Gaia was wounded BEFORE Jenova's arrival...?

The Witch

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When you go to the Icicle Inn right after Aerith’s death, Ifalna says that Gaia was wounded before Jenova’s arrival, and that the wound at the Northern Crater was causing the Cetra to leave the ’Knowlespole’ (AKA, the Northern Crater) because they were unable to cultivate the land and heal the 'wound’. Right as the Cetra were trying to leave the 'Knowlespole’ that’s when Jenova 'came from the skies’ and attacked the Cetra clans.

So the crater on the Northern Continent was there BEFORE Jenova arrived, it was not created by Jenova. This suggests that the Cetra race and the Crater is older than 2000 years. So what caused the crater? Or was Jenova hiding in the crater for thousands of years??? It says that Jenova 'fell from the sky' so Jenova couldn't have been the one that made the crater. So what's going on?

Here's the script:


Gast: Camera's ready! Then, Ifalna, please tell us about the Cetra.

Ifalna: 2000 years ago, our ancestors, the Cetra, heard the cries of the Planet.

The first ones to discover the Planet's wound were the Cetra at the Knowlespole.

Gast: Tell us Ifalna... Where is the land called 'Knowlespole'?



Ifalna: Knowlespole refers to this area. The Cetra then began a Planet-reading.

Gast: Ifalna, what exactly does Planet-reading entail?


Ifalna: ...I can't explain it very well, but it's like having a conversation with the Planet... It said something fell from the sky making a large wound.


-She shakes her head.-


Ifalna: Thousands of Cetra pulled together, trying to heal the Planet... But, due to the severity of the wound, it was only able to heal itself, over many years.


Gast: Do the Ancients, rather, the Cetra, have special powers to heal the Planet?


Ifalna: No, it's not that kind of power. The life force of all living things on this Planet becomes the energy.

The Cetra tried desperately to cultivate the land so as not to diminish the needed energy...

Gast: Hmm, even here so close to the North Cave, the snow never melts. Is that because the planet's energy is gathered here to heal its injury?


-Ifalna lowers her head.-


Ifalna: Yes, the energy that was needed to heal the Planet withered away the land... then the Planet... The Planet tried to persuade the Cetra to leave the Knowlespole, but...

Gast: Ifalna... Let's take a break.


-She turns to him and shakes her head.-


Ifalna: I'm all right... When the Cetra... were preparing to part with the land they loved... That's when it appeared!
It looked like... our... our dead mothers... and our dead brothers. Showing us spectres of their past.

Gast: Who is the person that appeared at the North Cave? I haven't any idea.


Ifalna: That's when the one who injured the Planet... or the 'crisis from the sky', as we call him, came.


-She buries her face in her hands.-


Ifalna: He first approached as a friend, deceived them, and finally...... gave them the virus.
The Cetra were attacked by the virus and went mad... transforming into monsters.

-She drops to her knees.-


Ifalna: Then, just as he had at the Knowlespole. He approached other Cetra clans...... infecting them with... the virus...

Gast: You don't look well... Let's call it a day.



http://www.yinza.com/Fandom/Script/29.html
 
I think Ifalna is still referring to Jenova throughout that story. Jenova’s impact with Gaia created the crater, and the planet told the Cetra that an alien body had created it, but the Cetra didn’t see Jenova themselves for a while.

If we think about how deep the North Crater is, it is quite possible that Jenova was quite deep within in, recovering her energy before attacking the planet (she had just traversed the cosmos, after all). The planet’s recommendation for the Cetra to move was sensible, as the planet was generating giant Weapon monsters to battle with Jenova, and that battlefield may have wiped out any of the Cetra still living there too (disrupting the balance of life). It didn’t happen like that, as we know, and the Weapons lay dormant.

Ifalna uses the same phrase (the thing that fell from the sky, and its variants) to describe both the thing that created the crater and Jenova. It seems to be the same thing.

