Sephiroth vs a Space Marine (for starters)

[Aotrs Commander]

Space Marines have blindingly fast reactions compared to normal humans. Who knows what that means though.

About 33%, if you look at the original source material data (the same as Elves/Eldar, incidently), as opposed to believe the Space Marine's own hype of latter years...

That's still quite a respectible lot, mind.

[Cheesegear]

How do we compare that stuff?
how do we actually calculate that and put that into a perspective that can make sense outside of a Turn based strategy game. I mean, how "much" is 6,000 HP? And for that matter, how much damage does each marine do in proportion to that, factoring in things like heavy weapons or armor ignoring power weapons?
Because, if we really did factor in base game mechanics, that spell he did that put Sora into 1 hit kill range does nothing to a Space Marine because they only have 1 wound anyways. Hehe.

The 40KRPG answers every single one of those questions, without bias.

A Rank 1 Marine has an average of 41 BS, with Bolter Mastery firing a Boltgun on Full-Auto gives him 71 BS. Fires four shots per round. You may as well call that percentile BS. Everyone else does.
Rolling <41 on a D100 (that makes it a percentile) = Four hits.
42-51 = three hits
52-61 = two hits
62-71 = one hit
I didn't factor this in to my initial numbers. I only counted below .41, and treated everything else as a miss. It was easier that way. Each hit deals an average of 21 damage with Bolter Mastery, per round. So, roughly a 40% chance to deal four hits, a 30% chance to deal...Less, and a 30% chance to miss completely with all four shots, not including 5% chance either side for a Crit or Jam.

However, now thinking about this way more than I need to, the average would be 51, so each Marine hits three times, dealing 63 damage per round on perfect averages.

However, I now realise that I didn't factor in Sephiroth's own Defense stats, which are at about 100 and 200. 100 Defense (on Synthesis and Safer) will deflect about 1/5 of damage, while Bizarro's 200 deflects about 2/5 of damage. That is, going off the wiki's claim that 255 Defense deflects 'about half' of damage.

A Power Sword has a Pen. Rating of 6. How does that effect Sephiroth? How do you convert Pen. Rating 6 into cleaving through Sephiroth's 'Defense'. You probably don't even bother as the two systems are incompatible.

Terminators have a Power Field of 35. That is, a 35% chance that any attack - no matter how strong - will simply bounce off.

An Average Space Marine has 21 Wounds, DR of 4, and Power Armour for 10. Every single one of Sephiroth's attacks deals over 35 damage, which means every single dude is getting one-shotted, every time.

EDIT: More thinking.

x8 Boltguns, hitting three times each = ((21 x 0.8) x 3) x 8 = 403 damage, vs. 100 Defense (Synthesis and Safer)
x1 Plasma Gun = 15 x 0.8 = 12
x1 Krak Missile = 30 x 0.8 = 24

One normal Tactical Squad deals 439 damage per turn. Since Pen Rating (Grenades, Plasma Guns and Krak Missiles) doesn't appear to mean anything, it's better to give everyone Boltguns. Since everyone has Boltguns now, it's actually 504 damage per round, per Tac. Squad. Multiplied by 10 squads, only does ~5000 damage per round. With Bizarro healing for 6000, you'll need a whole extra Company just to dealing the healing damage, and then some.

Mechanically, it's a very simple fight, if one is willing to delve through all the math. Just reach a point where the Space Marines' numbers are bigger than Sephiroth's numbers, and that's how many Marines it takes to beat Seph, anything less, and Seph wins.

Otherwise, you go into some BS, where Seph can't die while connected to the Lifestream. What is the Lifestream? 40K doesn't have one of those, so obviously doesn't have anything to combat it. Sephiroth at no point is classed as a D(a)emon, so 'Banishing' doesn't work either. The only thing that really works on a 1v1 Level, is a Vortex Grenade (remembering that a Space Marine doesn't care if he has to die to complete his mission), or, maybe a Force Weapon. But I don't know nearly enough about Lifestream mechanics (I've only played FF7 and ignored everything else), to know how a Force Weapon interacts with the Lifestream.

