Author: JGuy
Summary: Confused by the truth about Cloud? Don't know where to turn? Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters not in the Yellow Pages? I can help. Read on to finally understand (sort of) what in God's name the writers for this game were thinking.
Spoilers: DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T GOTTEN ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE SECOND DISC. This will COMPLETELY ruin the plot otherwise.
Disclaimer: I was not involved in the making of this game in any way, which makes me quite sad, both because it's my all-time favorite game and I'd be rich if I had. So Squaresoft people: I'm not making any money off this, so you can't sue me. If you do, I'm getting Napster's lawyers.
Author's Note: It took me many moons of deep thought to figure this out, and I wanted to lend a helping hand to those who couldn't. This may help to minimize the mass influx of mental hospital patients that has occurred since this game's production.
Cloud Strife's Life for Dummies
Our long-winded tale begins on an alien world. Really. They may look human, but they're NOT!
Anyway, once upon a time there was nothingness (okay, maybe it starts a little earlier), and then suddenly, there was stuff. Don't ask me how it got there. That's why Stephen Hawkins is here. Anyway, somehow this matter condensed to form a star, around which more stuff condensed to become planets. Somewhere along the way, these planets gathered up soul-energy, and created a living stream of it called the 'Lifestream.' Don't ask me how they gathered it. That's why Bugenhagen was here.
Anyway, this Lifestream eventually started seeping out of the planet and created actual life, and that life evolved into people. When life was born, it would take some Lifestream energy, and when it died, that energy would return to Lifestream, and it was a circle, and it's all good, cause it's a circle. Eventually, a small group of people evolved further into a race who called themselves the Cetra. The Cetra were so spiritually advanced that the could commune with the planet's Lifestream, and thus could manipulate the world for their own purposes. Because of this, instead of returning to the Lifestream, the went to the Promised Land when they died. Who promised it to them? I dunno. I'm guessing the Planet subcontracted it out to them. Anywho, because so many powerful souls went there, it eventually became very Lifestream charged.
About Lifestream: it can produce itself as an energy form called Mako, and when Mako is condensed it makes Materia. This Materia, since it comes from the Planet's Lifestream, has the knowledge of the Planet in it, so whoever possesses it can manipulate parts of the Planet just like a Cetra. Twenty-three-skidoo!!
So all was well and good until one day a meteor hit the Planet. Now, when the planet is injured like this, nobody thinks to put a Band-Aid on it. So the Planet has to gather Lifestream energy to heal the wound, which subtracts from the total life capacity of the world. Boo-hoo.
But this was no ordinary meteor! There were evil little viruses on it that infected some of the Cetra and controlled them, becoming one massive, evil, Planet-communing army, MWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!! But since this wasn't "The Outer Limits," the good guys had to win. So all of the evil people were killed except one, who was too powerful to kill, or something. So the Cetra sealed her deep within the planet. Somewhere along the way, the name Jenova comes along. Whether that's what the Cetra called the virus, or the virus called itself, or it was that last infected Cetra's name, I don't know. But it was there, so remember it.
Well, the Cetra happened to beat Planet to it. You see, Planet's a good… uh… stellar satellite at heart, so it didn't like having a massive evil race using it's powers for their own… er… massive evil purposes. So it decided to create a bunch of big, big, big, mean, scary, big monsters called Weapons to kill Jenova. Apparently, it did so by watching a bunch of Godzilla movies, because all the weapons really act like him. I mean, honestly, planet, couldn't you do something original? Maybe if you weren't so busy orbiting the Sun you could be more creative…
Anyway, Planet did it veeeeeeery slooooooooooooowly, and the Cetras killed/sealed up all the Jenova(s?) before the Planet could use the Weapons. So the Weapons were stored in the Promised Land for safekeeping.
Get it? Got it? Good. Now here comes the good part.
So the Cetra slowly start to decay. Why? Who knows. Maybe they got sick of talking to the Planet all the time. I mean, how interesting could a gigantic hunk of matter be? Anyway, this dude Professor Gast comes along. Gast is one smart turkey, even though he's not a turkey. He's a human, except he's an alien. Anyway, Gast falls in love with Ifalna, the last Cetra alive. By this point, the Cetra race has been around (and been pretty much dead) for so long, they were called the Ancients. Get this right: Cetra = Ancients. It's something so brilliant, Einstein probably thought of it, except he was dead when this game came out. So anyway, Gast asks Ifalna about all this neat stuff, and she tells him.
