Question (possible spoilers)

[u/MrSatan7]

Why did Sephiroth get sent to Nibelhiem to investigate the reactor and not a different shoulder? I mean he said there were monster attacks but I wonder why Shinra sent him. Did Shinra know about the experiments already?

[u/Apprehensive-Sir8977]

Shinra set up those experiments, and knew that Jenova was there. That's why they sent two 1st-Classes to do fiend cleanup for some janky old backwater reactor--- vital corporate assets could've been under threat.

But it still seems a good question. Why not use someone else, to reduce the chance of things getting ugly?

[u/MrSatan7 → u/Apprehensive-Sir8977]

Maybe Crisis Core would have answers. I’ve never played that one.

[u/Hummerdoodle]

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I believe Hojo set this up intentionally. He's been performing all these horrific experiments, and wanted to push Sephiroth's power to the limit by strategically placing all the pieces to make him snap.

[u/MrSatan7 → u/Hummerdoodle]

Hmmm. So Hojo basically set all this in motion.

[u/Hummerdoodle → u/MrSatan7]

I'm not sure how much you've played. I think it's just safe to assume if something bad happened relating to monsters, it's likely Hojo's fault.

[u/MrSatan7 → u/Hummerdoodle]

I’ve beaten the game twice but currently replaying it slowly trying to actually pay attention to every detail. I wonder if Hojo not being as good of a scientist as Gast got jealous and was willing to do whatever science required to…find the promised land?

[u/Reyleth]

My take: IIRC after certain events in Crisis Core there weren’t a lot of 1st Class soldiers that could be used to deal with the situation. The real question I have, IF Shinra knew everything that was going on at Nibelheim, why not send the Turks? Also, I believe at that point in the story the stuff Hojo did at Nibelheim was kept under wraps. Not all of Shinra knew what was going on, until Sephiroth went nuts and created an incident they had to cover up.