[@Hero]

The antagonists are still antagonizing.  To wit, Shinra and their plans for the Promised Land are still a thing, as is Sephiroth, which means that the chances of being sworded to death by a large Japanese blade are still there.  When I say that the infrastructure and past events still happened, I mean that Shinra still made Midgar and that there's at least one version of Avalanche at large.  Jenova still hit the planet and her headless body is still in a lab.  Sephiroth still went crazy and Nibelheim still burned (and the whole thing was subsequentally covered up after the fact).  The normal [i]protagonists[/i] are gone.  They didn't make it.  At some point in their lives, they died, or never existed.  Now, this raises the question: Wait, don't we need an Ancient for things to go forward?  Perhaps.  You can make a member of the Cetra if you want.  I'm going to say it won't be [i]entirely[/i] necessary, after a bit of thinking, and leave it at that.