Aerith’s reference is the Cetra from the Final Fantasy Game series Final Fantasy is a Japanese media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, developed and owned by Square Enix (formerly Square). The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and science fantasy role-playing video games. Final Fantasy primary installments are generally stand-alone anthology series of role-playing games, each with different settings, plots, and main characters, but the franchise is linked by several recurring elements, including game mechanics and recurring character names. The Cetra, also known as the Ancients (古代種, Kodai-shu), are a race of people from an ancient civilization frequently mentioned in Final Fantasy VII. The Cetra look identical to regular humans, but are deeply spiritual in nature. The Cetra's special trait, which appears to be genetically passed on through their family line, is to interact with the lifestream and the planet in what some call "talking to the planet". The migrations of the Cetra were a planet-reverent pursuit of the fabled promised land conducted by traveling and cultivating life. The Cetra could commune with the planet, the ability regular humans lost once they gave up their close relationship with the planet in favor of leisure and convenience. The Cetra could guide the flow of the planet's spiritual energy, this being the means by which they cultivated life on the planet's surface. The Cetra served as the planet's caretakers until their race was nearly reduced to extinction by an extraterrestrial shape-shifting entity.