Cosmos (Dissidia)



Cosmos is the goddess of harmony who opposes Chaos in Dissidia Final Fantasy and its prequel Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy. She is one of two only completely original characters to appear in the Dissidia series, the other being Feral Chaos. She is voiced by and  (credited as Kathleen McInerney) in Japanese and English, respectively.

Appearance and Personality
Cosmos appears as a human woman with long blonde hair and light blue eyes. She wears a form-fitting full-length white dress with an ornate golden crest with blue stones around the waist. The design rises to her collar where it splits and goes around her neck as the clasp on her dress, then going down her back to loop around her waist back to the circular crest. She also wears bracelets, armlets, earrings and a tiara with the same design scheme. She carries a light yellow shawl around her arms, and wears a veil extending from her tiara with the same design scheme as her shawl.

At first, Cosmos was loyal to the Great Will, serving her role faithfully without concern for her own safety or the fates of her warriors. According to her museum profile, while she was created in the image of Cid's wife, who was a strong and willful woman, Cosmos was frail compared to her, which is why she was unable to subdue Chaos as her creators intended. Over time, the cycles of war and the perseverance and hope her summoned warriors held began to influence her behavior, and she began to question the plan she was playing a part in.

By the 12th cycle, Cosmos has come to care for her warriors and acts to ensure their safety, choosing to enact a plan that will free them even knowing it will likely cost her life. She is particularly protective of the Warrior of Light, expelling her power at the end of the 12th cycle to save him from a Manikin army, and appearing to him in the 13th cycle worried about the gathering of enemies that lay ahead of him. Trusting in her warriors to be able to fight without her, Cosmos faces her death calmly when confronted by Chaos. At the start of the 13th cycle when informed about her actions in the past cycle by Golbez, he tells her he admires the resolve she has to sacrifice her life to save her warriors, and Cosmos mourns that it took her so many cycles to finally find the will to act against the Great Will as she has now chosen.

Story
In the series' backstory, Cosmos was originally a manikin. But unlike the others, she was the only known successful specimen to have the full memories of a single person: Cid's wife. However, the Onracians used her as an alternative means to soothe Chaos. After ending up in World B, Cosmos ruled the world alongside Chaos before Garland appeared to begin the conflict for Cid to oversee the powers of Harmony and Discord at their fullest. It was said in her profile that she was the one who first summoned her warriors, faithfully following orders of the Great Will, to make Chaos fight her.

During one of the earliest cycles, Prishe introduces Cosmos to the Warrior of Light, another perfect manikin modeled after Cid, an individual that neither god summoned. While Cosmos was initially reluctant, she eventually imbued him with her light to serve as one of her champions. It was hinted that she was aware of the Warrior's true nature, as well as Prishe's name for him.

Official Quest
Cosmos appeared in a couple of official quests. One where she accepted Shantotto's formal resignation as her warrior when the wizard decided to leave World B and escape to the Rift. Another when Cosmos and Garland talked to each other in her Sanctuary, where she accepted to be killed by him when he told her he wanted to see the truth about the cycles and purification. She answered that the Goddess of Harmony is also the goddess of death, as her demise would be the removal of her warriors. This became apparent when Prishe disappeared, never to return again for the next cycle, and her fate unknown.

Twelfth cycle
After the events of the first eleven cycles of conflict, Cosmos finally devises a way to put an end to it by giving her warriors her own energy, which would manifest into Crystals after enough victories. However, as a result, Cosmos deliberately weakens herself as her plan is ultimately derailed by the appearance of the manikins and Jecht's conversion into a Warrior of Chaos.

Furthermore, Cosmos is shocked to learn the Warrior and Kain were forced to take out the rest of their allies to save them from the manikins before those remaining are led by Lightning to close the portal to stop more manikins from entering. Though Cosmos loses Lightning, Kain, Tifa, Laguna, Yuna and Vaan, she gains new warriors in Terra, Cloud and Tidus before sacrificing herself to save the Warrior from the horde of manikins.

