Seth

"Power only has meaning if it's put into action... it defines you. Power like that is what rules the world."

- - Seth during his fight with Ryu in the Street Fighter IV movie .

Seth  (セス) is the main villain of the Street Fighter IV series. He is the C.E.O of Shadaloo's weapon division, S.I.N. According to the official Street Fighter website, Seth is one of many genetically engineered replacement bodies for M. Bison.

Appearance
Bearing chrome skin and an extremely muscular physique, Seth is a synthetic human; whether he is android or cyborg is unclear. In his abdomen, enclosed inside a pattern consisting of the Eight Trigrams of Taoist cosmology, is an exposed area, which contains a rotating yin-yang sphere. He also has no hair and no clothes.

This sphere, which he calls the Tanden Engine, appears to be the source of his power, where it copies and translates the data from Seth's opponents, and allows him to mimic the special techniques of other fighters, such as the Shoryuken, Guile's Sonic Boom, and Dhalsim's unique ability to stretch his limbs. When Seth creates a vacuum, his skin color changes to navy blue, and his eyes turn black with a white iris.

Concept
Seth is named after Seth Killian, the former senior manager of community at Capcom who runs the website Capcom-Unity.com. He was originally named Cain, in contrast to Abel.

Abel and Cain were the first sons of Adam and Eve. Abel was later killed by Cain. Adam and Eve then gave birth to Seth, who was considered a replacement of Abel, preserving the reference and explaining the correlation between the two (i.e. as replacement bodies for Bison).

Personality
Seth is just as intelligent as Bison himself, with ruthlessness and evil to match. Unlike Bison, Seth is generally very calm and concise, though he displays a fair bit of arrogance, often through his annoying-by-design tendency to laugh and gloat when using his more powerful moves.

Seth displays very little, if any, respect for life through his lust for power, and plans to use S.I.N. to take over the world and display his supreriority over humanity. Due in part to his ego, Seth will not tell his subordinates all of his plans in case they plan to betray him - something he refuses to tolerate. He will only tolerate them if they follow his orders wholly, he is very uncompassionate towards them, and has no morality to his actions, making him an extremely dangerous and dark individual.

Seth has been shown to be well versed in philosophy, namely the philosophy of human nature and the pursuits of purpose and self awareness. This unusual trait coupled with his endless thirst for power implies that Seth intends to become his own entity entirely and not be bound to Bison as his replacement shell. Seth is of the belief that any power is good power, as shown during his fight with Ryu in the animated film. However, his desire for power and his philosophical pursuits are a one sided and neutral affair as he lacks compassion and sees people only for their usefulness to him.

Notably, while Seth appears to be the only "sentient" enhanced being, his Arcade Mode win quote against another Seth implies that at least one other clone may have developed self-awareness.

Story
Seth is the 15th of at least 26 enhanced beings that use data collected from the world warriors to create a deadly style of mixed martial arts. Seth claims to be superior as a result of his humanity, while the others are merely puppets. His storyline indicates that he plans to control the remnants of Shadaloo through S.I.N after Bison's apparent death at the hands of Akuma in Super Street Fighter II Turbo. He also attempts to use Juri Han, a woman who possesses the Feng Shui Engine in her left eye that his company created. She confronts him and unexpectedly offers to work for him, to which he agrees.

He hosts a World Warrior tournament in hopes of luring Ryu to him, and then using his Satsui no Hado to complete his BLECE project, but is dismayed at reports that Bison has once again returned from death. Bison finally encounters Seth and defeats him in combat, and afterwards tells him that in fact everything that has happened has gone according to Bison's plan. After Bison leaves, Juri tells Seth that she intentionally pitted the two against each other, but is disappointed that Seth was not more of a challenge for Bison. She then crushes his Tanden Engine, leaving him twitching on the floor. He is then found by C. Viper, who finishes him off. After the tournament, C. Viper informs her superiors that the "remaining 26" are in her sights. Whether this statement takes the ones defeated by various characters into account is not clear.