[Starwulf]

Assuming Gooddragon doesn't mind me throwing this out here, instead of Sephiroth in the equation, what about Kefka? I've always felt Kefka was a much more powerful villain(literally became a god and all that), and so much less emo-y as well. Also, not really one to throw his punches either like Sephiroth has done in the past(I mean, seriously, Sephy had multiple opportunities to wipe out the entire group in FFVII before the final battle, and he just toyed with them. Kefka literally reconfigured the entire world in an attempt to rid the world of his opposition, at the first opportunity that he could).

[Traab]

Assuming Gooddragon doesn't mind me throwing this out here, instead of Sephiroth in the equation, what about Kefka? I've always felt Kefka was a much more powerful villain(literally became a god and all that), and so much less emo-y as well. Also, not really one to throw his punches either like Sephiroth has done in the past(I mean, seriously, Sephy had multiple opportunities to wipe out the entire group in FFVII before the final battle, and he just toyed with them. Kefka literally reconfigured the entire world in an attempt to rid the world of his opposition, at the first opportunity that he could).

Didnt sephiroth need them, or at least cloud, alive, in order to complete his plan? Also, dont forget that kefka has absolutely zero effs to give when it comes to collateral. Dude poisoned all of doma castle to end the siege just because it was easier. As for rearranging the planet, I dont think he actually did that. When he pulled the three goddess statues out of alignment to steal their power, blowing up the world was a side effect I think. You might as well say that sephiroth sicced the Weapons on everyone when the reality is, the weapons waking up and attacking was the planet responding to what sephiroth did, not some intended plan.

[Starwulf]

Didnt sephiroth need them, or at least cloud, alive, in order to complete his plan? Also, dont forget that kefka has absolutely zero effs to give when it comes to collateral. Dude poisoned all of doma castle to end the siege just because it was easier. As for rearranging the planet, I dont think he actually did that. When he pulled the three goddess statues out of alignment to steal their power, blowing up the world was a side effect I think. You might as well say that sephiroth sicced the Weapons on everyone when the reality is, the weapons waking up and attacking was the planet responding to what sephiroth did, not some intended plan.

Hmm, yeah that is a good point, though I'm sure Kefka knew craziness was going to ensue when he moved the Goddess Statues, it's just like you said though, he doesn't give an eff about collateral as long as he achieves his objective. All the more reason I'd like to see how much it would take to take HIM out instead of Sephiroth. Seph was more of a...demi-god I think, or slightly under even, whereas Kefka was full-on God-mode.

Ya know, that's always bugged me(I'm so sorry gooddragon for derailing this thread) about FFVII. The weapons were released in order to combat Sephiroth, yet they never actually go after him. Instead, Cloud and his group have to fight them! Seems...kinda counterproductive to me, to fight the group that's trying to help the planet, instead of going after the bad guy like they were supposed to. Hmm...I wonder if there are any FFVII fanfics where the weapons go after him!

As far as Sephiroth needing Cloud and his group....I honestly couldn't tell you, I haven't played FFVII(it's actually one of my lesser played/favorite ff games, *GASP*) in like a decade n a half or so. I can barely remember anything about the game outside of very key points. Maybe I should find it and load it up!

[Traab]

Well I know sephiroth used cloud to grab the black materia he needed to summon meteor, but I think there was a bit more to it than that as well. As for the weapons, they basically wake up and attack all the threats to the world. Shinra is a MAJOR threat, as they are actively draining the world of the Lifestream, turning it into mako energy. You really only deal with one weapon directly, the others are optional. One attacks junon harbor as you are getting executed, it gets shot in the face with the junon cannon. Then just as midgard is about to shoot its super powered ultra mako gun at the north crater, a new weapon starts walking out of the ocean heading for town and you have to delay it. The emerald and ruby weapon just kinda hang out not bothering anybody unless you feel like picking a fight with them. (Well, the emerald weapon can be a prick, it randomly appears sometimes when you are underwater) I think sephiroth was hiding his presence from the weapons somehow, but I dont think that was even confirmed in game.

[Tiki Snakes]

The planet isn't meaningfully sentient and the weapons don't have a specific goal of stopping Sephiroth. The weapons also weren't created for this crisis, just released.

They are weapons the planet uses to protect itself when threatened. They do this by gathering life energy back to the planet, iirc. This is why they specifically go after the single biggest drains on mako energy as well, the mako cannons. Their only goal beyond that is to gather more energy back to the planet so that it can protect itself. They do this by freeing it up. Which is to say, killing a whole bunch of people.

