If anyone has any questions of any kind, this would be the place to post them.

:)

What was your interpretation of the Nero and Shelke scene in the Shera? Some say that he sounded like he had nothing but contempt and disgust for her. Me? I think it was a quiet(of course) and sarcastic anger at the fact that she "left" the Tsviets. So, when she fought him, he kidnapped her.

-laughs-

I just knew someone would ask something here when we were both on vacation. I'm sorry it's taken so long! RC doesn't get back for another week, so I'll leave her response until then. Mine, though?

That's a pretty good interpretation, in my opinion. I agree with you, but I also add in a little shock and hurt, the latter largely unknown to even Nero himself. He doesn't strike me as someone very in tune to his own emotions, partially due to his isolation and partially due to his upbringing (Deepground doesn't strike as very conducive to the finer points of emotional recognition, no?).

I know this is a fairly poor answer, but I am running on a limited Internet-access window at the moment, and I shall respond in more detail once I have regular computer access once again. Once more, I'm sorry it's taken so long to answer your question, and I'm also sorry you caught us while we're out of town!

:D I love hotel resorts with internet access.

I see the scene on the Shera as an indication of a relationship that was close on some level at some point. The explanations for said deduction will be long and possibly rambling. Be ready.

-cracks knuckles- Let's get started, shall we?

Of Nero

Some say that he sounded like he had nothing but contempt and disgust for her.

I agree with the first, but not with the second. But if you examine any scene that has Nero dealing with someone else, you begin to notice a pattern – namely, that he talks down to everyone except Weiss. So he might be contemptuous of Shelke, but that doesn't really mean anything. I don't know where people get the idea he's disgusted by her. Azul is disgusted by her, but at no point does Nero display that kind of disdain, not even when facing down Shelke herself or talking to Vincent about her. So, either he's hiding his true opinion on her (which strikes me as unlikely, because I have no reason to think of Nero as being anything other than emotionally transparent; besides, what would be the point of hiding that opinion to Vincent or to Shelke?) or he doesn't think of her as being less of a Tsviet for her unconventional skills and he just talks down to her because it's his way of dealing with people.

Taking a look at the way that Nero deals with everyone but Weiss, I'm inclined to think that he talks down to everyone.

Are you with me so far? Yes? Good. Let's take it one step further.

Take a look at the way that Nero gives orders to Shelke as opposed to the way he gives orders to Rosso and Azul. The way he deals with Shelke is one hell of lot less contemptuous than on the Shera. He's still arrogant, of course, but he's looking her in the eye and telling her what she's required to do. He's being respectful (as much as Nero is ever respectful of another's ability) of her skills. It's also quite a formal conversation. Interesting in and of itself, but then look at the way that he deals with Azul and Rosso. He's not even speaking to them, really, and he only looks over at them to make sure they're doing what he wants them to. And as soon as they start moving, he goes back to watching the sunset. He's not nearly as formal, either. Given that we don't see a lot of the Tsviets dealing with each other, it's hard to judge, but Nero certainly gives the impression that he couldn't care less about Azul and Rosso. On the other hand, he give the impression that he respects Shelke on some level.

Something to think about, no?

Of Shelke

I am intrigued by the way that she greets him. Kind of angry, isn't she? This plays right into a pet theory of mine that I've been putting together since I wrote 'Overformality' (which, by the way, consolidates a lot of these ideas that I'm introducing about Nero and Shelke's relationship prior to Dirge of Cerberus); namely, that Nero and Shelke were the only ones who really knew what was going on with the whole Omega plot. If that is indeed the case, as I suspect, then either Shelke knows that the order for her death might have come from Weiss, but Nero was the one who passed them on; or else that Nero was the one who came up with the order in the first place. Either way, more than likely what she is really saying is not, “You”, but instead, “You bastard.”

Ahem.

Shelke is shocked by the order of her execution. This is easy to see – she goes wide-eyed, stutters Weiss' name and only slowly moves to defend herself. She is literally bowled over by this. I doubt that the possibility ever crossed her mind. Now, why would this be the case, unless she thought that Nero woudn't give such an order for whatever reason? Either she was very sure that she wasn't expendable (likely), or she thought that Nero would protect her from such an order (unlikely, but a fun possibility to play with).