In your friendly neighborhood of Nibelheim, so named because it's next to Mt. Nibel, which is for some strange reason unusually rich in Mako, which is why a reactor was put there (you see, Mako energy can be used to power machines and stuff. So this corporation, Shinra Inc., which somehow took over all political, financial, and military actions in the world, collects and processes Mako for power. Since it has a monopoly on it, Shinra makes about a gadrillion gil per nanosecond), Gast and his young protégé, Professor Hojo, dig up Jenova, and wanting to experiment with it, Hojo injects his pregnant girlfriend, Lucrecia, who is REALLY in love with Vincent Valentine, this Turk (Shinra's black-ops wing), with Jenova cells, which produces a baby whose name is Sephiroth, but Vincie gets ticked at this experimenting on his chick, so he complains to Hojo, who shoots him and then experiments on HIM, making him capable of transforming into monsters when he gets really mad.
Yes, that WAS all once sentence! I am on fire!
Anyway, little baby Sephiroth grows up to join SOLDIER, a branch of Shinra which tries to produce—well—soldiers. Sephiroth turns out to be one bad-ass SOLDIER, and is really, really, really, really powerful. Now, because of this, SOLDIER picks up on the fact that maybe Sephiroth's not-so-natural birth had something to do with it. So when you try out for SOLDIER, they inundate you with a shit-load of Mako and inject Jenova cells into you. The Mako makes your eyes glow, which I find really cool, but doesn't really matter.
Get it? Got it? Good. Now here comes Cloud.
Cloud was born in Nibelheim, and was so pragmatic and reality-oriented that he never fit in with the other kids, who were all wishy-washy and probably grew up to be janitors. But he lived next door to this girl Tifa, but he never really felt like he could 'fit in' with her crowd. But one day her mom died, and Cloud came in to try and comfort her. However, being a little kid, somehow it comes into Tifa's mind that if she crosses the bridge on Mt. Nibel (a wood bridge which is about as stable as any wood bridge in an Indiana Jones movie), she can see her mom. Her friends wisely bail out before they cross the bridge, but Tifa goes over anyway, and Cloud, seeing a chance to finally make himself a friend of Tifa's, goes over with her.
You guessed it—the bridge falls over. What? You didn't guess that? Well… whatever. Anyway, they fall down. Cloud only scrapes his knee, but Tifa gets hurt pretty badly. Two dudes come along and find them, and for some reason which is never adequately explained they blame their predicament on Cloud. Tifa goes into a coma for seven days. Needless to say, everyone kind of shuts Cloud out, and he feels pretty bad about Tifa. But then he hears about Sephiroth. He figures if he can get strong, like Sephiroth, then everybody, including Tifa, would forgive and respect him. Huzaah!
He calls Tifa out to a well that night, and he briefly outlines his plan for her. Tifa then asks him to make a promise: that if he got famous, than whenever she got in trouble, her knight in shining armor (Cloud, if you couldn't figure that out, you ditz) would come and save her. It was a Kodak moment.
Okay… if you didn't heed my warning at the top, and have not finished Disc Two, STOP READING.
Now for you people who reside in the realm of Disc Three: Cloud goes to try out for SOLDIER. Hojo, being the brilliant man that he isn't, tries a different technique on Cloud than on normal SOLDIER members. The perceived effect: the experiment is a failure, and Cloud does not gain entry to SOLDIER. The actual effect: Cloud improves more slowly than other SOLDIERs, but can improve to a far higher level than the others are capable of. Hojo doesn't realize this until it's way, way too late. Ha ha.
So Cloud becomes a normal Shinra soldier, but he's damn good at it. Somewhere along the way he meets up with this dude Zack, who was SOLDIER-ized the 'normal' way and gained entry into SOLDIER. He is also damn good at what he does. The two become fast friends, and both are so good that they are promoted into Sephiroth's unit, Zack as his back-up, Cloud as one of his simple-task handymen.
One day, the happy unit goes to Nibelheim, because the reactor has somehow screwed up and is producing lots of monsters, which never makes anybody's day. Just ask any member of Tokyo. Or the Planet, for that matter, since it watched all the movies to figure out how to make a good Weapon (if you've forgotten what that means, re-read this thing. All of it. That's right, get back up there and pay attention this time.). Anywho, Cloud gets motion sickness in the truck, which is important, because it can make this explanation longer, which is always a plus, since I'm getting paid by the word (no, Squaresoft people, I was kidding, I'm actually not getting paid, heh heh heh…). Anyway, Zack gets all revved up because Shinra gave him a really crappy new Materia, which is about as important as the motion sickness thing. MOVING ON, since Cloud never made it to SOLDIER, he didn't consider himself worthy enough of meeting everybody else in town, so he put his helmet on and talked to very few people. Sure, he talked to his mom, and apparently he ransacked Tifa's room, but other than that, he didn't do too much.
