Cid of the Lufaine

Cid of the Lufaine (ルフェインのシド) is a minor character in the Dawn of Souls, 20th Anniversary and iOS remakes of the original Final Fantasy. Though he does not appear in the game itself, he is mentioned by several townspeople in Lufenia as the ancient creator of the airship.

Dissidia Final Fantasy and Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy expand his role in the original game considerably. Cid's past ties him easily into the creation of Chaos and Cosmos, and he serves as an overseer to the cycles of war known to the warriors as the Great Will. His backstory and his connection to Chaos and Cosmos is told through Dissidia's Chaos and Cosmos Reports, and Dissidia 012's Report. He also serves as the narrator, voiced by Bunta Sugawara and Rodger Parsons.

Dissidia
In Dissidia Final Fantasy and its prequel, Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy, Cid is revealed to be originally a great scientist of the Lufaine who studied the powers of Harmony and Discord, and discovered a way to use the Levistone's power to make airships. With the threat from neighboring countries who controlled summoned monsters and Omega, the government of Onrac was attempting to use crystal ore retrieved from a world through a portal to the Interdimensional Rift to make weapons. They created the first manikins, but they were mindless automatons. Onrac had Cid use the Lufenian memory rituals to infuse a manikin with memories from ten individuals, granting it a personality and a sense of self, and its body not crystalizing as the failed manikins had done. This "perfect" manikin was named Chaos.

Cid and his wife raised Chaos as their own son and grew to love him, and he returned their love. However, once he matured he was taken by Onrac to fight as a weapon of war. When Cid and his wife saw how the fighting was twisting him, they refused to help the state control Chaos, and were imprisoned. Cid and his wife fled the prison, using the monsters in the dungeon as decoys. They returned to the laboratories where they found Chaos, gaunt and weary from war and experimentation. In his company was another perfect manikin, this one based on Cid's wife to placate and control Chaos, and was named "Cosmos" to signify her role to bring order. Cid's wife briefly explained what had happened, and convinced Chaos to flee with them. During the escape Cid's wife was shot, and in his hatred Chaos opened a portal to the Interdimensional Rift, drawing himself, Cid and Cosmos into it. The three are pulled into World B where Garland appears before them, summoned to World B by unknown means. As it happens, the dragon Shinryu visits the world at the same time.

The five enter into a pact. Chaos and Cosmos would wage war using pawns summoned from other worlds, Shinryu would grant Cid the power to live without a body so he may observe the war from afar, and Garland would coax Chaos to fight Cosmos in spite of her resemblance to his mother. Each time the pawns summoned by Cosmos and Chaos grow weak, Shinryu will "purify" them, absorbing the memories and experience of the fallen warriors to grow stronger. In return they shall be revived to fight again, and after enough cycles of war Chaos will grow strong enough to open a portal to the Rift again, allowing them to return to World A.

With his body taken from him, Cid sequesters himself in the Chasm in the Rotting Land and continues his studies. Attempting to create a perfect manikin on his own, he successfully infuses a manikin with his own memories, and though the body doesn't crystallize, it shows no signs of will. Cid places this manikin amongst the summoned warriors and observes it being taken to Cosmos and receiving her power, and developing a strong will and resolve as it is accepted into the cycles of war. This manikin came to be known as the Warrior of Light.

For eleven cycles the war went on, but at the end of the twelfth cycle Cosmos uses her powers to protect the Warrior of Light from harm. Realizing she has come to care for them enough to risk her own life and that the summoned warriors are not mere pawns, Cid comes to grips with his misguided intentions. At the end of the thirteenth cycle Cid breaks his neutrality and teleports the Warriors of Cosmos to safety when they destroy Chaos and end the cycle of war. Shinryu was angered over Cid betraying their agreement, and spoke to Chaos as he died. Realizing his "father" had wished for his death to end the cycles, Chaos gave up his remaining power to Shinryu and agreed for Cid to be punished. Shinryu imprisoned Cid in a nightmare world where the cycles continued until Chaos absorbed enough power to become Feral Chaos, who destroyed all summoned warriors. In this alternate world, Cid was forced to take on the physical form of a moogle and sealed Cosmos in the Chasm in the Rotting Land for her own safety. He also sealed himself within the cave's namesake gateway. With Cid and Cosmos beyond his reach, Feral Chaos turned his rage on Shinryu, and in his sleep Cid's memories faded. The moogles of the world came to know of Cid is rumors as the "mured moogle", but none of them could use the teleport stone to reach the gateway and investigate.

Eventually, in the storyline Confessions of the Creator, five warriors are called into the nightmare world through an unknown means, and Cid calls out to them to free him. The warriors free him and are directed by Cid to the Land of Discord, his memories awakening and Cid telling them the nightmare world's versions of events. At the Edge of Madness, the five warriors destroy Feral Chaos, shattering the nightmare world and freeing Cid. He returns to World B where Cosmos has been revived and invites her to accompany him on a new journey, but Cosmos refuses, choosing to remain to govern World B even though it is destined to collapse. Cid asks Cosmos for forgiveness and departs; his Museum profile states that he set out on "a journey to a new realm".

Trivia

 * While his true form is never shown. It's very possible that since the Warrior of Light was created using his memories, he looked like the warrior when he still had his body.

Cid de Lufenia