In the end, what it all gets back to is this: Shelke is ** with Nero in a way that she wouldn't be unless they are or were close on some level. She knows that at some point the order for her execution came from him, and she is distinctly unhappy about it. Note, also, her lack of fear and the fact that she doesn't automatically jump to the conclusion that he is there to finish her off or that he's there to kill everyone. And if we jump back a bit to the part where she first enters the ruined engine room, her first words are, “It can't be...” She surprised to find him there at all. (Even as I write this, I find more tie-ins for my theories. That amuses me. I'll have to create a thread for the expounding of all theories to do with these two.)

So, to summarise so far: Nero is contemptuous, but this is probably the way he deals with everyone. He's more polite (i.e. less contemptuous) to Shelke than he is to the other Tsviets, barring his brother. Shelke is angry with Nero, more than likely because he is the one who ordered her death. She's also not immediately jumping to the conclusion that he's there to kill her (or anyone else; but I'll save that for the Theories thread).

Some more speculation about Nero

If you examine the first part of the scene in question, when Shelke first enters the ruined engine room, you'll have noticed that Nero is not in sight when Shelke enters to the room. This is interesting, because we assume that the damage that Nero already did caused the Shera to crash. If he's not immediately present in the room (viz. in the process of doing the damage), then why did he choose to confront Shelke? He could have left the ship and let her die in the horrible explosion that probably would have resulted when the airship crashed.

Also interesting: he is not surprised to find Shelke on this ship. He says “Fancy meeting you here, Shelke”, because he is a mocking and arrogant pain in the neck, but he's being sarcastic. He knew that she was there.

Now, how does he know a thing like that? Possibly he was systematically wrecking each airship, but somehow I doubt that. The ground forces seemed to be doing quite well on their own (later reports indicate that Deepground's defenses were able to take out both the airships and the ground forces – or thought they did), and I can't see Nero risking himself in such a manner. Guesswork? Maybe. But that still wouldn't explain why he chose to confront her. Really, it's even possible that he ruined the engines because he guessed that she would be sent to deal with it and he'd decided that they needed to have a chat for whatever reason.

The big question is, “Why did he choose to confront her?”

To gloat? If so, he didn't take advantage of it. To apologize? I doubt it, but it's not like she gave him much of a chance. As soon as she knew why he was there, she drew her sabers on him. To kill her? Again, he didn't take advantage of it. If he wanted to kill her and he was insisting on doing it face to face, he could have used his darkness on her from the outset. Nero, for all his arrogance, isn't stupid. You look at the fight – it's pretty one-sided, and it's in Shelke's favor. She's much faster than him, and his mobility is hampered by the wings. I'm fairly certain that the only reason he drew his weapons on her is because it gave him the breathing room to unrestrain himself and summon Oblivion to swallow her.

And the other thing: he didn't look like he intended to fight her until she drew her weapons on him.

Sorry, I'm not quite done yet.

A bit more on Shelke

As I was scanning the script to check my quotes and such, I chanced on an interesting little tidbit. When Shelke gives Vincent her cellphone and Reeve asks her whether he can count on her to keep an eye on the airship, he says that they could use her assistance. What does Shelke say but, “My assistance?”

If we examine the flashback we see later, Nero's wording is similar. What are the bets that Shelke's thinking back to the man who, in essence, has betrayed her? I think that was the scene when she really turned her back on Deepground and made up her mind to whole-heartedly help the W.R.O.

OK, back to the Shera scene... When Shelke draws her weapons, the dialog between her and Nero runs thus:

Nero: And what do we think we are doing?

Shelke: I – I don't really know. However, since coming here, I have realized one thing: I don't want to let down anyone who'd counting on me.

I find Nero's behaviour when she says this nothing short of fascinating. He looks away, then when he looks back again after a hefty pause, lifts his chin defiantly, and says, “Pure nonsense.”

To which Shelke says, “Nonsense? Perhaps.” Gets into fighting stance, slash, slash, etc.

