Hojo and Aerith

[Chom-chom]

I was wondering, after Ifalna and Aerith escape from Hojo's laboratory into the slums (when Aerith is still a child), why he doesn't go after her with all that much fervor?

I can understand why the Turks didn't take her forcefully, because as far as the 'Neo-Midgar' plan was conerned, they needed her active cooperation to lead them to the Promised Land, and taking her by force would be counter-productive.

But come on, wouldn't it be in that crazy old man's interests to seek her out for his research? She wouldn't be particularly hard to find - everybody knew the 'flower girl of the slums.' After Sephiroth's falsified death especially, you'd think he would want to kidnap her and attempt to make another wonder-baby, with a real Cetra this time.

 

[TacticalRecon]

At this point, seems like Hojo was more interested in the Reunion. And seeing as Aeris was on the trail of Sephiroth anyway, it's two paths leading to the same goal.

 

[SABR]

Well, that's a good point. I suppose you could say that 1) Shinra was more focused on building the reactors and building mako power, and 2) they wanted to keep the "trust of the people," as in they couldn't make her go unwillingly without dissatisfaction among the people. Also, they weren't so focused on the "promised land" until around the time cloud meets Aeris, right? Maybe I'm wrong here and you've found a plot-hole. It's not hard to do when you've got such a thick plot.

 

[Chom-chom]

Yeah, no you're right I think. That's a really good point about being more concerned with the construction of Midgar and the mako reactors.

They were somewhat interested in the whole "Promised Land" thing prior to Cloud meeting Aerith, because during the executive meeting Pres. Shinra has with Scarlet/Heidegger/Reeve/Hojo (when you infiltrate the Shinra building to rescue Aerith), he says they're going to re-start the Neo-Midgar plan...I assume that means they had attempted it before.

But who really knows. Perhaps they tried it out in the past, realised they couldn't do it unless Aerith was willing to cooperate with them, and decided to leave her alone, building lots of reactors on the upper plate instead. xD
Or maybe they figured she wasn't capable of leading them to the Promised Land until she was older/had grown up and further developed her powers as an Ancient?
@.@

 

[ianmann2]

At this point, seems like Hojo was more interested in the Reunion. And seeing as Aeris was on the trail of Sephiroth anyway, it's two paths leading to the same goal.

thats when aerith had grown up, he's on about when she was a kid.
and thats before crisis core. which no-one really knows about, so yeah the only other conclusion would be Shinra were too involved in making more reactors.

besides, when hojo captures aeris again on disc 1, he also captures red xiii, to breed rare and dying out species. i dont think even hojo was thinking about that at the moment. just general experiments maybe? :/

if that makes sense at all lol
xo

 

[Daenerys]

Perhaps they're too busy with the war in Wutai to concentrate on Aerith? I'm thinking maybe Hojo was needed to develop new weapons / monsters for Shinra, and was too busy to think about Aerith. And after the war, there's the whole Nibelhelm and Sephiroth incident, so then they'd become more focused with that.

So, perhaps it was just a case of other projects distracting them from Aerith, and when she is caught in the main game, they're not distracted by more pressing matters anymore? I mean, after Sephiroth appears and kills President Shinra, they don't want Aerith anymore anyway...

I think I'm rambling nonsense here, so I'll stop xD

 

[Dionysos]

Like people have said, perhaps they were busy with other projects.

However I don't believe that they did just let Aerith run free in Midgar and leave her alone. You get lots of hints in the game that they have kept close watch over her and made sure she didn't get out of their sights for all those years.

Aerith knew a lot of the Shinra employees very well, some I think she even claims, despite their allegiance and what wrong they have done to her, are like close to a father to her. But I could be making that bit up.
Anyway I got the feeling that she had bumped into Shinra quite a lot over her time living in Midgar.

She may not have been Shinras top priority at the time, but I don't believe they left her unchecked. They knew exactly where to find her etc.

They were probably just keeping her under their noses until they had another plan for an experiment to use her for. To keep her in the lab for 20 years would mean they'd have to feed her and keep her healthy, costing them, they probably felt that she could do this herself in her little wonder hut in the middle of the Slums, so they could just pick her up when they need to.

I'm assuming Hojo was still researching the Promised Land, and the Cetra in the meantime, but only captured Aerith when he really needed to.

 

[The Witch]

I think it was a combination of things. Like Hojo being obsessed with the reunion and whatnot.

But in the beginning, Hojo probably didn't know where she went or was.

Of course they found her soon after, they looked for her. But it would kinda be weird if he found her so soon.