You've got to remember, the planet doesn't really perceive Sephiroth as a threat because he's simply part of the lifestream. Shinra is the threat that awakens the weapons, not him. Sure, he also threatens the planet's continued exstence, but not in a way the planet can really detect or comprehend. And cloud only really gains importance from Sephiroth point of view later on, beyond the fact it was him who killed him first time round. He's otherwise just another potential puppet amongst many others. Because for most of the game, the real conflict is Sephiroth vs Shinra with Cloud and friends merely caught up in the middle and/or lagging a few steps behind.

It's only after Cloud has come to terms with the truth that he is mentally strong enough to stand on his own two feat and oppose Sephiroth meaningfully.

[Cheesegear]

Kefka is easy mode. He doesn't even heal.

Heartless Angel drops the party to 1HP. That's okay, Kefka is one-shotting Marines anyway.
Per previous posts, ((21 x .78) x 3) x 100 = 4914 vs. Kefka's Defense of 135. Let's make it 5000 damage per turn.

It takes six turns for one Company of Marines to get Kekfa below 32640, so, the Marines haven't even reloaded yet.

IIRC, every single one of Kefka's attacks are single target spells. Except Heartless Angel, which only happens once, anyway. So, Kefka gets to kill six dudes. Big whoop.

Second Phase, Kefka takes two turns to cast Forsaken dealing 220 damage to the entire party. One-shotting every single Marine in the fight, even Captains.

Essentially, Marines need to deal 32000 damage in two turns - or 16K, per turn - before everyone dies.

Let's do some math... And it takes six and a bit Companies to deal that much damage.

[Almarck]

I'm mostly basing the assumption the Seph is very similar to a demon because he functional does plenty of the things expected of one. The other part is the life stream is basically a collective unconscious or afterlife involving pretty much everyone who has lived and died. It functions very much like the warp from my perspective. Obviously can't be banished.

I actually also don't understand the bolt gun calculations, mostly because it doesn't seem like it makes sense that 8 marines do 410 damage together. Don't you fight lots of Shinra goons that individually do more damage than that? I know Shinra is pretty strong but still, their tech isn't that good. In short, I think using the video game sorting algorithm adds in some pretty big weirdness when comparing things from alternate universes and does in in sense invalidate the math.

Granted I do think Seph probably should be wiping out a few marines per turn like auto kill anything that doesn't have terminator armor several times over.

[Cheesegear]

I'm mostly basing the assumption the Seph is very similar to a demon because he functional does plenty of the things expected of one.

More than anything, Seph functions as a Perpetual, not a Daemon. Perpetuals are not Daemons.

The other part is the life stream is basically a collective unconscious or afterlife involving pretty much everyone who has lived and died. It functions very much like the warp from my perspective.

Then your perspective is wrong. Because gooddragon already stipulated that each 'verse functions seperately to its own rules. Ergo, the Lifestream is not the Empryean, they're two seperate things, as laid down by the Vs. Thread rules.

In short, I think using the video game sorting algorithm adds in some pretty big weirdness when comparing things from alternate universes and does in in sense invalidate the math.

Meteor can hit a planet. Nobody dies.

Granted I do think Seph probably should be wiping out a few marines per turn

By what metric? Advent Children? If you want to take narrative, non-mechanical feats into account, then the thread is over. A Captain with a Vortex Grenade wins. Every. Single. Time. No exceptions. Want to turn morals on? Fine. Do that.

What is your Duty? To serve The Emperor's Will.
What is The Emperor's Will? That we fight and die.
What is Death? It is our duty.
What is your Duty?
- Litany of the Space Marines

Recited before pretty much every battle. Indoctrinated into every single Space Marine there is, dying is A-OK. Drop Vortex Grenade at feet. Mutually assured destruction. Game over.

[SiuiS]

On the other hand, I can't respect anyone who doesn't have a kickass metal/choir fusion theme song accompanying him/her.

That was the problem! I was like "aww, yeah, finally got here after my months of careful grinding because my friend who was just as good at this stuff* back when the game first came out had trouble with him, time to listen to some bitchin' theme music! I've earned it" and that quickly became like "what, tifa, tifa no, no tifa, tifa, no, TIFA! *end credits*".

He didn't have a cool metal theme song choir thingy. He had like three strains and then the sound of fists destroying everything he ever worked for.