Thirteenth cycle
Revived after the previous conflict, Cosmos finds herself severely weakened as Golbez appears and reminds her of the Crystals she entrusted to her warriors. With that, her resolve still strong as before, Cosmos transmits the message to her warriors to obtain the Crystals if they are to stand a chance against Chaos. To ensure they succeed this time, Cosmos presents herself to each of the Warriors of Cosmos whenever they are in need of her guidance: Giving Onion Knight advice to follow his heart in a way to save Terra from the Cloud of Darkness, advising Cecil to fight with his own power and by his allies' side rather than solely relying on them, encouraging Zidane to believe in his friends as they believe in him, and gives Firion the will to follow his dream.

However, after Golbez reminds that her gambit could ultimately result in the heroes' true demise, a concerned Cosmos appears before the Warrior of Light to have him stop. Surprised by the Warrior's bravery and vow to save the world, Cosmos makes a promise as well, to believe in her friends until the end.

After the ten warriors retrieve their Crystals and return to her, Cosmos tells them the war has been decided and they will know true darkness. Cosmos teleports the warriors to the Edge of Madness within the Land of Discord, Chaos's realm. Chaos incinerates the goddess, and the heroes begin to fade. However, the power of the Crystals bring them back, allowing the heroes a chance to strike back at Chaos.

During their final encounters with the villains, Exdeath reveals the Crystals contain Cosmos's power, and using them weakened her so she could be destroyed. Cosmos, and the villains who guided the heroes to the Crystals, knew this. Cosmos allowed herself to be destroyed due to her faith in the heroes, and her belief that, with the cycle of war broken, they can defeat Chaos at last.

However, after Chaos's defeat, Cosmos reforms (as a result of the crystals of the "warriors who were defeated despite their strongest resolve", according to the end of the Confessions of the Creator storyline) and proceeds to talk to Cid about how it would seem the conflict is to continue. She turns down Cid's offer to leave the slowly failing world and wishes to remain even if it meant she would also fade from existence. The final scene with Cosmos ends when she is surrounded by the images of the ten current warriors before they fade out as she walks away.

Confessions of the Creator
In this storyline, an alternate sequence of events takes place. The cycles continue, Chaos never knowing defeat, until finally in the final cycles he transforms into Feral Chaos. Cosmos, too weak to summon Warriors to protect herself, is sealed in the Chasm in the Rotting Land by Cid to protect her from Feral Chaos. It is unknown what happened to this alternate universe incarnation of Cosmos afterwards, as she is never seen, only mentioned.

Music
Cosmos's theme is titled "Cosmos", performed by the the band Your Favorite Enemies.

In addition, in Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy, a new theme titled "Lux Concordiae" is attributed to her and plays when she blesses her champions with the power to obtain their Crystal.

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy


In Theatrhythm Final Fantasy, Cosmos's role is similar to that in the Dissidia series, being the Goddess of Harmony in opposition to Chaos. The space between the two is called "Rhythm", and houses a Crystal that gives birth to music. When the forces of Chaos disrupt the balance, the Crystal's power wavers. Cosmos thus sends her warriors to increase a music wave called "Rhythmia" to restore balance and make the Crystal shine again.

She is depicted on the logo along with Chaos in a manner similar to the logo of Dissidia Final Fantasy.

Cosmos can be unlocked as a playable character by collecting Rainbow Shards.

She is a Support oriented character.

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call
Cosmos returns as a playable character, and can be unlocked from the start by transferring save data from the second demo of Curtain Call. However, if the player did not select her among their party of four, or didn't download the demo, she can later be unlocked by collecting Red Crystal Shards.

She is a Support oriented character. Cosmos gains a Limit, Harmonic Force, and deals damage in direct proportion to her Luck and Spirit.

Final Fantasy Trading Card Game
Cosmos appears in the Final Fantasy Trading Card Game. One of her cards displays her Dissidia Final Fantasy art, and the other her Theatrhythm Final Fantasy art. She is part of "Shine" set.

Etymology
Kosmos is the Greek word that denotes an "ordered world", the antithetical concept of Chaos.

Trivia

 * Although Cosmos's official artwork depicts her facing to the left, as the artwork of the other heroes do, her in-game character icon faces to the right, as the artwork of the villains do.
 * In one of the initial trailers for Dissidia, the Emperor, Garland, Kuja and Ultimecia told Firion and Squall that Cosmos's true nature is a Goddess of Death. This term is revived in the Original Quest where Cosmos herself explains to Garland this she is a Goddess of Death. In that retrospect, Cosmos explains that her permanent demise would mean the deaths of her warriors as they possess her light.

Космос (Dissidia)