Actually, the SOLDIER Treatment can only be given to people who are strong both physically and mentally. You see, if the proceedure is performed on someone who isn't strong enough for it, they become lifeless puppets utterly submitted to JENOVA's will, much like the Sephiroth Copies you see throughout Final Fantasy VII, who were basically the end result of performing the SOLDIER Treatment on random people instead of testing them beforehand to see if they were adequate. In fact, we see first-hand what happens when a weak-minded person is subject to the SOLDIER Treatment at the end of Crisis Core where Cloud is basically rendered legally retarded and loses the vast majority of his motor skills. He only recovered because he ran into Tifa in Midgar, which couldn't possibly have happened at any time before the Nibelheim Incident.

So, yeah, Cloud would've been quite dead by now if he'd been given the SOLDIER Treatment when he first applied.

i always imagined when i played my first ff (IX) that when steiner attacked he just made a cut in the body of the fiend. aerith was completely trespassed so she had no way to survie( maybe its follishness)

*hehe Ive thought about this and debated it with friends too

*I guess if you look at it at a game perspective Aerith shouldnt even be dead cause she can be revived by a pheonix down or a life magic right!?

*but the creators just made the story interesting by having such an important character who would have been a great boost in the future, die in a coolest manner by Lord Sephiroth!

*weeeeeee

(SPOILER DONT READ IF HAVENT PLAYED CRISIS CORE) Lol good question, well,Sephiroths sword is super loaded with Mako, and if you played Crisis Core you see cloud almost dies from the mako addiction after he gets stabbed by Sephiroth.SO yea your party gets completely decimated by little fire wolfs and all that, but you gotta think its the future and they have pheonix downs and armor. Pheonix downs just can't cure mako addiction/poisoning, its meant for wounds not for chemically altered life stream juice.

ok i've read the entire topic!

Cloud was in a Berserk kind of state when he atacked sephiroth in the reactor at nibelheim and thus he was so angry and didnt care what happened to himself as long as he got revenge for tifa (this chages to aeris in ffvii game)

aeris on the other hand was in a meditative state of mind and heard nothing (cloud shouts to her) she was praying for HOLY the materia to save the world (sort of thing)
she dies because she is stabbed and doesnt have the will to survive because she is finishing off her prayer thus she dies

this should explain it i have come to this conclusion after years of pondering this ( i actually cried when i saw aeris die it broke my heart i loved her)

anyways so that should sort that out

Cloud