Since I started considering this pairing, that pause and that behaviour has been one of my focal points. What Shelke says hits a nerve with Nero, and that was the original snippet that made me think that they might have been closer once upon a time.

OK, I think that's everything.

To summarize:

Nero: contemptuous, but more respectful of Shelke than of the other Tsviets.

Shelke: ** at Nero for ordering her execution.

Nero: confronted her for unknown reasons.

Shelke: did not immediately jump to the conclusion that he was here to kill her.

Nero: did not immediately attack her, and if he wanted to kill her, he did a pretty bad job (“The girl is inside me – lost, like a little puppy.” He knew she was still alive. [Random thought with Shelkero bent: did he want Vincent to rescue her?])

Shelke: dealt with Nero in such a way that he didn't have time to really say anything he might have come to say.

In conclusion: There was something going on there!

And now I will pull my head in until the next time someone asks me about a theory.

Cheers, ~RC

*flails hand in the air*

I've got a question. This is driving me crazy, as I've played DoC before and I can't find any character by the name of Argent. She tends to pop up a lot in Reading Chick's fanfics, but I'm not sure if she's a canon character or an OC (I spent a many great number of minutes trying to fight google for info).

Sorry, it's just driving me nuts.

Argent/Argento is indeed canon - she appears briefly in the Online Mode of Dirge of Cerberus, which was never translated into English. (The scenes can be found on Youtube, and are really great for getting just that little bit more information about Deepground and the Tsviets.) It's never explained where she came from, what her connection to the Tsviets is (she's shown standing with them at the end, but she's described as more of an 'observer' than a fighter) or what happened to her. Possibly she has a part to play later on in the Compilation, who knows?

That being said, since we know so little about her, she might as well be an OC as far as my portrayal goes. We don't see enough of her to get a good grasp on her personality.

Here's the link to the first scene of the Online Mode: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=nTFDLQ4MJsg (I apologize for the need to cut and paste... The site doesn't seem to like links tonight.)

Does that clear things up for you? :)

~RC

I have one!

It's not really about ShelkexNero, but it it sorta about Shelke. More precisely, about Shalua.

In the ending, it's shown that her tube thing is submerged in water, but does this ending mean anything other than showing us she's deceased? It seemed to have a deeper meaning that I can't put my finger around.

Shalua? Is she dead or is she alive?

This one I'm not really sure about. The fact that she was in a tube in the first place, along with Yuffie's comment that "she won't wake up. The doctor's say she suffered too much trauma to her head" sort of indicates that she requires life support - and if that's the case, if the tube is broken and submerged in water, Shalua is most likely dead. Also, there's her appearence to Shelke while she [Shelke] was trapped in Oblivion - though that might have been a hallucination.

There's really no way to tell, as far as I recall.

If you ask me, they (Squeenix) have left themselves a lot of wiggle room on that one. They've never really said for sure. I'm not sure if that's because they'd like to do something about that later, if there's some symbolism that we're not getting (cultural, for example), or if they just thought that that was enough.

Though come to think of it, in literature, submersion in water usually symbolizes rebirth. So either they're foreshadowing, or they're referencing Shelke's rebirth through the efforts of her sister. Or something entirely different that I haven't thought of yet.

Oh snaps. I never thought about the rebirth thing...!

Oh Squeenix, you sly sly dogs. I bet they're going to reference Shalua in the next game (you cannot argue with me on this, you know there's going to be another one. No matter if we want it or not -coughGenesiscough-).

Wonder if Reeve will get laid after all. xD

There are rumors going around about Advent Children:Complete. Apparently, there's going to be a scene that takes place two years after AC, therefore, one year after DC. Soooo, things I'm hoping for are Shelke's appearance and what Genesis did with Weiss' body. I mean, okay, he probably went and ressurected him, but to what ends?

