Jenova

Jenova is an alien life-form in Final Fantasy VII. She also appears in a retelling of a section of the game in the animated film Last Order -Final Fantasy VII-, and in flashbacks in the movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Throughout the game, Jenova is often referred to as "she", though Ifalna calls Jenova "he" (or "it" in the PC version). Jenova appears to be female form and is said to be the "mother" of Sephiroth. She is called the "Calamity from the Skies" or "Heaven's Dark Harbinger" by the Cetra.

Her name is a portmanteau of "Jehovah" and "Nova," a historical mistranslation of the Hebrew name of God and the Latin word for "New." Thus, Jenova's name means "New God," a point of symbolic significance.

Nature
Jenova's genetic structure is a two-way conduit. She can both take in the traits of her prey, and also insert her own genes to turn other organisms into insane monsters. Once Jenova lands upon a new planet, she will instinctively begin to destroy every form of life she finds. Jenova was able to absorb the memories and form of her prey, hiding as their loved ones to destroy them.

As stated in Professor Hojo's Jenova Reunion Theory, once the cells of Jenova have been separated from the main body, they will try to return back to her. If they are inside a host body, they can influence its mind and body so that it moves to the Reunion - sometimes so extremely that the host organism can be killed in the process.

Once Jenova has completely destroyed a planet, she uses it as a vessel for her to travel through the cosmos to the next unlucky world. This constant destruction may have been going for millions of years before the beginning of Final Fantasy VII. Her age is unknown, but since Jenova can lay dormant for thousands of years if needed she very well might be older than the Planet itself.

Arrival
Approximately two thousand years before the main events of the game, Jenova landed on the Planet, having traveled through space on a meteor. This fall from the heavens created a giant wound on the Planet's surface that would later come to be known as the "Northern Crater." Since that time, the Lifestream has been focused in that area to restore itself. The area around there is a frozen ice-shelf.

After her arrival, Jenova emerged from the Crater and approached the Cetra using her mimic abilities to glean the memories and emotions of the Cetra. Those who were taken victim of Jenova were infected with Jenova's cells and mutated into monsters. Jenova would then take the form of the fallen Cetra, and so get close enough to destroy their loved ones.

Quickly, Jenova was able to destroy most of the Cetra civilization. The cousin species, the humans, hid from Jenova and allowed the Cetra to be mostly wiped-out. Those few Cetra that survived used the power of Holy to defeat Jenova and quarantine her inside the Northern Crater. Jenova would lie dormant there for thousands of years. Despite their victory over the "Calamity from the Skies", the Cetra civilization was lost, and their numbers dwindled down to almost nothing. Mankind took over the role that Cetra, whom they called "Ancients" had played, and started their own civilization. As time wore on, humanity forgot about Jenova and the Ancients fell into legend.

Rediscovery


Two thousand years after Jenova's first fall onto the Planet, all memory of Jenova had faded. The Shin-Ra Electric Power Company now ruled the Planet, using their Mako energy for great power. However, they were ever looking for a more efficient way to harvest Mako. So they looked back onto the legends of the Ancients, and thought that whatever remains of those lost people might be a useful tool. Shin-Ra scientists and excavators wandered the entire Planet, looking for some remnant of those people.

Approximately 30 years before the main events of the game began, Professor Gast Faremis excavated the creature and mistakenly identified it as a Cetra. Thus began the Jenova Project - an effort by a number of Shin-Ra scientists to take Jenova's cells and create a human hybrid with her. One of fruits of this labor was SOLDIER, an elite military force that had greatly-expanded abilities thanks to being infused with Mako laced with Jenova's cells. Sephiroth, Genesis Rhapsodos, and Angeal Hewley were all born from the Project. Several years after the experiment began, the Project was shut-down, and Jenova was kept inside the Mako Reactor at Nibelheim.