But since Cloud doesn't remember the way, or something, the unit needs a guide. You guessed it—that guide is Tifa. What? You didn't guess that either? What's wrong with you? Anyway, Cloud can't bring himself to talk to her. A native wants a picture of the great Sephiroth, and insists that he, Zack, and Tifa all get together for a group hug. This actually is important, but you won't know why until later, by which point you'll probably be asleep, so it's all good.
After a long and treacherous journey, in which Sephiroth kicks a goodly amount of ass, they reach the reactor. YAY!! Since there are a bunch of company secrets inside the reactor, Sephiroth needs a guard to keep Tifa out. So he turns to his good buddy Cloud, probably because he himself couldn't do it, he needed Zack, and the other soldier died when the bridge fell down (AGAIN… geez, you think they'd learn, especially Tifa, since the last time she went on it she went into a coma for a week…).
Inside the reactor, we learn that at the top is a little room labeled 'Jenova.' Remember her? If not, re-read... Anyway, our good buddy Hojo has been screwing around again. Somebody should stop that man. Anyway, inside the Mako-condensation pods, Hojo stuffed some humans in. He was trying to figure out a new way of making SOLDIERs, but instead of getting fierce warriors, he was making monsters. But he didn't stop, because he's stupid.
Anyway, Sephiroth off-handedly mentions to Zack that he wasn't made normally, either. Zack says something like, "Surely, you weren't made like this?" Oh, Zack. If only you hadn't said that, I wouldn't have had to write this, which would make a lot of people happy, since they will spend about nineteen hours of their precious lives reading it. Poor, poor Zack. How does it feel like to have said something which then made the most powerful SOLDIER ever snap?
Anyway, after saying that, the most powerful SOLDIER ever snaps. What… you already knew that? You're psychic! Anyway, Sephiroth then goes down into the basement of the Shinra Mansion, which just so happens to be in Nibelheim. Down there, he finds a bunch of books by the now-deceased Gast (you see, Hojo killed him for that love affair with Ifalna. Don't remember that? Go re-read… Incidentally, that love affair produced a daughter, Aeris. This is also important, because it adds to the soap opera portion of this game). Somehow, Sephiroth has gotten it into his head that his mother is Jenova, and his father is… heh heh heh… ha ha ha… HA HA HA HA HA HA (shakes head)!!! At least, that's how he explained it to Cloud.
Anyway, he reads all this stuff about Jenova, and snaps even more. Then one day, he snaps so hard, he snapped like… something that snaps really hard. Anyway, he torches Nibelheim, then heads for the reactor. He kills Tifa's father. Tifa is pissed, so she grabs Sephiroth's weapon, which he left on the ground because he's lazy, and tries to kill him. Sephiroth grabs the sword and hacks her down. Incidentally, everybody and a half in the game says that "only Sephiroth can wield his weapon," and yet Tifa does it with no effort. Continuity error? I think so!
Sephiroth is trying to get into the Jenova room. All his careful research in the Shinra Basement has convinced him that humans stole the planet from the Cetra, and now he and Jenova were going to take it back. Whoopty-doo. At this point, Zack arrives on the scene. And rushes heroically into the Jenova room—and is immediately tossed out by Sephiroth like… something that gets tossed out of a room easily.
Anyway, at this point, Cloud shows up. He keeps his promise and 'saves' Tifa by gallantly moving her out of his way. Another Kodak moment. He comes across Zack, who gives him the novel advice of 'Cloud… kill Sephiroth…' Oh, you sage, you. Cloud must have left his gun somewhere, and since he liked swords better anyway, he grabbed Zack's. He runs into the Jenova room, yells at Sephiroth because he's been so mean lately, rushes him, and stabs him with the sword. Yay!!
Cloud comes back down, but is Sephiroth defeated?
Is he?
H-hello… audience? Are you there? Hello…
Well, he isn't, so there. Anyway, Sephiroth has taken Jenova's head off (when I said he snapped, I meant he SNAPPED) and marches down a very narrow path many flights above some reactor fuel, or something. Anywho, Cloud follows, says something brilliant like "Sephiroth!!", and gets stabbed by Goober. Ha ha, just checking to see if you were paying attention. There is no Goober. Goober is a figment of your imagination. He is nothing more than a part of… the Matrix.
