Thought I'd try my hand at this now. I got bored, and was wanting to put my
own terms on what I think SeeD is. Dammit, it's kind of annoying when
people call it an army. Ever listen/read what Cid says at the beginning?
"SeeD, the elite special forces of Balamb Garden" or something extremely
similar.
Yeah, I'm a SeeD. Mercenary for hire, contact Balamb for details pertaining to contracts. It's an okay lifestyle. Travel, meeting people, occasionally putting a hollow-point round between someone's eyes, or a knife through a spine.
How'd I become one? Well, I was orphaned during the Sorceress War. That's where the majority of SeeD candidates come from. Some of the cadets have parents, yeah, but they usually don't hang around Garden when they graduate, if they even do. They have something else to go do in either circumstance, while we. we don't.
Friends? Within SeeD, yeah. Within Garden as well. Outside? Not really. How could they really understand what goes on? Most of the Garden students have been there since they were five or six, Balamb is all we know. Training for SeeD is all we know. We have to become SeeD; otherwise we've got nothing.
They don't really understand other things as well. How many people have seen their best friend, at the age of thirteen, screaming as he bleeds out from a gaping hole in his stomach, caused by monster that crept up on him when he wasn't paying attention? Or seen other friends cut down by gunfire or swords, and been sprayed by the blood?
So they make jokes about it, about our lifestyle. And eventually, the joke comes around too the inevitable "How much would it cost for you to kill me?" question. The sheer awkwardness after the question, as you consider what to tell them. The truth, that you would plunge the salad fork your playing with in your hand into their eye if someone paid you enough, or just shrug it off, ask "Do you really want to know?"
If your lucky, and you go with the "Do you really want to know", they'll drop it. But eventually, they always come back to it, and you tell them. That if someone paid you enough, they would never see the flick of your wrist as you drive whatever you have at hand into their face. And so, you lose a friend.
When that happened to me, I was immediately asked why? Wouldn't our friendship count for anything? My reply was fairly simple. The only thing that counted more than money, was SeeD and Garden. Everything else, is secondary. It's all I know, although I didn't add that.
Another thing that people ask is how many people are in Garden, and in SeeD. Most seem to have this image of thousands of SeeDs, ready to swarm at any moment. They fail to realize that we are Special Forces. We are not a hammer, we are a scalpel. In total, there numbers roughly a thousand SeeD, many of them within in the Garden or on long-term missions. Compared with Galbadia (over 1 million enlisted and commissioned soldiers), Esthar (500,000 soldiers) and Dollet (25,000 soldiers) we have very few people to just throw into a battle.
The only reason that we are considered a threat in that regard is the GF. The Guardian Forces provide us with the power to fight, almost 100-1 odds under certain conditions and win. In an open battlefield, GF's would destroy any enemy.
Some look at the fight during the Second Sorceress War, and say, they have a standing army. What happened there was the use of every single SeeD, plus all the cadets who could fight. In total, numbers were still only 2,500 soldiers, many of whom were cadets, some 1,000 odd. And, we were only fighting the best of the Galbadian army, their own Special Forces, trained largely at Galbadia Garden.
Plus, we have our own mission agenda, to negate the Sorceress. To fight her, and if necessary kill her. Luckily, the current sorceress is under our control. You can be sure I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief there.
That's the basics of SeeD in a nutshell. We aren't an army. We're mercenaries, available for hire for any task. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some work to do.
Yeah, I'm a SeeD. Mercenary for hire, contact Balamb for details pertaining to contracts. It's an okay lifestyle. Travel, meeting people, occasionally putting a hollow-point round between someone's eyes, or a knife through a spine.
How'd I become one? Well, I was orphaned during the Sorceress War. That's where the majority of SeeD candidates come from. Some of the cadets have parents, yeah, but they usually don't hang around Garden when they graduate, if they even do. They have something else to go do in either circumstance, while we. we don't.
Friends? Within SeeD, yeah. Within Garden as well. Outside? Not really. How could they really understand what goes on? Most of the Garden students have been there since they were five or six, Balamb is all we know. Training for SeeD is all we know. We have to become SeeD; otherwise we've got nothing.
They don't really understand other things as well. How many people have seen their best friend, at the age of thirteen, screaming as he bleeds out from a gaping hole in his stomach, caused by monster that crept up on him when he wasn't paying attention? Or seen other friends cut down by gunfire or swords, and been sprayed by the blood?
So they make jokes about it, about our lifestyle. And eventually, the joke comes around too the inevitable "How much would it cost for you to kill me?" question. The sheer awkwardness after the question, as you consider what to tell them. The truth, that you would plunge the salad fork your playing with in your hand into their eye if someone paid you enough, or just shrug it off, ask "Do you really want to know?"
If your lucky, and you go with the "Do you really want to know", they'll drop it. But eventually, they always come back to it, and you tell them. That if someone paid you enough, they would never see the flick of your wrist as you drive whatever you have at hand into their face. And so, you lose a friend.
When that happened to me, I was immediately asked why? Wouldn't our friendship count for anything? My reply was fairly simple. The only thing that counted more than money, was SeeD and Garden. Everything else, is secondary. It's all I know, although I didn't add that.
Another thing that people ask is how many people are in Garden, and in SeeD. Most seem to have this image of thousands of SeeDs, ready to swarm at any moment. They fail to realize that we are Special Forces. We are not a hammer, we are a scalpel. In total, there numbers roughly a thousand SeeD, many of them within in the Garden or on long-term missions. Compared with Galbadia (over 1 million enlisted and commissioned soldiers), Esthar (500,000 soldiers) and Dollet (25,000 soldiers) we have very few people to just throw into a battle.
The only reason that we are considered a threat in that regard is the GF. The Guardian Forces provide us with the power to fight, almost 100-1 odds under certain conditions and win. In an open battlefield, GF's would destroy any enemy.
Some look at the fight during the Second Sorceress War, and say, they have a standing army. What happened there was the use of every single SeeD, plus all the cadets who could fight. In total, numbers were still only 2,500 soldiers, many of whom were cadets, some 1,000 odd. And, we were only fighting the best of the Galbadian army, their own Special Forces, trained largely at Galbadia Garden.
Plus, we have our own mission agenda, to negate the Sorceress. To fight her, and if necessary kill her. Luckily, the current sorceress is under our control. You can be sure I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief there.
That's the basics of SeeD in a nutshell. We aren't an army. We're mercenaries, available for hire for any task. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some work to do.