Sephiroth's "Mother"
Sephiroth, the ultimate SOLDIER who was directly infused with Jenova's cells while still inside his biological mother, a scientist in the Project, Lucrecia Crescent's womb, was not told of his role in the Jenova Project. All his biological father, Professor Hojo ever told Sephiroth as a boy was that his mother's name was "Jenova".

Many years later, Sephiroth came to the Nibelheim Reactor along with Zack Fair and Cloud Strife, only to find the Reactor filled with Mako Monsters. These were the failed versions of himself. He also found his "mother", Jenova inside a tube in the Reactor. She was a hideous monster, certainly nothing like what Sephiroth imagined her to be. The strain of these discoveries drove Sephiroth insane, and went down into the Shin-Ra Mansion to read all he could about the Jenova Project.

Believing himself to be the descendant of the Ancients whom the humans had "betrayed", Sephiroth went on an angry killing spree. All of Nibelheim was burned to the ground, and Sephiroth went up to the Reactor to get his "mother". However, thanks to Cloud defeating him, Sephiroth could only take Jenova's head with him as Sephiroth and the head of Jenova both fell into the Lifestream below the Reactor. There Sephiroth and Jenova joined together. Sephiroth taking complete control of Jenova with the force of his will. Sephiroth seals himself away in the Northern Crater with his plan to take over the Planet now in motion.

Shin-Ra forces took over the Reactor, and used Cloud and Zack as a part of Professor Hojo's newest experiment to test his Jenova Reunion Theory. Several others test subjects became so infected with Jenova that they would become the Sephiroth Clones, a group of fanatics who served Sephiroth beyond even their own lives. What remained of Jenova was taken to Midgar and placed inside Hojo's lab in the Shin-Ra Building.

In Sephiroth's Form
Four years later, Sephiroth took complete control of Jenova from the Northern Crater. She no longer had a mind of her own, and was only a vessel for Sephiroth's will. The actions of "Sephiroth" during this time can still be credited to him, for Jenova was just a part of him now. The creature morphed into the shape of Sephiroth, and massacred many people in the Shin-Ra building. Along the way, it let Cloud and his party loose from their cell, perhaps to help Cloud on his way to the Reunion. From there Jenova escaped into the outside world.



Cloud Strife and his party now chased Jenova/Sephiroth across the Planet, not knowing that what they were chasing was actually Jenova, not Sephiroth. The obvious reason for Cloud following Sephiroth was to get revenge for the destruction of Nibelheim, but on some level Cloud was being controlled by the Jenova Cells inside him. Several times the cells took complete control of Cloud, and made him mentally unstable. Sephiroth used his control of Cloud to make his rival give him the Black Materia.

As the party followed Jenova/Sephiroth's trail, they ran into parts of Jenova that Sephiroth was using to keep them behind. Jenova BIRTH was fought on the Cargo Ship. The second battle was with Jenova LIFE after Sephiroth had murdered the last Cetra, Aeris Gainsborough. Though Sephiroth is seen and taunts the party, Jenova is merely a vessel for his will. This can be seen after the battle with Jenova LIFE, when Sephiroth's word said to come from Jenova in the text box. A third battle with Jenova occurred in the Whirlwind Maze with Jenova DEATH. All three of these bosses are pallet swaps of each other.

The Reunion of all of the Sephiroth Clones took place at the Northern Crater. However of the dozens that had started out to return to Sephiroth, only Cloud still lived. Cloud handed the real Sephiroth, crystallized in hibernation, the Black Materia so that Meteor could be summoned. Sephiroth's plan was to create so great a wound so great into the Planet's surface that the Lifestream would have to be summoned to heal it. That is when Sephiroth would take control of the entire Planet. Meteor now loomed in the skies over the Planet, only three days were left until it crashed.



Cloud Strife would recover and ultimately throw off Sephiroth's influence. Together with his party, they went down into the Northern Crater to defeat Sephiroth. Just before the final battle with him, they fight with Jenova SYNTHESIS, a form of Jenova very different then the ones fought earlier. Once this last form of Jenova is beaten, a heavily-mutated Sephiroth is fought and defeated. Meteor still hits and demolishes most of Midgar, but with help from the Lifestream and Holy, it did not destroy the world. Sephiroth and Jenova fail to conquer the world.

