Terra and Tritoch

[Jiro]

So Terra cruises into Narshe with Biggs and Wedge to retrieve this frozen esper but it goes haywire. There's all this electric looking trout coming off of Terra, Biggs and Wedge get annihilated, screen fades out and oh no.

Why did this happen?

"Because Terra's half esper!" you shout. Yeah no smurfing duh, but that's not what I'm asking. Gestahl knew Terra was half-esper; he knew that when he picked her up as an infant. What I'm questioning is why Gestahl would have allowed his half esper to cruise into Narshe to pick up the frozen esper.

"Because she's super powerful!" you shout. Yeah, I'll give you that. But we already know that, by this point, Cid has been busy sapping espers of their magic and infusing it into humans. Now, if you were smurfing about with espers and had a half esper half human there, surely - at some point - the two would be in the same room as one another.

I simply cannot see how Gestahl could not have known Terra and Tritoch would have had some kind of weird reaction. Sloppy. Poor Biggs and Wedge died (again) for nothing!

[Wolf Kanno]

Considering the power difference between Tritoch and anything else in the Magitek Factory, I would say that would probably have something to do with it. I mean, most of the espers in the Magitek factory, barring Ramuh who escaped, had been having their powers drained for nearly 18 years. So, Terra's encounter with Tritoch was probably her first encounter with a fully powered Esper.

Amusing enough, there is a funny fan theory that Biggs and Wedge didn't die, they simply got sent to Chrono Trigger's dimension and now work in fair grounds.

[blackmage_nuke]

I never thought to imagine how and where the empire managed to get it's hands on the espers it already had. I think a prequel about Celes, Leo and Kefka before they are Generals and maybe some other characters hunting espers would be interesting. Maybe Ramuh is the one who convinces her to betray the empire and she helps him escape!

[Spooniest]

@ Blackmage: You find that out during Terra's flashback. Gestahl captured a lot of Espers before being sealed out of the Esper World.

As for why Gestahl would send his only Esperkin on a simple reconnaissance mission, there is no satisfactory explanation, so I'm going to go with Gestahl being high on Ether.

Or, I dunno, maybe he wanted to test her might.

[Jiro]

Oh, oh! Maybe Gestahl didn't like Biggs or Wedge and so he sent them with her on the off chance she fried them like the 50 other magitek knights she did in. Only, how would she get back? Hmmm.

[Wolf Kanno]

If you go by the source material books, Narshe actually has the second most powerful army in the VI world, which is why the Returners are so hot to get them on their side. Sending Terra was probably a means of of easily suppressing the local military force while also giving the empire enough oomph in case the Esper gave them trouble.

[VeloZer0]

And by sending someone so powerful they could conduct a limited personnel surgical operation that avoided mobilizing large number of troops against the city.

Also, do we know that Gestahl himself sent Terra? It may very well have been Kefka. And we all know that his MO is kind of poking beehives with sticks to see if they explode.

[Wolf Kanno]

He is there when they launch the Magitek Armor during the FMV opening to Anthologies.

[Jiro]

Those smurfing FMVs would probably give me a lot more information.