Anyway, Cloud gets stabbed by Sephiroth, who then raised his sword, with Cloud on it, very high. He says, "Don't push your luck." Well, Cloud, being a rebellious teenager, decides to push his luck. Using all the might he's gained from his SOLDIER-transformation-thingie, Cloud drags himself and his sword BACK DOWN TO THE GROUDN!!! SCORE!!!!!! Sephiroth says, "This… can't… be…" because he needed more cliché lines. Cloud then simply tosses Sephiroth down into the reactor fuel below. Yipee-skipee!
Get it? Got it? Good. Now here comes the complicated part.
But before we get into that, take a breather. I'm serious. Go have a break. You've been sitting here reading this for God knows how long, and there's a lot more to go (it was a long game). If you've been a good little boy and/or girl and have been paying attention, THIS is what Cloud's past really was. The reason it was all befuddled was… but go take your break first. Seriously, you need one, I can tell. You're paler already. Go have a bowl of cereal or something. Go watch a Godzilla movie, like the Planet (if you don't get that, then after this break, re-read). Go. Play. Make merry. Don't worry, I'll wait.
Hum-tee-to… doo-dee-doo…
Back? There… don't you feel better? Ah, there…
Now for the complicated part.
So after offing Sephiroth, Cloud's adrenaline/testosterone where's off. So all the damage he's received catches up with him and he collapses. Somebody (probably Hojo, our favorite professor) picks Cloud and Zack up and puts them in something reminiscent of Bacta Tanks from Star Wars. The two awake prematurely, and start scratching messages to each other on the tanks. The two hooligans plan an escape. They escape. Everything's all good, right? WRONG!
Zack, as it turns out, pulled Cloud out a little early. Whereas Zack was only thrown out quite harshly from a room, Cloud got stabbed by a very long sword. Ouch. So Cloud was still pretty messed up when Zack busted him out. Anyway, Zack finds a guy who'll give them a ride, and they're off to Midgar, because that's where the driver wants to go. Why? Who cares! Zack ponders on what he'll do with himself, and finally decides that he will be a mercenary. Huzaah!
Then, Zack hears gunfire, and whipping himself into action, fights the evil Shinra soldiers. Unfortunately, they fatally wound him, which is pretty sad, considering how weak Shinra soldiers are. I mean, what was his HP, 4? Sad. Anywho, the soldiers come upon Cloud, but he's so out of it that the captain tells them to leave him to die. Oh, Shinra captain. If only you hadn't said that, I wouldn't have had to write this, which would make a lot of people happy, since they will spend about nineteen hours of their precious lives reading it. Poor, poor captain. After they leave, Cloud gathers enough energy to grab Zack's sword and enter Midgar.
Now there is about a five year gap, and I don't know what happens in between. Either Cloud and Zack were in their tanks for five years, or Cloud spent five years wandering pretty aimlessly around Midgar.
Anyway, eventually, Tifa finds him. Cloud becomes so elated that he comes out of his tank-stupor (this is the problem with the 'wander around Midgar' theory, but spending five years in a tank makes no sense… Continuity error? I think so!), but he's pretty ashamed of his past, so, in his stupor, he re-invents his history to take over Zack's place. So, in his mind, he did make into SOLDIER, he was in Nibelheim five years ago (remember, Tifa wouldn't know this, since Cloud never talked to her), and he had decided to become a mercenary. Thus, one and a half discs pass, and there is much rejoicing, especially among Squaresoft executives, because they just made a shit-load of money.
Now, Hojo gets a little ticked after Sephiroth's death, so he starts trying to make a Sephiroth-clone. How does he do this, you ask? What? What do you mean, you didn't ask? How am I supposed to answer you if you didn't ask? Well, just pretend you asked, okay? Good. Sheez, the nerve of some people… Anyway, he makes the clones by genetically creating some people. What does he do then? He inundates them with Mako and injects Jenova cells into them. Sound familiar? That's right—the same way SOLDIERs are made! Hojo then proceeded to tattoo a number on them (Sephiroth was 'I').
But oh, will the plot twists never end? Sephiroth is actually alive! Oh no! He is still insanely powerful (not to mention just plain insane), and he uses his fantastic will-power to control all the Sephiroth-clones.
Now, there is this thing called the Jenova Reunion, in which all parts of Jenova, and all people with Jenova in them, reassemble in one place. A place that is in high-density Lifestream: the Promised Land! That's right, it's STILL getting subcontracted out to the Ancients!
Sephiroth still wants to conquer the world, because he's the bad guy, and that's what bad guys do. How to do this? Hmm… Let's all take a trip back to the beginning of this thing—when the Planet gets injured, nobody thinks to put a Band-Aid on it. Why? I don't know. So the moral of this thing is, if you ever hurt the Planet, get out your Band-Aids. Please. It's not that hard, and Boy Scouts, it can fulfill your good-deed-of-the-day-thingie!
