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Cid of the Lufaine 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. He is also mentioned in the novelization Final Fantasy I * II * III: Memory of Heroes.

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.

Story[]

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. (Skip section)

Final Fantasy I * II * III: Memory of Heroes[]

Cid appears in the Final Fantasy adaptation. When the Warriors of Light initially find the airship, they find a manual with a note from Cid, entrusting the airship to "the saviors who will one day come". Later, the robots in the Mirage Tower play a video for the Warriors of Light of Cid evacuating the people from the Flying Fortress using his airship after Tiamat attacked. He left the Warp Cube with the robots to seal Tiamat away in the fortress. In the novel, Cid is described as a "bearded man in a white robe". He is also referred to as "Professor Cid" by one of the fortress citizens and the robots.

Dissidia Final Fantasy and Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy[]

We shall journey on the road that continues to the final fantasy.

Cid of the Lufaine to Cosmos
Cosmos talking to Cid

Cosmos talking to Cid in the secret ending of Dissidia Final Fantasy.

Cid was 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 did not crystallize as the failed manikins had done. This "perfect" manikin was named Chaos.

Cid and his wife raised Chaos as their son and grew to love him, and he returned their love. Once he matured, Chaos 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 using the monsters in the dungeon as decoys and 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 named "Cosmos" to signify her role to bring order. Cid's wife briefly explained what had happened, and convinced Chaos to flee with them. Cid's wife was shot during their escape, and in his hatred, Chaos opened a portal to the Interdimensional Rift, drawing himself, Cid and Cosmos into it. The three were pulled into World B where Garland appeared before them, summoned to World B by unknown means. As it happened, the dragon Shinryu visited the world at the same time.

The five entered 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 could 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 become 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 infuses a manikin with his own memories, and though the body doesn't crystallize, it shows no signs of will. Cid places this manikin among the summoned warriors and observes it being taken to Cosmos and receive her power. The manikin develops a strong will and resolve as it is accepted into the cycles of war and comes to be known as the Warrior of Light. While Cid's true form is never shown, it's possible that since the Warrior of Light was created using his memories, Cid looked like him when he still had his body.

The war continued for eleven cycles, 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.

Cid in his moogle form in Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy.

Shinryu 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 also sealing 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 in rumors as the "mured moogle", but none of them could use the teleport stone to reach the gateway and investigate.

Five warriors are eventually called into the nightmare world through an unknown means and Cid calls out to them to free him.[1] The warriors free him and Cid directs them to the Land of Discord, his memories awakening. Cid tells the warriors 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. He 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 out on "a journey to a new realm".[2]

Spoilers end here.

Voice[]

In the Dissidia series, Cid is voiced by Bunta Sugawara in Japanese and Rodger Parsons in English.

Etymology[]

Cid is a recurring name in the Final Fantasy series. Cid is derived from the dialectal Arabic word سيد (sîdi or sayyid), which means "lord" or "master".

References[]

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