[Rakaydos]

Canonically, Sephiroth is a universe level threat who is still a baby, trying to cast off his training wheels. But his threat level – universe, not galaxy, but universe, is legitimate.

Or, as it's known in the Imperium of Man, Tuesday.

All-in-all, Sephiroth is a twothree-Company level threat. He doesn't even rate higher that the Battle of Macragge or the Second Damnosian War.

I find this progression perfectly logical.

[Starwulf]

Kefka is easy mode. He doesn't even heal.

Heartless Angel drops the party to 1HP. That's okay, Kefka is one-shotting Marines anyway.
Per previous posts, ((21 x .78) x 3) x 100 = 4914 vs. Kefka's Defense of 135. Let's make it 5000 damage per turn.

It takes six turns for one Company of Marines to get Kekfa below 32640, so, the Marines haven't even reloaded yet.

IIRC, every single one of Kefka's attacks are single target spells. Except Heartless Angel, which only happens once, anyway. So, Kefka gets to kill six dudes. Big whoop.

Second Phase, Kefka takes two turns to cast Forsaken dealing 220 damage to the entire party. One-shotting every single Marine in the fight, even Captains.

Essentially, Marines need to deal 32000 damage in two turns - or 16K, per turn - before everyone dies.

Let's do some math... And it takes six and a bit Companies to deal that much damage.

Interesting, so Kefka wipes out 3x as many Space Marine companies as Sephiroth! Figured he was significantly more powerful then Sephy was, didn't realize he was THAT much more powerful though. Math ftw!

[SiuiS]

As for lifesteam, well he isn't literally the lifestream but a parasite infesting it. And unlike FF7, 40K has soul targeting, and obliterating, attacks. Or soul trapping with the right artifact. So if they can get a force weapon to finish him off, they should be able to eradicate him from the lifestream altogether.

Cancer. cancer. The issue with him isn't the one dude, it's the cancerousness. He metastasizes into the reincarnation cycle. That's why he keeps coming back. As long as souls exist, and their... I don't know, localized energy of existence passes through the filters of the otherworld in a fashion sufficient to be viewed as "passing through the earth" with the earth being the world infected, then Sephiroth just sort of... Grows back. And not even that, there doesn't have to be only one of him.

He's a tumor with a compensation sword and mommy issues.

Very fast. I believe Space Marines have quasi-deflected bullets with their blades (though that's usually a named character of some sort). Assassins can flat out dodge bullets at point blank range. And so on and so forth.

That's also a FF thing. And dodging point blank bullets is easier than dodging distant ones. It's about removing yourself from firing zone while the enemy's body/finger/hammer is still moving.

No meaningful speed related feats in FF7 spring to mind. Complete lack of any apparent sexual drive, no comments made in-game about his pre-fall attractiveness.

He does a few Goku-style zanzoken moves.

Conversely, the entire game spans his convoluted master-plan to do whatever it was he was trying to do (become Jenova 2.0, destroy the world, whatever).
Uses misdirection and deceit pretty widely, down to having a secret true form and using dozens of puppets to perform his will.
Allied with/part of/freakish mad science son of Jenova, the squiggly mutating horror. Jenova cells initiate all manner of changes, from minor to severe.
Secret True Form has wings all over the place.

... Comes back in the spin off film with a facial expression that seems to scream as smugly as possible "...All according to keikaku!"

Nah, I'd go firmly with Tzeentch personally.

Heh.

The puppets were less master plan as we know it, and not awakening to the act that he had like, twenty fingers. And each finger was actually a clone body. Crazy is the buzzword here, not Xanatos~

Read the OP more carefully. It's how many Space Marines (plus Special Characters are allowed) would be needed to take down Sephiroth.

One! Give him counter attack materia.


For record though, Sephiroth does have feats of speed and strength. He uses iai-style chanbara attacks wherein there is no meaningful spatial motion; he goes from ready to hit you, maybe thirty meters away or more, to hitting you, without traveling the intervening distance in a way that can be interacted with other than preemptive guarding with a magic key. His sword strokes can fell several marines at once (in the deplete their HPs sense, of bisecting tanks. They're likely still alive, just lacking arms or anything below the nipples). He can cover areas with nuclear fire, or summon saint Elmo's fire which has the added benefit of being impervious to weapons fire.

It's all mostly trickery and jerk moves, but he's got it.

What do the marines have? Do thy have holes in their armor for jewels? An small yellow jewels? Perhaps counter attack materia? Because that would clinch this.

