Quote Originally Posted by Big D View Post
The Planet, and/or its people, know that meteors sometimes do fall from the sky with catastrophic consequences. The Black Materia may simply be the consolidation of that knowledge. By themselves, meteorite impacts aren't inherently good or evil; they're simply another force of nature. The Cetra were all about being in touch with natural forces and elements, which would include both those that help humans, and those that harm.
This is probably the most sensible of answers, which means it's probably true. It would also fit that the meteor is an allusion to Jenova itself which was a disaster that fell from the sky creating the northern crater--isn't this exactly what a meteor does, yeah?

I've also thought that (for whatever reason it was created) the Black Materia was used at some point which, instead of creating a meteor out of nothing, grabbed a nearby meteor to hurl to earth which just happened to contain Jenova, which would explain the description of how she came to the planet. Just a stray thought though.

The first time I played the game I just assumed the Black Materia and Meteor were basically a reset button for the planet. Perhaps the Cetra had witnessed or knew of a similar event to dinosaurs being wiped out by a meteor, and decided to create something that could exterminate humans (Cetra) from the planet and allow the planet to start over if it ever became necessary. They were wise enough to foresee a time when the Cetra or their ancestors would become a blight on the planet and need to be stopped. Meteor might cause damage to the planet, but the planet might recover, humans would not.

So Sephiroth, then, would have basically been using Meteor correctly, but then the planet itself made the decision that not all humans were bad and balance could be restored without destroying every last one of them. It adds to one of the underlying ideas or themes of FFVII which is that Knowledge without wisdom is worthless (and potentially dangerous). Sephiroth had all the knowledge of the world in his head, but was never able to achieve the wisdom necessary to use that knowledge correctly.

That's not what I think now, though, since I don't think it was Sephiroth really who summoned Meteor. Multiple playthroughs have led me to believe that the Sephiroth we see in flashbacks is not the Sephiroth we experience in the present portions of the game but Jenova masquerading as Sephiroth. Yes, that's right, the baddest bestest boss in FF history is just a big fake.

I think I've said enough for this post, but I'll be back later to give my breakdown of I think is really happening with Jenova and Meteor. It's all about Jesus, I'm tellin' ya.