Anyway, since people don't put Band-Aids on it, it has to gather perfectly good Lifestream energy to heal it. But, what if the Planet were almost mortally injured? That's almost as much Lifestream energy as money made by Squaresoft executives! Golly!
So, if Sephiroth can mortally injure the planet, and be at the center of the injury, he can absorb all the Lifestream power for himself and be God. Perfect! He's got an overly complex and complicated plan to dominate the world! He's on par in the realm of bad guys!
But how to do this? Why, just grab some Black Materia, which can summon Meteor, which can—you guessed it—fatally injure the Planet. You didn't guess that either? Come on, man…
So he starts the Jenova Reunion, and makes sure that he gets that Black Materia. Cloud gets wind of this idea, and since he's still pretty pissed at him for nuking his hometown, gets the Black Materia before Sephiroth. Nya nya nya nya nyaaaa nyaaaaaaaa!!
But… Cloud's still got Jenova cells in him, and since Sephiroth is AS OF YET the stronger of the two wills, he makes Cloud give it back to him. Nya nya nya nya nyaaaaa nyaaaaaaaa, yourself!
Get it? Got it? Good. Now here comes the tricky part.
Okay, now virtually everything I've told you comes into play here. Pay very close attention, or you will have read this entire thing for nothing, which will probably make you very sad.
OK… Cloud thinks he was in Zack's shoes, remember? So… Sephiroth tells him that he WASN'T in Nibelheim five years ago. Remember that tourist guy, the one I told you to remember, even though you'd be asleep right now? Remember the picture he took of Sephiroth, Zack, and Tifa? He shows that to Cloud, who just think it's all an illusion made up by Sephiroth. This hits Tifa pretty hard. She's been confused about Cloud, since he's been acting like he really was in Nibelheim, even though he wasn't (remember, he hid from her, so she didn't know he was there). What Sephiroth says kind of scares her, since it all seems true. He then tells Cloud that he was simply one of Hojo's Sephiroth-clones, but he was a failure. This would explain why he has come to Jenova Reunion-land, and why he gave Sephiroth the Black Materia. Cloud says, "Bah! I remember being promoted to SOLDIER First Class! Hey, wait… no I don't. Well… I remember joining SOLDIER!… no, don't remember that either… gah!!!"
Anyway, Sephiroth then completely overdominates (it's a word) Cloud, who has somehow gotten the Black Materia back. Cloud now fully believes that he was just a Sephiroth-clone, who just played on Tifa's memories of a 'Cloud' to get to the Reunion, to give Sephiroth the Black Materia. So he does, and Sephiroth summons Meteor, and the world is screwed up.
But then he gets sucked into the Lifestream, silly boy, and gets spewed out in Mideel, and then gets sucked back in a day later. Sucker. Anyway, inside the Lifestream he and Tifa figure this all out, and there is much rejoicing, because Cloud is the strongest character in the game, and it's always nice to have guys like that on your side.
ALRIGHT!! That's the truth about Cloud, in the best way that I can explain it. If it didn't help: sorry. Here's a really brief summary: Cloud tried out for SOLDIER, didn't make it, tried to kill Sephiroth, got confused in his head and put himself in another SOLDIER's shoes, got told by Sephiroth he wasn't really Cloud and was only a Sephiroth-clone, got his will broken by Sephiroth and gave him the Black Materia. He called Meteor, and all the Weapons came out to act like Godzilla. Though I don't see the point, since they're supposed to protect the planet, and Sephiroth is the Planet's main threat, but they protect Sephiroth… Hm. Seems like Planet has some coding bugs.
But that's it! It's over! See? It's that simple, and yet I fashioned this whole fic out of it. Yee-ha!
Well, if you've beaten the Second Disc, then you have seen all this, though it might have been hard to decipher it all. Cloud comes back, and if you haven't done the Third Disc, let me just tell you that he's gonna fight the good fight. If you beat the game, than your Cloud has finished his SOLDIER evolution: he is spiritually equal and physically superior to Sephiroth. Hoo-ray!
And you just finished Cloud Strife's Life for Dummies. Double Hoo-Ray!!!
Number of times I said 'anyway' in this fic: 29. Wow. That's a lot.
Good bye, and thanks for reading! Reviews are always helpful! Good morning/afternoon/evening/night, and God/Allah/Jesus/Buddha/Brahma/Zeus/Jupiter/Goddess/Greater-Being/the Force/If-You're-Atheistic,-Whatever-the-Hell-You-Want bless!
THE END