Final Fantasy VII

What is Jenova?

Jenova is an alien organism that crash-landed onto the planet approximately 2000 years before the events of the game. Jenova's only goal was to destroy all life, so it appeared as a Cetra and joined the race of Ancients. When it gained their trust, Jenova gave most of the Cetra a virus, turning them into viscious monsters. The planet created a solution to destroy Jenova, which was Weapon. However, the few remaining Cetra was able to defeat Jenova and entomb it into the Earth.About 2000 years later, a Professor of science named Gast discovered Jenova within the Earth. Jenova was still in it's human form, so Gast mistook Jenova for an ancient. Jenova was stored at the Nibleheim reactor and used for experiments. Much is still unclear with Professor Gast and Jenova, but we do know that Gast revealed that he made a terrible mistake regarding Jenova. Although it is never clarified what the mistake was, it is highly plausible that Gast saw the awesome power of Jenova, and realized it was not of this planet.It should be greatly noted that Jenova can take on any shape or form. Anyone who's seen John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) will understand how Jenova does this. This is proven by the various encounters with Sephiroth during the game. When we first meet him, he appears on the cargo ship, but suddenly transforms into a monstrous Jenova-like creature. Once defeated, it reverts back to it's original form, which is Jenova's arm. The next two times Sephiroth also turns into a Jenova creature. This proves that the Sephiroth that the group chases throughout the game is not Sephiroth himself, rather Jenova's body parts shaped into Sephiroth. After the fight with Jenova-DEATH, Cloud reveals that they haven't been chasing Sephiroth the whole time.

Is Jenova really Sephiroth's mother?

In short, no, she is not. It is clearly stated that Lucrecia, not Jenova, is Sephiroth's birth mother. This is confirmed, however, only if you are able to meet Vincent. When you meet Vincent in the Shinra basement, he states that Lucrecia is Sephiroth's mother. He also states, however, that the theory of Jenova being Sephiroth's mother is not incorrect. This makes it very confusing. The only way to clear this up completely is to meet Lucrecia in the lagoon near Mt. Nibel. Vincent has a flashback suddenly of how he let Lucrecia fall in love with Hojo. Lucrecia makes it very clear that Sephiroth is her son. She also states that, although she wanted to die, "the Jenova inside of her" wouldn't let her.At the end of the second disc, the party runs into Hojo for the final time. Hojo reveals that he is Sephiroth's father. His claim is backed up by Vincent's flashback earlier, showing Hojo and Lucrecia fall in love with each other. He also claims that, while Sephiroth was still in the womb, they injected Jenova cells into him. This is where the theory of Jenova being his mother is brought up. This is also what Lucrecia means by "the Jenova inside of me."No, however, in a sence yes. This can be explained as the game progresses, while biologicaly Lucrecia and Hojo are the parents of Sephiroth, what drives Sephiroth to do what he does, and what makes his physical prowess so unqiue is the Jenova cells in him. So Lucrecia gave birth to Sephiroth, Jenova made him the man we see in the story.

Beginning with this game, the games had the same number in the title in both the American and Japanese releases. What does that mean?

When Final Fantasy (the original) was release it was the same in Japan and the States, but the next Final Fantasy to come stateside was actually an easier version of Final Fantasy IV not the orginal II. The next game to be released stateside, named Final Fantasy III is actually japan's Final Fantasy VI. With VII being a worldwide release Squaresoft (not Square-Enix) decided to keep it as Final Fantasy VII as to not cause confusion. After that Final Fantasy titles were released under the correct numbers.Also Square-Enix has released the "missing titles" in various collections.- Final Fantasy V and VI were released as the PSX Anthology. (FFV has never been released Stateside and VI was now released under it's proper title)- Final Fantasy IV along with Chrono Trigger were released as the Final Fantasy Chronicles on thr PSX (IV was released under it's proper title and as a bonus, player could play through the Original (Japanese Ver.) Final Fantasy IV, said to be the hardest FF ever.)- Final Fantasy I and II were released as Final Fantasy Origins on the PSX, also the last Final Fantasy Titles to be released on the original Playstation (Final Fantasy II is the original Japanese version, not released Stateside before)- Final Fantasy III was released on the Nintendo DS completely remade for the handheld system, but keeping the original story intact. (this was the last of the original FF titles to be released to the US, but the orignal Japanese NES version has never been officially released Stateside.)