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children


Jenova continued to survive. In fact, her destruction actually allowed her cells to spread around the entire planet, infecting thousands who came into contact with them. Her will was represented by the disease Geostigma, which largely hit children due to their weakened immune systems. Two years after the fall of Meteor, the remains of Jenova are found by the Turks inside the Northern Crater. The three Remnants of Sephiroth, Loz, Yazoo, and Kadaj all hunt for their "mother" so that they have a a second Reunion to revive Sephiroth. The remnants search throughout Edge and demand that Rufus Shinra hand over Jenova.

Only Kadaj manages to reach Jenova's remains, and with it resurrects Sephiroth. During his fight with Cloud, Sephiroth tells his rival that his plan is to take control of the Planet, and use it as a vessel to bring destruction to the entire universe - just like Jenova had done before landing on the Planet. However, Sephiroth is again defeated. Aerith's Great Gospel brings a healing rain down upon the Planet, healing it of Geostigma. Due to Jenova's high adaptability and previous ability to survive, it is highly doubtful that this is the final end of Jenova.

Although in the film Jenova's remains are explicitly stated as "Jenova's head", Tetsuya Nomura has stated that the remains are not her head and are merely a few random clusters of her cells. However, something was needed to call them, and the term "head" stuck.

The Deep Ground Soldiers would especially target those who had suffered from Geostigma when they were trying to summon the Omega Weapon, in Dirge of Cerberus -Final Fantasy VII-.

Control
There has been much debate in the past over the nature of Jenova's influence on Sephiroth and vice versa. However, this was prior to the publication of the Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Omega guide, which is endorsed and published by Square Enix as canon. It states that Sephiroth's will and ambition were stronger than Jenova's, allowing him to control it.

Some still claim that Sephiroth seems to be controlled by -- or at least influenced by -- the Jenova cells inside of him. Others say that while he wishes to carry out his own plans, he instinctively-- by virtue of the high concentration of Jenova cells in his biological composition -- wishes to carry out Jenova's plans in a different form, which is speculated to be one possible reason for his desire to become one with the Planet. Jenova, seemingly being an instinctual super-virus, sought to infect and transform other lifeforms with its cells, replication and survival being the core drive of viruses. In becoming one with the Planet, Sephiroth would be the core of the life cycle, essentially allowing him to replicate constantly on a planetary scale.

It was also previously debated that Sephiroth was at first driven insane by his proximity to Jenova in Nibelheim, compounding upon his already stressed mental state due to what he read in the Shin-Ra Mansion's library. However, Jenova was incapacitated at that time, and Sephiroth's psychopathic killing spree in Nibelheim was "justifiable" as vengeance for Sephiroth's assumed ancestors being abandoned to destruction by the ancestors of the common people.

Some also argue that Sephiroth could be considered the evolved version of Jenova.

Music
Jenova has two signature soundtracks in Final Fantasy VII. One is J-E-N-O-V-A, which is heard in fights with Jenova-BIRTH and Jenova-DEATH, and also in the stairway in the end of the game. (J-E-N-O-V-A is not played during the battle with Jenova-LIFE, and is instead replaced with Aerith's Theme due to the emotional circumstances.) The first song is also heard when the characters fight Hojo, due to the fact that he is strongly tied to Jenova, and goes through Jenova-esque transformations during the fight. The second track is Jenova Absolute, which is heard during the fight with Jenova-SYNTHESIS.

The soundtrack of the movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children includes a heavy metal arrangement of the J-E-N-O-V-A track. This plays during the battle between Cloud and Kadaj and similar to the game, appears before the final battle with Sephiroth and the piece One-Winged Angel.

Moreover, The Black Mages recorded another heavy-metal version that is featured on their first album. A piano version appears on Piano Collections: Final Fantasy VII.