Well, Nomura's mentioned that Genesis, by this point and time, wants to do all in his power to protect the Planet -meaning he's aware of the next biggest threat to it, whatever it may be. By some way or another, I think he's under the impression that, should he revive Weiss, he can convince him to help out with this heroic notion of his... Which is quite ironic, given that Weiss previously tried to destroy the life of the Planet and that Genesis had rejected his and Nero's offer to help fight the Restrictors all that time ago. xD

Speaking of Shelke's appearance (in a literal sense) Nomura also mentioned that he does want her to get back on the aging track... meaning that this latest, potential appearance of Shelke may be a tad bit older than how we last saw her.

(All in all, we may even get a hint of Shalua!alive. Or so I hope. ;3)

Well, I think we can discount the whole "trying to destroy the Planet" thing of Weiss' part, because he was under Hojo's control at the time. Though whether Genesis will see it that way is another matter entirely. :3

Older!Shelke, huh? That should be interesting. *looks forward to it*

"Though whether Genesis will see it that way is another matter entirely. :3"

Which makes one wonder how Genesis sees most other things -AVALANCHE to the WRO, the now-defunct Shinra Corp. and so on...

While reading 'Chasing Shadows' (this occuring around the line concerning how Shelke aided Nero and Weiss' plot as opposed to being their unfortunate pawn, as AVALANCHE assumes) and talking with Foxchan about the fate of the Tsviets, I've been wondering whether or not Genesis has the power/intends to ressurect or at least find the rest of the Tsviets and convince them to help him with his plan...?

We know that people carry Jenova cells can't fully become one with the Lifestream -Lucrecia tried to kill herself on a debatable amount of occassions, but was unable to due to the cells, Sephiroth is another instance in this, Genesis was also rejected from it, and the list goes on. Given that Weiss' body still remains after the Omega incident (which should have eliminated him because of Nero's 'taint') the state of Nero, especially, as well as Rosso and Azul to a lesser extent, is up in the air. Yes, we saw Rosso fall to her apparent death, even though the Battle for Midgar FMV clearly demonstrates that she is capable of gliding in the air for a limited amount of time or is at least able to stay airborne for a short while. Azul is stretching it a bit -being impaled and proceeding to tumble down a lift shaft doesn't give one much hope for survival. However, if Vincent is any indication, some forms of metamorphosis may also carry the chance of regeneration.

Seiger and Argent are hidden aces, at the most. If either are to have later involvement in the Compilation, it may concern helping Genesis locate their fallen comrades -assuming Genesis requires them to act as bodyguards or, more or less, pawns to help ensure his plan to save the Planet will come to frutition. All this said, I finally reach the height of my question:

Is it possible that Genesis and/or the Tsviets will try to break Shelke's ties with AVALANCHE (by force or manipulation) to try and get her to rejoin them?

Rounding back to 'Chasing Shadows', anyone outside of Vincent and perhaps even Yuffie and Reeve, do not know the extent of Shelke's involvement in the Omega plot. What's to happen when the Tsviets start ghosting in on the scene, by no means hostile, just to question how much they really know about Shelke's actions within DG? Finding evidence to support the matter would bring up some amount of doubt and the beginnings of distrust towards Shelke, which might make her reconsider how much she can trust her newest allies -ones she formerly fought against and hasn't known nearly as long as she did the other Tsviets. This could thus lead Genesis/the Tsviets to go after Shelke with psychological manipulation; easier said than done, given that she's not bound to forget they tried to do away with her before.

(Another idea may be that Genesis and company want to get both Shelke and AVALANCHE on their side. Chancing the factor that they end up willing to help them, there's still an open window for suspicion depending on Shelke's transition into working with the former comrades again -granted, that she's more hostile to some than others. Of course, this last bit doesn't bring into play how Genesis would view Cloud's relation to Sephiroth -to the point of and not exclusive to the mind-control instance; then again, Genesis may consider Cloud to be the only one of them, even other than himself, who can end Sephiroth's cycle of rebirth once and for all.)

"We know that people carry Jenova cells can't fully become one with the Lifestream -Lucrecia tried to kill herself on a debatable amount of occassions, but was unable to due to the cells, Sephiroth is another instance in this, Genesis was also rejected from it, and the list goes on."

...But Deepgrounders don't have J-cells. They have G-cells. Deepground is to Genesis (and by extension, the Tsviets) as SOLDIER is to Sephiroth.