Also this line in particular makes me believe that they are one and the same:
Ifalna: That's when the one who injured the Planet... or the 'crisis from the sky', as we call him, came.

So the thing that came from the sky and took the appearance of the Cetra to fool and attack them is here connected with the thing which injured the planet and formed the crater earlier on.

When Ifalna states that Jenova came here, then, it doesn’t mean that she came from the skies at that precise moment in the story. The ‘crisis from the sky’ / ‘calamity from the sky’ / ‘thing that fell from the sky’ are Jenova's epithets. It's how the Cetra refer to her/him. She came to them, but not necessarily from the sky on that day (she had landed earlier), but perhaps she came to them in her transformed state from the Northern Crater.
 
Ahhh, ok. That makes sense. Thanks for the help. I guess now I'm wondering how much time went by between Jenova crashing into the Earth, the Cetra trying to heal it, and then Jenova's first attack. :hmmm:
 
Ahhh, ok. That makes sense. Thanks for the help. I guess now I'm wondering how much time went by between Jenova crashing into the Earth, the Cetra trying to heal it, and then Jenova's first attack. :hmmm:

I’m not sure. Unless the remake expands on that we might never know.

In the text there Ifalna suggests that ‘many years’ passed. It’s possible that she exaggerates because it was 2,000 years ago and a certain degree of caution needs to be taken when dealing with transmitted oral history (even if the core details of the story are accurate).

If Ifalna is right in suggesting that ‘many years’ passed, then that could be anything from about 5 years to thousands.

I’d gamble with suggesting that a lower number of years is more likely, but I guess it depends on how soon after Jenova fell from the sky that they discovered the crater, but also how soon after they discovered the crater that Jenova emerged from it.


Perhaps we can break down the timeline as such:


  1. Jenova crashes on Gaia in the Knowlespole region (the Northern Continent). This creates the Northern Crater.
  2. Jenova rests for an undetermined period of time (months, years, centuries – who knows?).
  3. The Cetra of the Knowlespole discover the Northern Crater, the enormous wound of the planet.
  4. The Cetra communicate with the planet and learn of the alien body creating the wound.
  5. Thousands of Cetra (presumably Cetra from elsewhere on the planet too) gathered about the crater in an attempt to heal the wound. (It is this stage which seems to be stated, by Ifalna, as lasting ‘many years’).
  6. The energy gathered at the Knowlespole begins to wither away the land. The planet recommends that the Cetra leave the region. (It is perhaps at this stage, or sometime during the ‘many years’ that the Weapons started to be created by the planet as a defence against Jenova).
  7. As the Cetra (now grouped in their thousands - if not more by this time) prepared to leave the Knowlespole, this is when Jenova emerges from the crater.
  8. Jenova metamorphoses into the forms of various Cetra, imitating loved ones and the dead in order to trick them. She wreaks havoc.
  9. Many Cetra die or are turned into monsters. Life as the Cetra knew it ends.
  10. Jenova is somehow defeated and contained within the Northern Crater. This was approximately 2,000 years before the beginning of FFVII.


Now we have some years to play with here… It is possible that Jenova was resting unnoticed for a long time. However, would the Cetra really have been so blind for so long? The planet would have felt its wound immediately after Jenova’s impact with the planet, so it probably would have let out its earth cry sooner rather than later. Likewise, the Cetra of the Knowlespole would likely notice a ginormous crater suddenly appearing in their local landscape (assuming that they even slept through the probably extremely loud explosion and a shockwave of destruction). Therefore, the Cetra are likely to have discovered the Northern Crater sooner rather than later too.

So, I think that the main years that we have to play with are the ‘many years’ in-between the Cetra gathering at the Knowlespole in their thousands (after discovering the crater), and then the emergence of Jenova from that crater. Could it be that the ‘Forgotten Capital’ was not a typical Cetra city, but was instead built to house them as they attempted to gather and heal the planet in the region? I’ve never thought about it before in this way, but maybe this is possible.

