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For serious enthusiasts who are interested in knowing what the full story of how things came to be (meaning, I'm basically pasting a more detailed version of nrjizer's post):
NOTE: The parts that are in RED are basically answering the Zack/Cloud question. HOWEVER, the rest of it fills in the gaps in the storyline, for anyone that hasn't played the game or has forgotten the storyline.
9 years ago
- Zack leaves his home in Gongaga and joins SOLDIER; he easily makes the grade and gets to serve under the command of Sephiroth.
7 years ago
- While stationed in Midgar, Zack meets and dates Aeris. He writes to his parents about her during this time.
- Cloud leaves Nibelheim, but fails to get into SOLDIER. He becomes an ordinary Shinra soldier and cuts off all contact with his hometown and old friends; so ashamed is he that he failed again.
5 years ago
- Reports of monsters disrupting life for the workers at the Mt. Nibel Mako reactor results in Sephiroth, Zack and Cloud being sent to Nibelheim to investigate. On reaching Nibelheim Cloud keeps his identity hidden from Tifa and the other townspeople. He cannot bear to be seen as just an "ordinary" solider.
Tifa takes the party to the Mako reactor. Tifa and Cloud stay outside. Inside, Sephiroth discovers Jenova's body and sees all the mutated "failed" experiments of Hojo's. He begins to realise his origins may be similar and becomes upset. Zack is disbelieving at first, but when one of the mutated humans falls out of a pod he also begins to be concerned. The party return to Nibelheim Mansion.
Sephiroth finds all the notes of Jenova Project in the basement of the Mansion. He is aware of Professor Gasts initialisation of the project but has not been told how Gast died or Hojo's full involvement in his creation. Later in the night Zack goes to speak to Sephiroth and finds Sephiroth a changed man. Sephiroth has discovered Gasts notes he made at Icicle Lodge about the Ancients. He now believes he is descended from the Ancients and regards normal humans as traitors who abandoned the Cetra to a terrible disaster. However he does not seem to accept Jenova is the cause of that disaster. He rants and raves at Zack before leaving quickly to see Jenova whom he refers to as "Mother".
Zack follows him outside and sees the whole village in flames. Many people are dead or dying, a Shinra Soldier (Cloud) tends to his dying mother. Sephiroth heads for the reactor with several townsfolk in hot pursuit. Tifa and Zack chase after him, Cloud following behind.
At the reactor Tifa discovers her father's body. Sephiroth has killed him. As Sephiroth moves towards the Pod with Jenova in it, Zack tries to attack him but is batted away. Tifa picks up Sephiroth's discarded sword and attacks him, but he takes the sword back and cuts her down. Cloud arrives to witness this and he tenderly moves Tifa into a more comfortable position before confronting Sephiroth.
Sephiroth opens the pod and tries to free Jenova. As Cloud approaches Sephiroth tells Jenova he has come to reclaim the Planet for her. Cloud stabs Sephiroth then returns to tend to Tifa. Injured, Sephiroth can only take Jenova's head with him, he leaves the pod room, walking past Cloud. Cloud follows him onto the bridge above the Life stream running far below at the bottom of the reactor. Sephiroth stabs Cloud though the chest, but Cloud keeps a hold of the sword and uses it to flip Sephiroth and Jenova's head into the bottom of the Mako reactor. Cloud then passes out.
- In the immediate aftermath, Zangan (Tifa's tutor) arrives at the reactor and takes the wounded Tifa to Midgar. Here she sets up a bar called "Seventh Heaven" in the sector 7 slums when she has recovered.
- Cloud, Zack and the surviving residents of Nibelheim are gathered up and used by Hojo to create clones of Sephiroth now they believe the original is dead.
- Far from dead, Sephiroth washes through the Life stream until he ends up at the Great North Cave. Having assimilated the knowledge of the Ancients while in there he begins to formulate a plan to turn himself into a God. This involves summoning a Meteor to cause a big enough wound on the planets surface to make the Life stream rush to one place, where he can absorb it all. Over the next 5 years he experiments with controlling the Sephiroth clones remotely and projecting himself psychically. His physical body however remains in the Great North Cave for the duration of the game.
- Shinra cover up the incident at Nibelheim and repopulate the town with Shinra staff. Experiments carry on at the Mansion, but Jenova is moved to Shinra Headquarters (now minus her head), for safekeeping. After the cloning project proves to be a failure, Hojo moves back to Midgar permanently and carries on research there. At some point he captures Nanaki for a series of unknown tests and names him Red XIII.
4 years ago to present day
- Barret (due to the happenings at Coral), swearing revenge on Shinra decides to start targeting their reactors in Midgar. He hooks up with Tifa (who is also harbouring anger towards Shinra) and uses the basement of her bar as a centre of operations for his environmental terrorist group AVALANCHE.
- At sometime close to the present day, Zack and Cloud escape the Shinra Mansion. Cloud is nearly catatonic from Mako and Jenova treatments. Zack dresses him in a spare SOLDIER uniform and they manage to get to the mountains near Midgar before Shinra catches up with them. On their journeys Zack tells Cloud all about his life in SOLDIER and what happened when he was alone with Sephiroth. Cloud is still too confused and messed up to respond, but Zacktakes care of him.
When Shinra find them Zack is shot dead. Cloud is left alive, as he is considered no threat. However Cloud manages to pick up Zacks sword and make it to Sector 7 railway station in Midgar where Tifa finds him still confused. As he gets better Clouds mind takes Zacks experiences and mixes them with his own, setting up the split personality that would allow Sephiroth such control over him.
Remembering Zack's idea that they become mercenaries, that's what he tells Tifa he is now and she decides to hire him to help AVALANCHE blow up the Mako reactors. It is here that the actual game begins...
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