT more damage. The cells are like nanites -- tiny computers that run programs. Jenova is the one that would normally input the code for those programs. Jenova is dead, so those cells are just sitting there, doing nothing. Even then, the host body tries to metabolise them and thus gets changed by them, but that's all happening on the HUMAN end of the spectrum. Were Jenova to awaken and activate those cells, they could easily turn their hosts bodies into something else within minutes.
So their cells may still be alive but they are hardly active. They're just kind of sitting there.
Ah, poor choice of words on my part. By 'path' I meant reaction to the J-cell virus that Jenova spread. We know humans can be transformed by the J-cells just like the Cetra, so the Cetra aren't special or different from humans in this way. Organic tissue is organic tissue -- it's all a host for the J-virus.
<_< Now it's starting to sound like Resident Evil.
Again, I believe that's because the Cetra at first contact were interacting with a fully alive and aware Jenova, who was consciously directing the J-virus into action. The Cetra didn't HAVE to try and embrace the virus, it attacked them.
Hojo and Sephiroth are coming at it from a more difficult route, trying to reawaken a virus that only worked because of the alien mind behind it -- Jenova's. The cells are in them, pretty much ignoring them. The Cetra were just attacked and infected because the cells were 'on' and being directed. For Hojo and Sephiroth, the cells are 'off' and not doing anything, so they have to TRY and get the same results.
Forgive this analogy's crudeness, but it's like trying to get the attention of an abusive parent. When the parent is awake, you don't have to do anything to get knocked about. (Like the Cetra.) When the abusive parent is sleeping, however, you have to wake it up and antagonize it to get pummeled.
Crude as that is, it's the simplest description I can think of. Sephiroth and Hojo WANTED to be transformed like the Cetra had been and to do that they abandoned their humanity entirely to become what the Cetra became -- monsters. What the Cetra lost, Sephiroth and Hojo abandoned willfully. One side didn't want it to happen -- the other very much did.
No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying its a reasonable explanation for why Sephiroth and Hojo became more monstrous while other people that had J-cells did not, like Zack and Cloud. I didn't mean anything about the Cetra by that particular mention of embracing or abandoning humanity -- just the villains.
Think carefully -- we've seen plenty of Jenova Project victims with abnormal traits, like wings (Genesis, Angeal, Sephiroth). There's also that poor soul stuck in the Mako tank at Nibelheim -- he was also part of the Jenova Project. As for the hooded clones in the game, we never actually see what they look like -- they could be horribly disfigured under those cloaks.
No where have I seen that the victim shape-shifts when CETRA cells and Jenova cells are combined. Did you pull that from the wiki? It's very much erroneous -- we've seen plenty of people who's bodies have transformed either partially (Sephiroth, Angeal, etc.) or wholly (Vincent) because of J-cells and J-cells alone. It would be quite a trick to do all that if Cetra cells were required since that would mean Shinra had a Cetra locked up somewhere to do all these experiments since many of them occur before Aerith was born and before Ifalna was found. At which case Shinra would never need Aerith and--
You get my drift. It creates a massive plot hole that's just implausible.
Lady Liberty said:Yes, I've heard of people saying the creators took the J-cells idea off of the Thing.Anyway, I know how Jenova works, that's not really where my confusion lies. I was asked by someone what made me sure Jenova's own DNA was the "virus" that Jenova released among the cetra 2000 years ago. And I just assumed it from the game, but wiki says it as if it's a fact and I just wanted to know what made them so sure?
But you brought up a good point. In AC they make it clear that it's the Jenova cells attacking the people with Geostigma. Perhaps Geostigma is what Jenova released on the Cetra and the Cetra just reacted differently?(this is sorta off point now, sorry lol)
Actually, you're pretty much spot on. It's generally assumed that Geostigma is very similar, if not identical, to the virus that Ifalna mentions. There's no way to know for sure, but it stands to reason. It would be folly to think that Geostigma and the initial virus are one and the same, however. The virus Jenova unleashed had a specific purpose, like The Thing, and that was to turn people into monsters. Imagine a fortified city -- nothing gets in by brute force, not even Jenova. However, if the residents of that city start turning into monsters overnight, suddenly all the military power is directed inward. And the more the soldiers fight, the more likely they are to get infected -- they may even be infected without knowing it. Chaos follows. The defenses are weak. Jenova can just walk right in and mop them up.
Geostigma, on the other hand, was more of a symptom of the J-cells in the body and the body trying to fight something it couldn't truly attack. It kills people by manipulating the immune system of the host body.
The only thing the initial virus and Geostigma have in common is that J-cells would have to be present in the host body.
The initial virus would have to be fast acting to be effective, whereas Geostigma is quite slow. I'd hesitate to even call Geostigma intentional -- it seems more like an accident that Sephiroth and the Remnants used to their advantage more than anything. There's no question in my mind that, had Jenova or even Sephiroth been capable, the J-cells in the Geostigma victims could easily replicate the effects of the initial virus unleashed on the Cetra. Whether Cetra or not, I doubt the effects would discriminate. It's just that Geostigma doesn't have a 'mind' behind it, telling it what to do. The cells are just there, and that's trouble enough.
Yes, but that's because the mind directing the virus -- Jenova -- is dead. So no, we wouldn't see anyone suffering symptoms of a mutational virus in the game because the architect of the virus is incapable of continuing it.