I wonder if any Cetra explored the Northern Crater in that time, though. You'd think that people would see what was up in there if they were wishing for the planet to heal itself. Maybe the planet warned them to stay away from the area, knowing that they could be infected with alien cells (thus diluting and polluting the purity of Gaia's lifestream). Maybe, eventually, some did go exploring in the Northern Crater, encountered Jenova, and this is what led to Jenova learning about the Cetra and emerging from the crater fixed on imitating and exterminating them.

Good thread, by the way! It’s good to have a fresh discussion on FFVII again.
 
Also remember that Jenova is a shape shifter that can transform into anything by stealing it's identity. So that's why the Cetra couldn't identify her. Also if you think about it when you fight her last form in the Northern Crater, she is in the core of the crater. Shape like a ball with tentacles. Does it makes sense with the story that we just read?
 
Also remember that Jenova is a shape shifter that can transform into anything by stealing it's identity. So that's why the Cetra couldn't identify her. Also if you think about it when you fight her last form in the Northern Crater, she is in the core of the crater. Shape like a ball with tentacles. Does it makes sense with the story that we just read?

Yeah. Although it seems that Jenova's transformations may have lacked stability, I like to imagine that Jenova was infiltrating the Cetra on reconnaissance missions, learning what she could before returning to the crater. Eventually Jenova felt she was ready to attack. It's interesting that she may have been attacking in her pseudo-Cetra forms rather than her true form (which we may never have seen!). Sure, her forms are unstable so she might grow a few tentacles here and there (she is, after all, an alien), but she seems to have attacked the Cetra by attempting to imitate them.

Now, we need to consider that the Jenova that we meet in the FFVII game storyline is a partially decomposed corpse. It still has 'life' in some weird way in that the cells are not yet entirely dead (and Jenova herself may have consciousness of a sort), but in other ways Jenova is deceased.

I suggested in another recent thread (here) that Jenova's corpse which had been recovered at the Northern Crater and shipped to Nibelheim (and is the appearance that we typically attribute to Jenova) may actually be one of her Cetra forms, albeit halfway between her transformation and her true form. Perhaps as she died or began to decompose (before freezing) her corpse began to transition from the Cetra form she had assumed and the amorphous, tentacled horror of her true form. This might be why she looks so humanlike (and woman-like) in the tank at Nibelheim (albeit with an eyeball on her nipple, and odd fleshy wing-like structure on her back). It might also explain the pronoun discrepancy (if it is anything more than just a translation error, that is). Jenova might have been known as a 'he' to Iflana because in the stories she had been told 'the crisis from the sky' was interpreted as a male, or genderless, but took on a variety of forms. It just happens to be that Jenova was defeated in the form of a woman, perhaps, hence the feminine appearance of her corpse and the feminine pronouns that we use to refer to her.

During the main story of the FFVII game itself Jenova's corpse has shapeshifted into Sephiroth, but it isn't entirely stable. We only see 'Sephiroth' for brief glimpses, and when we do it usually ends up with a bit of Jenova's corpse dropping off and turning into a monstrously hideous Jenova boss battle. Every time we meet and fight an aspect of her corpse in the game it takes on a hideous, alien form because its cells are no longer frozen or preserved in their transformed state and can realign themselves back into their true alien forms.

Or something like that.

I'd say it does all make sense with the story as outlined by Ifalna.
 
North Crater was created by Jenova's arrival their is no question about that.

However if you travel under the Submarine or to other places, you can see other unexplained "scars" or whatever you wanna call them. The main one I am thinking of is under the water you see a huge empty space that looks like it was cut up, some have said this was done be weapon, (like on land when on the east continents) gets messed up by weapon. These might of been done by other things that came and hurt the planet before Jenova, or could of just been a design decision by Square...who knows...
 
From what I can think of, the crater that is under the water was created by the landing of Emerald Weapon if I'm not mistaken. That is one of his spawn areas.
 
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