'Nice' to see that the ShinRa holdovers are as ignorant and arrogant as ever. And realistic that AVALANCHE's victory hasn't been enough to create a more...cautious attitude.
Well, among the Shinra directors, Scarlet's probably one of the most ruthless, arrogant, and power-hungry.
I liked the dream as well, even though at first I thought it was Cloud dreaming.
It was meant to be rather vague. And it came pretty much entirely from the FEAR game. ^_-
And I enjoyed it that Rufus can see himself and his flaws so clearly, especally when contrasted wth Cloud's lack of self-awareness, a good way to link your choice of villain to canon. Of course Cloud was always vulnerable to manipulation in a way that Rufus wasn't.
I do think that part of that candidness may be the result of the two years after Meteor, when Rufus was suffering (and basically dying) from the Geostimga. He had the opportunity to reassess his entire life and think about the mistakes both he and his father had made.
This whole scene was chilling, and shows precisely what makes Cloud open to influence by the dream's sender where Rufus isn't.
Again, this follows closely with the FEAR game. Cloud's traumatic past definitely makes him extremely vulnerable to this sort of mental invasion. Just like his mother, people (in this case, Shinra) experimented on him, imprisoned him, deprived him of the people he loved, etc. It's only natural that he harbors tremendous resentment and even hatred for Shinra, although Cloud genuinely tries to move past that.
Unfortunately, his mother isn't willing to let things go that easily.
A scentst more trusted and possbly highly placed than Hojo? That doesn't say much for Habegger's sense of ethics or morality, especially considering the nature of that nightmare and the hints that he was one of the doctors there. And he's only approached Rufus now because he can't hide what he did any longer.
I wouldn't say that Habegger was more trusted than Hojo, and he certainly wasn't more highly placed. We know from Dirge of Cerberus that Hojo most likely knew about and was presumably involved with Deep Ground. With respect to Projects Origin and Perseus (taken from the FEAR game), Hojo may have known about them, but dismissed those projects as trivial and unworthy of his interest. Perhaps Hojo considered his personal pet research projects (e.g., Jenova, mako infusion, etc.) was more productive than merely trying to develop 'ordinary' human psychic powers.
Habegger, while instrumental in Origin and Perseus, wasn't the leader of those projects. The one in charge was Harlan Wade (the man arguing with Scarlet). At some point, Habegger obviously began to have strong reservations about what they had done, but clearly hoped that it would all go away and be forgotten with the shutdown of the projects. Unfortunately for him (and the rest of the world), Scarlet's snooping has stirred up things better left alone.
Then why hasn't Cloud shown anything like that? Although...Rufus would have been allowed/encouraged to learn as much as he could, at least at first, and Cloud didn't have access to any of the same resources in Nibelheim, as well as proably be actively discouraed from learning,
The difference in childhood environments definitely played a role. Rufus developed his mental abilities because of parental pressure, but also as a way of protecting himself among the power elite. On the other hand, Nibelheim probably only provided rudimentary schooling and social alienation probably made for a decidedly hostile learning environment.
and it proably took one hell of a memory to pull off 'becoming' Zack the way he did, plus possbly some telepathy.
Very likely. The extreme stress of the situation probably awoke some of his latent telepathic ability. Not much, but enough to allow Cloud to 'copy' surprising amounts of information/behavior from Zack.
It might be that alien Jenova cells, for whatever reasons, might interact and even interfere with natural human psychic abilities like telepathy in strange ways. That might explain why, other than his interactions with Sephiroth and Aeris, Cloud doesn't really display any real telepathic ability in either the FF7 game or in Advent Children.