[@Divinity]

These characters wouldn't necessarily be anywhere close to our biggest guns. Enki felt he needed Alex to be competitive with Corban due to his familiarity with the character and more to the point his unfamiliarity with Jen, who to my knowledge has only been in one roleplay and has a skill set that he's only experimented with in the past. But given everything I've heard of room for growth.

Blythe is just someone Nega enjoys using and Xiomara is a new spin on an old archetype for me.

As far as Shin-Ra goes, the timeline has advanced a great deal from where it was in the game and that after the plot split off into its own entity with the original Shin-Ra. Alex would actually be your best bet for Corban to discuss the old way while Satori, Blythe, and everyone else in the group are unlikely to even know who Sephiroth was and have only heard of Jenova in history books. You might get the stink eye for the no contest that was your encounter with Meteor though.