[Forum Explorer]

Cancer. cancer. The issue with him isn't the one dude, it's the cancerousness. He metastasizes into the reincarnation cycle. That's why he keeps coming back. As long as souls exist, and their... I don't know, localized energy of existence passes through the filters of the otherworld in a fashion sufficient to be viewed as "passing through the earth" with the earth being the world infected, then Sephiroth just sort of... Grows back. And not even that, there doesn't have to be only one of him.

He's a tumor with a compensation sword and mommy issues.



That's also a FF thing. And dodging point blank bullets is easier than dodging distant ones. It's about removing yourself from firing zone while the enemy's body/finger/hammer is still moving.




For record though, Sephiroth does have feats of speed and strength. He uses iai-style chanbara attacks wherein there is no meaningful spatial motion; he goes from ready to hit you, maybe thirty meters away or more, to hitting you, without traveling the intervening distance in a way that can be interacted with other than preemptive guarding with a magic key. His sword strokes can fell several marines at once (in the deplete their HPs sense, of bisecting tanks. They're likely still alive, just lacking arms or anything below the nipples). He can cover areas with nuclear fire, or summon saint Elmo's fire which has the added benefit of being impervious to weapons fire.

It's all mostly trickery and jerk moves, but he's got it.

What do the marines have? Do thy have holes in their armor for jewels? An small yellow jewels? Perhaps counter attack materia? Because that would clinch this.

Well it's hard to say what would happen exactly, but the point is that Force Weapons can break the reincarnation cycle when it kills a target by obliterating their soul. And due to psyker weirdness, that may be like shooting a laser into the lifestream to destroy the tumor that is Sephiroth. Or maybe not. But any psyker would be able to detect the lifestream, and likely Sephiroth inside it, and this being 40K, they'd likely treat it as a threat and seek to obliterate the whole thing either via massive planetary destruction or some massive psyker ritual to tear it apart.

The point is, that 40K is well equipped for soul shenanigan threats. And are fully willing to go so far beyond overkill to finish Sephie off that collateral damage is not a concern to them.


Sure. I'm just saying that's hardly rare in the 40K verse. And that high ranking space marines are on that level of speed and skill.


And Terminator armor is tougher then tank armor. He might be able to break through it, but at the same time it'd likely be able to withstand quite a few blade strokes. That combined with a high ranking Librarian (and maybe a Battle Captain to actually duel him along with a squad of Terminators) to help shield from the magic, and fight with their own psyker powers, seems to be enough to take him down.

[Friv]

Can Sephiroth survive being shot in head? How 'bout if he's shot twice?

Theoretically, yes. It's absurd, but yes. My reference is Advent Children, in which Cloud is shot in the head point-blank by a modern gun and all that happens is his sunglasses break and he develops a little scratch.

As far as that planet-destroying spell, that is clearly not literally happening, as the planet is restored in time for the next spell to go off.

Generally speaking, I agree with the majority; a company of marines could take Sephiroth, but the first time they do it he'll come back a couple of years later. After two or three attempts, someone is going to realize he's infected the Planet and obliterate everything to stop him, unless he manages to be subtle enough to get off-planet first.

(I'm not so sure that psykers or soul-destroying weapons would do the trick in one go; at the end of FF7, Sephiroth was sufficiently obliterated that the Lifestream seemed safe; it wasn't until people started getting sick almost two years later that he began to reconstitute.)

[Traab]

You know, you mentioned getting off the planet and that made me wonder. Would sephiroth be able to draw on the power of multiple lifestreams if he keeps infecting new worlds? Would he say, drain the lifestream then move on?

[GloatingSwine]

You know, you mentioned getting off the planet and that made me wonder. Would sephiroth be able to draw on the power of multiple lifestreams if he keeps infecting new worlds? Would he say, drain the lifestream then move on?

That's basically what Jenova does, consumes the lifestream energy from a planet, uses it to launch to the next planet, repeats the process.

But, y'know, takes thousands of years to do it rather than a few days like a Tyranid hive fleet.

[gooddragon1]

That's basically what Jenova does, consumes the lifestream energy from a planet, uses it to launch to the next planet, repeats the process.

But, y'know, takes thousands of years to do it rather than a few days like a Tyranid hive fleet.

