#also the source of Jenova knowledge about the OG has to be the Lifestream (after she fell); maybe she left Sephiroth on her own wish

[umbralstars]

I have been thinking about this for like a week trying to come up with an answer because it got me thinking too. About a lot of things.

So like, this is going off the assumption that the body we see in the reactor is even what Jenova looks like, right? The Temple of the Ancients in Rebirth does depict her both in the guise of a humanoid and her monstrous form, and then you have the Shadowblood Queen stuff. She also has more humanoid parts on her during her boss fights, so??

Assuming that the physical body we see in the reactor is the body of that Cetra that's been infected by Jenova and frozen in the Northern Crater, then maybe the cells that were taken Could have Cetra dna still. But that's also assuming Jenova didn't completely shape-shift and has just kept that form. Because I have found no evidence saying one way or the other about that (that I could find).

But that also begs the question of what a Cetra even is. Which from all the canonical, semi-canon, and debated canonicity sources I've read I don't know if there's a definite answer even to that. My interpretation time. The OG game and Maiden says that humans either were once all Cetra or that such a distinction did not exist because everyone could hear the voice of the Planet, and that humans lost that ability after Jenova came. However, Rebirth shows us that the Cetra and the "children of man" seemingly co-existed before Jenova even arrived; and implies that the full breakdown between umans and Cetra happened due to Jenova's manipulations. Cetra did move and make settlements and even taught the people of Cosmo Canyon, but eventually their people declined into myth with Ifalna and Aerith bring the only ones left.

But, I don't think that's the complete story. The way the Cetra come across to me is that there is both a genetic and cultural foundation for being Cetra; and that there might be humans who can hear the voice but are not Cetra because they lack that cultural connection. The most recent example which comes to mind is Rosen given he says this:

I wonder what "sounds" Rosen would be able to hear when he sleeps that his "natural talents" allow him (and the other Eyes of Rhadore) to specially perceive given his entire purpose is to listen and watch for minute changes in the lifestream's flow.

I should also mention that being a Cetra isn't just about natural abilities; there's also that cultural connection and training involved. We see this during Aerith's section in the Temple where she learns how to guide the lifestream via the spirits of her ancestors. The pools in that temple seem to be designed to allow for that type of training.

I don't think Rosen is a Cetra btw. While his people could have been connected to them his abilities are a hold over within Rhadoran culture, not Cetran culture.

Aerith cannot do nor understand everything just because of how she was born. She Needed Ifalna in her life to give her the stories and knowledge of their people and their connection; especially because Aerith's abilities did not even awaken until she was well into being a toddler according to Traces of Two Pasts. This is important for what theory I've come up with:

Even if Sephiroth does have Cetra genes (assuming that he even Could have any), I do not think he would have ever been able to hear the voice of the Planet due to the way he was being raised.

The reason for humans losing their ability to communicate with the Planet was because they became disconnected from the lifestream. It's possible that connection is something that is passed down And has to be cultivated in early childhood or else it is lost (or turned dormant); eg possibly Rosen as an example because the people of Rhadore were close to the lifestream still so while the connection is rare its not gone all together & obviously Aerith because she had an avenue to both.

This would also explain why the Cetra disappeared over time. They suffered heavily at the hands of Jenova and then in the wars that happened afterwards. We know very little about the way the Planet was before Jenova came, and we only get snippets of the after. The Cetra would have pockets of community (eg in Gongaga and Cosmo Canyon via the world intel and ruins), but more and more of their children lost the ability to speak with the Planet as those communities faced hardship or assimilated in with human communities surrounding them or losing their own cultural knowledge or the damage done to the Planet caused lingering problems until eventually we are left with Ifalna and then Aerith.

Back to Sephiroth, the reason I say his genes don't matter is because he was cut off from the Planet from the day he was born. Alien genes causing problems aside, Sephiroth was raised in a lab cut off from connections with people who weren't scientists and all of nature. Until he was 14 years old which is Way past my presumed cut-off date. Sure, the project under Gast was to make an Ancient, but also given how Sephiroth describes Gast he was distant and left when Seph was still very young (he also cannot give that cultural connection like Ifalna could to Aerith).

Hojo on the other hand does not believe in Planetology at all, and has a distain for Gast's entire line of research. He only sees the Cetra as a mere scientific curiosity while also believing his own achievements better than them; and when it comes to humans who take the lifestream seriously? Forget about, unscientific nonsense. That's also not to mention he figured out that Jenova was an alien even before Sephiroth was conceived it seems, so he was 100% doing his research into the alien part and not the vestiges of Cetra genetics that could still remain.

This is not an environment where Sephiroth could have ever learned to hear the voice of the Planet, if he had the chance at all. Sephiroth is not a Cetra; nearly all the people who created him wanted him to be. But it was also a corporate idea of what the Cetra were and not who they really were, this was a failed plan out the gate.

serious lore question

so, sephiroth was told he was Cetra but they also say that jenova looks humanoid because the entity possessed the body of a Cetra woman. so if they used jenova’s cells on sephiroth wouldn’t that actually make him part Cetra anyway?