Ryu would encounter another "Seth" and defeat him, destroying the BLECE machine as well. Bison commands the remaining "puppets", and they wreak havoc on the fighters in and around the S.I.N. compound, as many of the characters' endings depict them defeating a version of "Seth".

UDON comics
Seth appeared in UDON's Street Fighter IV comic which focus on the game's newcomers (himself included).

Project X Zone
Seth appears as an enemy in the crossover game, Project X Zone. He intended to capture both Ryu and Jin Kazama for the Satsui no Hado and the Devil Gene respectively but in the end, he was defeated by them.

Fighting style
Seth employs special powers and techniques from various combatants in the game. His normal techniques are similar to Urien's and Gill's from Street Fighter III. He also possesses a metamorphic body of sorts, being able to stretch his arms like Dhalsim and teleport similarly to him. Seth copied these particular techniques from Dhalsim, trying to prove there was nothing "mystic" about them. Seth also puts his own "original" spin on many of the copied moves, as explained below.


 * Sonic Boom - The motion is identical to the Hadoken, but the projectile itself functions just like Guile's. Seth uses one hand for the attack, like Charlie did.
 * Shoryuken - Though it resembles Ryu Shoryuken somewhat, Seth can land up to 3 hits with follow-up motions.
 * Spinning Piledriver - Based somewhat off Zangief's version, Seth uppercuts the opponent into the air, then teleports above the opponent and piledrives them into the ground.
 * Hyakuretsukyaku - Seth does a single kick followed by a rapid flurry with his other leg if it connects.
 * Yosokyaku - While in the air, Seth kicks the opponent while upright, similar to Chun-Li, though it can be repeated three times with follow-up motions.
 * Yoga Teleport - The move is identical to Dhalsim's, and is named as such in his moverset, although he cannot use it in midair, making it slightly more similar to a Bison Warp.
 * Tenmakujinkyaku - While in the air, Seth dive kicks towards the opponent, similar to Akuma.
 * Focus Attack - A long-range tackle similar to Urien's Chariot Tackle in Street Fighter III.

The only uncopied techniques in Seth's arsenal revolve around his Tanden Engine, and seem to center around space.


 * Tanden Engine - Seth attempts to draw the opponent closer with the Tanden Engine.
 * Tanden Storm (Super Combo) - Seth produces a ball of energy that draws in his opponent and hits them repeatedly before blasting them away.
 * Tanden Stream (Ultra Combo) - Seth attempts to draw the opponent into his Engine and, if successful, ejects them into the screen.
 * Tanden Typhoon (Ultra Combo) - Seth twists his body into an arc, with his feet and head on the ground and his stomach facing upwards. He then unleashes a violent vortex diagonally upwards from his Engine.

Gameplay
In Arcade Mode, Seth serves as the default final boss for all characters; as such, he is powerful enough to provide a greater challenge to them. Taunting at any point or defeating him during the first round increases the difficulty of the battle. Conversely, the playable version of Seth (i.e. #15) is significantly less powerful, and is the weakest character in the game in terms of stats and Ultra Combos.

Quotes

 * See Seth/Quotes.

Trivia

 * Seth's ability to use all of the fighters' attacks as part of his movelist seems to be inspired by the Sheng Long rumor. Sheng Long was said to have movesets from every character in the game.
 * Having a rather simplistic design, Seth is quite similar to some fictional characters outside the Street Fighter universe, particularly Doctor Manhattan from Watchmen, Geegus from World Heroes, the T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Tyrant T-103 from Resident Evil 2 and Dural from Virtua Fighter.
 * The basis of Seth's design and fighting style possibility could have been based on the Shadaloo Cyborgs from the Street Fighter movie game adaptation for the Sega Saturn as he was originally a nude cyborg whose fighting style was constructed from scanning battle data from Ryu. In one of the endings, the cyborg even wears apparel identical to that of Seth.