The crons are much better at the lifestream part actually. imo

[Cheesegear]

You know, you mentioned getting off the planet and that made me wonder. Would sephiroth be able to draw on the power of multiple lifestreams if he keeps infecting new worlds? Would he say, drain the lifestream then move on?

In 40K? No. Because 40K planets don't have lifestreams, unless we assume that they do. In which case, Seph is just a different kind of Tyranid, nothing the Imperium hasn't already dealt with. Except he's only one guy, instead of a Hive Fleet that attacks ten Systems at once, and there's no evidence to suggest that Seph can breathe in a vacuum. So, destroy the planet Seph is standing on (which the Imperium can and will do), let him float in space for a bit with no access to a lifestream, and watch him die.

The crons are much better at the lifestream part actually. imo

Necrons have nothing to do with anything remotely resembling a lifestream. A dead Necron is a dead Necron. The best Necrons can hope for, is that before their death, they can teleport back to their sarcophagus, which uses nanites to repair their metal bodies back from ruins in days. If there's no sarcophagus in range, teleport fails, and then they get killed by whatever is about to kill them. A dead Cylon Necron is dead. Necrons are immortal in the sense that they can potentially live forever, they are not immortal in the sense that they are invulnerable to death.

[Rakaydos]

In 40K? No. Because 40K planets don't have lifestreams, unless we assume that they do. In which case, Seph is just a different kind of Tyranid, nothing the Imperium hasn't already dealt with. Except he's only one guy, instead of a Hive Fleet that attacks ten Systems at once, and there's no evidence to suggest that Seph can breathe in a vacuum. So, destroy the planet Seph is standing on (which the Imperium can and will do), let him float in space for a bit with no access to a lifestream, and watch him die.

I would argue that, at least in full-god mode, breathing in space is implied by the whole "seek out new worlds to absorb."

[Cheesegear]

I would argue that, at least in full-god mode, breathing in space is implied by the whole "seek out new worlds to absorb."

So you go to 'capable of breathing in space', rather than 'needs a starship to move around'.

[The Glyphstone]

So you go to 'capable of breathing in space', rather than 'needs a starship to move around'.

If he can breath in space, he technically doesn't need a starship to move around. It'll just take a really really long time for him to get between solar systems.

[Cheesegear]

If he can breath in space, he technically doesn't need a starship to move around.

That's not what I meant.

If Sephiroth needs to 'seek out new worlds to absorb', my response is that he'll need a starship for that. My conclusion isn't Sephiroth can 'seek out new worlds' because he can breathe in space.

[Rakaydos]

That's not what I meant.

If Sephiroth needs to 'seek out new worlds to absorb', my response is that he'll need a starship for that. My conclusion isn't Sephiroth can 'seek out new worlds' because he can breathe in space.

I'd look to Jenova's origin story on that. Jenova (which is what Sepheroth is becoming) arrived from space in a big rock that crashed and made a big crator. This implies at least space-hibernation, to sleep through the long voyages between worlds, and possibly the ability to direct the rock through space the same way materia can summon meteors. Either way it's not something comparable to the ShinRA rocket, though of course 40k has a more flexibble definition of "starship", so it might qualify.

[Mato]

From a position of ignorance I say... Space Marines!

Sephiroth at full power appears not to care even if he loses (advent children), and that whole discussion on planet busting. Plus the OP said full power and he can use Materia so you have to count stuff like W-Summon Knights of the Round, Slash-All, Counter, Preemptive, Long Range, etc.

But the OP thought each one of the Marines stands a chance. So these guys must apparently fight against solar system busting immortal magic casting super sword wielding mega villains that always go first all the time right?

[The Glyphstone]

From a position of ignorance I say... Space Marines!

Sephiroth at full power appears not to care even if he loses (advent children), and that whole discussion on planet busting. Plus the OP said full power and he can use Materia so you have to count stuff like W-Summon Knights of the Round, Slash-All, Counter, Preemptive, Long Range, etc.

But the OP thought each one of the Marines stands a chance. So these guys must apparently fight against solar system busting immortal magic casting super sword wielding mega villains that always go first all the time right?

Quite frequently. They usually lose and die horribly, but that's what named heroes special characters are for.