At least, that was how I always understood it.

"Azul is stretching it a bit -being impaled and proceeding to tumble down a lift shaft doesn't give one much hope for survival. However, if Vincent is any indication, some forms of metamorphosis may also carry the chance of regeneration."

Possibly, but impaled and tossed down a lift shaft would make the chance of survival very slim. (Supposing that he did survive, do you think his body would incorporate the cannon?)

"Is it possible that Genesis and/or the Tsviets will try to break Shelke's ties with AVALANCHE (by force or manipulation) to try and get her to rejoin them?"

A possibility I have spent many hours considering! Add to that question, this fact: Shelke was very much influenced by Lucrecia's neurodata during Dirge. If and when all of that data dispersed/vanished/got deleted/whatever, would Shelke's loyalty to Deepground take precedence again, particularly if she knew that it was Hojo and not Weiss that gave the order for her execution?

"Rounding back to 'Chasing Shadows', anyone outside of Vincent and perhaps even Yuffie and Reeve, do not know the extent of Shelke's involvement in the Omega plot."

If, indeed, they knew the extent of her involvement in the first place. Consider, for instance, the fact that the newspeople broke open the base of the Shinra building. Assuming that Deepground was released then (because one would assume that if they had another way to get out, they would have taken it prior to that), were Deepground just waiting around for someone to break them out?

What if the news station had received an anonymous tipoff from someone, telling them to check out the Shinra building? Who would be the logical person to plant that bit of information? (I do have other theories about what Shelke might have done, but they're more flimsy and I therefore will not be sharing them today.)

"Deepground is to Genesis (and by extension, the Tsviets) as SOLDIER is to Sephiroth. At least, that was how I always understood it."

Yet Gillian is to Genesis as Jenova is to Sephiroth. Remember that Gillian was injected with J-cells, which were a part of the DNA combined with the unborn Genesis; essentially making G-cells a lesser form of second-generation J-cells. This being the case, it would imply that the Tsviets might have a closer chance of dissolving into the Lifestream that people with direct J-cell influence -but nor does it mean they'd definitely be compatible, which would serve to explain why Weiss' body was still intact when it should have been otherwise claimed by the Lifestream.

"(Supposing that he did survive, do you think his body would incorporate the cannon?)"

Come to think of that... didn't one of the original WEAPONS have a cannon of some sort on its gut?

"If and when all of that data dispersed/vanished/got deleted/whatever, would Shelke's loyalty to Deepground take precedence again, particularly if she knew that it was Hojo and not Weiss that gave the order for her execution?"

Hmm-hmm... It's talk like this that makes me want to collabing over a postgame fanfic surrounding these possibilities. ^^

"... were Deepground just waiting around for someone to break them out?"

Perhaps they were intended to be a last-minute resort of sorts if Midgar was ever to face the threat of a full-scale army/assault heading its way -anything from a rebellion of Wutai forces to a wannabe Hojo creating a monstrosity that manages to break past SOLDIER defenses. What's got me curious is what DG would do after being released... I doubt they'd be all that willing to be forced to go back underground once their part in protecting Midgar/Shinra was all said and through.

"What if the news station had received an anonymous tipoff from someone, telling them to check out the Shinra building? Who would be the logical person to plant that bit of information?"

Again with the 'what if' instance, this brings me to suggest the possibility of that 'someone' being able to get the tip through the Worldwide Network before it gets all messed up and offline due to Meteor... Amusing it would be to imagine Kadaj and his gang having to deal with an entire army of people baying for the blood of their 'brother' while they try to get information about Jenova's whereabouts from him!

Bad news, guys. NRGBurst was smart enough to pre-order a copy of AC:C, which she received and watched.

The epilogue? Just a rumour. No such thing. D:

That news murders me in deep places. High-Def-Anyone-From-Dirge would have brought humungous amounts of joy to me. Then again, that opens possibilities for a mention in a later game if Square is going to continue milking the FF7-cow for all it's worth.

*sigh* Doesn't surprise me much. I suspected it when the Case of Denzel was being touted around. Maybe there'll be something in the other "On the way to a smile stories".

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