However, we have ample evidence that humans react to the mutational effects of Jenova in spades. Angeal and his wing. Genesis. Sephiroth. The most dramatic example would be Vincent, since Hojo transferred the shape-shifting gene from Jenova into Vincent's DNA code -- which is why he doesn't age, or apparently need food. So there's nothing to say that the Cetra were special in any way for being mutated by the virus the way they were -- we know humans are just as susceptible to it.
By them do you mean Cetra or Sephiroth & Hojo?
I do mean them, yes.
The purpose of the virus was to infect and spread through the Cetra, yes, but it was also meant to transform them into monsters. Which it did very well. This actually is a great plot reason for all the monsters in the game and the occasional mention in places of monster patrols. They are left-overs of the Cetra-Jenova war, implying the planet was much safer and more peaceful at one time.
Understand that the virus and the J-cells are one and the same. You can't have one without the other being present. Like Geostigma, the J-cells are what cause the virus and affect mutation in the host body. This is just the most popular theory, however. It is a good one, though, and makes the most sense out of what knowledge we have.
The Cetra literally transforming into monsters also explains how the Cetra died out the way they did. By the time they finally managed to kill Jenova, their genetic pool was so devastated that recovery would've been very slow -- they'd have to live with the vanilla humans to survive also, because their cities were destroyed in the wars with mutated-Cetra that tore their cities apart. This explains why there's so few Cetra relics and cities left -- they were all literally destroyed in the fighting. The Forgotten City was spared only because it was protected by the Sleeping Forest. Either Jenova couldn't reach it and thus spread the monster-making virus, or it was stopped before it could get there.
Their Jenova cells are active, though.
In a limited sense. Consider if Jenova were alive and able to manipulate every cell of its being -- those cells would be much more dangerous and be doing a LOT more damage. The cells are like nanites -- tiny computers that run programs. Jenova is the one that would normally input the code for those programs. Jenova is dead, so those cells are just sitting there, doing nothing. Even then, the host body tries to metabolise them and thus gets changed by them, but that's all happening on the HUMAN end of the spectrum. Were Jenova to awaken and activate those cells, they could easily turn their hosts bodies into something else within minutes.
So their cells may still be alive but they are hardly active. They're just kind of sitting there.
Wait, what path?
Ah, poor choice of words on my part. By 'path' I meant reaction to the J-cell virus that Jenova spread. We know humans can be transformed by the J-cells just like the Cetra, so the Cetra aren't special or different from humans in this way. Organic tissue is organic tissue -- it's all a host for the J-virus.
<_< Now it's starting to sound like Resident Evil.
Again, I believe that's because the Cetra at first contact were interacting with a fully alive and aware Jenova, who was consciously directing the J-virus into action. The Cetra didn't HAVE to try and embrace the virus, it attacked them.
Hojo and Sephiroth are coming at it from a more difficult route, trying to reawaken a virus that only worked because of the alien mind behind it -- Jenova's. The cells are in them, pretty much ignoring them. The Cetra were just attacked and infected because the cells were 'on' and being directed. For Hojo and Sephiroth, the cells are 'off' and not doing anything, so they have to TRY and get the same results.
Forgive this analogy's crudeness, but it's like trying to get the attention of an abusive parent. When the parent is awake, you don't have to do anything to get knocked about. (Like the Cetra.) When the abusive parent is sleeping, however, you have to wake it up and antagonize it to get pummeled.
Crude as that is, it's the simplest description I can think of. Sephiroth and Hojo WANTED to be transformed like the Cetra had been and to do that they abandoned their humanity entirely to become what the Cetra became -- monsters. What the Cetra lost, Sephiroth and Hojo abandoned willfully. One side didn't want it to happen -- the other very much did.
No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying its a reasonable explanation for why Sephiroth and Hojo became more monstrous while other people that had J-cells did not, like Zack and Cloud. I didn't mean anything about the Cetra by that particular mention of embracing or abandoning humanity -- just the villains.
Yes, Jenova shapeshifted into their loved ones, but the game never says the cells shape-shifted into monsters for everyone. We've also never seen Jenova cells shapeshift any of the other Jenova project victims before. So since out of 20+ experiments only two (Sephiroth & Hojo) shape shift we cannot attribute shapeshifting into a monster as a quality and side effect of Jenova cells specifically.
The compilation says the victim only shape-shifts into a monster when Cetra-cells and Jenova cells are combined.
Sooo...?
Think carefully -- we've seen plenty of Jenova Project victims with abnormal traits, like wings (Genesis, Angeal, Sephiroth). There's also that poor soul stuck in the Mako tank at Nibelheim -- he was also part of the Jenova Project. As for the hooded clones in the game, we never actually see what they look like -- they could be horribly disfigured under those cloaks.
No where have I seen that the victim shape-shifts when CETRA cells and Jenova cells are combined. Did you pull that from the wiki? It's very much erroneous -- we've seen plenty of people who's bodies have transformed either partially (Sephiroth, Angeal, etc.) or wholly (Vincent) because of J-cells and J-cells alone. It would be quite a trick to do all that if Cetra cells were required since that would mean Shinra had a Cetra locked up somewhere to do all these experiments since many of them occur before Aerith was born and before Ifalna was found. At which case Shinra would never need Aerith and--
You get my drift. It creates a massive plot hole that's just implausible.