[SiuiS]

Well it's hard to say what would happen exactly, but the point is that Force Weapons can break the reincarnation cycle when it kills a target by obliterating their soul. And due to psyker weirdness, that may be like shooting a laser into the lifestream to destroy the tumor that is Sephiroth. Or maybe not. But any psyker would be able to detect the lifestream, and likely Sephiroth inside it, and this being 40K, they'd likely treat it as a threat and seek to obliterate the whole thing either via massive planetary destruction or some massive psyker ritual to tear it apart.

Might not matter. That's why I'm stressing the cancer example; if a single cell survives he will reconstitute. Hell, of existing, living people who are aufficiently affected by the idea of him survive, he will reconstitute.

The incarnum of his soul (to steal the parlance for lack of better) is the source. It doesn't need to be a complete soul; if you blow his spectre away and the dust settles, the planet is infected. If you completely anihilate his soul but a planet is already affected, he's going to grow back. He's like Orks except you need to be able to scour entire planets on both the material and astral, not just the material.

God help us if he infects actual Orks.

You know, you mentioned getting off the planet and that made me wonder. Would sephiroth be able to draw on the power of multiple lifestreams if he keeps infecting new worlds? Would he say, drain the lifestream then move on?

Yes. That is his modus operandi. And it's even worse than that, because...

I'd look to Jenova's origin story on that. Jenova (which is what Sepheroth is becoming) arrived from space in a big rock that crashed and made a big crator. This implies at least space-hibernation, to sleep through the long voyages between worlds, and possibly the ability to direct the rock through space the same way materia can summon meteors. Either way it's not something comparable to the ShinRA rocket, though of course 40k has a more flexibble definition of "starship", so it might qualify.

Sephiroth is not becoming Jenova. Jenova is a primordial Sephiroth. Through science and dark arts, Jenova was perfected into Sephiroth.

Humans were given Jenova cells and exposed to life stream. In all but one single case, those cells completely replaced the tissues of the subjects. That one case wasn't even successful at avoiding this fate; he just absorbed the consciousness of a stronger version of these 'clones' instead of absorbing Sephiroth's consciousness. And even that was insufficient to prevent him from being a clone puppet.

An ancient, or whatever they are called – an immortal, mystical, star-faring people who could communicate with life itself in empathic form and nurse magic out of the void rather than requiring crystallized knowledge and power attached to their bodies – was then cross bred with a human and Jenova. And the resulting child was tinkered with to get the best combination of traits.

Sephiroth could himself physically travel to other worlds and infect them. Or he could do the damage to one world quickly, and force that planet out of or it, accelerate it usig magic, explode, and send those polluted chunks of planet into other planets, infecting them.

And this is ignoring the overarching angel symbolism, wherein the ancients and Jenova were as much spiritual forces which travelled in narrative time.




Which makes it really, really sad that he could be iced by a single marine, but there you have it.

[Mato]

Which makes it really, really sad that he could be iced by a single marine, but there you have it.

Actually two different people have chimed in other wise and your post at no point presents any case for us to "have it".

One used the example of Cloud being pretty much immune to bullets, which kind of makes sense. Barret used a machine gun for a hand firing a dozen shots for each "attack" and even at maximum damage against a minimal HP Safer Sephiroth it still takes eight full turns for this very unique lv99 hero using legendary weapons and near mythic gear to kill him. On the other side of the coin, outside of some very special exceptions no Final Fantasy boss needs 8 turns to kill a hero (some can even can kill up to four heroes in one turn).

The other was someone's attempt to mash the damage figures in each game. There they present a typical "boltgun" user deals 16.8 damage per shot to Sephiroth. So they built a ten man squad, and called ten of those squads a company, and then started discussing how many companies it'd take. The answer: quite a few.

My own sarcastic remark observed the lack of quantification of "full power". Bizzaro and Safer were used, but the actual Sephiroth used in combat during the flashback is hard coded to always critically hit and never takes damage even if directly attacked which makes him the most powerful default incarnation presented over the course of the game. He can also use and equip Materia so what ones are allowed? Even better, FF7 has a Lucky 7s mechanic which can be used by the enemies so where exactly is the line drawn in the sand?

Maybe as a military entity the Space Marines can kill Sephiroth. But I don't think no one has ever said or even considered that one of them is sufficient.

[Kitten Champion]

Maybe as a military entity the Space Marines can kill Sephiroth. But I don't think no one has ever said or even considered that one of them is sufficient.

Cheesegear did, a ways back. Something about a Vortex Grenade.