The beginning can be really deep and philosophical, just to warn you. To help you out a bit, it starts out being told by a character in the game many years (but not too many) after the Meteor threat, and he/she/it is reflecting. You don't get to know who he/she/it is right away, but chances are after a few chapters you'll figure it out. It's not really important to the even being reflected upon, but when it's all over it'll be wrapped up and hopefully help portray the message I'm trying to give.
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It's strange how the years go by. A year brings life and joy, another brings death and suffering. A year brings passion and inspiration, and then it destroys your mind. But life is a cycle, night and day, summer and winter, ruled by inescapable nature. So in this sense, the year is just a messenger. Everything physical on the Planet however, is subject to Time. Time rules all in the end.
But then there's the Lifestream. The Lifestream is ageless. The Lifestream is a divine force for all the worlds. Everything has Life in it, every cell, every atom. Time is only a tiny aspect for the never-ending river of reincarnation. The weaker minded might desperatly think that life is meaningless if it's infinite. That perhaps existance is a mere illusion.
Maybe the wise ones don't know. Maybe the wise ones don't care, and maybe that's what makes them wise. We cling to the hope that we have some purpose in life, a footprint to set, a path to follow, and perhaps leave a trail that others can follow. But I know that every little aspect to the Lifestream can be a devestating fight for a human.
The Meteor incident comes to mind. Just one Planet to infinity, but the entire world to us. Nature and evolution, hand in hand, would have ruled in the end, no matter how powerful Sephiroth became. A physical being cannot live forever. But neither can we. A series of moments, just like the life we live, was all that mattered then.
Then to say that the Planet doesn't matter... it matters to me. And I, like everything else, am part of the Lifestream. I have a right to look on the Planet as a god, so old relatively, so wise through years of evolution. I have a right to do my duty to protect it. The Planet is beautiful, it's life is beautiful, and I don't want it to ever be destroyed.
...The Meteor incident... the Cetra... JENOVA, Sephiroth, Cloud... though long ago, the page in the book of time became a legend, told to every child until known by heart. Nanaki, though still young, was a member of the AVALANCHE group, the last survivor, and is the epitome of respect around here. I was so young at the time that I only remember what the Planet whispers to me.
The Planet tells many stories, even the ones woven long ago in the very back of a young mind. Each story, however, is incomplete - only a single thread in the quilt of time. But there were some things that never made the legends that shouldn't be forgotten.
This is a tale about us, the Cetra, the speakers of the Planet. Yes, it is about Aeris, her victory, and a cast of heroes, some very dear to me. Yes, it is about Sephiroth, his dream and corruption, and how relative good and evil really are. But mostly it is about the Planet, though victim to time itself, the memories of it's moments will never be gone.
I am naught but old now, and soon I myself will be riding the Lifestream. But before I go I leave this to my descendants, to hope that it will be long before it is forgotten. Maybe this is what I can do, record history that one might learn from it, for to learn from experience is to be wise indeed. I am listening, Planet...