Hi, folks. Don't own FF8.
It occurred to me that Headmaster Cid made some bizarre decisions during the game in order to advance the plot. So I decided to explain them. First up, the decision to send the three newest, most inexperienced Seeds to assassinate Deling.
New Seeds
He'd been cornered. He'd been had. Almasy had snuck the girl in, and she had asked for his help in front of a dozen important investors. Refusing contracts was bad for business.
Apparently, she wanted to find President Deling, and...persuade him to liberate Timber. The mission was suicide for everyone involved. This girl had about the same chance of getting close to Deling as Cid had of spontaneously turning into a giraffe. But, he couldn't turn her down.
But he couldn't let her assassinate Deling either –presumably she could not be idiotic enough to let him go. Responses to Galbadian military aggression made up two thirds of Seed's Contracts. If Deling was replaced by a leader with fewer imperialistic designs, that income would dry up, and Seed would in all probability dissolve. And it had to survive, to face the next sorceress. There were rumours that there was a sorceress hiding somewhere on Deling's staff, and Seed was needed. He couldn't let them dissolve. That required a sacrifice.
He had to accept the contract, knowing they would fail. This had happened before. He'd known, as had Edea, when they'd created Seed, that times would come when sacrifices would be necessary to ensure the organisations survival –that appalling, often used justification that the means justifies the end. It rang hollow, as often as not.
He'd promised himself, then, that he would not take such decisions lightly. Sacrifices should be remembered, valued. As such, he'd sworn that, whenever he let Seeds go to certain death, that he would feel the loss, that he, personally, would regret the decisions, and as such, would not take them lightly. When a sacrifice was made, it was Cid's children who suffered. It was too easy to consign a random underling, but when he had to send little Quistis, who had tugged at his leg when she found some interesting crab or starfish long years ago, who he'd watched grow from childhood, then the sacrifices hurt. He wouldn't have it any other way.
He was too weak, however, to sacrifice all his children to the void. Too weak. He'd done what he could to spare some of them, but fate would not let him free so easily. He'd had Dincht adopted, expressly to put him beyond his reach. How he'd felt Hyne laughing at him when his new mother had sent her son right back to Garden to be educated. Tilmitt had been sent to Trabia, where she'd excelled, but when she'd applied for a transfer, he had been unable to find a valid reason to refuse. He'd been terrified, once she arrived, that she would have memories linking his children, but a mishap with a GF in her youth saved him. Hyne's intervention again, perhaps? There was another child, Kinneas, who thus far stayed beyond him, currently a sniper resident in Galbadia. Trepe was ludicrously talented, and had come back from the dead twice, after which point he'd felt unable to keep sending her into the void, and granted her an instructor's license to keep her away from the field. She was good at that, too, but she'd gotten the license in somewhat suspicious circumstances, and NORG had recently had it repealed. Seifer by rights had passed his field exam, but Cid had failed him, attempting to keep one more of his children alive. This later backfired spectacularly. But Seeds were always in danger. Another attempt to save his children, which would probably ultimately be futile. Trepe may have come back from the dead, but there were two others of his children whom he had sent to cold and lonely graves elsewhere, forgotten now by all but Cid due to the influences of the GFs. And now here he was, sending Tilmitt, Dincht, and Leonhart to join them.
It was not, of course, official Garden policy, to send their three most inexperienced new recruits to either persuade over tea and buns, kidnap, or assassinate a government leader shrouded in bodyguards. The board objected vociferously, especially NORG. He didn't like to see cadets wasted, and he knew about Cid's connections, probably also had an idea of his reasoning. He could see the reasoning behind it, but justifiably viewed Cid a 'CALLOUS BASTARD' as he so succinctly put it.
So, here he was, sending his children to die yet again. There were two twists to the tale, however. The girl had been unable to understand the contract he'd given her, so he'd handwritten a second one with a few changes, the most notable being that Dincht, Leonhart, and Tilmitt were supplied to her until the liberation of Timber! Even if Deling died, the odds of Galbadia withdrawing from Timber anytime in the next fifteen years or so was pretty long. Should they survive, they'd be forever beyond his reach.
The cursed lamp with the GF inside was another little trick he was proud of. Edea had given him that, once upon a time, to protect him. His memories were too valuable for him to use GFs himself, but that lamp provided him with a loophole, as it smashed at the feet of any attacker. To the Galbadians, it would be a curiosity, but any sorceress would recognise it instantly. If there was really a sorceress among Deling's staff, finding this lamp in the possession of his failed assassins would draw her out. And when she cast aside her veils...Seed would stand ready.
Well, that's one gambit that died before it began, he noted, watching the lamp skitter away from Squall's grip and shatter, enveloping him, Zell, and Selphie in impenetrable black smoke.